The top 10 sales lists recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.

3 Tāmaki Makaurau 2025: Essays on Life in Auckland edited by Damien Levi (Auckland City Libraries, $32)

‘Tis the season for purchasing beautiful books about what it’s like to live in Auckland.

4 Folly Journal Issue 003 edited by Emily Makere Broadmore (Folly, $35)

Folly creators have spent what looks like an exhausting week dressing up in gauze and performing poetry at strangers and their own social media outside Whitcoulls stores after Whitcoulls allegedly cancelled Folly Issue 003 due to the use of the word “fuck”. Whatever happened, it’s clearly working for them.

5 The Rose Field by Philip Pullman (Penguin, $38)

Elder millennials Claire and Freya are still talking about this final book in Lyra’s story. Do we need a conference? Yes.

6 A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin, $60)

“An early and necessary disclaimer,” begins Mad Chapman’s review of this memoir. “I have written and had published a book about Jacinda Ardern’s life and career. The names are similar (A New Kind of Leader vs A Different Kind of Power), the covers share the same design template and the blurbs offer the same promise: an insight into the “real” Jacinda Ardern and what it means to be an empathetic leader. Both books were written and published with an international audience in mind, one in 2020 and the other just yesterday.

The difference in our books is that Ardern had no involvement in mine – I couldn’t even convince her to confirm whether or not she drank Fanta as a child, such was her refusal to participate (though interestingly it is raised in her memoir and still not confirmed). Instead I did what all assigned biographers do: I collected all publicly-available material, spoke to the few acquaintances willing to share stories, and cobbled them together for an international audience.”

7 Everything but the Medicine by Lucy O’Hagan (Massey University, $40)

“Meeting her patients where they are seems to be at the core of O’Hagan’s approach to medicine. As a baby GP she joined with two other GPs in building a medical practice from the ground up. Only after that did she build a house, and a family, and she devoted, and continues to devote, a considerable part of her life to serving the community around her.” Read more from Emma Marr’s review of this medical memoir on The Spinoff.

8 Strange Houses by UKETSU (Pushkin Press, $37)

Chilling crime stories.

9 Hoods Landing by Laura Vincent (Āporo press, $35)

Come back to The Spinoff on Saturday to read a review of this impressive debut.

10 The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations about a Triple Murder Trial by Chloe Hooper, Helen Garner & Sara Krasnostein (Text Publishing, $40)

The book that we all (and Text Publishing) knew we needed. Three of Australia’s absolute best writers tackle the infamous mushroom murders that captivated the world.

WELLINGTON

1 Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington Street by Street by Elizabeth Cox (Massey University Press, $90)

An absolutely beautiful and curious book for history nerds, Wellingtonians, cartographers and the plain curious. Here’s the publisher’s blurb to explain: “In 1891, a remarkable map of Wellington was made by surveyor Thomas Ward. It recorded the footprint of every building, from Thorndon in the north and across the teeming, inner-city slums of Te Aro to Berhampore in the south.

Updated regularly over the next 10 years, it detailed hotels, theatres, oyster saloons, brothels, shops, stables, Parliament, the remnants of Māori kāinga, the Town Belt, the prisons, the ‘lunatic asylum’, the hospital and much more, in detail so particular that it went right down to the level of the street lights.

Luxuriously packaged with a cloth case and fold-out jacket, Mr Ward’s Map uses this giant map and historic images to tell marvellous stories about a vital capital city, its neighbourhoods and its people at the turn of the twentieth century.”

You can also buy framed pages of the map.

2 Privatisation and Plunder: Neoliberalism – Causes, Costs & Alternatives edited by Chris Werry and Richard Werry (Steele Roberts, $30)

“Bringing together leading voices from academia and activism, this powerful collection exposes the real legacy of the ‘New Zealand Experiment’ — and offers bold, practical alternatives: universal basic income, public ownership, democratic renewal and economic justice.”

3 How to be an Alien: A Sort of Memoir by Ann Beaglehole (Fraser Books, $38)

Historian and writer Ann Beaglehole looks at a family’s decision to leave their country and make a new life in a new country.

4 Folly Journal Issue 003 edited by Emily Makere Broadmore (Folly, $35)

5 The Emotion Dealer and Other Stories by Jack Remiel Cottrell (Canterbury University Press, $30)

Jack Remiel Cottrell is the brilliant author behind Ten Acceptable Acts of Arson, a sharp, funny collection of flash fiction from 2021. This latest collection of flash fiction is just as smart, just as inventive and arresting. One of the most interesting Aotearoa writers out there today.

6 Spellbound by Francis Aschoff (5ever Press, $35)

Get a taste of Aschoff right here at The Spinoff’s Friday Poem.

7 Bread of Angels by Patti Smith (Bloomsbury, $39)

8 The Rose Field by Philip Pullman (Penguin, $38)

9 My First Ikura by Qiane Matata-Sipu (Qiane+co, $30)

Every person I know is buying this book celebrating a first period. An absolutely beautiful, essential and timely publication reclaiming the power of a first period through a te ao Māori lens.

10 Kim: A Journey Between Two Worlds by Kim Rangiaonui Logan (Ugly Hill Press, $55)

“Born Māori (Ngāti Kahungunu), raised Pākehā, Kim Rangiaonui Logan’s father was commander in D Company, 8th Māori Battalion, but returned from war a damaged man, unable to cope with his children,” reads the publisher’s blurb. “But this is no misery memoir. Kim climbed away, literally – Everest, Aorangi Mt Cook, anywhere – to love and contentment, and in the process reconnected with his whakapapa. Now living in Queenstown, Kim reflects on his extraordinary life.”