A weekly feature at the Spinoff Review of Books: The best-selling books at the Wellington and Auckland stores of Unity Books.
THE BEST–SELLER CHART FOR THE WEEK JUST ENDED: June 10
UNITY BOOKS WELLINGTON
1. In Love with These Times: The Flying Nun Story (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd
Number one with a bullet! The eagerly anticipated Nun man’s memoir was launched in the Willis St store this week; expect it to hog the top spot for quite a while.
2. Coming Rain (Text Publishing, $37) by Stephen Daisley
Resurgence in sales of the winner of the 2016 Ockham New Zealand book of the year award.
3. The Sympathizer (Little Brown, $28) by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer award for fiction.
4. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (Profile Books, $28) by Mary Beard
Good to see Wellingtonians embrace this hymn to the awesome restaurant on Ponsonby Rd.
5. Re-Inventing New Zealand: Essays on the Arts and the Media (Atuanui Press, $45) by Roger Horrocks
This sounds good! We oughtta carry something in our Monday Excerpt. Atuanui Press! Pick up the phone bro.
6. How Did We Get into This Mess? (Verso, $39) by George Monbiot
Essays on what’s wrong with the world these days sort of thing.
7. Thought Horses (Victoria University Press, $25) by Rachel Bush
New Zealand poetry in the best-seller chart!!!!
8. The Improbability of Love (Bloomsbury, $21) by Hannah Rothschild
UK novel: “Annie McDee, alone after the disintegration of her long-term relationship and trapped in a dead-end job, is searching for a present for her unsuitable lover in a neglected second-hand shop”, etc.
9. In the Supplementary Garden (Cold Hub Press, $40) by Diana Bridge
New Zealand poetry in the best-seller chart!!!!
10. Secondhand Time: An Oral History of the Fall of the Soviet Union (Text Publishing, $40) by Svetlana Alexievich
History as told by the народ.
UNITY BOOKS AUCKLAND
1. In Love with These Times: The Flying Nun Story (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd
2. A Little Life (Picador, $25) by Hanya Yanagihara
Aucklanders! What is your enduring fascination with this whopping novel all about?! The world has moved on. But there you are, still buying it! Is it the misery of it all? Is that what’s so appealing?
3. The Sympathizer (Corfair, $28) by Viet Thanh Nguyen
4. Chronicles On Our Troubled Times (Penguin, $37) by Thomas Piketty
Essays on what’s wrong with the world these days sort of thing.
5. The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone (Canongate, $40) by Olivia Laing
Sort of a memoir.
6. My Life on the Road (Nero, $37) by Gloria Steinem
Memoir, definitely.
7. The Vegetarian (Portobello, $23) by Han Kang
See Wyoming Paul’s awesome review of the winner of the 2016 Man Booker prize for international fiction.
8. SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (Profile, $28) by Mary Beard
9. High Rise (Fourth Estate, $23) by JG Ballard
Ballard’s 1975 novel has been re-released as a movie tie-in.
10. A Burglar’s Guide to the City (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $28) by Geoff Manaugh
“Studying architecture the way a burglar would, Geoff Manaugh takes readers through walls, down elevator shafts, into panic rooms, up to the buried vaults of banks, and out across the rooftops of an unsuspecting city.” Blimey!