The best-seller chart at Unity Books for the week just ended: September 16
WELLINGTON STORE
1 Hera Lindsay Bird (Victoria University Press, $25) by Hera Lindsay Bird
2 Nutshell (Jonathan Cape, $38) by Ian McEwan
“Nutshell assumes its readers will be literate, thoughtful and cultured. You have to like that.” David Hill, New Zealand Herald.
3 Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved & Died in The 1940s (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, $40) by Anne Sebba
What did it feel like to be a woman living in Paris from 1939 to 1949?
4 Can You Tolerate This? (Victoria University Press, $30) by Ashleigh Young
5 The City of Mirrors (Orion, $38) by Justin Cronin
“What has been a revelation about The City of Mirrors, something that came as a surprise but looking back, felt like the only way to end the story, is that love is at the heart of the tale.” Karen Tay, sort of coherently, Stuff.
6 The Last Days of New Paris (Pan Macmillan, $35) by China Mieville
3.78 based on 454 ratings & 100 reviews on Goodreads.
7 Billy Bird (Vintage, $38) by Emma Neale
After a terrible accident, Billy turns into a bird: new fiction from the Dunedin writer.
8 Silk Roads: A New History of the World (Bloomsbury, $28) by Peter Frankopan
The dreary book that won’t go away.
9 Closed Casket: The New Hercule Poirot Mystery (HarperCollins, $35) by Sophie Hannah
An authorised sequel to Agatha Christie’s novels.
10 Complacent Nation (Bridget Williams Books, $15) by Gavin Ellis
Ben Thomas shows Mr Ellis the door.
AUCKLAND STORE
1 Things That Matter: Stories of Life and Death from an Intensive Care Specialist (Allen & Unwin, $37) by Dr David Galler
The surprise New Zealand hit of the year.
2 Billy Bird (Vintage, $38) by Emma Neale
3 In Love with These Times: My Life with Flying Nun Records (HarperCollins, $37) by Roger Shepherd
This week we received an interesting story by a Michael Overton claiming that he coined the term “Dunedin Sound”.
4 Don’t Dream it’s Over: Reimagining Journalism in Aotearoa New Zealand (Freerange Press, $40) Edited by Emma Johnson, Giovanni Tiso, Sarah Illingworth and Barnaby Bennett
Chinstrokery.
5 Polluted Inheritance: New Zealand’s Freshwater Crisis (Bridget Williams Books, $15) by Mike Joy
Publisher’s blurbology: “Evidence presented by ecologist Mike Joy demonstrates that intensive dairy farming has degraded our freshwater rivers, streams and lakes to an alarming degree.”
6 A History of New Zealand Women (Bridget Williams Books, $70) by Barbara Brookes
A history of New Zealand women.
7 Tender Machines (Otago University Press, $25) by Emma Neale
Two books by Emma Neale in the top 10!
8 Tupuna Awa: People and Politics of the Waikato River (Auckland University Press, $50) by Marama Muru-Lanning
People and politics of the Waikato River.
9 The Sympathizer (Corsair, $28) by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Nguyen’s novel is the only non-New Zealand book in the Auckland top 10!
10 Hera Lindsay Bird (Victoria University Press, $25) by Hera Lindsay Bird