1 Home Again: My Life and Times in a Band Called Shihad by Jon Toogood (Moa Press, $40)

“Find what you love to do and do it as much as you can. Play around with it. Learn. Stay open. Make mistakes. Try again. Get better at it. Play and play and play.” Read more life advice from beloved Aotearoa musician right here on The Spinoff.

2 Facing Up to Our Future edited by Peter Davis (Dunmore Press for the Helen Clark Foundation, $35)

Listen to Helen Clark discuss why this book and why now, on RNZ, here.

3 Agrippa by Robert Harris (Hutchinson, $38)

The latest best-selling Roman re-telling.

4 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $28)

“Ten out of ten, no notes,” says Roxane Gay over on Good Reads.

5 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)

The mysterious death of a young man in London sparked this deeply disturbing, sad and compelling investigation into London’s criminal underbelly.

6 A Trade of Blood (Shadow of the Leviathan #3) by Robert Jackson Bennett (Hodder Press, $38) 

From the publisher’s blurb: “Ana and Din have faced terrible crimes before. But as they pursue their adversary through wild ranges, sprawling ranches, and reeking slaughterhouses, even they are not prepared for the horrifying secret behind their opponent’s powers . . .”

7 Fruit Fly by Josh Silver (Oneworld, $37)

Silver was a huge hit at this year’s Auckland Writers Festival with Fruit Fly, his debut adult novel, one of the best-selling books of the fest. A24, the studio behind such hits as Past Lives, Marty Supreme and Backrooms has won the rights to adapt the story for TV. So what’s it about?

“Anyone can write a bestseller. Here’s how.

GO GAY

It’s been seven years since Mallory shot to fame as a literary sensation. But after years of struggling with writer’s block, she’s desperate to resurrect her career before it spirals into obscurity. She needs inspiration to strike – and fast.

GO SAD

Enter Leo – a young struggling addict sleeping under bridges and trading sex for survival. He’s vulnerable. He’s enigmatic. He’s exactly what Mallory has been looking for.

GO DARK

Mallory needs Leo if she wants another bestseller. Authenticity sells, and there’s nothing more authentic than real life. She’s the perfect person to tell Leo’s story. Gay, sad, dark – just what the world needs right now. But as secrets threaten to unravel more than just her career, Mallory must decide: just how far will she go to pen the perfect story?”

Utterly thrilling.

8 Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuag-Zi (Scribe Pub Pty, $38) 

This year’s worthy International Booker Prize winner.

9 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bateman, $40)

The most important book of the year?

10 kluge by pip adam (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)

“I think this is my most desperate book,” adam told Hera Lindsay Bird. “It’s screaming. I don’t feel happy about it – I mean it’s the best book I could have written, but it breaks my heart that I wrote it. I’ve always believed that thing that you can choose what you write but not what you can make sing and I tried with all my might not to write this book but it was the only one I could make sing. I’m actually using my time with the Michael King Writer’s Fellowship to write works for performance. I’ve written a rather odd adaptation of Audition. It is so nice to be in bodies moving through space rather than my head or the manosphere.”

WELLINGTON

1 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)

2 Home Again: My Life and Times in a Band Called Shihad by Jon Toogood (Moa Press, $40)