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

Do not knock this off at 2am; you’ll be bolt awake the rest of the night obsessing about the ending.

2  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (Vintage, $30)

A Ridley Scott movie is in the works. Touch wood there’s a sequel.

3  Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $23)

Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney

4  The Recipe by Josh Emett (Upstart Press, $50)

“These are the recipes that you must cook at least once in your life” – Josh Emett, with zero concern for your mental load.

5  Necessary Secrets by Greg McGee (Upstart Press, $38)

Dennis is 70 and Dennis is dying. He gathers his adult children.

“It’s really good; set in Auckland” – NewstalkZB

6  Auckland Architecture: A Walking Guide by John Walsh & Patrick Reynolds (Massey   University Press, $20)

Suggested companion reading: Bloody Marys of Auckland: A Get-Through-This Guide.

7  Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (Windmill Books, $28)

Typical, wonderful sentence: “I began to experience the most powerful advantage of money: the ability to think of things besides money.”

8  Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat (Canongate, $55)

The woman is a joy.

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

Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney Sally Rooney

10 This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay (Picador, $23)

Non-fiction account of the comedian’s medical training circa 10 years ago.

 

WELLINGTON

1  A Mistake by Carl Shuker (Victoria University Press, $30)

This, too, is going to hurt.

2  Spring by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton, $34)

“[Smith] has always been a profoundly moral writer, but in this series of novels she is doing something more than merely anatomising the iniquities of her age. She’s lighting us a path out of the nightmarish now” – the Guardian, in raptures.

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

“…a retrofuturist family drama that doubles as a cautionary fable about artificial intelligence, consent, and justice” – The New Yorker

4  Milkman by Anna Burns (Faber & Faber, $33)

“It’s nice to feel I’m solvent. That’s a huge gift” – the author, the day after winning the Booker.

5  Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $23)

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

Prediction: The Overstory, by Richard Powers, is about to settle into a nice comfy perma-spot on these lists. (It’s just won the Pulitzer that Less won last year.)

7  Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover (Windmill Books, $28)

8  Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells (Allen Lane, $35)

As with Home Fire, best not finish this one late at night.

9  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Noah Yuval Harari (Vintage, $30)

10 The Spy and the Traitor by Ben MacIntyre (Viking, $40)

True story of one man’s extended KGB/M16 switcheroo.