Royal Society Te Apārangi General Non-Fiction Award 2018 longlist announced

Books traversing the cultural, historic, artistic and social landscape of Aotearoa New Zealand have made the longlist for the prestigious Ockham New Zealand Book Awards  for 2018.

Ten books are longlisted in each of the four awards’ categories – fiction, general non-fiction, illustrated non-fiction and poetry. Together, they offer riches from both New Zealand's literary luminaries and rising stars.

The books that are in the running for the Royal Society Te Apārangi Award for General Non-Fiction are:

• Dancing with the King: The Rise and Fall of the King Country, 1864-1885 by Michael Belgrave (Auckland University Press)
• Tāngata Ngāi Tahu / People of Ngai Tahu edited by Helen Brown and Takerei Norton (Te Rūnanga Ngāi Tahu and Bridget Williams Books)
• Fearless: The Extraordinary Untold Story of New Zealand’s Great War Airmen by Adam Claasen (Massey University Press)
• Phoney Wars: New Zealand Society in the Second World War by Stevan Eldred-Grigg (Otago University Press)
• The 9th Floor: Conversations with Five New Zealand Prime Ministers by Guyon Espiner and Tim Watkin (Bridget Williams Books)
• Cleansing the Colony: Transporting Convicts from New Zealand to Van Diemen’s Land by Kristyn Harman (Otago University Press)
• Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across Worlds by Anne Salmond (Auckland University Press)
• Drawn Out by Tom Scott (Allen & Unwin NZ)
• Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search for a Lost Father by Diana Wichtel (Awa Press)
• A Strange Beautiful Excitement: Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington by Redmer Yska (Otago University Press)

Judges in this category are Ella Henry, a lecturer in AUT’s Māori Faculty, Spinoff editor and award-winning journalist Toby Manhire and former bookseller and publisher, Philip King, and their shortlist of four books will be released on 6 March 2018. Winners shall be revealed at the ceremony for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards on 15 May 2018, the first event of the Auckland Writers Festival. 2018 also marks the 50th anniversary of the first book awards ceremony in New Zealand, presented in 1968 as the Wattie Book Awards. 

View the full 2018 Ockham NZ Book Awards longlisted titles.

These awards are proudly supported by Ockham Residential, Creative New Zealand, The Acorn Foundation, Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd and Royal Society Te Apārangi.

The best in New Zealand books – A special literary offer for Friends and Members of Royal Society Te Apārangi

Just in time for Christmas, Friends and Members can receive a 20% discount (or a 15% discount with free freight) until 20 December on the ten books that have been nominated for Royal Society Te Apārangi’s Award for General Non-Fiction. When you join you will receive information on where and how to claim this offer.

Join Royal Society Te Apārangi as a Friend to help our work in supporting New Zealanders to explore, discover and share knowledge. Friends pay an annual subscription of $30 (rebated to 50% to $15 for those who sign on during the second half of the subscription year), and being a Friend also gives you invitations and early notifications of our events, free or discounted tickets (at least 15% discount), as well as other occasional discounts and special offers.

If you are involved in the knowledge, science, technology or humanities sectors can apply to join us as a Member of Royal Society Te Apārangi to enjoy a range of benefits.