Festival Non-Fiction

Every Second Counts is a fascinating, fast-paced memoir by award-winning NZ journalist Charlotte Glennie, who survived life-changing injuries after a near-fatal accident. She went on to break new ground reporting across Asia during major world events, including military and political crackdowns and natural disasters. Set in New Zealand, Australia, Asia and Europe, this is the adrenaline-fuelled life of a journalist...

'Dr Lucy's unpacking of the grief that comes with living losses was a lightbulb moment for me.' Ellidy Pullin 'The best work I know on positive psychology and grief is Lucy Hone's.' Martin Seligman 'Lucy's insights are practical, wise, and deeply human - they stay with you long after you read them.' Chelsea Pottenger From bestselling author and TED speaker...

In this empathetic and darkly funny memoir, Thomas Coyle one of New Zealand's most seasoned forensic investigators pulls back the police tape and walks us straight into the crime scenes. With sharp detail, he reveals how the tiniest fragment of evidence can expose a suspect, prove a motive, or confirm an identity. Sometimes, all at once. But crime scenes are...

Novelist, memoirist and playwright Witi Ihimaera – author of Pounamu, Pounamu and The Whale Rider – decided, at the age of eighty, to dive back into the water and spend a year full-time at Te Wānanga Takiura, immersing himself in his own language, in te reo Māori. This book tells the story of this kaikaukau, this swimmer, and his year...

Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp offers a radical retelling of human history through the lens of collapse, delving into what this means for our uncertain future. This narrative spans from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twenty-first century and beyond. It's grounded in the latest research and a comprehensive database of more than 440...

‘Moving and generous’ Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost Fire in Every Direction is a marvel Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This ‘Luminous, moving, and achingly beautiful’ Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King ‘I am forever changed after reading this book’ Javier Zamora, author of Solito ‘A deeply inspiring and absorbing...

A Maori Phrase a Day by Hemi Kelly is a modern, user-friendly phrasebook designed for all New Zealanders who wish to connect more deeply with the Māori language and culture. This book offers a delightful and accessible entry point into te reo Māori, presenting 365 phrases that cover everyday life and aims to build an enriching language learning journey through...

A mainstream, accessible guide to learning the Samoan language, for everyone. Fun, user-friendly and designed for modern readers, Jason Tiatia's Samoan Made Simple is a first-of-its-kind resource for anyone wanting to learn the basics of the Samoan Language. Based on the best-selling Maori Made Easy formula, Samoan Made Simple empowers readers to take control of their learning in short, buildable...

Fibs, porkies, little white lies, absolute whoppers and criminal evasions: the ways we can deceive each other are legion. Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit, the new collection by Ōtepoti poet and writer Emma Neale, is fascinated by our doubleness. Prompted by the rich implications in a line from Joseph Brodsky—'The real history of consciousness starts with one's first lie'—it combines a...

Born into love but then thrust into violence, and shaped by struggle, Timoti Te Moke was never destined to be a leader. After an early start as a bright boy in the eastern Bay of Plenty, nurtured by his reo Māori-speaking grandparents, Timoti's life changed sharply when his mother took custody of him when he was six. He survived abuse,...

Read our interview with author Noelle McCarthy! A darkly funny, sparkling follow-up to the author’s bestselling memoir Grand. You have to invite him in. You have to want the vampire’s badness in the house with you. Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities...

Master your winning mindset with lessons from the life and career of coaching legend Gilbert Enoka. In a career spanning almost three decades, visionary psychological coach Gilbert Enoka changed the way the All Blacks played their game. With a 77% winning record in test match rugby, the highest of any professional sports team, they are the only international team to...

What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made...

Aroha by Dr Hinemoa Elder is an enlightening exploration of timeless Maori wisdom, intricately woven into a contemporary context. This top-selling non-fiction title from New Zealand in 2021 introduces readers to 52 traditional Maori proverbs, known as whakataukī, each offering a profound lesson for every week of the year. Dr Elder, a respected Maori psychiatrist, delves into these powerful sayings...

Bestselling author Nigel Latta's simple psychological toolkit for life's ups and downs. Over thirty years working as a clinical psychologist, Nigel Latta assembled a personal toolkit based on three simple principles. These principles helped him to be more resilient, joyful, and attuned to what matters most. The same principles have helped him through some difficult times as well, such as...

The Chief and the Empire uncovers the extraordinary true tale of Te Tai Tokerau rangatira Te Pahi - the first influential Māori leader to cross the Tasman - whose curiosity about the Pākehā world forged alliances, saved lives, and ultimately cost him his own. On a visit to Sydney in 1805, Te Pahi was feted as a celebrity, building close...

The hilarious and heartfelt debut book from award-winning TV writer and comedian Pax Assadi A joyfully chaotic memoir about what we gain by embracing our shameful moments, from award-winning comedian and TV writer Pax Assadi.What do we lose by hiding our shame, and what do we gain by sharing it? From herding ducks across South Auckland to catastrophic culture shock...

Hone shows us how to harness the (thankfully common) power of our own resilience to work our way through a horrible loss. The New York Times A recommended new book for those who are grieving... [Hone's] metaphor for life after loss is both powerful and apt: Think of it as a scattered jigsaw puzzle, where the pieces of one's former...

A brilliant memoir of adolescence in New Zealand and of the migration of European manuscripts to the far side of the world. Christopher de Hamel is one of the world's best-known scholars and writers on illuminated manuscripts. He was mostly brought up in the south of New Zealand, where his family moved when he was four. This book magically evokes...

Wise, candid, brave and moving, this superbly written memoir by a New Zealand GP is reminiscent of the warm wisdom and humanity of the American physician and writer Atul Gawande. Over her long career, Dr Lucy O’Hagan has developed deep insights into the profound but often complex relationship between patients and doctors. Reading about her own struggle with what it...

Excellent...entrancing and disturbing. The New York Times One of the world's best investigative journalists tells the true story of Chinese twins forcibly separated as babies through adoption trafficking, raised on opposite sides of the globe and only reunited as teens. In 2000, a Chinese woman gave birth to twins in a bamboo grove, trying to avoid detection by the government...

Updated Edition 2025 This new edition contains a completely up-to-date timeline. Winner of four major awards.Brilliantly written by award-winning journalist Rebecca Macfie. 'Devastating account of a needless tragedy' - Otago Daily Times'Lucid, exhaustive, enraging' - New Zealand Listener'Compelling account of what went wrong' - Weekend Herald'Highly readable, sometimes shocking' - The Press'Compulsory reading for directors, managers and business students' -...

Wawata - Moon Dreaming by Dr Hinemoa Elder invites readers on a transformative journey through the ancient wisdom of the Māori lunar calendar. This deeply insightful book introduces you to Hina, the Māori moon goddess, who reveals a different face each night of the month, bringing with her unique energies and lessons. Dr Elder, known for her bestselling work Aroha,...

The inspiration behind the Netflix TV series Painkillers, starring Uzo Aduba and Matthew Broderick. Amazon's Top 20 Best Books of the Year 'This is no dense medical tome, but a page-turner with a villainous family to rival the Roys in Succession, and one where every chapter ends with the perfect bombshell.' - Esquire The highly-anticipated portrait of three generations of...

A Maori Word a Day by Hemi Kelly is an incredibly accessible and engaging resource designed to introduce and immerse New Zealanders of all ages into the beauty of the Maori language. This book acts as a unique and practical Maori dictionary that simplifies the learning process by presenting 365 carefully selected Maori words, each to be explored and learned...

From the best-selling author of Aroha and Wawata comes a new and inspiring journal to help you make deeper connections using the energies of Hina, the Māori moon goddess, and the power of aroha. Kia ora! Welcome to Waitohu – a journal where the Māori lunar calendar invites us to write about our lives in a new way. This writing...

Mana. It's a big word. But what is it? Are you born with it, can you earn it, can it be taken away? For more than five decades, Tāme Iti has stood at the heart of Aotearoa's struggle for indigenous rights. From land marches to performance art, police raids to prison cells, his voice has challenged New Zealand to reckon...

From the best-selling author of Aroha, Wawata, Waitohu, and E Moko Dear Moko, comes a unique exploration of how to think about thinking, rooted in the wisdom of Māori culture. Dr Hinemoa Elder introduces us to a profound journey guided by Hinengaro, the Māori goddess of the mind, leading us through 23 specific rua, caves, into the unfamiliar depths of...

Why might Hamlet be even longer in Italian? How does the story of Romeo and Juliet begin . . . in Thai? How do you build a joke in German, or recreate a rhyme in Japanese? And why are Lady Macbeth's pronouns such a problem? What does it mean to translate Shakespeare? When we change all the poetry, all the...

The Great War for New Zealand by Vincent O'Malley is an authoritative and stirring account of a pivotal chapter in New Zealand history. This monumental work delves into the Waikato War of 1863-64, a conflict that profoundly shaped the course of the nation. O'Malley meticulously chronicles the origins, impact, and aftermath of this significant war, providing readers with a comprehensive...

Black Sugarcane is a landmark debut collection by Nafanua Purcell Kersel. Restless in form and address, these engaging and generous poems ricochet from light to dark, quiet to loud, calm to violence. We meet a loved twin sister as she dives towards the Sacred Centre, a grandmother who knows everything by heart, a shrugging office clerk, and Nafanua herself, an...

The story of a hotel. The story of a nation. When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan's first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world. More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall...

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick is a poignant and eye-opening exploration of life in the elusive and mysterious country of North Korea. Through the detailed accounts of six ordinary citizens, Demick sheds light on the daily experiences, dreams, and struggles of those living under one of the world's most oppressive regimes. WINNER OF THE 2010 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR...

Trust: like water, like electricity, our society can’t function without it. It’s a treasure, a living thing that can be cultivated and grown. But it can also wither and die, and it is increasingly under threat. From neighbourhoods to nations, we must get serious about trust and act before this precious resource runs out entirely. When Jimmy Wales founded Wikipedia...

Contrary to what many of you might imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks - chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to actually sit down and write. Acerbic, wisecracking and hilarious, this is the definitive essay collection from the New York legend and satirist. Lebowitz turns her trademark caustic wit to...

Fifty Years of the Waitangi Tribunal celebrates decisions, results and reports of the Waitangi Tribunal over half a century. The Waitangi Tribunal has been a unique and integral part of the Aotearoa New Zealand judicial and legislative process, upholding te Tiriti o Waitangi and providing expertise on historical claims, Maori language, land, resources and contemporary issues.This collection contains chapters on...

The astonishing debut memoir about mothers and daughters, drinking, birth and loss, running away and homecoming from prize-winning writer and broadcaster Noelle McCarthy. "I'll be grand, girl, I've great faith." - Mammy, just before she died Funny, charismatic and generous; angry, vicious and hurt; in pub lounges all over Cork City, Noelle McCarthy's mother Carol rages against her life and...

The third instalment of diaries from the inimitable Helen Garner covers four eventful years in the life of one of Australia's most treasured writers. How to End a Story, Helen Garner's third volume of diaries, is an account of a woman fighting to hold on to a marriage that is disintegrating around her. Living with a powerfully ambitious writer who...

Brick by Brick by David Robertson and Bill Breen unravels the fascinating and tumultuous journey of LEGO, one of the world's most beloved and enduring brands. With a narrative that reads like both a thriller and a business manual, this book delves into the dramatic highs and shattering lows of a Danish family business that has captured the imaginations of...

Growing up behind the family façade. Brave, explosive, and thought-provoking, this is a powerful memoir from a critically acclaimed writer. 'It's material, make a story out of it,' was the mantra Charlotte Grimshaw grew up with in her famous literary family. But when her life suddenly turned upside-down, she needed to re-examine the reality of that material. The more she...

The New Zealand Wars | Nga Pakanga o Aotearoa by Vincent O'Malley delves into one of the most significant series of conflicts in New Zealand's history. This comprehensive work meticulously examines the wars that were fought between the British Crown and various Māori groups from 1845 to 1872. Through vivid narrative and incisive analysis, O'Malley brings to life the battles...

The pivotal year of 1870 brought down the curtain on the redcoat garrison world at both the metropolitan and colonial ends of the empire... In fewer than forty years, less than a lifetime, Aotearoa had gone from being a Maori world in which rangatira dominated, to a colony in which the settler state was in control of the economy, politics...

Welcome to our story, this history. Whichever part of the world the bones of your ancestors lie, wherever their ashes may have been dispersed, here you will find traces of them, and of yourself. It is a story of colonisation and resistance – and a history that has never stopped repeating itself. The New Zealand Wars of the mid-nineteenth century...

Marketing executive Alison Morris bets her reputation on a project to sell empathy in a perfume bottle. Her husband, Jim, is inspired to try a similar thing in a game he’s developing—sinking all their money into EmPath, where people progress by learning to understand one another without direct communication. All at once, Alison’s fragrance develops dangerous effects and Jim’s game...

‘What does “good” look like – and how do we build it?’ Aotearoa New Zealand is grappling with tough economic questions. Inequality is rising, the cost of living is biting, and many feel left behind. Despite talk of recovery and progress, there’s a growing sense that the system isn’t working – at least, not for everyone. In The Good Economy,...

A little book containing so much — a novella, history, eyewitness reports, Māori translation, verse, and images. Both fiction and fact, this fascinating book is a kaleidoscopic exploration of the Battle of Orakau. During three days in 1864, 300 Māori men, women, and children fought an Imperial army and captured the imagination of the world. The battle marked the end...

In August 2017, over a thousand neo-Nazis, fascists, Klan members, and neo-Confederates descended on a small southern city to protest the pending removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee. Within an hour of their arrival, the city's historic downtown was a scene of bedlam as armoured far-right cadres battled activists in the streets. Before the weekend was over, a...

Does it seem you've formulated a rock-solid strategy, yet your firm still can't get ahead? If so, construct a solid foundation for business execution—an IT infrastructure and digitised business processes to automate your company's core capabilities. In Enterprise Architecture As Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution, authors Jeanne W. Ross, Peter Weill, and David C. Robertson show you how....

Based mainly on examples in the Bodleian Library, this lavishly illustrated account tells the story of manuscript production from the early Middle Ages to the high Renaissance. Each stage of production is described, from the preparation of the parchment, pens, paints, and inks to the writing of the scripts and the illumination of the manuscript. Many beautiful illuminated manuscripts survive...

Are we deranged? The acclaimed Indian novelist Amitav Ghosh argues that future generations may well think so. How else to explain our imaginative failure in the face of global warming? In his first major book of nonfiction since In an Antique Land, Ghosh examines our inability—at the level of literature, history, and politics—to grasp the scale and violence of climate...

An intimate and original memoir of love, grief, and male friendship by one of Scotland's brightest young talents. 'As perfect a portrait of friendship as I've ever read.' - STEPHEN FRY 'Lucid, lyrical, loaded . . . A love letter to friendship.' - JACKIE KAY 'A lovely book: bright and heartfelt, funny and refreshing.' - ANDREW O'HAGAN 'A beautiful, moving,...

'A lovely book: bright and heartfelt, funny and refreshing.' - ANDREW O'HAGAN 'A beautiful, moving, life-affirming book.' - IAN RANKIN Friendships just might be the greatest love affairs of our lives. In 2018, poet and author Michael Pedersen lost a cherished friend, Scott Hutchison, soon after their collective voyage into the landscape of the Scottish Highlands. Just weeks later, Michael...

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, a wave of state-sponsored 'national fitness' programmes swept Britain and its former colonies. Following revelations of the Nazi enthusiasm for government-backed sports and the organisation of mass leisure, the programmes quickly foundered. They probably laid, however, the foundations for the twentieth century's obsession with fitness— a key facet of modern life. In this...

The stunning biography of one of New Zealand's most electrifying and controversial women leaders. When Helen Kelly died on a Wellington spring night in October 2016, with her partner by her side and a bunch of peonies, the first of the season, by her bed, Aotearoa New Zealand lost an extraordinary leader. Kelly was the first female head of the...

Wild Fictions brings together Amitav Ghosh's extraordinary writing on the subjects that have obsessed him over the last twenty-five years: literature and language; climate change and the environment; human lives, travel, and discoveries. The spaces that we inhabit, and the way in which we occupy them, is a constant thread throughout this striking and expansive collection. From the significance of...

In my brief breath of life, might I find a way to fit light to paper? In a land of ethereal beauty, within a culture soaked in myth, a young woman discovers the story that will change her life. In 2003, seventeen-year-old Australian exchange student Hannah Kent arrives at Keflavík Airport in the middle of the Icelandic winter. That night...

'A story of grit and determination from a woman who writes the way she lives - fiercely, with passion and in full colour.' - Michele A'Court 'There are times, admittedly rare, when a book comes along that needs only one word to evaluate it. In the case of Bloody Minded, that word is "WOW"... Unquestionably it must be a hot...