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Shayne Carter on the cover of Shayne Carter’s sublime autobiography
Shayne Carter on the cover of Shayne Carter’s sublime autobiography

BooksMay 17, 2019

Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 17

Shayne Carter on the cover of Shayne Carter’s sublime autobiography
Shayne Carter on the cover of Shayne Carter’s sublime autobiography

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  Dead People I Have Known by Shayne Carter (Victoria University Press, $40)

Welcome to the charts, Shayne. You’ll stay a while, yeah?

2  Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth (Penguin Random House, $28)

On the industrial system: “When drawn in its simplest form, it looks something like an industrial caterpillar, ingesting food at one end, chewing it through, and excreting the waste out of the other end.”

3  The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck by Mark Manson (Macmillan, $35)

They’re hyping the next one very very hard.

4  Machines Like Me: A Novel by Ian McEwan (Penguin Random House, $37)

We want to have read it. We just don’t want to actually have to read it.

5  Home Fire: A Novel by Kamila Shamsie (Bloomsbury, $22)

Request: reaction videos of people reading the end.

6  Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat (Cannongate, $65)

Savvy, delight, kindness, warmth.

7  Upheaval: How Nations Cope with Crises (or Don’t) by Jared Diamond (Allen & Unwin, $40)

Third in a trilogy behind Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse.

8  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (Penguin Random House, $26)

“Even the gray Soviet world melts inside the golden warmth of the Metropol”: the New York Times.

9  Becoming by Michelle Obama (Viking Penguin, $55)

What’s brought this on, then?

10 The Meaning of Trees by Robert Vennel (Harper Collins, $55)

We’ve nabbed the bits on supplejack and ongaonga for you.

WELLINGTON

1  Dead People I Have Known by Shayne Carter (Victoria University Press, $40)

2  The New Zealand Wars: Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa by Vincent O’Malley (Bridget Williams Books, $40)

Look out for a Spinoff extract this afternoon.

3  How I Get Ready by Ashleigh Young (Victoria University Press, $25)

Our Poetry Editor would prefer to pretend it’s not happening but oh look! Her new book! (Taster here.)

4  Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape, $37)

5  Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth (Random House, $28)

6  100 Natural Treasures of Te Papa edited by Susan Waugh (Te Papa Press, $45)

Te Papa Press strikes again.

7  Marilyn Waring: The Political Years by Marilyn Waring (Bateman, $40)

Wrangled some of this one for you too. Involves a saddle sore and a teal bridesmaid dress.

8  Billion Dollar Bonfire by Chris Lee (Bateman, $40)

We keep picturing certain billionaires on fire?

9  Circe by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury, $22)

“Nothing short of a masterpiece”: NZ Booklovers

10 Finding France Hodgkins by Mary Kisler (Massey University Press, $45)

Go team! You banished Sally Rooney!

Keep going!