The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 16

The Spinoff

16-05-2025

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 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
An absolute triumph. Here's a snippet from books editor Claire Mabey's review of Chidgey's latest bestseller:
'Chidgey's latest novel is uncannily similar to Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (which she has not read). It takes similar aim at British identity by puncturing its society with the normalisation of skewed medical ethics. What both novels have in common are questions of nature versus nurture and the eternal thought exercise of what does it mean to possess a soul? The two writers share an interest in the dehumanising potential of such questions. Both Ishiguro (one of the greatest novelists of all time) and Chidgey (fast becoming one of the greats herself) investigate how whole societies, entire countries, can enter a path of gross moral corruption one person, one concession, at a time.' Read the rest here.
Including a yarn about the time Zuck snubbed then prime minister of New Zealand, John Key.
3 When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter (Grove Press, $40)
A memoir about the golden age of print magazines.
4 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38)
The Huckleberry Finn retelling that has emerged as one of the great novels of this decade.
5 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35)
Asako Yuzuki's smash hit about food, murder and seduction.
6 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30)
7 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26)
Harvey is in Aotearoa as we speak! Auckland Writers Festival is underway and is set to stage a huge weekend of book talk including a headline event about Harvey's Booker Prize winning novel.
8 Unforgetting: A Memoir by Belinda Robinson (Vox Pop Productions, $40)
9 1985 by Dominic Hoey (Penguin, $38)
A superb new novel about Obi who lives in inner city Auckland of 1985 and whose life is full of challenges: a sick mum, a dreamer for a dad, dodgy adults abound. But Obi games his way through obstacle after obstacle in a breathtaking story about survival and how the best strategy is to keep living another life.
10 You Are Here by David Nicholls (Hachette, $28)
A truly lovely novel about finding love late in life, about walking and the random events that can shape what you do and how you think. Funny, moving, warm.
WELLINGTON
1 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)
2 1985 by Dominic Hoey (Penguin, $38)
3 Fire & Ice Secrets: Histories, Treasures and Mysteries of Tongariro National Park by Hazel Philips (Massey University Press, $50)
Absolutely riveting stories. Sample one of them – about Ruapehu's smashed summit stone – right here on The Spinoff.
4 That's What I Am: Oral Histories of Older Lesbians by Lois Cox (Townbelt Press, $35)
'That's What I Am draws on oral history interviews conducted in the late 1990s with sixteen New Zealand lesbians over the age of 50,' reads the publisher's blurb. 'It tells the women's stories through the decades, capturing memories of childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, falling in love and establishing relationships.
The storytellers talk of navigating identity and social stigma and forging connections in Wellington's evolving lesbian community. Together, their lives paint a vivid portrait of resilience and solidarity. This book, based on the Older Lesbians Oral History Project, is now published for the first time. A vital document for the history of lesbian communities in twentieth century New Zealand, it is a must-read for anyone interested in lesbian lives over time, feminist studies or queer history.'
5 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $38)
6 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30)
7 Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata (Granta, $33)
A stunning new novel from the author of Convenience Store Woman. Here's the blurb:
'As a girl, Amane realises with horror that her parents 'copulated' in order to bring her into the world, rather than using artificial insemination, which became the norm in the mid-twentieth century. Amane strives to get away from what she considers an indoctrination in this strange 'system' by her mother, but her infatuations with both anime characters and real people have a sexual force that is undeniable. As an adult in an appropriately sexless marriage—sex between married couples is now considered as taboo as incest—Amane and her husband Saku decide to go and live in a mysterious new town called Experiment City or Paradise-Eden, where all children are raised communally, and every person is considered a Mother to all children. Men are beginning to become pregnant using artificial wombs that sit outside of their bodies like balloons, and children are nameless, called only 'Kodomo-chan.'
Is this the new world that will purify Amane of her strangeness once and for all?'
8 The Tear Bottle by Annemarie Jutel (Self published, $40)
A lovely, local publication about 'the objects families covet as a way of holding on to their past. It is a graphic memoir, told by bickering sisters trying to find out the truth about something their grandmother left behind.'
A majestically produced hardback that compels you to learn te reo Māori phrases to express love and other emotions with friends and family.
10 The Covid Response: A Scientist's Account of New Zealand's Pandemic and What Comes Next by Shaun Hendy (Bridget Williams Books, $40)
Hendy's comprehensive breakdown of Aotearoa's Covid response: the why, the how and the what it all means.