2026 Winter Reading Guide
The Coalition For Books Winter Reading Guide is out, curating the best recent Aotearoa New Zealand fiction, non-fiction, young adult and children’s books.
Since 2022 the Coalition has worked with Aotearoa New Zealand publishers to promote local books each winter.
Coalition For Books Chair, and Managing Director of publishing house Allen and Unwin Aotearoa New Zealand, Melanie Laville-Moore says the Winter Reading Guide is the strongest mid-year collection yet of pukapuka, curated and arranged into a stunning print and digital catalogue.
“Pooling together the collective efforts of our best writers and publishers, the Winter Reading Guide 2026 is a powerful, glorious showcase of the many vibrant literary voices and undeniable talent within Aotearoa,” she says.
The most recent New Zealand Publishing Market Size Report showed a 6.1% increase in domestic publishing revenue from New Zealand content. Collaborative actions such as the Winter Reading Guide are a key part of raising the profile and growth of Aotearoa New Zealand books.
The guide is available to all subscribers of The New Zealand Listener, at many local bookstores, and online -
Win a book stack!
To support the Winter Reading Guide, The Coalition For Books has THREE book stacks to give away. Terms and Conditions and entry form here.
What is inside the guide
When it comes to non-fiction, readers can explore prizewinners, architects and architecture, or the brains of their children (if they dare!).
Memoir continues to be a beloved form – with writers delving into what it is to work in forensics, media, government, entertainment or medicine.
Memoir authors invite readers into stories of survival, life after tragedy, reorientations, the fickleness of memory, calamity, success, and obsession.
Winter can be a time to sit and reflect on what readers want to change when spring arrives, and these non-fiction books help point the way. Whether it’s forcing a reexamination of our country’s economic failings and cultural history, or looking again at horrors modern or historic, books on this list lead the way.
From landmark celebrations of local poetry, bestsellers, famous authors, and cozy bookshop mysteries, the Winter Reading Guide has all the fiction and poetry readers will want to snuggle up with this winter.
Readers can escape into fantasy with an epic romantasy, take it back to school with dark academia, or keep it local with a stalking taniwha.
From the coziest couch, they can go back in history to colonial times, or forward into end days.
New Zealand authors do crime and thrillers so well, whether its lost children, unlikely detectives, or small towns where everyone is a suspect.
If it feels cold, warm up by plunging into icy landscapes or dipping into the stories found in our longest-running literary journal.
Language lovers can seek out poetry about the natural world, identity, or a curation of a beloved poet’s oeuvre.
The Winter Reading Guide also has reading covered for tamariki and rangatahi covered, from fantastical adventures to historical heroines.
For the very youngest readers, Hairy Maclary is back with a brand-new lift-the-flap board book!
There are beautiful new picture books showcasing the rich coastal wildlife of Aotearoa New Zealand, introducing birds with fun rhymes, and touching on the life of world-renowned Tongan New Zealander, Jonah Lomu. Picture book readers can travel through time to discover space and baking (you read that right!), travel through dreams, and travel in the myths of Matariki.
Graphic novel readers will love the latest adventures of Detective Beans, and Miles and Jones; both series have just released book three.
Chapter books come in different shapes and sizes, and primary-aged readers will love a pacy, thrilling new dragon series, while older readers move on to fictional accounts of New Zealand history, surfing dramas, or an atmosphere folk horror fantasy.
We also have younger non-fiction readers covered, with stories from deaf and disabled New Zealanders, riders and the horses they love, and an ex-Prime Minister.