Time to take a look at what’s been happening on the bestseller lists for the two weeks ended 6 January 2006 – during that initial holiday period, after the Xmas rush, when people go in and buy their very own blob-out reading material, getting for themselves what they really wanted in their stockings …

So with that thought in mind, at number one on the fiction charts is Blindsight by Maurice Gee (Penguin Books), which was in the very same spot a fortnight ago, showing that er … everyone had the right idea I guess. But blow me down if Jenny Pattrick’s The Denniston Rose hasn’t popped back at number two having been ousted from the top ten for about five minutes there, shock horror. It’s only appeared on the bestsellers list a mere 53 times previously – world famous in NZ I believe is the phrase.

At number three Barbara Anderson’s Collected Stories (VUP) has arrived out of nowhere, and well deserved too. The Cat's Whiskers edited by Peter Wells (Vintage) has gone down a notch from where it stepped into the charts at number three last week. It’s a collection of stories by NZ writers about cats – quite surprising really, I don’t think anyone had any idea he was so into pussies (it’s ok, I’m quite sure he realised this would happen and will be ready with a sigh and an eye-roll). Finally, at number five is Tu by Patricia Grace (Penguin Books) previously at number two with 16 appearances since it hit the charts not that long ago.

As for the non-fiction charts, at number one we have One Good Run: The Legend of Burt Munro by Tim Hanna (Penguin Books), hanging in from the same spot last week, Anton Oliver: Inside by himself with Brian Turner (Hodder Moa), up from number four last week, and the excellent He'll Be OK: Growing Gorgeous Boys into Good Men by Celia Lashlie (HarperCollins) steady at number three. At four is Hurricane Tim: The Story of Sir Tim Wallis by Neville Peat (Longacre Press), down from number two, and at number five is Frontier of Dreams: The Story of New Zealand edited by Bronwyn Dalley & Gavin McLean (Hodder Moa), steady in the same spot.

Rather heart-warmingly, the kids book list has been topped for the last month by A Kiwi Night Before Christmas with CD, by Yvonne Morrison & Deborah Hinde (Scholastic) – but after that it’s a predictable morass of Harry Potter and various versions of the re-launched Narnia books.

Incidentally, quite a good movie, Narnia, I thought. There were a couple of dodgy bits of CGI when Aslan was like, jumping down from rocks and stuff, and the big Jesus-type comeback with the rays of light and the strings was a little cheesy I grant you … the kids did all give each other perhaps one too many hugs and meaningful, loving looks once they’d done all that conquering, but on the whole, not bad.

I’ll tell you something that was really awful though: I read … sigh … I read The Da Vinci Code while I was away. Went away with a good solid pile of NZ review books that I was really looking forward to, then someone handed me TDVC and it was all over. But God, what a pile of crap it is! Yes, there was a lot of information in it that was undeniably interesting, especially all that death-of-the-sacred-feminine, murdered-by-the-Church stuff; yes, it was hard to put down – but the way it was written, jeez. So cheesily James Bond-like (but nowhere near as good), such horrendous punctuation, crappy grammar – even just using the wrong words for things. And has anyone actually calculated how long they all went without sleep, or without even mentioning that they could do with a bit of a kip? I reckon it was about a week.

How depressing it is to think of all the superb writers in this country for example, who will never get near Dan Brown and his millions. But: Is He Happy?