1 Traitors Circle: Rebels Against Hitler and the Spy who Betrayed Them by Jonathan Freedland (John Murray, $40)

That excellent Guardian writer has a new history book. Here’s the blurb:

“Berlin, 1943. A group of high-society anti-Nazi dissenters meet for a tea party one late summer afternoon. They do not know that, sitting around the table, is someone poised to betray them all to the Gestapo – revealing their secret to the Nazis’ most ruthless detective.

They form a circle of unlikely rebels, drawn from the German elite: two countesses, a diplomat, an intelligence officer, an ambassador’s widow and a pioneering headmistress. Meeting in the shadows, rescuing Jews or plotting for a future Germany freed from the Fuhrer’s rule, what unites them is a shared loathing of the Nazis, a refusal to bow to Hitler and the courage to perform perilous acts of resistance. Or so they believe.

How did a group of brave, principled rebels, who had successfully defied Adolf Hitler for more than a decade, come to fall into such a lethal trap? And who betrayed them?

Undone from within and pursued to near-destruction by one of the Reich’s cruellest men, they showed a heroism that raises a question with new urgency for our time: what kind of person does it take to risk everything and stand up to tyranny?”

2 The Wedding People by Alison Espach (Phoenix House, $28)

Extremely readable.

3 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $38) 

As above.

4 Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid (Harper Collins, $23)

About time!

5 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35) 

Arena Williams’ favourite novel of 2025.

6 Rest of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovits (Faber & Faber, $38) 

Married life post-kids.

7 The Wax Child by Olga Ravn (Viking Penguin, $40)

An unsettling historical fiction about witch trials in Denmark.

8 Flesh by David Szalay (Jonathan Cape, $38)

You pronounce it: “Sol-Loy”.

9 Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy (Penguin, $38)

Compelling cli-fi by a master novelist.

10 Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy (Fourth Estate, $35) 

McCurdy’s debut novel about a high school student who has an affair with her teacher has received mixed reviews thus far.

WELLINGTON

1 Leather & Chains: My 1986 Diary by Kate Camp (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $40)

Glorious, glorious annotated diary of 14-year-old Kate Camp, with deeply interesting essays at either end, considering what it means to publish something so private, and what it means to read the teenage self with an adult mind and all that experience. A treasure of a book. Keep your eyes on The Spinoff this weekend for an excerpt.

2 Shaping Aotearoa edited by Colin James (Fraser Books, $60)

Political journalist Colin James on a raft of revolutionary New Zealanders including Keri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera, Marilyn Waring Claudia Orange and Ruth Richardson.

3 Lyrical Ballads by Bill Manhire (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $30)

A stunning new collection from one of the very best. Read The Spinoff’s review of Lyrical Ballads, here.

4 What to Wear by Jenny Bornholdt (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $25)

Another stunning new collection from another great! Read all about it, here.

5 Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $40) 

Longlisted for the Women’s Prize for nonfiction 2026.

6 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (Penguin Classics, $18)

Last week we asked if this classic novel might soon appear and this week, she has! A silver lining to what is otherwise a frustrating cultural moment (to rant: Fennell’s film is the epitome of watered down, marketing-forward, visuals-first, overly simplified, sloppy, unsexily sexed-up take on what was an out-the-gate, indefinable novel about lies, violence, class, race and the impossibility of love in an inequitable world).

7 Departure(s) by Julian Barnes (Jonathan Cape, $38)

For those who loved Damien Wilkins’ Delirious.

8 Vigil by George Saunders (Bloomsbury, $37)

The second novel from one of the great masters of the short story at work today. Read The Spinoff’s conversation with Saunders, right here.

9 Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate Books, $37)

The first cut is the deepest.

10 Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street by Elizabeth Cox (Massey University Press, $90)

Rightfully longlisted for this year’s Ockhams!