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 One of Them by Shaneel Lal (Allen & Unwin, $37)
In his review of this memoir by 23-year-old Lal, Sam Brooks says: “The value of stories like these are not necessarily how they’re told, but how they’re platformed. Lal’s experience is individual, of course, but phrases that reveal them reflecting, even as a young child, that they ‘do not have the canvas of a Pacific person’ hit close to the bone. The queer experience is not monolithic – but the experience of being alienated not just from your society, from your family, from social structures in general, but from your own sense of self is something very easy to relate to, and Lal is an especially precise chronicler of their own experience here.” Read the full review here.
2 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)
Irish writers are having a hell of a run. This week’s Booker Prize longlist announcement revealed four writers in the hot spots. Keegan is among the best of the best and so it’s no surprise to see this perfect story back in the list.
3 Yellowface by Rebecca F. Kuang (Picador, $35)
The oft-impeccable Kirkus Reviews has this to say: “At times, the novel feels so much like a social media feed that it’s impossible to stop reading – what new drama is waiting to unfold. and who will win out in the end? An incredibly meta novel, with commentary on everything from trade reviews to Twitter, the ultimate message is clear from the start, which can lead to a lack of nuance. Kuang, however, does manage to leave some questions unanswered: fodder, perhaps, for a new tweetstorm. A quick, biting critique of the publishing industry.”
4 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber & Faber, $28)
The David Copperfield retelling and winner of all the fiction prizes is resting satisfied in a very respectable spot.
5 American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin (Atlantic Books, $33)
Where’s the biography of Barbie, though?
6 Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead (Fleet, $38)
By all accounts another masterpiece from the master. The Guardian summarised their view, thusly: “Crook Manifesto continues the brilliantly realised sequence that began with Harlem Shuffle, intricately depicting cultural history and family drama with the compelling energy of a crime thriller and the sharp wit of social satire. Harlem itself is one of the lead characters, and there are echoes of other chroniclers of this burg such as James Baldwin and Chester Himes. In ambition and scope, in the way the intimate is so deftly weaved with the epic, one is also reminded of Balzac. Whitehead has embarked on a great comédie humaine of his own.”
7 The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (Canongate, $50)
Creeping its way back up the list, is the cloth-bound beauty from creative ole Rubin.
8 The Bookseller at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin, $39)
Delightful! Makes one’s morning to see this Aotearoa memoir back among the top ten. Highly recommend any time, anywhere.
9 Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury, $35)
Oh she’s great. Patchett is a writer’s writer and if Tom Lake is remotely close to the brilliance of The Dutch House, we’re away. Rather love this snippet from the New York Times review: “Like some guardian angel in the sky, Anton Chekhov hovers over this story, which features three sisters in their 20s and is set on their parents’ cherry orchard (albeit in northern Michigan during the recent pandemic, not the tuberculosis-torn Russian provinces). But Thornton Wilder is driving the tractor.”
10 Your Name is not Anxious: A Very Personal Guide to Putting Anxiety in its Place by Stephanie Dowrick (Allen & Unwin, $33)
A new book about an old plague.
WELLINGTON
1 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury, $37)
A tremendously rich novel from one of our greats. Books editor Claire Mabey got properly immersed in its magic, in this rave review, right here.
2 Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury, $35)
3 Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager’s Field Guide by Liv Sissons (Penguin, $45)
The luminous blue still has the magic!
4 Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber, $28)
5 American Prometheus: The Triumph & Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird & Martin J Sherwin (Atlantic, $33)
6 Yellowface by Rebecca Kuang (Borough Press, $35)
7 Pax: War & Peace in Rome’s Golden Age by Tom Holland (Abacus, $40)
The Rest is History is one of the most popular history podcasts of our time, and its co-host, historian Tom Holland, is also an extremely popular author. Of Pax, The Times says: “He has a novelist’s vibrant writing style and turns a good phrase. Familiar elements of this period, such as the destruction of Pompeii, still feel fresh in his retelling and he avoids the temptation of so many joyless modern classicists to moralise about what rotters these Romans were with their slavery and their bloodshed and their lack of a proper safeguarding mission statement. He judges them purely by their own values.”
8 We Need to Talk About Norman by Denis Welch (Quentin Wilson Publishing, $40)
Journalist Denis Welch’s book on former prime minister Norman Kirk is an attempt to: “recover what Norman Kirk stood for – a sense of government with a clear moral purpose, in which there is daylight between public service and the commercial world.” A very well-timed publication as we head into the whirlwind of this year’s election.
9 Pet by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, hardback $50, paperback $38)
Not a day goes by that we don’t see a rave about Pet from one publication or another. Like this one from the Financial Times (UK) which concludes: “Outside of New Zealand, Chidgey is not as well known as she should be. One hopes that this chilling tale of childhood vulnerability and violence might change that.”
10 One of Them by Shaneel Lal (Allen & Unwin, $37)
