The best-selling books at the two best bookstores in the North Island.
AUCKLAND UNITY
1 Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search for a Lost Father by Diana Wichtel (Awa Press, $45)
“I’m privileged to have known Diana for over 15 years as a colleague and a friend. In the early days, she told me a bit of what happened to her father, or what she knew of what happened to him, and how much was unknown, not really talked about. In recent years I knew of her efforts to find out more, and was aware of the tenacity required, and the grief and pleasures that have come out of that search. But I never really comprehended any of this until reading this book. I thought I’d heard it all; I didn’t expect the book would make me cry, certainly not as much as it has”: Margo White, The Spinoff Review of Books.
2 Eat Up New Zealand: Recipes and Stories by Al Brown (Allen & Unwin, $65)
Food.
3 Allen Curnow: Slipcase Edition by Terry Sturm & Elizabeth Caffin (Auckland University Press, $125)
The more expensive version of the book below.
4 Allen Curnow: Simply By Sailing in a New Direction – A Biography by Terry Sturm (Auckland University Press, $70)
The long-awaited Life.
5 Solar Bones by Mike McCormack (Canongate, $23)
“County Mayo’s dead return in an intoxicating experimental novel”: Financial Times.
6 The Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst (Picador, $38)
“Spanning two generations of gay life, Hollinghurst’s tale of dreaming spires and secrets is his finest novel yet”: The Guardian.
7 A Legacy of Spies by John Le Carré (Penguin, $37)
Ye olde spye tale.
8 Origin by Dan Brown (Bantam, $48)
Dan Brown!
9 The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kar (Simon & Schuster, $30)
From the 2017 Sydney Writers Festival programme, featuring Rupi Kar onstage with Hera Lindsay Bird: “Hera Lindsay Bird and Rupi Kaur flout sanitised femininity. Hera’s self-titled book of poetry catapulted the 28-year-old Kiwi to cult status with poems such as Keats is Dead So Fuck Me From Behind. Indian-Canadian Rupi has fashioned a career out of forcing herself into places where she’s least expected, whether it’s making the New York Times bestseller list or challenging social media to rethink how it sees menstruation.”
10 Koh-I-Noor: The Story of the World’s Most Famous Diamond by William Dalrymple & Anita Anand (Bloomsbury, $26)
The story of the world’s most famous diamond.
WELLINGTON UNITY
1 Driving to Treblinka: A Long Search for a Lost Father by Diana Wichtel (Awa Press, $45)
2 Out of the Woods: Journey Through Depression & Anxiety by Brent Williams, illustrated by Öztekin Korkut (Educational Resources, $40)
Story and artwork of the author’s childhood hell, breakdown, and recovery.
3 Emergency Response: Life Death & Helicopters by Dave Greenberg (Penguin Random House, $40)
Helicopters.
4 Risking Their Lives: NZ Abortion Stories 1900-1939 by Margaret Sparrow (VictoriaUniversity Press, $40)
From the publisher: “Risking Their Lives features many previously untold stories salvaged from the coroner’s reports and newspaper reports of the day. The narrative is grim, but this is an honest retelling of our past, primarily letting the stories speak for themselves.”
5 Floods Another Chamber by James Brown (Victoria University Press, $25)
The latest collection of verse, just about upstaged by Greg O’Brien’s masterly speech at the launch this week.
6 Sparsholt Affair by Alan Hollinghurst (Picador, $38)
7 Legacy of Spies by John Le Carre (Penguin, $37)
8 Munich by Robert Harris (Hutchinson, $38)
Ye olde spye tale.
9 Unity Books at 50: excerpts by author-booksellers over half a century of trading edited by Jane Parkin (Unity Books Wellington, $8)
Story of one of the two best bookstores in the North Island.
10 The Man Who Ate Lincoln Road by Steve Braunias (Luncheon Sausage Books, $25)
Soon to be a major motion picture. Also, the author will be reading from his book Civilisation every day on the 9 to Noon show on Radio New Zealand for the next fortnight, starting on Monday. Gather around!
The Spinoff review of books is brought to you by Unity Books.