This award is unique in that it recognises the crucial role booksellers play in promoting books. Booksellers were asked to vote for the book they most enjoyed selling this year and this year’s voting saw two books share the top spot. The winners are:
The Conductor by Sarah Quigley, published by Random House New Zealand Ltd
New Zealand’s Native Trees: A Comprehensive Illustrated Encyclopedia by John Dawson and Rob Lucas, published by Craig Potton Publishing The winning titles were up against:
- A Walking Guide to New Zealand’s Long Trail: Te Araroa by Geoff Chapple, published by Random House New Zealand Ltd
* The Broken Book by Fiona Farrell, published by Auckland University Press
- The Parihaka Woman by Witi Ihimaera, published by Random House New Zealand Ltd
Ka Meechan, Managing Director, Asia Pacific for Nielsen Book, presented the awards and cheques for a total of $2,500.00 to the winning authors at the annual Booksellers Conference and Industry Awards evening.
Nielsen BookScan provides the world’s only continuous retail monitoring service for English-language books in the UK, Ireland, US, Australia, South Africa, Italy, Spain, Denmark and New Zealand.
Footnote:
It is a rather cruel twist of fate in my opinion that The Conductor won this award but did not even make the shortlist for the NZ Post Book Awards fiction category. A travesty........ what were those judges thinking?