The Rona Gallery Top 10 Books for Adults, Teens, and Picture

This year we're not doing the Late Late awards, but we are celebrating some of our favourite books with our top tens for Adults Fiction, Non fiction, Teens and Picture.  Read one today and Enjoy. 

RONA GALLERY TOP BOOKS
TOP 10 NOVELS FOR ADULTS (and yes SOMETIMES when it comes to things as important as books - counting isn't quite the skill that is sometimes emphasised in the classroom!)

1) The Distant Hours, by KateMoreton
2) Blossoms and Shadows, by Lian Hearn3) Hand Me Down World, by Lloyd Jones
4) Sex and Stravinsky, by Barbara Trapido
5) Hand Me Down World, by Lloyd Jones
6) Sex and Stravinsky, by Barbara Trapido
7) Inheritance, by Nicholas Shakespeare
8) Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson
9) Great House, by Nicole Krauss
10) Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen
11) Widow’s Daughter, by Nicholas Edlin
12) Villa Pacifica, by Kapka Kassabova



TOP 10 ADULT NON FICTION

1) Shortest History of Europe, by John Hirst
2) QI: The General Book of Ignorance (Bk2) by John Lloyd & John Murchison
3) The Fry Chronicles, by Stephen Fry
4) Katherine Mansfield -The Story Teller, by Kathleen Jones
5) All Blacks Don’t Cry by John Kirwin
6) Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of N.Z.Popular Music 1918-1964, by Chris Bourke
7) It’s Easier Than You Think, by Jo Seagar
8) Who’s Cooking Tonight, by Claire Gourley
9) Caught on Canvas, by Richard Ponder
10) Just my Type: A Book about Fonts, by Simon Garfield



TEENAGE BOOKS


1) Trash, by Andy Mulligan
2) Hunger Games Trilogy, by Suzanne Collins 3) Banquo’s Son & Bloodlines, by T.K.Roxborogh
4) The Moorehawke Trilogy, by Celine Kiernan
5) The Bone Tiki, by David Hair
6) Shadow, by Michael Morpugo
7) Fierce, September, by Fleur Black
8) The Guiness World Book of Records
9) Warriors, by Erin Hunter
10) Clockwork Angel, by Cassandra Clare


PICTURE BOOKS

1) The Fierce Little Woman and the Wicked Pirate, by Joy Cowley
2) It’s a Book, by Lane Smith 3) Legend of the Golden Snail, by Grahame Base
4) Ten Little Fingers, by Mem Fox and Helen Oxbury
5) Wind up Racing Cars, by Paul Nicholls
6) The First Christmas, by Jan Pienkowski
7) Christmas Journey, by Brian Wildsmith
8)  Tabby McTat, by Julia Donaldson
9) Eyes, Nose, Fingers & Toes, by Judy Hindley
10) Klutz Educational Games and Toys - always worth looking at, with  great ideas for activities and instructional manuals to go with it.




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Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar

Depressive werewolf girl is hunted by her own family. She has nowhere to go, and no life until she is rescued by two extraordinary humans who find themselves caught in the middle of two power struggles: one centred on a rather crazy clothing-obsessed elemental; and the other, a bid for the werewolf leadership -- a struggle in which the Werewolf girl's dead body would be a very powerful bargaining chip.

I'm so deeply divided about this book. The prose is stultifying, it's almost like eating baby food that's been chopped down until it's so soft all the texture is missing. But even so, and this is where the deeply divided comes in -- this baby food has kick. There's wit and charm, and the odd glimpse of three dimensions in amongst the cut-out two dimensional characters. Even better, against the odds, the apparently rambling plot of feud and counter-feud comes together to a relatively satisfying conclusion, so in the end all I can say is people like this book. They do. My copy went flying across the floor more than once, but I still made it to the end, which is more than I can say about quite a few books lately.
It's the sort of story that can make a so-so author into a name, not because it's brilliant, but because it has the things that teenagers are looking for in a story, sex, drugs, depression, rock and roll, and originality. It's not preachy. It doesn't glamorise, it just gets on with the plot as two -- no three -- very different worlds collide. I'll never love this book, for me it was twilight all over again, maybe edgier, more exciting, and far less sentimental, but still pulp -- a fact proudly proclaimed by the cover as it declares the author has invented a new genre; "pulp fantasy noir."

Review:  Alicia Ponder