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28 August 2026
It takes approximately an hour and a half to fly from Berlin to Paris. Upon that hour and a half, a human memory, especially one working at neurotically obsessive speed, can loop a very large amount of time indeed, an hour and a half is plenty of time to go over and go over the things, or several of the things, the unassimilable things, for instance, that happened in Berlin, in an attempt to assimilate those things, although they are not assimilable, in an attempt, rather, albeit an involuntary attempt, an unconscious attempt, if that can be called an attempt, to damage oneself by the exercise of one’s memories, to draw self-blame and self-disgust from a situation the hopelessness of which cannot be attributed to anything worthy of self-blame or self-disgust but which is sufficiently involved to exercise the self-blame and self-disgust that seethe always beneath their veneer of nonchalence, of niceness, the veneer that preserves self-blame and self-disgust from resolution into anything other than self-blame and self-disgust. Upon this hour and a half can be looped, such is the efficiency of memory, not only, obsessively, the unassimilable things that happened in Berlin but also much else that happened even into the distant past, but, largely speaking, the more recent things that have bearing upon, or occupy the same memory-pocket, not the best metaphor, as the unassimilable things that happened in Berlin, for disappointment and failure seldom happen in a vacuum but resonate with, even if they are not the direct result of, disappointments and failures reaching back even into the distant past, perhaps especially into the distant past, self-blame and self-disgust having the benefit, or detriment, if a difference can be told between benefit and detriment, of binding experiences, or clumping them, to form what we think of as an identity, and, not only this, upon that hour and a half can be looped also an endless amount of speculation and projection as to what may be occurring in the minds of others, or in the mind of, in this case, a specific other, a German-American pianist and composer with whom the narrator, who has been visiting Berlin with her sister, has had some manner of romantic encounter, so to call it, the extent of which is unclear, both, seemingly, to the narrator and, certainly, to the reader, the reader being necessarily confined to the mental claustrophobia of the narrator, on account of the obsessive speculation and projection and also the inescapable escapist and self-abnegating fantasising on the part of the narrator, together with the comet-like attraction-and-avoidance of her endless mental orbit around the most unassimilable things that happened in Berlin, or that might have happened in Berlin, or that did not happen in Berlin but are extrapolative fantasies unavoidably attendant upon what happened in Berlin, if anything did, untrue but just as real as truth, for all thoughts, regardless of actuality, do the same damage to the brain. Lefebvre’s exquisitely pedantic, fugue-like sentences, their structure perfectly indistinguishable from their content, bestow upon her the mantle of Thomas Bernhard, which, after all, does not fall upon just any hem-plucker but, in this case, fully upon someone who, not looking skyward, has crawled far enough into its shadow when looking for something else. Where Bernhard’s narrators tend to direct their loathing outwards until the reader realises that all loathing is in fact self-loathing, Lefebvre’s narrator acknowledges her self-loathing and self-disgust, abnegating herself, rather, for circumstances in which self-abnegation is neither appropriate nor inappropriate, her self-abnegation arising from the circumstances, from her connection with the circumstances, from her rather than from the circumstances, her self-abnegation not, despite her certainty, having, really, any effect upon the circumstances. Not at all not-funny, pitch-perfect in both voice and structure, full of sly commentary on history and modernity, and on the frailties of human personality and desire, providing for the reader simultaneous resistance and release, Lefebvre shares many of Bernhard’s strengths and qualities, and the book contains memorable and affecting passages such as that in which the narrator recalls playing tennis with her mother-in-law, now her ex-mother-in-law, and finding she is not the type for ‘collective happiness’, or her hilariously scathing descriptions of Berlin’s Sony Centre or of the restaurant in what was Brecht's house, or of the narrator's inability to acknowledge the German-American pianist-composer's wife as anything but 'the accompaniment' — or, indeed, many other passages — but the excellence of the book is perhaps less in the passages than in the book as a whole.
Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, classicist and translator. In Wrong Norma, variously described as prose poems or prose pieces, she is confronting writing and ideas. She allows thoughts to take the lead, to follow the other, in sometimes bewildering, sometimes illogical ways to paces where juxtapositions and contradictions segue into each other with a wonderful ‘wrongness’. And what is the idea of wrong? Her description of this project (as most of her published works are: she makes a handmade book, which is then produced as a facsimile by her publisher) is elusive and offers a brief explanation: “...a collection of wrings about different things..” And this collection is wide-ranging in subject matter, from swimming to snow, Joseph Conrad and Emily Dickinson, riffs on Socrates and violence, observations on poverty and displacement, a piece of writing by the Sky, in fact a week-long journal, my favourite being a conversation on Wednesday with Godot, and an image essay reimagining the meeting of the German philosopher Heidigger and the Jewish writing Paul Celan in 1966. Re-reading any one of these prose pieces is submerging. (The idea of suubmerging also links strongly to the first piece on swimming, so desire to be in water, out of air). They are endlessly curious, striving forward, to what one is never completely sure, and this makes them compelling. You return to discover something new and surprising each time, and it makes you ask questions rather than look for answers. In this work, Anne Carson seems to be asking questions and there are these wonderful scrap paper interludes between each piece. Some with merely a faintly typed comment or questions. Others that are dialogue, questions and answers, the questions often repeated, the answers varied — are they questions put to a host of visitors or characters or the author talking to herself? These repetitive questions include: “ Do you like the films of Eric Rohmer?”, followed by “Do you like jam?”, as if asking these simultaneously is a given. The other question that pops up repeatedly is “ What is yor philosophy of time?” With answers variously being: “I’m quite sure we’ll surrender” to “ how it’s sweet and how it’s moving” and “ a shallow closet with narrow bench and a rope to pull you up”. Are the recipients answering this question or even hearing it? Or are we always in conversation at cross purposes? Many of the text peices are reflecting on the process of writing. What is language, and how does it work? When translation is evoked, what happens to the text, whether this is translating yourself or others? Perspective and observation can be wrong and this wrongness leads to discoveries. Anne Carson calls these pieces wrong and enjoys herself. These is intelligent and playful writing. There is much here to amuse, as well as provoke thinking. But who or what is Norma? There is a reference in one piece to Norma Desmond, a character played in a film by Gloria Swanson, but I wondered if here the translator in Carson comes to the fore. Norma in latin can mean rule or pattern; in Greek, examiner. In an interview with Paris Review, Carson describes writing like seeing and following a fox. “I think about it as something that arrives in the mind, and then gets dealt with if it’s interesting. It’s more like a following of something, like a fox runs across your backyard and you decide to follow it and see if you can get to where the fox lives. It’s just following a track.”
Catch these five books!
Let this week’s flyers land on the top of your reading pile.
THE SHADOW OF THE OBJECT by Chloe Aridjis $38
On the long list for the 2026 Booker Prize. 'Chloe Aridjis is a revolutionary who is quietly changing the whole novel form. She is mining the richest seam in the vast field of fiction and coming up with gold. Her radiantly lyrical and intelligent writing is thrilling to read.' —Neel Mukherjee
THE REVERSE CENTAUR’S GUIDE TO LIFE AFTER A.I.: How to think about artificial intelligence before it’s too late by Cory Doctorow $39
”Cory Doctorow is the most lucid and generous guide I know of, and this book — ostensibly about A.I., but more broadly about the new world of hyper-capitalism and high tech — is stunning in its clarity and breadth of vision.” —Brian Eno
A GUIDE TO ROCKS by Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan $26
Winner of the 2026 Margaret Mahy Book of the Year. ”This is the best picture book I’ve come across about feelings and how to unpack them. Clever, funny, honest, and also useful. A Guide to Rocks lets children (and parents) knows it’s okay to be vulnerable, to express your fears and doubts, and that you are not alone.” —Stella
THE CORRESPONDENT by Virginia Evans $38
Winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction. “Subtly told and finely made, The Correspondent is a portrait of a small life expanding. Virginia Evans shows how one woman changes at a point when change had seemed impossible. That change, like this novel, turns out to be a cause for celebration.” —Ann Patchett
ONE DAY A TANIWHA by Tīhema Baker $38
As the pressure of fatherhood tightens its grip, sleepless nights and rising tensions begin to erode Hepa's sense of control. When the line between fear and reality begins to blur, can he be trusted with his own son? What happens when a being from his dreams starts to appear in the real world too? A gripping and relevant novel set at the interface between te ao Māori and te ao Pākehā.
As the pressure of fatherhood tightens its grip, sleepless nights and rising tensions begin to erode Hepa's sense of control. When the line between fear and reality begins to blur, can he be trusted with his own son? What happens when a being from his dreams starts to appear in the real world too? A gripping and relevant novel set at the interface between te ao Māori and te ao Pākehā.
All your choices are good! Click through to our website (or just email us) to secure your copies. We will dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.
One Day a Taniwha by Tīhema Baker $38
The much-anticipated new novel from the author of Turncoat. As the pressure of fatherhood tightens its grip, sleepless nights and rising tensions begin to erode Hepa's sense of control. When the line between fear and reality begins to blur, can he be trusted with his own son? Hepa hasn't slept properly in four months. His newborn son, Wi, cries through the night. The bills keep coming. The pressure to hold everything together is closing in. Hepa tells himself to harden up. Be the pillar his family needs. The only place he feels in control is in his dreams. Since childhood he's been able to shape them, to bend the dream world to his will. Until something begins watching back. A presence with paua-shell eyes starts appearing in his dreams, and then in waking life. In the shadows. In strangers' faces. Whispering to Hepa while he rocks Wi to sleep. It feels like living with a taniwha on his shoulder. Hepa can't tell where the nightmares end and the real world begins — and he's terrified of what he might do... [Paperback]
”One of Aotearoa’s most exciting, innovative novelists.” —pip adam
”A brilliant book that speaks to our time.” —Brannavan Gnanalingam
>>Read an extract.
>>Reclaiming the mana of fatherhood.
>>The impact of colonisation on Māori fatherhood.
>>Stella interviews Tīhema Baker about Turncoat.
>>Read Stella’s review of Turncoat.
>>No, no, no!
Iron Lung by Kirstine Reffstrup (translated from Danish by Hunter Simpson) $42
A girl is struck down by polio during the terrifying epidemic of the early 1950s. Paralysed and unable to breathe on her own, she is committed to hospital in Copenhagen and placed in an iron lung. Forty years earlier, near Budapest, a child grows up in an orphanage for boys. The child goes by the name of 'Boy' but is not like the others, as their body seems to transcend the categories of boy or girl. Between these two young people, there is a powerful, enigmatic bond that stretches across time and space. [Paperback with French flaps]
'Reading Iron Lung felt like remembering a past life, at once so foreign and familiar. With her lucid, pulsating sentences, as poetic as they are precise, Kirstine Reffstrup pierces a little hole in history and pulls a thin, but shining thread through it: a vital and very moving connection between two distant young children living at the edges of time and normality. The result is a wonderfully singular novel that is both historically rooted and full of queer fabulation, both violent and brimming with a desire for embodiment and connection.' —Jonas Eika, author of After the Sun
'What if bodies were not told as pathologies or perversions but rather as stories of spiders, rivers, eggs, and laboured breaths? With sensuous sensitivity, Iron Lung imagines the queer twinnings that arise between bodies cast aside by the twentieth century.' —Selby Wynn Schwartz, author of After Sappho
'A wonderful book: writing which is so vital and so visual coupled with a story which is strange, psychedelic, precise and filled with melancholy. Virtuosic work.' —Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
The Given World by Melissa Harrison $38
April brings spring surging with it, giving rise, among many in the village, to a comforting illusion that all is somehow still right with the world, and that nothing will ever change. In the ancient Welm Valley, something is shifting — the river is behaving oddly, while the arrival of spring, with its familiar rhythms, is shadowed by an undercurrent of unease. A woman falls while out walking and hopes to be found before nightfall; a builder experiences sudden, overwhelming vertigo on a farmhouse roof; across the village, people are plagued by the same vast, strange dream. And alone in the converted priory, overlooking watermeadows unchanged for centuries, Clare Grey receives devastating news which will force her to reconsider her family's past and the fresh weight of her solitary existence. [Paperback]
”A novel that reminds us with every luminous sentence about the fragile grace of ordinary lives. I can't think of a writer better at evoking the English countryside in all of its strange beauty.” —Evie Wyld
”A brilliantly acute social portrait of English rural life now. The best piece of serious fiction I've read this year. Extraordinary. An elegy for the death of the English countryside and also a beautiful demonstration of how a piece of realist literary fiction can subtly borrow from the fantastic, weaving in threads of the mythic and the unearthly that enrich the this-worldly sense the book is making.” —Francis Spufford
”A wonderful reading experience. It is careful and full of care and I loved learning the rhythms and concerns of the characters and understanding their connections. It's an authentic and deeply observed multiperspective portrait of a village. An Under Milk Wood for the twenty-first century.” —Amy Liptrot
”A truly groundbreaking novel, setting the day-to-day rhythms of rural life against troubling and sinister shifts in nature's calendar. Melissa Harrison's forensic portrayal of the village and its residents — wild and human, old and new — deserves a place at the very heart of the English post-pastoral canon.” —Stephen Moss
>>Spreading narrative weight.
Everyday Tang: On what we can learn from a dynasty by Xiaolu Guo $27
After decades living in England, writer and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo travelled to her native China with her daughter. Her objective was twofold: to show her eleven-year-old where she came from, and to discover what remained of an enigmatic period that had long fascinated her: the magnificent and cosmopolitan Tang Dynasty (618-907). As they wander through the great cities of Xi'an and Luoyang, and cross the Wei and the Yangzi Rivers, Guo ponders the unique artistic, intellectual and social achievements of the Tang Dynasty and its influence on Western culture. Part travelogue, part historical reflection, Everyday Tang is an often startling meditation on China's Golden Age. [Paperback]
”Xiaolu Guo reveals how this pivotal era continues to shape the culture, imagination, and identity of China today.” —Paul French
>>They continue to dream.
>>Call Me Ishmaelle.
Too Little, Too Hard edited by Lucy Mercer and Livia Franchini $45
In recent years, countless arguments have been made for and against the enduring value of literature: reading improves mental health and offers refuge from the news cycle; the novel is dead, poetry obsolete, writers replaceable by AI. Too Little, Too Hard adds nuance to these discussions by examining a topic that tends to be left unexplored: the working conditions of professional writers. What does it mean to write under a neoliberal economy? What can writers afford to work on — and what can't they touch? What side-work sustains them, and what does it cost? What does the publishing industry want, and what does it quietly refuse? And what has happened to literary criticism, to the university, and to the conditions that once made writing possible? In this wide-ranging anthology of essays, fifteen of our most important writers reflect on their experiences of writing under — and against — capitalism. At once practical and utopian, Too Little, Too Hard seeks to reckon with the material crises in the present state of literature while proposing collective action as the way to secure a future in which a writing life becomes possible once again. Contributions from Rachael Allen, Sanah Ahsan, Anthony Anaxagorou, Julia Bell, Emily Berry, Sarah Brouillette, Helen Charman, Claudia Durastanti, Yara Rodrigues Fowler, Will Harris, Amber Husain, Dizz Tate, Lara Williams, Holly Pester, Andy Perluzzo, Omar Robert Hamilton. [Paperback with rench flaps]
>>Brtual economics.
>>The something in things.
Deliverywoman by Eva Wyles $39
Thirteen short stories that dive into the complexities of human connection, the pursuit of meaning, and modern-day loneliness. Across a diverse cast of characters — from teachers and gas station workers to hedonistic revellers and wealthy gamers — Wyles explores the strange dimensions of our world and the dangers of ordinary life in small-town Aotearoa and elsewhere, with needle-sharp writing both real and surreal. [Paperback]
”Only someone with an astute understanding of the human condition and an ability to write a freshly turned phrase could have written it. Eva Wyles is the real deal.” —Linda Burgess
>>Ruthless in Waikanae.
Hush by Anna Scaife $40
In eleven stories, Anna Scaife describes the sudden fear, the macabre, the middle-age feminist rage, and the unexpected tragedies which befall everyday New Zealanders. “We turned and sprinted until our lungs stung in our chests. I kept my eyes on the road. I tasted acid, like the candied ginger Nan served at Christmas that burned your throat. If she knew we were out there with a knife getting mixed up with the Mitchells, she’d have killed us.” [Paperback with French flaps]
>>The Jeweller’s Replacement.
Bird Land: Te Kāhui Manu $60
The islands of Aotearoa New Zealand were once inhabited by birds. Shrieking, warbling, tinkling, booming. Poised, strutting, gliding, dancing in scribbled loops through the air. Forest, river, marsh, mountain, ocean, shore—everything charged with their mauri, life force. Across centuries, artists have strived to capture the essence of these birds, creating a rich dialogue that traces human and avian histories in parallel. This new book is an immersive visual exploration of the cultural, ecological and imaginative breadth of the realm of birds—from ancient rock art and taoka Māori, to colonial and scientific drawings and paintings, to modern and contemporary sculpture, weaving, carving, ceramics and photography. This is bird land, through the eyes of many of New Zealand’s most significant artists, from the collections of Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetu. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
The Castle: Adventures in a world of unravelling men by Jon Ronson $40
When Jon Ronson received a series of disquieting texts from his son Joel who’d been lured to a mysterious castle in the forests of New England late one night, it sets Ronson Sr. off on an extraordinary adventure into an underworld of unmoored and disaffected men. As Jon follows his instincts and deepens his investigation into the castle and the wider ‘man crisis’ – some of whom are feeling tossed around in a sea of conflicting ideologies of what it means to be a man – urgent questions come to light. What exactly is ‘Princessing’? Why did a charming lawncare influencer dress as a baby in front of billions of online viewers, with catastrophic results? And more pressingly, why are two recently released murderers on their way to pay Jon a visit? From the death of utopian factory towns to the false promise of YouTube influencer culture, Jon shows us our rapidly changing world like never before, and the men caught in the middle. A world drained of purpose, of collapsing institutions, where a new era of disinhibited behaviour has taken hold of our online and real-world selves. And as the castle mystery twists and turns into a cat and mouse story, will Jon be able to discover its terrifying secret hidden from the world? [Paperback]
”Fantastic and intensely of-the-moment, The Castle explores the nature of male anxiety, the spiralling delusions of the internet, the destructive allure of anti-woke defiance, the obsequious flattery of AI chatbots, the impunity of the mega-rich and so many other subtle (and not so subtle) currents that are currently roiling our existence. One of the scarier aspects of this book is the way the ante seems always to be upping, across its various stories and characters. It's a dogged feat of investigation from one of our greatest non-fiction storytellers.” —Patrick Radden Keefe
”Ridiculously compelling and wonderfully weird, this is a book that helps us understand why so many men seem to be unravelling, filling their lives with ill-conceived dreams and self-performance. The Castle is vintage Ronson: wise, timely and extremely funny.” —Louis Theroux
”Every Jon Ronson book has made me see the world differently. Nobody tells an unbelievable-but-true story like him. He's done it again with The Castle: I was utterly gripped from page one. If you want a totally compelling live mystery that will make you burn for justice, READ THIS BOOK URGENTLY.” —Marina Hyde
>>101 princesses.
>>This is not a book about the Manosphere!
The Vegan Creamery: Plant-Based Cheese, Milk, Ice Cream, and More (A Cookbook) by Miyoko Schinner $70
A delectable collection of over 75 plant-based recipes for vegan butters, creams, cheeses, desserts, and more. Imagine enjoying a batch of fresh strawberry ice cream on a hot summer day. It tastes just as delicious as the beloved classic, but at its creamy core it's actually plant-based. Now you can make all the dairy products you love-milks, creams, cheeses, savory spreads, and rich desserts — with nuts, seeds, and other plant-based ingredients instead of animal products. Miyoko Schinner, a vegan dairy expert, has figured out the best way to make these plant-based milk products mimic real dairy over the past three decades and is ready to share these meticulously curated recipes in The Vegan Creamery. This book encourages people to dig deeper into what various plant milks can do. You'll learn to use the age-old concepts of culturing to make French-Style Soft Truffle Cheese, perfect on a charcuterie board, and fermenting plant-based milk to create Reggie Goat Cheese, a tangy spread that is delicious atop a pizza. You'll use atypical plant-based ingredients like watermelon seed milk to make Mozzarella and mung beans to make Halloumi. Alongside these delectable dairy-free cheese creations, you'll learn to make Pumpkin Seed-Oat Yogurt to serve with a bowl of fresh fruit or Salted Maple Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream to satisfy your cravings for a rich dessert. Miyoko Schinner has become a leader in the evolution of plant-based dairy, and through her recipes and stunning photography you can learn how to craft beautiful vegan food for everyday life that will expand your palate and help save the planet. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
>>Browse our cookbook sale.
Big Bang Bread: A 13.8-billion-year adventure by Lilu Uivel $21
In this time-travel storybook and cookbook with a cosmic twist, take a journey through time and space to discover the secrets of baking! Did you know that bread is made from stardust? Board the rocket and blast off on an adventure through time and space to discover the secrets of a home-baked loaf! Big Bang Bread is a kids' time-travel adventure cookbook with a cosmic twist. Take off with the Big Bang, and drop in dinosaurs, Ancient Egypt and other times and places to collect the ingredients for a delicious loaf of oven-baked bread. Encompassing physics, biology and chemistry, children aged five to nine will be blown away to discover the world history and science of bread making. With a recipe to make their own loaf at home, Big Bang Bread is a great way to kickstart delicious experiments and cooking adventures in the home kitchen. [Paperback with French flaps]
>>Look inside.
A selection of blue-titled books from our shelves. Click through to find out more:
A stack to inspire – just a few of the titles in this special offer
It’s time for us to make room on our cookbook shelves in anticipation of new treats ahead. That’s good news for you! Whip up a sweet dessert, make a hearty meal, explore a cuisine, or discover new flavours and add some new favourite recipes to your repertoire. Spice up your shelves with superb cookbooks (over 50 titles to choose from) offered to you at deliciously reduced prices. Make your selections quickly, as there are only single copies available at these prices.
Read our latest newsletter and find our what we’ve been reading and recommending.
21 August 2026
Blending detailed research with the sensitvities of a novelist and poet, Said the Dead breaches the boundaries that contain the past to resuscitate the voices of women who were inmates in a now-derelict Victorian mental hospital in the city of Cork. As the narrator follows their traces through the archives and through the corridors, she finds in the murmurings of these women much that resonate with her own life and experiences.
"Said the Dead is one of those rare books where a reader encounters the writer and her characters at a dazzling and bewitching height, at a place where essence meets essence. A piercingly beautiful book that is wounding sometimes and consoling at others, the work, in the end, is life confirming: encompassed in the volume is the unparalleled expansiveness and depth of human minds and hearts." —Yiyun Li
Please join our online discussion of Said the Dead at our next Talking Books session at 7PM on Tuesday 17 September.
We all have times when things are too much, when we fall out with friends, or we have to be brave even when we are scared. For children, story-telling can be a perfect way to recognise emotions, articulate feelings, and unpack complex situations. A Guide to Rocks is excellent story-telling; employing humour as well as heart and opens doors to conversations, understanding, and empathy.
From the pen and brush of the excellent Bomb and Dazzlehands, comes A Guide to Rocks. This is the best picture book I’ve come across about feelings and how to unpack them.
Charlie has a rock. It’s a beautiful pink crystal, but there’s something about it which worries Dad. As Dad tries to instruct Charlie on the way to deal with his rock — hide it, ignore it, deflect attention from it — it just keeps getting bigger! Eventualy the rock gets so heavy and large it joins with many others and pushes Dad and Charlie apart. It’s going to take some effort to turn this rock over, but possibly together they can do it. This is a stand-out picture book. The text is great, Dad and Charlie are excellent characters, and there’s plenty of heart and humour. The illustrations are delightful, full of the same energy and humour as the award-winning Bomb. Clever, funny, honest, and also useful. A Guide to Rocks lets children (and parents) knows it’s okay to vulnerable, to express your fears and doubts, and that you are not alone.
This week the New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults winners were celebrated, and Read NZ Te Pou Muramura launched its inaugural New Zealand Children’s Book Week. These things matter.
Firstly, book awards. They highlight the best in children’s writing and illustration in Aoateroa. Congratulations to Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan for taking out the top prize with their excellent A Guide to Rocks. (You can read our review here). The judges said: “With A Guide to Rocks, Sacha Cotter and Josh Morgan have created a book that tackles a serious topic and yet maintains a sense of humour and joy, without a hint of glibness. This captivating book belongs in every home, school and library in Aotearoa.” And congratulations to local author Mat Tait for Kupe me te Wheke Nui a Muturangi, taking out two awards: for a book originally written in te reo, and the esteemed Illustration prize (you can see some internals here). With its punchy graphics this is excellent illustration, typography and story-telling. The judges said: “This is a skilfully designed and engaging book that maximises use of vibrant colour and illustration to make the story pop off each and every page.”
Secondly, they place books and reading for children front and centre. The theme of this year’s book week is Reading Around Aotearoa. There have been activations, media, resources, and events during the week encouraging ‘parents, teachers, caregivers and whānau to make reading a priority for children in their lives’. These campaigns happen for a reason. Children’s literacy is declining (in line with literacy generally). This is something we all should be concerned about. I think the single best thing you can do to turn this around, is to read to children and give the book a visual presence in your home. Studies show that having books in the home, even a few, makes a difference to education and life outcomes. Whether you own the books, find them in your community’s Little Libraries or borrow them from the public library, engaging with books is vital.
In a world where there are many distractions from the news feed to gaming to what’s happening on instagram, or the general pressure of trying to keep up or pay the bills, carving out a niche for reading can seem daunting. Yet making reading a daily habit can take as little as a few minutes, and reading aloud with your children can be the activity in your day that will be the most rewarding. Here’s a selection of some of our favourite children’s books. Warm-hearted Brown Bird by Jane Arthur – we keep recommending this one. The always excellent Kathrine Rundell’s Rooftoppers (and all her other books). You know the His Dark Materials series from Philip Pullman, but you may not be aware of the feisty Victorian detective Sally Lockhart in The Ruby in the Smoke. And great as a read-aloud or read on your own, the story of Ping and some fiery dragons, all set in the Han dynasty should be on everyone’s reading pile. Start the series with Dragonkeeper. And for children who enjoy words and image on the page, try these cat detective graphic novels– adventures told with verve in Miss Cat from French duo Jean-Luc Fromental and Joëlle Jolivet, and plenty of fun in Detective Beans from New Zealand comic artist Li Chen.
Not sure what to read next, or to give to the children in your whānau? Just ask. We can find the right book for the child and for your storytime reading. If you would like to expand reading horizons further, explore our reading subscriptions.
Catch these five books!
Let this week’s flyers land on the top of your reading pile.
THAT WAS NOT MY INTENTION by Frances Pavletich $30
A scathing and satisfying look into the relationships we build and what sometimes happens to them. Inspired by: being a great friend, being a terrible friend, being too self-important to tell the difference, failing to get a person to desire you, using dishonest means to get a person to desire you, making a fool of yourself, the people we loved at first, the people we despised later, and the people we can never look in the eye again. Aotearoa fiction reflecting the caustic mood of a generation.
SAID THE DEAD by Doireann Ní Ghríofa $38
Blending detailed research with the sensitvities of a novelist and poet, Said the Dead breaches the boundaries that contain the past to resuscitate the voices of women who were inmates in a now-derelict Victorian mental hospital in the city of Cork. As the narrator follows their traces through the archives and through the corridors, she finds in the murmurings of these women much that resonate with her own life and experiences. Join our online discussion in September!
THE VALLEY: Crime and punichment in a New Zealand city by Asher Emanuel $40
‘This is a once-in-a-generation contribution to New Zealand writing about justice, class and wider society. The Valley combines meticulous reporting and deep thinking on the daily grind of the justice system. The result is a monumental book of stories that will stay with you long after you put it down.’ —Max Harris
FACING UP TO OUR FUTURE: Challenges and choices for New Zealand edited by Peter Davis $35
21 prominent writers in their fields on climate change and the energy transition, demographics, the cost of living, housing and home ownership, health, environmental decline, fiscal sustainability, infrastructure, transparency and democracy, race relations and the Crown–Māori relationship, and the future of Pacific communities in Aotearoa. Published by the Helen Clark Foundation.
THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY by Elizabeth Strout $38
”One of the most profoundly moving books I have read — I envy anyone reading it for the first time. Elizabeth Strout is one of those rare novelists whose books leave you a little wiser, open and more compassionate than you were when you began reading. Her best novel yet.” —Rachel Joyce
There is nothing more nauseating than admiration, he said. I want neither to admire nor be admired. Not much danger, though, he thought, of either. When he said, There is nothing more nauseating than admiration, he was perhaps, he feared, performing an act of admiration. He was not certain that Thomas Bernhard had not said exactly those words, or written words in German that could be translated into exactly those words or into words very like them, depending on the translator. I do not admire anyone, he shouted, but, he admitted, if I were to admire anyone it would perhaps be Thomas Bernhard, or rather his writing, that I would admire. His denial seemed unconvincing, he thought, until, at least, my denial is affirmed when I consider a book like Thomas Bernhard’s My Prizes, an account of the circumstances of the nine literary prizes that Bernhard accepted between 1963 and 1980, pretty much against his will, or so he says, before developing the strength of will not to accept any more. Strength of will or, maybe, financial security, for, so he says, he accepted these nine literary prizes only for the money and despite the indignity of receiving them. Though, better to accept the indignity of receiving the prize, along with the money, than have that indignity and that money being awarded to a lesser writer, Bernhard writes several times. Eventually he became successful enough not to accept any prizes. That is, if being successful is not a nauseating prize in itself, with all the hazards of every other sort of nauseating admiration. A writer who admires struggles to find their own voice behind or beneath the voice that they admire. Either behind or beneath, the metaphor is unspecific and spatially imprecise. I will tell you what is wrong with metaphors another time. And the writer who is admired struggles to free their own voice from the burden of admiration that their voice or so-called voice has received and which now cannot easily be ignored. It is better to be nobody, he shouted. It is better to be nobody than to be colonised by admiration, either by being like someone else or by being like your idea of someone else’s idea of yourself. Anyway, much as I may run the risk of admiring many others of Thomas Bernhard’s books, he has been careful that I will not admire My Prizes, other than the risk that I might admire the idea of a book written deliberately to avoid admiration. The Thomas Bernhard portrayed in My Prizes is grumpy and misanthropic, he is petulant and unreasonable, as are most of the grumpy, misanthropic, petulant and unreasonable narrators or focal characters of his other books, but in My Prizes there is no deep countercurrent in the text gradually altering our reading and subverting our understanding. In My Prizes there is just Thomas Bernhard on the surface, buying a suit and then taking it back after the prize ceremony, buying a new white Triumph Herald with his prize money and then writing it off in an accident, using his prize money to buy the first rotten old Austrian farmhouse he is shown by the land agent. Rather than the sublime and complex nested clauses, recursive sentences and perilous washes of philosophical inversion that I am most in danger of admiring in many others of Thomas Bernhard’s books, the sentences in My Prizes are crisp and direct and light, and rely for their success on comic timing. These pieces are self-satires, really, character auto-assassinations or deflations, prickly, sometimes tiresome, but relatable (there must be a better word than that, he thought), anecdotes of a life just as irritating as your own, all told like jokes. I have, in a previous sentence, revealed several of the punchlines of these jokes, but no matter. A punchline always spoils a joke and dissipates its energy. Receiving official recognition puts Thomas Bernhard in a bad temper, especially if the prize is an Austrian one. Thomas Bernhard scorns admiration, it is true, and he scorns prizes, but, I ask myself, is a literary prize actually an institution of literary admiration or is it a culture-mill that approves the product of its grinding, softening the grain, unattached to what it grinds? Strike out that metaphor with a hard blue pencil. If the admired dominates the admirer, even when the admirer steals from the admired, or especially then, then a prize is perhaps the opposite of admiration and even more of a risk. I will never risk winning a literary prize, he thought, even though I have written fewer bad sentences than some who have won prizes for them. I will never risk winning a prize. I do not want to be admired. I do not want to be known for anything I have written. I do not even want to have written, he wrote. I want only to write. Only when the sentences are forming themselves on the page can I experience what it is like not to exist at all. The best experience. That in itself is worth living for: the loss of yourself in the liberation of the sentences you write. But if this is true, he thought, can having a good excuse for not writing be anything other than a tragedy? And to whom am I presenting this excuse?
Listen to Thomas read from ‘Exile’ in Rosalind Belben’s wholly remarkable book Is Beauty Good (brought back into print by And Other Stories).
'So extraordinarily good that one wants more, recognising a writer who can conjure an inner life and spirit, can envisage, in unconnected episodes, a complete world: one unified not by external circumstances but by patterns of the writer's mind.' —Isabel Quigly, Financial Times
All your choices are good! Click through to our website (or just email us) to secure your copies. We will dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.
Tree by Aya Kōda (translated from Japanese by Charlotte Goff) $30
Cherry blossom, hinoki, ezo spruce. Persimmon, maple, cypress. The trees of Japan cast a spell on those who venture to its unique landscape. As a child, Aya Kōda realised they were more than mere objects of beauty. Given a sapling by her father, she discovered that we depend on trees as much as they do on us. Markers of time passing, they clear the air and regenerate our earth — while we are responsible to care for their future. Following her travels around Japan, as she witnesses landslides, timber and forests of falling ash, Tree is a beautiful series of essays that contemplate the most distinctive and eternal features of our natural world. A modern classic translated for the first time (the essays were published in Japanese from 1971 to 1984), Kōda reminds us that trees hold a mirror to what we cherish on earth, and what we choose to leave behind. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Aya Koda's prose remains remarkably fresh today. I believe this is because she never ceased to observe keenly, listen attentively, and think for herself: surely the most vital qualities for a writer and for any human being.” —Hiromi Kawakami
”Aya Koda’s essays make me glad for every tree she visited — it's a privilege to train our gaze on these specimen, alongside her, with the wisdom of a life lived, of years accumulated. To feel the strength of the roots that do not meet our eyes, the aliveness of the wood and its scent, the sorrow of a doomed forest. With Koda, we travel to landscapes where ash falls like light rain, where cherry blossoms bloom in abundance, where cedars stand sentinel in crumbling slopes. This book is pure arboreal pleasure, and will make you want to go outside and meet, truly meet, a tree.” —Aube Rey Lescure
Event Horizon by Balsam Karam (translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel) $38
Seventeen-year-old Milde is from the Outskirts, a place beyond the mountains where the dirt is corpse-rich, where mothers and daughters, banished from society, make their living — without rights, access to care, or legal status. But Milde refuses to accept the order of things and, together with some friends, she revolts against the government's injustice. Arrested, imprisoned, and tortured, Milde is eventually presented with a final choice: to be executed publicly or, as part of an experiment, to be launched into space, into a black hole called the Mass. She chooses the Mass, opting to face its fathomless depth and loneliness rather than hurt the morale of her weary allies back home. Collapsing and expanding myth and reality, Event Horizon is an exquisite existential work of speculative fiction, dark as deep space, woven with reflections on exile, oppression, solidarity, trauma, and loss. [Paperback with French flaps]
‘If you ever wonder why fiction matters, read this radiant and defiant book. Nothing confronts the realities of our world more powerfully than a story willing to imagine and extrapolate them so fully. That this vision is readable – bearable, even – is only because it is written with such love, care and formal brilliance in both voice and structure.’ —Samantha Harvey
‘Balsam Karam’s Event Horizon is a parable for our times. With the power of myth and the lyricism of an epic poem, the novel grapples with so much of what we are witnessing around us across the globe: oppression, torture, migration, division and humans having to negotiate impossible bargains. This philosophical and existential novel had me gripped from beginning to end. Karam’s voice – urgent and essential – penetrates deep and will stay with me.’ —Joanna Pocock
‘Balsam Karam writes from the fringes of space, the frothing sea, the borders of despair and state-enforced terror. Her prose shines like glass. Fabulistic and dreamy, it lingers long past first reading. Event Horizon exposes the serrated edge of girlhood, plunging into the black holes that consume rebels and outsiders.’ —Momtaza Mehri
‘Event Horizon reminds us that the revolution is always already over and has always not yet begun. It is a moving, domestic novel about how to make a home and a life while displaced and oppressed, and about what might endure when you are forced to leave it for good.’ —Samuel Fisher
>>Inside the Outskirts.
>>The exiled writer.
Outsider Everywhere: Witold Gombrowicz in Argentina by Mercedes Halfon (translated from Spanish by Rahul Bery) $33
In August 1939, a ship flying the Polish flag docked in Buenos Aires. On board was a delegation of businessmen, diplomats and journalists. Days later, the captain received orders to return home with all crew and passengers in light of the imminent outbreak of the Second World War. But one man, fascinated by the city, chose to stay at the very last minute. Thus began the unexpected twenty-four-year Argentine exile of one of the twentieth century's major writers: Witold Gombrowicz. Drawing on his writings and interviews with surviving disciples, writers and scholars, Mercedes Halfon's Outsider Everywhere traces Gombrowicz's Argentine years in elegant, pared-back prose, and composes a vivid account of mid-century bohemia in Buenos Aires. Outsider Everywhere is a gripping portrait of a literary figure on the margins who rose to prominence late in life to become 'one of the greatest novelists of our century' (Milan Kundera). [Paperback with French flaps]
‘In the 143 lively pages, adroitly translated by Rahul Bery, and divided into short chapters, [Halfon] intertwines two threads. The first is Gombrowicz’s life in Argentina, one of the oddest exile stories, even by the standards of the 20th century. The second is how Argentina received him. For those familiar with Gombrowicz, Halfon’s book is a quirky postscript to his legend. For readers who have not yet discovered him, it can serve as a way into his work.’ —Magdalena Miecznicka, Financial Times
>>A shadow that walked behind him.
>>Hardly speaking.
Vanishing Point by David Markson $35
An aging writer (identified only as Author) sets out to transform shoeboxes crammed with notecards into a novel — and in so doing will dazzle us with an astonishing parade of revelations about the trials and calamities and absurdities and often even tragedies of the creative life — and all the while trying his best (he says) to keep himself out of the tale. Naturally he will fail to do the latter, frequently managing to stand aside and yet remaining undeniably central throughout — until he is swept inevitably into the narrative's starting and shattering climax. [Paperback]
>>Spouses and lovers. Critics.
>>Address unknown.
>>If you’re a dentist you know dentists.
>>T.S. Eliot was afraid of cows.
Long Wave by Daisy Johnson $38
Close to the shore is the island — uninhabited, wild, with only a storm-beaten lighthouse for shelter. Ori was found there as a small child with a handful of stones, no memories and no mother. When she has a baby of her own, the job of motherhood feels immense and sleepless nights begin to shatter her grip on reality. Her head fills with the sound of stones knocking against each other and the mystery of her past begins to unravel, opening a path to the mother she lost, and the mother she could become. Years earlier, on a sweltering summer day, ten-year-old Ruth sees a woman and her baby walk into the river and disappear. But she is the only witness, and the water yields no trace. Ruth's mother, Edith, locks her daughter away — first to restrain these wild imaginings, and later, when she falls pregnant, to hide the shame. Ruth longs to escape and dreams of the nearby island, where she and her baby can finally be free. Told with mythic power and lyrical precision, Long Wave is an extraordinary novel of longing and loss. [Paperback]
”Long Wave, Daisy Johnson's best novel in an already spectacular career, uncovers heart-rending truths in a multi-generational story of secrets, obsessions, and love. Hopeful, tragic, beautiful, captivating, consuming. A remarkable achievement — such depth, but also what a page-turner!” —Jeff VanderMeer
”An astonishingly beautiful novel with an unearthly sirenic power that remains grounded in the knotty, ambivalent and profound relationships between its characters — mothers, daughters, lovers, the lost. Long Wave is a triumph.” —Kaliane Bradley
”The power of Johnson's storytelling is elemental, fundamental, irresistible. Long Wave has the gravity of an epic and is her greatest achievement yet: a gripping mystery, a series of impeccable character portraits, and an unflinchingly observed treatise on the maelstrom of motherhood. Masterful.” —Kiran Millwood Hargrave
”Johnson writes of motherhood as a ferocious toppling, family as lightning that brachiates and crackles through a life. This is a novel of startling force. Readers will feel Long Wave in their teeth and bones.” —C Pam Zhang
”An extraordinary, masterful, magnificent book. Daisy Johnson has been away, plumbing the river's depths, and brought us back something magical. I read it in a kind of trance, profoundly moved, held aloft by its strange currents. It took me places I never expected; the best novel I've read all year.” —Helen Jukes
”I was gripped by this haunting story of mothers and children pushed right to the edges. Daisy Johnson's world feels painfully real, and yet bristles with magic.” —Becky Barnicoat
The Penguin Book of Polish Short Stories edited by Antonia Lloyd-Jones $40
Witty, surprising and sparkling, this anthology is an essential exploration of Polish literature. Its thirty-nine stories run the length of the literal and imaginative creation of Poland, from 1918 (when Poland regained its independence after 123 years of colonisation by the neighbouring empires) to the present.
The stories include 'Miss Winczewska', by the acclaimed twentieth-century writer Maria Dabrowska (1889--1965), based on her experience of helping to establish a library for soldiers at the Citadel military base in Warsaw in the interwar period; and 'In the Shadow of Brooklyn' by Stanislaw Dygat (1914--1978), the comical tale of a young man's envy of what he imagines to be his father's success with women. At the contemporary end, it includes a story by Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk (1962), 'The Green Children', a historical story set in 1656, narrated by a Scottish doctor who, as the Polish king's physician, travels about the wilds of Poland and encounters two feral children. Introduction by Olga Tokarczuk. [Paperback]
”Though several Nobel prizes have spotlighted Polish literary achievements, only a small part of the rich repertory of Polish literature is known to the wider world in translation. The Penguin collection gives us a sense of how much we have missed.” —TLS
The Anniversary by Andrea Bajani (translated from Italian by Geoffrey Brock) $35
'On that day, ten years ago, I saw my parents for the last time. Since then I've changed phone numbers, houses, continents, I've erected an impregnable wall and put an ocean between us. They've been the best ten years of my life.' A son is celebrating a bittersweet anniversary. It is a decade since he saw his parents — the father who ruled through petty acts of intimidation and fear, the mother who silently accepted it, fitting herself in the spaces around others' lives. As he looks back, he recalls the airless family home, unsettled only by the ringing of a telephone, or a visitor who was soon rejected. And he remembers how he became possessed by the irrepressible desire to be free, to live his own life. But can you ever escape the grip of your origins? At once unflinchingly honest and razor sharp, The Anniversary is above all a novel of liberation which dismantles the tyranny of the family. It becomes a mirror in which we glimpse something that, even if we have not known it, affects us all. [Paperback]
”Written with wisdom and coiled passion, The Anniversary dramatizes the struggles of a wife and a mother for freedom, autonomy and self-realization against the forces of repression. It is a brilliant portrait of a single soul and her interior life, but also of a society in flux, in the process of change, in the process also of staying the same. Bajani's novel is intense, sharply imagined and fascinating.” —Colm Toibin
”On one level, this provocative novel constitutes a critique of patriarchal society and the Roman Catholic teaching that families must stay together even if it kills them. On another, it's about the narrator's use of fiction to reconstruct a contentious past. That the book succeeds on both levels is a function of the author's freshness of perception and to the quality of his spare, limpid prose. A superb translation by Geoffrey Brock.” —Irish Times
>>The tyranny of family.
Picasso the Foreigner: An artist in France, 1900—1973 by Annie Cohen-Solal (translated from French by Sam Taylor) $45
Before Picasso became Picasso — the iconic artist now celebrated as one of France's leading figures — he was constantly surveilled by the French police. Soon after his arrival in 1901, he was flagged as an anarchist by the security services — the first of many entries in an extensive case file. Though he became increasingly wealthy as his reputation grew worldwide, Picasso's art was largely excluded from public collections in France for the next four decades. The genius who conceived Guernica in 1937 as a visceral statement against fascism was even denied French citizenship three years later, on the eve of the Nazi occupation. In France, Picasso faced a triple stigma — as a foreigner, a political radical, and an avant-garde artist. Picasso the Foreigner approaches the artist from an entirely new angle, making use of long-overlooked archival sources. In this groundbreaking narrative, Picasso emerges as an artist who ignored national modes in favor of contemporary cosmopolitan forms. Annie Cohen-Solal reveals how Picasso strategized and fought to preserve his agency, eventually leaving Paris for good in 1955. He chose the south over the north and craftspeople over academicians, while simultaneously achieving widespread fame. The artist never became a citizen of France, yet he dynamized the country's culture like few other figures in its history. [Paperback]
"In Picasso the Foreigner the French writer Annie Cohen-Solal cuts through the usual fluff about Parisian bohemia (goodbye absinthe) and takes us instead north of the city, to the archives building of the French police. Consulting yellowed documents, she tracks the xenophobia that followed Picasso in his adopted homeland, where the police branded him an alien." —Deborah Solomon, The New York Times
"This inspired and innovative biography demonstrates that Picasso's visionary approach to art was fundamentally shaped by his experience of being a 'foreigner' in France. Once you have read it, you'll never see his work the same way again." —Lauren Elkin
>>What makes an artist?
>>Unfathomable, uncontrollable.
>>Remember the story of Pablo Picasso.
The Flying Classroom by Erich Kästner $23
Martin's school is no ordinary school. There are snowball fights, kidnappings, cakes, a parachute jump, a mysterious man called 'No-Smoking' who lives in a railway carriage and a play about a flying classroom. As the Christmas holidays draw near, Martin and his friends — nervous Uli, cynical Sebastian, Johnny, who was rescued by a sea captain, and Matthias, who is always hungry (particularly after a meal) — are preparing for the end of term festivities. But there are surprises, sadness and trouble on the way — and a secret that changes everything. The Flying Classroom (first published in 1935) is a magical, thrilling and bittersweet story about friendship, fun and being brave when you are at your most scared. (It also features a calf called Eduard, but you will have to read it to find out why). From the author of the multigenerational favourite Emil and the Detectives. [Paperback]
"Originally published in 1935 and charmingly illustrated by Trier, Kastner's pleasingly sentimental tale of early 20th-century boarding-school life gets the opportunity to reach a new audience, courtesy of Bell's new translation." —Publishers Weekly
”'A little masterpiece. Read it and you will be happy.” —Maurice Sendak
”Marvellous.” —Philip Pullman
”My favourite book as a child — funny, exciting and very atmospheric.” —Michael Rosen
Daily Rituals: Women at Work: How great women make time, find inspiration, and get to work by Mason Currey $36
Barbara Hepworth sculpted outdoors and Janet Frame wore earmuffs as she worked to block out noise. Kate Chopin wrote with her six children 'swarming around her' whereas the artist Rosa Bonheur filled her bedroom with the sixty birds that inspired her work. Louisa May Alcott wrote so vigorously — skipping sleep and meals — that she had to learn to write with her left hand to give her cramped right hand a break. Filled with details of the large and small choices these women made, Daily Rituals: Women at Work is about the day-to-day lives of some of the world's most extraordinary creative minds who, whether Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brontë, Nina Simone or Jane Campion, found the time and got to work. [Paperback]
”An admirably succinct portrait of some distinctly uncommon lives.” —Meryle Secrest
The Other Side by Philip Bunting $29
How are you enjoying your holiday here on Earth? It must be nice, being alive and all! Join the Grim Reaper on a whistle-stop tour of some of the ways different people have thought about what happens on 'the other side' — from Valhalla to Vodou, Heaven to Hades's Underworld. That is, of course, after you've finished up your holiday on the best planet this side of Pluto! Have a great trip — and I'll see you on the Other Side. A fascinating and fun illustrated guide for children (and non-children) to a stupendous range of beliefs and ideas about what happens to us after we die. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more:
Read our 494th newsletter
14 August 2026
Novels and parenting are both traditional but unstable technologies of transmission. Neither are ‘resolvable’; both are technologies in which the ‘definitive’ is impossible and in which any attempt at the ‘definitive’ interferes with the transmission. Both progress in a single direction, as a series of moments, but in each moment multiple times are present simultaneously, layered, both present and absent, creating nodes of attention and possibilities for realisation and invention. Both novels and parenting privilege us to the experiences of others (for good or for ill) and through them the experiences of others again and so on, linking the influences of the past to the possibilities of the future. Each technology is a vector for the development of the characters to which it is applied but the more conforming the characters to external parameters the less interesting the result. Novels and parenting are both technologies of transmission, but the measure of their value lies entirely in the reader or child who either receives or resists the transmission according to their needs and in the way most suitable for them. Ben Lerner’s novel Transcription explores the possibilities and limitations of the novel as a technology of transferral while addressing the possibilities and limitations of parenting (both biological and metaphorical or ‘cultural’) as another technology of transferral, all the while contrasting both to the new attention-hungry technologies that are embedded for instance in a cell-phone, and charting how these new technologies have impacted the types of transferral addressed by the novel or by parenthood (biological or metaphorical). The new technologies in their most widely consumed mode tend to provide experiences that are temporally flat, a scrollable inescapable present, even though the moments that comprise that ersatz present are necessarily captured in the past. The ‘present’ of the new technology is discontinuous, uninhabitable, spaceless, compounding, and generally over-literal, inherently disjunctive and competing for attention with the other modes of experience that may be suggested by the actual location or circumstances of the rightful ‘owner’ of that attention. A novel, traditionally embedded in the codex as a hand-held device, offers one way in which attention may push at the limitations of its moment and enlarge its circumstances through an experience of simultaneity; scrolling social media on a cellphone — skimming — allows attention to push at — or be drawn through — the edges of its moment through an experience of algorithmically determined disjunctive seriality (this is not inherently a bad thing (but may (or may not) in effect be a bad thing)). Regardless of the content transferred, the medium is shaping and patterning our experience, though the medium itself is unseen as the transference occurs (which is what makes it a medium). When the narrator of Transcription drops his cellphone into the handbasin at the hotel on his way to conduct what will be the final published interview of his nonagenarian cultural mentor, Thomas, he finds himself unable to admit that he is not recording, and ends up reconstructing the interview from memory. When he admits this at a symposium in the second section of the novel, he is castigated, not unreasonably, by the attendees but it could also be said that Thomas’s voice, especially since his death, now speaks through or inhabits the narrator in a way that would not be possible if that voice was contained by and limited to forensically verified data. The new technologies are technologies of cumulative capture before they are anything else, performing literality and definitivity (even when they are wrong or fake). If the conversation between the narrator and Thomas written for us by the narrator in the first section of the book is an accurate reconstruction of the actual conversation (we play along with the author that there might be such an actual thing so that we can then speculate on the reliability of narrator’s account of it), it would have made a very poor written interview as Thomas is exhibiting post-Covid cognitive decline and the narrator is comically distracted and dense. Fortunately for Thomas’s legacy perhaps, there is no definitive recording of the interview and the narrator has therefore had to use a combination of memory and imagination to construct Thomas’s final interview for publication (of course, we as readers do not get to read this (novels are potentised by what they leave out)). Where a technology of capture literalises what it captures and presents it as definitive, memory and imagination allow the voice to live and change in those it inhabits, to use its force for further and yet further acts of nuance and transmission. Whether we think of this living-on-in-others (especially when the original personage can no longer contribute to or ‘own’ the idea of themselves) as colonisation, theft, or haunting, it demonstrates the transpersonal nature of what we think of as personhood: the idea of us continues to vibrate in others, diminishing but never completely disappearing even when it is no longer consciously noticed. We both receive and transmit; we ourselves are media of transference. The narrator's cultural relationship with Thomas, his mentor, privileges him to Thomas’s voice and to the thoughts it expresses but it also overwhelms the narrator’s own less certain voice. The narrator is the admiring cultural son, dominated by his father, hoping to live up to his standards, too frightened even to admit a misfortune. The narrator’s relationship with Thomas is contrasted, especially in the third section of the book, with that of Thomas’s biological son, Max,who was a university friend of the narrator’s and his double for the purposes of the novel (even Thomas confounds the two). Max’s experience of Thomas and of his shortcomings as a father contrasts with that of the narrator both on matters of fact and of perspective. Their experiences are often co-extensive both in time and space, but are very different. Max sees clearly from his position as the overlooked son, and his longing for and attempts at connection with Thomas are poignant. The narrator and Max each have young daughters who are exhibiting refusals that their parents find distressing and confusing: the cultural son’s daughter refuses to go to school; the biological son’s daughter refuses food. These refusals are also each refusals of transmission, disarming reactions by the otherwise powerless to systems that derive their power from their capacity to withhold. That each of the girls’ problems are ‘overcome’ by means of new technologies is both disconcerting and somehow plausible: the vacuous unboxing videos that enable Max’s daughter Emmie to start to eat again are effective precisely because of their vacuity: with irrelevant content, the underlying pattern of expectation, discovery and satisfaction resonates deeply and reassuringly in a world where expectation, discovery and satisfaction are unstable, undermined and uncertain, especially for the young. What then, though? Do the new media pattern our attention so that they appear to assuage the very problems they exacerbate? We are of course and as always asking the wrong question or only part of the right question. As with any medium we must ask not so much whether it is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ but: in which direction does the power flow, and to whom?
James Cook is one of the most contested figures in Aotearoa New Zealand’s past. Today, his name evokes not only exploration and scientific endeavour but also the violence of first encounters and the enduring legacies of colonisation. Tony Ballantyne examines how stories about Cook have changed over time — and what these shifting narratives reveal about the making of national identity. From Cook’s death through to Tuia 250, Ballantyne traces three major phases in collective understandings of Cook. The first, imperial memory, is centred on British authority and benevolence. This gives way, by the late 1950s, to a distinct national history, marked by J. C. Beaglehole’s influential scholarship and a growing emphasis on New Zealand’s own place in the imperial world. Postcolonial memory follows, bringing Māori perspectives to the fore and reframing Cook as a deeply contested figure in public debate, scholarship and artistic expression. The book shows how Cook’s afterlives continue to shape New Zealand’s historical consciousness and political culture, offering a deeply perceptive account of how imperialism persists in national memory. This is an absorbing and beautifully presented book, illustrated with a wide range of artworks.