The top 10 sales lists recorded every week at Unity Books\u2019 stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.<\/p>\n
2 Edges of Empire: The Politics of Immigration in Aotearoa 1980\u20132020<\/a> by Francis L. Collins, Alan Gamlen and Neil Vallelly (Auckland Uni Press, $50)<\/p>\n \u201cHow and why immigration has evolved in Aotearoa New Zealand over the last forty years.\u201d<\/p>\n 3 What We Can Know<\/a>\u00a0by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape, $38)<\/p>\n Utterly intrigued by this premise:<\/p>\n \u201c2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message, but no copy has yet been found.<\/p>\n 2119: The lowlands of the UK have been submerged by rising seas. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost.<\/p>\n Tom Metcalfe, an academic at the University of the South Downs, part of Britain\u2019s remaining island archipelagos, pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the lost poem, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a crime that destroys his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well.\u201d<\/p>\n 4 Matauranga M\u0101ori<\/a> by Hirini Moko Mead (Huia Publishers, $45)\u00a0<\/p>\n The culmination of a life\u2019s work and a guide to how knowledge finds expression in language, ceremony and the rituals of daily life.<\/p>\n 5 Clown Town: Slough House #9<\/a>\u00a0by Mick Herron (Baskerville, $38)<\/p>\n More books means more TV, hopefully.<\/p>\n 6 Butter<\/a>\u00a0by Asako Yuzuki (Fourth Estate, $35)\u00a0<\/p>\n She\u2019s baaaccck!<\/p>\n 7 Mother Mary Comes To Me<\/a> by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $40)<\/p>\n \u201cAn intimate, stirring chronicle,\u201d summarises Kirkus Reviews. Read the full review, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 8 The Safe Keep<\/a> by Yael van der Wouden (Penguin, $26)\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the best historical novels of the past decade.<\/p>\n 9 Seascraper<\/a>\u00a0by Benjamin Wood (Viking Penguin, $40)<\/p>\n Thomas lives a fairly ordinary life until Hollywood comes knocking.<\/p>\n 10 River Is Waiting<\/a>\u00a0by Wally Lamb (Simon & Schuster, $40)<\/p>\n Fatherhood, addiction, prison, the enduring faith of the mother.<\/p>\n WELLINGTON<\/p>\n 1 Hardship and Hope<\/a> by Rebecca Macfie\u00a0(Bridget Williams Books, $20)<\/p>\n Macfie has a double-whammy this week with both BWB texts finding readers in Wellington at least. This is a deliberate double-release to try and maximise the impact of these two, very important and timely, books about poverty in Aotearoa showing how grassroots movements respond to poverty, and how systemic change could alleviate the growing wealth divide.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a snippet from the blurb: \u201cIn papak\u0101inga, schools, marae and communities from Te Hauke to Porirua, Papakura to Aranui, award-winning journalist Rebecca Macfie discovers powerful local responses to poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n 2 Pakukore: Poverty by Design<\/a> edited by Rebecca Macfie, Graeme Whimp and Brigette B\u00f6nisch-Brednich (Bridget Williams Books, $20)<\/p>\n A terrific collection of essays tackling the ways in which systems entrap populations in cycles of poverty.<\/p>\n 3 How to Save Democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand<\/a> by Sir Geoffrey Palmer (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $30)<\/p>\n 4 Kings of this World<\/a> by Elizabeth Knox (Allen and Unwin, $30)<\/p>\n One of Aotearoa\u2019s greatest novelists is back with a superb young adult novel. Shanti Mathias wrote a stunning review for The Spinoff, right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 5 If We Knew How To We Would<\/a> by Emma Barnes (Auckland University Press, $25)<\/p>\n \u201cThrough breakups and a pandemic, health issues and deaths, Emma Barnes\u2019s second collection is a riveting, overflowing and grief-stricken reckoning with the ordinary: a skinful of spit; insides scooped out with a melon baller; cracked like an egg and nothing inside. \u2018It is too much to say nothing about. It is nothing to say too much about.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n 6 Everything But the Medicine<\/a> by Lucy O\u2019Hagan (Massey University Press, $40)<\/p>\n A very moving memoir from GP, Dr Lucy O\u2019Hagan. A review is coming to The Spinoff very soon.<\/p>\n 7 Anything Could Happen<\/a> by Grant Robertson (Allen and Unwin, $40)<\/p>\n Henry Cooke\u2019s appraisal, here<\/a>!<\/p>\n 8 Mother Mary Comes To Me<\/a> by Arundhati Roy (Hamish Hamilton, $40)<\/p>\n 9 Zest: Climbing from Depression to Philosophy<\/a> by Daniel Kalderimis (Ugly Hill Press, $40)<\/p>\n Heidi Thomson wrote a stunning tribute to this book, and to Middlemarch, here<\/a> on The Spinoff.<\/p>\n