The world-famous 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 Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman (Bloomsbury, $34)
This is the one that kicks off with the essay about the Tongan boys, which prompted this response.
2 Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (Penguin Classics, $24)
Booker co-winner.
3 Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (Little, Brown Book, $25)
Topped the New York Times bestseller list for about a million weeks.
4 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (Vintage, $30)
A big week for humankind and history.
5 Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $23)
Pre-normal people.
6 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35)
7 Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton (Harper Collins, $25)
8 The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (Hachette, $35)
9 Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi (Picador, $20)
10 Sing Backwards and Weep by Mark Lenegan (Hachette, $38)
To be read in a gravelly voice.
WELLINGTON
1 Observations of a Rural Nurse by Sarah McIntyre (Massey University Press, $55)
The photographs look stunning.
2 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35)
Still going strong, and rightly so.
3 Jerningham by Christina Sanders (Cuba Press, $37)
A story of colonial Wellington and one Edward Jerningham Wakefield, described in Te Ara as “adventurer, writer, politician”.
4 Not in Narrow Seas: The Economic History of NZ by Brian Easton (Victoria University Press, $60)
5 Nothing to See by Pip Adam (Victoria University Press, $30)
6 Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton (Fourth estate, $25)
7 Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell (Penguin. $26)
8 Imagining Decolonisation by Elkington, Jackson, Kiddle, Mercier, Ross & Smeaton (Bridget Williams Books, $15)
9 Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (LittleBrown, $25)
10 Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead (LittleBrown, $25)