Stories


Find our posters at bus stops around Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland, scan the QR code and discover unmissable stories for your ride. Or take it home!

  • Read extracts to get hooked on your next read,
  • Have a quick look at book blurbs and reviews made by people who know a lot more than us and see what is there for you (or is it a birthday gift for somebody special),
  • Listen to interviews and podcasts
  • Watch book trailers
  • Listen to radio adaptations
  • Find collections and catalogues

Special thanks to our special partner for making Stories the Go a reality!

We are proud members of The Coalition for Books

The Coalition for Books is a kaitiaki (guardian) of Aotearoa New Zealand’s literary landscape overseeing wider engagement and access for readers with the diverse range of high quality locally produced books.

Stories for Extract
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We love how Catalonia celebrates books each 23 April. On the day of Sant Jordi in Barcelona as in Catalonia, people give one another a rose or a book. Not ...More

Multilingual
Published by Europa Editions
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Monday wooldridge is a fighter with a face like a broken dinner plate. Fifteen years ago, her kid brother Eddy disappeared and she’s been looking ...More

Contemporary Fiction
Dominic Hoey

6 min read

Published by Penguin Books NZ
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  Could Harry Styles be the perfect man for Jo’s daughter Bayley? Surely he would be, if Jo could only wrangle a meeting. When Jo coerces her s ...More

Romantic Comedy
Published by Pink Van Publishing
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Nā J.K. Rowling ~ Nā Leon Heketū Blake  i whakamāori  Ko tētahi o ngā tino kōrero mā ngā tamariki ā mohoa nei, ko tā J.K. Rowling Harry Pot ...More

Action & Adventure, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Translation
J. K. Rowling

33 min read

Published by Auckland University Press
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  He whakamāoritanga i te pukapuka o Puripāha nā Witi Ihimaera mō ētahi whānau hoariri e rua ki Te Tairāwhiti. Ko Puripāha te tapanga ...More

Fiction, Maori & Pasifika, Translation
Witi Ihimaera

8 min read

Published by Auckland University Press
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It was a pretty chill place to live for the first two thirds of the year. It was a place of freedom and acceptance, a place of thinking, talking, cups of ...More

History, Non Fiction, NZ History
Sarah K Gallagher

15 min read

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Chapter 1 Anna looped bubble-wrap around her father’s favorite sculpture: a peacock made entirely out of mirrors. The only upside of moving out of the ho ...More

Fiction
Amy Blythe

29 min read

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Comedian Chris Parker brings his brilliant comic wit to the page. Star of stand-up, winner of Celebrity Treasure Island and lockdown Instagram sensation ...More

Biography & Memoir, Humor & Comedy
Chris Parker

9 min read

Published by Allen & Unwin
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  “Whenever I think of coming to punish my father, it’s always in a strong wind, and that’s blowing now as I drive up the long, unsealed ...More

Contemporary Fiction
Owen Marshall

6 min read

Published by Penguin Books NZ
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  Six centuries ago Polynesian explorers, who inhabited a cosmos in which islands sailed across the sea and stars across the sky, arrived in Aotearoa N ...More

History, Non Fiction
Anne Salmond

5 min read

Published by Auckland University Press
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Jeanette Fitzsimons was a visionary, a pioneer and a radical. This is the story of someone who battles National and Labour’s lock on parliament and h ...More

Biography & Memoir
Gareth Hughes

15 min read

Published by Allen & Unwin
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Kua whakamāorihia tā Paulo Coelho pukapuka whakaaweawe, e kaha nei hoki te hokona puta noa i te ao, ā, koinei te pukapuka nui katoa te whakawhitihia ki ...More

Action & Adventure, Translation
Paulo Coelho

7 min read

Published by Auckland University Press
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I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that January when I arrived in Dunedin. I stood in front of the dirty shallow porch of my flat and it wasn’t ...More

History, Non Fiction, NZ History
Sarah K Gallagher

11 min read

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BOOK PREVIEW Ideas and inspiration to make your Matariki celebrations sparkle. PÕHUTUKAWA Whakamanahia ngā rau kahurangi kua mene ki te pō ...More

Picture Book
Published by Allen & Unwin
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Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met? When Belle started writing to Enrico, she certainly wasn’t looking to fall in l ...More

Fiction, Love & romance
Published by Hachette
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  In New Zealand’s Martinborough, an ex-wine maker is murdered. The precise planning and execution by the unknown assailant begins a series of vile a ...More

Mystery & Crime, Psychological Thriller
Published by Squabbling Sparrows Press
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Flip Flop Bay is the sixth in the Elastic Island Adventures children’s book series for children aged 7 – 12, but note the books can be read as standa ...More

Action & Adventure, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Humor & Comedy, Travel & Environment
Karen McMillan

18 min read

Published by Duckling Publishing
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  Kingdom of Blong is the fifth in the Elastic Island Adventures children’s book series for children aged 7 – 12, although note all th ...More

Action & Adventure, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Humor & Comedy, Travel & Environment
Karen McMillan

17 min read

Published by Duckling Publishing

  Extract from Mazarine published by Penguin Random House   Twelve I hadn’t expected Sophie Greenaway to be at work in the middle of the su ...More

Action & Adventure, Fiction, Psychological Thriller
Charlotte Grimshaw

22 min read

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  This is a story of doubt. It is a story of people who left little trace. . . . There are no writings to pore over; no monuments to gaze at; ...More

History, Non Fiction, NZ History
Jennifer Ashton

20 min read

Published by Auckland University Press
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    The house at 660 Castle Street was built as a Presbyterian Manse in 1923, designed by architect E.W. Walden and built by Loan and Wat ...More

History, Non Fiction, NZ History
Sarah K Gallagher

7 min read

Published by Imagination Press
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Tim Saunders writes about his life and work on the farm that’s been in his family for five generations. He encompasses drought, farming during lockdow ...More

Biography & Memoir, Non Fiction, Travel & Environment
Tim Saunders

31 min read

Published by Allen & Unwin
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A gripping new novel from one of our leading writers. A compulsive and chilling novel about subjugation, survival and the meaning of family. “Up on ...More

Fiction
Carl Nixon

32 min read

Published by Penguin Books NZ
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  No excuses presentation Dave Letele’s incredible life has taken him from footy to failure, crime to community, fat to fit and riches to rags — a ...More

Biography & Memoir, Non Fiction
Dave Letele

16 min read

Published by Penguin Books NZ
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  Emotions are messages from your heart, they tell you what you need. Some of them are BIG feelings, and some are very small indeed. Imagine y ...More

Picture Book
Rebekah Ballagh

1 min read

Published by Allen & Unwin
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He kohinga whakaaro, he kohinga wheako hoki mō te waiata me te haka nā tētahi tokānuku kua aua atu e tū ana i taua ao. Ko Tā Tīmoti Kāretu ...More

Non Fiction, Translation
Published by Auckland University Press
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Losing her daughter to the Christchurch earthquake sends Lily back to her childhood village in Northern England to scatter Charlie’s ashes. It’s a place of ...More

Historical Fiction
Sandra Arnold

5 min read

Published by Mākaro Press
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Eddy Smallbone (orphan) is grappling with identity, love, loss, and religion. It’s two years since he blew up his school life and the earthquakes felled ...More

Literary Fiction
Kate De Goldi

22 min read

Published by Allen & Unwin
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  The chin tattoo confirms the victim is Maori. The whorls of ink from her lower lip to her chin—the moko, is worn only by Maori women. So, her e ...More

Mystery & Crime
Catherine Lea

13 min read

Published by Brakelight Press
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  A landmark anthology of creative work – poetry, fiction and essays – by emerging Asian New Zealand writers. This landmark collection of poetry, f ...More

Non Fiction
Paula Morris

24 min read

Published by Auckland University Press