The top 10 sales lists recorded every week at Unity Books\u2019 stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.<\/p>\n
AUCKLAND<\/p>\n
1 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City<\/a> by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)<\/p>\n The must-read<\/a> local book of the year holds firm at number one for another week. \u201cA gripping, true story of the lives of Rikihana, Nathan, their legal aid lawyer Lewis and the way their lives roll in and out through the turnstiles of the Hutt Valley District Court\u2026 an eye-opening, page-turning, up-close insight into systemic fractures and human impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n 2 No Pit Stops<\/a>\u00a0by Grant Baker (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)<\/p>\n Inspirational reading for budding entrepreneurs and fast car enthusiasts alike.<\/p>\n 3 Land<\/a> by Maggie O\u2019Farrell (Headline Press, $38)<\/p>\n Major new Irish novel alert! This one from the author of Hamnet takes place in the shadow of the Great Hunger and involves an ordnance surveyor who has \u201can unsettling encounter in a copse\u201d. Have a listen to O\u2019Farrell speaking to RNZ Saturday Morning<\/a> last weekend.<\/p>\n 4 Yesteryear<\/a> by Caro Claire Burke (Fourth Estate, $37)\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe book that will be everywhere in 2026\u201d, wrote the Independent, successfully predicting these very charts. Major motion picture pending.<\/p>\n 5 One Last Question, Prime Minister<\/a> by Barry Soper (HarperCollins, $40)<\/p>\n Press gallery veteran liked job better when you could get axed with the prime minister.<\/p>\n 6 Taiwan Travelogue<\/a> by Y\u00e1ng Shu\u0101ng-z\u01d0 (Scribe Pubs Pty, $38)<\/p>\n \u201cTaiwan Travelogue pulls off an incredible double feat: it succeeds as both a romance and an incisive postcolonial novel. As judges, we\u2019ve enjoyed rich discussions about the many layers of this book. It\u2019s a captivating, slyly sophisticated novel.\u201d So said the chair of judges for the 2026 International Booker Prize upon its win last month.<\/p>\n 7 Stakes: A Memoir<\/a> by Noelle McCarthy (Penguin, $40)<\/p>\n Dracula memoir, set to be reviewed on The Spinoff any day now.<\/p>\n 9 The Land and its People<\/a> by David Sedaris (Abacus, $40)<\/p>\n Sedaris-heads know what to expect at this point, and it seems they are not at all disappointed by this new collection. Maybe the funniest travel writing since Bryson?<\/p>\n 10 All Her Lives: Nine Stories<\/a>\u00a0by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)<\/p>\n \u201cReading Ingrid Horrocks\u2019 short-story collection (and first work of fiction) is like slowly rotating a semi-opaque jewel: each facet polished on its own, but sometimes, through a trick of the light, you can see beyond to the mesmerising whole.\u201d Luminous praise for the Ockhams-winner over at Kete Books<\/a>.<\/p>\n 3 Nova<\/a> by Tim Corballis (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38)<\/p>\n Brand new this week from THWUP, Nova is described as \u201ca genre-defying novel that imagines a future in which people and their worlds talk to each other\u201d. Todd Atticus, who also did the cover for The Valley, is on a hell of a tear at the moment and has knocked it out of the park once again with this one.<\/p>\n 4 Things We Never Say<\/a>\u00a0by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)<\/p>\n A new set of characters (no Olive Kitteridge this time) but very much the same old Strout, thankfully.<\/p>\n 5 Yesteryear<\/a> by Caro Claire Burke (Fourth Estate, $37)\u00a0<\/p>\n 6 Whistler<\/a> by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury UK, $39)<\/p>\n \u201cThe loveliest of summer gifts\u201d, former Washington Post literary critic Ron Charles wrote from the Northern Hemisphere in his review<\/a> of the new Patchett. Also pretty good in winter, it seems.<\/p>\n 7 All Her Lives: Nine Stories<\/a>\u00a0by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)<\/p>\n 8 Stakes: A Memoir<\/a> by Noelle McCarthy (Penguin, $40)<\/p>\n 9 Taiwan Travelogue<\/a> by Y\u00e1ng Shu\u0101ng-z\u01d0 (Scribe Pubs Pty, $38)<\/p>\n 10 London Falling<\/a> by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)<\/p>\n