The best-selling books at the two best bookstores in Auckland and Wellington.
WELLINGTON UNITY
1 The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $38)
“Roy is good at titles”: pretty much the nicest thing our reviewer Marion McLeod had to say about this sprawling mess.
2 Strange Beautiful Excitement: Katherine Mansfield’s Wellington 1888-1903 by Redmer Yska (Otago University Press, $40)
We look forward to the forthcoming review by Charlotte Grinshaw.
3 The Power by Naomi Alderman (Penguin, $26)
“Based on the fascinating premise that women are suddenly able to inflict pain and death at will…The battle of the sexes has a new weapon and men are rightly afraid”: rave review by Andra Jenkin, at the Spinoff Review of Books.
4 Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls by Elena Favilli & Francesca Cavallo (Particular Books, $40)
A modern classic of children’s literature.
5 The New Zealand Project by Max Harris (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
Max!
6 The New Animals by Pip Adam (Victoria University Press, $30)
We have received an incredible essay by Carl Shuker responding to the apparent genius of Adam, a Wellington novelist, and look forward to publishing it.
7 Home: New Writing edited by Thom Conroy (Massey University Press, $40)
The essay in New Zealand is a form which has long attracted some of our leading bores; the tradition is admirably continued in this tremendously dull collection of pomp and chinstrokery.
8 No Is Not Enough: Defeating the New Shock Politics by Naomi Klein (Allen Lane, $35)
The people vs Trump.
9 Underground Railroad: A Novel by Colson Whitehead (Orbit, $25)
Winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
10 Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami (Harvill Secker, $45)
“The supposed theme of Men Without Women’s stories is failed love, and all of the barbed forms it takes – unrequited, outright spurned, betrayed”: from an incredible essay by Thom Shackleford at the Spinoff Review of Books.
AUCKLAND UNITY
1 The New Zealand Project by Max Harris (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
2 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (Vintage, $26)
The most exacting study of the world in 2017 was published in 1985.
3 The Power by Naomi Alderman (Penguin, $26)
4 No is Not Enough: Defending the New Shock Politics by Naomi Klein (Allen Lane, $35)
5 Swing Time by Zadie Smith (Penguin, $26)
Peculiar return to the charts of a novel that created a bit of interest, not much, when it was published last year.
6 The Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $38)
7 Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across World by Anne Salmond (Auckland University Press, $65)
The latest work of Pacific scholarship by Dame Anne.
8 Sad Girls by Lang Leav (Hardie Grant, $33)
YA fiction, really good cover.
9 A Manual For Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin (Picador, $25)
Peculiar return to the charts of a novel that created a fair bit of interest when it was published two years ago.
10 Men Without Women: Stories by Haruki Murakami (Harvill Secker, $45)
The Spinoff Review of Books is brought to you by Unity Books.