The week’s biggest selling books at the Unity stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.
AUCKLAND UNITY
1 My Life, My Fight by Steven Adams with Madeleine Chapman (Penguin, $40)
Woah! Number one with a bullet, in its first week in the stores; and on Thursday, Penguin announced it had sold the North American rights to Hachette.
2 Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (Jonathan Cape, $35)
The most in-demand literary novel of 2018.
3 Less by Andrew Sean Greer (Abacus, $25)
The most in-demand popular novel of 2018.
4 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson (MacMillan, $35)
News story, Monday, Los Angeles Times: “Superstar Will Smith will soon add book author to his many career accomplishments. ‘I’m writing a book!’ the actor confirmed on social media Thursday. ‘I got years and years of stuff I want to say, and I’m finally going to write a book for y’all.’ Smith is teaming with Mark Manson for the project. They’re currently meeting with five publishers to bid on it, he added.”
5 Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyou (Picador, $38)
A journalist exposes “the biggest corporate fraud since Enron”.
6 Tax and Fairness by Terry Baucher (Bridget Williams Books, $15)
Tax and fairness.
7 From the Corner of the Oval Office One Woman’s True Story of Her Accidental Career in the Obama White House by Beck Dorey-Stein (Bantam, $38)
“The gossip, the parties, the overseas trips and nights on Air Force One…Her storytelling is extraordinary“: Chloe Blades, The Spinoff Review of Books.
8 The Power by Naomi Alderman (Penguin, $26)
Feminist sci-fi blockbuster from 2017, still going strong.
9 Generation Rent by Shamubeel Eaqub & Selena Eaqub (Bridget Williams Books, $15)
“Husband-and-wife team Shamubeel and Selena Eaqub call for a more accepting attitude to the rising number of tenants as well as changes to New Zealand’s construction, housing intensification and tax system”: Anne Gibson, New Zealand Herald.
10 Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata (Portobello Books, $28)
“The first of 10 novels by best-selling Japanese author Sayaka Murata to be translated into English…It centers on a 36-year-old woman named Keiko Furukura, an oddball who is endlessly puzzled by human behavior. She is blithely indifferent to sex or dating, and uninterested in leaving her dead-end job at the Hiiromachi Station Smile Mart, a ‘transparent glass box’ in a pristine and anonymous business district. (The author herself worked at a convenience store for nearly eighteen years.)…It is a love story, in other words, about a misfit and a store”: The New Yorker.
WELLINGTON UNITY
1 Is It Bedtime Yet?: Parenting … the Hilarious, the Hair-Raising, the Heart-breaking by Emily Writes (Random House, $35)
What the – ! The number one book in Auckland and the number one book in Wellington are both by genius women writers from The Spinoff.
2 Steven Adams: My Life, My Fight by Steven Adams with Madeleine Chapman (Penguin, $40)
3 Warlight by Michael Ondaatje (Jonathan Cape, $35)
4 Less by Andrew Sean Greer (Little Brown, $25)
5 Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble (Victoria University Press, $37)
A collection of verse by the wildly talented Wellington writer.
6 My Year of Rest & Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh (Jonathan Cape, $38)
“Her third novel concerns an unnamed protagonist who gradually escalates her use of prescription medicine in an effort to sleep for an entire year”: Wikipedia.
7 Clock Dance by Anne Tyler (Chatto & Windus, $37)
“She is one of our greatest living fiction writers and if I were in charge, she’d have a Nobel by now”: Julie Myerson, the Guardian.
8 So Much Life Left Over by Louis De Bernieres (Harvill Secker, $37)
Nicky Pellegrino! Would you like to review this for the Spinoff Review of Books? We’d love that; please get in touch.
9 See No Evil: NZ’s Betrayal of the People of West Papua by Maire Leadbeater (Otago University Press, $50
“It’s common to hear people remark that New Zealand doesn’t speak out on human rights in West Papua because of trade concerns. Indonesia is a valued trading partner, but that’s not the full story. New Zealand makes important foreign policy decisions in consultation with its friends; diplomats are constantly exchanging information, analyses and reports with their counterparts in Washington, London, Canberra and Ottawa…We are a tag-along nation – a habit formed when we were tied to the apron-strings of mother England”: an extract from this important new study, from the Spinoff Review of Books.
10 Calypso by David Sedaris (Little Brown, $35)
Humour.
The Spinoff Review of Books is proudly brought to you by Unity Books.
