Big winners at the New Zealand Post Book Awards

Last night was a big booky shindig – the New Zealand Post Book Awards. I stayed up past my bedtime following the  #nzpba hashtags on Twitter last night – and there is still action on it this morning as people discuss the winners.

Take a gander at the 2013 winners and get them out of your local library – top notch reads one and all:

New Zealand Post Book of the year and Fiction winner

The big music Kirsty Gunn (Faber & Faber)

Māori Language Award

Dame Katerina Te Heikōkō Mataira for Ngā Waituhi o Rēhua (Huia Publishers)

People’s Choice Award

• Patched: The History of Gangs in New Zealand Jarrod Gilbert (Auckland University Press) Winner
• Annabel Langbein the Free Range Cook: Simple Pleasures Annabel Langbein (Annabel Langbein)
• Treats from Little and Friday Kim Evans (Penguin NZ)

Fiction

• The big music Kirsty Gunn (Faber & Faber) Winner
• In the absence of heroes Anthony McCarten (Random House)
• The Forrests Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury)
• The intentions book Gigi Fenster (Victoria University Press)

Poetry

• The darling North Anne Kennedy (Auckland University Press) Winner
• A man runs into a woman Sarah Jane Barnett (Hue & Cry Press)
• Snow White’s coffin Kate Camp (Victoria University Press)
• The lifeguard: poems 2008-2013 Ian Wedde (Auckland University Press)

Illustrated non-fiction

• Pat Hanly Gregory O’Brien & Gil Hanly (Ron Sang Publications) Winner
• His own steam: the work of Barry Brickell David Craig and Gregory O’Brien, with new photographs by Haruhiko Sameshima (Auckland University Press)
• Selling the dream: the art of early New Zealand tourism Peter Alsop, Gary Stewart & Dave Bamford (Craig Potton Publishing)
• Stag Spooner: wild man from the bush Chris Maclean (Craig Potton Publishing)

Nielsen Booksellers Choice

Shelter from the Storm: The story of New Zealand’s backcountry huts Shaun Barnett, Rob Brown and Geoff Spearpoint (Craig Potton Publishing)

General non-fiction

• Civilisation: twenty places on the edge of the world Steve Braunias (Awa Press) Winner
• Patched: the history of gangs in New Zealand Jarrod Gilbert (Auckland University Press)
• The meeting place: Māori and Pākehā encounters, 1642-1840 Vincent O’Malley (Auckland University Press)
• The search for Anne Perry Joanne Drayton (HarperCollins)

New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards

NZSA Hubert Church Award for Fiction: I got his blood on me Lawrence Patchett (Victoria University Press)

NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry: Graft Helen Heath (Victoria University Press)

NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction: Moa: the life and death of New Zealand’s legendary bird Quinn Berentson (Craig Potton Publishing)