Ockham Book Awards
In 1996 the New Zealand Book Awards (1976-1995) and the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Awards (1968-1993) amalgamated to become the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
The winner of the Acorn Foundation Fiction Prize is awarded $50,000, while the winners of each of the other three categories claim $10,000 each; in addition, there is a further prize of $2500 awarded for the Best First Book.
Shop the nominees in each category below.
Salt Picnic by Evans Patrick
$30.00 NZD
Category: Fiction
`All the time on the island there had been something she was looking for. She knew she had to keep this in mind, and that she'd know what it was when she found it. Whatever it proved to be.' It's 1956 and Iola arrives on the island of Ibiza, on the fringes of Franco's Spain, with little more than a Span ...Show more
Sodden Downstream by Brannavan Gnanalingam
$29.00 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: very good
Thousands flee central Wellington as a far too common 'once in a century' storm descends. Roads are closed and all rail is halted. For their own safety, city workers are told that they must go home early. Sita is a Tamil Sri Lankan refugee living in the Hutt Valley. She's just had a call from her boss. ...Show more
Song for Rosaleen by Desmond Pip
$29.99 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction | Reading Level: very good
A beautifully crafted memoir of a family coping with their mother's dementia, Song for Rosaleen is both a celebration of Rosaleen Desmond's life and an unflinching account of the practical and ethical dilemmas that faced her six children. Told with love, insight, humour and compassion, it raises importa ...Show more
Strangers Arrive: Emigrés and the Arts in New Zealand, 1930–1980 by Leonard Bell
$0.00 NZD
Category: Illustrated Non-Fiction
"None of us had the faintest idea where we were going [but] during 1938–39 . . . the town [Christchurch] was made strangely interesting for anyone like myself, [with the] scattered arrival of 'the refugees'. All at once there were people among us who were actually from Vienna, or Chemnitz, or Berlin . . ...Show more
Swim: A Year of Swimming Outdoors in New Zealand by Annette Lees
$39.99 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction | Reading Level: near fine
This is a book about New Zealanders and their deep connection to swimming in the outdoors. Every neighbourhood has its swimming hole up the river, its local beach, or a back road to the lake. A love of swimming is one of the things that defines Kiwis, and all over the country the start of summer is mark ...Show more
Tangata Ngai Tahu: People of Ngai Tahu, Vol 1 by Takerei Norton
$39.99 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction | Series: Tāngata Ngāi | Reading Level: very good
Tangata Ngai Tahu remembers and celebrates the rich and diverse lives of the people of Ngai Tahu. Spanning time, geography and kaupapa, some fifty biographies bring Ngai Tahu history into the present. The people in the book have contributed to their iwi, hapu and whanau in myriad ways: here are rangatir ...Show more
Tatau: A History of Samoan Tattooing: 2018 by Sean Mallon & Sebastien Galliot
$75.00 NZD
Category: Illustrated Non-Fiction | Reading Level: very good
The Sāmoan Islands are virtually unique in that tattooing has been continuously practised with indigenous techniques: the design of the full male tattoo, the pe'a, has evolved in subtle ways since the nineteenth century, but remains as elaborate, meaningful and powerful as it ever was. This richly illus ...Show more
Tears of Rangi - Experiments Across Worlds by Salmon D Anne
$65.00 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction | Reading Level: very good
Six centuries ago Polynesian explorers, who inhabited a cosmos in which islands sailed across the sea and stars across the sky, arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand where they rapidly adapted to new plants, animals, landscapes and climatic conditions. Four centuries later, European explorers arrived with map ...Show more
Teenagers - The rise of youth culture in New Zealand by Chris Brickell
$49.99 NZD
Category: Illustrated Non-Fiction | Reading Level: near fine
Teenagers is a ground-breaking history of young people in New Zealand from the nineteenth century to the 1960s. Through their diaries and letters, photographs and drawings, we meet young New Zealanders as they transition from children to adults: sealers and bushfellers, factory girls and newspaper boys, ...Show more
Ten x Ten : 100 Favourite Artworks at Te Papa by Athol McCredie
$45.00 NZD
Category: Illustrated Non-Fiction | Series: Ten X Ten Ser. | Reading Level: very good
Published to coincide with the imminent opening of the beautiful new art galleries at Te Papa, this book takes an intimate yet expert look at the national art collection. Ten art curators each pick ten art works and tell us why they love/admire/revere/are moved by them. It's an entirely fresh way to app ...Show more
Tess by Mcdougall Kirsten
$25.00 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: Near Fine
In the silence she could hear the oncoming hum, like a large flock approaching. She didn't want to hear his story; she'd had enough of them. Tess is on the run when she's picked up from the side of the road by lonely middle-aged father Lewis Rose. With reluctance, she's drawn into his family troubles an ...Show more
The 9th Floor - Conversations with Five New Zealand Prime Ministers by Guyon Espiner; Tim Watkin
$39.99 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction | Reading Level: very good
What does government look like from the ninth floor of the Beehive? The 9th Floor collects together interviews with five former Prime Ministers of New Zealand: Geoffrey Palmer, Mike Moore, Jim Bolger, Jenny Shipley and Helen Clark.