The best-selling books at the two best bookstores in the English-speaking world.
AUCKLAND UNITY
1 Hit and Run: The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan and the Meaning of Honour by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson (Potton & Burton, $35)
“The New Zealand Defence Force appears to have destroyed the journalistic reputations of Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson”: Ian Wishart.
2 Can You Tolerate This? by Ashleigh Young (Victoria University Press, $30)
“Ashleigh Young is unfit”, and other essays.
3 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari (Vintage, $28)
It’s not that brief.
4 Idaho by Emily Ruskovich (Chatto & Windus, $37)
One of those novels which deals with the consequences of an act of unspeakable violence.
5 Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari (Vintage, $30)
It’s not brief at all.
6 The Wish Child by Catherine Chidgey (Victoria University Press, $30)
“Over-stuffed”: Jane Westaway, The Spinoff Review of Books.
7 Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury, $30)
Frigg, Odin’s wife, gave us the word “friggin’”.
8 Mauri Ora: Wisdom from the Maori World by Peter Alsop & Te Raumawhitu Kupenga (Potton & Burton, $40)
Kupenga told Kathryn Ryan on Nine to Noon, “We both loved our traditional Māori knowledge and liked the idea of sharing the wisdom that comes through these whaka with our country and with the world. We don’t need to go to Eastern religions or look too far off our shores to gain wisdom or to gain inspiration.”
9 Doctors in Denial: The Forgotten Women in the ‘Unfortunate Experiment by Ronald W. Jones (Otago University Press, $40)
“Despite having already read millions of the words written about this experiment, which ran from 1966 until 1988, Doctors in Denial shocked me anew….Brave, insightful, compelling”: Elspeth McLean, Otago Daily Times.
10 Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (Hamish Hamilton, $37)
Women’s fiction.
WELLINGTON UNITY
1 Hit & Run: the NZ SAS in Afghanistan & The Meaning of Honour by Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson (Potton Burton, $35)
2 Hope Fault by Tracey Farr (Freemantle Arts Press, $37)
Publisher’s blurbology: “Iris’s family – her ex-husband with his new wife and baby; her son, and her best friend’s daughter – gather to pack up their holiday house. They are there for one last time, one last weekend, and one last party – but in the course of this weekend, their connections will be affirmed, and their frailties and secrets revealed – to the reader at least, if not to each other. The Hope Fault is a novel about extended family: about steps and exes and fairy godmothers; about parents and partners who are missing, and the people who replace them.”
3 Can You Tolerate This by Ashleigh Young (Victoria University Press, $30)
4 Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo (Particular Books, $40)
The biggest smash hit in children’s literature of 2017.
5 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family & Culture in Crisis by J D Vance (HarperCollins, $35)
“Unique”: Josh Hetherington, The Spinoff Review of Books.
6 My Meerkat Mum by Ruth Paul (Scholastic, $19)
Really, really great picture book for little kids. Recommended.
7 Maori Weaving with Erenora Puketapu-Hetet by Erenora Puketapu-Hetet (Hetet Press, $59)
8 North Water by Ian McGuire (Scribner, $23)
He-man novel.
9 Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury, $30)
10 The Shops by Steve Braunias and Peter Black (Luncheon Sausage Books, $40)
The print-run has just about sold out so FFS get in quick while you can for this enduring masterpiece.