The only published and available best-selling 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 John Scott Works by David Straight (Massey University Press, $70)
Gorgeous tome celebrating the career of one of our most influential architects.
2 Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $23)
Rooney’s two novels vie for top billing week by week.
3 The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker (Hamish Hamilton, $37)
The Iliad as seen through the eyes of the captive women make this mythic story a new one.
4 Milkman by Anna Burns (Faber & Faber, $33)
Staunchly in our Top 10 since it won the Man Booker Prize in September last year.
5 The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells (Allen Lane, $35)
‘…the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament’ – The New York Times
6 Hello Darkness by Peter Wells (Mighty Ajax, $40)
“A strange, wise, aching, tender, sad, frank, really interesting and deeply beautiful document. ‘Sickness,’ he writes in Hello Darkness, ‘became my occupation.’ This is his memoir of that intense career…Peter Wells has always been an exceptional author. His perceptiveness, his rich, lyrical sentences, and his shamelessness are just some of the virtues throughout his writing life and they all make their way towards the exit that is Hello Darkness“: Steve Braunias, at the launch held at Unity Books in Auckland.
7 The Spy & the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War by Ben Macintyre (Viking, $40)
Double agent Oleg Gordievsky, the KGB, the MI6, the CIA and the significance of a Safeway plastic carrier bag. Nail-biting and true!
8 Little by Edward Carey (Gallic Books, $31)
Carey conjures the life of the little orphan girl who would become Madame Tussaud. Margaret Atwood called this an ‘eccentric charmer’.
9 Annette King: The Authorised Biography by John Harvey (Upstart Press, $45)
Political life of the long serving M.P.
10 The Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age and Terror of Trump by Andrew McCabe (St. Martin’s Press, $59)
Using his current popularity as his platform for setting the record straight, The Threat offers an exhilarating insight into the operations of the FBI and a refreshing take on Trump’s corrupt, threatening, mafia style administration.
Wellington
1 Dead Letters: Censorship & Subversion in NZ by Jared Davidson (Otago University Press, $35)
‘The remarkable stories of people caught in the web of wartime surveillance.’
2 With the End in Mind: Dying, Death & Wisdom in an Age of Denial by Kathryn Mannix (HarperCollins, $27)
‘Answers the most intimate questions about the process of dying with touching honesty and humanity.’
3 Because a Woman’s Heart is Like a Needle at the Bottom of the Ocean by Sugar Magnolia Wilson (Auckland University Press, $25)
Complex and beautiful debut poetry collection from Wellington poet
4 A Mistake by Carl Shuker (Victoria University Press, $30)
Tense and compelling novel centred around a female surgeon at Wellington Regional Hospital – first outing for Shuker with Victoria University Press.
5 Under Glass by Gregory Kan (Auckland University Press, $25)
Second poetry collection from Kan, previously shortlisted for poetry in the 2017 Ockham Awards with This Paper Boat (AUP).
6 Annette King: The Authorised Biography by John Harvey & Brent Edwards (Upstart Press, $45)
Political biography of the long-serving Labour MP.
7 Unto Us a Son Is Given by Donna Leon (William Heinemann, $35)
The new Commissario Brunetti offering.
8 Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells (Allen Lane, $35)
‘…the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament’ – The New York Times
9 Normal People by Sally Rooney (Faber, $33)
We can’t seem to quit Rooney.
10 Less by Andrew Sean Greer (Little, Brown, $25)
Humorous, Pulitzer Prize-winning fiction still going strong.