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.
This week at our Talking Books session we disucssed the 2026 International Booker winner Taiwan Travelogue. The conversation was wide-ranging: we talked about the content, themes of colonisation and power imbalances, the love story, language and translation, and the novel’s structure. Initially published in Taiwan in 2020, disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text of a Japanese writer from the late 1930s, its premise rests on the experiences of a writer touring Taiwan in 1938 and the relationship they develop with their translator. Aoyama Chizuko is a young woman, famous for her semi-autobiographical novel, a work that has captured Japan in print and in film. She’s in a position of privilege, able to live an independent bohemian life. She’s free to choose her own path. She heads to Taiwan to write about the place, the people and, in particular, the food. She loves to eat and has a furious appetite. Her initial assigned government interpretator is not to her liking, and, not very long after she arrives, her host introduces her to Ông Tsian-hóh (Ō Chizuru). This young woman will be pivotal not only in Aoyama’s experiences of food and culture in Taiwan, but also her emotional development, although one can not be sure just when Aoyama to recognises her lack of awareness. Aoyama is as demanding as Chizuru is accommodating. Through their travels on the island, the foods consumed (many) and their conversation, Yáng Shuāng-zǐ reveals much about Taiwan’s history, the Japanese empire's desire to colonise Taiwan as a gateway to the south (they arrived in 1895 and left in 1945 when Taiwan was handed to the Republic of China), and the many layers of power within society at the time. While Aoyama becomes increasingly enamoured with Chizuru, attempting to convince her to forgo an arranged marriage and move with her to Japan, she is blind to the reasons the young interpreter refuses this offer. Playing detective, Aoyama bullishly keeps questioning the young woman trying to unpick the story. How does Chizuru know so much about all the different foods ? How come she speaks multiple languages? Why does she insist on walking miles when she could just stay at Aoyama’s lodgings? What she doesn’t think to ask is: What does Chizuru want. Aoyama forgets that whatever she asks for will be attended to — Chizuru is her employee. Here is a situation of taking and giving, one where Aoyama is blind to the fact that her position, in spite of her obvious care for and love for this woman, makes the situation impossible. In this way, these characters carry the perspective of opposing forces within their psyche, much like the roles enforced by colonisation. Read Taiwan Travelogue for the history, the food, and to gain a little insight into how the past informs the present in this interesting country. Read it for its enjoyable structural play. There are footnotes from translators, there are notes at the back ‘fictionally’ responding to the ‘fictional’ publication of the rediscovered classic. The English edition is excellently translated by Lin King.
Catch these five books!
Let this week’s flyers land on the top of your reading pile.
ALL HER LIVES by Ingrid Horrocks $35
”Across nine elegant, probing stories that range from the late eighteenth century to the unsettled present, from rural Wairarapa to icy Norwegian ports and rave culture Berlin, All Her Lives explores the shifting expectations and constraints of womanhood. … Emotionally intelligent and historically alert, this book is an outrageously good addition to the top shelf of New Zealand fiction.” —Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges’ citation on awarding All Her Lives the 2026 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
THE ORIGINAL by Nell Stevens $35
Nell Stevens’s enjoyable novel queers our usual understandings of authenticity and fakery, with all the dramatic vicissitudes and complexities of plot of the type of Victorian novel that it both imitates and remakes. Grace shows a prodigious talent at copying and forging paintings, presented here as a virtue because “the value of the copy is in the copyist’s powers of empathy”. But are our social interactions enabled by just the same species of empathy? Isn’t it by copying others that we gain fulfillment and love, and become ourselves?
BORROWED LAND: A Highland story by Kapka Kassabova $55
In the Scottish Highlands, centuries-old connections between the land, nature and people have been, and continue to be, shaken by the forces of colonialism, industry, depopulation, and private property speculation.
”Combines the detail and intimacy of boots on the ground reportage with the universality of a dark fable. This is a Highland story, but also a global story — a poetic and haunting anatomy of what happens when a world is addicted to extraction.” —James Crawford
CAPTAIN COOK AND THE UNSETTLED AFTERLIVES OF EMPIRE by Tony Ballantyne $60
James Cook is one of the most contested figures in Aotearoa New Zealand’s past. His name evokes not only exploration and scientific endeavour but also the violence of first encounters and the enduring legacies of colonisation. 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.
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.
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.
kluge by pip adam $38
If you and I are in the same =‘entertainment venue’ for this =‘stand-up comedy special’ and I am =‘my body’ and you are =‘my audience’ I run to you and shout your name into the dark, in the hope you are there. Yes, you =‘dear reader’ =‘attentive listener’. This is a story about the end days of a tech company and its all-powerful owner, told in the style of a stand-up comedy special. Prophetic, propulsive and absurdly entertaining, kluge is a workplace satire about artificial intelligence and the value of a body. [Paperback (published in 4 differently coloured covers)]
”An audacious, dazzling masterpiece. I love you, pip adam, put me on a leash and drag me to Hell.” —Hera Lindsay Bird
”Utterly unmooring. A work of outrageous genius.” —Jordy Rosenberg, author of Night Night Fawn
”Meticulously crafted. A mind-bending and chilling artefact.” —Kerry Donovan Brown, author of Lamplighter
>>I run to you and shout your name in the dark.
>>Writing in three dimensions.
>>Keeping faith in the project.
>>What it means to be inhuman.
Zombie Proust by Jérôme Prieur (translated from French by Nancy Kline) $40
“Marcel Proust passed away on the 18th of November. It was 1922. One day, I could no longer resist: I went in search of him. I prowled about, I visited the rooms where he had lived, I caught glimpses of abandoned châteaus and haunted places, I walked in his footsteps. I wanted to see what his eyes had seen. I looked at his photographs, I uncovered relics and little treasures. I tried to find out who he had been in life, what he had really been like. I interrogated those among the dead who could still reply: his friends, his confidants, those who had crossed paths with him. Who was he? The dandy who set out for salons as though on a foreign expedition? Or the invisible man who flinched from the light, the character in a thriller? The brilliant writer was concealing a doppelgänger, and I pursued him as though tracking down a missing relative.” — Jérôme Prieur
What is a writer’s life, and above all, what is left of it? This book is not a biography, but a quest; an expedition to unearth what remains of the author of Remembrance of Things Past. What was it like to be in his remarkable presence? What was it like to be inside his skin — especially during his final years of intense reclusive absorption in the writing of his great book? Haunted places and abandoned sets, rare photographs, tinpot relics, half-erased fingerprints, flashes of light, piles of little memories serve as talismans through which Jérôme Prieur materialises the eponymous writer’s body and spirit in short, vivid chapters which resemble prose poems. Rich in detail, wry humour and quirky erudition, Zombie Proust brings back to life the invisible being, recalling his image as one summons a ghost.
“Prieur has succeeded magnificently in bringing his portrait of Proust to life.” —Le Monde
“Prieur explores places, questions traces, lingers on moments of Proust's life, sentences from In Search of Lost Time, images - again and again - like those words, haloed in mystery, which open wide the doors of imagination.” —Télérama
Every page is shot through with the feeling of overwhelming, enthusiastic, affectionate gratitude that readers of In Search of Lost Time feel for Proust the writer and Proust the man.” —Le Matricule des anges
“Scarcely any other book on Proust evades with such effortless skill the classic dilemma of whether to relate everything to the work or to the man. Prieur resurrects them both as a single phantom, in the night time favoured by Proust, perfectly conjuring up scents and tastes, with a love which owes nothing to neurosis.”
—Journal du Dimanche
>>Possessing other eyes.
>>Allure and menace.
Twilight in Musashino by Seichō Matsumoto (translated from Japanese by Jesse Kirkwood) $40
Musashino, 1959. A young Japanese flight attendant is found strangled on the icy banks of the river. The police suspect foul play — but the deeper they dig, the more they collide with a wall of silence. At the centre of it all stands a foreign priest and the Guglielmo Church, a charitable Christian mission. The dead woman's connection to the church is undeniable. But what begins as a routine investigation quickly turns into something far more treacherous, entangling together narcotics, post-war relief schemes and the delicate web of international diplomacy. As the story moves from back alleys to diplomatic sanctuaries, following the twists and turns of Detective Fujisawa's investigation, Seichō Matsumoto masterfully constructs a slow-burning procedural where truth is clear but justice is not permitted. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Seichō Matsumoto's books are packed with lean prose and twists yet they're also educational. If you want to understand Japan, Matsumoto is a disquieting place to start.” —Tim Stanley
Weimar: Life on the edge of catatrophe by Katja Hoyer $75
Weimar looms large in German history — a crucible of democracy and dictatorship. This ancient town nestled in the heart of the country was home to some of Europe's greatest thinkers, Goethe and Schiller, Liszt and Nietzsche among them. It gave its name to the ambitious Weimar Republic crafted in the aftermath of the First World War. But it was also where fascism took hold. Where Bauhaus architects first experimented with new ways of living, Buchenwald was dug out of a beech forest. Weimar shows us a town and its people on the edge of catastrophe. Drawing on a wealth of new archival research, acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer takes us from 1919 to 1939 as she tells the stories of the men and women who lived through the new republic and Hitler's regime. We encounter cast of characters, from bookbinder Carl Weirich and hotel owners Rosa and Arthur Schmidt, to Friedrich Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth. Here are fascists and socialists, artists and workers, politicians and citizens, who, as the events of history swept them up, became witnesses, perpetrators, victims and bystanders. [Hardback]
”A leading historian offers the definitive account of Weimar, a city that is central to Germany's literary tradition — as well as to the darker chapters of its history.” —New Statesman
”Most histories of interwar Germany focus on Berlin (sleaze, cabarets, expressionist art) or Munich (beer, Nazis in lederhosen), so it's clever to tell the ill-starred story of the Weimar Republic through the 35,000-strong town of Weimar itself, home to Goethe and so many parks. Katja Hoyer weaves her story using the lives of various locals — book-keepers, hoteliers, party activists — to show what it was like to live on ‘the edge of catastrophe’ and show why so many Germans succumbed to Nazi fever.” —The Times
”There has been a renewed uptick in books about the Weimar Republic, with many observers worrying about possible contemporary parallels. Historian Hoyer opts for a different tack, going to the picturesque Thuringian town that gave its name to Germany's first ill-fated experiment with democracy to explore, via a collection of individuals, how the home to many of Europe's cultural giants became an early Nazi stronghold.” —Financial Times
”Hoyer's book confronts us with troubling ambiguities. Understanding why ordinary, even likeable, people turned away from democracy is, she argues, essential to safeguarding freedom. That task could scarcely be more urgent.” —Guardian
It Gets In Your Blood: Lives of a racecourse by Marty Smith $40
It Gets In Your Blood is a work of memoir and portraiture that takes the reader deep into the life of a racecourse community. 'Come for a ride with me, and see what I see, down in the dirt and sweat and horseshit, right in the belly of the work of a racing stable. These are my real people, and this is the life I would lead if I hadn't been looking out for my father, a child of the Depression. Be a teacher, he said, or a nurse, people always want those people. I only just started riding work when he was lying in a coma; could I tell him how much I would love to be a jockey? I could not.' —Marty Smith. In 2015, having always loved horses and riding, Marty Smith set out to immerse herself in the world of thoroughbred horse racing — to 'talk to people at every level' and spend time in the stables and training grounds of the Hawke's Bay racecourse. The project is as much about the people as the horses, and it turns out to be harder — and more surprising, funny and drawn-out — than she'd ever expected. She's not the kind of person who can write a book in a year: this book took ten, and in the process became a portrait of people and an industry as they changed over time. Across that decade, as people in the stables get to know and trust her, the many lives of the racecourse began to open up. This is a life of hard work and constant risk, as well as community and love. And horses. [Paperback]
>>Read Stella’s review.
>>Listen to Stella’s radio review.
Ngā Kākahu Māori o Mua by Hirini Moko Mead $65
Starting with identifying the range of garments present during the Classical Period of Māori traditional clothing (1769–1800), their function and the ways they were made, this book then explores how clothing of Māori has changed in style, function and construction. Hirini Moko Mead makes a detailed analysis of the materials used, construction techniques, patterns, garments produced and the ways they have changed over time. The text is accompanied by photographs and illustrations of feather cloaks, dogskin cloaks, piupiu, rain capes and many other garments as well as details of the decoration and methods of making. This is an authoritative exploration of Māori traditional clothing and its evolutions from 1769 to the 1960s and is accessible for a general readership. [Paperback]
>>Look inside!
I Hear a New World (‘Long London’ #2) by Alan Moore $38
It's 1958. A time of Rock and Roll, of protest, riot and change... and London is full of danger. Dennis Knuckleyard is finally growing up, and above all he wants to leave the Great When in the past. For nine years, he's avoided so much as thinking about the magical shadow version of London, managing even to palm off what should've been his last souvenir of that experience — an iron key he secretly brought back. But while Dennis may believe he's done with the Great When, it's not done with him. The unsuspecting rube now in possession of the key has discovered its magical properties, bringing forth mythic, occult beings into Dennis's London and sparking riots in the capital. Worse still, Dennis hears his first love Grace has returned to the Great When to investigate strange happenings in both cities. Desperate to keep Grace safe and return London to normal, Dennis follows her back into the hidden city. But once it has him back, The Great When will not let him go away again so easily. He and Grace must fight to set things right or forever lose everything. [Paperback]
'Extraordinary.' —Susanna Clarke
'A breathless time-travelling classic. Savage, humane, comic, terrifying.' —Iain Sinclair
>>Read The Great When first.
Facing Up to Our Future: Challenges and choices for New Zealand edited by Peter Davis $35
New Zealand's traditional “she'll be right” optimism is no longer adequate to the challenges facing the country. Facing Up to Our Future: Challenges and Choices for New Zealand brings together 21 of the country's leading thinkers to confront the long-term pressures shaping the nation's next decades. Edited by Emeritus Professor Peter Davis, the collection ranges widely, covering issues as diverse as 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. Its central argument is that these are not passing storms to be ridden out on the country's traditional “she'll be right” optimism, but decades-long structural challenges that no single government can solve alone. Our different governments are failing to take effective action on the long-term economic, social, governance and environmental challenges New Zealand faces. In this book some of our best policy thinkers offer options for practical, feasible and longer-view solutions. Tackling the challenges our nation faces is vital for a better future.
Structured around the four themes of Economy and Wellbeing, Society and Culture, Governance and Government, and Environment and Place, the book moves beyond diagnosis to an equally broad slate of practical reforms. Its contributors propose, among much else, a cross-party housing accord, an independent fiscal watchdog, a Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations, a broader tax base, binding environmental limits, stronger competition and lobbying rules, a simpler welfare system, sustainable funding for public-interest journalism, and a renewed commitment to multilateralism and Pacific climate leadership. With forewords by the Rt Hon Helen Clark and Professor Toeolesulusulu Damon Salesa, it sets out the kind of evidence-based, long-term policymaking New Zealand needs — solutions built on collaboration and consensus that endure beyond any single electoral cycle. Contributors: Matt Nolan, Toby Moore, Tim Maloney, Jon Duffy, Michael Johnston, Peter Davis, Jonathan Boston, Robin Gauld, Dylan Mordaunt, Stuart McNaughton, Peter A. Thompson, Jemaima Tiatia-Siau, Seiuli Angel Timali Tiatia-Siau, Chris Finlayson KC, Morgan Godfery, Philippa Yasbek, Lucy Cassels, Greg Severinsen, Rod Carr, Kali Mercier, and Mark Thomas [Paperback]
The Witch in the Tower by Júlia Sardà $30
Carmela's older sister, Franca, has stopped playing with her and she cannot help but feel sad and left out. No one can make her feel better, not even her little sister. So she decides to play a game: she will walk until she can’t anymore and then ... she will walk a little more. Carmela suddenly arrives at a strange tower where she meets a witch who, it seems, has been waiting for Carmela all this time. She welcomes Carmela into a world far beyond the limits of her imagination, where Carmela visits libraries teeming with ancient books; rooms where worms and spiders weave intricate dresses; a wonderful dome of crystal prisms and, finally, Carmela takes flight — her worries shrinking, her mind expanding. Carmela discovers a magic and power within herself – to see beyond the hurt and pain of growing up, to find her own place in the world. [Hardback]
”Sarda's intricate artwork reflects Carmela's inner journey as much as her outer one, truly letting loose as Carmela gleefully unlocks her own free-spirited magic. A wild rumpus of sorts and a love letter to the outcasts, ‘the lonely, the lost, and the different ones’ — and that is a beautiful, empowering thing. —Booklist
”Sarda has struck gold. Both narrative and aesthetic ooze style, coolly occupying the intersection between cautionary folktale and coming-of-age fantasy epic. The result is singular, not merely a modern classic but one for the ages. Utterly spellbinding.” —Kirkus Reviews
>>Look inside!
Griefdogg by Michael Winkler $40
Meet Jeffrey Watson-Johnson hydrologist, husband of Martine, father of Bern, model citizen of Mildura. But after he inherits a small fortune from an obscure aunt and has a disconcerting encounter with his cousin Pam, Jeffrey decides it's time to change everything. He tells Martine he wants to live as if he were the family pet. Sleeping through the day or wandering beside the river, he discovers a new power — he can sense secret grief in others. What to do with this gift? Or with his awareness of the endless streams of water flowing unseen beneath the earth? [Paperback]
”Reading Greifdogg us like running close along a wall Winkler has built — is still building up ahead — water seeping from between the stones. There’s a pit in the centre of the book that we circle, and a serene view off in the distance. An impressive book about connection, being, and dissolution.” —Jen Calleja
>>Life as confidence trick.
>>Start late, avoid late style.
Peacock by James Hynes $38
A second volume of Hynes’s historical epic set in the last days of a dying Roman empire. Sparrow has flown from the confines of the Roman brothel where he was raised. Now older and smarter, and having learned the arts of deception and enticement from the women who raised him, he vies to become a player in the internal politics at Arcadia, the home of his new master, a man who is himself playing with political fire. Sparrow soon realizes that the key to survival in this turbulent place is information, and he must gather it at any cost. As the dangers mount for Sparrow, he is forced to choose where his loyalties lie and which of these powerful Romans is most likely to ensure his survival. [Paperback]
”Utterly engrossing, vivid, and honest, this coming of age story reaches across millennia to grab us by the throat.” —Emma Donoghue
”A bleak and brutal story, vividly told by Hynes, who has created a truly unforgettable character in the resilient Sparrow.” —Daily Mail
”A stunning work of historical imagination, masterful in its portrayal of love, sex and friendship.” —The Observer
”Sparrow feels like an entirely authentic portrait — James Hynes renders this hidden world so powerfully and vividly.” —The Times
>>Sparrow.
A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more:
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7 August 2026
Still on racing and literature this week. I’ve been reviewing books for just over a decade on RNZ, and this week I had a thematic twist with my book selection: it was horseracing, which I find hilarious for a number of reasons. One: I’m in awe of horses, i.e a little terrified of their majesty (so, not a pony-club child, even if I did have a short fixation of wanting a pony and thinking there was plenty of room on the front lawn). Two: I have little interest in horse races and even less time for gamblers. This view was formed as a bored child waiting in the car outside the TAB, not quashed by the minute or so excitement of going to Trentham once — after the first race, there seemed to be a long hot day of waiting in the ‘family picnic area’ — a parched field of cars, mothers with headaches, and restless children. But I digress, as Gerald Murnane would say in his excellent memoir Something for the Pain. His love of horseracing started as a child, with the pictures of the horses in the newspaper and the racecallers’ voices through the radio. The names of the horses, the colours of the stable, the overheard stories of the adults around him: all a source of fascination. Strangely, he was not put off by his father’s wins and losses at the track; the debts often life-changing for the family. Murnane writes with such verve that I couldn’t help but be pulled in. In each chapter he tells a tale, one that reveals as much about the history of the racetrack in Australia from the 1940s through to the 70s and the people in his orbit, as it does with his idiosyncratic obsession (more on that later), and his life as a writer. (If you haven’t read any Murnane: think Beckett or Proust living in smalltown Australia.) His is the kind of writing where you stop mid-paragraph to wonder at the ease with which the language develops on the page. The sentences are near-perfect, the elliptical nature of the prose delightful rather than frustrating. And back to his idiosyncrasy. He has a real and imagined world of horses, names and colours. The colours of the stable being a central component of his love of the racetrack. When he describes two favourites in a race being (brown and white) (brown and cream) — always bracketed after the horse’s or jockey’s name — I imagine the field of horses racing around the track and the punters with their binoculars attempting to tell them apart. His imaginary world (not in this book; you’ll have to seek out a documentary about Murnane to find out more about this) consists of coloured marbles, names, and many files. It’s his schema. Which he does talk about in the memoir. A lifelong ambition to find the perfect betting style. Murnane’s gambling is one of patterns and restraint, of rules and analysis. It’s keeping your eyes open and ears to the ground, a studied form-book and people-watching. In Something for the Pain there is the comedic and the tragic; you could read it for the horseracing; for the insights into people’s behaviour, both good and bad; for the enjoyment of Murnane’s language; or to understand this excellent writer’s approach to literature.
Listen to Thomas read the ‘Prologue’ to Mark Bowles’s new novel How Do People Stay the Same (published by Galley Beggar Press).
“A journey backwards into and out of the darkness with a companion who is erudite, biting, witty, annoying, garrulous, overbearing, charming, angry, awkward and tender.” —C.D. Rose
Catch these five books!
Let this week’s flyers land on the top of your reading pile.
ALL HER LIVES by Ingrid Horrocks $35
”Across nine elegant, probing stories that range from the late eighteenth century to the unsettled present, from rural Wairarapa to icy Norwegian ports and rave culture Berlin, All Her Lives explores the shifting expectations and constraints of womanhood. … Emotionally intelligent and historically alert, this book is an outrageously good addition to the top shelf of New Zealand fiction.” —Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges’ citation on awarding All Her Lives the 2026 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
WHISTLER by Ann Paychett $39
When Daphne notices an older gentleman following her around the Met museum in New York, she doesn't expect it to be Eddie — her former stepfather. While their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both. Reflecting on the short time they spent with each other, they begin to piece together the moments that have shaped who they have become.
THE FINEST HOTEL IN KABUL: A People’s History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet $40
The Winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction ”plays to all Lyse Doucet's strengths: clarity, empathy, depth of knowledge and innate grasp of fine detail. Her subject is not just a hotel, but a hotel that tells the story of four decades of Afghanistan's proud and sometimes unbelievably painful history. This is a most readable account of joy, despair and resilience in one of the world's most fascinating countries.” —Michael Palin
TALKING CLASSICS: The Shock of the Old by Mary Beard $40
What's exciting about a piece of bread 4,000 years old? Or some pots of paint abandoned in the eruption Pompeii? Why should we be bothered with the distant past anyway? What's the point? The life, art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome have something to offer everyone. They are not the property of wealthy white men only.
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.
Nell Stevens’s enjoyable novel queers our usual understandings of authenticity and fakery, with all the dramatic vicissitudes and complexities of plot of the type of Victorian novel that it both imitates and remakes. Grace shows a prodigious talent at copying and forging paintings, presented here as a virtue because “the value of the copy is in the copyist’s powers of empathy”. But are our social interactions enabled by just the same species of empathy? Isn’t it by copying others that we gain fulfillment and love, and become ourselves? As the machinations tighten, Grace wonders if it is the ability to ‘pass’ that will give her the opportunity to be authentic.
“Art is always an overreaction,” writes Yoko Tawada in her lithe and compact novel Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel ); this statement being in itself an overstatement, as all statements are overstatements. Did we not learn at school, he pondered, that every overreaction provokes an equal and opposite overreaction, that the impact of each overstatement causes another overstatement to leap out at the end of the line, and so forth back and forth until the Newton’s cradle of the mind is finally still if it ever can be still. Does any movement towards certainty destroy the very certainty towards which it moves? Is that for which we reach inevitably destroyed by the reaching? This is no way to start a review, he thought; in his search for clarity he has produced a wash of vague sensations barely distinguishable from life itself, so to call it, a fractality of precisions more complicated than disorder; what is literature for, after all, if not to make life more wieldable, or our thinking about it more wieldable at least? No such luck. If the words for things can be used as substitutes for things, they are subject to linguistic forces and relations to which the things themselves are not subject. There’s an illness in all of this, a linguistic illness, or an illness of consciousness, that blurs, ultimately, or penultimately, or by something preceding the penultimate by one or several or many steps, the distinctions between words and their objects and between words and other words, a blurring that allows for or entails the febrile reconfiguration of language into new forms, he was going to write new and less useful forms, but the utility of language is no measure of its other functions (its other pathologies, he almost wrote). The narrator of Tawada’s novel refers to himself as ‘the patient’ and refers to himself in the third person (“third person is a form of salvation” (as we know)) and gives an account of the stayings-in and goings-out that are constrained by the vagaries of his illness and the vagaries of the illness of the world at large, if these are not one and the same: “The patient leaves the house as seldom as possible, and every time he is forced to go out, he first checks to see if the coast is clear. The coast is seldom clear, hardly ever.” If he ever does go out. He meets and befriends one Leo-Eric Fu, who shares with Patrik (Patrik is the name attached by others to the one who calls himself the patient; the patient's name as he approaches the collective world (plausibly a kind of healing (“A person who can continue to distance himself from home, one step farther each day, is no longer a patient.”))) a love and knowledge of the work of Paul Celan, a poet who made from German, a language broken by the trauma of hosting the Holocaust, a new language of beauty and possibility made entirely of the marked, traumatised and broken pieces of that language, and with whose work this novel is a form of conversation (please note that it is not necessary to the appreciation of the novel to be familiar with the other pole of that conversation, though the novel may lead a reader towards that pole). For the patient it is, we assume from the deliberately inconclusive evidence, the trauma of the Covid 19 pandemic that has broken language, either because of the collective circumstances in which he finds himself or also because he himself is actually in addition to metaphorically ill. I am not unfamiliar, he thought, as he attempted to continue with what was intended as a review but was suffering from an illness which made it both not really a review and very hard to sustain, with the linguistic deliria induced by fever, with the disintegrative and recombinatory compulsions that reveal something about language and are in fact structurally inherent in language but usually suppressed for reasons of utility or ‘health’. Any illness will remake language, given the chance to spread. In the delirium of the novel, the patient’s illness (“an autoimmune disorder of the mind”) attacks the distinctions between the binaries it posits: isolation/connection, illness/health, internal/external, uncertainty/comprehension, experience/identity; and attacks all borders generally: those between persons individually and those set between groups and nations. There are no contradictions. “People say I'm sick because I can simultaneously leave the house and stay home.” The forms of thought that gave rise to the illness, whatever it is, are broken and remade: “I prefer a not-yet-knowing or a no-longer-knowing to actual knowledge. These are the fields in which I'll find my role.” It is possible, even probable, he thought, that the entire book takes place within the patient’s head, if such a place exists (“What if Leo-Eric isn't really sitting here and this is all just taking place in my imagination?”), although, towards the end, the Patrik-impulse begins to gain a little ground from the patient-impulse, and the possibility that the idea of Patrik and also the ideas of Patrik could exist in the minds of others begins at last to emerge. Language, ravaged by trauma and isolation, begins to adopt new forms. Is this healing? Illness, we begin to see, is entangled in time: “The present is a constant deferment.”
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.
How Do People Stay The Same by Mark Bowles $45
Told as a series of journal entries that move backwards in time, How Do People Stay The Same follows the life of Patrick Boyd — from the present-day contentment of family life and back to a darker, lonelier childhood. How Do People Stay The Same lays all of Patrick's experience before us, with the challenges of work, housing and all the other pinpricks of existence jostling with his complex inner world. It reveals a fragile man ground down by the world around him — but who might just be able to change and might just have the hope of a brighter future. Featuring the exquisite prose and lacerating wit that readers loved so much in All My Precious Madness, How Do People Stay The Same is also a deeply tender project — an exploration of family, childhood, love, and the personal bonds that tie us together. [Paperback]
“Wondrous. A celebration of life — a remarkable balance of woe and cynicism and wonder and joy.” —Sara Baume
“Brilliant, stunning, unlike anything else around.” —Lars Iyer
“A journey backwards into and out of the darkness with a companion who is erudite, biting, witty, annoying, garrulous, overbearing, charming, angry, awkward and tender.” —C.D. Rose
“A savage and tender work of contemporary disquiet from one of the most distinctive voices in British fiction.” —Stu Hennigan
>>Read an extract!
>>They do and they don’t.
>>All My Precious Madness.
Is Beauty Good by Rosalind Belben $48
“We feel pain, says Fritz, because we need to feel pain, it saves us from being burnt, or hurt, or from walking blindly into danger, breaking a bone; but what does a sense of beauty save us from; what purpose is there in our being coruscated by passing uglinesses; there is little that is moral about beauty; or does it reinforce somehow our notion of moral good: is beauty good?” Is Beauty Good is a novel populated with voices, each musing, in its own way, on the titular question. In thirty short, self-contained chapters set in places as varied as Berlin trams, English gardens, and the tops of mountains, people talk to silent listeners, engage in soliloquy, or else write down their meditations for a stone-deaf man. Elegiac and ironic, the novel speaks most hauntingly of the loss of the natural world, which is of course related to the loss of all those senses and faculties of appreciation that make us feel alive. The sheer sensuous force of Rosalind Belben’s prose is on full display in this work of uncommon inventiveness and philosophical potency, which recalls the fictions of Virginia Woolf and Thomas Bernhard. Back in print at last, with an introduction by Esther Kinsky. [Paperback with French flaps]
'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
'Belben's eye for the movement and texture of the natural world is extraordinarily acute and she has a poet's ear for language. A confession of fulfilment, of endless curiosity for, and love of life.' —Selina Hastings, Daily Telegraph
'Belben has written pages about sexual desire, frustration and loss which are clearer and more compelling than any I can think of in literature. An achievement to celebrate.' —Maggie Gee, The Observer
'From the publisher that brought Ann Quin back into print comes another lost classic from an English visionary. Rosalind Belben's work is both terrific and disconcerting, an essential read for lovers of extraordinary fiction.' —Camilla Grudova
'Extremely beautiful, utterly convincing, and rivals anything by Virginia Woolf.' —Melissa Harrison, The Guardian
'Belben takes a brief but unforgettable foray into the mind of an isolated middle-aged woman who describes herself as "an unfortunate ghost." Readers will be glad to discover this striking narrative.' —Publishers Weekly
'A seductively strange novel. In Belben's writing, time periods dissolve: the phenomenon of the medieval pageant is invoked; Robin Hood becomes a character; dreams are recorded; and desires rise up, then settle down.' —Rhian Sasseen, Electric Literature
'A complex, emotionally intense narrative with experimental shifts in style and tone, and vivid lyrical passages. Belben writes about nature with a poetic intensity that is quite wonderful, revealing a deep connection to the natural world, that her protagonist clearly shares.' —Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts
>>The author reads from the first chapter.
>>Falling awake.
>>Writing ugly.
>>The foreplay of wordplay.
Cataract by John Berger, illustrated by Selçuk Demirel $30
What happens when an art critic loses some of his sight to cataracts? What wonders are glimpsed once vision is restored? In this impressionistic essay written in the spirit of Montaigne, John Berger, whose treatises on seeing have shaped cultural and media studies for decades, records the effects of cataract removal operations on each of his eyes. The result is an illuminated take on perception. Berger ponders how we can become accustomed to a loss of sense until a dulled world becomes the norm, and describes the sudden richness of reawakened sight with acute attention to sensory detail. This little book invites us to pay close attention to our own senses and wonder at their significance as we follow Berger's journey into a more vivid, differentiated way of seeing. Demirel's witty illustrations complement the text, creating a mini-world where eyes take on whimsical lives of their own. [Hardback]
>>Look inside.
A Quiet Place by Seichō Matsumoto (translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai) $48
While on an important business trip, Tsuneo Asai receives word that his wife, Eiko, has died of a heart attack. She has suffered from heart problems in the past, so her death isn't a complete shock, but she was tragically young to suffer such an end. Asai is rattled and sad but devotes himself fervently to his work as a government official to distract himself from the grief. It's not like his marriage was particularly passionate. But something about the circumstances of Eiko's demise is bothering him. Her heart attack struck while she was walking, alone, along a residential Tokyo street where she had no particular connections or reasons to be. During a curious visit to the small shop on that street, where Eiko took her last breath, Asai notices a hotel at the top of the hill, one obviously meant as a clandestine meeting place for lovers. He begins to wonder if his soft-spoken, haiku-obsessed wife might have been leading a double life. As Asai's discoveries cause his mental state to rapidly unravel, and normalcy becomes more and more untenable for him, the fraught relationship between career and domesticity in Japan is laid bare. [Paperback]
Dominion by Addie E. Citchens $33
In the town of Dominion, Mississippi, Reverend Sabre Winfrey, Jr. is more than a preacher. From his pulpit at the Seven Seals Baptist Church to the airwaves of his local radio station, he exerts influence over every aspect of society. By his side is his wife Priscilla, who types up his sermons and raises their five sons, favouring the youngest, Wonderboy. Handsome and adored, Wonderboy is destined to carry on his father’s legacy. But, after a violent altercation with a stranger, Wonderboy’s actions send shockwaves through the community. Told through the perspectives of the women who love these two men, this Morrisonian, God-troubled novel illuminates the pervasive sins of the patriarchy, and the bargains women strike to survive them. [Paperback]
Shortlisted for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
"Mississippi is a mystifying language. In Dominion, Addie E. Citchens speaks it with a dazzling tongue. The book is at once ancestral and newborn, drunk with sugary grits beauty and sobering with a Black woman's truth. Citchens shows us that, in a world roamed by two-legged beasts whose robes are stitched with the blood and ruin of willful women, getting happy and getting free are vast contradictions." —Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor
My Prizes: An accounting by Thomas Bernhard (translated from German by Carol Brown Janeway) $30
A brilliantly mordant memoir of the background and circumstances of nine literary prizes awarded to the Austrian novelist and enfant terrible between 1963 and 1980, followed by some of the speeches he delivered on those occasions. The result is a self-portrait of the artist as prizewinner and prize farceur: sardonic, biting the hand, relishing both the world and himself with bitter amusement. Preface by Frances Wilson. [Hardback]
"Thank goodness for Thomas Bernhard, the most truthful, the funniest, and the most musical of writers since Marcel Proust." —Gabriel Josipovici
>>The Grillparzer Prize.
>>Frances Wilson introduces the book.
>>Always a catastrophe.
>>Infected with admiration.
>>Kinetic loathing.
>>Other books by Thomas Bernhard.
Music as Medicine: How we can harness its therapeutic power by Daniel Levitin $30
We are only just beginning to appreciate the healing power of music on our minds and bodies. Here, a neuroscientist and celebrated musician introduces a bold new paradigm for medical treatment. From explaining how 'rhythmic auditory stimulation' can fight multiple sclerosis, to examining why Tracy Chapman's songs might just help cure PTSD, Professor Daniel Levitin explores how we can use music to repair our bodies and heal our deepest psychological wounds. The result is both a surprising tour through the science of music, and a joyful celebration of humanity's oldest obsession. [Paperback]
”For many years I have wondered why a bunch of frequencies organised into a piece of music has the ability, even without words, to make the listener cry and become emotional. Although I know this happens to me and many people, I have often wondered how this can be. Dr Levitin, in this latest book, Music as Medicine, has some fascinating insights into this great phenomenon.” —Paul McCartney
”In this fascinating book, the neuroscientist makes a strong case for the therapeutic force of music. The book merges research, theory and intriguing anecdotes about Levitin's interactions with musicians as well as patients to provide evidence of his contention that music not only functions as a temporary uplift or soothing balm in times of trouble, but possesses a much deeper restorative quality.” Observer
”A fun and thoughtful read. A crash course in the aspects of neuroscience that relate to aspects of our daily lives: joy, pain, learning, memory. Levitin draws on a career's worth of experiments and scientific discovery to demonstrate the many ways music can and is being used to treat a number of ailments, whether Tourette syndrome or Alzheimer's.” —Financial Times
Liberal Fascisms by Slavoj Žižek $22
With a an apparently contradictory and characteristically makeshift term, 'Liberal Fascisms', Slavoj Zizek captures the paradoxical nature of political populism. To see this phenomenon as purely liberal and dictatorially fascistic is to expose liberalism and fascism as two sides of the same coin. The concept offers a glimpse into the murky landscape of half-lies and double-truths that Zizek enters in this latest collection of urgent essays. From the economy and politics to ideology, these short texts work through the different faces of liberal fascism, structured around a trio of the universal, the particular, and the single: our global predicament; Europe and the Middle East; Trump's America. Peeling back the inadequate labels we hasten to pin on the phenomena that terrify us — like 'post-truth' — to peer at the seeping wounds beneath them, these writings reveal the uneasy mixture of lies and truths that have always been stacked, matryoshka like, inside of one another. With no cure in hand, but a refusal to dispense with thought that is muddled and murky, the essays are timely and resolute. From the so-called "death of truth" opens up the possibility for a new authentic truth... or for an even worse big Lie. And we must ask: What forms of justice are made possible by this disorder? [Paperback]
I Am a Cat: The manga edition by Sōseke Natsume, retold and illustrated by Chiroru Kobato (translated from Japanese by Zack Davisson) $30
Sōseki Natsume's comic masterpiece, I Am a Cat, satirises the foolishness of upper-middle-class Japanese society in early 20th century Tokyo. Written with biting wit and sardonic perspective, it follows the whimsical adventures of a rather cynical stray kitten. He finds his way into the home of an English teacher, where his running commentary on the follies and foibles of the people around him has been making readers laugh for more than a century. Illustrated by Japanese artist Chiroru Kobato, this edition provides a visual, entertaining look at a pivotal period in Japan's history — filled with cultural and societal changes, rapid modernisation and a feeling of limitless possibility — through the eyes of an unlikely narrator. [Paperback]
>>Look inside!
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
Whether you want to criticise, kill, or use A.I., you have to get through the hype and uncover the real story. Start with labour: in automation theory, a centaur is a person who chooses to use technology to help them do the things that matter to them. A reverse centaur is a person who has been conscripted to serve as a helper for a machine, at an inhuman, machine pace — a driver made to deliver all day long, nonstop; a warehouse worker made to work without food or bathroom breaks; a programmer made to crank out impossible amounts of code. As Doctorow says: it s not enough to ask what the technology does; we have to understand who it s doing it for and who it s doing it to. The intended audience for A.I. hype isn't the people who are forced to use A.I. The A.I. show is a performance staged for bosses and investors. Investment bankers claim A.I. will to be worth more than $16 trillion — a number that only makes sense if A.I. replaces vast swathes of the wage-earning human workforce. To justify that level of ‘value’, every story about A.I. must be presented as inevitable, world-changing disruption. Even the tales of the robot apocalypse are a calculated attempt to bolster the fearsome power of A.I. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. When the A.I. bubble bursts, what will we salvage? Is there something in the wreckage that everyday people will find useful? In The Reverse Centaur s Guide to Life After A.I. — as he did in Enshittification — Doctorow recounts both how we found ourselves in this dire situation and how we can get through it, to a life ‘after’ A.I. in which the tools work for us, not the other way around. [Paperback]
>>You can’t make billions without hurting people.
Roadscapes: An automotive retrospective of Aotearoa New Zealand by Derek Smith (photographer) $40
For four decades, photographer Derek Smith has explored the way New Zealanders travel, work, and express themselves through the vehicles they drive. Roadscapes is his compelling photographic journey through the heartland of New Zealand, capturing our unique car cultures and the social landscapes they inhabit across Aotearoa. Smith’s long career as an electricity meter reader has taken him to many unusual locations and attuned his eye for the perfect details. This is a book that will be appreciated for the quality of its photographs and observation of period detail even by people with no interest in cars. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
A selection of books from our shelves that spring from the lockdown period. Click through to find out more:
Immortal Thoughts: Late style in a time of plague
Read our 492nd newsletter
31 July 2026
I thought for a while that horse racing was a sort of sport, and I wondered if there were other sports in which the people participating in them were relatively unknown, horse racing being done in the name of the horses, after all, not in the name of the jockeys, whereas cycle racing is done in the names of the cyclists not in the name of their bicycles, and then I realised that horseracing is not a sport at all, but a kind of competition more akin to marbles, a competition of ownership, in which the jockeys are just what make the horses go, the jockeys are the augmentation of the prowess of the horses with the will of their owners, nothing more, implants, marginal figures along with the other unknown persons whose collective efforts both enable and are obscured by the horses that they serve. But this marginalisation, together with the peripatetic nature of these professions, makes the contained human society of the racecourse backstretch such a fascinating and, for want of a better word, such a human one. In small worlds what would otherwise be small is writ large, and what would otherwise be unnoticed is made clear. Kathryn Scanlan’s wholly remarkable novel Kick the Latch is ostensibly the edited-down text of the Sonia half of a series of interviews between Scanlan and a longtime horse trainer (and subsequently prison guard and later bric-a-brac dealer) named Sonia, conducted between 2018 and 2021. Certainly there is a pellucid quality to these first-person accounts, the voice and language of Sonia are strongly delineated and very appealing to read, and the insights gleaned from them into the life of their narrator, from her hard-scrabble girlhood to her hard-scrabble but colourful life around the racetrack and beyond, are entirely compelling. In these twelve sets of titled anecdotes, Scanlan has succeeded in making herself entirely invisible (the text’s invisible but vital jockey), which shows invisibility to be a cardinal virtue for an author or an editor — and it is uncertain which of these labels applies itself most suitably to Scanlan’s achievement in making this book. Perhaps all good writing is primarily editing, primarily on the part of the writer themselves (and secondarily by any subsequent editor). Anyone can generate any amount of text; it is only the ruthless and careful editing of this text (before and after it is actually written down), the trimming and tightening of text, the removal of all but the essential details and the tuning of the grammatical mechanisms of the text, that produces something worth reading. The virtues of literature are primarily negative. I first came across Scanlan with her first book, the poignant and beautiful Aug 9—Fog, which was made by ‘editing down’ a stranger’s diary found at an estate sale into a small book of universal resonance. Kick the Latch could be said to be an extension of the same project: an applied rigour and unsparing humility by Scanlan that makes something that would otherwise be ordinary and unnoticed — found experiences from unimportant lives, as are all of our lives unimportant — into something so sharp and clear that it touches the reader deeply. What more could we want from literature than this?
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.
That Was Not My Intention by Frances Pavletich $30
"They had not spoken in close to a decade. And now here they were, resuscitating each other back into a story she thought they'd left behind." The story of Lola and Ben as they circle around one another trying hard to grow up. 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. [Paperback]
"When I read Frances' first draft, back in 2024, I absolutely knew her perfectly cool and caustic tone was a book for the times. It is a novel that cuts through vanities, desires and delusions. It is not a novel of redemption but is simply and ridiculously true, populated by a cast of furious brats." —Murdoch Stephens.
"It's a novel that will divide reviewers into the simps and the aghast... there is no in-between with That Was Not My Intention." —Brannavan Gnanalingam
>>Other books from Lawrence & Gibson.
Captain Cook and the Unsettled Afterlives of Empire by Tony Ballantyne $60
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. In this major new history, 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. Across time, Ballantyne examines how ‘competing Cooks’ are invoked in commemorations, political argument and cultural production — from British memorials to contemporary Māori protests, and from academic history to Tuia 250. 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. Beautifully designed nd presented. [Hardback]
‘This is a fine book by a leading New Zealand historian at the height of his powers.’ —James Belich
>>Watch the trailer.
Counterfutures: Left thought and practice Aotearoa, 18 & 19 edited by Jack Foster and Neil Vallelly $30
Counterfutures is a multididciplinary journal of Left research, thought, and strategy. It brings together work from across Aotearoa, aiming to intervene in, and inaugurate, debates about how to understand and influence our society, politics, culture, and environment. In this issue: ‘Things can still be less worse’: A Collaborative Reading of Anna Kornbluh’s Immediacy, or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism with liz breslin, April-Rose Geers, Arundhati Sethy, Lynley Edmeades, Sabrina Moro, and Rosemary Overall; ‘Barricading the Doors: Locking Out Disavowal’ by Matt Russell and Warwick Tie; ‘Modelling Mauri: Indigenous Ideas and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Covid-19 Response’ by Sophie Moullin; ‘Tiriti-based Anticapitalism? Contradictions Within the Settler Left’ by Dan Pickering; ‘Our Technocratic Times’ by Jack Foster; ‘Why We Should Write about Work’ by Alex Smith; ‘In Solidarity with Those in Labour’ by Irina Herb. [Paperback]
>>Read previous issues in digital format.
Counternarratives by John Keene $28
Ranging from the seventeenth century to our current moment, and crossing multiple continents, Counternarratives' stories and novellas draw upon memoirs, newspaper accounts, detective stories, interrogation transcripts, and speculative fiction to create new and strange perspectives on our past and present. 'An Outtake' chronicles an escaped slave's take on liberty and the American Revolution; 'The Strange History of Our Lady of the Sorrows' presents a bizarre series of events that unfold in a nineteenth-century Kentucky convent; 'The Aeronauts' soars between bustling Philadelphia, still-rustic Washington, and the theatre of the US Civil War; 'Rivers' presents a free Jim meeting up decades later with his former raftmate Huckleberry Finn; and in 'Acrobatique', the subject of a famous Edgar Degas painting talks back. [New paperback edition]
‘We have become accustomed in recent years to the revisionary spirit of much postcolonial fiction, but the ambition, erudition and epic sweep of John Keene’s remarkable new collection of stories, travelling from the beginnings of modernity to modernism, place it in a class of its own.’ —Kate Webb, TLS
‘Counternarratives is that rare book of short fiction with an epic intuition of time, accomplishing in a handful of inspired, intimate portraits what many sagas only manage in reams.’ —Julian Lucas, New York Times
‘Keene’s collection of short and longer historical fictions are formally varied, mould-breaking, and deeply political. He’s a radical artist working in the most conservative genres, and any search for innovation in US fiction should start here.’ —Christian Lorentzen, Vulture
‘Exquisite, and unlike anything I’ve ever read.’ —Eula Biss
>>The universal family plot.
Perennial Counterpart by Yongyu Chen $35
A poetic study in magical modes of connection over distance — how both friendship and reading are similar ways of being together while being alone. Written over several years of solitude, study, and transformation, the poems in Perennial Counterpart trace an evolving, self-questioning practice of thinking-in-poetry where long, reflective lines — evoking both prose and photography — brush against elliptical, fractured modes of film and literary criticism. Anchored by the author's obsessive reading life, this is a book where lyric inquiry becomes its own form of company. Here, the poem is written to remake its writer through glittering connections to a personal lineage of thought. [Paperback]
'Are these poems, or exploding postcards dispatched from the land of dreams? Yongyu Chen's exquisite Perennial Counterpart balances conceptual density with a yearning lyricism: always strange, "unintelligible to the end," but intelligible to those who speak the language of rain and flowers.' —Jackie Wang
'To be with Perennial Counterpart is to "river around" the intimate folds of its letters, lovers, loved ones, literary souls. Like the strange "fur that grows on a crystal," Yongyu Chen's probing language turns mixture into a beguiling poetics of friendship, a reverie for a more elemental and rejuvenated address to our unsettled world.' —Jay Gao
>>Reading, like friendship, is a way of life.
>>Life within language.
>>’Mouse Song.’
There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm $38
Mind-bending science fiction about antimemes — ideas that attack memory, identity, and the fabric of reality itself. An antimeme is an entity with self-censoring properties. Some are benign; but others, less so... These entities can feed on your most cherished memories, the things that make you you — and you'll never even know anything changed. And they aren't just feeding on us. They're invading. But how do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day. [Paperback]
"Astonishing. Pitch-perfect cosmic horror — and the pitch will break all the glass in your brain." —M.R. Carey
"The coolest, smartest, mind-blowingest novel to be published this year, and probably for many years to come. It is utterly unique, constantly surprising, genuinely unsettling, and a towering work of speculative fiction that may very well take its place among the best sci-fi novels of the century so far." —Blake Crouch
>>We need to talk about fifty-five.
The Common Good Economy: A new compass by Mariana Mazzucato $40
Our economic system is broken. The climate crisis is accelerating. Inequality is deepening. Public trust is crumbling. Wealth concentrates in fewer hands while governments scramble to fix what markets can't do, rather than to shape them from the outset. For too long, economics has treated 'the good' — whether public goods or the commons — as merely correcting market or government failures. This economic framing traps us in an endless cycle of being reactive, patching problems rather than proactively building the economy we need. In The Common Good Economy, Mariana Mazzucato builds on her ideas of the entrepreneurial state and mission-oriented policies to establish a new theory of the common good, one which allows governments and businesses to develop purposeful economic relationships, creating value and building spaces where human flourishing can happen. She argues that how we achieve collective goals — through collective action, participation and reciprocity — matters as much as what those goals are. The book provides a practical 'common good compass' to help navigate our economies in a radically different direction. Full of compelling real-world examples, from governing water as a global common to transforming procurement and finance, this is a rigorous reimagining of economics and a manifesto for a future economy that serves people and the planet. [Paperback]
>>Making people dream.
>>The biggest lie about Capitalism.
Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly
When a creative writing academic becomes infatuated with his colleague — the poet — his fascination soon begins to threaten his relationship with his partner, Michael. Michael is beautiful. Michael is safe. But the poet is everything he isn't; she has everything he wants. While he writes about steel and sex, she dreams about the movements of swallows. While he tends to his budding career, she writes from her big, white house in the woods. Meanwhile, his homophobic and spiteful mother — who cast a shadow over his childhood — is continuing to make his life difficult. As he is pulled back and forth between these two different worlds, his fixation on the poet, his ‘Kingfisher’, grows into something more powerful. She becomes his sole focus. He is hypnotised. But when simultaneous illnesses threaten to destroy the precarious reality he clings to, he's forced to question what he can and cannot take from someone. [Paperback]
Short-listed for the 2026 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
>>Beauty in the messiness of being human.
>>Every box.
Knives and Spoons: A chef’s story of kitchens, addictions, and mayhem by Alasdair Gill $39
From working in some of London’s most prestigious restaurants to scrubbing fat from kitchen floors, Alasdair Gill’s life as a chef has been a series of exhilarating highs and harrowing lows. But so too has his private life. Taking readers behind the swinging kitchen doors of London’s dining scene, he shows us the major contradictions in his life, from crossing paths with Anthony Bourdain and preparing dishes for the ultra wealthy to hiding in drug-fuelled kitchen dens and a wake-up call that nearly ended his life. Knives and Spoons is a raw and honest look at the chaotic and often toxic world of professional kitchens, filled with fierce and unforgiving moments, but also a testament to the power of finding one’s craft and the long road to recovery. Alasdair Gill has inherited the writing gene from his father, A.A Gill. [Paperback]
”Incredibly moving, heartbreaking, savage, vivid, shocking, immediate and of course very funny.” —Camilla Long
>>Addicted to not being sober.
Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens $38
For weeks, she has been saying it will be their special day. One last, perfect day with her children before she returns to work after maternity leave. What's the worst that can happen? Unfolding across 24 hours, Natural Disaster is a propulsive, darkly funny and sharply observed novel about the absurd, frustrating, hilarious, precarious, bittersweet, sometimes astonishing challenge — literal, existential — of being a woman, a mother, a wife, a person for one single, entire day. [Paperback]
”I absolutely loved it. A forensic, agonisingly relatable account of the highs and lows and in-betweens of one whole ordinary day in a life with two small children. Funny, dark, absurd, pin-sharp, insightful, propulsive, unputdownable.” —Nina Stibbe
”Lisa Owens lays bare the pains, perils and joys of motherhood, all captured over the course of a single day. Hilarious, brilliant, utterly exhilarating.” —Monica Ali
>>Home is where the art is.
Red Snake, Blue Snake by Olivier Tallec $33
Red Snake and Blue Snake have been friends since they were small but that doesn't mean they see things the same way. When Red Snake says the sky is grey, Blue Snake insists it's blue. The cactus looks just like a ghost—or a mitten. With so much to debate, can the snakes stay friends? The two stubborn reptiles start their morning with a little yoga, watch the clouds, bicker about this and that, narrowly escape being captured by a snake charmer, and end the day very nearly agreeing on something. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
>>Look through the book.
I never intended to be so topical. The news of racetrack closures across Aotearoa has been popping up across the channels this week. Reading about horses and the lives of those that work the track wouldn’t have regstered on my radar a few years ago, but after reading the compelling Kick the Latch by American author Kathryn Scanlan and watching Australian author Gerald Murnane talk about his obsession with horse racing, both real and imagined, and how it shaped his writing, had me reaching for the ARC (Advance Reading Copy) that had landed on my desk. Marty Smith’s work of memoir and portraiture It Gets In Your Blood: Lives of a Racecourse is centred on her local, Hawke’s Bay Racecourse, and follows the lives of the trainers, jockeys and trackworkers across a decade. Like Scanlan’s novel, she gets inside, behind the scenes. While Scanlan did this by developing a relationship with Sonia, a retired trainer, Marty is more like one of the crew. She’s trusted: she’s been a rider, owner/breeder; her family working with horses for generations. What started as a year-or-so project for this full-time teacher and poet morphed into a decade immersed in this world of thoroughbred racing, and the people who inhabit it. It’s a portrait of a community, one with its own rules, attitudes and language. A world where the horses are descibed as good and naughty, of 5am starts, of watching form and testing track conditions, of daring and risks — accidents happen. It has its stars, and its hacks, wins and losses.
In 2014 Marty Smith won The NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book of Poetry Prize for Horse with Hat, poems about her family, about horses and their human counterparts. Nina Mingya Powles described the collection as ‘gutsy’, the poems giving ‘ the impression of standing on the side of the road when a car swooshes past and you feel it shake the air in front of your face, tipping you a step backwards’. And Emma Neale wrote, 'This is alternately comic, wry, downbeat, vernacular, lyrical: yet is is also at times dark, plangent and moving in its use of narratives distilled from extended family relationships.' Smith brings these same sensibilities to her latest work. She gets alongside, witnesses and records faithfully, bringing to light the often unseen world of the trainer and the trackworkers. It Gets in your Blood has grit, drama alongside the daily grind, humour and pathos. There’s the vernacular of the workers, wry and sometimes oblique, often colourful; and the language of the track. For horse lovers some of this won’t be a foreign world, although it is a more particular subset of the riding world. For those who head to race days the terms of the Plough, Tie-Ups, Birdcage, Bullring, and so on, will be familiar. For the rest of us, we are outsiders, but through Marty Smith’s book we can come inside for a moment, she gives us a window to this world, blinkers off. In this it reminds me of Sven Lindqvist’s Bench Press (a dive into the world of bodybuilding). Like Scanlan’s book of episodic moments, Smith employs a shortpiece motif in the form of diary entries, ideal for this many-yeared project and for an industry that has a season, which kicks off in Spring. (Note: the Hawke’s Bay Racecourse is reopening very soon after unsafe track conditions closed it in September 2024 and, if you are in Hawke’s Bay, the book will be launched at the racecourse on Saturday 8 August). Like Kick the Latch, these pieces sometimes have witty titles, focus on a particular activity or happening, or a revealing conversation. There’s a handy map of the racecourse, as well as a table to explain the track form for the uninitiated, and a much needed list to the large cast, all those she spoke with and wrote about, and their roles on the horses and off. Occassionally, there’s also Marty herself, describing her own relationship with horses, her father and the love and respect she has for the industry. In her acknowldgements she reveals the working title for her project: Because I Love Them, claiming this was the answer, in one form ot another, to her question: Why do you do it? I think this is also the reason for Marty Smith’s immersion, and the result is Aotearoa’s own piece of racing literature, exploring a microcosm all its own.
“The writing in Giada Scodellaro’s debut novel Ruins, Child is difficult to define and grasp onto. Like the comma in its title, the novel is constantly spliced, refracted: a group of people are crowding around to watch the same film they always watch, a film of themselves and their elders; now the beauty of crumbling buildings is being assessed by a floating, undefined voice; now we’re hearing about Stevie Wonder’s The Secret Life of Plants. With a book as free-flowing and unpredictable as a river, the experience of reading Ruins, Child is that of sitting on the banks and watching the water flow. Ruins, Child won Scodellaro the 2024 Novel Prize, though it hardly fits the category of ‘novel’; Scodellaro evades all the trappings of novel-writing by writing something that borrows as much from music and improvisation as it does from experimental film or even literary greats like The Waves by Virginia Woolf. In Ruins, Child, no word is frivolous; everything is exact and exactly as Scodellaro wants it to be, even if on first read it’s baffling or oblique. That’s not to say that the reading experience is difficult; rather, it’s refreshing to read something that refuses to unfurl itself upon first touch.” —Jemima Skala