The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.
AUCKLAND
1 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26)
The concise yet majestic Booker Prize 2024 winner.
2 The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami (Harvill Secker, $55)
“Astonishing, puzzling, and hallucinatory as only Murakami can be, and one of his most satisfying tales.” Kirkus Reviews loves it. Read the rest of the review, here.
3 Japan: An Autobiography by Peter Shaw (six point press, $45)
“Peter Shaw first went almost unwillingly to Japan 25 years ago, staying in Tokyo for only two days. Surprised at how little he knew or understood he was however, smitten. In the following years he returned many times searching for answers about the country’s culture; its art, architecture, food, religion, history and people. Accompanied by many of his own photographs this book conveys a New Zealand writer’s feelings and thoughts about a unique culture.”
An intriguing and beautifully packaged book from local curator and art writer, Peter Shaw.
4 Atua Wahine: The Ancient Wisdom of Māori Goddesses by Hana Tapiata (Harper Collins, $37)
From a review by Jade Kake on Kete Books: “Atua Wāhine by Hana Tapiata is framed as an offering – from her kete to yours, take what serves you, leave behind what doesn’t. The book is conceived as a wānanga ō roto (appropriate, then, that Hinekauorohia, the atua of reflection appears within its pages). There are wānanga sections for each chapter (each chapter aligns to an Atua Wahine), in a grey box, a series of exercises that encourage self-reflection and loosely connect to the corresponding Atua Wahine. This book no doubt works best if you actually do the exercises, and that you approach the exercise with an open heart and an open mind. The book encourages you, the reader, to be unselfconscious (be truthful with yourself, Tapiata reminds us – these are just for you). The tone is light, conversational, and feels like a chat with your best friend.”
5 Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Faber & Faber, $37)
“Rooney’s books are about rendering the beat-by-beat nuances of human relationships in the most authentic way possible, by which I don’t mean she is a realist. The conversations in her books are too psychologically refined to reflect ordinary life. I think this is one of the reasons Rooney has so few successful imitators. Her books shy away from the contemporary habit of overstuffing the turducken of the sentence with self-referential jokes and Charli XCX references as if to insist upon the authenticity of the present. Rather, her books have a quiet restraint to them, that feels more reminiscent of a classic novel.”
Read more from The Spinoff’s own Hera Lindsay Bird, right here.
6 Human Acts by Han Kang (Granta, $28)
Eimear McBride wrote about this book back in 2016 when it was released. Here’s a snippet: “By choosing the novel as her form, then allowing it to do what it does best – take readers to the very centre of a life that is not their own – Han prepares us for one of the most important questions of our times: “What is humanity? What do we have to do to keep humanity as one thing and not another?” She never answers, but this act of unflinching witness seems as good a place to start as any.”
7 Becoming Tangata Tiriti: Working with Maori, Honouring the Treaty by Avril Bell (Auckland Uni Press, $30)
Never a more pressing time that now to self-education on Te Tiriti and what it means to put it into action.
8 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber & Faber, $25)
Welcome back to Claire Keegan’s tiny novel that could. Keegan’s short, sharp insight into Catholic Ireland’s monstrous treatment of women and babies is set in the lead up to Christmas in 1985. Get it and read it this festive season and be reminded of the impact of choosing to see and not ignore.
9 Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury Circus, $25)
Welcome back to the Wellington novel about wealth that could! Perkins’ exploration of middle age in the midst of late capitalism is funny, confronting and reflective.
10 Odyssey by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $40)
The classics are the gift that keep on giving.
WELLINGTON
1 Wild Wellington: Nga Taonga Taiao: A Guide to the Wildlife & Wild Places of Te Whanganui-a-tara by Michael Szabo (Te Papa Press, $45)
The Christmas buying trend has begun. This gorgeous book is a compact guide to making the most of Wellington’s wild spaces. Perfect to give to Wellingtonians who have yet to fully tap their city’s potential, and to manuhiri too.
2 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26)
3 Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson (Picador, $28)
Stewart Sowman-Lund talked to Ronson for The Spinoff ahead of his appearance in Wellington this week. Here’s what they discussed.
4 City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami (Harvill Secker, $55)
5 Good Material by Dolly Alderton (Penguin Books, $26)
The hangover from last week’s Dolly-mania (she was here, sold a ton of books).
6 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
One of the best novels of the year. A moving, intricate exploration of the beginning of the last stages of life.
7 Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (Faber, $45 hardback, $37 paperback)
8 All Fours by Miranda July (Canongate, $37)
By now everyone knows someone who is talking about this novel with near-religious adoration. July is an artist whose art mirrors life: this book is about a mid-life sexual revolution and reckoning.
9 Becoming Tangata Tiriti: Working with Maori, Honouring the Treaty by Avril Bell (Auckland Uni Press, $30)
10 Gliff by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton, $45)
Be still the beating hearts of Smith fans. Smith is Britain’s Pip Adam: inventive, political and brave.
Here’s a snippet from a review in The Guardian: “Bri and Rose are ‘Unverifiables’ – a subclass in a culture that has taken the hostile environment to dreadful extremes. It’s not clear whether they are excluded on grounds of nationality, race or because, as a result of a headstrong and idealistic mother, they have not submitted to the model of surveillance capitalism that dominates the country. Their mother thinks smartphones are ‘liabilities’: ‘a device that means you see everything through it.’ The government has imposed a system whereby the homes of Unverifiables are painted around with red lines, then bulldozed. Bri and Rose are on the run from a force that is both faceless, terrifying and banal in its relentless bureaucracy.”
This post was originally published on here
