The top 10 sales lists recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.
AUCKLAND
1 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)
Highly recommend this episode of Adam Buxton’s podcast in which he talks to Radden Keefe at length about this book among other things.
2 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Fourth Estate, $37)
Is it… good though? Mixed reviews coming from all corners for this trad-wife-yeeted-back-in-time malarkey (apparently inspired by Ballerina Farm).
3 Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan (Simon & Schuster, $43)
Exceptional and depressing says the New Yorker.
4 Land by Maggie O’Farrell (Headline Press, $38)
A literary epic.
5 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
Too early to call this page-turning insight into the justice system the book of the year?
6 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $38)
Literature in letters.
7 Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (Fourth Estate, $25)
“An audacious, original and unforgettable novel-in-stories that follows a cast of intricately linked characters as rejection throws their lives and relationships into chaos. Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the thorniest problems of modern life: sex, relationships, identity and the internet.”
8 Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe (Harper Collins, $30)
Utterly compelling investigation into the abduction and murder of Jean McConville – a mother of 14 – during the Troubles.
9 A Short Stay in Hell by Stephen L. Peck (Vintage, $28)
First published in 2009, this spooky novella is having an afterlife: “Soren Johansson has always believed he’ll be reunited with his loved ones after death in an eternal hereafter. Then, he dies. An ordinary family man, geologist, and Mormon, Soren wakes to find himself cast by a God he has never heard of into a Hell whose dimensions he can barely grasp – a vast library he can only escape from by finding the book that contains the story of his life. As his attempt to leave begins, he comes face to face with the absurdity of existence.”
10 Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)
We can never have enough Strout.
WELLINGTON
1 Heartstopper Volume 6 by Alice Oseman (Hodder Children’s Books, $28)
Nick and Charlie! The hotly anticipated final volume in the queer graphic novel that took over the world, and Netflix. Catch Oseman in Auckland on October 20, and in Christchurch on October 22 (sorry Wellington!).
2 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
3 Land by Maggie O’Farrell (Headline Press, $38)
4 Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)
5 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)
6 Insuring the Future: Reimagining Home Insurance in Aotearoa by Jonathan Boston (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)
“As the effects of climate change intensify across Aotearoa New Zealand, securing home insurance is no longer a sure thing. Nor is it always affordable. In this clear-eyed work, public policy expert Jonathan Boston tackles one of the defining policy challenges of climate change: how can residential property insurance remain accessible and affordable as climate-intensified risks escalate?”
7 Whistler by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury, $39)
Intimate, entertaining, good old fashioned comforting fodder for a long weekend in front of the fire.
8 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $38)
9 John of John by Douglas Stuart (Picador, $38)
From the brilliant writer of Shuggie Bain comes another heartbreaking novel about not feeling at home, at home.
10 Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump by Maggie Haberman & Jonathan Swan (Simon & Schuster, $43)
