Tag: NZ award winning authors

Audition: Our March eBook Club pick!

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Image of Audition a tablet with a background that is a photograph of space.

eBook Club pick: Audition by Pip Adam

Read the book that everyone wants to read.

For free and without any waiting. Download a copy here through Libby.

 

Welcome to the WCL eBook Club, where each month we highlight a popular eBook in our digital collection and give access to an unlimited number of downloads on Libby. That means no waiting in long reserves queues – you’ll get instant access to our monthly popular pick!

From 1 to 14 March our eBook Club title is the publishing sensation everyone is talking about – Audition by Wellington’s very own Pip Adam.

Author image by Victoria Birkinshaw

Pip Adam is the author of four novels: Audition, Nothing to See, which was shortlisted for the Acorn Prize for Fiction, The New Animals, which won the Acorn Foundation Prize for Fiction, and I’m Working on a Building. Her short story collection Everything We Hoped For won the NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction.

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Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts: Writer events

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We’re super excited to see that our good friends at Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts‘ have now announced details their festival programme, which is now fast approaching. It is a rich and varied programme that has something for everyone and features a host of authors you can find in our collection!

Of particular interest to us at the library is of course their fabulous writers programme element! This broad and varied programme holds a mirror up to both society and us as individuals and considers the many ways reading and writing are so vital to us. The programme features some of the finest writers from our own fair land, as well as well-known names from across the globe, making the programme unmissable.

The Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts’ writers programme will take place mainly at the cinematic jewel that is the Embassy Theatre, and runs from 23 – 25 Feb.

Follow this link here for the full programme and booking details.

As an appetiser to this dynamic exchange of ideas and stories, we have curated a list of featured titles available to borrow from our collections, which you might like to read before you go to one of the events. Have a browse below at just a very small selection of the events available, grab a good read and go enjoy some great literary events!

Hiwa : contemporary Māori short stories
“Contemporary Māori short stories, featuring twenty-seven writers working in English or te reo Māori. The writers range from famous names and award winners – Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Whiti Hereaka, Becky Manawatu, Zeb Nicklin – to emerging voices like Shelley Burne-Field, Jack Remiel Cottrell, Anthony Lapwood and Colleen Maria Lenihan. Hiwa includes biographical introductions for each writer’s work. Named for Hiwa-i-te-rangi, the ninth star of Matariki, signifying vigorous growth and dreams of the year ahead.” (Adapted from Catalogue)

Explore the event linked to this title here. 

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A feast of new Aotearoa New Zealand fiction

Neil

Welcome to our first round up of newly acquired fiction titles for 2024.

To start the year off we have  a veritable feast of daring, diverse and adventurous Aotearoa fiction titles, most of which have only just been released. The breadth, range, genres employed and subjects explored, not to mention different styles, in evidence is stunning and shows what a rich literary community we have in Aotearoa.

The novels range from Booker-nominated Anna Smaill’s second novel Bird Life, to a collection of short stories by Edmond Murray about Auckland called Aucklanders, a book in the same vein as James Joyce’s Dubliners.

Other Aotearoa picks include a historical romance called The Girl from London by Olivia Spooner. There is also Joy Holley’s much anticipated debut collection of short stories, Dream Girl, plus a climate change novel called Dear Tui by M . C Ronen. Also, just in from our own fair shores there is Checkerboard Hill by Jade Kake, Landed by Sue McCauley and, to round things off on the Aotearoa front, Everything I Have by Tammy Robinson.

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Some literary treats for 2024

Neil

Consult Betty Boop GIF by Fleischer Studios

Image via Giphy.

A very warm welcome to 2024. As is now our annual custom for this time of year, we are going to peer into the tea leaves of the future at the bottom of the literary teacup. In this blog, we will be selecting just a few of the literary highlights that we at Wellington City Libraries are looking forward to. In the process, we hope to spot just a few of the novels that everyone will be talking about this year.

These are of course just the few of the fiction treats that have already been scheduled and announced for this year, many of the books that will feature in the ‘Best of 2024’ lists aren’t even listed yet. Indeed, one of the great delights of the literary world are the surprise novels that seemingly come out of nowhere to become one of the shining stars of that year, so there will be plenty of surprises in store. Having said that, there are already lots of interesting titles to look forward to. So, let’s start off with our list of what to look out for in the fiction world in 2024.

The first book on our list, due out later in January, is a Bird Child and Other Stories by the legendary Aotearoa author Patricia Grace.  This is Patricia Grace’s first collection of short stories in 17 years, and needless to say it is already hotly anticipated! Further afield in January, My Friends by Hisham Matar is getting a lot of advance interest. The novel starts off in London during a protest at the Libyan embassy and contrasts the civil war in Libya and life in Britain.  Also in January, we have Sigrid Nunez’s The Vulnerables, a lockdown novel beginning in 2020.

In February we have Kitten by Olive Nuttall, a debut Aotearoa novel that’s already causing waves in reviewing circles.

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Interview: Giselle Clarkson in conversation

Neil
The observologist cover (showing an illustrated dragonfly) on a green background with yellow flowers.

The Observologist by artist and writer Giselle Clarkson is a book all about exploring the world of the small and the wonderful. As William Blake would say, the book is about exploring the mysteries of all creation in a grain of sand, and the book has a bucketful of fun as it does this.

The Observologist is a 101 handbook for mounting very small scientific expeditions in and around your home. The book looks at over 100 small creatures, plants, and other living things. Subjects range from slugs, ants, seeds, fungi, flies, bees, and even bird poop.

The book is much more than a list of interesting plants and animals, it is funny, playful, engaging, brilliant and a really practical collection of ideas about how to explore and engage with the natural world on your doorstep.

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Best of 2023: Our top fiction picks!

Neil
A beach scene. 2023 is written above 2024 in the ocean, and waves are coming into shore to wash away the old year 2023
Waving goodbye to 2023 (literally and literarily)

As we say goodbye to 2023 and hello to 2024, it is now tradition for us to take stock of the literary year and take note of some of the novels we regarded as highlights.

As always, we aim to cover as wide a mix as possible — from fabulous new Aotearoa New Zealand books to big international bestsellers and major prize-nominated books, not to mention the best of this year’s crime and thriller titles and some standout science fiction and fantasy books. We have selected books that got lots of attention as well as others we felt fell undeservedly under the radar — and we’ve also thrown in a few left-field curveballs of books we just absolutely loved and felt we could not ignore. As is always the case with these lists, some of the selections we make are by their nature subjective and we apologise in advance if we missed any of your favourites out. All in all it’s been a fascinating and exciting year for readers — roll on 2024!

So here we go — Wellington City Libraries’ very subjective list of the top 100 novels of 2023!

2023 Fiction Highlights — Browse the full list
Browse the full list with all our picks, or browse just the topic you enjoy!