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 Make It Make Sense by Lucy Blakiston & Bel Hawkins (Moa Press, $37)
The bright brains behind Shit You Should Care About have pivoted to print! With chapters like “Phoenixing”, “How I make money is not the way I die”, and “Why we need to go far away from where we came from” we’re sure this very attractive (pastels, florals, faces in flowers) guidebook to living, loving (or not), and working (or not) will strike a path straight to the heads and hearts of many a Gen Z on the hustle in this tricksy day and age.
2 All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Moa Press, $38)
“The book offers a well-crafted, neatly-cast story, with characters I already miss and would love to spend more time with. It offers opportunities too, for reflection on that which we critique but also continue to perpetuate, and our entanglements – conscious or not – with the very systems and behaviours we claim we do not abide.” Read more of Natasha Lampard’s review on The Spinoff.
3 Radical Respect: How to Work Together by Kim Scott (MacMillan, $35)
Previously known as Just Work, this is an update of a bestseller endorsed by “lean in” lady Sheryl Sandberg.
4 Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Press, $38)
Plug it straight into my veins. The book in which Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton hang out.
5 Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi (Penguin, $70)
Mac & cheese but make it fancy.
6 There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Viking Press, $37)
“Shafak asks us to think of water as not a resource but a companion, to imagine its precious, ancient story. She reminds us that the story of written language, from the counting of cereal crops to the first epic tale of a deluge, was born from the water feeding the harvests of Mesopotamia and used to mold the first cuneiform tablets. She reminds us, powerfully, of the material nature of human thought and culture, the continuity of time and the proximity of our ancestors.” Read more on the NY Times.
7 James by Percival Everett (Mantle, $38)
“One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.” Read the full pithy appraisal on Kirkus Reviews.
8 We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida (Doubleday, $36)
For all the wannabe childless cat ladies like Taylor Swift.
9 Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors (Fourth Estate, $38)
From the profile/review on The Guardian: “Despite the obvious parallels, Little Women was not Mellors’ ‘north star’ when writing the novel. “One of the things that struck me first was [Wes Anderson’s film] The Royal Tenenbaums, this feeling of different, very exceptional siblings within one family.” She was also inspired by the way Jonathan Franzen writes siblings in his novels.”
10 Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (Head of Zeus, $25)
The stunning, time-spanning epic now also a TV show streaming on Apple TV.
WELLINGTON
1 The Little Witch Who Lost Her Broom! by Elaine Bickell & Raymond McGrath (Scholastic, $22)
Cute! Very apt that a new picture book is number on in the same week that Picture Me festival is on in Wellington (and in Christchurch next week). Read all about the festival here. Hope she gets her broom back!
2 Becoming Tangata Tiriti: Working with Maori, Honouring the Treaty by Avril Bell (Auckland Uni Press, $30)
This brilliantly instructive book is still going strong.
3 Make it Make Sense by Lucy Blakiston & Bel Hawkins (Moa Press, $37)
4 Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday, $38)
Quaffable crime from a literary goddess.
5 The Invasion of Waikato / Te Riri ki Tainui by Vincent O’Malley (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
From the publisher’s blurb: “The Invasion of Waikato/Te Riri ki Tainui features short biographies of people and groups who have contributed to our contemporary understanding of the events. Building on Dr O’Malley’s comprehensive 2016 study, The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800–2000, this concise account includes rich illustrations and detailed maps. Insights from recent research emphasise the roles of memory and place in shaping our understanding of this history.”
6 Radical Respect: How to Work Together by Kim Scott (MacMillan, $35)
7 Precipice by Robert Harris (Hutchinson, $38)
This World War I novel is getting rave reviews. This from The Guardian: “This is a novel about love and power, about the son of “dour, Northern nonconformists” risen to the highest seat in the land. It’s interesting that there is no sense that Harris seeks to censure the older man for what might, in the light of modern ideas about power dynamics, be seen as a predatory relationship with a woman young enough to be his daughter. Rather, Asquith is presented with great tenderness and sympathy, as is his hard-edged but vulnerable wife, Margot. It’s the character of Venetia, though, that turns Precipice from a very good novel into a great one. As the horrors of the trenches are revealed, she feels called upon to play her part in the war effort, but also begins to question her relationship with an increasingly desperate, doddering and lovesick prime minister. At the time when our minds are on another global leader overtaken by age, the ending feels particularly poignant, its message nuanced yet terribly moving.”
8 Comfort by Yotam Ottolenghi (Penguin, $70)
9 Unsettled: Small Stories of Decolonisation by Richard Shaw (Massey University Press, $40)
An absolutely brilliant book about excavating our settler pasts to recognise the truth in those narratives in terms of land theft and the structural advantages that theft enabled. Honest, compellingly written, and without hand-wringing or virtue signalling: a useful tool for anyone wanting to feel more settled with their own histories. Read an excerpt from the book right here on The Spinoff.
10 Bad Archive by Flora Feltham (Te Herenga Waka, $35)
The runaway hit among essay collections this year! Feltham’s debut is a fascinating exploration of the fabric of life, from seagulls to literary forebears, to worms. Read Maddie Ballard’s review of the book on The Spinoff, here.