Welcome to our 25:25:25 list, where we asked 25 of Aotearoa’s authors of books published in 2025 a truly difficult question: What is your favourite New Zealand book from the last 25 years?

How would you name only one? Read on to see what these 25 magnificent authors have to say, and find epic recommendations (including the authors' own 2025 titles!) to pick up from your local bookshop.

Catherine Chidgey, author of The Book of Guilt (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

I've chosen You Probably Think This Song Is About You by Kate Camp. This memoir is so sharp and self-revealing that it feels like a conversation with the bravest friend you know. Camp writes with a rare combination of wit, emotional precision and vulnerability, turning the messy business of being human into something luminous and unforgettable.

Fiona Kidman, author of The Midnight Plane: Selected and New Poems (Otago University Press)

Fiona Farrell has written the novel that goes on lingering and talking to me years after I first read it, The Deck. A group of friends gather post-Covid to shelter from another oncoming pandemic. At first there is the novelty of friends drawing together and living with one another in a remote place, as in a great adventure. In the manner of Giovanni Boccaccio’s 14th Century epic, The Decameron, whose concept of storytelling Farrell has adopted, the friends regale each other with reminiscences about their lives. Gradually, the narratives turn to the past and startling revelations emerge. The layers of friendship peel back,  and the nature of what it is to be a citizen of Aotearoa New Zealand in the 21st century becomes apparent. Mysteries abound, and the story is a gripping and at times alarming page-turner. This is a deeply intelligent, beautiful novel. Scarily, I could be any of a number of characters in the book. Is it the best book of the past 25 years? It is for me.

Gavin Bishop, author of Taniwha (Penguin Books)

I could include dozens of books under this heading but I have chosen one that means an enormous amount to me. Mister Whistler was one of the last books that Margaret Mahy wrote and I had the honour of illustrating it. By the time I accepted the job to illustrate this wonderfully quirky story, Margaret was already very unwell. We didn’t spend much time talking about how this book should look. I visited her once to discuss the roughs for the pictures and I also managed to show Margaret the original illustrations before the book was sent to be printed. She died before the book was published.

Olivia Spooner, author of The American Boys (Moa Press)

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton gets my vote - a book that challenges and provokes, with an ending that leaves the reader reeling!

Mike McRoberts, author of Speaking My Language Te Kōrero i Tōku Reo (HarperCollins)

Auē by Becky Manawatu is a remarkable novel because it carries both the rawness of real hurt and the deep humanity of whānau, whenua and connection. Becky writes with a truth and tenderness that show how even the most fractured lives can hold immense strength, making Auē a story that stays with you long after the last page.

As I was writing my own book about reconnection and healing, I found myself drawn to the honesty in Auē; it reminds us that storytelling can be a bridge back to who we are.

Paula Green, author of The Venetian Blind Poems (The Cuba Press)

For over a decade, Poetry Shelf has celebrated extraordinary books published in Aotearoa New Zealand, usually poetry but sometimes fiction, non-fiction or cookbooks. I select one title here, with the proviso there are equally brilliant examples on my poetry shelves. I offer Stacey Teague’s Plastic, a poetry collection that is threaded with aroha and human connections, whanau and place. Stacey reaches out to her ancestors, to te ao Māori. Some poems take the form of spells, offering little epiphanies that boost my own desire for courage and self-recognition. This prismatic collection offers space for deep reflection, a reading experience that underlines the wide-reaching power of words.

Tina Makereti, author of This Compulsion in Us (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Big Fat Brown Bitch by Tusiata Avia. I could have chosen any of Tusiata's books, but in thinking about the riches in them all, this one kept pushing to the front of the line. I'm a sucker for fury that eviscerates the insanity of the current moment, which has been displayed so horrifically by the bullying minor politicians who currently govern Aotearoa. I'm an even bigger sucker for poems that do all this while making me laugh out loud. As Ali Cobby Eckermann says: 'Sit in your blood-splattered apron and feel as the verdict is read.'

Deborah Challinor, author of Black Silk and Buried Secrets (HarperCollins)

My favourite book is Claire Regnault’s Dressed: fashionable dress in Aotearoa New Zealand 1840 to 1910, (Te Papa Press, 2021). It’s a beautifully produced, meticulously researched, and gorgeously illustrated book that lifts a veil on how 19th and early-20th century New Zealanders chose to present themselves. It’s not just about frocks, it’s about our social and cultural history. For me, as a writer and a historian, Claire Regnault’s book is an absolute jewel of a resource.

Erik Kennedy, author of Sick Power Trip (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Hera Lindsay Bird by Hera Lindsay Bird. Well, it's the book that changed everything in New Zealand poetry. Does it hold up nine years on? Yes, it mostly still feels as fresh and crunchy as a nice ciabatta. Has it inspired more writers to use pictures of themselves on their book covers? Yes, a few, but still not enough of us.

Amy Harrop, author of Goat on a Tractor (Bateman Books)

My favourite book from Aotearoa in the last 25 years would have to be Dazzlehands by Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan. It never fails to make me laugh! The humour, the dialogue, and the illustrations make it the perfect read aloud - which, working in a school, I do quite often. I always have it in my bag when teaching. I love the very Kiwi way of speaking, the rhymes, and each time I read it I am amazed at how Josh Morgan creates illustrations that seem to sparkle and pop off the page! You cannot help but put on a performance when you read Dazzlehands! It's my go-to story for a good time.

Rachel Paris, author of See How They Fall (Moa Press)

After spending far too long deliberating because there are so many possible choices, my favourite NZ books of the past 25 years are a tie between Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason and The Axeman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey. I’m sorry but I can’t choose.
Why Sorrow and Bliss? It is incredibly funny (I particularly love the character of Ingrid), thoughtful, wise and heart-breaking with zero pretension. 
Why the Axeman’s Carnival? It is such an original, daring and absorbing novel, expertly executed.

Lucy O’Hagan, author of Everything But the Medicine (Massey University Press)

My choice is Collaborative and Indigenous Mental Health Therapy: Tataihono - Stories of Māori Healing & Psychiatry, by Wiremu NiaNia, Allister Bush, and David Epston. This pukapuka is the result of an extraordinary collaboration between a tohunga, a psychiatrist and the rangitahi they care for at an adolescent mental health service in Porirua. Each chapter tells the story of the young person in their words, then their story through the eyes of the psychiatrist and tohunga. It is astounding. Mauri ora!

Josie Shapiro, author of Good Things Come and Go (Allen & Unwin)

I have plenty of favourite New Zealand books published in the last 25 years: The Luminaries, Remote Sympathy, Kurangaituku, Greta & Valdin, but if I were pressed to pick just one, it would be The Big Music by Kirsty Gunn. This wondrous and complex novel was the winner of the New Zealand Post Book of the Year award; it's a book that agitates against the boundaries of how a novel can be put together and rewards close reading. Gunn employs repetition, momentum, and symmetry in the text that perfectly echoes the musical interests of the characters, the Pipers of Grey House.

Vasanti Unka, author of Pukapuka (Auckland Libraries)

I’m a fan of all of Tusiata Avia’s poetry and I rate her books equally but Big Fat Brown Bitch is so powerfully relevant to now. Avia's work is brave, defiant and searing. She burns through issues such as, racism, colonialism, iniquity, and annihilates her haters (the ones that were offended by her previous work). Her poems are unflinchingly political, cultural and soul-touching. There is triumph as she calls power to her womanhood: ‘Admire my big fat brown body, bitches! Admire it!’ Who can help but admire?

Ali Mau, author of No Words for This (HarperCollins)

I loved Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood. Her third novel is perhaps not as well-known as The Luminaries, but I was absolutely swept up in the lives of the titular guerrilla gardening group. She writes the complex nuances of friendships and relationships so incredibly well, you almost don’t notice the (potentially) apocalyptic menace creeping up right alongside. Loved every word of this one, especially the denouement, which was so satisfying and yet left me wanting more.

Jennifer Trevelyan, author of A Beautiful Family (Allen & Unwin)

Ash by Louise Wallace. If I was going to write a novel about a woman bogged down by the competing demands of motherhood, marriage, and work - and believe me, I’ve tried - this is how I would want it to be. Slender, precise, savage and lithe. Wallace, a poet, doesn’t waste a word in this jewel of a book I can’t wait to re-read.

Sonya Wilson, author of The Secret Green (Allen & Unwin)

The ACB With Honora Lee by Kate De Goldi. I’m a huge fan of Kate De Goldi’s - both of her writing, and because of all that she does for NZ children’s literature, particularly in her current role as NZ's Reading Ambassador, Te Awhi Rito. The ACB is a brilliant book about family and friendships in all their complexities. The main character, 9-year-old Perry, is a delight. As are the rest of the cast of characters who orbit her, including her nan, the wonderful Honoroa Lee, who has dementia, and is, like Perry, (as Perry’s mother tells her) 'unconventional - different from everyone else.'  It is a book that readers of any age will love - from 9-year-olds to 90-year-olds. I have a beautiful hardcover edition with colour illustrations by Gregory O’Brien, and I adore it.

Duncan Sarkies, author of Star Gazers (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

I always loved Jo Randerson's debut collection of short stories, The Spit Children. The feelings in it lingered with me long after I read it. I am away from my home town and therefore separated from my book collection at the moment but the story that won't leave me is one where children are waiting at school for their parents to arrive. They wait, and they wait, and they wait, and their anxieties grow, and lingering questions grow, and the faith that they will show up wavers; the whole experience of reading it is primal and unsettling. Jo is always happy to jolt her readers; I really crave that in fiction. A unique and gifted voice.

Zoe Rankin, author of The Vanishing Place (Moa Press)

Becky Manawatu's Auē. This story lived in my heart and stomach - an all-consuming ache. Becky Manawatu has a way of painting moments that are both full of sorrow and hope - light and dark. She tells this dark and harrowing story with the heart and tenderness that a parent might recite a bedtime fairytale. 

Nafanua Purcell Kersel, author of Black Sugarcane (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English, edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan. A well curated anthology is like poetry, where choices and constraints can open a portal of endless and interesting potential. This book, and its predecessor Whetu Moana houses more contemporary Pasifika poetry than any I had ever come across before. It was instrumental in teaching me that our poetry belongs in many different ways, to the universe.

Tracy Farr, author of Wonderland (The Cuba Press)

I could name a novel – Fiona Kidman’s This Mortal Boy, Anna Smaill’s The Chimes, Kirsty Gunn’s The Big Music, Emily Perkins’ The Forrests and Stephen Daisley’s Coming Rain all rightly jostle for pole position. But instead, a book I carry close to my heart as a touchstone text, a tetherer to and teaser of ideas, is Shining Land: Looking for Robin Hyde by Paula Morris (text) and Haru Sameshima (photographs). Morris and Sameshima travel Aotearoa, ‘set[ting] off for some of the small places Hyde lived’, making a sense of Hyde’s writing life through connections with place, ‘hoping to sense the past […]. The ghost we seek is Robin Hyde.’ There’s richness and density and open-endedness to the writing, the images and the ideas. This book is a thing of aching beauty.

Kiri Lightfoot, author of Bear and Te Ngahere i te Pō / The forest at night (Allen & Unwin)

I devoured The 10 PM Question by Kate De Goldi. It reaffirmed my love of reading books for young people (even as a not-so-young person anymore). De Goldi explores anxiety with honesty and tenderness. Frankie Parsons is a character I adore, with a distinctive and relatable voice, and he’s surrounded by a cast of characters who feel just as vivid.

Lisette Reymer, author of No, I Don’t Get Danger Money (Allen & Unwin)

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton is treasure on my bookshelf. I’m a sucker for a thriller and Catton has created a story that is as gripping as it is thought-provoking. I don’t often re-read books but this one is the exception.

Louise Ward, author of The Bookshop Detectives: Tea and Cake and Death (Allen & Unwin)

1985 by Dominic Hoey is a novel in which every sentence is crafted with an ear for its music. The plot is thrillingly paced, comedy and tragedy live beside one another and each character walks off the page straight into your mind and heart. Every home should have a copy.

Gareth Ward, author of The Bookshop Detectives: Tea and Cake and Death (Allen & Unwin)

Ōkiwi Brown by Cristina Sanders. It's an intriguing premise that Ōkiwi could have been the infamous serial killer Hare from the 1828 'anatomy murders' in Edinburgh, however, I really fell in love with this book because of two of the more minor characters, Paddy and Jim, who I adored.

Check out these authors' 2025 books in most good bookstores around the motu.