A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: the best-selling books at the Auckland and Wellington stores of Unity Books.
THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: June 3
UNITY BOOKS AUCKLAND
1. A Little Life (Picador, $25) by Hanya Yanagihara
Still at number one in its umpteenth week! It’s big, it’s harrowing, it’s good.
2. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone (Canongate, $40) by Olivia Laing
We await a long essay by Ashleigh Young on this acclaimed book. It’s due any minute now, isn’t it, Ashleigh?
3. Chronicles On Our Troubled Times (Penguin, $37) by Thomas Piketty
Essays by the economist du jour.
4. The Unraveling (Atlantic, $25) by Emma Sky
What went wrong in Iraq? A former British Council staffer witnessed the damage done by Bush and Obama.
5. My Life on the Road (Nero, $37) by Gloria Steinem
Suitably rock’n’roll title for a memoir by the swaggering legend of American feminism.
6. How Did We Get Into This Mess (Verso, $39) by George Monbiot
Essays on inequality and other ills.
7. In Love with These Times: My Life with Flying Nun Records (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd
We await a long essay by Gary Steel on this new memoir by the Nun man. It’s due any minute now, isn’t it, Gary?
8. The Sympathizer (Corfair, $28) by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer prize for fiction.
9. Coming Rain (Text, $37) by Stephen Daisley
Winner of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand national book award for fiction.
10. High Rise (Fourth Estate, $23) by JG Ballard
An orgy of sex and cocktail parties in a luxurious and demented apartment block. Just another day at The Metropolis, then.
UNITY BOOKS WELLINGTON
1. The Sympathizer (Little Brown, $28) by Viet Thanh Nguyen
2. How Did We Get into This Mess? (Verso, $39) by George Monbiot
3. Silencing Science (Bridget Williams Books, $15) by Shaun Hendy
4. The City of Mirrors (Orion Books, $38) by Justin Cronin
Final book in the post-apocalypse trilogy.
5. Coming Rain (Text, $37) by Stephen Daisley
6. The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 (HarperCollins, $35) by Lionel Shriver
Family portrait set in post-apocalypse America by the author of We Have to Talk About Kevin.
7. All the Light We Cannot See (Harper Collins, $25) by Anthony Doerr
8. First Migration: Maori Origins 3000BC – AD1450 (Bridget Williams Books, $15) by Atholl Anderson
Awesome interview with the author by Philip Matthews here.
9. In Gratitude (Bloomsbury, $30) by Jenny Diski
“Cancer diary”, but not really, and much more, in these collected essays by the LRB legend
10. Chronicles On Our Troubled Times (Penguin, $37) by Thomas Piketty