Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Imagine that your mother tells you that she is going away. She is leaving you with relatives whom you have never heard of-and they are members of a strict religious cult. Your name is changed to a biblical one, Esther, and you are forced to follow the severe set of social standards set by the cult. You don't know where you mother is, and you are beginning to lose your own identity.

Bone People, the

by Keri Hulme

"This is not just a novel: it's a boggle-the-mind experience."

Dreamhunter (The Dreamhunter Duet, Book 1)

Dreamhunter (The Dreamhunter Duet, Book 1)

by Elizabeth Knox

Laura comes from a world similar to our own except for one difference: it is next to the Place, an unfathomable land that fosters dreams of every kind and is inaccessible to all but a select few, the Dreamhunters. These are individuals with special gifts: the ability to catch larger-than-life dreams and relay them to audiences in the magnificent dream palace, the Rainbow Opera. People travel from all around to... (more)

A Land of Two Halves: An Accidental Tour of New Zealand

A Land of Two Halves: An Accidental Tour of New Zealand

by Joe Bennett

After 10 years in New Zealand, Joe Bennett asked himself what on earth he was doing there. Other than his dogs, what was it about these two small islands on the edge of the world that had kept him—an otherwise restless traveller—for really much longer than they seemed to deserve? Bennett thought he'd better pack his bag and find out. Hitching around both the intriguingly named North and South Islands, with an eye... (more)

Slipping into Paradise: Why I Live in New Zealand

Slipping into Paradise: Why I Live in New Zealand

by J. Moussaieff Masson

In the tradition of Under the Tuscan Sun and A Year in Provence, here is Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson’s ode to his personal paradise–his adopted home, New Zealand. After living in California, why did Masson settle– out of all the places on earth–in such a faraway land? It turns out that while visiting a beautiful sandy beach just fifteen minutes from bustling Auckland, Masson and his family were utterly seduced... (more)

The Vintner's Luck

by Knox Elizabeth

Bulibasha King of the Gypsies

by Witi Tame Ihimaera

On the East Coast of New Zealand two patriarchs fight to be proclaimed king. Tamihana is the leader of the great Mahana family of shearers and sportsmen. Rupeni Poata is his arch-enemy. They will fight to win the title of Bulibasha and be proclaimed the King of the Gypsies, Caught in the middle of this struggle for power is the grandson of Tamihana and his wife Ramona, the teenage Simeon. 2 cassettes.

Snake and Lizard

by Joy Cowley

From award-winning author Joy Cowley comes an engaging story of two unlikely, but inseparable friends. Snake is elegant, calm and a little self-centered, while Lizard is exuberant and irrepressible. Through a series of small (and not so small) adventures, the two friends bicker, compete with each other, go into business and finally, end up as lifelong friends. There is something the matter with your voice. ... (more)

Genesis

by Bernard Beckett

Set on a remote island in a post-apocalyptic, plague-ridden world, this electrifying novel is destined to become a modern classic. Anax thinks she knows her history. She’d better. She’s now facing three Examiners, and her grueling all-day Examination has just begun. If she passes, she’ll be admitted into the Academy—the elite governing institution of her utopian society. But Anax is about to discover that... (more)

Tomorrow All Will be Beautiful

by Brigid Lowry

Quirky, creative, and tender, this honest, beautiful anthology of stories and poetry by an acclaimed young adult writer is about growing up and leaving home, about feeling wobbly and learning how to be wonderful, about friendships and freedom and flaws. It deals with love, death, coffee, bad-hair days, and everything in-between. For girls who are 13 and lonely, or women who are 30 and sinking, these stories—about... (more)

The Fire-Raiser

by Maurice Gee

Set in New Zealand at the beginning of World War I, this novel depicts four children who band together to find out who has been setting fire to buildings all over town.

Hostel GirlMAURICE GEE

Hostel Girl

by MAURICE GEE

Rights of passage

by Chris Laidlaw

Kokopu Dreams

by Chris Baker

"Before the telly died, haggard-looking people, politicians mostly, described how an illegally imported rabbit calicivirus had mutated. It wasn't killing rabbits any more - and nor was it affecting cats and dogs, and not the native bat nor the little spotted kiwi. But it had been killing people with a type of hemorrhagic fever that had traveled from the Mackenzie Country up and down the land like the wind, from... (more)