Books Archive
The crocodiles are coming for us all
Bren MacDibble cleaned up the junior fiction titles in the children's book awards with 2018's The Dog Runner and 2019's How to Bee. Her latest is a wild adventure on croc and shark-infested seas.
Mate ma’a Tonga! Legendary league team to inspire a new generation of readers
A new children's book aims to capture the essence of what it means to be Tongan.
Maybe she is the void: A review of game-changing novel Sorrow and Bliss
The story of a magnificent woman undone by mental illness – and by her family's refusal to see her clearly.
The Friday Poem: If Only by Emma Barnes
A new poem by Wellington poet Emma Barnes.
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending September 11
A splendid compendium of Māori food continues to carve up the charts.
The anger of Airini Beautrais
The Whanganui writer releases Bug Week, a collection of white-hot short stories, today. Here she writes about rage, and rape, and male entitlement.
A gold tickle of toi-toi
Stuck in Sydney, novelist Meg Mason picked up a copy of Owls Do Cry – and promptly burst into tears.
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending September 4
Welcome to September, month of plenty.
The Friday Poem: Hook & Cook by essa may ranapiri
A poem from essa may ranapiri's chapbook Polemic.
Aotearoa is not Middle-earth
Middle Earth has been clinging to Aotearoa for nearly 20 years. It's time to push the two apart.
Staying silent on suicide didn’t help my daughter
The author of a forthcoming book about losing a child to suicide wonders how silence can ever be a solution.
Into the wild: A review of Carl Nixon’s astonishing novel, The Tally Stick
A car goes off a cliff deep on the West Coast. Three children survive. The story of what happens next is absolutely compelling.
Eileen Merriman’s new novel is sharp, sensual and her finest yet
Quite possibly the best NZ novel of the year, according to our books editor.
‘An act of friendship’: John Newton on the life and work of sculptor Llew Summers
John Newton has written a book about Llew Summers and his extraordinary life in sculptures.
The Unity children’s bestseller chart for the month of August
What were our kids reading during the strange month of August 2020?
The Friday Poem: How to Be Happy Though Human by Kate Camp
A new poem by Kate Camp.
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the strange week ending August 28
The books that got you through the last week of lockdown round two.
Toby Morris and his kids review a cool new comic
The filmmaker behind Black Sheep and Under the Mountain turns his hand to graphic novels.
Losing the clot: the story of how I nearly died, by Graeme Lay
One of our foremost writers on his very near miss.
The Friday Poem: how to cook cheesecake on a bbq by Paula Harris
A new poem from Paula Harris.
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the strange week ending August 21
How did the second week of the second lockdown treat your to-read piles?
My grandfather wanted his secret war diary burned. I’ve just published it.
Alick Trafford kept extensive diaries during World War I. Here, his grandson Ian Trafford explains the difficult decision to turn them into a book.
From HG Wells to David Farrier: On writers and conspiracy theories
Wellington archivist Jared Davidson on the mysterious Zeppelin that never was, and other historic panics and delusions.
I spent far too much time thinking about Midnight Sun
A review of the new Twilight novel, which is actually the old story, told from the perspective of vampire Edward Cullen.
