BETWEEN THE LINES
Make a well-deserved date with one of the latest page-turners to hit our shelves.
Make a well-deserved date with one of the latest page-turners to hit our shelves.
THE NOWHERE BOY
Anne Cleary, Allen & Unwin
Winner of the 2025 Allen & Unwin Aotearoa NZ Fiction Prize, Anne Cleary’s debut novel explores the razor-thin line between love and obsession. When three-year-old Oliver vanishes from a remote beach carpark, suspicion and desperation ripple through everyone left behind. As the search for Oliver intensifies, another woman clings to the impossible belief she’s been handed a second chance at motherhood. Tense and impossible to put down, The Nowhere Boy is a haunting must-read for fans of psychological drama.
FAMESICK
Lena Dunham, HarperCollins
Part memoir, part reckoning, Famesick sees Lena Dunham reflecting on the dizzying highs and brutal fallout of fame. Charting the years after TV show Girls turned her into a cultural lightning rod, Lena writes candidly about chronic illness, addiction, ambition and the cost of living publicly while privately falling apart. The book peels back the glossy veneer of celebrity to reveal a woman trying to reclaim herself beyond fame.
YESTERYEAR
Caro Claire Burke, 4th Estate
This unsettling and addictive debut novel takes a sharp swipe at influencer culture. Natalie Heller Mills has built an empire selling the fantasy of wholesome pioneer living to millions online, with polished sourdough loaves, a cowboy husband, perfect children and all. Then she wakes to find herself trapped in the brutal realities of the 1800s she’s been romanticising. Darkly funny, Caro Claire Burke peels back the performance of modern femininity and asks what’s left underneath.
ORGAN SPEAK
Giulia Enders, Harper Collins
More than a decade after Gut, Giulia Enders is back with a wider look at the body’s inner workings. Organ Speak explores what our organs can teach us about stress, healing, safety and connection. Enders has a knack for making science feel surprisingly intimate, by swapping dry medical jargon for sharp storytelling and everyday insight. This is the kind of book that makes you pay closer attention to yourself.
WHY WE GARDEN
Hannah Moloney, Simon & Schuster
In Why We Garden, Australian gardening guru and Gardening Australia presenter Hannah Moloney digs beneath the soil to uncover what really draws us to growing things. Page by page, she weaves together stories from gardeners, artists, activists and everyday people to reveal how gardening nourishes far more than our backyards. Hannah makes a compelling case for gardening as an act of hope and care in an increasingly disconnected world.
RULE OF LIES
Jamison R Firestone, HarperCollins
This political thriller plunges readers into the chaos of post- Soviet Russia through the eyes of an American lawyer caught in the middle of corruption and rising authoritarianism. From mafia threats to exposing state corruption alongside Sergei Magnitsky and Alexei Navalny, Firestone’s real-life story unfolds with the pace of a spy novel. Rule of Lies is an eye-opening account of power and survival under Putin’s Russia.
Between the lines
Dive into UNO’s top picks for great holiday reading.
Dive into UNO’s top picks for great holiday reading.
Beating Burnout
By Mike McKinney, Exisle Publishing
Clinical psychologist Mike McKinney takes an informed look at the features of burnout, why and how burnout happens, and the signs it might be about to strike. This insightful, practical book is filled with suggestions for positive changes that can be sustained, and offers ways to help you consider a wider (and possibly new) purpose in life, underpinned by ways to enhance resilience.
Charlie and the Christmas Factory
Inspired by Roald Dahl, Penguin
A magical and hilarious Christmas collection of stories from 13 bestselling storytellers inspired by the great Roald Dahl’s incredible characters. Why is Matilda worried about being on the naughty list? What happens when years after the creation of his original marvellous medicine George’s granddaughter Gigi decides to make her own potion? And how does Charlie plan to celebrate Christmas at the chocolate factory? Perfect for Christmas Eve or a fun, nostalgic Christmas present.
Eden Undone
By Abbott Kahler, HarperCollins
This true story of murder is a stranger-than-fiction account of the search for utopia in the Galápagos set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the march to World War II. With a mystery as alluring and curious as the Galápagos itself, this novel explores the universal and timeless desire to seek utopia – and lays bare the human fallibility that, inevitably, renders such a quest doomed. Part narrative non-fiction, part Agatha Christie murder mystery, Eden Undone will grip you from start to finish.
Unreel
By Diana Wichtel, Penguin
New Zealand writer and reviewer Diana Wichtel shares her hilarious and profound memoir about growing up watching the Golden Age of television. In the 1960s, her family fell apart and they left Canada for Aotearoa, minus a father. Here, she witnessed the rise of television again, this time on the other side of the world. Twenty years later she began working for NZ Listener magazine, where she became a renowned television critic. Her story uncovers family secrets and a search for her father, all lived alongside the magic of television.
Lisa Carrington Chases A Champion
By Dame Lisa Carrington, illustrated by Scott Pearson, Huia Publishers
Eight-year-old Lisa is determined to take part in a big surf competition coming up, but she’s nervous. With encouragement from her coach, family and top paddler Māia, she trains hard. But disaster strikes when her canoe capsizes, shaking her confidence. Lisa goes to the river to compose herself and, with the help of her family and dog Colin, she draws on her strength to prepare for the race.
Between the lines
Between the lines
Books A Plenty owners Scott and Sheree Brown reveal their all-time favourite books.
Books A Plenty owners Scott and Sheree Brown reveal their all-time favourite books.
Heartstopper
By Alice Oseman
Hachette (Publisher)
It's the first day back at Truham Grammar High School. Charlie Spring, an openly gay year 10, is seated next to Nick Nelson, a Year 11 boy from the rugby team. After being assigned next to each other in the new vertical form classrooms, they're quick to become close friends. But with this closeness, Charlie develops feelings for Nick that he is unsure goes both ways.
It's not often I come across a book series that I would read in one sitting, but Heartstopper is definitely one of them. In these heartwarming novels, Alice Oseman achieves a positive representation of queer love. Telling a story not of tragedy but of acceptance and celebration in identity and sexuality. Depicting so many relevant topics and presenting them in a realistic way, these books can be incredibly comforting. Heartstopper can be your best friend, and can help you feel like you're not alone in your struggles.
Sheree’s pick
The Alchemist
By Paulo Coelho
HarperCollins (Publisher)
The Alchemist is about a boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried near the Pyramids. Along the way he meets a Gypsy woman, a man who calls himself king, and an alchemist who points Santiago in the direction of his quest.
A fantastic book full of wisdom and philosophy. The story bursts with optimism and shows that the journey to your destiny is as important as the destiny itself. I think this book is appealing because we all have dreams and sometimes we just want someone to tell us that they may come true. The Alchemist is a very exciting novel and it deserves a space on everyone’s bookshelf.
Hard Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World
By Haruki Murakami
Penguin (Publisher)
A narrative particle accelerator that zooms between Wild Turkey Whiskey and Bob Dylan, unicorn skulls and voracious librarians, John Coltrane and Lord Jim. This is science fiction, a detective story and a post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel.
I found the method of story telling, with the use of parallel story lines, fascinating. The book’s chapters alternate between futuristic Tokyo (Hard-Boiled Wonderland), and an isolated town with a perimeter wall (The End of the World). As the story picks up, the reader begins to notice parallels between these two vastly different and far away worlds.
Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy. Reading Murakami feels like experiencing a dream in book form.