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10 May 2024
The Other Name (Septology I—II) by Jon Fosse (translated from Nynorsk by Damion Searle)
and I see myself sitting and reading the thick book, and I have reached that point in the book, though it is not in fact a point in the book for there is nothing in the book that would mark such a point, but rather a point in my reading of the book, which just happens to be around page seventy-five, that I come to realise that the book is written entirely in one sentence, one slow, patient, uninterrupted flow of words, no, I think, that is not correct, the book is written in two parts, though each begins with the word And, but neither part ends, each rather just leaves off, so it would not be correct that the book is written in one sentence, or in two sentences, one for each part, but rather in no sentences, one, or two, slow, patient, uninterrupted flow, or flows, of words, that much at least I got right, I think, just the kind of thing I like, but done with such virtuosity and with such little display of virtuosity that I had not realised until page seventy-five or thereabouts that there are no full stops to be found in this book, or no full stop, I am uncertain if this absence should be singular or plural, possibly both, this Jon Fosse and his translator Damion Searls having built these words without one misstep, or missomething, the metaphor seems mixed and I has not even realised that it was a metaphor, I must be more careful, capturing the flow of thought, so to call it, and speech, realistically, seemingly of the narrator, a middle-aged painter named Asle, living, I am almost tempted to put, as such people do, in a small town in western Norway, driving in the snow to and from a city on the western coast of Norway, the city of the gallery which shows, which is a euphemism of sorts for sells, his paintings, but also the city in which lives a middle-aged painter named Asle, resembling both in looks and clothing, if clothing is not part of looks, the narrator, the narrator narrating in the first person and this other Asle, the alter-Asle if you like, this alter-Asle to the thoughts and memories of whom the narrator-Asle has extraordinary access, though there is no evidence of any reciprocal mechanism, we are, I am sure, never given an instance of the alter-Asle even being aware of the existence of such a person as the narrator, this aler-Asle, being confined to the third person, and, I wonder, what sort of trauma confines a person to an existence only in the third person, presumably a trauma, I think, this alter-Asle being also an alcoholic and a person who “most of the time, doesn’t want to live any more, he’s always thinking that he should go out into the sea, disappear into the waves,” but not doing so because of his love for his dog, there is, I think as I am reading, some relationship between the two Asles, well, obviously there is, my thought, or the thought I have, being that the alter-Asle is the actual Asle and the narrator-Asle is the Asle that the alter-Asle-who-is-actually-the-actual-Alse would have been if he was not the Asle he became, which, I think, I have made sound a bit confusing, and the opposite of an explanation, not that that matters, on account of whatever trauma, or whatever it is that I speculate is a trauma, that confined him to a third-person existence, the characters being one character, all characters being one character as they are in all books, I speculate, though in this book almost all the characters have, if not the same name, almost the same name, which tightens the knot somewhat, if I can be forgiven another metaphor, though I will not forgive myself for it at least, I will try to avoid, I think, thinking of the relationships between these persons-who-are-one-person, or, in any rate, describing the relationships between these persons-who-are-one-person, in any way other than a literary way, whatever that means, nothing, I think, the person that Asle could have been sees the Asle that Asle became, though Alse cannot know him, the person that Asle could have been rescues Asle when he has collapsed in the snow and takes him to the Clinic and to the Hospital, and takes the dog to look after, who knows, though, if the third-person Asle, the one I was calling the alter-Asle until that became too confusing, at least for me, survives, neither we nor the first-person Asle know that, but after the first-person Asle goes to the city and rescues the third-person Asle from the snowdrift, how could he know where to find him, I wonder, he begins, in the second part of the book, to have access to some deeply buried memories of the Asle that perhaps they once both were, memories all in the third person, for safety, I think, memories firstly of Asle’s and his sister’s disobedience of their parents in straying along the shore and to the nearby settlement, a narrative in which threat hums in every detail, a narrative in which colour impresses itself so deeply upon Asle that, I think, he could have become nothing other than a painter, a narrative that seems searching for a trauma, for a misfortune, a narrative assailed by an inexplicable motor noise as they approach the settlement but which resolves with a misfortune that is anticlimactic, at least for Asle, a trauma but not his trauma, what has this narrative avoided, I wonder at this point, what has not been released, or what has not yet been released, I wonder, Fosse is a writer who writes to be rid of his thoughts, I think, just as his narrator says, “when I paint it’s always as if I’m trying to paint away the pictures stuck inside me, to get rid of them in a way, to be done with them, I have all these pictures inside me, yes, so many pictures that they’re a kind of agony, I try to paint away these pictures that are lodged inside me, there’s nothing to do but paint them away,” and, yes, when the narrator lies in bed at the end of the second part of the book and is unable to sleep, he does recover the memory, a third person memory, the memory of the trauma that split the Asles and trapped one thereafter in the third person, the memory that explains the awful motor noise that intruded on the previous narrative of disobedience as the children approached the locus of the trauma, and, I think, all the sadness of the book leads from here and to here, and after that to go on
Everyone needs to brave sometimes. Rebecca would rather be invisible. Looking down seems a good option. In Jane Arthur’s Brown Bird, we meet the kind and quiet Rebecca. She’s eleven, an excellent baker, and loves to have her head buried in a book. It’s the holidays and her plans are about to be disrupted by the whirlwind called Chester. What will Rebecca find out about herself, and is Chester as carefree as he seems? Jane Arthur, award-winning poet, perfectly captures the voice of eleven-year-old Rebecca, and expresses the uncertainties, awkwardnesses and hopes that we all experience, in her debut children’s book.
Rebecca is the best timid character to grab my attention this year, and Jane Arthur’s Brown Bird has flown straight to a VOLUME Favourite. Why? One: there’s a map! For me, it was reminiscent of my childhood readings and rereadings of Milly Molly Mandy — I loved those maps showing the village (despite being a million miles away from my childhood experience in Aotearoa — no thatched roofs in any direction). This map is more akin to the small avenue of my childhood. Brown Bird takes place on Mount Street — a small no exit of twelve houses. And each of these houses and their inhabitants will have a part to play. Two: there’s the wonderful Rebecca and the delightful Chester. Rebecca doesn’t like to be noticed and her preference for an excellent day is reading and baking. She’s a whizz at both. The school holidays mean Mum’s at work a lot, and Rebecca visits Tilly, their neighbour. Rebecca has it all planned. She’s got her stack of books ready to go. But then there’s Chester. A ball of energy that disrupts her calm (not that she is really calm — in fact, she’s often quite anxious and overly aware of her surroundings). And Chester has a plan. A plan that involves knocking on doors, meeting people and offering their services doing odd jobs. To Rebecca, Chester doesn’t have a care in the world and is all exuberance. It’s exhausting, nerve-wracking but also exhilarating. Three: Brown Bird is a story about friendship. Chester isn’t like her, but for the first time since they moved to their new place, Rebecca has a friend. They sleep in the tent, eat treats and laugh, but also disagree and work out what’s important. Chester may be full of vim, but his life is far from plain sailing. Four: It’s a spot on depiction of that moment in childhood — Rebecca is eleven — when things change, emotionally and physically. Rebecca’s anxiety and frustration is all there and well articulated, but so too is her kindness and tenacity. She’s the perfect companion for anyone who feels awkwardly at odds with the world. Five: I love the quietness of Brown Bird. It’s a book that draws you in (without shouting you into the action or screaming nonsense), lets you think, and also makes you smile. It’s warm-hearted and you’ll be backing Rebecca and Chester to be the lovely and brave humans they are. Six: It’s also sweetly written. You’re in the story before you know it, and Arthur has a knack for quirky humour popping up in just the right places, alongside the more daunting prospects for the protagonists, as well as feeding in issues of diversity and difference without being heavy handed. Highly recommended for 9+. Excellent for anyone who’s taken a while to believe in themselves. Here’s hoping we meet Rebecca again.
These books have just arrived!
Click through to our website for your copies:
Hine Toa: A story of bravery by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku $40
A memoir by a trailblazing voice in women's, queer and Māori liberation movements. In the 1950s, a young Ngāhuia is fostered by a family who believe in hard work and community. Although close to her kuia, she craves more: she wants higher education and refined living. But whanau dismiss her dreams. To them, she is just a show-off, always getting into trouble, talking back and running away. In this fiery memoir about identity and belonging, Ngahuia te Awekotuku describes what was possible for a restless working-class girl from the pa. After moving to Auckland for university, Ngahuia advocates resistance as a founding member of Nga Tamatoa and the Women's and Gay Liberation movements, becoming a critical voice in protests from Waitangi to the streets of Wellington.
”Remarkable. At once heartbreaking and triumphant.” —Patricia Grace
”Brilliant. This timely coming-of-age memoir by an iconic activist will rouse the rebel in us all. I loved it.” —Tina Makereti
Julia by Sandra Newman $37
London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She routinely breaks the rules but also collaborates with the regime whenever necessary. Everyone likes Julia. A diligent member of the Junior Anti-Sex League (though she is secretly promiscuous) she knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She's very good at staying alive. But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department — a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith — when she sees him locking eyes with a superior from the Inner Party at the Two Minutes Hate. And when one day, finding herself walking toward Winston, she impulsively hands him a note — a potentially suicidal gesture — she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world. Newman’s feminist narrative stands in parallel to Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and is full of comtemporary resonance and urgency.
”Sandra Newman's Julia, approved by Orwell's estate, is neither an anachronistic betrayal of the source material, nor some parched scholarly exercise. Rather, it is a vibrant, full-blooded book that adheres to the spirit of the original while tearing elements of it — namely the character of Winston Smith — to pieces. It is very funny, peppered with fresh observations that made me laugh out loud. Newman hits all the big beats from Orwell's book — the torture in Room 101, Julia and Winston's final meeting, but what is so wonderful about this is not just its depiction of Julia as even cleverer than you might imagine, but also its rich understanding of what Orwell meant about society's three strata locked in an endless battle for supremacy. Julia, living in this pressure cooker, is often cruel as well as astute. She is the one in the end who understands this.” —I Paper
”Julia's story is so well engineered it perfectly matches the contours of Nineteen Eighty-Four. The same goes for Newman's dialogue and descriptive language, both of which have an Orwellian melody. This is a good book, which offers an optimistic take on the pessimistic original.” —Irish Independent
Hagstone by Sinéad Gleeson $37
The sea is steady for now. The land readies itself. What can be done with the woman on the cliff? On a wild and rugged island cut off and isolated to some, artist Nell feels the island is her home. It is the source of inspiration for her art, rooted in landscape, folklore and ‘the feminine’. The mysterious Inions, a commune of women who have travelled there from all over the world, consider it a place of refuge and safety, of solace in nature. All the islanders live alongside the strange murmurings that seem to emanate from within the depths of the island, a sound that is almost supernatural — a Summoning as the Inions call it. One day, a letter arrives at Nell's door from the reclusive Inions who invite Nell into the commune for a commission to produce a magnificent art piece to celebrate their long history. In its creation, Nell will discover things about the community and about herself that will challenge everything she thought she knew.
The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan $38
An artist in her late twenties awakens one morning to a deep drone in her right ear. She is diagnosed with Sudden Deafness, but is offered no explanation for its cause. As the spectre of total deafness looms, she keeps a record of her year — a score of estrangement and enchantment, of luck and loneliness, of the chance occurrences to which she becomes attuned — while living alone in a New York City studio apartment with her dog. Through a series of fleeting and often humorous encounters — with neighbours, an ex-lover, doctors, strangers, family members, faraway friends, and with the lives and works of artists, filmmakers, musicians, and philosophers — making meaning becomes a form of consolation and curiosity, a form of survival. At once a rumination on silence and a novel on seeing, The Hearing Test is a work of vitalising intellect and playfulness which marks the arrival of a major new literary writer with a rare command of form, compression, and intent.
”A young woman's sudden hearing loss initiates and propels The Hearing Test. But affliction is also a catalyst for the many irresistible twists and digressions that make this novel of derive so compelling. Callahan never explains; with steely reserve she observes and chronicles, makes ingenious, delirious connections and transitions, and takes us on a journey through her cultural mindscape of artists, writers, cinema and music, offering it up with muted irony and a limpid grace. The Hearing Test is ecstatic prose.” —Moyra Davey
”Eerie and tender and utterly consuming, The Hearing Test has built an entirely new world from the materials of the one we know. It takes you to a restaurant called the void, Il Vuoto, and serves you its primal, beguiling sustenance: a nourishment of pauses, estrangement, and bewilderment. The voice here is wise and wry and wondering; in its fresh and faltering silences are frequencies I've never heard before. From the first paragraph, I knew I wanted to keep reading Eliza Barry Callahan forever.” —Leslie Jamison
”A composer suffering from sudden hearing loss finds herself even more sensitive to the lives of others, observing neighbors and the absurdities of the city, always punctuated by art and literary gossip. This debut work by Eliza Callahan is an extraordinary piece of literature, to be read alongside the novels of W.G. Sebald, Rachel Cusk, and Maria Gainza.” —Kate Zambreno
Feedback: Uncovering the hidden connections between life and the universe by Nicholas R. Golledge $60
We live in a world where things come and go, rise and fall, grow and decay, tracing out cycles of change that are ordered and predictable. But amongst those well-behaved rhythms hide other phenomena, pulsing and fizzing and refusing to play by the same rules. Earth and the life upon it have evolved over billions of years to be right where we are now only because of feedbacks that pushed those systems until they broke. And then those systems adapted, reorganized, and rebuilt. With each new cycle of growth it was feedbacks that created order from disorder and gave rise to a world perfectly optimized for everything it needed to be. Now the latest scientific research is revealing that the exact same patterns that describe plate tectonics, evolution, and mass extinctions also emerge in the heartbeat of our everyday lives, underpinning everything from the cohesion of our social networks and personal relationships to our emotional well-being and spiritual beliefs. In Feedback, we embark on a backstage journey revealing how these lesser-known processes keep us operating right where we need to be, poised at the edge of chaos. In a world simultaneously threatened with social and environmental disasters this journey uncovers the hidden connections that unite us not just to those around us but also across vast scales of time and space to the very fabric of the universe. An important book from a Pōneke climate scientist.
”Left me fizzing with the joy of being alive.” —Rebecca Priestley
I Must Be Dreaming by Roz Chast $50
New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast's new graphic narrative, explores the surreal nighttime world inside her mind — and untangles (or retangles) one of our most enduring human mysteries: dreams. Ancient Greeks, modern seers, Freud, Jung, neurologists, poets, artists, shamans — humanity has never ceased trying to decipher one of the strangest unexplained phenomena we all experience: dreaming. In her new book, Roz Chast illustrates her own dream world, a place that is sometimes creepy but always hilarious, accompanied by an illustrated tour through ‘Dream-Theory Land’ guided by insights from poets, philosophers, and psychoanalysts. Illuminating, surprising, funny, and often profound. Recommended!
Pencil by Carol Beggy $23
A cylinder of baked graphite and clay in a wood case, the pencil creates as it is being destroyed. To love a pencil is to use it, to sharpen it, and to essentially destroy it. Pencils were used to sketch civilization's greatest works of art. Pencils were there marking the choices in the earliest democratic elections. Even when used haphazardly to mark out where a saw's blade should make a cut, a pencil is creating. Pencil offers a deep look at this common, almost ubiquitous, object. Pencils are a simple device that are deceptively difficult to manufacture. At a time when many use cellphones as banking branches and instructors reach students online throughout the world, pencil use has not waned, with tens of millions being made and used annually.
The Morningside by Téa Obreht $40
There's the world you can see. And then there's the one you can't. Welcome to The Morningside. Silvia feels unmoored in her new life because her mother has been so diligently secretive about their family's past. Silvia knows almost nothing about the place she was born and spent her early years; nor does she know why she and her mother had to leave. But in Ena there is an opening: a person willing to give a young girl glimpses into the folktales of her demolished homeland, a place of natural beauty and communal spirit that is lacking in Silvia's lonely and impoverished reality. Enchanted by Ena's stories, Silvia begins seeing the world with magical possibilities, and becomes obsessed with the mysterious older woman who lives in the penthouse of the Morningside. Bezi Duras is an enigma to everyone in the building; she has her own elevator entrance, and only leaves to go out at night and walk her three massive hounds, often not returning until the early morning. Silvia's mission to unravel the truth about this woman's life, and her own haunted past, may end up costing her everything.
”Obreht is a novelist of great skill and warmth, for whom the ancient forms of storytelling — folk tales, myths and legends — retain all their capacity to explain and mystify, soothe and terrify. Though The Morningside could be called dystopian, to this reader it feels hopeful in the way it imagines the near future. It is more about the ways we pull together than the ways we fall apart.” —Guardian
The St Ives Artists: A biography of time and place by Michael Bird $75
The flourishing of international modernism in Cornwall was a unique episode in the story of modern art in Britain. No other small seaside town has been host to such a roll-call of major artists. Weaving in-depth research into a narrative of 'startling anecdotal richness', Michael Bird explores the many — often unexpected — connections between St Ives artists and broader currents in 20th-century British history. He sets the careers of international artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Patrick Heron and Peter Lanyon in the context of a local environment that held powerful meanings for their work.
Bird examines the influence of the two world wars, the birth of the Welfare State and the Cold War, the space race of the 1960s — all of which found echoes in artists' work — as well as the position of women artists in St Ives, the role of social class, and relations between artists and the community. The artists themselves emerge as vivid personalities. Do Alfred Wallis, Naum Gabo, Bernard Leach and Roger Hilton really have anything in common? The answers Michael Bird uncovers add up to a fascinating and highly readable account of the St Ives phenomenon. A new edition of this superb book.
Ora — Healing Ourselves: Indigenous knowledge, healing, and wellbeing edited by Leonie Pihama and Linda Tuhiwai Smith $65
This collection brings together indigenous thinkers and practitioners from Aotearoa and internationally to discuss the effects of trauma on indigenous peoples across social, economic, political and cultural environments. The authors explore understandings and practices of indigenous people, grounded in the knowledge of ancestors and based on research, that facilitate healing and wellbeing. The first part of the book focuses on research findings from He Oranga Ngākau: Māori Approaches to Trauma Informed Care, which supports health providers working with whanau experiencing trauma. It discusses tikanga Māori concepts, decolonising approaches and navigating mauri ora. The subsequent chapters explore indigenous models of healing, focusing on connections to land and the environment, whakapapa connections and indigenous approaches such as walking, hunting, and growing and accessing traditional foods for wellbeing. Important.
A Very Private Eye by Barbara Pym $30
Selected from the diaries, notebooks, and letters of this beloved novelist A Very Private Eye is a unique, continuous narrative autobiography, providing a privileged insight into a writer's mind. Philip Larkin wrote that Barbara Pym had "a unique eye and ear for the small poignancies of everyday life." Her autobiography demonstrates this, as it traces her life from exuberant times at Oxford in the Thirties, through the war when, scarred by an unhappy love affair, she joined the WRNS, to the published novelist of the Fifties. It deals with the long period when her novels were out of fashion and no one would publish them, her rediscovery in 1977, and the triumphant success of her last few years. It is now possible to describe a place, situation or person as "very Barbara Pym."
”One does not laugh out loud while reading Barbara Pym; that would be too much. One smiles. One smiles and puts down the book to enjoy the smile. Then one picks it up again and a few minutes later an unexpected observation on human foibles makes one smile again.” —Alexander McCall Smith
Bicycle by Jonathan Maskit $23
These days the bicycle often appears as an interloper in a world constructed for cars. An almost miraculous 19th-century contraption, the bicycle promises to transform our lives and the world we live in, yet its time seems always yet-to-come or long-gone-by. Jonathan Maskit takes us on an interdisciplinary ride to see what makes the bicycle a magical machine that could yet make the world a safer, greener, and more just place. There is so much that can be achieved if we apply our musculature to an external skeleton!
The Silver Bone by Andrey Kurkov (translated by Boris Dralyuk) $38
Kyiv, 1919. The Soviets control the city, but White armies menace them from the West. No man trusts his neighbour and any spark of resistance may ignite into open rebellion. When Samson Kolechko's father is murdered, his last act is to save his son from a falling Cossack sabre. Deprived of his right ear instead of his head, Samson is left an orphan, with only his father's collection of abacuses for company. Until, that is, his flat is requisitioned by two Red Army soldiers, whose secret plans Samson is somehow able to overhear with uncanny clarity. Eager to thwart them, he stumbles into a world of murder and intrigue that will either be the making of him — or finish what the Cossack started. Inflected with Kurkov's signature humour and magical realism, The Silver Bone takes inspiration from the real life archives of crime enforcement agencies in Kyiv, crafting a propulsive narrative that bursts to life with rich historical detail.
Long-listed for the 2024 International Booker Prize.
The Letter with the Golden Stamp by Onjali Q. Raúf $20
“I can't remember how old I was when I first started collecting stamps. But I've got a whole shoebox full of them now. Mam used to help me collect them ... Before she got so ill that she lost her job, her friends...everything. Now it's my job to take care of her and protect her - and my little brother and sister too. But to do that, I have to make Mam a Secret. A secret no-one can ever find out about. Not even my best friends at school, or Mo, our postman. Or the stranger living in the house across the street. The one no-one has seen, but who I know is spying on us. The one I think might be Them...”
Tibbles the Cat by Michal Šanda and David Dolenský $30
In 1894 Tibbles the cat moved to Stephens Island in the Marlborough Sounds to accompany her owner, the new lighthouse keeper. Tibbles ‘discovers’ a rare flightless species of wren, to the great excitement of ornithologists from around the world. Their demand for specimens and Tibbles’s natural habits soon caused the wren’s extinction, however. This event brought to the worlds attention the dangers of introducing exotic animals into fragile habitats.
Ngā Wāhine e Toru: Three Women by Glenn Colquhoun $45
In this collection of poems Glenn Colquhoun writes to his daughter, former partner, and mother, using the medium of Māori oral poetry. In doing so he explores oriori, karakia, haka, mōteatea, pātere, waiata aroha and waiata tangi. It is a companion volume to Myths and Legends of the Ancient Pākehā, his collection of oral poetry in English. Bilingual edition. “Māori oral poetry is a living tradition that is constantly added to. It contains remarkable stories. It uses metaphors drawn from our own land, sea and sky. It is sung to the tunes of the wind and of water and of birds. Working within its traditions I have come to see that at the heart of all poetry, written or spoken, is a kind of cry. And if a poem cries well, then its meaning is always simply in the nature of that cry first and foremost. Language, understanding, cognition, are always second to this. Of all of the arts practised by Māori and Pākehā our two poetries have remained the most stubbornly separated from each other over time. I hope these pieces go some way towards addressing that gap. More than anything else they are a gift to the people of Te Tii for all they have done for me. I have always hoped that I might finish them in time for some of those kuia who were there when I arrived on New Brighton Road bedraggled and naive, to listen to. They are the product of their work as much as my own.” —Glenn Colquhoun
Myths and Legends of the Ancient Pākehā by Glenn Colquhoun, illustrated by Nigel Brown $45
In this collection of poems Glenn Colquhoun explores a range of Pākehā oral poetic forms; sea shanties, hymns, ballads, nursery rhymes and clapping songs. It is a companion volume to Three Women, his collection of poetry in Te Reo Māori, and is richly illustrated by Nigel Brown. “It was by looking at Māori oral poetry more closely that I came to ask what it is that a Pākehā oral poem might sound like. And whether it is capable of holding the same power. Might a sea-shanty meet the energy of a haka? Can a hymn stand up to a mōteatea? To find out I went back to the ways that spoken English poetry first arrived in New Zealand: via sea-shanty and hymn, lullaby and nursery rhyme, working song, clapping song and skipping song. I also went back to what has often been the concern of oral poems, our histories.” —Glenn Colquhoun
A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more:
READ AND RELAX! Enter our May competition and go in the draw to win a night for two at the truly paradisiacal Trehane Chill — the perfect place to relax and read (or write!). Tucked away on a 14-acre lifestyle block near Whakatū, surrounded by orchards, streams, and native bush, this escape offers a picturesque change from the ordinary. Every detail of Trehane Chill reflects thoughtful design and rustic elegance, and your stay will allow you to commune with nature while remaining in absolute comfort.
TO ENTER: Buy a book from VOLUME during May and tell us why you would like to read your book at Trehane Chill. Write your entry in the 'notes' field when checking out on our website, or just email it to us. The winner will be drawn on 3 June, and can use their prize before 1 October (we recommend adding this night to a longer stay!).
Chill book bundles: treat yourself to a bundle of books to read during your stay. We will choose them and have them waiting at Trehane Chill for you when you arrive.
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3 May 2024
Opening with the epigraph ”Live. Laugh, Love. — Ancient Human proverb,” you know that Turncoat isn’t going to be your standard Aotearoa fiction (that’s no surprise coming from the Lawrence and Gibson stable.) Your curiosity is piqued. “Ancient Human proverb” — sweet irony. I can already see large wooden letters sitting on shelves and hung on walls. If you’re lost, a meme dictionary or a quick google will come in handy but it won't matter, as there are enough wry references you will easily recognise that will keep you amused. Turncoat is hilarious. The satirical approach provides an accessible portal for Tīhema Baker’s critique of casual racism and institutional conflicts for Māori working in the Public Service. Step back, and walk into the future. It’s Revolution 9-4025 (2507 AD) and Kytoonoo 1 Daniel is determined to change the world. He’s young, idealistic, and believes that he can make a difference. Earth, now known as Teerin’ Ho (there are other excellent renamings; the Pacific Ocean’s new name is Extremely Large Water Expanse, and plenty of highly enjoyable word play) is dominated by the Aliens. They control the airspaces, have claimed important ancient Human places, have a grand city in the sky, Kappeetar, and have higher Rank (more power and money). There’s a Treaty, but, yes, there are two versions. The Common and the Noor. Does this sound familiar? So Daniel joins the Hierach with the ambition to change the system from within. And he starts to make some small wins, despite the fact that he is called everything from Dan-Yell to Denial. He’s rekindled his friendship with the sleekly coated Neekor, and feels that he is continuing to stay true to his familial relationships (his mother is the leader of New Zealand) and his childhood friendship with Hayden (Rank 0 and heading downward). Daniel works at the Chamber of Covenant Resolutions (ChamCov) where there’s a mix of Alien and Human employees, and works on Authorisation disputes. As long as he plays the game, it’s okay. A trip to Ireland, who want to settle their Authorisation independent of Britain, spells out the quandary of being a mouthpiece of the Hierach. As things escalate in both the political and personal spheres for Daniel, where will he stand? Suffice to say, over several Revolutions he goes from optimistic, through dumb-founded, to pessimistic, and a choice is imminent. There are no happy endings in this satire, but there is hope. Turncoat is an important, refreshing novel that does not shy from the truth of our race relations and obligations to Te Tiriti. Its humour and speculative setting give an opportunity to open your mind to the possibility of a different world order. If fiction does nothing else, it enables you to walk in someone else’s shoes. Walking is recommended.
While being generally uncomfortable about comfort, he wrote when asked what he read for comfort, in times of particular stress or despair I do find that re-reading any of the novels of Thomas Bernhard makes me feel better, though I am also uncomfortable about the concept of feeling better, he wrote. He had been re-reading Thomas Bernhard’s novel Woodcutters, a book that he had read before, and, indeed, reviewed before, so, he thought, he would not review it again, he would just read it for what he, not without irony, called comfort, not that he understood the word. Bernhard’s sentences are unrelentingly beautiful and his negativity so intense that it becomes ludicrous, he wrote. Everything exaggerated moves towards its opposite, so I often find my negativity turned, too, he also wrote, and then, he thought, I have finished answering the question I have been asked, not only answering it but explaining my answer, too, which was more than I had been asked to do, even though I have done it rather briefly. The first time he had read Woodcutters, he had been younger than the narrator, and younger than the author when he wrote the book, the narrator and the author sharing rather more than their age, he thought, but now he was older than the narrator, and older than the author was when he wrote the book, and also older than the author was when he died, or, rather, committed suicide, whichever is the better description of the author’s death. The narrator of Woodcutters has not committed suicide, obviously, and does not even do so at the end, but the entire novel is narrated in the evening of the day of the funeral of one of the narrator’s former friends, who, finding herself denied artistic success merely through mediocrity of talent, which is not necessarily sufficient to exclude someone from success, depending on how you understand the word success, but perhaps sufficient to exclude someone from success in what the narrator calls Vienna’s art mill, the art mill that grinds even those with talent into powder, most effectively by acclaiming their talent, and, by doing so, destroying it, whereas Joana, losing all that she had going for her, which is a strange turn of phrase, spent many years in alcoholism and despair, in decline, so to speak, and hanged herself in the village in which she was born, just before the narrator’s return to Vienna after an absence, apparently, of some twenty years. The host of the dinner party at which the narrator observes the proceedings without involving himself in them, as he says, was once a talented composer, or at least so it had seemed to the narrator when he had been involved with him twenty or even thirty years before, before the narrator had left Vienna in disgust with Vienna and with the artistic and literary circles of Vienna, but now the host has been destroyed by his talent, or by the acclaim accorded his talent, and in this way relieved of this talent, and the host, one Auersberger, or so he is called in the novel, though it is perhaps interesting to note that the book was banned in Austria after one of Bernhard’s former patrons reognised himself in the character, is now little more than ludicrous or pathetic. And the same could be said, and indeed is said by the narrator, albeit to himself, as he sits in a chair just off the main room, observing them, of the other guests at the dinner party, the dinner party styled by its hosts an artistic dinner held in honour of an actor who is rather late to arrive, but really more of a gathering of members of the artistic and literary circles that included both the narrator and Joana twenty or thirty years before, when the narrator, like the author, if the author can be distinguished even a little from the narrator, was an aspiring writer who was supported by persons like Auersberger, or by the person who recognised himself as Auersberger, writers who had talent but whose talent has been destroyed by Vienna’s art mill and other persons whose talent has been similarly destroyed. “As I see it they haven’t become anything. They’ve all quite simply failed to achieve the highest, and as I see it only the highest can ever bring satisfaction, I thought.” But, thinks the narrator, these people, the people of this so-called artistic circle, have been more than complicit in the destruction of their talent. “All these people have contrived to turn conditions and circumstances that were once happy into something utterly depressing, I thought, sitting in the wing chair, they’ve managed to make everything depressing, to transform all the happiness they once had into utter depression, just as I have.” When the celebrated actor finally arrives and the narrator moves with the other guests to the dining room, the narrator’s focus moves, if the narrator can be said to have a focus, from his opinions formed in the past of those present, attitudes which caused him to leave Vienna twenty years ago, when his love for those present, and for Joana, had turned entirely to disgust, when he had taken from them all he could, to his observations of what is said and done, though not said and done by him, who only observes the proceedings and does not participate in them, or so he says, in the present, at the artistic dinner itself, observations, it must be said, no less vitriolic but rather more ambivalent, by which I mean, the bookseller thought as he paused in his train of thought, a train of thought that had begun to resemble a review but was not a review but only a train of thought, unless a train of thought can be called a review, and he thought not, he thought, not the popular misconception of ambivalence as some wishy-washiness, if he was writing a review he would replace wishy-washiness with a better word, or at least an actual word, but ambivalence in its true, etymological and Freudian sense of being beset with equally overwhelming but opposite inclinations. The narrator, he thought, loathes those most like himself, all his loathing is self-loathing, and to loathe, therefore, is the greatest act of sympathy, the strongest form, he thought, of identification. “We are not one jot better than the people we constantly find objectionable and insufferable, those repellent people with whom we want to have as few dealings as possible although, if we are honest we do have dealings with them and are no different from them. We reproach them with all kinds of objectionable and insufferable behaviour and are no less insufferable and objectionable ourselves — perhaps we are even more insufferable and objectionable, it occurs to me,” the narrator of Woodcutters says. To grow older, the bookseller thought, is not to become more certain but to become less certain, certainty is for the young, he thought, certainty is for those who do not think, not that it is necessarily true that the young do not think, there are, no doubt, some who are young who do think, but they have not thought long enough, being young, to realise that all thought leads to the destruction of certainty, all thought leads to ambivalence, to the undermining of anything that might be said to be one’s own identity, there’s no such thing as one’s own identity anyway, he thought, except in the thoughts of others, and hardly even then, all thought is its own undoing. As the guests depart from the dinner, the narrator, the last to leave, thanks the hostess for a lovely time, after apparently hating it the whole time and hating everything about it and everyone who was there and everything they said and did, kisses her, and then runs through the streets of Vienna, away from his home, towards the centre of town, in the wrong direction, in a dishevelled state of mind, so to term it, completely dishevelled and confused. “To think that I was capable of such hypocrisy, I thought as I was speaking to her,” he says to himself about the only words he actually speaks in a book full of words. “To think that I am capable of telling her to her face the precise opposite of what I feel, because it makes things momentarily more endurable.” Well, thought the bookseller, I can understand that, we all tell others to their faces the opposite of what we feel because it makes things momentarily more endurable, and, in fact, we also do feel what we tell them, that is how we survive and that is how we destroy ourselves, we destroy ourselves by surviving and we survive by destroying ourselves, this is what thinking tells us if we think our thoughts through to the end, this is the truth that is hidden from the young by their youth, this is why I resist my own existence, at least internally, whatever that means, whatever form that resistance could take, and, at the same time, this is why I long to exist, for my nonexistence to end, though my nonexistence cannot end, it can only be obscured, for a chance to take refuge from thinking in busyness, so to call it, in the busyness of my life, the life I therefore both long for and resent. He felt comforted by this thought, he thought, my negativity has become so intense, he thought, through reading Thomas Bernhard or through the thinking that accompanies reading Thomas Bernhard, through thinking like Thomas Bernhard and not thinking like myself, that it has become ludicrous, and always was ludicrous. Everything exaggerated moves towards its opposite like this, he thought. I find my negativity has turned, he thought, and this, he thought, is a comfort.
Here they are! Some tempting bargains from our wonderful cookbook shelves. There’s plenty to savour here. Try a new cuisine, mix your own drinks, revitalise your sourdough, be creative with an innovative chef, grow your own spices, or take a philosophical walk with the humble potato!
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James is an enthralling and ferociously funny novel that leaves an indelible mark, forcing us to see Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a transformed and transformative light. The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, toward the elusive promise of free states and beyond. James is Jim’s story as Huckleberry Finn is Huck’s. Everett is at his most playful with the things he is most serious about: language, racism, justice, liberty; this book is clever, farcical, exuberant, unsparing — and a huge amount of fun to read.
A selection of books from our shelves ready to move to your shelf. After all, what could be better? Immerse yourself in a book today.
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After Hours Trading & The Flying Squad
Dangerous Experiments for After Dinner
New books for a new month! Click through to our website for your copies:
Brown Bird by Jane Arthur $20
Sometimes it can take one special friend to show you what you’re capable of, even if does take you a while to believe it. Eleven-year-old Rebecca tries to make herself invisible so people won’t call her weird. Resigned to spending the holidays by herself in a new neighbourhood while her mum works long hours at the supermarket, she meets Chester, who has come to stay for the summer. He is loud and fun and full of ideas. But will Rebecca be able to cope with being taken so far from her quiet comfort zone? Rebecca is about to find out that she can be braver than she ever thought possible . . . The book is beautifully written; Jane Arthur perfectly captures the voice of eleven-year-old Rebecca, and expresses the uncertainties, awkwardnesses and hopes that we all experience.
James by Percival Everett $38
James is an enthralling and ferociously funny novel that leaves an indelible mark, forcing us to see Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a transformed and transformative light. The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, toward the elusive promise of free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise. With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all . . .
”Percival Everett is a giant of American letters, and James is a canon-shatteringly great book. Unforgiving and compassionate, beautiful and brutal, a tragedy and a farce, this brilliant novel rewrites literary history to let us hear the voices it has long suppressed.” —Hernan Diaz
”James is funny and horrifying, brilliant and riveting. In telling the story of Jim instead of Huckleberry Finn, Percival Everett delivers a powerful, necessary corrective to both literature and history. I found myself cheering both the writer and his hero. Who should read this book? Every single person.” —Ann Patchett
Caledonian Road by Andrew O’Hagan $40
May 2021. London. Campbell Flynn - art historian and celebrity intellectual — is entering the empire of middle age. Fuelled by an appetite for admiration and the finer things, controversy and novelty, he doesn't take people half as seriously as they take themselves. Which will prove the first of his huge mistakes. The second? Milo Manghasa, his beguiling and provocative student. Milo inhabits a more precarious world, has experiences and ideas which excite his teacher. He also has a plan. Over the course of an incendiary year, a web of crimes and secrets and scandals will be revealed, and Campbell Flynn may not be able to protect himself from the shattering exposure of all his privilege really involves. But then, he always knew: when his life came tumbling down, it would occur in public.
”A brilliant state-of-the-nation novel that pulls down the facades of high society, and knocks over the 'good liberal' house-of-cards. O'Hagan is not only a peerless chronicler of our times, but has other gifts — of generosity, humour and tenderness - which make this novel an utter joy to read.” —Monica Ali
The Economic Possibilities of Decolonisation by Matthew Scobie and Anna Sturman $18
What do the economics of decolonisation mean for the future of Aotearoa? This question drives the work of Matthew Scobie and Anna Sturman as they explore the complex relationship between tangata whenua and capitalism. By weaving together historical insights and contemporary analysis, this Text reveals the enduring influence of Māori economies and illuminates how these perspectives could radically transform Aotearoa’s political economy for the better.
Sophie Calle by Sophie Calle, with an introduction by Clément Chéroux $35
The perfect primer on acclaimed French artist Sophie Calle. Sophie Calle is a French writer, photographer, installation artist and conceptual artist. Her work is distinguished by its use of arbitrary sets of constraints, and frequently depicts human vulnerability, and examines identity and intimacy. She is renowned for her detective-like ability to follow strangers and investigate their private lives, which she has deployed in her acclaimed works Suite Venitienne, The Hotel and Address Book. She has had major exhibitions all over the world, including at the 2007 Venice Biennale, the Whitechapel Gallery in London, and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, and has worked closely with the writer Paul Auster. The Guardian called her ‘the Marcel Duchamp of dirty laundry’, and she was among the names in Blake Gopnik's list 'The 10 Most Important Artists of Today', with Gopnik arguing, “It is the unartiness of Calle's work — its refusal to fit any of the standard pigeonholes, or over anyone's sofa — that makes it deserve space in museums.”
Kai and Kindness by Jane Rangiwahia and Paul Ranguwahia $55
Brother and sister health-advocate-and-artist Paul and food-writer Jane have combined their skills to produce a book that nourishes the body and the mind. Their aim is to help start conversations about health and emotional wellbeing and promote positive action — whether it is in the kitchen or in the mind. Jane's delicious, comforting recipes are no-fuss and focus on making food to share with friends and family. The book is richly illustrated with food photography and Paul's artworks, including Paul's inspiring 'A Mental W.O.F', which frames short discussions about aspects of emotional and mental health. Jane and Paul say, “The body goes where the mind goes, and they go well when they are both nourished.”
The Levantine Vegetarian: Recipes from the Middle East by Salma Hage $70
140 easy-to-make, bright, uplifting plant-based recipes, including classics such as falafels, hummus, and tabbouleh, as well as unique dishes reflective of region, religion, and culture across the Levantine. The food is fresh and delicious, whether it’s garlic-laced mezze dishes, pittas stuffed with pickles, tahini, and grilled vegetables, or sweet and spicy desserts. Covering a vast area straddling Africa, Asia, and the gateway to Europe, the book embraces the culinary traditions of all corners of the Cradle of Civilization. Hage, one of the world’s authorities on Middle Eastern home-cooking, has taken her inspiration widely and created new ‘fusion’ dishes alongside classics. Featured recipes include: Parsnip and Cumin Beignets; Sesame Halloumi Fries with Chilli Yogurt; Black Lime and Herb Tofu; and Za’atar Cucumber Noodle Salad; and each is accompanied by newly-commissioned photography and double-page tablescapes that capture the vibrancy and the plentiful, sharing nature of the Middle Eastern dining table.
“Stella made me Levantine-themed food for my birthday this year, and it was memorably delicious. This book didn’t exist then, but it would have featured centrally if it had. I can’t wait to cook from it.” —Thomas
Clear by Carys Davies $30
1843. On a remote Scottish island, Ivar, the sole occupant, leads a life of quiet isolation until the day he finds a man unconscious on the beach below the cliffs. The newcomer is John Ferguson, an impoverished church minister sent to evict Ivar and turn the island into grazing land for sheep. Unaware of the stranger's intentions, Ivar takes him into his home, and in spite of the two men having no common language, a fragile bond begins to form between them. Meanwhile on the mainland, John's wife Mary anxiously awaits news of his mission. Against the rugged backdrop of this faraway spot beyond Shetland during the Highland Clearances, Carys Davies's intimate drama unfolds with tension and tenderness: a touching and crystalline study of ordinary people buffeted by history and a powerful exploration of the distances and connections between us.
”A jewel of a novel. It's hard to overstate how deftly and viscerally Davies's prose conveys this world. We see and hear and smell it, shiver with it. Every scene is imbued with austere beauty. Davies's prose, bone-clean and achingly simple, moves with hymn-like richness. What quietly happens feels astonishing. —Washington Post
”A love letter to the scorching power of language, a power that Davies has long understood. She writes with amazing economy: in a few words she can summon worlds. Davies is a writer of immense talent and deep humanity, capable of balancing devastating audacity with equally devastating restraint.” —The Guardian
The Stirrings: A memoir in Northern time by Catherine Taylor $38
This is a story about one young woman coming of age, and about the place and time that shaped her: the North of England in the 1970s and 80s. About the scorching summer of 1976 — the last Catherine Taylor would spend with both her parents in their home in Sheffield. About the Yorkshire Ripper, the serial killer whose haunting presence in Catherine's childhood was matched only by the aching absence of her own father. About a country thrown into disarray by the nuclear threat and the Miners' Strike, just as Catherine's adolescent body was invaded by a debilitating illness. About 1989's 'Second Summer of Love', a time of sexual awakening for Catherine, and the unforeseen consequences that followed it. About a tragic accident, and how the insidious dangers facing women would became increasingly apparent as Catherine crossed into to adulthood. (Fun fact: the author was born in the Waikato.)
”Part poignant memoir of time and place. Part record of the violence, and indifference, against which most girls grow up. The Stirrings is a pleasure and a shock.” —Eimear McBride
”A superb, moving and disturbing memoir — haunting and unforgettable.” —Jonathan Coe
The Mark by Fríða Ísberg (translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer) $40
In the near future, in Reykjavik, in a world like our own, society is divided about the controversial Empathy Test, which measures an individual’s capacity for compassion and identifies anti-social behaviour in citizens. Two thirds of the country, including public servants and politicians, have undergone the test, and ‘marked’ themselves in an official register, open to the public. One third remains ‘unmarked’ and more and more private and public spaces are closing their doors to them. In two months’ time, citizens face a national referendum, in which they will vote on whether the test should be mandatory or not. Amid the rising tension and via the voices of four compelling characters—the sceptical teacher Vetur, the influential psychologist Óli, the businesswoman Eyja, who fails the test, and the school dropout Tristan, who is fighting for the right not to be tested—we are confronted with urgent ethical dilemmas, prejudice, injustice, and private trauma. The suspense intensifies as these four individuals try to navigate a brave new world. The rules of the game have changed. What are the consequences?
”This whip-smart, brilliant novel crackles with tension and intelligence. It left me utterly in awe. Frida Isberg is a creative powerhouse.” —Hannah Kent
”Gripping and sharply imagined. The Mark presents crucial ethical questions about the risks of social engineering and the boundaries of individual agency. Absolutely stunning.” —Hernan Diaz
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez $37
Who gets to leave a legacy? 1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn't. By 1998 Anita's name has been all but forgotten certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by progeny of film producers, C-Suite executives, and international art-dealers, most of whom float through life knowing that their futures are secured, Raquel feels herself an outsider. Students of colour, like Raquel, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret. But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita's story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist. Moving back and forth through time and told from the perspectives of both women, Anita de Monte Laughs Last is a propulsive, witty examination of power, love and art, daring to ask who gets to be remembered and who is left behind in the rarefied world of the elite.
”The sharpest and best written social comedy in a while.” —Los Angeles Times
Helle and Death by Oskar Jensen $37
A snowstorm. A country house. Old friends reunited. It's going to be murder... Torben Helle — art historian, Danish expat and owner of several excellent Scandinavian jumpers — has been dragged to a remote snowbound Northumbrian mansion for a ten-year reunion with old university friends. Things start to go sideways when their host, a reclusive and irritating tech entrepreneur, makes some shocking revelations at the dinner table. And when these are followed by an apparent suicide, the group faces a test of their wits... and their trust. Snowed in and cut off, surrounded by enigmatic housekeepers and off-duty police inspectors, not to mention a peculiar last will and testament, suspicion and sarcasm quickly turn to panic. As the temperature drops and the tension mounts, Torben decides to draw upon all the tricks of Golden Age detectives past in order to solve the mystery: how much money would it take to turn one of his old friends into a murderer? But he'd better be quick, or someone else might end up dead... This witty murder mystery puts a modern spin on the classic country house whodunnit.
”A glorious feat that intrigues, surprises and delights from page one. This gem is a solid gold revival of the golden age whodunnit, with a delicious Danish twist.” —Janice Hallett
”A love letter to the classic Country House murder mystery. If Agatha Christie had written The Big Chill it would have been very much like this.” —J.M. Hall
The Program by Suzanne Young $25
Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane's parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they'll do anything to keep her alive. She also knows that everyone who's been through The Program returns as a blank slate. Because their depression is gone — but so are their memories. Under constant surveillance at home and at school, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can. The only person Sloane can be herself with is James. He's promised to keep them both safe and out of treatment, and Sloane knows their love is strong enough to withstand anything. But despite the promises they made to each other, it's getting harder to hide the truth. They are both growing weaker. Depression is setting in. And The Program is coming for them.
"The uncomfortable mix of the good intentions and horrific outcomes of The Program is chilling, and will likely haunt readers as a slightly-too-plausible path adults would choose to ‘save’ their teens." —The Horn Books
Unstoppable Us, Volume 2: Why the World Isn’t Fair by Noah Yuval Harrari $36
Something really strange happened 10,000 years ago, and it changed everything. Why did millions of people agree to obey a few leaders? Where did kings and kingdoms come from? The answer to that is one of the strangest tales you'll ever hear. And it's a true story. Have you ever wondered how we got here? From gathering berries and hunting mammoths, to shopping at supermarkets and letting people tell us what to do? You might hear a lot of people say 'the world isn't fair'. But why isn't it? And how did it become so? In Unstoppable Us: Volume 1, we learned how humans told stories to become rulers of the world — for good and bad. Now, in this next chapter of the incredible true tale of the Unstoppables, find out how humans learned to control animals like dogs, chicken and cows . . . And how a handful of humans learned to control everyone else.
How Humans Took Over the World (Volume 1).
Tetromino City: A geometric jigsaw puzzle by Peter Judson $49
Using the seven basic geometric shapes known as tetrominos (and familiar to anyone who has ever played or seen the videogame Tetris) you must reconstruct Peter Judson's geometric cityscape Each of the seven different kinds of piece is repeated more than 40 times: can you figure out where each one goes? Recommended as suitable for the season!
Read our latest newsletter and find out what we’ve been reading and recommending, about our Book of the Week, and which books you will be reading next!
26 April 2024
Lioness by Emily Perkins
A new Emily Perkins novel is a rare thing (the last being The Forrests in 2012). She’s been writing plays and teaching. And what good things they are. Her take on Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, which played at the Theatre Royal a few years ago, was superb. So lucky us, it’s a Donna Tart moment this year with the Lioness. It’s always nerve-wracking when a favourite author has a new work. Will you still like their style? Can you resist the temptation to compare? And will this grip you as other writings have? So, the book lands. The novel cracks in from the start with our protagonist, Therese having average sex with her older husband, and then discovering, a few pages in, the Viagra tucked away in the suitcase. You sense an unravelling is to begin. Life is too neat. Therese too plastic. Later you realise, malleable. Not by circumstance, rather by choice. A choice to have her ‘dream’ homewares brand, to please everyone even at the loss of her own identity, and to stay quiet when she would rather speak out. You can wear the silk jumpsuit, attend the right events, and host the perfect party, but the girl from the Valley will still appear unexpectedly. There are sneaky tell-tale clues of her other life, of her other self. The drink of choice, rum and coke, the occasional slip in language, and the pulse of something wild just under the surface. This surface will crack open when her developer husband has the spotlight of a fraud enquiry turned on him. Conveniently, in the downstairs apartment is another middle-aged, middle-class (although not quite as privileged or wealthy as Therese) woman, Claire, having an epiphany or crisis — take your pick. While reading this I had the same discomfort as when I read Rachel Cusk’s Second Place. These people — what’s wrong with them? It’s hard to like any of them, even Therese and Claire (the first you have some empathy for, the second yeah, okay, break out if you really need to), especially those adult children who treat Therese (wife number two and not their mother) appallingly. They are universally horrendous. So, what keeps you there, with the Lioness? The writing, as ever, is excellent; Perkin’s observations are squirmingly spot on; the irony and social commentary eviscerating. I loved this more once I closed the pages and left those characters behind. Much like Cusk’s Second Place, it will make you shudder and laugh simultaneously.
There had been some strong gusts of wind in the night, he said, and the leaves of the banana tree, no, he corrected himself, the fronds of the banana palm, no, he re-corrected himself, nothing seemed right, the leaves of the banana plant, a more general term is always safer when unsure, the leaves of the banana plant he could see from the bathroom window were shredded and were this morning little more than a fringe of fibres tossing from each stem, or spine, perhaps, looking like those things that American cheerleaders wave about, whatever they are called, he didn’t know, not having taken an interest in American cheerleaders, are those things waved by American cheerleaders on sticks, though, he wondered, perhaps he should stop making similes with things he knew nothing about, perhaps he should stop making similes altogether, a simile is lazy, after all, in any case the leaves, whatever they looked like, looked silly, if silly can be a property of nature, silly enough to be used by an American cheerleader, or possibly a Morris dancer, he wondered, no, they’re either handkerchiefs or sticks, but the leaves of the banana plant were each a switch fringed with ribbons, silly, perhaps, a jester’s baton perhaps, but undoubtedly an evolutionary exemplar, everything in nature is an evolutionary exemplar, he thought, with the possible exception of human beings, or of myself at any rate, he thought, everything is an exemplar of the ineluctable operations of nature, why else would a banana leaf, or frond, whatever, unfurl itself pre-perforated like a seagull’s quill, bad simile, we won’t go there, if not to be torn apart along those perforations by the wind, when the wind is strong enough, shredding itself into ribbons rather than snapping, if not to protect its functions at the expense of looking silly, that is certainly the way the way of nature, he thought, I could certainly learn something from that. He was having trouble concentrating, he said, he was having trouble thinking really at all, even on the odd occasion, like today, when he had a little extra mental space, or mental time, mental space and mental time being the same thing even more obviously than physical space and physical time, so to call it, this extra mental space-time is, more than anything, a big internal vacuum, a big empty space (or time) for thoughts to reveal their clinamen unimpeded by practicalities, a tendency usually recognised as dissipation, but also, at least in theory, the circumstances in which thoughts might unexpectedly swerve towards each other, collide and make new thoughts. No sign of that, at least for me, he thought. I have sat down to write my weekly review, time is running out, and here I am, thinking about banana leaves, or banana fronds, not that I even have any strong feelings towards banana leaves or banana fronds, though I do, I suppose, hold banana fruit in a positive light even though the banana fruit is undoubtedly also silly, here I go again, and I am not even sure which book I will review. I have read many books recently, he declared, I have read many books and I have put many books aside half-read, or read in some proportions either greater or less than a half, I have read more and finished less, he said, even than usual, I have immersed myself in sentences, paragraphs and chapters but emerged quite dry, I do not know what to review, he said, perhaps, he thought, I will call my piece Why I Have Not Read Any of My Books, an explanatory text, perhaps, to Why I Have Not Reviewed Any of My Books, though it is not true that I have not been reading, he protested, I have been reading many books, far too many, he said, I have this pile here, by the bed, all of which I have been reading and enjoying but all of which I have stopped reading and moved on to reading something else, I have not finished a single book this week, he admitted, with the exception of All My Cats by Bohumil Hrabal, a book of which he had read something a little over half some weeks ago and had put aside unfinished, perhaps there is hope for the rest, he thought, perhaps I will come back to these books by the bed, or at least to some of them, finish them off and write reviews, as if, he thought with passing irritation, the purpose of my reading was to write reviews, I promised myself I would never read for that reason, and I must remind myself not to finish reading a book for any reason than the reading itself, whatever that means, he thought, there is little sense in that statement. “What are we going to do with all those cats?” Hrabal’s wife asks throughout Hrabal’s book, All My Cats, for there are, over the years, a varying but large number of cats at the Hrabals’ country cottage in Kersko, near Prague, some of whom just arrive and start living there but most of whom are the offspring of other cats already living there, as desexing cats does not seem to have occurred to Hrabal or to Hrabal’s wife, or perhaps was not common practice in Czechoslovakia in the period about which the book was written. Hrabal’s love for the cats is immense and respectful, he is a perceptive and sensitive companion for the cats, he seems to feel greater affinity for the cats than for humans, especially than for his neighbours, but Hrabal is a man who is easily overwhelmed, a man also constantly resisting the urge to hang himself from the willow tree beside the stream, as the fortune teller had told him he would, and he succeeds in this, he died falling from a hospital window after he had written this book, obviously. The greater Hrabal’s love for all his cats, the greater Hrabal’s feelings of guilt about those times when he has taken certain of his cats and killed them in the old mail sack in the shed, killed them for there being too many of them, for their demands being too great for Hrabal, both practically and emotionally, and Hrabal’s capacity to love ensures that his guilt will never be assuaged, his guilt grows more intense over the years, so much so that he even buys a brown car. How lucky you are, say Hrabal’s friends and acquaintances, to have this cottage at Kersko, bought with the income from your literary success, this cottage at Kersko to which you can go and write, to which you can go and enjoy the mental space and the mental time, the same thing, in which thoughts reveal their clinamen and collide with other thoughts to make that writing happen, but for Hrabal the mental space and the mental time spent in his cottage in Kersko are entirely filled with his cats, with his love for his cats and his guilt about killing his cats, and his time and his space are a torment, Hrabal could have made a torment of anything, the cats are central and everything else, from his accident in his brown car to his attempts to rescue a swan frozen into the river, gain their meaning for Hrabal from their relationship to the love-guilt axis he has with his cats. All of Hrabal’s writing is an elaboration on this love-guilt axis, or on the love-guilt axis of the characters in his books, a love-guilt axis that draws its authenticity from the love-guilt axis of their author. Hrabal shows, he thought as he wondered if he would be able to write a review of Hrabal’s book, whether he had enough mental space and mental time to write such a review, Hrabal shows how the mental space and mental time required for writing is also the mental space and mental time that runs what could be termed a constant existential risk, why else would we construct our normal lives, so to call them, our cultural and social and practical lives, so carefully to minimise our mental space and our mental time, if not to avoid the realisation of an underlying existential void, if not to avoid what he called, offhandedly, a Kierkegaardian moment of enlightenment, an intolerable recognition of the meaningless, purposelessness and ennui that assail us from all sides and at every moment but which we avoid thinking about by deceiving ourselves. Thank goodness for love and guilt, he thought, do I have enough of either? He had not finished reading his books and he had not written his review, but then he had not done any of the many other things he had also intended to do during the day, he had not changed the washers in the dripping taps or sorted out his clothes draw, he had not dealt with the borer in the bathroom, he was not quite sure what he had done, other than think about banana leaves, thoughts he wished now that he had not thought, or written about at least. So much for mental time and mental space, he thought.
This well written, cutting portrayal of social mechanics will make you look differently at those around you. “After marrying the older, wealthier Trevor, Teresa Holder has transformed herself into upper-class Therese Thorn, complete with her own homeware business. But when rumours of corruption gather around one of Trevor’s property developments, the fallout is swift, and Therese begins to reevaluate her privileged world. Emily Perkins weaves multiple plotlines and characters with impressive dexterity. Punchy, sophisticated and frequently funny, Lioness is an incisive exploration of wealth, power, class, female rage, and the search for authenticity.” —Ockham judges’ citation on short-listing the book for the Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction in the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards
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The End of Ends by Tadeusz Bradecki (translated from Polish by Tadeusz Bradecki and Kate Sinclair) $40
“In the great tradition of Sterne, Calvino, Kundera and Cervantes — the tradition of dancing playfully on the edge of the abyss of all knowledge — this book by the late great Polish theatre director Tadeusz Bradecki is about nothing less than everything. God, death, theatre, teleology, post-modernism, Marxism, ghosts on stage and off, two millennia of storytelling: it’s all here. In honour of the device of the play-within-a-play, it contains vivid verbal restagings. In honour of the tale-within-a-tale, it contains a whole small novel. Because of course it does. Anyone miserable at being marooned on this island of cynical banter and self-protective irony should read The End of Ends to be reminded of what it sounds like when art is taken seriously.” —Francis Spufford
”The author of this book is a consummate actor, director and theatre manager. He is also a dramatic writer, exceptional in his field and we can see this in his book both an original form and a ground-breaking freshness of thought. This is supported by an impressive erudition and original humour which makes it both wise and hugely enjoyable.” —Krzysztof Zanussi
”A delightful book on aesthetics generally as on Bradecki’s own area of expertise, the theatre … It combines the heights of critical theory with the ageless and incoherent impulse that sends us ordinary folk to theatres for solace, affirmation and enlightenment. The End of Ends is the playbook, the guide, the user’s manual on how the pilgrim soul should relate to the arts.” —Thomas Keneally
”Tadeusz Bradecki entertains, elucidates, and surprises at every turn. What begins as a series of witty and fiendishly astute essays exploring the roots and interconnectedness of story segues into an extraordinary example of “practice what you preach”. He brilliantly and playfully weaves into this non-fictional narrative a time-bending love story, which reflects and perfectly complements what has come before. Bravo.” —Sarah Lotz
”Bradecki’s whistle-stop tour through two thousand years of dramatic literature is breathtaking. But even more moving is the infectious relish with which he shares his love of his subject. The sheer joy he takes in these texts not only arouses our curiosity, it also quickens the pulse.” —Declan Donellan
”The End of Ends is a dazzling tour through the craft, philosophy and history of telling stories. It’s a Russian doll of wit, insight, charm, erudition and storytelling itself — and is exactly the kind of thing every creative writing student should be compelled to read.” —Danny O’Connor
Lioness by Emily Perkins $25
“You know how we say we devoured a story, and also that we were consumed by it? Eating and being eaten. It was like that with Claire, for me.” From humble beginnings, Therese has let herself grow used to a life of luxury after marrying into an empire-building family. But when rumours of corruption gather around her husband's latest development, the social opprobrium is shocking, the fallout swift, and Therese begins to look at her privileged and insular world with new eyes.In the flat below Therese, something else is brewing. Her neighbour Claire believes she's discovered the secret to living with freedom and authenticity, freeing herself from the mundanity of domesticity. Therese finds herself enchanted by the lure of the permissive zone Claire creates in her apartment - a place of ecstatic release. All too quickly, Therese is forced to confront herself and her choices - just how did she become this person? And what exactly should she do about it? New edition.
“It will make you shudder and laugh simultaneously” —Stella
”The most exciting novel I've read in ages. I gulped it down, so readable, so EXCELLENT about people. Read it.” —Marian Keyes
”A coolly ironic look at modern womanhood. This is an excellent novel.” —The Times
The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes $37
The four Flattery sisters — Olwen, Nell, Maeve and Rhona — were left to cobble together their own makeshift adolescence after the death of both their parents. Decades later, all four of them have found success in their respective fields, all of them boasting PhDs and, in Nell's case, a healthy clutch of Instagram followers. Still, none of the sisters have come to terms with their parents' deaths, choosing to focus instead on bigger problems — food insecurity, climate change, post-Brexit capitalism — to avoid confronting this trauma. When Olwen disappears, Nell, Maeve and Rhona attempt to find the sister they no longer know, a woman who wants desperately not to be found. Their search will force the siblings to bridge the isolation that has grown between them, and face the past they thought they could bury. Full of laugh-out-loud wit and clear-eyed observations, The Alternatives is a story of sisterhood and belonging, of loss and connection, written with Caoilinn Hughes' trademark intelligence and razor-sharp prose.
”A brilliant, brainy book about the bravery of following one’s own path while also remembering the value of community.” —Guardian
After Nora by Penelope Curtis $38
In early 1920s England, Nora’s life is in a state of flux: leaving one husband for another, she embarks on a new existence on the margins of the cultural and political elite, trying to hold onto her aspirations as a painter, along with her relationships. In late 1960s Glasgow, young biologist Maria de Sousa wrestles with her feelings for an older colleague, Adam Curtis – the author’s father. The unclear connection between the two impels the narrator, fifty years later, to seek out answers in Lisbon: what really happened between Adam and Maria? After Nora bridges three generations, and moves between London, Paris, southern England, Scotland, Jamaica and Portugal, touching on key scientific discoveries, artistic and historical landmarks, the Carnation Revolution and a global pandemic. Penelope Curtis offers sensitive portraits of those whose lives she has had to imagine in order to understand, in an ambitious novel that movingly resurrects a past whose remnants still permeate the present. Poignantly revealing the forces which check personal callings, the novel also explores, among other things, the ways in which love is balanced with creative independence. Penelope Curtis is an art historian and former director of the Tate Gallery, whose novel imagines the life and motivations of Nora, the grandmother she never knew but whose paintings she inherited. Curtis envisions Nora as a woman deeply struggling to identify her sources of self-worth. This account of her grandmother’s doubts as to the importance of her own art is accompanied, too, by that of another woman: the Portuguese scientist Maria de Sousa, who had worked in Glasgow with Curtis’s father, also a scientist, and whom the author eventually met in Lisbon, after her father’s death. After Nora is a three-part novel that talks of the meaning of creative independence through the lives of three generations. It touches on the ways in which morality can check artistic, professional and emotional callings, and exert a binding and compelling power over these. The novel also underscores the limits of knowledge, of others and the self, attempting all the while to recreate the nature of past loves.
How to Win an Information War: The propagandist who outwitted Hitler by Peter Pomerantsev $40
In the summer of 1941, Hitler ruled Europe from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. Britain was struggling to combat the powerful Nazi propaganda machine, which crowed victory and smeared its enemies. However, inside Germany, there was one notable voice of dissent from the very heart of the military machine — Der Chef, a German whose radio broadcasts skilfully questioned Nazi doctrine. He had access to high-ranking military secrets and spoke of internal rebellion. His listeners included German soldiers and citizens. But what these audiences didn't know was that Der Chef was a fiction, a character created by the British propagandist Sefton Delmer, just one player in his vast counter-propaganda cabaret, a unique weapon in the war. As author Peter Pomerantsev uncovers Delmer's story, he is called into a wartime propaganda effort of his own: the global response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. This book is the story of Delmer and his modern-day investigator, as they each embark on their own quest to seduce and inspire the passions of supporters and enemies, and to turn the tide of information wars.
”Elegant, effortlessly readable. Essential reading for the new dark age of disinformation.” —Jonathan Freedland
”Original. Pomerantsev digs deep into the past history of information warfare, in order to help us understand how to fight charlatans and fear mongers in the present.” —Anne Applebaum
”Excellent, carefully researched and beautifully written. To be read by everyone seeking perspective on all the lies of war and all the wars of lies.” —Timothy Snyder
Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan $25
In her acclaimed second short-story collection, the author of Small Things Like These shows Ireland and the Irish wrestling with the past in various ways. A long-haired woman moves into the priest's house and sets fire to his furniture. That Christmas, the electricity goes out. A forester mortgages his land and goes off to a seaside town looking for a wife — he finds a woman eating alone in the hotel. A farmer wakes half-naked and realises the money is almost gone. And in the title story, a priest waits on the altar for a bride and battles, all that wedding day, with his memories of a love affair.
”Perfect short stories.” —Anne Enright
”Breath-taking.” —Irish Times
”Her stories are as good as Chekhov’s.” —David Mitchell
A Book of Rongo and Te Rangahau by Briar Wood $30
Briar Wood reimagines the lives of Rongo and Te Rangahau, nineteenth-century wahine toa, tupuna of Ngapuhi, in radiant verse. The collection also stretches across time into today's world with poetry about contemporary Northland. Illustrated within, with much historical information, and cover art by Nikau Hindin.
”A time machine stretching from stories told and reimagined, an invitation to Aotearoa's past running parallel with how history impacts today.” —Anne-Marie Te Whiu
Hackenfeller’s Ape by Brigid Brophy $25
In London Zoo, Professor Darrylhyde is singing to the apes again. Outside their cage, he watches the two animals, longing to observe the mating ritual of this rare species. But Percy, inhibited by confinement and melancholy, is repulsing Edwina's desirous advances. Soon, the Professor's connection increases as he talks, croons, befriends — so when a scientist arrives on a secret governmental mission to launch Percy into space, he vows to secure his freedom. But when met by society's indifference, he takes matters into his own hands. A trailblazing animal rights campaigner, Brigid Brophy's sensational 1953 novel is as provocative and philosophical seventy years on. An electric moral fable, it is as much a blazingly satirical reflection on homo sapiens as the non-human — on our capacity for violence, red in tooth and claw, not only to other species, but our own. New introduction by Sarah Hall.
”Pitch-perfect.” —Ali Smith
”So original.” —Hilary Mantel
”Stunning.” —Isabel Waidner
”Her beastly, risky best.” —Eley Williams
”Flawless.” —Sunday Times
”Ingenious.” —Observer
The Edge of the Plain: How borders make and break our world by James Crawford $37
No matter where you turn, it seems that the taut lines of borders are vibrating to — or even calling — the tune of global events. Today, there are more borders in the world than ever before in human history. Beginning with the earliest known example, Crawford travels to many borders old and new: from a melting glacial landscape to the conflict-torn West Bank and the fault-lines of the US/Mexico border. He follows the story of borders into our fragile and uncertain future — towards the virtual frontiers of the internet and the shifting geography of a world beset by climate change. As nationalism, climate change, globalisation, technology and mass migration all collide with ever-hardening borders, something has to give. And Crawford asks, is it time to let go of the lines that divide us?
”A richly essayistic account of how borders make and break our world, from Hadrian's Wall to China's Great Firewall.” —Guardian
”The borders that mark our world are either ineffective, inhumane, or both. The Edge of the Plain asks us to envision alternatives.” —New York Times
”Erudite and engaging. A fine book.” —The Irish Times
Why We Remember: The science of memory and how it shapes us by Charan Ranganath $40
We talk about memory as a record of the past, but here's a surprising twist: we aren't supposed to remember everything. In fact, we're designed to forget. Over the course of twenty-five years, Charan Ranganath has studied the flawed, incomplete and purposefully inaccurate nature of memory to find that our brains haven't evolved to keep a comprehensive record of events, but to extract the information needed to guide our futures. Using fascinating case studies and testimonies, Why We Remember unveils the principles behind what and why we forget and shines new light on the silent, pervasive influence of memory on how we learn, heal and make decisions. By examining the role that attention, intention, imagination and emotion play in the storing of memories, it provides a vital user's guide to remembering what we hold most dear.
The Nineties: A book by Chuck Klosterman $37
It was long ago, but not as long as it seems — The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, the world changed a lot, more than we realised. In the beginning, almost every name and address was listed in a phone book, and everyone answered their landlines because you didn't know who it was. By the end, exposing someone's address was an act of emotional violence, and nobody picked up their new cell phone if they didn't know who it was. The 90s brought about a revolution in the human condition we're still groping to understand. There were wholesale shifts in how society was perceived — the rise of the internet, pre-9/11 politics, and the paradoxical belief that nothing was more humiliating than trying too hard. Pop culture accelerated without the aid of a machine that remembered everything, generating an odd comfort in never being certain about anything. It was the last era that held to the idea of a true, hegemonic mainstream before it all began to fracture, whether you found a home in it or defined yourself against it.
"In The Nineties, Klosterman examines the social, political and cultural history of the era with his signature wit. It's a fascinating trip down memory lane." —Time
"An engaging, nuanced and literate take on the alternately dynamic and diffident decade." —Washington Post
Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin $23
Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are beautiful. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick, and you can't get older. In Elsewhere, death is only the beginning. Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she is killed in a hit-and-run accident. It is a place very like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backwards from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driving licence. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. She doesn't want to get to know a grandmother she's never met before and have to make all new friends. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Or is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward?
"Every so often a book comes along with a premise so fresh and arresting it seems to exist in a category all its own. Elsewhere is such a book." —New York Times Book Review
Yukie’s Island by Yukie Kimura, Kōdo Kimura and Steve Sheinkin $38
It's 1945, the final year of World War II. Yukie Kimura is eight years old. She lives on a tiny island with a lighthouse in the north of Japan with her family, and she knows that the fighting that once felt so far away is getting closer. Mornings spent helping her father tend to the lighthouse and adventuring with her brother are replaced by weeks spent inside, waiting. At some point, Yukie knows, they may be bombed. Then, it happens. One Sunday, bombs are dropped. The war ends soon after that. Everyone tells Yukie there's nothing to be scared of anymore, but she's not so sure. So she watches and she waits — until a miraculous sight finally allows her to be a child again. This is the true story of Yukie Kimura told in her own words, co-created with her son, illustrator Kodo Kimura, and co-written with bestselling Newbery Honor author Steve Sheinkin.
A selection of books from our shelves.
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