(Image: Tina Tiller)
(Image: Tina Tiller)

BooksOctober 6, 2023

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending October 6

(Image: Tina Tiller)
(Image: Tina Tiller)

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  Backwaters by Emma Ling Sidnam (Text Publishing, $38)

Hooray! Emma Ling Sidnam’s debut novel won the Michael Gifkins Prize for an unpublished novel, and was warmly celebrated at a Unity Books Auckland event earlier this week. Here are some of the wonderful things Kete Books had to say:

“As a Chinese New Zealander myself, I consumed this book luxuriating in the stabs of recognition, the feeling of being seen. Who hasn’t tried to work out a complicated love life and fended off weird demands from bosses while trying to understand their family? Who hasn’t endured the expectations of outsiders who want to be ‘educated’ on diversity and ask intrusive questions without a glimmer of self-awareness? I may have shouted with joy while reading the passage where three Asian women cooperate to fend off a racist at a dinner party.”

For a taster, you can read an essay by Emma Ling Sidnam just over this way. 

2  The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin (Canongate, $50)

Because creativity never sleeps.

3  Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)

You know when you experience a book so perfect, every sentence requires rumination, and it makes you feel like a better human being? This is one of those.

4  Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear (Random House Business, $40)

A hugely popular self-help book, focused on actionable, practical steps.

5  Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage, $26)

They say tomorrow never arrives, but that’s very much not the case for Gabrielle Zevin.

6  Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Bloomsbury, $25)

A novel about 70-year-old widow Tova, who forms a bond with a giant Pacific octopus while working the night shift at the local aquarium. The humans of Goodreads call it “charming”, “uplifting” and “wonderful”.

7  The Diary of a CEO: The 33 Laws of Business & Life by Steven Bartlett (Ebury Edge, $40)

Steven Bartlett is an entrepreneur and host of hugely popular podcast The Diary of a CEO, where he’s interviewed thousands of influential and experienced professionals. Now, you can read a bunch of the things that he thinks are most important in life and business.

8  The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue (Knopf, $38)

A new Irish novel about youth and friendship, recommended for fans of Sally Rooney.

9  The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (Sphere, $40)

The seventh Cormoran Strike novel has arrived, and it’s … big. Some might suggest in need of a decent edit. From the Guardian: “…a tale of how the human desire for approval, validation and a sense of purpose can sometimes lead us astray. Sir Colin Edensor, a retired civil servant, approaches the pair with a request to help extricate his vulnerable neurodivergent son from the clutches of a cult. Several years earlier, Will dropped out of university to join the Universal Humanitarian Church. All attempts to dislodge him from its headquarters, a farm in Norfolk, have proved fruitless: Will has now cut off communication with his family, and his trust fund is being systematically drained.”

10  The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (Viking, $37)

The fourth instalment in the Thursday Murder Club series. What kind of trouble has the gang gotten themselves into this time, you may ask? And who will be the last devil to die? You can look forward to plenty of murder, antiques, art forgers, dangerous packages, and online fraudsters. 

WELLINGTON

1  Emergency Weather by Tim Jones (The Cuba Press, $38)

Local author and climate change activist Tim Jones has released a new near-future thriller – this from the publisher’s blurb: “Zeke has to stay with his aunt and uncle in Lower Hutt after a landslide takes his East Coast home off its foundations. Allie puts her drought-ridden Otago dairy farm out of her mind and catches a plane to the capital city. Stephanie wonders why she’s sitting around a table at the Ministry for Resilience – again.

“In Emergency Weather, three people find themselves in Wellington as the climate crisis crashes into their lives. A giant storm is on its way – what will be left of the city when it’s over?”

2  Articulations by Henrietta Bollinger (Tender Press, $28)

Another very strong week for local debut Articulations! Please tuck in and enjoy this personal essay excerpt from the book, where Bollinger writes about the experience of engaging sex workers as someone with a disability. 

3  The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (Sphere, $40)

4  The Fraud by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton, $37)

The new, historical novel from the author of White Teeth and On Beauty. 

5  Bunny by Monica Awad (Head of Zeus, $25)

The cult favourite and winner of #BookTok.

6  Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (Vintage, $26)

7  Tom Lake by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury, $35)

The brilliant Ann Patchett, at it again with a new novel. This review from the Washington Independent: “Tom Lake is the quietest of quiet stories: a mother recounting select elements of her life to her adult daughters as they pick sweet cherries during the pandemic. Quiet, yes, but gorgeous and entrancing in ways significant and minute via the details tucked into the corners. … Patchett’s rendering of this family captures so much of what is true in daily life and family dynamics — especially of even grown children being incapable of grasping their parents’ life before them — moving easily from laugh-out-loud funny to moist-eyed poignance, sometimes in the same sentence.”

8  Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber, $28)

David Copperfield, reimagined. Has won many awards.

9  Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein (Allen Lane, $42)

Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo, This Changes Everything, and The Shock Doctrine; she’s a leftist critic, and tends to write about corporate capitalism and the climate crisis. Clarity here is important – because her new book was sparked by the huge number of people mistaking her for popular writer and conspiracy theorist, Naomi Wolf. 

The Guardian writes, “You may well wonder how such a faintly comical theme can be extended for 350 pages, and what it has to do with Klein’s usual preoccupations of combating corporate capitalism and climate crisis. It is certainly the most introspective and whimsical of Klein’s books to date, but it is also one of surprising insights, unexpected connections and great subtlety. The Klein/Wolf confusion is an entry point to consider wider forms of disorientation that afflict the left, in particular the loss of its monopoly (if it ever had one) over the language of political resistance, and how, in the process, that language has lost its grip on the world.”

10  The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa by Catherine Comyn (Economic and Social Research Aotearoa, $30)

“The word finance might bring to mind the technical world of banks and interest rates, The Wolf of Wall Street, or something you use in the unlikely event you can ever afford to buy a house in this country. But a new book reveals how it also had an intimate relationship to the colonisation of Aotearoa.” Read more in Charlotte Muru-Lanning’s interview with Catherine Comyn.

‘Become a member to help us deliver news and features that matter most to Aotearoa.’
Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
— Politics reporter
Keep going!
Liam Jacobson and Maggie Tweedie (Image: Tina Tiller)
Liam Jacobson and Maggie Tweedie (Image: Tina Tiller)

BooksOctober 5, 2023

Bus rides and black mould: An interview with Liam Jacobson

Guest writer
Liam Jacobson and Maggie Tweedie (Image: Tina Tiller)
Liam Jacobson and Maggie Tweedie (Image: Tina Tiller)

Liam Jacobson is an artist, poet and writer from Manurewa, South Auckland. Maggie Tweedie spoke to Liam about their debut poetry collection, Neither. 

Poetry has a wicked knack for capturing our worlds. I often wonder what holds many New Zealanders back from using this cathartic form of expression. Perhaps it’s because The West holds poetry to too high of a standard as if it’s an art form that only a select few can achieve. Maybe we need to follow Japan and democratise the act of poetry, building the written form into our day-to-day, much like haiku. 

The work of Liam Jacobson (Ngāi Tahu) doesn’t mull over the mess. Instead, their poetry peels back parts of their existence so clearly they make you rethink your own. The lines “and while the mountain of rats that insulate the walls are still dormant or else plotting their heist of my coleslaw” sent a shiver down my spine, reminding me of the days I spent in Dunedin where you would bring your washing in from the line and put them away in your drawers, only to find them soaking wet again the next morning. 

Maggie Tweedie: What brought you to poetry as a medium and what felt particularly accessible about it? 

Liam Jacobson: You don’t need any material really, there’s really no barrier to entry. Other than industry things but none of that is real anyway. I think that it’s just about translating any thoughts or ideas you have. It’s super easy to get into like that. I was making a lot of devised theatre, so there was a transition point into that. Poetry was more accessible when I was feeling more insular or introverted. It’s this nice relationship with yourself and the world beyond you. That’s what’s cool about it, how many spaces you can press it through. 

I hear that presence when I read your poem, BUS TO K. You really show us the daily sights and sounds and the characters you interact with. I feel like I’m there on the bus with you. Where were you when you wrote that poem? 

That poem was written on the bus. It’s one of the few poems that didn’t change too much and one of the only poems I rambled out pretty quickly. 

I wrote it a couple of years ago. Now It feels like some kind of video or something because I guess a lot of those things I’m talking about have been pushed out because of rent, moved on, or aren’t there anymore. It’s quite dated but in an interesting way. 

Have you enjoyed the process of sharing your work with an audience and having that feedback loop open to you? 

I think it’s quite interesting and cool seeing what different people think of different parts of it. It’s fun to play with that as well. I realise how clear something was that I didn’t necessarily realise when I was writing it before. Meaning is always changing and coming in tides. 

I imagine sometimes you learn more about your own words the more you perform them or read them. 

Or I forget things as well. Suddenly when you are performing in a familiar or new space a certain rhyme resurges again.

 

THE DAY MELTS AMONG ME 

************************************

at like 5.30/6ish

when the wind is heavy with gold 

and there’re soft shadows of glass, dancing 

every afternoon on old wallpaper 

painted a sick ivory by the landlord 

 

and while the mountain of rats 

that insulate the walls are still dormant 

or else plotting their heist of my coleslaw 

 

and an ancient draught bleeds ice 

thru the foot of my front door

 

and black mould is like frost on the ceiling 

that’s sagging with age to the floorboards 

and a garden of weeds climbs to your hip 

thru borer holes 

 

and i’m down to, like 

the last third of a bottle of old birthday whiskey 

listening to mississipi john hurt hurt with me 

 

rich on winz fraud 

in the wet light of the early evening 

dreaming of somebody sweet 

 

about then, 

when i’ve endured myself long enough 

to welcome the hour of angels 

I find my breath heavy with calm 

 

The black mould and borer holes you write about in that poem all paint such a visual picture. Reading through that rhythmic way of your writing also adds another layer. How much is performance a part of poetry for you? 

I think it’s pretty hard to avoid it. You are either performing in public or performing it privately. It’s pretty inherent within it. For me, the rhythm of mumbling and rambling is so important in the vernacular of your world in that moment or beyond that moment. Performance to me is really special to bring now to something. The cage is fixed so it’s cool to breathe life into it. It’s quite Māori too in that way, it’s quite ancient to say things out loud. 

I love the poem, ‘where’s the day gone?’ There’s a cycle of monotony that appears. “The sidewalk stained with secrets” is another line that sings. You leave us with that visual imprint of a place that’s really lived in and really seen a lot. Was that crafted in a cyclical way? 

That’s one of the older poems in the book. Honestly, it was a pretty messy time but a pretty fun mess. I guess I was caught in a cycle and a lot of the people around me were as well. There’s a real joy to that space, to this kind of filth, grot and grossness when your life’s like that. I definitely made it in a time like that. I edited it more recently with that more nostalgic eye. 

Your publisher Dead Bird Books, is known for finding authors that wouldn’t necessarily fit into a rigid publishing model. What made you decide to release your book through them?

I met Dom (Hoey) a while ago at one of his book releases and they’d been asking me to do it for a while. I think I wanted to do it with them because there’s a friend relationship there. It’s nice to be doing stuff like this with people who you can trust to keep the process warm and to keep me alive. I think other more clinical or institutional places might have made me feel like I was in an airport or something.

Yeah, you don’t want to take the spirit out of the book before you publish it. Do you plan on taking it to Te Waipounamu for the southerners? 

I would love to. Even though I have never lived there I still consider that place home. That’s where a lot of my family is buried and where most of my marae are. 

Dom Hoey, Isla Huia and I are planning on doing a little tour of the South Island and some less frequented pockets of the North Island as well. You’ll get three for the price of one! 

Neither by Liam Jacobson (Dead Bird Books, $30) can be purchased at Unity Books Wellington and Auckland.

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