1 Dirty Work: The Taxpayers’ Union and New Zealand’s Hard Right by Nicky Hager (Potton & Burton, $35)

Hundreds of people squeezed into Unity Books Wellington on Tuesday night for the launch of Hager’s third book on the theme of grotty politics. The Spinoff’s own Toby Manhire scooped a chat with Hager, covering the Tax Payer’s Union’s response, criticisms of Hager’s approach and more. Read here and listen below.

2 That Woman: A Memoir by Sylvia Cartwright (Allen & Unwin, $50)

“This elegant, incisive memoir traces a career that’s exceptional even in the briefest summary,” writes David Hill over on Kete Books. “First woman in the country appointed as a High Court Judge; chair of the eponymous enquiry into cervical cancer at National Women’s Hospital; member of the UN Commission to eliminate discrimination against women; Governor General; recipient – sometimes reluctantly – of multiple honours; UN Trial Judge in Cambodia; chair of still more enquiries.”

3 Mr Loverman by Bernardine Evaristo (Penguin, $26)

Bernadine, the Booker Prize winning author (jointly with Margaret Atwood) of Girl, Woman, Other is back! Here’s the blurb: “Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he’s lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character with a dapper taste in retro suits and a fondness for quoting Shakespeare, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather – but he is also secretly homosexual and in a relationship with his great childhood friend, Morris.”

4 Taipei Story by Rebecca F. Kuang (Harper Collins, $37) 

“A prolific maverick with rare satirical wit, Kuang has built a career debunking authoritative institutions,” writes Kit Fan in the Guardian. “Babel (2022) highlights the prejudices of the British empire through a fantastical Oxford translation institute; Yellowface (2023) transplants a heist thriller into the dark heart of American publishing; Katabasis (2025), a journey into the underworld, gives the academic inferno at Cambridge a new lease of death. Centring on a tough Mandarin language school, Taipei Story explores the torture, hilarity and pretension of learning a second language, but here Kuang also offers a heartfelt journey of self-discovery and family wounds.”

5 I Want You to Be Happy by Jem Calder (Faber & Faber, $37) 

New relationship novel spruiked by Sally Rooney.

6 Cauldron: Making of the Modern Middle East by Simon Sebag Montefiore (W&N Fiction, $60) 

“Montefiore delivers a fresh and unique history of the entire region in all its diversity, from 1900 up to the present day. Taking the reader on a spectacular journey from the Ottoman sultanate to the Trump presidency, from Morocco to Iran, this is a dazzling panorama of faith and fanaticism, creativity and tolerance, dictatorship and democracy brought to life by an extraordinary cast of kings, warriors, poets, terrorists and peacemakers.”

7 Life of M by Rachel Cusk (Faber & Faber, $37) 

Potentially based on the actor Natalie Portman, and 10th in this Guardian ranking of Cusk’s novels so far.

8 May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry (Granta, $35) 

Historical fiction shortlisted for the Booker!

9 Kitchen Confidential 25^th Anniversary Edition by Anthony Bourdain (Bloomsbury, $30) 

A stone cold classic.

10 Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi (Scribe Pubs, $38)

The worthy winner of this year’s International Booker Prize.

WELLINGTON

1 Dirty Work: The Taxpayers’ Union and New Zealand’s Hard Right by Nicky Hager (Potton & Burton, $35)

A reminder of what Unity Books Wellington looked like on Tuesday evening this week:

2 Green Sea: Lost in the New Zealand Bush by John Summers (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $40) 

“A beautiful worry of a book,” said Spinoff books editor Claire Mabey in her review.