The only published and available best-selling 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  Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (Penguin Random House, $37)

“What is the conversation like between the two humans when one of them has had sex with an artificial human? Is it a betrayal or not? That’s my starting point, really…”: the author, interviewed in the Listener.

2  Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $33)

Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney

3  The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson (Macmillan, $35)

The next installment lands in a couple of weeks. Or as the author’s website puts it: “Buckle up, bitches. Uncle Mark is taking you for another ride.”

4  The Only Story by Julian Barnes (Penguin Random House, $24)

“If English life, as Lawrence Durrell was fond of saying, is by and large a ‘long, slow toothache,’ then Julian Barnes is now perhaps its principal dentist”: the New York Times.

5  Home Fire: A Novel by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury, $22)

Read this 18 months ago and still think about it, often.

6  Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $23)

Anyone want to write us an essay on how the actual fuck Sally Rooney still has two books in the top 10 every week?

7  Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Penguin Random House, $26)

An aristocrat spends 30 years under house arrest in Russia’s luxurious Metropol Hotel.

8  The Shepherd’s Hut by Tim Winton (Penguin Random House, $26)

“In The Shepherd’s Hut, people don’t get lost in the bush. They seek asylum in the bush because they are lost already”: the Sydney Morning Herald.

9  Ordinary People by Diana Evans (Penguin Random House, $26)

Pedestrian People. Average People. Stock-standard People. Quotidian People.

10 The Recipe by Josh Emett (Upstart Press, $50)

“That weekend, with friends coming over, he found he didn’t have a single recipe for prawn cocktail, despite owning a wall of recipe books”: the origin story, per North & South.

WELLINGTON

1  Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape, $37)

2  The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells (Allen Lane, $35)

Best/worst bit: hundreds of thousands of a very cute species of antelope all suddenly dropping dead, as detailed by the Spinoff here.          

3  The Strawberry Thief by Joanne Harris (Orion, $35)

“Sure to delight fans of Chocolat“: the Guardian. 

4  Sea People: The Quest to Understand Who Settled the Islands of the Remote Pacific by Christina Thompson (HarperCollins, $35)

“…and how they managed to find all those tiny islands scattered like stars in the emptiness of space”: prologue.

5  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (Allen Lane, $30)

“Any meaning that people inscribe to their lives is just a delusion.”

6  Educated by Tara Westover (Windmill Books, $28)

“I think I’m going to give up all other books and only read Julian Barnes”: the author, on Twitter.

7  Normal People Sally Rooney (Faber, $38)

8  Identity Crisis by Ben Elton (Bantam, $37)

The protagonist has a very pleasing name: Detective Mick Matlock.

9  Secret Barrister by Anonymous (Pan, $25)

Cracks and crevasses of the British legal system.

10 Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (Faber, $23)

We’re serious about the essay. Pitch catherinewoulfe@thespinoff.co.nz