Top 10 best-selling New Zealand books: March 30

Easter is finally here! In this book, which every Kiwi parent must have bought, kids are invited to join a group of forest fairies to “get creative with loads of mazes, dot-to-dots, games and activities to complete and colour in”. Features two pages of full-colour, Easter-themed stickers that you’ll later find plastered all over the house.

2. BBQ Economics by Liam Dann (Penguin)

Liam Dann, a business journalist at the NZ Herald, offers a broad view of the economy and finance. From the Listener review:

“Dann gives us a basic introduction to economics: supply demand curves, inflation, marginal utility, price elasticity. He has financial advice – buy low, sell high! – with more substantive wisdom dispensed by figures like Stephen Tindall, Sir John Key and even the Buddha. Key’s advice to young New Zealanders: live within your means, understand the power of compound interest, buy property; while the Buddhist scriptures counsel us to partition our wealth thusly: ‘one part should be enjoyed, two parts invested in your business, and the fourth set aside against future misfortunes’.

“There’s an economic history of modern New Zealand, and this is where BBQ Economics transcends the limitations of both barbecue banter and media columns. We get the familiar stages of the post-war story: the export boom, the cradle to grave welfare state, the economic dysfunction of the 1970s and early 80s; Muldoon then Roger Douglas, Ruth Richardson and the Mother of All Budgets. This story often trails off in the mid-1990s with the subsequent MMP era seen as a period of comparable stability. There are shocks like the GFC and Covid, but no sustained crisis. Dann wants to tell a more coherent and more troubling story about the nation’s economic direction over the last three decades.”

3. The Space Between by Lauren Keenan (Penguin)

This novel, set during the New Zealand Wars in 1860, focuses on Frances, an unmarried Londoner newly landed in New Zealand. She meets Henry White, who had jilted her and is now husband to Matāria, who is shunned by her whānau because of her marriage. The blurb notes, “As conflict between settlers and iwi rises, both women must find the courage to fight for what is right, even if it costs them everything they know.”

An extract: “Frances heard the commotion before she saw it: a man being arrested by two soldiers of the Crown, right in front of Thorpe’s General Store. ‘I belong here!’ the man shouted. ‘Nō Te Ātiawa au. This is our place.’ He wore a European shirt over trousers that were far too short. His black hair was unkempt, his eyes bright.

‘You need a pass to enter the township,’ one of the soldiers said, hands gripping his rifle. The soldier’s uniform was crisp and tidy: black trousers and a navy-blue tunic with shiny buttons. ‘Natives are not allowed here without swearing allegiance to the Queen. You should all know that by now. And you’re disturbing the peace by yelling.’