The 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Shortlist has been announced. Read them now!

Want to read the titles featured in the Ockham New Zealand Book Award's Shortlist? Click on a title to place a hold on it through our catalogue. The 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards winners will be announced at a public ceremony on 13 May.

Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
All Her Lives by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Hoods Landing by Laura Vincent (Ngāti Māhanga, Ngāpuhi) (Āporo Press)
How to Paint a Nude by Sam Mahon (Ugly Hill Press)
The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press)

Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry
Black Sugarcane by Nafanua Purcell Kersel (Satupa‘itea, Faleālupo, Aleipata, Tuaefu) (Te Herenga Waka University Press)  - Available on Libby
No Good by Sophie van Waardenberg (Auckland University Press)
Sick Power Trip by Erik Kennedy (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
Terrier, Worrier: A Poem in Five Parts by Anna Jackson (Auckland University Press)

BookHub Award for Illustrated Non-Fiction
Garrison World: Redcoat Soldiers in New Zealand and Across the British Empire by Charlotte Macdonald (Bridget Williams Books)
He Puāwai: A Natural History of New Zealand Flowers by Philip Garnock-Jones (Auckland University Press)
Mark Adams: A Survey – He Kohinga Whakaahua by Sarah Farrar (Massey University Press and Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki)
Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street by Elizabeth Cox (Massey University Press)

General Non-Fiction Award
A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin, Penguin Random House)
Northbound: Four Seasons of Solitude on Te Araroa by Naomi Arnold (HarperCollins Aotearoa New Zealand)
The Hollows Boys: A Story of Three Brothers & the Fiordland Deer Recovery Era by Peta Carey (Potton & Burton)
This Compulsion in Us by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) (Te Herenga Waka University Press)