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 Correspondent<\/a>\u00a0by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $28)<\/p>\n \u201cA lifetime\u2019s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character. Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans\u2019 debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was eight. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil\u2019s carefully constructed way of life\u2014in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement\u2014she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself.\u201d Read the rest of this short but insightful review over on Kirkus.<\/a><\/p>\n 2 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City<\/a> by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)<\/p>\n \u201cEight years ago, around the time that young lawyer and part-time journalist Asher Emanuel was writing for the Spinoff about criminal justice and a new minister\u2019s ambitious approach, an idea arrived in his head: tell the story of the system from within.\u201d So begins The Spinoff\u2019s Toby Manhire\u2019s write-up of his interview with Asher Emanuel that you can read \/ listen to, right here.<\/a><\/p>\n 3 Facing Up to Our Future<\/a> edited by Peter Davis (Dunmore Press, $35)<\/p>\n A book that brings together 21 thinkers on critical issues leading up to November\u2019s election.<\/p>\n 4 The Odyssey<\/a> by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson (W W Norton, $36)<\/p>\n Here is Emily Wilson writing about Nolan\u2019s The Odyssey for the London Review of Books:<\/a> \u201cAs in his previous films, Nolan is interested in the discontinuities of space and time, in magic, tricks, craft, technology, rivalry, substitution, masks, miscommunication, what we remember and what we choose to forget. Yet again, survival is portrayed as a kind of triumph. Yet again, there are long, claustrophobic scenes of drowning and near-drowning, and technically impressive episodes in which buildings are engulfed in flames and vehicles explode. Yet again, we watch a male character\u2019s desperate quest to recover and\/or avenge a female love object. I had hoped that Nolan\u2019s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters. But The Odyssey features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality.\u201d<\/p>\n 5 Yesteryear<\/a>\u00a0by Caro Claire Burke (Fourth Estate, $37)<\/p>\n \u201cThe premise is almost too neat,\u201d writes Anna Ballan in the LA Review of Books<\/a>. \u201cNatalie, a successful tradwife influencer living on the scrupulously arranged Yesteryear Ranch, wakes one morning to find herself transported into a 19th-century homestead version of her own life. She must adapt, like a character in a Kafka tale, to the logic of the absurd. The Idaho farm\u2019s generator is gone, its lighting is restricted to daylight and firelight, and the place is stripped of its many sleek conveniences. In designing Yesteryear Ranch, modern-day Natalie had admitted to wanting \u2018all the aesthetics of the olden times and all the amenities of modernity [\u2026] reconciled via a series of impeccable design decisions.\u2019 Now she is made to confront the genuine article and inhabit an ostensibly unadulterated version of \u2018olden times.’\u201d<\/p>\n 6 Project Hail Mary<\/a>\u00a0by Andy Weir (Del Rey, $28)<\/p>\n Welcome back, Rocky!<\/p>\n 7 Things We Never Say<\/a> by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)\u00a0<\/p>\n A fresh cast of Strout characters.<\/p>\n 8 London Falling<\/a> by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)<\/p>\n Top-notch journalist takes you deep inside a story of destruction.<\/p>\n 9 Short Stay in Hell <\/a>by Steven L. Peck (Vintage, $28)<\/p>\n A psychological horror novella first published in 2009.<\/p>\n 10 Circe<\/a>\u00a0by Madeline Miller (Bloomsbury, $25)<\/p>\n An exquisite novel \u2013 recommended for fans of Samantha Morton\u2019s Circe.<\/p>\n WELLINGTON<\/p>\n 1 Better Never Stops<\/a> by Paul Wood (HarperCollins, $40)<\/p>\n From the publisher\u2019s blurb: \u201cAt the age of 18, Wood was sent to New Zealand\u2019s toughest prison. Almost 11 years later, in 2006, he walked out a free man, escaping his past and becoming a leading expert in the psychology of personal prisons, limiting mindsets, and the pursuit of excellence. In Better Never Stops, Wood explains the neuroscience behind our innate human desire to strive for improvement and how we can supercharge our ability to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n 2 Facing Up to Our Future<\/a> edited by Peter Davis (Dunmore Press, $35)<\/p>\n 3 Against the Tide:\u00a0Aotearoa New Zealand in World Affairs Volume V 2006-2025\u00a0<\/a>by Hamish McDougall & Serena Kelly (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)<\/p>\n Pairs well with item two, above.<\/p>\n 4 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City<\/a> by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)<\/p>\n 5 The Odyssey<\/a> by Homer, Emily Wilson translation (W W Norton, $36)<\/p>\n 6 The Correspondent<\/a>\u00a0by Virginia Evans (Michael Joseph, $28)<\/p>\n 7 London Falling<\/a> by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)<\/p>\n 8 Sophie, Standing There<\/a>\u00a0by Meg Mason (Fourth Estate, $33)<\/p>\n \u201cSo, is Mason nervous about how her readers might receive this follow up to Sorrow and Bliss? \u2018I don\u2019t care what readers think of me. I almost don\u2019t care what they think of the book. I care deeply what they think of Sophie. She was just someone that I loved spending time with.’\u201d Read more from books editor Claire Mabey\u2019s interview with Mason, right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n 9 Things We Never Say<\/a> by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)\u00a0<\/p>\n