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BooksSeptember 14, 2018

Unity Books best-seller chart for the week ending September 14

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The week’s biggest-selling books at the Unity stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.

AUCKLAND UNITY

1 Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster, $50)

As soon as it arrived, it flew off the shelves;  we look forward to the forthcoming review by Dita De Boni, and in the meantime recommend the amazing report filed by US correspondent Charlotte Grimshaw.

2 Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi (Ebury, $60)

Cookbook. Braised eggs with leeks and za’atar, etc.

3 Silence of the Girlsby Pat Barker (Hamish Hamilton, $37)

Historical fiction. Briseis is slave to Achilles, the man who butchered her husband and brothers, etc.

4 Less by Andrew Sean Greer (Little, Brown, $35)

The novel that just won’t stop selling.

5 Reporter: A Memoir by Seymour Hersh (Allen Lane, $55) 

“The most important thing about Seymour Hersh – the reason he has done project after project and achieved so much – is that he cares. His stories really matter. He cares about the people hurt by war or the actions of intelligence agencies. He cares about people tortured and mistreated. He cares about abuse of power and the public being deceived”: Nicky Hager, the Spinoff Review of Books.

6 21 Lessons for the 21st Centuryby Yuval Noah Harari (Jonathan Cape, $38)

We look forward to the forthcoming review by Danyl Mclauchlan.

7 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson (MacMillan, $35)

We cross live to Duncan Greive, who saw Manson give a keynote address at a conference in Brisbane last week: “He seemed the emblematic asshole for this era but he quickly won me over. Manson was intensely self-deprecating and skewered all the right myths. He took shots at Trump, and wellness, and all that. And yet all that was a disarming routine before he entered his main thesis: that you choose to be a victim, that we all have suffered, and that no one really has any right to complain – or that complaining is much less effective than just diving headlong into more work.

“Or words to that effect. It just seemed to me to be a very tense lesson for an affluent young white guy to be selling to the world at this moment. Which is of course precisely why it’s so effective: its underlying message is that whatever you are is your fault. At a time when a lot of privileged people are wondering how much they can put their success down to hard work and talent, and how much down to their identity and head start, Manson basically discounts the relevance of the latter. And, implicitly, says we shouldn’t bother trying to fix any social problems, because they’re not really problems at all. Yet he does it in such a good-humoured and easy-going manner that the ugliness at its heart is easy to miss – which is precisely why he’s so successful. And, to my mind, so worthless.”

8 Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $33)

“An elegant love story…Rooney’s tale of on-off romance, male fragility and abuse, leaves even her own astounding debut [Conversations with Friends] in the shade”: Guardian.

9 The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump edited by Rob Sears (Canongate, $28)

I predicted Apple’s stock would fall

I will build a great, great wall

I build buildings that are 94 stories tall

My hands – are they small?

10 And the Ocean was Our Sky by Patrick Ness and Rovina Cai (Walker Books, $28)

Moby-Dick, told by the whale.

 

WELLINGTON UNITY

1 Ottolenghi: Simple by Yotam Ottolenghi (Ebury, $60)

2 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari (Jonathan Cape, $38)

3 Silence Of The Girls by Pat Barker (Hamish Hamilton, $37)

4 Women, Equality, Power: Selected speeches from a life of leadership byHelen Clark (Allen & Unwin, $45)

5 Stardust and Substance: The New Zealand general election of 2017 edited by Stephen Levine (Victoria University Press, $40)

“There is no doubt that 2017 will remain the most extraordinary year of my life“, etc.

6 Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber, $33)

7 Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward (Simon & Schuster, $50)

8 Word to the Wise: Untangling the mix-ups, misuse and myths of language by Mark Broatch (Exisle, $30)

Untangling the mix-ups, misuse and myths of language.

9 Less by Andrew Sean Greer (Little, Brown, $25)

10 Māori Made Easy: For everyday learners by Scotty Morrison (Penguin, $38)

Te Wiki o te Reo Māori ko nga ra.


All these titles are available at Unity Books.

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