Staff Picks

These reads come highly recommended by the Te Kōputu team...

Updated October 19, 2023
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Still life
Winman, Sarah
Paper Book
From acclaimed author of Tin Man, Sarah Winman, comes a captivating new novel of people brought together across four decades of love, war, art, flood, and the ghost of E. M. Forster. Tuscany, 1944: As Allied troops advance and bombs fall around deserted villages, a young...
A thousand splendid suns
Hosseini, Khaled
Paper Book
Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality...
Instructions for a heatwave
O'Farrell, Maggie
Paper Book
Squeeze me : [a novel]
Hiaasen, Carl
Paper Book
"If you could use some wild escapism right now, Hiaasen is your guy." --Janet Maslin, The New York Times   From the author of Skinny Dip and Razor Girl, a hilarious, New York Times best-selling novel of social and political intrigues, set...

Recommended by Kim

Piranesi
Clarke, Susanna
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction World Fantasy Awards Finalist From the New York Times bestselling author of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an intoxicating, hypnotic new novel set in a...
The trials of Morrigan Crow
Townsend, Jessica
Paper Book
A breathtaking, enchanting new series by debut author Jessica Townsend, about a cursed girl who escapes death and finds herself in a magical world--but is then tested beyond her wildest imagination. Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any...
The overstory
Powers, Richard
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER  An Air Force loadmaster in the Vietnam War is shot out of the sky, then saved by falling into a banyan. An artist inherits a hundred years of photographic portraits, all of the same doomed American chestnut...
Future home of the living god : a novel
Erdrich, Louise
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable Book Louise Erdrich, the New York Times bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of LaRose and The Round House, paints a startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a...
The island of sea women : a novel
See, Lisa
Paper Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "A mesmerizing new historical novel" (O, The Oprah Magazine) from Lisa See, the bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and devastating family secrets on a small Korean island. ...
The name of the wind
Rothfuss, Patrick
Paper Book
Discover #1 New York Times-bestselling Patrick Rothfuss' epic fantasy series, The Kingkiller Chronicle. "I just love the world of Patrick Rothfuss." --Lin-Manuel Miranda   OVER 1 MILLION COPIES SOLD! DAY ONE: THE NAME OF THE WIND ...
The inheritance of loss
Desai, Kiran
Paper Book
Kiran Desai's first novel, Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, was published to unanimous acclaim in over twenty-two countries. Now Desai takes us to the northeastern Himalayas where a rising insurgency challenges the old way of life. In a crumbling, isolated house at the foot of Mount...
A year of marvellous ways
Winman, Sarah
Paper Book
A YEAR OF MARVELLOUS WAYS is the unforgettable and completely captivating new novel from Sarah Winman, author of the international bestseller WHEN GOD WAS A RABBIT. Marvellous Ways is eighty-nine years old and has lived alone in a remote Cornish creek for nearly all her life. Lately...
Across the risen sea
MacDibble, Bren
Paper Book
Across the Risen Sea is an action-packed, compelling and heartfelt middle-fiction adventure, set in a post-climate change landscape, from the multi-award winning author of How to Bee.
A long way home
Brierley, Saroo
Paper Book
At first a media sensation, the story of Saroo Brierley became the #1 international bestseller A Long Way Home. Now it's Lion, the major motion picture starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, and Rooney Mara - nominated for six Academy Awards!At only five years old, Saroo Brierley got lost on a train in...
Lenny's book of everything
Foxlee, Karen
Paper Book
A multi-award-winning book about finding good in the bad that will break your heart while raising your spirits in the way that only a classic novel can.
The Thursday Murder Club
Osman, Richard
Paper Book
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. But when a brutal killing takes place on their very doorstep, the Thursday Murder Club find themselves in the middle of their first live case. Elizabeth, Joyce,...
The cellist of Sarajevo
Galloway, Steven
Paper Book
Tense and heartbreaking to its last page, 'The Cellist of Sarajevo' shows how life under seige creates impossible moral choices. When the everyday act of crossing the street can risk lives, the human spirit is revealed in all its fortitude - and frailty.
Kitchens of the great Midwest
Stradal, J. Ryan
Paper Book
"A sweet and savory treat." --People "An impressive feat of narrative jujitsu. . . that keeps readers turning the pages too fast to realize just how ingenious they are."--The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Pick "Kitchens of the Great Midwest...
The reading list
Adams, Sara Nisha
Paper Book
A new chapter is just beginning... *A finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards for Fiction 2021!* 'The story is an absolute joy . . . A captivating and exquisitely crafted debut' Sunday Times bestseller, Heidi Swain 'A love letter to...
Temeraire
Novik, Naomi.
Paper Book
Naomi Novik's stunning series of novels follow the global adventures of Captain William Laurence and his fighting dragon Temeraire as they are thrown together to fight for Britain during the turbulent time of the Napoleonic Wars. Captain Will Laurence has been at sea since he was just...
This change in the light : a collection of poems
Kidman, Fiona
Paper Book
A superb collection of poetry from one of New Zealand's top writers. Fiona Kidman's exquisite and adroit poetry invites the reader into her life, introducing us to her family, friends and places she has loved. In turn it touches our own experiences, offering universal relevance...
A song for Issy Bradley
Bray, Carys
Paper Book
SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARD 'I cannot remember when a novel has seduced me so completelyait feels as if a trusted old friend is telling you the story, that the characters are people you know' The Times 'A terrific book . . . I loved A...
The devil's bargain
Rimington, Stella
Paper Book
'I wanted more' DAVID GILMANOne lie put the nation at risk. Another might save it.Harry Bristow: policeman, father, chauffeur, fraud.In 1988 Harry made one mistake: he took a bribe, letting a man he knew as Igor into Britain - and he's regretted it ever since. So when he...
Chance developments : unexpected love stories
McCall Smith, Alexander
Paper Book
In this beguiling book, Alexander McCall Smith casts his eye over five chanced-upon photographs from the era of black-and-white photography and imagines the stories behind them. Who were those people, what were their stories, why are they smiling, what made them sad?What emerges are surprising and...
Lessons in chemistry
Garmus, Bonnie
Paper Book
THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER Soon to be an Apple TV series starring Brie Larson 'Sparky, rip-roaring, funny' SUNDAY TIMES 'The most charming, life-enhancing novel I've read in ages' INDIA KNIGHT, Book of the Year 'I...
The axeman's carnival
Chidgey, Catherine
Paper Book
Everywhere, the birds: sparrows and skylarks and thrushes, starlings and bellbirds, fantails and pipits - but above them all and louder, the magpies. We are here and this is our tree and we're staying and it is ours and you need to leave and now. Tama is just a helpless chick when he is rescued by...
The marriage portrait
O'Farrell, Maggie
Paper Book
'I thought I had made myself clear. I want something that conveys her majesty, her bloodline. Do you understand? She is no ordinary mortal. Treat her thus.'Florence, the 1560s. Lucrezia, third daughter of Cosimo de' Medici, is free to wander the palazzo at will, wondering at its...

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