The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending September 25

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)

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.

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

4 The Disappearers by Marlon James (Penguin, $38)

Also shortlisted for the Booker (and tipped to take it out).

5 Gruffalo Granny by Julia Donaldson & Axel Sheffler (MacMillan, $30) 

Highly anticipated latest instalment in a series exploring a family of gullible monsters who reside in a deep dark wood and who have purple spikes all over their backs and poisonous warts on the ends of their noses.

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

The year’s biggest selling true crime.

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

Wellingtonians can catch Asher at Verb Readers & Writers Festival this weekend.

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

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

Fantastic new novel by one of the greats.

10 Facing Up to our Future: Challenges & Choices for New Zealand edited by Peter Davis (Dunmore Press, $35) 

Sharp thinkers pose long-term solutions to our problems.