Ockham Book Awards Longlist

Published on 09 February 2020

Here are the books we have in our collection that have been longlisted for the Ockham Book Awards. If there are books we don't have that are also longlisted, you can fill out a suggest to buy form or an interloan request.   

Acorn Foundation fiction prize

The Absolute Book, Elizabeth Knox
Necessary secrets, Greg McGee
Moonlight Sonata, Eileen Merriman
Pearly gates, Owen Marshall
Attraction, Ruby Porter
A mistake, Carl Shuker
Loving Sylvie, Elizabeth Smither
Halibut on the Moon, David Vann

Also listed: 
Auē by Becky Manawatu
Lonely Asian Woman by Sharon Lam

May and Peter Biggs award for poetry

Craven, Jane Arthur
Moth hour, Anne Kennedy
Lay studies, Steven Toussaint 
Because a woman's heart is like a needle at the bottom of the ocean, Sugar Magnolia Wilson
How I get ready, Ashleigh Young

Also listed:
Listening in, Lynley Edmeades
Back before you know, Murray Edmond
Under glass, Gregory Kan
Ransack, Essa-May Ranapiri
How to live, Helen Rickerby

Illustrated non-fiction award

Crafting Aotearoa : a cultural history of making in New Zealand and the wider Moana Oceania, Karl Chitham
Protest Tautohetohe: Objects of Resistance, Persistence and Defiance, Stephanie Gibson
Funny as: the story of New Zealand comedy, Paul Horan
We are here; an Atlas of Aotearoa, Chris McDowell
The Meaning of Trees: The History and Use of New Zealand’s Native Plants, Robert Vennell

Also listed:
Frances Hodgkins: European journeys, edited by Catherine Hammond and Mary Kisler
The new photography: New Zealand's First-generation contemporary photographers, edited by Athol McCredie
Louise Henderson: from life, edited by Felicity Milburn, Lara Strongman, and Julia Waite
McCahon Country, Justin Paton
Colin McCahon: there is only one direction, Vol.1 1919-1959, Peter Simpson

General non-fiction award

Women mean business : colonial businesswomen in New Zealand, Catherine Bishop
Dead people I have known, Shayne Carter
Dead letters : censorship and subversion in New Zealand, 1914-1920, Jared Davidson
Shirley Smith: an examined life, Sarah Gaitanos
Finding Frances Hodgkins, Mary Kisler
Towards the Mountain: A Story of Grief and Hope Forty Years on from Erebus, Sarah Myles
The New Zealand Wars | Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa, Vincent O'Malley
Fifteen Million years in Antarctica, Rebecca Priestly

Also listed:
Wild honey: reading New Zealand women's poetry, Paula Green
Whale oil: one man's fight to save his reputation, then his life, Margie Thomson