Tell you what: we've done it again. Our editors went out into New Zealand and rounded up a pile of blogs and travelogues, memoirs and journalism - some of the best true stories from the last year or so. We've got bullies and Barbie, chakra and shipwrecks, loose lips and AK47s. From ?amaru to Xinjiang to New York, Tell You What: 2016 introduces us to some extraordinary tales of coming out and going home, of living and dying, of tragedy and transformation. `Marvellous', says John Campbell in his foreword. Read it and we know you'll agree.

Including Tina Makereti on museumology and memory, Vicki Anderson on Christchurch buses, Steve Braunias on the threat of fire, Nicky Hager on dirty politics, Elizabeth Knox on death and disputation, Joe Nunweek on school suspensions, Ali Ikram on Keri Hulme and Matt Vickers on Lecretia Seales - not to mention work by Charles Anderson, Naomi Arnold, Rachel Buchanan, Kate Camp, Megan Dunn, Dan Eichblatt, David Fisher, Ross Nepia Himona, Lynn Jenner, Kirsten McDougall, Kristen Ng, Jenni Quilter, Sylvan Thomson, Giovanni Tiso and Ashleigh Young.