The best-selling books at the two best bookstores in the Western world.
AUCKLAND UNITY
1 The Man Who Ate Lincoln Road by Steve Braunias (Luncheon Sausage Books, $25)
Book of the year, obv! The editor of the Spinoff Review of Books eats a street and ponders matters of life and death.
2 The New Zealand Project by Max Harris (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
He was number one until The Man Who Ate Lincoln Rd stole his lunch.
3 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson (Macmillan, $35)
“Art”?
4 South and West: From a Notebook by Joan Didion (Fourth Estate, $23)
Opening sentence: “In New Orleans in June the air is heavy with sex and death, not violent death but death by decay, over-ripeness, rotting, death by drowning, suffocation, fever of unknown etiology.”
5 Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli & Francesca Cavallo (Particular Books, $40)
Smash hit book for girls.
6 Admissions: A Life in Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, $38)
Classic tagline for 1990s horror movie, Dr Giggles: “The doctor is out…of his mind!”
7 The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (Fleet, $25)
Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
8 The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land In Between by Hisham Matar (Penguin, $28)
Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction,
9 The Sympathizer by Viet Nguyen (Corsair, $28)
Winner of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
10 The North Water by Ian McGuire (Scribner, $23)
“Imagine if Jack London had given up describing more wholesome Arctic adventures, and written a nasty story filled with brutal violence, rampant drug use, bloody deaths and the rape and murder of at least two young boys”: PK Stowers, New Zealand Herald.
WELLINGTON UNITY
1 The New Zealand Project by Max Harris (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
2 Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli & Francesca Cavallo (Particular Books, $40)
3 Can You Tolerate This? by Ashleigh Young (Victoria University Press, $30)
Great essayists in New Zealand literature: Holcroft, Pearson, Stead, Edmond, Wells, Walker, Cox, the editor of the Spinoff Review of Books, Young.
4 The Sellout by Paul Beatty (Oneworld, $28)
He’s coming to the AWF.
5 How Did We Get into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature by George Monbiot (Verso, $22)
Question and answers.
6 Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family & Culture in Crisis by J D Vance (HarperCollins, $35)
“Hillbilly Elegy offers a unique and valuable insight into Trump’s America, and Vance’s timing couldn’t have been better”: Josh Htherington, the Spinoff Review of Books.
7 Blood Miracles by Lisa McInerney (Hachette, $38)
“A gripping story of drugs and descent into Cork’s criminal underworld “: The Guardian.
8 Thirst #11: Harry Hole by Jo Nesbo (Harville Secker, $37)
Crime fiction in which a killer is on the loose in Oslo, targeting Tinder users, and swiping them out.
9 Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari (Vintage, $30)
Popular non-fiction.
10 Lifting by Damien Wilkins (Victoria University Press, $30)
“Genius”: Linda Burgess, the Spinoff Review of Books.