The Women's Bookshop's Faves & Raves of 2010

The Women's Bookshop in Auckland has chosen their top books for 2010. They are:

Room by Emma Donoghue. Psychologically brilliant! Mother and quirky five-year-old son survive captivity.

Lola by Elizabeth Smither. Delightful older woman enjoying freedom after life as a funeral director's wife.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. Delicious, hilarious celebration of being gay.

Lark & Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips. Stunning exploration of family, with deeply caring sister-brother bond.

The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam. Sophisticated, witty; Betty's view of life with 'Old Filth.'

Dark Matter by Michele Paver. Spellbinding! Jack faces up to himself and a malevolent presence in a dark Arctic winter.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson. Laugh-out-loud, delicious mid-life cross-cultural relationship.

The Hut Builder by Laurence Fearnley.Gentle, evocative Souht Island novel about a butcher/poet.

Still Alice by LIsa Genova. Moving, unsentimental novel about early onset Alzheimers.

Great House by Nicole Krauss. Old desk links 'confessional' stories of disappearnace and loss. Beautiful.

The Magnetic North by Sara Wheeler. Fascinating historical and geographical account of the Artic and its people.

Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay. Brililant, honest autobio of a Nigerian/Scottish, adopted, lesbian poet.

Lives like Loaded Guns by Lyndall Gordon. Stunning expose of the real poet - not a wilting violet at all!

Grace Williams Says It Loud by Emma Henderson. Funny, exhilarating novel about disability.

99 Ways into NZ Poetry by Paula Green and Harry Ricketts. How to read, writer and appreciate poetry; rich and inspiring.

Kakapo by Alison Ballance. Charming,m superb photos, about the humans as much as the quirky birds.

The Dress Circle by Lucy Hammonds, Douglas Lloyd Jenkins and Claire Regnault. Personalities, passion, devine designs, gorgeous production.

Still Life by Jane Ussher. Breathtaking, haunting photos inside the Antarctic huts of Scott and Shackleton.

The Women's Bookshop website also carried their FIFTY-FIFTY WOMEN list – the top fifty books of the last fifty years written by women, selected by thousands of New Zealand readers nationwide.