1 Seed by Elizabeth Easther (Penguin Random House, $38)

“Regardless of whose story is being told, the emotional heart of Seed never stops beating,” writes Tara Ward in The Spinoff. “There were many moments that flashed me back to my own journey to motherhood, to the days when I felt an ache in my arms that would only be eased by holding a baby, or when people made sudden, thoughtless comments about being childless that would send me home early from social events, sobbing in the car.”

2 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35) 

If there were medals for most appearances on this hallowed chart then Butter would be getting gold.

3 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $38)

“In her letters to family and friends we come to know the life of Sybil Van Antwerp: stubborn, cantankerous, opinionated, always steadfast in her belief in the power of the written word,” goes the publisher’s blurb for this hugely popular epistolary novel.

“But as the clock begins to tick for Sybil, the need for a few post-scripts to the life she’s led becomes apparent. Fixing her difficult relationship with her children. Taking a final chance at romance. Atoning for an old legal case which has come back to haunt her. And finally, reckoning with a devastating loss that she has spent the last thirty years holding close to her chest.”

4 Theo of Golden by Allen Levi (HarperCollins, $35)

This strangely sparse cover has a golden circle on that says “international bestselling phenomenon”. One way to market a book I guess.

5 Flesh by David Szalay (Vintage, $28)

Catch Szalay at this year’s Auckland Writers Festival.

6 Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman (Hachette, $38)

“The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village.” Sign me up.

7 Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate, $37)

I’d say catch Lily King at the Auckland Writers Festival, too, but looks like this one has sold out.

8 Hooked by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $37)

If you loved Butter, then …

9 Nonesuch by Francis Spufford (Faber & Faber, $38) 

This novel sounds utterly brilliant and has already had rave reviews over in the UK where it came out a few weeks ago. Here’s a wee snippet from AK Blakemore’s write up in The Guardian: “Nonesuch is a historical fantasy set during the second world war, every paragraph of which is packed with authorial zest.”

10 Valencia by Michelle Tea (Seprents Tail, $28)

April at Unity Books is a fan of this coming-of-age classic (now re-released with a forward by Maggie Nelson): “Epic lesbian chaos! Featuring headspinning debauchery in 1990s San Francisco, heartbreak, and surprising moments of stillness and relatability. Loved it!”

WELLINGTON

1 Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (Penguin, $28)

How about that time when Mission Control said “amaze, amaze, amaze!” when speaking to the Artemis II crew.

2 Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $40)

Maybe it’s time for a curated list of book about mothers. That would be quite something.

3 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $38)

4 Heart the Lover by Lily King (Canongate, $37)

5 I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (Vintage, $33)

Does anyone else go off dystopias a bit when you’re increasingly sure you’re living in one?

6 Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street by Elizabeth Cox (Massey University Press, $90)

Welcome back, Mr Ward!

7 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $28)

Welcome back, unsettling yet gripping tale of identical triplets and their three mothers.

8 Flesh by David Szalay (Vintage, $28)

9 Glyph by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton, $45)

“In a chiaroscuro dance through our increasingly antagonistic era, Glyph asks if we’re attending to the history that’s made us and to the history we’re making. A funny, warm and clear-eyed take on where we are now, Glyph is about what our imaginations are for and how, in a broken, brutal and divided time, we rekindle care, solidarity, resistance and openness.

This anti-war novel, Ali Smith’s most soulful, playful and vital yet, is a work of lightness that goes deep to counter the forces currently flattening the modern world.”

This sounds more like it.

10 The World Appears: A Journey into Consciousness by Michael Pollan (Allen Lane, $45)

“Much of Pollan’s book reminded me of Siri Hustvedt’s brilliant 2016 extended essay, The Delusions of Certainty, a lucid critique of scientific reductionism,” says Edward Postnett in his review of Pollan’s latest. “Like that work, Pollan’s book attempts to disentangle the ideas we have inherited about our own minds, an inheritance of which we are not even aware.”