5 NZ Books I Plan To Read In 2017

You may not have figured this out, but I live in New Zealand. (Yes, it is the place where they filmed Lord of the Rings. No, it’s not part of Australia.) While a lot of the media we consume here is imported – mostly from the US and then the UK, as well as Australia – we have our own creatives producing movies, TV shows, and of course books.

Each year I tell myself that I am going to read more NZ books, and each year I either do it or I don’t. So to get me started for the next round, here is 5 NZ books I plan to read in 2017. Wish me luck.

The Bone People by Keri Hulme

In a tower on the New Zealand sea lives Kerewin Holmes, part Maori, part European, an artist estranged from her art, a woman in exile from her family. One night her solitude is disrupted by a visitor—a speechless, mercurial boy named Simon, who tries to steal from her and then repays her with his most precious possession. As Kerewin succumbs to Simon’s feral charm, she also falls under the spell of his Maori foster father Joe, who rescued the boy from a shipwreck and now treats him with an unsettling mixture of tenderness and brutality. Out of this unorthodox trinity Keri Hulme has created what is at once a mystery, a love story, and an ambitious exploration of the zone where Maori and European New Zealand meet, clash, and sometimes merge. Winner of both a Booker Prize and Pegasus Prize for Literature, The Bone People is a work of unfettered wordplay and mesmerizing emotional complexity.

The Bone People was named the winner of the Man Book Prize in 1985, and so far one of two by a New Zealand author. As I’m wanting to read both more works by Maori authors as well as Man Booker winners, The Bone People is an obvious choice. Unfortunately it isn’t available in ebook format, so I’ll have to physically go to the library for that one.

The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

It is 1866, and young Walter Moody has come to make his fortune upon the New Zealand goldfields. On the stormy night of his arrival, he stumbles across a tense gathering of twelve local men who have met in secret to discuss a series of unexplained events: A wealthy man has vanished, a prostitute has tried to end her life, and an enormous fortune has been discovered in the home of a luckless drunk. Moody is soon drawn into the mystery: a network of fates and fortunes that is as complex and exquisitely ornate as the night sky. Richly evoking a mid-nineteenth-century world of shipping, banking, and gold rush boom and bust, The Luminaries is a brilliantly constructed, fiendishly clever ghost story and a gripping page-turner

I own not one but two copies of The Luminaries, and have read neither. One is an ebook, the other a signed copy I picked up a few years ago. I’ll be reading the ebook though as I want to keep the signed one as untouched as possible, and also it is a big book and I have tiny little hands. (This is the same reason I read A Song Of Ice And Fire as ebooks, even though I have the print.)

Mortal Fire by Elizabeth Knox

Sixteen-year-old Canny Mochrie’s parents go away on a vacation, so they send her off on a trip of her own with her stepbrother, Sholto, and his opinionated girlfriend, Susan, who are interviewing the survivors of a strange coal mine disaster and researching local folklore in 1959 Southland, New Zealand. Canny is left to herself to wander in a mysterious and enchanting nearby valley, occupied almost entirely by children who all have the last name, Zarene, and can perform a special type of magic that tells things how to be stronger and better than they already are. With the help of a seventeen-year-old boy who is held hostage in a hidden house by a spell that is now more powerful than the people who first placed it, Canny figures out why she, too, can use this special magic that only Zarenes should know, and where she really came from.

I’m a huge Elizabeth Knox fan, and Mortal Fire is one of the few I haven’t read. So I’m going to re-read Dreamhunter and Dreamquake, then read Mortal Fire. 😀

Into The River by Ted Dawe

When Te Arepa Santos is dragged into the river by a giant eel, something happens that will change the course of his whole life. The boy who struggles to the bank is not the same one who plunged in, moments earlier. He has brushed against the spirit world, and there is a price to be paid; an utu (revenge) to be exacted.

Years later, far from the protection of whanau (family) and ancestral land, he finds new enemies. This time, with no one to save him, there is a decision to be made: he can wait on the bank, or leap forward into the river.

You’ve probably heard of Into The River – it’s that book which was banned/had restrictions placed upon it, and so the rest of the world promptly found out about the book itself. Streisand Effect in action.

It’s now unbanned, and I picked up a copy during Writers Week earlier this year, but like the rest of the books bought then have yet to crack it open.

Red Rocks by Rachael King

While holidaying at his father’s house, Jake explores Wellington’s wild south coast, with its high cliffs, biting winds, and its fierce seals. When he stumbles upon a perfectly preserved sealskin, hidden in a crevice at Red Rocks, he’s compelled to take it home and hide it under his bed, setting off a chain of events that threatens to destroy his family.

I’ve actually been to Red Rocks and seen the seals there; that was when I was a kid, and despite wanting to go back I haven’t done so in years. Anyway, I love the selkie legend so to see a selkie story set here in our local seal colony is super neat. 😀

And that’s it for this round of 5 NZ Books I Plan To Read In 2017! Coming soon: 5 NZ Books You Should Read In 2017, and 5 More Books I Want To Try And Read In 2017.

What are some of your favourite NZ books? What do you plan on reading next year? Have you even read any NZ books?