The top 10 sales lists recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.
AUCKLAND
1 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
Number one again! Well, Gone By Lunchtime did say everyone should read it.
2 Stakes: A Memoir by Noelle McCarthy (Penguin, $40)
The follow-up to the widely read and much admired Grand, launched this week with an event that featured Toby Manhire in a top hat. Blurb for context? “Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities of desire. Twenty years later, exhausted by her unruly appetites, Noelle returns to Dracula, reckoning with her own history and a changing world: generation-spanning shame and trauma given voice by #MeToo and the horrors emerging from Irish soil. More than a century after readers were first mesmerised by Dracula, Stakes transposes its electric themes of transgression, intoxication and sexual danger onto Noelle’s own life, asking: what’s the difference between an inheritance and a curse?”
3 Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)
Strout doesn’t miss.
4 One Last Question, Prime Minister by Barry Soper (HarperCollins, $40)
To all the prime ministers I’ve loved before (and the one I weirdly hated).
5 Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (Scribe Pubs Pty, $38)
The winner of the International Booker Prize 2026, and a must-read for people who love reading descriptions of food.
6 John of John by Douglas Stuart (Picador, $38)
The follow-up to the Booker-winning Shuggie Bain. Positively reviewed in The Guardian.
7 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)
The true story of a teen’s mysterious death in London, from one of the audience favourite at this year’s Auckland Writers Festival. If you missed his session (or if you’re hungry for more), have a listen to his recent interview on the Adam Buxton Podcast.
8 No Pit Stops by Grant Baker (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)
The life and times of a New Zealand business success story, with blurbs from Liam Lawson and Grant Dalton on the cover.
9 The Land and its People by David Sedaris (Abacus, $40)
A new collection from the comic essay master – on health, travel, ageing, Duolingo and more.
10 Whistler by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury UK, $39)
The Guardian may have called it “saccharine“, but the Patchett-heads over on GoodReads are absolutely loving it.
WELLINGTON
1 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
2 Breaking Through: How to Rescue Childhood and Heal the Parent-Child Relationship by Mary Willow (Bateman Books, $45)
Robyn Malcolm-approved advice for parents, caregivers, teachers and anyone else trying to reason with a young person’s “ancient survival brain”.
3 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)
4 All Her Lives: Nine Stories by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)
Basking in that Ockhams afterglow. Learn more about Ingrid Horrocks’ reading life here.
5 Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)
6 John of John by Douglas Stuart (Picador, $38)
7 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Fourth Estate, $37)
“Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid’s Tale” – you better believe a film adaptation is already under way (starring Anne Hathaway!).
8 One Last Question, Prime Minister by Barry Soper (HarperCollins, $40)
9 Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street by Elizabeth Cox (Massey University Press, $90)
The next best thing to time travel.
10 Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (Scribe Pubs Pty, $38)
