The best-selling books at the two best book stores north of the South Pole.
WELLINGTON UNITY
1 Nikau Café Cookbook by Kelda Hains & Paul Schrader (Nikau Café, $60)
Food.
2 Journal of Urgent Writing volume 2 edited by Simon Wilson (Massey University Press, $40)
A collection of essays commissioned and put together by The Spinoff’s Auckland section editor. Includes the Kawerau epic by Morgan Godfrey and Wilson’s own call for a new kind of politics.
3 Drawn Out: A Seriously Funny Memoir by Tom Scott (Allen & Unwin, $45)
Ian Cross was the Listener editor who appointed Tom Scott as political diarist; in his book The Unlikely Bureaucrat, Cross writes, “Tom Scott, of the 1970s school of Listener writers, gained the most fame…He was a barefooted and bemused young man who described himself as a househusband, and looked to me like a temporary casualty of the battle of the sexes…When he was sent off to write about Parliament, he broke all the rules of the conventional reporting of that institution. Solemn warnings were conveyed that the magazine was flirting with disaster by placing him in the political holy of holies. But within a year he was a national institution.” Scott takes up the story in his popular new memoir.
4 Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)
Children’s book.
5 Floating Islanders: Pasifika Theatre in Aotearoa by Lisa Warrington & David O’Donnell (Otago University Press, $40)
Thirty years of Pasifika theatre, with stories from Pacific Underground, Pacific Theatre, The Laughing Samoans, The Conch, The Naked Samoans, and Kila Kokonut Krew.
6 La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust Trilogy by Philip Pullman (David Fickling Books, $35)
Genius at work.
7 Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (Bloomsbury, $33)
Verbose, boring nonsense, ie winner of the 2017 Man Booker prize for fiction.
8 Bird Words: New Zealand Writers on Birds edited by Elizabeth Easther (Vintage, $35)
“Most of us think of birds as something in the background. They flit and they pace, they nest and they sing, bystanders of the air, second-class citizens, largely unnoticed. They may as well be grass”: Steve Braunias, one of the writers featured in this recommended hardcover stocking filler.
9 Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, $60)
Moronic study of genius. Isaacson is one of those Ted-talkers, always looking for life lessons, let loose on Da Vinci sans scholarship, sans art history, sans sense.
10 Black Marks on the White Page edited by Witi Ihimaera & Tina Makereti (Vintage, $40)
Tina Makereti, Twitter, November 1: “Some good news & a peek at frightening reality of publishing in NZ. 1) Black Marks has been on the bestseller list since publication 2) this week it is at number 5 (yippee) having sold only 21 copies (wha?!) #RealityCheck #DontKnowIfIShouldBePublicisingThis”
AUCKLAND UNITY
1 Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece by Stephen Fry (Michael Joseph, $37)
2 Leonardo Da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (Simon & Schuster, $60)
3 Four: How Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google Divided and Conquered the World by Scott Galloway (Bantam, $40)
Auckland book buyers love tales of power and wealth.
4 Drawn Out: A Seriously Funny Memoir by Tom Scott (Allen & Unwin, $45)
5 La Belle Sauvage: The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman (David Fickling Books, $35)
6 Elon Musk: How the Billionaire CEO of Spacex and Tesla is Shaping Our Future by Ashlee Vance (Virgin, $28)
Auckland book buyers love tales of power and wealth.
7 Obstacle is the Way: Turning Trials into Triumphs by Ryan Holiday (Profile. $28)
Auckland book buyers love advice that leads to power and wealth.
8 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k by Mark Manson (Macmillan, $35)
Auckland book buyers love advice that leads to power and wealth.
9 Dreams of Bethany Melmoth by William Boyd (Viking, $35)
Nine short stories in a new collection by one of the most reliable UK novelists.
10 Midnight Line by Lee Child (Bantam, $38)
We have received a most interesting review of Child’s latest masterpiece by Wellington writer Danyl McLauchlan, and look forward to publishing it.
The Spinoff Review of Books is brought to you by Unity Books.