New verse by Wellington writer Kate Camp.

Welcome to your new sky

It is impossible to build
an unhackable computer.

That’s why the US Navy
is equipping its ships with sextants

and teaching their crews
to navigate by the stars.

You can’t hack the stars.
Yet.

All in all though and on balance
I am in favour of the world today.

Welcome to your new Sky
my appliances say

and they tell me I am running low
on memory.

Nothing could be further from the truth!
I am a billionaire of memory

I am the one
percent.

But I appreciate their concern.
When I buy a new watch strap

the woman says
let me see the model

ah yes,
it’s a small Irony.

And she applies it to my wrist
like a bandage.

The best-seller chart at Unity Books for the week just ended: October 7

Steve Braunias is on a well-deserved break this week and as a result, the best-seller lists are presented without comment.

WELLINGTON STORE

1 Constitution for Aotearoa NZ (Victoria University Press, $25) by Geoffrey Palmer and Andrew Butler

2 Like Nobody’s Watching (Escalator Press, $25) by L J Ritchie

3 Born to Run (Simon & Schuster, $50) by Bruce Springsteen

4 Scrumptious (PenguinRandom, $50) by Chelsea Winter

5 Pigeon Tunnel: Stories From My Life (Viking,$38) by John Le Carre

6 Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Harville Secker, $40) by Yuval Noah Harari

7 Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved & Died in The 1940s (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, $40) by Anne Sebba

8 Mansfield & Me: A Graphic Memoir (Victoria University Press, $35) by Sarah Laing

9 Nutshell (Jonathan Cape, $38) by Ian McEwan

10 Broken Decade: Prosperity, Depression & Recovery in NZ 1928-39 (Otago University Press, $50) by Malcolm McKinnon

AUCKLAND STORE

1 Born to Run (Simon & Schuster, $50) by Bruce Springsteen 

2 The Pigeon Tunnel: Strories from My Life (Viking, $38) by John le Carré

3 Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (Harvill Secker, $40) by Yuval Noah Harari

4 Known and Strange Things (Faber & Faber, $33) by Teju Cole

5 Red Herring (HarperCollins, $37) by Jonothan Cullinane

6 A Constitution for Aotearoa New Zealand (Victoria University Press, $25) by Geoffrey Palmer & Andrew Butler

7 A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $40) by Adam Rutherford

8 The Sellout (Oneworld, $28) by Paul Beatty

9 Hera Lindsay Bird (Victoria University Press, $25) by Hera Lindsay Bird

10 Nutshell (Jonathan Cape, $38) by Ian McEwan