This week’s bestselling books – September 20

FICTION
1 Marry Me in Italy by Nicky Pellegrino (Hachette, $37.99)
No one does romcom fiction set in Italy with lotsa heavenly cooked meals and swoonsome scenery better than La Pellegrino; her latest novel has gone straight to number 1 in its first week in the charts, and is up for grabs in this week’s free book giveaway contest.
Blurbology: “Skye has been with Tim forever and the last thing she’s thinking about is saying ‘I do’. It’s Tim that enters the dream wedding competition – he’s longing to win an all-expenses-paid trip to romantic Montenello. An escape to a beautiful Italian hill town might be just what they need to find love again…”
To enter the draw, describe a swoonsome scenic sight you have seen in Italy with thine own eyes, and email it to [email protected] with the subject line in screaming caps I AMORE LA PELLEGRINO by midnight on Sunday, September 22.
2 The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone by Gareth Ward & Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38)
3 Home Truths by Charity Norman (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
4 All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Hachette, $37.99)
5 Pātea Boys by Airana Ngarewa (Hachette, $36.99)
From my review of the author’s collection of short stories:  “Pātea Boys is in two halves, one in English, the other translated in te reo. I think the very best story is ‘Egmont Street’. Like many of the stories, the characters are young Māori, just kids, not doing anything much, broke, funny, maybe trapped. It’s set in a playground in a park. There are five kids, ‘none of them playing, just sitting, watching the cars pull up and pull away, the old men smoke on the corner, the late sun of the sky settle and the red dusk rise.’ Look at the easy lyrical confidence of the prose; look at the town, which he has made you see in 32 words. You know these New Zealand towns. You know they shut down at 6 other than the pub and the takeaways. You know the only thing on the road after midnight is a logging truck or some other truck hauling some other freight, its headlights picking out low buildings, a town clock, and then nothing, just farmland and waste. These towns are Airana Ngarewa land in Pātea Boys.”
6 Better Left Dead by Catherine Lea (David Bateman, $37)
7 The Mess We Made by Megan O’Neill (Hachette, $37.99)
From the author’s beautifully composed portrait of her home town, at ReadingRoom on Monday: “Waiau Pa is the type of place where you have to keep naming bigger and bigger towns nearby until a point of reference can be grasped. The main street is a primary school, a petrol station, a hammer hardware and Four Square. It’s a place that people circle back to, though I’m not sure I ever will…”
8 Kāwai by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)
9 At the Grand Glacier Hotel by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin Random House, $37)
10 Ōkiwi Brown by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press, $37)
A free copy of the author’s ingeniously devised historical novel set in early-settler Wellington was up for grabs in last week’s giveaway contest. Because the protagonist is based on the first European to settle on Wellington’s east coast shoreline, the current site of Days Bay and Eastbourne, readers were asked to share something about this gorgeous stretch of coast – other than the obvious fact that Katherine Mansfield was familiar with it.
There were a great many replies. As follows, some of the best. Libby: “Most of the survivors of the Wahine came ashore on this coastline despite being further away from land than where the boat sank.” Neil: “Sam Neill used to live there and drove a rusty Morris Minor to work and had to roll up his flares so the water wouldn’t splash up through the holey floor and leave his trousers wet for the day.” Mattie: “My father and his third wife lived in Days Bay, in a small house at the edge of a manuka covered hill. You arrived there by a small cable car which started with a jolt and then serenely sailed at regal pace past the houses below. Like Cleopatra up the Nile I always thought. There dad planted 200 daffodils in the bush – a romantic endeavour as most were eaten by possums. It was in Days Bay at one of dad’s parties I heard Denis Glover roar, ‘There used to be Kings in Ireland once! Where are they now? Directing traffic in New York!’”
I was confident that no one would have a better entry than that and I told Mattie so. This was premature. Sorry, Mattie! The winning entry came from a reader whose name I will with-hold. They wrote, “My brother lives in Days Bay. He’s older and has got God in a way that I think he hasn’t actually got God – but a version of it. I think it’s one of those imported from the USA, but we never talk about it. This means that I can love him as the man I grew up with and love more than the whole world. He needs my love and I need his. I live in Dunedin now and when I catch the ferry across the harbour we met in a café for coffee and talk about the past and never mention God.”
Huzzah to that reader whose name I will with-hold; they win a free copy of Ōkiwi Brown by Cristina Sanders (The Cuba Press, $37).
NONFICTION
1 More Salad by Margo Flanagan & Rosa Power (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
Food.
2 Atua Wāhine by Hana Tapiata (HarperCollins, $36.99)
Wellness.
3 View from the Second Row by Samuel Whitelock (HarperCollins, $49.99)
Rugby.
4 Seriously Delicious by Polly Markus (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
Food.
5 Serviceman J by Jamie Pennell (HarperCollins, $39.99)
Killing.
6 Make It Make Sense by Bel Hawkins & Lucy Blakiston (Hachette, $36.99)
Self-helper.
7 Well Woman: A Prescription for Optimal Health and Wellness by Frances Pitsilis (Upstart Press, $39.99)
Wellness.
8 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
WW2.
9 Ngā Hapa Reo: Common Māori Language Errors by Hona Black & TeAorangi Murphy-Fell (Oratia Books, $39.99)
Te reo.
10 Sam the Trap Man by Sam Gibson (Allen & Unwin, $45)
Food.