This week’s bestselling books – November 15

FICTION
1 The Songbirds of Florence by Olivia Spooner (Hachette, $37.99)
A free copy of the author’s latest historical novel – set in 1942, in Egypt, where Kiwi women are sent “to provide respite to weary soldiers returning from the front line” – was up for grabs in last week’s giveaway contest. Readers were asked to say why there were dying to read it. The mailbag was full and quite varied.This was almost unbearably poignant from Dennis: “My grandad Ern was a 40-year-old married father of two erecting Bailey Bridges to chase staunch Germans out of Southern Italy. He fought at the Battle of the Salerno River on September 9, 1944. Family secret is that he couldn’t handle it. No shame there. He suffered a nervous breakdown. I know very little more about him as I was 1 1/2 when he died Christmas Eve, 1956 of leukaemia.  My only real ? memory of him is sitting on his lap steering a Morris Oxford. “My granny spoke lovingly of him till she died 50 years later. She said he wrote the most lovely letters to her during his subsequent invalid period which involved R&R in Rome. I’m sure he would have loved to have met the protagonists in your book as I would.”Clare was brisk about it: “I have reserved the book at the Library and I am number 194 in the queue. I’d love to speed things up a bit and have my very own copy. This is my kind of book.” Rodney was that rarest of things in a facile age of it’s-all-good, smiley-emojis: a critical reader. “I really liked A Way Back to Happy and A Bumpy Year, Spooner’s first two books – stroppy women in Auckland & their lovers – and hope this will be better than The Girl from London, which ended the same way as Atonement by Ian McEwan.” Cristina Sanders is a historical novelist of great distinction; she wrote, “I’m really not a cryer. But hell, I sat in a cafe over a cold macchiato finishing Olivia Spooner’s Girl From London and weeping. So either she’s a fabulous storyteller or I’m going soft. Dying to read The Song Birds of Florence so I know.”These were all excellent and worthy of winning a copy but the most excellent and deserving was Sophie, who wrote, “My dear in-laws, Mr and Mrs, 98 and 91 respectively, still living in their own house amidst tottering piles of books are the most tremendous readers. “They are Brits and both served in WW2, she in the Wrens and he in the Navy.“Booksellers of the  new and secondhand variety would rejoice as these two approached as their habit was to buy both the hardback and the paperback of books they fancied.“She now is keeping the show going and absolutely devours fiction set in WW2, particularly with plucky heroines and barrage balloons.“She rings to share what she is currently reading and I know would so happily hoover up The Songbirds of Florence. May it be.”It may. Huzzah to Sophie, and her dear old in-laws; a copy of by Olivia Spooner is theirs.
2 Tree of Nourishment (Kāwai 2) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)
3 Kataraina by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $37)
4 Marry Me in Italy by Nicky Pellegrino (Hachette, $37.99)
5 New Stories by Owen Marshall (Penguin Random House, $38)
The latest collection by the great Timaruvian was launched last weekend in Akaroa by Fiona Farrell, who said, “A young man is working on a super yacht in the Med and witnesses an unresolved murder. Two men never properly meet but their lives intersect at intervals from childhood to death, told with perfect economy, perfect poignancy. A man and woman, long since divorced, meet, talk, in a cafe. A man, Andrew,  is cutting the hedge when a stranger approaches to tell him that their daughter is pregnant to Andrew’s son…One brilliant high wire act of pure, perfectly crafted fiction after another.”
6 The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone by Gareth Ward & Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38)
7 Kāwai: For Such a Time as This (Kāwai 1) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)
8 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
9 Whitebait by Corey Taylor (Firestarter Press, $12.99)
Available information on this new novel includes 1)it’s a science-fiction, part dystopian family drama 2) the author was born in Ongaonga, now lives in Palmerston North, and has worked as an apolyethylene geomembrane installation technician 3) a sample of the text reads, “River stinks, too. All sorts of strange gooey shit flowing in and growing in it nowadays. No wonder there’s hardly anything left. Cody’d had to leave Trigger at home this year too, after what had happened to Duke last year further up the coast.”
10 The Girl from London by Olivia Spooner (Hachette, $27.99)
NONFICTION
1 Tasty by Chelsea Winter (Allen & Unwin, $55)
Food.
2 View from the Second Row by Samuel Whitelock (HarperCollins, $49.99)
Rugby.
3 More Salad by Margo Flanagan & Rosa Power (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
Food.
4 Atua Wāhine by Hana Tapiata (HarperCollins, $36.99)
Thought.
5 This is the F#$%ing News by Patrick Gower (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
Memoir.
6 Well Woman by Frances Pitsilis (Upstart Press, $39.99)
Health.
7 Wild Walks Aotearoa by Hannah-Rose Watt (Penguin Random House, $50)
Walking.
8 All Out by Neil Wagner (Penguin Random House, $40)
Cricket.
9 Woolsheds by Jane Ussher & Annette O’Sullivan (Massey University Press, $85j
Woolsheds! Exquisitely photographed by Jane Ussher, a free copy of this splendid coffee table book is up for grabs in this week’s giveaway contest. The author says, “The 15 woolsheds in the book were selected through a rigorous analytical process based on a set of criteria. The woolshed had to be in original or near original condition and preferably with a long history of family ownership. I looked for unique features such as building materials, differences in woolshed design, rare equipment and other historic farm buildings. Finding existing histories and associated stories was also important, and I considered how each woolshed represented the main sheep farming regions in New Zealand.”
Awesome. To enter the draw, send in a photo of a woolshed – no criteria; just a photo – of a woolshed, and send it to [email protected] with the subject line in screaming caps WOOLSHED! by Sunday at midnight, November 17.
10 The Last Muster by Carly Thomas (HarperCollins, $49.99)
Horseback.