The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending October 9

The top 10 sales lists recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.

AUCKLAND

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

Still number one! Go on a deep dive with The Spinoff's At Large podcast, right here:

2 End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World by Astra Taylor & Naomi Klein (Allen Lane, $40)

"Klein and Taylor draw particular inspiration from Zohran Mamdani, whose successful run for the New York mayoralty showed it was possible to build a winning coalition by focusing on people’s material concerns – and by celebrating difference rather than trying to deny or apologise for it," writes Daniel Trilling in The Guardian. "They also point to other, creative forms of resistance in the US and elsewhere as the seeds of a new politics “rooted in an expansive, open-armed sense of neighbourliness” that can counter the right’s dystopian visions of the future. The way Venetians challenged Jeff Bezos’s attempt to use their city as a backdrop for his grotesque display of wealth disguised as a wedding, for instance. Or how Minnesotans looked out for one another as their state was bombarded with ICE raids. For the authors, the leftwing, diasporic Jewish idea of doikayt, or “hereness” – fighting for justice and equality wherever you may live – is a guiding principle, but only one of a multiplicity of cultural and political traditions that can be drawn on."

3 Threshing Day by Rebecca Yarros (Hachette, $55) 

The limited editions are selling out all over the shop while over in the UK some indie bookshops are "heartbroken" (paywalled) because they didn't receive their orders in time while the big chains did and started selling them before the embargo lifted! Love to see a bit of argy bargy over books.

4 The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $28) 

"An affecting portrait of a prickly woman." Read the rest of this brisk review over on Kirkus.

5 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)

Picking itself back up after a fall to number 10 last week.

6 Nothing But the Truth by Stuart Grieve (Allen & Unwin, $45)

The inside word on some of New Zealand's most famous legal cases.

7 Fruit Fly by Josh Silver (Oneworld, $37)

The runaway hit of the year. Suspect a lot of people are reading up now before the A24 TV series lands. Wellingtonians can go and see Josh Silver on October 22 (sorry, Auckland, but you did have your chance earlier this year at Auckland Writers Festival).

8 Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (Scribe Pubs Pty, $38) 

Winner of Taiwan's highest literary honour, and of the International Booker Prize. Here's the blurb: "May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She's been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.

Soon a Taiwanese woman is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko's travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer. But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It's only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the 'something' is."

9 Partita by Barbara Kingsolver (Faber & Faber, $38) 

"What is the role of art in an artist’s life? Should you commit everything to honing your talent in the hope of becoming a great master? Or should you use your artistic gift to enrich your life and that of your community? In Partita, acclaimed American novelist Barbara Kingsolver grapples with these questions seriously and passionately through the story of a piano prodigy turned music teacher." Read the rest of Lara Feigel's review of Kingsolver's follow-up to Demon Copperhead, here.

10 The Star Path by Witi Ihimaera Smiler (Penguin, $35) 

A return to the world of The Whale Rider, one of Aotearoa's most beloved novels. Read four writers on the ways in which The Whale Rider impacted them, right here on The Spinoff.

WELLINGTON

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

2 The Big Book of Kiwi Nursery Rhymes illustrated by Kimberly Andrews (Walker Books, $30)

"Rub-a-dub-dub,

Three birds in a tub

And who do you think they be?

The tauhou, the tūī, the korimako,

Preening their wings, all three!"

3 End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World by Astra Taylor & Naomi Klein (Allen Lane, $40)

4 Threshing Day by Rebecca Yarros (Hachette, $55) 

5 Our Noble Selves by Kate Atkinson (Doubleday UK, $38) 

"A humorous and moving tale of post WWII England (or should I say Britain)," says Phillip at Unity Books. "The story is centred around the famed 1951 Festival of Britain to highlight a bright future of prosperity and modernity after six years of privation and war. A collection of post war eccentric personalities are assigned the task of setting up the various exhibition spaces. The plot includes some mysterious disappearances and a possible murder. Great characterisation (Veronica! Mitzi!) and a solid sense of place and time make this a very entertaining and amusing read."

6 The Valley: Crime & Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)

7 The Star Path by Witi Ihimaera Smiler (Penguin, $35) 

8 The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Viking, $38) 

"My inspiration for The Things We Never Say came from two rather odd places," wrote Strout for the Booker Prize. "The first was an old obituary I saw from decades ago. My friend in upstate New York sent me a page of them, and there was one man who had the last name Damm. (I dropped one of the m’s for my character’s last name.) The man in the obituary haunted me because he looked so entirely ordinary and pleasant. He wore big wire-framed glasses and just had an exceptionally kind look to his face."

9 Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel (Picador, $38) 

A new speculative novel from the genius who wrote Station Eleven. Here's the blurb: "2031. America is at war with itself, but for the first time in weeks there is some hope: the Republic of California has been declared, the curfew in Los Angeles is lifted, and everyone in the city is going to a party. Ari, newly released from prison, arrives with her friend Gloria just as a fragile new era begins. But there are people at the party who shouldn't be there. Something is very wrong . . .

Years later, living a different life in Paris, Ari remains haunted by that night. Whatever happened at the party fractured her sense of reality - and may hold the key to a very different world. Exit Party is Emily St. John Mandel's electrifying new novel about freedom and surveillance, art and survival, love and loss in a broken world."

10 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)