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.
The Beat of the Pendulum by Chidgey Catherine
$35.00 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: near fine
From the author of the acclaimed The Wish Child comes something unexpected and fearless: a found novel. The Beat of the Pendulum is the result of one year in which Chidgey drew upon the language she encountered on a daily basis, such as news stories, radio broadcasts, emails, social media, street signs, ...Show more
The Cage by Lloyd Jones
$37.00 NZD
Category: Fiction
Two mysterious strangers appear at a hotel in a small country town. Where have they come from? Who are they? What catastrophe are they fleeing? The townspeople want answers, but the strangers are unable to speak of their trauma. And before long, wary hospitality shifts to suspicion and fear, and the car ...Show more
The Earth Cries Out by Bonnie Etherington
$38.00 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: very good
Fresh, different and exquisitely written, this is an exciting debut novel. One day we were in a dream world, where Julia was dead and the space where she once was became large and silent, and then we were in another country altogether - where stories and voices made their way into our house any way they ...Show more
The Face of Nature: An Environmental History of the Otago Peninsula by Jonathan West
$49.95 NZD
Category: Illustrated Non-Fiction
Bounded by the wild waves of the Pacific on the east, and the more sheltered harbour on the west, the Otago Peninsula is a remarkable landscape. Today a habitat for a diverse array of wildlife including albatrosses, penguins and seals, the Peninsula has undergone dramatic changes since it first attracte ...Show more
The Farewell Tourist by Alison Glenny
$27.50 NZD
Category: Poetry
Pushing against the boundaries of what poetry might be, Alison Glennys The Farewell Tourist is haunting, many-layered and slightly surreal. In 'The Magnetic Process' sequence a man and a woman inhabit a polar world, adrift in zones of divergence, where dreams are filled with snow, icebergs, and sinking ...Show more
The Heart of Jesus Valentino by Emma Gilkison
$40.00 NZD
Category: Non-Fiction | Reading Level: near fine
During a routine 12-week scan, Emma Gilkison thinks it looks as though her unborn baby has a marble rolling on his chest. In fact, it is his heart growing outside his body - an extremely rare and fatal condition called ectopia cordis. Emma and her partner Roy now face two heartbreaking options. Should t ...Show more
The Ice Shelf by Anne Kennedy
$30.00 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: near fine
The Ice Shelf - an eco-comedy. On the eve of flying to Antarctica to take up an arts fellowship, thirty-something Janice, recently separated, has a long night of remembrance, regret and realisation as she goes about the city looking for a friend to take care of her fridge while she's away. En route she ...Show more
The Imaginary Lives of James Poneke by Tina Makereti
$38.00 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: near fine
While exhibited as a curiosity, a Maori boy turns his gaze on Victorian London. 'The hour is late. The candle is low. Tomorrow I will see whether it is my friends or a ship homewards I meet. But first I must finish my story for you. My future, my descendant, my mokopuna. Listen.?So begins the tale of Ja ...Show more
The Internet of Things by Kate Camp
$25.00 NZD
Category: Poetry | Reading Level: near fine
Kate Camp's new book begins in John Lennon's childhood kitchen, and ends at the prow of ship, surveying what has been and what is yet to come. The internet of things speaks to loss and hope, and to the stories we weave into the things around us. Kate Camp's sharp eye for detail and refusal to avoid life ...Show more
The Life of De'Ath by Majella Cullinane
$31.50 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: very good
In this accomplished first novel, the elusive narrator - no less than Mephistopheles - recounts Theodore De'Ath's life before and during the Great War. Traumatised by a family tragedy, Theodore immerses himself the Inferno, Paradise Lost and Faust and is captivated by the Underworld. The story, which be ...Show more
The Man Who Would Not See by Rajorshi Chakraborti
$38.00 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: very good
When family suddenly becomes your greatest challenge, mystery, rediscovery. As children in Calcutta, Ashim and Abhay made a small mistake that split their family forever. Thirty years later, Ashim has re-entered his brother's life, with blame and retribution on his mind. It seems nothing short of smashi ...Show more
The New Animals by Pip Adam
$30.00 NZD
Category: Fiction | Reading Level: Near Fine
Carla, Sharon and Duey have worked in fashion for longer than they care to remember. For them, there's nothing new under the sun. They're Generation X: tired, cynical and sick of being used. Tommy, Cal and Kurt are millennials. They've come from nowhere, but with their monied families behind them they'r ...Show more