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The Spinoff
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending August 8
The top 10 sales lists recorded every week at Unity Books' stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 Invisible Intelligence: Why Your Child Might Not Be Failing by Welby Ings (Otago University Press, $45) Ings argues for an education system that doesn't pin children into a narrow academic view of intelligence and success. Bravo! 2 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Penguin, $24) One suspects #BookTok has something to do with pinging this 1947 classic near the top of the Unity charts. 3 Aroha: Māori Wisdom for a Contented Life Lived in Harmony With Our Planet by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin, $30) Timeless yet urgent. 4 The Safe Keep by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26) Perfect historical fiction. 5 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) A spooky old house, identical triplets, medicines, Margate … don't miss this latest ripping yarn from one of the country's best storytellers. 6 James by Percival Everett (Picador, $27) Another ripping yarn that's rippling all the way to Hollywood. 7 The Unlikely Doctor by Dr Timoti Te Moke (Allen & Unwin, $38) A powerful new memoir. Here's the blurb: 'The extraordinary story of Dr Timoti Te Moke who – having endured a horrific childhood of beatings and abuse, then gang life, stints in prison and an unsupported manslaughter charge – became a doctor at the age of 56 and is a staunch advocate for Māori.' 8 Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Serpents Tail, $30) The road trip novel about intergenerational trauma. 9 Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton (Canongate, $28) Stunning memoir of animal-human connection and transformation. 10 Rabbit Heart: A Mother's Murder, a Daughter's Story by Kristine S. Ervin (Counterpoint, $44) A couple of curious patters in this here list: two invisibles, one hare and one rabbit. WELLINGTON 1 In the Hollow of the Wave by Nina Mingya Powles (Auckland University Press, $25) The beautiful second collection of poetry by award-winning Powles is a glorious weaving of words about living between shorelines, the qualities of material and domestic life, and making art with them. Also wonderful to see poetry at the top of the charts ahead of National Poetry Day on August 22. 2 Holding the Heavy Stuff: Making Space for Critical Thoughts & Painful Emotions by Ben Sedley (Little Brown, $35) An illustrated guide to coping with worry, low mood and feeling stuck. 3 Welcome of Strangers: A History of Southern Māori by Atholl Anderson (Bridget Williams Books, $70) This is an updated edition of Anderson's 1998 book. Here's the publisher's blurb: 'Professor Anderson traces the origins of early Waitaha and Kāti Māmoe, and the later migrations, conflicts and settlements of the hapū who became Ngāi Tahu. Drawing on tribal knowledge, early written records and archaeological insights, he details the movements, encounters and exchanges that shaped these southern regions. He shows how people lived seasonally from the land and sea, supported by long-distance trade and a deep knowledge of place. These were the communities that the first Europeans in Niu Tīreni encountered, as whalers, sealers and missionaries made their way around the coast.' 4 The Unlikely Doctor by Dr Timoti Te Moke (Allen & Unwin, $38) 5 A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (Allen & Unwin, $37) 'A Beautiful Family is set on the Kāpiti Coast in the 1980s. We know this because Trevelyan is meticulous with her references to the time period: the child's prized possession is a Walkman through which she plays Split Enz; The Exorcist has aired on TV; there are Seventeen magazines with sealed sections; the child and her sister Vanessa get terrifically sunburned and only after getting blisters does their mother buy some SPF15. There is also casual racism at play in varying degrees of intensity. A Chinese family is talked about in grotesque terms; a Māori character is described as having 'skin the colour of burnt caramel'. It makes you grind your molars until you remember that this is the 80s and such clangers were horrifyingly commonplace.' Read more, right here. 6 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin, $60) Bumped from the charts in Auckland, still going strong in Wellington. 7 Underworld by Jared Savage (Harper Collins, $40) Savage's latest exploration of New Zealand's criminal underbelly. 8 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Vintage, $26) Welcome back old friend! We can now start betting on the next Booker Prize winner as the 2025 longlist has been announced. 9 M ātauranga Māori by Hirini Moko Mead (Huia Publishers, $45) 'In Mātauranga Māori, Hirini Moko Mead explores the Māori knowledge system and explains what mātauranga Māori is. He looks at how the knowledge system operates, the branches of knowledge, and the way knowledge is recorded and given expression in te reo Māori and through daily activities and formal ceremonies. Mātuaranga Māori is a companion publication to Hirini Moko Mead's best-selling book Tikanga Māori.' 10 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (Faber & Faber, $28) Another classic! Who can forget Plath's description of eating a shrimp cocktail? A brilliant, unsettling first and only novel. The Spinoff Books section is proudly brought to you by Unity Books and Creative New Zealand. Visit Unity Books online today.
Newsroom
03-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Newsroom
The Sunday Poem, by Philip Armstrong
Ink Blots Flowers, maybe orchids. That's a coral reef. Or someone's brain. A map of the back country. Dead trees, lungs, a lump of coal. A picture by Vesalius, a book broken along the spine. I'd rather not say. Patterns on my eyelids. How did you get those? A blackbird shot at night. Something in me more than me. A deed without a name. Spilt milk. Piss stains. What on earth is wrong with you? Two oil slicks meeting. Faces I don't know except from sleep. Shadows on an ultrasound. A worldwide cloud of mushroom spores, an ice-cream melting, forest fires. I guess our time is up. Taken with kind permission from one of the year's very best poetry collections, Touch Screen by Philip Armstrong (Otago University Press, $30), available in bookstores nationwide.
Newsroom
20-07-2025
- General
- Newsroom
The Sunday Poem, by Fiona Kidman
The children's toys This morning I took the children's toys from the bottom of the linen cupboard where they have been stored forty or so years and transferred them to the tin shed that has been cleared by the son whose toy train is tangled in the plastic rubbish sack along with his sister's dolls and the painted head of Josephine, my own doll handed on. There was that afternoon on the farm when my mother walked up the road with a bulge beneath her coat, and inside was nestled this make-believe human I slept with for years. She took away night terrors and the fear that the devil would rise through the floor during darkness when I was sleeping. Oh Josephine on this sunny bright morning, the agapanthus a torrent of blue beside the path, it seems little to ask that the children be kept safe now and forever, near and far away, given endless days just like today. Taken with kind permission by the newly published latest collection The Midnight Plane: Selected and new poems by Fiona Kidman (Otago University Press, $40), available in bookstores nationwide.
Otago Daily Times
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
Dunedin author wins top award for her poetry
Emma Neale. Photo: supplied A Dunedin author has been honoured at the country's biggest literary arts awards. Editor, novelist and poet Emma Neale won the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry for her collection Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards in Auckland last night. Poetry category convener of judges David Eggleton said the collection of poems displayed an exceptional ability to turn confessional anecdotes into "quicksilvery flashes of insight". "Emma Neale is a writer fantastically sensitive to figurative language and its possibilities," he said. Her book was about fibs, fables and telling true stories, which were perceived by others as tall stories and the knock-on or flow-on effects of distrust — the scales dropping from one's eyes. Mr Eggleton said it was about power and a sense of powerlessness, belief and the loss of belief, about trust and disillusion, disenchantment with fairytales and compassion. The book, published by the Otago University Press, was nominated for the award alongside Hopurangi — Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka, by Robert Sullivan; In the Half Light of a Dying Day, by C.K. Stead; and Slender Volumes, by Richard von Sturmer. Neale had told the Otago Daily Times being shortlisted felt like an award in itself, feeling that the judges had read her work and seen merit in it was "really, really gratifying". — APL
The Spinoff
02-05-2025
- General
- The Spinoff
The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 2
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 Preachers, Pastors, Prophets: The Dominican Friars of Aotearoa by Susannah Grant (Otago University Press, $60) This sound fascinating. Here is the publisher's full and fulsome blurb: 'Preachers, Pastors, Prophets draws on a rich collection of archival material and oral interviews to tell the story of the Dominican friars of Aotearoa New Zealand. Heirs to a spiritual tradition dating back to the early thirteenth century, the friars' lives are shaped by their commitment to the Order's motto: Veritas (Truth). They have served as university and hospital chaplains, parish priests, liturgists, itinerant retreat leaders and theologians, and in media and justice roles. Never a large group, they have nevertheless reached deep into Catholic life in Aotearoa, working up and down the length of the country and across denominational boundaries. Although no longer involved in active ministry the New Zealand friars continue to fund and facilitate Aaiotanga – the Peace Place – a community space in downtown Auckland focused on peace and social justice issues. More than the history of a religious organisation, this is the story of a group of dissimilar – often eccentric – individuals who worked in a range of ministries; of the faith that united them as brothers and gave purpose to their mission as preachers; and of their impact on the communities and churches they served in Aotearoa New Zealand. Alongside the many positive achievements of Dominican ministry, this account also addresses previously silenced stories of abuse of power. Preachers, Pastors, Prophets is not a sacred history. It's a human history. Like Grant's previous book, a study of the Dominican sisters, Preachers, Pastors, Prophets offers a window into a particular world and the ways that world has transformed over time.' 2 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30) Hunger Games fans are calling this best book in the series yet. 3 Butter by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35) Hugely popular crime novel enjoying a sales bump due to the fact that the author is appearing at Auckland Writers Festival very soon. 4 When the Going Was Good by Graydon Carter (Atlantic Books, $40) Nostalgic for the golden age of magazines? This is the book for you. 5 Unforgetting by Belinda Robinson (Quentin Wilson Publishing, $40) The daughter of playwright Bruce Mason shares her memoir of abuse at the hands of a childhood nanny. RNZ's Kathryn Ryan talked to Robinson about her story, here. 6 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26) Wonder if anyone on the Blue Origin flight read this Booker Prize winner? 7 Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Pan UK, $40) 'The shark brings Wynn-Williams many gifts, if by 'gifts' we mean big shark bite marks on her torso and lifelong trauma. It also seems to ignite her already eldest-sister-of-four levels of ambition and determination into shooting flames. But the shark's greatest gift, as far as the reader is concerned, is a truly unbelievable-seeming yarn and the ability to spin it.' Read more of Julie Hill's review of this book, here on The Spinoff. 8 Understanding Te Tiriti by Roimata Smail (Wai Ako, $25) Welcome back! The small book that has done big things pairs well with The Spinoff's guide to Te Tiriti. 9 Northbound by Naomi Arnold (Harper Collins, $40) 'The way Arnold has managed to condense nine months and 3028 kilometres into bang-on 300 pages is impressive throughout. From the nature descriptions, to the meal recaps and interactions she has with other walkers – the story includes many small but perfectly formed vignettes – like that chat with Doug – that illuminate more than their page space would suggest.' Wrote The Spinoff's Liv Sisson in her glowing review of Arnold's odyssey. 10 Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (Serpents Tail, $30) Purchasing for the cover and title typeface alone. Here's the blurb: 'A rambunctious, tragicomic absurd road trip novel about a wealthy Swiss-German mother and son. Realising he and she are the very worst kind of people, our unnamed middle-aged narrator embarks on a highly dubious road trip through Switzerland with his terminally ill and terminally drunken mother. They try unsuccessfully to give away or squander the fortune she has amassed from investing in armament industry shares. Along the journey they bicker endlessly over the past, throw handfuls of francs into a ravine and exasperate the living daylights out of their long-suffering taxi driver. The crimes of the twentieth century are never far behind, but neither is the need for more is a bitterly comic, vertiginous mirror-cabinet of familial and historical reckoning. Kracht's novel is a narrative tour-de-force of the tenderness and spite meted out between two people who cannot escape one another.' WELLINGTON 1 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30) 2 Covid Response: A scientist's account of New Zealand's pandemic and what comes next by Shaun Hendy (Bridget Williams Books, $40) Professor Shaun Hendy returns us to the Covid years and how and why government made their decisions about what to do and when. It's a very readable piece of literature: smartly arranged in chapters with subheadings and including chapters outlining what to do in future. 3 Sea Change by Jenny Pattrick (Bateman, $38) The unstoppable Jenny Pattrick (author of The Denniston Rose) is back with this novel imagining a tsunami has devastated the Paekākāriki community on the Kāpiti Coast. Aptly, the novel has been reviewed over on paekākā 'Four novels for the price of one,' enthuses this reviewer on The Guardian. 6 Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry (Viking, $38) Something about an heiress and two writers battling to tell her story. 7 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26) 8 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan (Faber $25) Welcome back brilliant friend! The slim novella that might well be staging a return to this hallowed chart due to the fact that the movie adaptation staring Cillian Murphy is now out in cinemas around Aotearoa. 9 Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House, $32) The latest book that's telling you how to change your life.
