New Zealand Book Awards Trust · award year

Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2009

The 2009 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards went to The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton (Best First Book: Fiction), Mates & Lovers: A Gay History of New Zealand by Chris Brickell (Best First Book: Non-Fiction) and Everything Talks by Sam Sampson (Best First Book: Poetry), with winners in 8 more categories. 2 books were Honor Books and 33 books were finalists across 11 categories.

Winners

Best First Book: Fiction

  1. The Rehearsalsource (opens in a new tab)

Best First Book: Non-Fiction

  1. Mates & Lovers: A Gay History of New Zealandsource (opens in a new tab)

Best First Book: Poetry

  1. Everything Talkssource (opens in a new tab)

Biography

  1. Rita Angus: An Artist's Lifesource (opens in a new tab)

Environment

  1. A Continent on the Move: New Zealand Geoscience into the 21st Centurysource (opens in a new tab)

Fiction

  1. Novel About My Wifesource (opens in a new tab)

History

  1. Buying the Land, Selling the Landsource (opens in a new tab)

Illustrated Non-Fiction

  1. Len Castle: Making the Molecules Dancesource (opens in a new tab)

Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture

  1. Ladies, A Plate: Traditional Home Bakingsource (opens in a new tab)

Poetry

  1. The Rocky Shoresource (opens in a new tab)

Reference & Anthology

  1. Collected Poems 1951-2006source (opens in a new tab)

Honor Books

Fiction

  1. Acid Songsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The 10PM Questionsource (opens in a new tab)

Finalists

Best First Book: Fiction

  1. Misconductsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Year of the Shanghai Sharksource (opens in a new tab)

Best First Book: Non-Fiction

  1. First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cookingsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Nga Tama Toa: The Price of Citizenship, C Company 28 (Maori) Battalion 1939-1945source (opens in a new tab)

Best First Book: Poetry

  1. The Propaganda Poster Girlsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The World's Fastest Flowersource (opens in a new tab)

Biography

  1. Heaphysource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Love School: Personal Essayssource (opens in a new tab)

Environment

  1. Albatross: Their World, Their Wayssource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Into the Wider World: A Back Country Miscellanysource (opens in a new tab)

Fiction

  1. The Crocus Hoursource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Rehearsalsource (opens in a new tab)

History

  1. First Catch Your Weka: A Story of New Zealand Cookingsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Mates & Lovers: A Gay History of New Zealandsource (opens in a new tab)

Illustrated Non-Fiction

  1. Certain Words Drawnsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. Peter Peryer: Photographersource (opens in a new tab)

Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture

  1. Art Icons of New Zealand: Lines in the Sandsource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Pavlova Story: A Slice of New Zealand's Culinary Historysource (opens in a new tab)

Poetry

  1. Get Somesource (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Lakes of Marssource (opens in a new tab)

Reference & Anthology

  1. The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, Volume 5: 1922source (opens in a new tab)
  2. The Painted Garden in New Zealand Artsource (opens in a new tab)

About the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards

The New Zealand Book Awards ran as the Montana New Zealand Book Awards (2006-2009), the New Zealand Post Book Awards (2010-2014) and the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards (2016-2025). No awards were held in 2015. Year is the ceremony year. Winners and finalists for 2006-2014 come from Christchurch City Libraries award pages (fallback; the official site lists winners only for those years). 2016-2017 longlists and finalists come from the official longlist and finalist news releases, and winners from the official past-winners page. 2018-2025 come from the official per-year winners, shortlist and longlist pages. Categories keep stable names across sponsor renames: the Acorn and Jann Medlicott Acorn prizes are Fiction, the Mary and Peter Biggs Award is Poetry, the Royal Society and later General Non-Fiction Award is General Non-Fiction, and the Booksellers and BookHub awards are Illustrated Non-Fiction. The Montana-era Illustrative category is mapped to Illustrated Non-Fiction. Its other non-fiction categories (Biography, History, Environment, Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture, Reference & Anthology) stay as their own categories. From 2010 non-fiction was split into General and Illustrated. Best first book awards are their own categories: Hubert Church (Best First Book: Fiction), Jessie Mackay (Best First Book: Poetry), E.H. McCormick (Best First Book: Non-Fiction until 2014, then Best First Book: General Non-Fiction) and Judith Binney (Best First Book: Illustrated Non-Fiction, from 2016). Ockham best first book awards are drawn from the longlist and have no published shortlist, so only winners appear. Levels: Winner; Honor for the Montana fiction runners-up; Finalist for shortlisted books; Longlist for longlisted books not shortlisted (Ockham only). Excluded: the Montana Medals and Book of the Year (they duplicate a category winner), People's and Readers' Choice and Booksellers' Choice (public or trade votes), the Maori Language Award, the reviewer awards, and the separate children's and young adult awards, which are a different program. Iwi affiliations in brackets are dropped from author names. Title spellings follow the books where the source has typos.

Organization: New Zealand Book Awards Trust. Years are award years, which can differ from publication years. Official site (opens in a new tab)

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