The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.
AUCKLAND
1 The Quiet House by Paul Hewlett (Password Press, $25)
A lovely blurby snippet for Paul Hewlett’s new book of poetry: “In The Quiet House, the small, usually unnoticed moments of family life become the beat and murmur of poetry. Looking for a refrain, Paul Hewlett takes us out into the world and home again, through parks and hotels, into past and memory, loving, recovering.
“These carefully crafted poems echo and reverberate with everyday truths, eschewing corporate shorthand for the unvarnished and heartfelt.”
2 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Grove Press, $25)
Longlisted for this year’s Booker, and lauded quite rightly by NPR: “Time and timelessness are the novel’s DNA strands. Bill’s struggle is timeless in evoking the fragility of civil society before an oppressive system. Ominous signs, such as a December murder of crows ‘scavenging for what was dead, or diving in mischief for anything that looked edible,’ ripening fruits from a secluded garden, as well as the Cinderella trope of orphaned girls deprived of walking shoes and mistreated by their ‘ugly sisters’ (the nuns), give the novel a fairytale quality. At the same time, the culturally-specific milieu of 1980s Ireland heightens the potentially tragic consequences of Bill’s action.”
3 Yes, Minister: An Insider’s Account of the John Key Years by Chris Finlayson (Allen & Unwin, $37)
Want to know what John Key ate for breakfast? This book won’t tell you that, but it does delve into the world of central New Zealand politics, and what John Key was really like as Prime Minister.
In turn, Toby Manhire digs into Yes, Minister on a recent episode of The Spinoff’s Gone By Lunchtime pod.
4 Fragments from a Contested Past: Remembrance, Denial and New Zealand History by Joanna Kidman, Vincent O’Malley, Liana MacDonald, Tom Roa and Keziah Wallis (Bridget Williams Books, $15)
How do we choose to remember our difficult histories? Five sharp minds investigate.
5 Grand: Becoming My Mother’s Daughter by Noelle McCarthy (Penguin, $35)
The It memoir of 2022, here to break your heart.
6 Better the Blood by Michael Bennett (Simon & Schuster, $35)
A new local crime thriller; a tenacious Maōri detective and single mother; and New Zealand’s first serial killer. Get the popcorn ready.
Liz from Goodreads says, “This book is truly excellent. The story immediately absorbed me, so much so that I stayed up into the early hours to finish it, dragged bleary eyed in the wake of main protagonist Hana and helpless to look away until the final page was turned.”
Need more convincing? Read Michael Bennet’s recent Spinoff essay. That’ll do you.
7 The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West by David Kilcullen (Scribe, $40)
A book about modern warfare and terrorism. The reviews alone are terrifying:
“Once again David Kilcullen succeeds in demonstrating how our adversaries are adapting faster than we are to the experiences of the recent past. Timely advice for defence strategists on how to apply those lessons, and to plan for the next conflict, not the last.” – Professor Sir David Omand
“Disturbingly brilliant. David Kilcullen, ever the thoughtful observer of wars and the people who wage them, captures the changes in warfare that already confound — and threaten to overwhelm us. He correctly shows that we are mentally and physically unprepared for the new nature of conflict, and will likely pay dearly for it.” – Stanley McChrystal, retired US Army General
8 Girls That Invest: Your Guide to Financial Independence Through Shares and Stocks by Simran Kaur (Wiley, $31)
What happens to girls that invest? Nothing scandalous: They get ahead financially.
9 Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman (Bodley Head, $38)
Use your time learning how to invest, so that later on you can use your time lounging by a pool sipping strawberry daiquiris.
10 Shifting Grounds: Deep Histories of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland by Lucy Mackintosh (Bridget Williams Books, $60)
The best book about Auckland in yonks. (That’s essentially a hatchet-job summary of Anna Rawhiti-Connell’s review from earlier this year).
WELLINGTON
1 Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath (Text Publishing, $37)
The winner of the 2021 Michael Gifkins Prize – which gives a new publishing platform to Kiwi writers – is a whodunnit thriller set in Masterton.
Fiona Sussman says, “Expansive in its reach, and stunningly singular in its detail, this literary thriller heralds the arrival of an exciting new voice in New Zealand storytelling.”
2 Yes, Minister: An Insider’s Account of the John Key Years by Chris Finlayson (Allen & Unwin, $37)
3 Wellington Architecture: A Walking Guide by John Walsh & Patrick Reynolds (Massey University Press, $25)
Spring has sprung, and the walkers of Wellington are ready for it. Wellington Architecture was languishing at 10th place for weeks, but clearly the scent of flowers, or cut grass, or whatever September smells like, has reached the nostrils of desperately restless Wellingtonians.
4 Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand by Nick Bollinger (Auckland University Press, $50)
A new account of Aotearoa’s wild 60s and 70s. From the publisher’s blurb: “Award-winning writer and broadcaster Nick Bollinger tells the story of beards and bombs, freaks and firebrands, self-destruction and self-realisation, during a turbulent period in New Zealand’s history and culture.” Dig in, you rebel you.
5 New Zealand’s Foreign Service: A History edited by Ian McGibbon (Massey University Press, $60)
Everything you ever wanted to know about the Foreign Service, and probably more.
6 The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O’Farrell (Knopf, $38)
The author of Hamnet is at it again, with more five-star historic fiction. This time, we’re in Renaissance Florence, following the life of duchess Lucrezia de’ Medici. The Tampa Bay Times says, “As always, her prose is beautiful, her characters finely drawn, her story wonderfully surprising. Browning’s Alfonso might have closed a curtain over the portrait of his duchess to declare her his possession, but O’Farrell rips that curtain away and gives her a life.”
7 The Assignment by Liza Weimer (Penguin Random House, $24)
A new novel inspired by true events: a teacher asks a group of senior students to argue for the Nazis’ Final Solution. The students refuse. Conflict ensues.
8 Imagining Decolonisation by Rebecca Kiddle, Bianca Elkington, Moana Jackson, Ocean Ripeka Mercier, Mike Ross, Jennie Smeaton and Amanda Thomas (Bridget Williams Books, $15)
Imagination never goes out of style.
9 Ross Taylor: Black & White with Paul Thomas (Upstart Press, $50)
New memoir from the cricket legend. A tasty taster: “Superstition is all cause and effect. You have such and such for breakfast, you get runs, you keep having such and such for breakfast. If I made runs, I’d try to replicate pretty much everything next time around. And vice versa: if I failed, I did things differently next time.
“I went through a phase during which Victoria had to book my haircuts. I’d rung the hairdresser, I’d got a duck, I made a connection. Once you’ve planted that seed in your mind, it’s hard to get rid of. That particular superstition snowballed to the point where I had to pay the hairdresser in cash. Thankfully, I got over it. New socks became my go to: Martin Guptill was the first to notice that, if I didn’t make runs, I’d wear brand new socks next time I batted.”
10 Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Hari (Bloomsbury, $35)
We’ve been distracted by this fantastic new essay by Sharon Lam about the difficulty of writing a second novel, and the new review of Coco Solid’s novel How to Loiter in a Turf War (likely only absent this week because it’s out of stock).