The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending June 5

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

AUCKLAND

1 The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City by Asher Emanuel (Bridget Williams Books, $40)

Number one again! Well, Gone By Lunchtime did say everyone should read it .

2 Stakes: A Memoir by Noelle McCarthy (Penguin, $40)

The follow-up to the widely read and much admired Grand, launched this week with an event that featured Toby Manhire in a top hat. Blurb for context? “Growing up in Catholic Ireland, Noelle McCarthy is captivated by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The vampire is a risk-free fantasy, a suave alternative to the fraught realities of desire. Twenty years later, exhausted by her unruly appetites, Noelle returns to Dracula, reckoning with her own history and a changing world: generation-spanning shame and trauma given voice by #MeToo and the horrors emerging from Irish soil. More than a century after readers were first mesmerised by Dracula, Stakes transposes its electric themes of transgression, intoxication and sexual danger onto Noelle’s own life, asking: what’s the difference between an inheritance and a curse?”

3 Things We Never Say  by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)

Strout doesn’t miss.

4 One Last Question, Prime Minister by Barry Soper (HarperCollins, $40)

To all the prime ministers I’ve loved before (and the one I weirdly hated).

5 Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (Scribe Pubs Pty, $38)

The winner of the International Booker Prize 2026, and a must-read for people who love reading descriptions of food.

6 John of John by Douglas Stuart (Picador, $38)

The follow-up to the Booker-winning Shuggie Bain. Positively reviewed in The Guardian .

7 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)

The true story of a teen’s mysterious death in London, from one of the audience favourite at this year’s Auckland Writers Festival. If you missed his session (or if you’re hungry for more), have a listen to his recent interview on the Adam Buxton Podcast .

8 No Pit Stops  by Grant Baker (Mary Egan Publishing, $38)

The life and times of a New Zealand business success story, with blurbs from Liam Lawson and Grant Dalton on the cover.

9 The Land and its People by David Sedaris (Abacus, $40)

A new collection from the comic essay master – on health, travel, ageing, Duolingo and more.

10 Whistler by Ann Patchett (Bloomsbury UK, $39)

The Guardian may have called it “ saccharine “, but the Patchett-heads over on GoodReads are absolutely loving it.

Robyn Malcolm-approved advice for parents, caregivers, teachers and anyone else trying to reason with a young person’s “ancient survival brain”.

3 London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe (Picador, $40)

4 All Her Lives: Nine Stories  by Ingrid Horrocks (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $35)

Basking in that Ockhams afterglow. Learn more about Ingrid Horrocks’ reading life here .

5 Things We Never Say  by Elizabeth Strout (Viking Penguin, $38)

6 John of John by Douglas Stuart (Picador, $38)

7 Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke (Fourth Estate, $37)

“Stepford Wives meets The Handmaid’s Tale” – you better believe a film adaptation is already under way (starring Anne Hathaway!).

8 One Last Question, Prime Minister by Barry Soper (HarperCollins, $40)

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

The next best thing to time travel.

10 Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ (Scribe Pubs Pty, $38)

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