The Unity Books bestseller chart for the year ending now

Pōhutukawa blooming against a blue sky

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. Today’s charts cover the whole of 2020, up until the end of Sunday, December 20.  A note on Auē – we’re pretty … Read more

A gold tickle of toi-toi

An essay about leaving New Zealand, and finding it again via Janet Frame.  A quick note from our books editor, Catherine Woulfe: Meg Mason grew up in Foxton and Palmerston North. She’s a journalist – she lives in Sydney, and writes for places like The New Yorker, Vogue and GQ – and she’s just released … Read more

Losing the clot: the story of how I nearly died, by Graeme Lay

A trip to the bookshop ends in calamity – and an encounter with the calm, candid and kind medical staff of North Shore Hospital.  As a great admirer of Hilary Mantel’s writing, I looked forward to reading the final novel in her trilogy set in Tudor England, The Mirror & the Light. I drove down … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending June 19

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  Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo (Penguin Classics, $24) Winner of the 2019 Booker Prize. This week it became the … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller list for the week ending June 12

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  Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press, $35) Winner of the 2020 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction. You can watch … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 29

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  Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35) Winner of the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, the most prestigious prize … Read more

Harry Potter for political nerds: The Mirror & the Light, reviewed

In her latest masterpiece, Hilary Mantel finds patterns and rational systems – the dynamic between history and literature, or politics and law, or propaganda and art – and places something malevolent, chaotic and non-rational at the heart of them, writes Danyl Mclachlan. It begins where the last book ended. Anne Boleyn is dead. Her attendants … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 22

Lisa Simpson reading The Bell Jar

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  Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press, $35) Elating, awful and true in all the ways that matter. Winner of the … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending May 8

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  The Mirror & the Light by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate, $50) The author, to Vulture: “When I got towards the … Read more

‘It brought tears to our eyes’: A warm-fuzzy update from Unity Books

Like bookstores across the country, Unity Books opened for online orders on Tuesday morning not quite knowing what to expect. Everyone across both teams is so wildly busy doing God’s work – getting books to where they need to be – that we can’t bring you a bestseller chart based on actual data this week. … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending 20 March

We’ll get to the Top 10s in a minute but first a note on cleaning books, from Dr Siouxsie Wiles: “I’d say wiping covers is a good idea, and just making sure to wash your hands after you’ve been reading a book others have used is the way to go. Infection mainly requires repeated close … Read more

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending March 13

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  The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate, $50) Toby Manhire: If someone’s self-isolating, what’s your recommendation, as … Read more