Murder, lust and revenge top the list

From murderous thrillers to scandalous love affairs, New Zealanders have revealed their favourite reads in the Whitcoulls Top 100 of 2012-13.

The Whitcoulls Top 100 has been the go-to guide for reading enthusiasts for more than a decade and with 20,000 votes this year, it’s proof Kiwis still love to have their say on their favourite books.

The number one spot this year remains the award-winning crime series the Millennium Trilogy, with popular teen trilogy The Hunger Games taking the silver medal and classic series The Lord of The Rings coming in at number three.

The timeless love tale of Mr Darcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice was voted in at number four.

New to the Top 100 at number 5 is the controversial heated passion saga of Anastasia and Christian in the 50 Shades of Grey trilogy.

While the undiminished popularity of the top three comes as no surprise, Whitcoulls book manager Joan Mackenzie says the rest of this year’s list showcases the variety of New Zealand readers’ tastes.

“We are seeing a real diversity coming through in the books New Zealand adults are reading which is fantastic,” Joan says.

“There are classics that appear on the list year in, year out. But with hundreds of thousands of new books published every year, it’s exciting to see some new titles winning over New Zealand readers.”

“The Fifty Shades trilogy has taken the international reading world by storm and it appears New Zealanders are just as caught up in the hype.  28 books have made it onto the list for the first time so it’s good to see Kiwis like to mix it up a bit!” Joan says.

For the first time readers were also asked to vote for their favourite author.  The top three further showed a range of reading tastes with drama queen Jodi Picoult taking out the top spot, children’s fiction guru JK Rowling coming in at second and the master of thrillers Lee Child being voted to third place.

Other interesting facts about the Top 100:

-       General fiction is by far the most popular genre in 2012-13 with well over half the books coming from this category

-       Adults are reading some of the same things their children read – Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and the Twilight series

-       The most popular book since the Top 100 started in 1996 is The Lord of The Rings

The Top 100 books are available now at Whitcoulls stores nationwide and the full list is available online at www.whitcoulls.co.nz.