The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending October 30

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

AUCKLAND

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

At a live event in Wellington last week Josh Silver confirmed that the working title for his smash hit novel was Fag Hag.

2 Court of Splintered Harmony #6: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (Bloomsbury UK, $37)

Absolute heartbreak around the country as indie bookshops did not receive their orders of Maas's long-awaited latest instalment of ACOTAR! Indies made the best of it, holding ACOTAR themed parties with desperate customers while they awaited the courier, but come on distributors, play fair! If you have no idea what ACOTAR is or why Maas is such a huge deal then a good time to re-visit this Fairy Smut explainer.

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

Is Dirty Work going to pay off or fall flat? Hopefully we'll find out before Christmas.

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

"Early in Barbara Kingsolver’s electrifying new novel, it’s explained that a partita “is a musical composition made of many parts with different paces and moods. The contrast is the point. The parts are all different, and the artist’s work is to make them add up to something that feels whole.” For a work that hurls readers across jagged emotional landscapes while fusing themes of class, obsession, politics, and abandonment into a cohesive, compelling narrative, the title applies perfectly. Much of the power in Partita comes from its impressive literary variation." Read the rest of this review of Parita in The Washington Independent Review of Books.

5 In One Brief Moment All Eternity by Elif Shafak (Penguin Random House, $40) 

A brand new novel from a prolific and brilliant master of the form. Here's the blurb: "Spanning decades and continents, from revolutionary 19th century France to Istanbul, Egypt and Beirut, it is a profound meditation on creativity in times of political crisis and war, asking what literature can hope to offer when the world feels broken. Building a fascinating bridge between Western prose and Eastern poetry, this story offers a luminous portrait of the life of an iconic writer, Gustave Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary, told through the lives of the women – both real and fictional – who shaped him."

6 Black Bag by Luke Kennard (John Murray, $38) 

Absolutely intrigued by this novel shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Here's the blurb: "A penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr Blend's students react to someone zipped into on oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of autumn term lectures? The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences. A professor of post-humanism develops research questions of her own, in particular can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag? Meanwhile, the actor's childhood friend and flatmate forms a vision for monetising this new situation . . ."

7 Exit Party by Emily St John Mandel (Picador UK, $38)

This week's chart is stacked with literary royalty.

8 The Starving Bride by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka Press, $38) 

"Really, I'm fascinated by the capacity of human beings to be awful and to treat fellow human beings terribly, and to engage in a kind of a wilful ignorance," said Chidgey in a conversation with Noelle McCarthy. "That is something that I have explored in my earlier books, particularly in Remote Sympathy and The Wish Child, my two books set in World War II Germany, in that capacity to kind of look away from suffering and to set ourselves apart from it, and to know that it's going on, but to feel completely removed from it and and not bear any responsibility for what is unfolding on our doorsteps."

9 A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck (Vintage UK, $28)

Sounds like the ideal Halloween read.

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

Sort of about a kind of hell, too?

WELLINGTON

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

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

3 The Beaded Curtain by Lloyd Jones (Massey University Press, $40)

A fascinating memoir travelling back and forth across the author's life and travels where he wrestles with violent histories and juxtaposes these lingering preoccupations with life back home in rural Aotearoa.

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

5 The Starving Bride by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka Press, $38) 

6 Court of Splintered Harmony #6: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas (Bloomsbury UK, $37)

7 Gloria of Greymouth by Sam Duckor-Jones (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $65)

A truly gorgeous book: part-memoir, part-diary of turning a church in Greymouth into a world of pink and art. Both a reflection on the life of an artist and what it means to make a home. Lush photography, compelling writing, a portal into what it's like to live and breathe invention and creation and pink.

8 In the Room: An Insider's Account of the Jacinda Ardern Government by Andrew Campbell ($38, Allen & Unwin)

Listen to / read all about Toby Manhire's conversation with Campbell right here on The Spinoff.

9 Redwood: The Untold Story of the Cold War's Most Extraordinary Spy by Ben Macintyre (Penguin, $40)

Another compelling true story by prolific and best-selling master of the genre, Ben Macintyre.

10 Orsola by Linda Martelletti (Copy Press, $32)

A stunning new local novel, here's what it's all about: "Orsola is a young girl growing up at the foot of the Italian Alps in the peace following the First World War. She is satisfied with her simple life of tending to her family and roaming mountain meadows to pick alpine daisies.

But as she grows older, the world around her becomes more complicated and the search for her prized flowers becomes a search for something more. By chance, she forms a life-changing friendship with glamorous Claretta, a girl from Milan. A wide-eyed Orsola soon discovers that Claretta’s family is well-connected to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

As dark clouds gather, Orsola tries to make sense of her changing landscape, from her amiable but oppressive village life to the extravagance and extremes of Claretta’s upper-class circle. She wrestles with her duty to her family, to her country, and ultimately to herself."