This week’s biggest-selling New Zealand books, as recorded by the Nielsen BookScan New Zealand bestseller list and described by Steve Braunias
NON-FICTION
1 Supergood by Chelsea Winter (Penguin Random House, $50)
Jesse Mulligan’s insanely entertaining review of the new cookbook by the Chelsea sugar factory will appear soon at ReadingRoom.
2 Aroha by Hinemoa Elder (Penguin Random House, $30)
3 Searching for Charlie by Tom Scott (Upstart Press, $49.99)
“A magnificent biography of a remarkable Second World War infantryman twice awarded the Commonwealth’s highest recognition of conspicuous gallantry, pre-eminent valour and acts of self-sacrifice under enemy fire, the Victoria Cross”: from an article by Kate Coughlan.
4 Wild at Heart by Miriam Lancewood (Allen & Unwin, $36.99)
More adventures in the wilderness by Lancewood, 35, and her husband Peter, 65.
5 Raw & Free by Sophie Steevens (Allen & Unwin, $45)
129,000 followers on Instagram can’t be wrong.
6 Two Raw Sisters by Rosa Flanagan & Margo Flanagan (David Bateman, $39.99)
28,000 followers on Instagram isn’t bad.
7 Vegful by Nadia Lim (Nude Food, $55)
122,000 followers on Instagram isn’t as many as Sophie Steevens.
8 Take Your Space by Jo Cribb & Rachel Petero (OneTree House, $34)
Business advice for women, published with the support of Westpac.
9 The Book of Overthinking by Gwendoline Smith (Allen & Unwin, $24.99)
10 Wild Horses of the World by Kelly Wilson (Penguin Random House, $60)
Graham Reid’s great Elsewhere site links to the audio of a ragged, exhausted cover by Gram Parsons of the Stones classic, and it’s amazing, but I prefer the thin, bloodless version by The Sundays. Possibly the worst ever version is one by the Stones in 2015, although Miley Cyrus channelling Marianne Faithful is terrible, too. The Stones listening to a playback of it in 1969 is the coolest thing ever.
FICTION
1 Remote Sympathy by Catherine Chidgey (Victoria University Press, $35)
“Admirable and almost majestic”: Stephanie Johnson, from her review of Chidgey’s 500-pager set at Buchenwald during World War II, at ReadingRoom.
2 Auē by Becky Manawatu (Makaro Press, $35)
The author lives in Wesport; her MP, Damien O’Connor, recently took to Twitter to post a photograph of what his spaghetti bolognese looks like. Not for the faint-hearted.
3 The Jacaranda House by Deborah Challinor (HarperCollins, $36.99)
4 Tiny Pieces of Us by Nicky Pellegrino (Hachette, $34.99)
5 The Silence of Snow by Eileen Merriman (Penguin Random House, $36)
6 State Highway One by Sam Coley (Hachette, $34.99)
7 The Tally Stick by Carl Nixon (Penguin Random House, $36)
8 The Telling Time by PJ McKay (Polako Press, $34.95)
9 Bug Week by Airini Beautrais (Victoria University Press, $30)
Three good and persuasive reasons to leave the house at once and buy the year’s best book of short stories are 1) on the strength of Owen Marshall’s review at ReadingRoom 2) on the strength of one of the stories,“Psycho Ex”, published at ReadingRoom 3) on the additonal strength of another one of the stories, “The Turtle”, published at ReadingRoom
10 The Absolute Book by Elizabeth Knox (Victoria University Press, $35)
