This week’s bestselling books – November 29

NONFICTION
1 Tasty by Chelsea Winter (Allen & Unwin, $55)
Food.
2 More Salad by Margo Flanagan & Rosa Power (Allen & Unwin, $49.99)
More food.
3 This is the F#$%ing News by Patrick Gower (Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
Media.
4 View from the Second Row by Samuel Whitelock (HarperCollins, $49.99)
Sport.
5 All Out by Neil Wagner (Penguin Random House, $40)
More sport.
6 Atua Wāhine by Hana Tapiata (HarperCollins, $36.99)
Wisdom.
7Wild Walks Aotearoa by Hannah-Rose Watt (Penguin Random House, $50)
Walking.
8 Woolsheds by Jane Ussher & Annette O’Sullivan (Massey University Press, $85)
Farming.
9The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson(Allen & Unwin, $37.99)
Spying.
10 Kai Feast by Christall Lowe (David Bateman, $59.99)
A free copy of the best cookbook of the year is up for grabs in this week’s giveaway contest. Entry conditions are at the end of this commentary. Lowe’s first book, Kai, was a thing of wonder; her sequel is more wondrous, with recipes for plates such as  oven-cooked hāngī, paua fritters with kina salsa, honey-roasted yams with feta whip – and the wonder of kūmara ginger crunch cheesecake. “Move over pumpkin pie,” she writes, “kūmara pie is in the whare.” It serves 8-10.
For the crust:500g (2 packets) Gingernut biscuits200g butter, melted
For the filling:2 medium orange kūmara (450g), to yield 2 cups cooked, mashed kūmara250g cream cheese, softened¾ cup plain Greek yoghurt¼ cup icing sugar1 tbsp orange zest2 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice
For the ginger caramel:75g butter1 cup brown sugar3 tbsp golden syrup½ cup cream½ tsp salt1–2 tsp ground ginger
Lowe writes, “Peel and cube the kūmara and boil in a saucepan with water until tender. Drain off the water, mash with a masher, transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool. It’s important that the kūmara is not hot when making the cheesecake.
“Prepare a 22–24cm springform pan by greasing the sides and lining the base with non- stick baking paper.
“To make the crust, working a third at a time, crush the Gingernut biscuits until they resemble fine crumbs, in a food processor, blender or Nutribullet.
“Put crushed Gingernuts into a bowl, pour over the melted butter, and mix until combined. Use your fingers to press the crumb mixture firmly and evenly into the base and sides of the prepared pan, then smooth and compact it with the back of a spoon.
“In a large mixing bowl, using an electric beater, beat together all the filling ingredients until combined and smooth. Spread the filling evenly into the crumb base.
“To make the ginger caramel, place all the ingredients into a small saucepan over a medium heat. Bring to a simmer and cook for 2–3 minutes until thick and syrupy.”
Yum. So, to enter the draw to win a  copy of Kai Feast, share a recipe for kūmara, and email it to [email protected] with the subject line in screaming caps SWEET INSPIRATION, SWEET TREAT, SWEET POTATO, by Sunday at midnight, November 31.
FICTION
1 The Songbirds of Florence by Olivia Spooner (Hachette, $37.99)
2 Tree of Nourishment (Kāwai 2) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)
3 Kataraina by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $37)
4 The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone by Gareth Ward & Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38)
5 Kāwai: For Such a Time as This (Kāwai 1) by Monty Soutar (David Bateman, $39.99)
6 Marry Me in Italy by Nicky Pellegrino (Hachette, $37.99)
7 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
The author gave a typically insightful and generous speech recently to launch one of only two novels in the same league as his own latest book, which I really hope will make the Ockham fiction prize shortlist next year alongside All That We Know by Shilo Kino and the book that Damien launched, The Royal Free by Carl Shuker. A free copy of Shuker’s novel was up for grabs in last week’s free book giveaway. Readers were asked to share their favourite sentence of all the time. It was an extremely popular contest. Angela chose something I wrote; Neil chose something Diana Wichtel wrote; other New Zealand authors so graced were Catherine Chidgey and the inevitable one about chooks by Ronald Hugh Morrieson.
Toni chose this typically fruity line from Michael Ondaatje: “At night, returning from work, Anil would slip out of her sandals and stand in the shallow water, her toes among the white petals, her arms folded as she undressed the day, removing layers of events and incidents so they would no longer be within her.” 
Debby chose a scarcely less fruity line from Arundhati Roy: “Dissolute bluebottles hum vacuously in the fruity air; they stun themselves against clear windowpanes and die, fatly baffled in the sun.”
Mik in Hamama kept it real, with a line by William Burroughs: “Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.”
There were many, many others, but the winner is Juliette, who seized on this flash of not atypical genius from the Bard of Otago, Brian Turner: “I took my rod and my heart to the river side and cast and cast while the water ran purple and gold in the quickening dusk, and the sedges fleeing the river were like ash at my face and throat and all the world seemed to be timeless.”
Huzzah to Juliette; she wins a copy of The Royal Free by Carl Shuker.
8 New Stories by Owen Marshall (Penguin Random House, $38)
Anyone who read one of the stories in his new collection, “Freefall”, excerpted in ReadingRoom last week, will know that The Man From Timaru is still writing at his best.
9 Pātea Boys by Airana Ngarewa (Hachette, $36.99)
10 All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Hachette, $37.99)
One of the best novels of 2024; only The Royal Free by Carl Shuker and Delirious by Damien Wilkins are in the same league.