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9 May 2025
A sweet pastry with morning coffee, a biscotti for a mid-morning snack, or a satisfying panna cotta? All can be found in Letitia Clark’s Italian-inspired dessert cookbook, La Vita è Dolce. Dipping into this warm and delightful book, I was pleasantly surprised to see a wide range of baking, some simple recipes, others more complex, and some that look complicated but aren’t. That is, they look great! Almond biscuits that look like tiny perfect peaches! But Clark reassures us in her introductory paragraphs that she’s not a perfect cook, and that “cooking should never be a drama… Baking is not a divine gift or even a precise science…”, There are sections on biscotti, crostate (tart), torte, dolci al cucchiaio (sweets by spoon), gelato and gifts. Making a cake is often in celebration of a milestone event — a birthday (layer cake please!), wedding, a memorial or an achievement. Making a cake is a gift: generally you make a cake for someone in celebration or to carve out a little time. All the cakes in La Vita è Dolce look and sound delicious. Letitia Clark is a champion of the upside-down cake (as she says in her notes, her dessert recipes are Italian-inspired; she’s a French-trained Englishwoman living in Sardinia). I couldn’t go past the Candied Clementine, Fennel Seed & Polenta Cake. Those citrus and aniseed flavours, served with a good dollop of youghurt — it’s relaxed and aromatic. Need a recipe to impress and prep ahead of an occasion? The Ricotta, Pear & Hazelnut Layer Cake will be your jam! And a spiced pumpkin cake sounds just right for an autumn afternoon.
A sweet mouthful is a small luxury, an indulgence to lift your day or finish a meal. There’s something divine about a silky creamy panna cotta. Choose from Toasted Fig Leaf (yes, the leaves!), Roasted Almond or Cappuccino. Or head to the simpler Green Lemon Posset. The ‘Gifts’ section includes a delicious chocolate salami, playful and colourful marzipan fruits, and of course, classic panforte and truffles!
There’s plenty to keep you baking through wet afternoons and cool evenings here.
And this, along with Wild Figs and Fennel — a seasonal year in Clark’s Italian kitchen — are in our annual cookbook sale.
The inability to tell on a coldish day whether the washing you are getting in is actually still a bit damp or merely cold is a universal experience, he thought, at least among those whose experiences include getting in washing on a coldish day, which would not be saying much (‘A’ being the universal experience of those who have had the experience ‘A’) if it were not for the fact that perhaps the majority of people (in whom I am immersed and from whom I am separate) have actually had that experience. Why then, he wondered, is Amy Arnold’s book Lori & Joe the first book I have read that records this experience? And why do I find it so thrilling, he wondered, to read this account of what could be termed a fundamental existential dilemma writ small, why, in my deliberately solitary pursuit of reading this book, am I thrilled by the most mundane possible universal experience? Maybe exactly for that reason, the unexceptional experiences, the fundamental existential dilemmas writ small, are exactly those that connect us reassuringly when we are reading solitarily. What is thought like? What is my own thought like? What is the thought of others like? I am not particularly interested in what is thought, he thought, I am more interested in the way thought flows, surely that is not the word, the way thought moves on, or its shape, rather, if thought can be said to have a shape: the syntax of thought, which, after all is the principal determinant of thought, regardless of its content but also determining its content. If my primary interest is grammar, then what I want from literature is an investigation of form, an adventure or experiment in form. I think but I do not know how I think unless I write it down or unless I read the writings down of the thoughts of another in which I recognise the grammar of my own thoughts. What I think is a contingent matter, he thought. Why washing is called washing when it is in fact not washing but drying is another thing he had wondered but maybe nobody else has wondered this, he thought, it does not appear in this book but this book does not pretend to be exhaustive of all possible thoughts either explicit or implicit in quotidian experiences, though it is fairly exhaustive of all the thoughts that rise towards, and often achieve, consciousness, so to call it, in its protagonist, so to call her, Lori, who takes up her partner Joe’s morning coffee one morning just like every morning and finds him dead, not like any other morning. Lori immediately then sets off on a long loop walk over the Westmorland fells, in typical weather and mud, and the book consists entirely of a record, for want of a better word, of the pattern of her thoughts, looping themselves onto the armature of a fairly constrained present, winding twenty-five years of repetitions and irritations and unexpressed dissatisfactions, such as we all have, I suppose, he thought, memories of all those years since she and Joe came to live in the cottage, their isolation, the landscape, the weather, the routines of mundane existence, ineluctable and cumulatively painful when you think of them, their breeding neighbours, no longer neighbours but no less inerasable for that, the small compromises made when living with another that become large compromises, perhaps less conscious ones but maybe intolerably conscious ones, consciousness after all being what is intolerable, through repetition over decades, all wound over and over and around themselves and around the armature of the present, drawn repeatedly, obsessively to whatever it is that troubles Lori the most, but always turning away or aside without reaching that something, or in order not to reach that something, which remains as a gap in consciousness, unthinkable, but a gap the very shape of itself. Lori & Joe is a remarkable piece of writing that shows us how the mind maintains its claustrophobia even in the most wide-open spaces. Amy Arnold shows how Lori’s thoughts swarm and cluster, accumulate in ruts and run thin over past traumas, stuttering in proximity to the unfaceable that yet shapes everything it underlies. It reminds me, he thought, suspecting that readers of his review might respond better to a little name-dropping than to his attempts to express his own enthusiasm, of works by Jon Fosse and Thomas Bernhard in its fugue-like form, its musicality, so to speak, in the way that it perfectly calibrates the fractality of thought, so to term it, and he wished that he had not so termed it, upon the unremarkable slow progression of the present.
The 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards ceremony* is just around the corner. The longlists have been assembled, the shortlists announced, and on Wednesday 14th May the winners in each section will take the stage. Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku is vying for the non-fiction award, and is a strong contender.
'Remarkable. At once heartbreaking and triumphant' — Patricia Grace
'Brilliant. This timely coming-of-age memoir by an iconic activist will rouse the rebel in us all. I loved it' — Tina Makereti
Emeritus professor Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato) was the first wāhine Māori to earn a PhD in a New Zealand university. Te Awekōtuku has worked across the heritage, culture and academic sectors as a curator, lecturer, researcher and activist. Her areas of research interest include gender issues, museums, body modification, power and powerlessness, spirituality and ritual.
But growing up in Rotorua in the 1950s, whānau dismissed her dreams of higher education. To them, she was just a show-off, always getting into trouble, talking back, and running away.
In this fiery memoir about identity and belonging, Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku describes what was possible for a restless working-class girl from the pā. After moving to Auckland for university, Ngāhuia advocated resistance as a founding member of Ngā Tamatoa and the Women's and Gay Liberation movements, becoming a critical voice in protests from Waitangi to the streets of Wellington.
“Hine Toa defies easy categorisation. It is a rich, personal, stunningly evocative and creative memoir of Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku’s life, from early childhood on ‘the pā’ at Ōhinemutu to academic achievements such as being the first wahine Māori to be awarded a PhD in New Zealand. But it is also a fiery social and political history of this country through the mid late 20th century from a vital, queer, Māori, feminist perspective that deserves – and here claims – centre stage." —Ockham judges’ citation
Find out more:
* If you are in Auckland you can head along to the event at the Aotea Centre; the rest of us can watch the Ochkam NZ Book Awards ceremony live here.
A selection of books from our shelves. Add to your reading mountain. Click through to find out more:
A Mountain to the North, A Lake to the South, Paths to the West, A River to the East
Build your reading pile, or the reading piles of others. Click through to purchase your copies. We can dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey $38
In a sinisterly skewed version of England in 1979, thirteen-year-old triplets Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents of a New Forest home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Each day the boys must take medicine to protect themselves from a mysterious illness to which many of their friends have succumbed. Children who survive are allowed to move to the Big House in Margate, a destination of mythical proportions, desired by every Sycamore child. Meanwhile, in Exeter, Nancy lives a secluded life with her parents, who never let her leave the house. As the government looks to shut down the Sycamore homes and place their residents into the community, the triplets’ lives begin to intersect with Nancy’s, culminating in revelations that will rock the children to the core. Gradually surrendering its dark secrets, The Book of Guilt is a spellbinding and profoundly unnerving exploration of belonging in a world where some lives are valued less than others. [Paperback]
Erik Satie Three Piece Suite by Ian Penman $38
Composer, pianist and writer Erik Satie was one of the great figures of Belle Époque Paris. Known for his unvarying image of bowler hat, three-piece suit, and umbrella, Satie was a surrealist before surrealism and a conceptual artist before conceptual art. Friend of Cocteau and Debussy, Picabia and Picasso, Satie was always a few steps ahead of his peers at the apex of modernism. There's scarcely a turn in postwar music, both classical and popular, that Satie doesn't anticipate. Moving from the variety shows of Montmartre's Le Chat Noir to suburban Arcueil, from the Parisian demimonde to the artistic avant-garde, Erik Satie Three Piece Suite is an exhilarating and playful three-part study of this elusive and endlessly fascinating figure, published to mark the centenary of Satie's death. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Ian Penman is an ideal critic, one who invites you in, takes your coat and hands you a drink as he sidles up to his topic. He has a modest mien, a feathery way with a sentence, a century’s worth of adroit cultural connections at the ready, and a great well of genuine passion, which quickly raises the temperature.” — Lucy Sante
”Ian Penman – critic, essayist, mystical hack and charmer of sentences like they’re snakes – is the writer I have hardly gone a week without reading, reciting, summoning to mind. The writer without whom, etc.” —Brian Dillon
In the Rhododendrons: A memoir with appearances by Virginia Woolf by Heather Christle $60
When Heather Christle realises that she, her mother, and Virginia Woolf share a traumatic history, she begins to rewrite and intertwine each of their stories, in search of a more hopeful narrative and a future she can live with. On a recent visit to London's Kew Gardens, Christle's mother revealed details of a painful story from her past that took place there, under circumstances that strangely paralleled Heather's own sexual assault during a visit to London as a teenager. Her private, British mother's revelation — a rare burst of vulnerability in their strained relationship — propels Christle down a deep and destabilising rabbit hole of investigation, as she both reads and wanders the streets of her mother's past, peeling back the layers of family mythologies, England's sanctioned historical narratives, and her own buried memories. Over the course of several trips to London, with and without her mother, she visits her family's 'birthday hill' in Kew Gardens, the now-public homes of the Bloomsbury set, the archives of the British Library, and the backyard garden where Woolf wrote her final sentence. All the while, she finds that Woolf and her writings not only constantly seem to connect and overlap with her mother's story, but also that the author becomes a kind of vital intermediary: a sometimes confidante, sometimes mentor, sometimes distancing lens through which Christle can safely observe her mother and their experiences. Wide-ranging and prismatic, the fruit of an insatiably curious, delightfully brilliant mind, In the Rhododendrons is part memoir, part biography of Virginia Woolf, part reckoning with the things we cannot change and the ways we can completely transform, if we dare. This utterly original book will stir readers into new ways of seeing their own lives. [Hardback]
”Christle's exacting rigour and ferocious curiosity are matched only by the utter eccentricity of her vision, the delicious and frankly peerless freshness of her idiom: ‘There is a difference between bones and a book,’ she writes, ‘but both have at their center a spine.’ What results is irreducibly human. In the Rhododendrons is vital consolation, amidst the amidst. It's a triumph, an instant classic. Christle has become one of our art's most urgent living practitioners.” —Kaveh Akbar
”Stunning. I saw her working in a shaft of light, dusting layer after layer off her own life.” —Patricia Lockwood
The Gender of Sound by Anne Carson $26
History is filled with unacceptable sounds: high-pitched voices, gossip, talkativeness, hysteria, wailing, ritual shouts. From whom? Those deviant from or deficient in the masculine ideal of self-control: women, catamites, eunuchs and androgynes. From antiquity to Margaret Thatcher via Sigmund Freud and Gertrude Stein, this book charts the gendering of sound in Western culture. Carson invites us to listen again, and in doing so to reimagine our conceptions of human order, virtue and selfhood. [Paperback]
This Compulsion in Us by Tina Makereti $40
In her first book of nonfiction, prizewinning author Tina Makereti writes from inside her many intersecting lives as a wahine Māori – teacher, daughter, traveller, parent – and into a past that is as alive and changeful as the present moment. Included are frank and moving essays about the wāhine who have shown her many ways of being a Māori woman, the pain and dark humour of living with an alcoholic, a blue boob from breast cancer treatment, and the potential of art to return power to survivors of colonialism. What if we could transform the events that made us who we are? What if there were a way back to the beginning? [Paperback]
An Atlas of Endangered Alphabets: Writing systems on the verge of vanishing by Tim Brookes $70
If something is important, we write it down. Yet 85% of the world's writing systems are on the verge of vanishing — not granted official status, not taught in schools, discouraged and dismissed. When a culture is forced to abandon its traditional script, everything it has written for hundreds of years — sacred texts, poems, personal correspondence, legal documents, the collective experience, wisdom and identity of a people — is lost. This Atlas is about those writing systems, and the people who are trying to save them. From the ancient holy alphabets of the Middle East, now used only by tiny sects, to newly created African alphabets designed to keep cultural traditions alive in the twenty-first century: from a Sudanese script based on the ownership marks traditionally branded into camels, to a secret system used in one corner of China exclusively by women to record the songs and stories of their inner selves: this unique book profiles dozens of scripts and the cultures they encapsulate, offering glimpses of worlds unknown to us — and ways of saving them from vanishing entirely. [Hardback]
The Anatomy of Sand by Mikaela Nyman $30
the first poetry collection written in English by the Finnish–New Zealand poet Mikaela Nyman. In an expansive new collection encompassing myths and science, the political and personal, the local and global, lyrical and technical language, from outer space to the microscopic, Nyman ask us to pay attention to how our present-day actions will impact future ecological events. These poems listen to the creaking of space and wash of oceans, document the methane dunes on Pluto and eroding runes at Back Beach, and search the Finnish Kalevala mythology for answers. [Paperback]
”Like the tide, The Anatomy of Sand returns to the shoreline as a haven and a lens to examine our relationship with nature and environmental loss. Nyman is fascinated by the ways we insist on artificially replicating what nature has already abundantly provided, and reminds us that we do not sit outside of our environment. This book is urgent and timely, rich and lively.” —Helen Heath
”This is a book with flashes of humour, a querying of everything, and minute observation. There is a lovely mental toughness, an evolution in the poet herself, in a collection that is absolutely contemporary.” —Elizabeth Smither
The Origins on an Experimental Society: New Zealand 1769—1860 by Erik Olssen $65
a new account of the origins of New Zealand: how Pakeha settlers - nurtured on Enlightenment thought and evangelical humanitarianism — encountered Maori, and how the two peoples together developed a distinctively experimental society. With James Cook's arrival in 1769 and the subsequent colonisation, New Zealand became one of the few post-Enlightenment experiments in creating a new nation anywhere in the world. The Europeans who settled these islands brought with them a belief in the power of reason and experience to improve peoples and societies. Encounters between Maori and these new arrivals profoundly shaped the thoughts and behaviours of both peoples. Olssen argues that the people who settled New Zealand planned two experiments in making a better society. They hoped that, in contrast to earlier colonial projects, the indigenous New Zealanders would not be driven to extinction but eventually take their place as equals in a modern commercial society. And they aimed to create a society that was fairer and more just than the one they had left behind; a 'Better Britain'. While both experiments were first conceived by savants and philosophers, they gained ongoing support, by lodging in the hearts and minds of the settlers: whalers and missionaries, mothers and farmers. In turn, Maori adapted these new ideas to their own ends, giving up slavery and inter-tribal warfare, and adapting the institutions of the colonisers in ways that would re-define the experiments. This then is an ethnography of 'tangata Pakeha', a people of European descent changed by their encounters with 'tangata Maori' and their land — just as Maori were themselves changed — and the story of the society they built together. Ranging across intellectual and cultural history, from the beach at Paihia to the coffee houses of Paris, Olssen enables us to understand the origins of New Zealand anew. [Hardback]
”Erik Olssen's book is remarkably lucid and insightful on a broad front of historical scholarship; it is informed profoundly on philosophical, political and scientific thinking of the period, and overall a quite astonishing intellectual achievement.” - Atholl Anderson (Ngai Tahu)
”This new history argues that New Zealand was a series of ‘experiments’ in settling a country. The author tracks the ideas, philosophies and values which were carried in settlers' baggage, the early inter-connectedness between Maori and the newcomers that reshaped those experiments, and the profound significance of these decades for the future of the country and its peoples.” —Claudia Orange
”I found this book stunning, breathtaking even, in its scope and detail. It revisits and explores the origins, themes and complex patchwork of ideas that came together to underpin the founding years of Aotearoa New Zealand. Our early engagement with the intellectual and physical manifestations of global colonisation, as related by Olssen, is especially interesting. This is not an easy book but steady application to its contents leads to immeasurable rewards.” —Buddy Mikaere (Ngati Pukenga, Ngati Ranginui, Ngati Pikiao, Tuhoe)
Luminous by Silvia Park $37
In a fictional near-future Korea, robots have integrated seamlessly into society. They are housekeepers and policemen, teachers and bus drivers. They are our lovers. They are even our children. Siblings Jun and Morgan Cho haven t spoken to each other in several years. The children of a celebrated robot designer, both are still grieving the loss of their brother Yoyo, the earliest prototype for what humanoid robots have now become — nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. But Yoyo was always bound for a darker purpose, and his absence has left a chasm in the siblings lives. When a strange disappearance thrusts the siblings back together, neither of them realises that the investigation will not only force them to confront their fractured family’s past, but will also bring them back to Yoyo himself. [Paperback]
“Utterly beautiful.” —Raven Lailani
"With Ishiguro-esque precision, Park dissects sentience and reality, as well as love and death.” —Publishers Weekly
Set My Heart on Fire by Izumi Suzuki (translated from Japanese by Helen O’Horan) $27
A young woman named Izumi details her turbulent twenties in thirteen disarmingly candid vignettes set in the underground bar and club scene of 1970s Tokyo. Seamlessly delivering ennui alongside snark, and tragedy nose-to-nose with apathy, Set My Heart on Fire is singular representation of young womanhood, missteps and miscommunication, and music, men and meds. With chapters titled for tracks by The Zombies, The Supremes and the Rolling Stones, as well as songs by underground Japanese bands of the time, the music of the 1960s and 1970s permeates the story. There are distinct traces of the fraught tenderness in Marguerite Duras's The Lover, and the raw, decadent post-war generational dissolution of Ryu Murakami's Almost Transparent Blue. But Suzuki's novel is carried by her own singular charm and wit, which will be readily recognised and enjoyed by readers of her short stories. [Paperback]
The Incredible Insects of Aotearoa by Phil Sirvid and Simon Pollard $35
What do you call a grasshopper dressed as a gladiator? Why are sandfly bites so itchy? What links insects and Māori whakairo (carving)? How does a glow worm glow? Why does this book include sorcerers, vampires and dragons? What makes insects in Aotearoa so special? From our backyards to high in the mountains, through forests, along coastlines, and in the darkness of caves, award-winning science writer Simon Pollard and Te Papa insect expert Phil Sirvid answer these questions and more. Share in the secrets and marvels of our natural world through stunning close-up photographs, mātauranga Māori, insightful explanations, and meet-the-expert profiles. [Paperback]
Private Revolutions: Coming of age in a new China by Yuan Yang $39
This is a book about the coming of age of four women born in China in the 1980s and 1990s, dreaming of better futures. It is about Leiya, who wants to escape the fate of the women in her village. Still underage, she bluffs her way on to the factory floor. It is about June, who at fifteen sets what her family thinks is an impossible goal — to attend university rather than raise pigs. It is about Siyue, ranked second-to-bottom of her English class, who decides to prove her teachers wrong. And it is about Sam, who becomes convinced that the only way to change her country is to become an activist even as the authorities slowly take her peers from the streets. With unprecedented access to the lives, hopes, homes, dreams and diaries of four ordinary women over a period of six years, Private Revolutions gives a voice to those whose stories go untold. At a time of rising state censorship and suppression, it unearths the identity of modern Chinese society and, through the telling, something of our own. [Paperback]
”An engrossing book that meticulously reports on a country in the throes of change, using the lives and choices of four women. What sets the story told in Private Revolutions apart is the speed and magnitude of this upheaval, captured by Yang with palpable admiration for the women negotiating these seismic shifts one day at a time.” —Mythili Rao, Guardian
Disaster Nationalism: The downfall of liberal civilisation by Richard Seymour $47
The rise of the new far-right has left the world grappling with a profound misunderstanding. While the spotlight often shines on the actions of charismatic leaders like Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Rodrigo Duterte, the true peril lies elsewhere. They are but the political manifestations of a potent force — disaster nationalism. This mass cultural phenomenon, propelled through the vast networks of social media and fueled by far-right influencers, emerges from a reservoir of societal despair, fear, and isolation. At its core, disaster nationalism fixates on images of catastrophe — the 'Great Replacement,' Satanic 'cabals' — as explanations for its discontent. It yearns for an 'end of days,' a reckoning, a 'storm' as the QAnon faithful call it, to bring an end to its suffering. This yearning is only heightened by the relentless onslaught of real-world disasters — from economic recessions to global pandemics and ecological collapse. Within this seething cauldron, we witness not only the surge of far-right political movements but also the sparks of individual and collective violence against perceived enemies, from 'lone wolf' killers to terrifying pogroms. Should a new fascism emerge, it will coalesce from these very elements. This is disaster nationalism. In Disaster Nationalism, Richard Seymour delves deep into this alarming phenomenon, dissecting its roots, its influencers, and the threats it poses. With meticulous analysis and compelling storytelling, this book offers a stark warning and a call to action. [Hardback]
”What thinker would you bring to an earth on fire? You would not want to leave Richard Seymour at home: he is essential company for an age of compound catastrophes.” —Andreas Malm
”One of the most consistently brilliant and lyrical thinkers writing today.” —China Mieville
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami $37
In a world without privacy, what is the cost of freedom? Sara is returning home from a conference abroad when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside at the airport and inform her that she will commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, their algorithm has determined that she presents an imminent risk to the person she loves most, and must now be transferred to a retention centre for twenty-one days to lower her risk score . But when Sara arrives at Madison to be observed alongside other dangerous dreamers, it soon becomes clear that getting home to her family is going to cost more than just three weeks of good behaviour. And as every minor misdemeanour, every slight deviation from the rules, adds time to her stay, she begins to wonder if there might be more here than first meets the eye. Then, one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and setting off a chain of events that lead Sara on a collision course with the companies that have deprived her of her freedom. [Paperback]
”A gripping, Kafkaesque foray into an all-too-plausible future. An elegant meditation on identity, motherhood, and what we sacrifice, unthinkingly, for the sake of convenience.” —Jennifer Egan
Wellness by Nathan Hill $28
When Jack and Elizabeth meet as college students in the 90s, the two quickly join forces and hold on tight, each eager to claim a place in Chicago's thriving underground art scene with an appreciative kindred spirit. Fast-forward twenty years to married life, and the no-longer-youthful dreamers are forced to face their demons, from unfulfilled career ambitions to painful childhood memories of their own dysfunctional families. In the process, Jack and Elizabeth must undertake separate, personal excavations, or risk losing the best thing in their lives: each other. [Paperback]
”American storytelling at its era-spanning best. An immersive, multi-layered portrait of a marriage, Nathan Hill's follow-up to The Nix is a work of quiet genius, tackling a few big questions: What is truth? What is love? And therefore, inevitably, what is true love?” —Observer
Will This Home Do? by Sophie Gilmore $30
Apologising is hard, especially when you’re feeling mad, so when an older sister gets into a fight with her younger sister, she sets off to find a new home. First she tries the dog house — Will this home do? No, it’s too small! What about the large leafy tree — Will this home do? No, because soon it starts to rain. The shed is too dark; the loft is full of moths. Could the very best home be with her little sister after all? A story that begins with the breaking of a toy and ends with the mending of a relationship.
The Tear Bottle: A graphic story of love and things by Annemarie Jutel $40
In a series of simple line drawings, Jutel tells the story of a family heirloom that is not quite what she and her sisters remembered. Via the comedy of family dynamics, and with the backdrop of history, she delves into serious issues of death, grief and forgiveness. This is a book about the objects families covet as a way of holding on to their past. It is told by bickering sisters trying to find out the truth about a family heirloom with a surprising twist. A graphic memoir with serious intent, its simple and colourful drawings invite readers to think about their own family histories. Is it really our heirlooms, or the stories we tell about them that help us to understand ourselves, our whānau and what matters to us?
Another England: How to reclaim our national story by Caroline Lucas $35
The right have hijacked ‘Englishness’. Can it be reclaimed? With the UK more divided than ever, ‘England’ has re-emerged as a potent force in culture and politics. But today the dominant story told about the country serves solely the interests of the right. The only people who dare speak of Englishness are cheerleaders for Brexit, exceptionalism and imperial nostalgia. Yet there are other stories, equally compelling, about who the English are: about the English people's radical inclusivity, their deep-rooted commitment to the natural world, their long struggle to win rights for all. These stories put the Chartists, the Diggers and the Suffragettes in their rightful place alongside Nelson and Churchill. They draw on the medieval writers and Romantic poets who reflect a more sustainable relationship with the natural world. And they include the diverse voices exploring the shared challenges of identity and equality today. Caroline Lucas delves into literary heritage to explore what it can teach us about the most pressing issues of our time: whether the toxic legacy of Empire, the struggle for constitutional reform, or the accelerating climate emergency. And she sketches out an alternative Englishness: one that all can embrace to build a greener, fairer future. [Paperback]
”Not just an inspiring, nuanced and deeply literate book, but that rarest of things — a necessary one.” —Jonathan Coe
”Cleverly deploys Elizabeth Gaskell, John Clare and Charles Dickens to demonstrate that a culture can be diverse and coherent, innovative and rooted; many stories told in one beautiful language.” —Telegraph
”Tells a new story about England and Englishness, and sets out the possibility for a progressive politics of land, place and nation. This is vital reading.” —Robert Macfarlane
Read our latest newsletter and choose your next book now
2 May 2025
David Coventry's novel is informed and formed and de-formed by his experience suffering from ME, an illness of chronic systemic dysregulation that makes ‘normal’ life impossible, fractures the supposed link between the self and its biography, narrows and distorts the focus of awareness, and disestablishes comfortable conventional notions of the ongoingness of time. Dealing not much at all with the half-life of bed and sofa that is the main occupation of the chronically ill, the book is rather a multi-stranded literary performance of remembered travels, conversations, stories and encounters, seemingly Coventry’s own or those of persons close to him, burning with moments of great vividness and intensity yet also constrained by the blockages and blanks imposed on narrative by his illness, which reaches backwards through the medium of his memory to the whole of his life and beyond. Coventry’s illness is an unconsented catalyst to ways of writing freed from the performative conventions of literature and into territory where the urge to impart sense and form burns where both sense and form are impossible. The book contains much that I found compelling, thoughtful, memorable, suitably frustrating and disconcerting. It is a unique contribution to the literature of illness.
Read Thomas’s interview with David Coventry about this book:
Emily St John Mandel’s SEA OF TRANQUILITY is a book to be lost in. It’s a book about time, living and loving. Superbly constructed, it stretches from 1912 to 2401; from the wildness of Vancouver to a moon colony of the future. A remittance man, Edwin St.John St.Andrew, is sent abroad. He’s completely at sea in this new world — he has no appetite for work nor connection — and makes a haphazard journey to a remote settlement on a whim. Here, he has an odd experience which leaves him shaken. He will return to England only to find himself derailed in the trenches of the First World War and later struck down by the flu pandemic. It’s 2020 and Mirella (some readers will remember her from The Glass Hotel) is searching for her friend Vincent (who has disappeared). She attends a concert by Vincent’s brother Paul and afterwards waits for him to appear, along with two music fans at the backstage door. It’s here, on the eve of our current pandemic, that she discovers that Vincent has drowned at sea. Yet it is an art video that Vincent had recorded and been used in Paul’s performance which is at the centre of the conversation for one of the music fans. The film is odd — recounting an unworldly experience in the Vancouver forest. A short clip — erratic and strangely out of place, out of time. It’s 2203 and Olive Llewellyn, author, is on a book tour of Earth. She lives on Moon Colony Two and is feeling bereft — missing her husband and daughter. It’s a gruelling schedule of talks, interviews and same-same hotel rooms; and, if this wasn’t enough, there’s a new virus on the loose. Her bestselling book, Marienbad is about a pandemic. Within its pages is a description of a strange occurrence which takes place in a railway station. When an interviewer questions her about this passage, she’s happy to talk about it, as long it is off the record. It’s 2401, and detective Gaspery-Jacques Roberts from the Night City has been hired to investigate an anomaly in time. Drawing on his experiences and the book, Marienbad, and finding connections between the aforementioned times and people, will lead him to a place where he will make a decision that may have disruptive consequences. A decision which will cause upheaval. Emily St.John Mandel is deft in her writing, keeping the threads of time and the story moving across and around themselves without losing the reader, and making the knots — the connections — at just the right time to engage and delight intellect and curiosity. Moving through time and into the future makes this novel an unlikely contender to be a book of our time, but in so many ways it is. Clever, fascinating, reflective and unsettling, it’s a tender shout-out to humanity.
Planet Earth needs us and we need it. In the news every day there are stories of climate devastation, whether this is the latest storm to tear through a community, refugees searching for environmental and economic stability, food insecurity, or the decline of animal, insect, or plant species. This is the world young people face and this can be overwhelming. The books selected here are antidotes: each is a positive and engaging call to action that embraces nature and our relationship with it.
For teens and upwards, Elizabeth Kolbert’s H is for Hope investigates climate change in an A-Z format. Kicking off with Arrhenius who created the world’s first climate model in 1894 to Z associated with the familiar term Ground Zero and what this means, this book is packed with information, history, facts and ideas. In between A and Z there are O for Objections, P for Power, U for Uncertainty, W for Weather, and of course, H is for Hope. Kolbert’s knowledgable and enquiring text is matched with super illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook. This publication is ideal for 12 up and right through to adult readers. Inspiring and alarming, these 26 pieces are accessible, lightly written without losing gravitas, and empowering.
If you are looking for something a little less confronting for younger readers, The Big Book of Belonging provides a delightful child-centric observation of us and our place in the natural world. Here on the page, a child can see themselves as a person that belongs on the planet along with animals, insects and plants.
Yuval Zommer in word and image allows a child to see how nature works, the similarities between humans and other species, why community and home matter, the wonders of the natural world, and the importance of celebrating as well as nurturing this relationship with the Earth. Sweet, gentle and quietly advocating for cooperation, The Big Book of Belonging, ideal for 4-7 years, is perfect for the next generation of environmentalists.
And if rewilding is your jam, you can’t go past Steve Mushin’s Ultrawild. Winner of the Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award in 2024, this is the best climate change/science/natural history book that I have come across in publishing in Aotearoa, ever!
So much fun, so inspiring and as the subtitle says — audacious. Part-graphic novel, part-infometrics, completely packed with ideas, facts, action and inventions, Ultrawild is inspiring, zany, and creative. This is the book that every kid (and a few adults, too!) should have under their arm, by the bed, on the sofa, and out in the wild (urban wilderness, suburban scape, backyard or apartment deck) every day, everywhere, problem-solving for a better future. Genius!
In 1879, King Leopold II of Belgium launched an ambitious plan to plunder Africa's resources. The key to cracking open the continent, or so he thought, was its elephants — if only he could train them. And so he commissioned the charismatic Irish adventurer Frederick Carter to ship four tamed Asian elephants from India to the East African coast, where they were marched inland towards Congo. The ultimate aim was to establish a training school for African elephants. Following in the footsteps of the four elephants, Roberts pieces together the story of this long-forgotten expedition, in travels that take her to Belgium, Iraq, India, Tanzania and Congo. The storytelling brings to life a compelling cast of historic characters and modern voices, from ivory dealers to Catholic nuns, set against rich descriptions of the landscapes travelled. She digs deep into historic records to reckon with our broken relationship with animals, revealing an extraordinary — and enduring — story of colonial greed, ineptitude, hypocrisy and folly.
Time to read! A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more
New books for a new month! Autumn is the season for gathering enough books to see you through the reading months ahead. Click through to our website to secure your copies. We can have your books dispatched by overnight courier or ready to collect from our door.
On the Calculation of Volume: I by Solvej Balle (translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland) $30
”It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences. That we wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for these curious twists of fate.” Tara Selter has involuntarily stepped off the train of time: in her world, November eighteenth repeats itself endlessly. We meet Tara on her 122nd November 18th: she no longer experiences the changes of days, weeks, months, or seasons. She finds herself in a lonely new reality without being able to explain why: how is it that she wakes every morning into the same day, knowing to the exact second when the blackbird will burst into song and when the rain will begin? Will she ever be able to share her new life with her beloved and now chronically befuddled husband? And on top of her profound isolation and confusion, Tara takes in with pain how slight a difference she makes in the world. (As she puts it: "That's how little the activities of one person matter on the eighteenth of November.") Balle is hypnotic in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs. The first volume's gravitational pull — a force inverse to its constriction — has the effect of a strong tranquiliser, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is intoxicating. [Paperback with French flaps]
“On the Calculation of Volume I takes a potentially familiar narrative trope — a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day — and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist, to want to be alive, to need to share one’s time with others. The sheer quality of the sentences was what struck us most, rendered into English with deft, invisible musicality by the translator. This book presses its mood, its singular time signature and its philosophical depth into the reader. You feel you are in it, which is sometimes unnerving, sometimes soothing, and this effect lingers long after the book is finished.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation
Slowing the Sun: Essays by Nadine Hura $40
”Hope is a shovel and will give you blisters.” Overwhelmed and often unmoved by the scientific and political jargon of climate change, Nadine Hura sets out to find a language to connect more deeply to the environmental crisis. But what begins as a journalistic quest takes an abrupt and introspective turn following the death of her brother. In the midst of grief, Hura works through science, pūrākau, poetry and back again. Seeking to understand climate change in relation to whenua and people, she asks: how should we respond to what has been lost? Her many-sided essays explore environmental degradation, social disconnection and Indigenous reclamation, insisting that any meaningful response must be grounded in Te Tiriti and anti-colonialism. Slowing the Sun is a karanga to those who have passed on, as well as to the living, to hold on to ancestral knowledge for future generations. [Paperback]
”Nadine’s writing can make us feel seen, less alone, more hopeful, more enlightened. He kaiwhakairo i te kupu, hekaituhi ngā kokonga ngākau – a carver of words, a writer for all corners of the heart.” —Stacey Morrison (Ngāi Tahu, Te Arawa, Pākehā)
The Covid Response: A scientist’s account of New Zealand’s pandemic and what happens next by Shaun Hendy $40
New Zealand’s pandemic response delivered one of the lowest Covid-19 health burdens in the world, thanks to early elimination and high vaccination rates. While border controls and early lockdowns were strict, domestic freedoms ultimately exceeded those in other advanced economies, making the country a global case study. Yet, these successes came at a cost — financial strain, social isolation and unequal access to support. How did we get here, and how did science shape decisions in real time? In The Covid Response, physicist Professor Shaun Hendy offers an insider’s perspective on New Zealand’s unique approach to the pandemic. He takes readers behind the scenes of the country’s science-driven response, sharing firsthand experiences as a key member of the advisory team at Te Pūnaha Matatini. Through this engaging narrative, Hendy unpacks the science behind critical decisions — ranging from lockdowns to the strategic use of genomic sequencing and data modelling. This book examines high-stakes decisions made in real time, their impact on New Zealand, and the lessons they offer for the future. [Paperback]
There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die by Tove Ditlevsen (translated from Danish by Jennifer Russell and Sophia Hersi Smith) $30
While Tove Ditlevsen is now famous around the world as an extraordinary prose writer, in Denmark she has also long been celebrated as a poet. She published her first collection in her early twenties, and continued writing and publishing poetry until the end of her life. This new selection offers English readers a chance to explore her brilliant, surprising verse across nearly four decades of writing. In this playful, mournful, witty collection, little girls stand tip-toe inside adult bodies, achievements in literature and lethargy are unflinchingly listed, and lovers come and go like the seasons. With an introduction by Olga Ravn. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Meet the finest (and darkest) poet you've never read. Her poems read, at their best, like illuminations, transfiguring her life again and again” —Telegraph
The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth by Adrian Duncan $30
The contemplative and moving third novel from Irish author Adrian Duncan, exploring love, grief and their representations in art. John Molloy, an Irish restorative sculptor meets an Italian sociologist Bernadette Basagni while working on a contemporary-art project in the Alpine city of I_. As he falls in love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view — when his mother, Sandra, while one night praying alone at a country grotto, has a holy vision that leads to his family's ostracisation and disintegration. The disastrous outfall of this has resonated unchecked through his life. The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth is a novel told in two parts, a decade apart: the first is told in fragments or 'blinks' that lead John to Bologna and Bernadette; the second opens with a letter from home asking him to pray for the speedy death of an dying friend, which sets in motion a day-long odyssey through the ancient streets and churches of Bologna, where John must confront not just his present and his past but also the bedrock of his psyche. [Paperback with French flaps]
”One of the most important and intriguing writers working now.” —Niamh Campbell
”Uncanny, strange and exquisite, akin to the fictions of Laszlo Krasznahorkai.” —Financial Times
”The kind of work that makes you remember why you read.” —Sunday Business Post
”A deliberative and delicate reading experience, revelatory in the truest sense of that word.” —Guardian
The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A graphic biography by Janine Barchas and Isabel Greenberg $50
Through vivid artwork and compelling narrative, readers are invited to journey alongside Jane Austen as she navigates the challenges and triumphs that shaped her works. Told in three parts (Budding Writer 1796-1797; Struggling Artist 1801-1809; Published Author 1809-1817), the gritty circumstances of Austen's own genteel poverty and the small daily injustices so often borne by creative women at this time, are shown against the backdrop of Georgian England and reflect many of the plots and characters woven into Austen's greatest works. All the settings and scenarios presented are based upon the historical record, including the clothing, architecture, decor and Regency locations. Sprinkled throughout, the Easter eggs and witty references to popular screen adaptations of Austen's novels will satisfy the casual and avid Austen fan alike. [Hardback]
”Where does wonderful literature come from? This exciting and thoughtful book explores this wondrous mystery for those who love the work of Jane Austen and for those who find her name only vaguely familiar. My hat is off to the terrific Janine Barchas and the terrific Isabel Greenberg. I wonder how they do it.” —Daniel Handler
”Truly delightful and charming; so fresh, informative and funny. Even the most devoted ‘Janeite’ will learn something new. The graphics are sensational. All in all, a truly magical way to learn about the life and works of Jane Austen.” —Paula Byrne
Alive: An alternative anatomy by Gabriel Weston $40
What does it mean to live in a body? For Gabriel Weston, there was always something missing from the anatomy she was taught at medical school. Medicine teaches us how a body functions, but it doesn't help us navigate the reality of living in one. As she became a surgeon, a mother, and ultimately a patient herself, Weston found herself grappling with the gap between scientific knowledge and unfathomable complexity of human experience. In this captivating exploration of the body, Weston dissolves the boundaries that usually divide surgeon and patient, pushing beyond the limit of what science has to tell us about who we are. Focusing on our individual organs, not just under the intense spotlight of the operating theatre, but in the central role they play in the stories of our lives, a fuller and more human picture of our bodies emerges — more fragile, frightening and miraculous than we could have imagined. [Paperback]
”An exceptional, beautiful and absolutely absorbing book. Gabriel Weston is one of the best writers around, and when it comes to medicine and anatomy she redefines the genre. Alive is a tour of human life and bodies, but she also brings her own body, in the context of her own life, into an absolutely compelling narrative; sex, pregnancy, asylum seekers, breast implants and hearts — especially the author's own heart, in every sense. It is essential reading if you own a body and should be mandatory for all those who study them.” —Chris van Tulleken
”As Gabriel Weston demonstrates in this remarkable book, each organ of our body is a miracle of evolutionary imagination, performing tasks that are outlandishly creative and brilliant. An unusually compelling and illuminating book.” —Misha Glenny
Universality by Natasha Brown $33
Words are your weapons, they're your tools, your currency. On a Yorkshire farm, a man is brutally bludgeoned with a solid gold bar. A plucky young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement. She solves the mystery, but her viral long-read exposé raises more questions than it answers. Universality is a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power. Through a voyeuristic lens, it focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean. A compellingly nasty celebration of the spectacular force of language. [Paperback]
”Universality is a precise dissection of class, wealth and power, written with a spareness that elevates and electrifies her prose. It's both intelligent and very entertaining.” —Elizabeth Day
”I emerged from this novel with the conviction that the murder victim Brown is here to avenge is discourse itself. Original, vital, and unputdownable.” —Tess Gunty
Pub (‘Object Lessons’ series) by Philip Howell $23
The pub is an English institution. Yet its history has been obscured by myth and nostalgia. In this unique book, Philip Howell takes the public house as an object, or rather as a series of objects: he takes the pub apart and examines its constituent elements, from pub signs to the bar staff to the calling of "time." But Pub also explores the hidden features of the pub, such as corporate control, cultural acceptance and exclusion, and the role of the pub in communities. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Erudite, quirky, and amusing.” —Sebastian Faulks
”I never expected to read a philosophically alert book on British pubs. Philip Howell breathes life into this well-known but poorly understood object.” —Graham Harman
Mere by Danielle Giles $38
Norfolk, 990 AD. Deep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous mere, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God's path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can. But when the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg's grip falters and Hilda quickly realizes this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom. Then proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a vision: a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set — one she cannot help but follow . [Paperback]
”It is rare for an author to fully recreate the strangeness of the past, but Danielle Giles has done exactly that.” —Costanza Casati
Wild Fictions by Amitav Ghosh $40
Wild Fictions is a collection of essays written over the past 25 years or so and published in various journals and periodicals. The essays can be clubbed under the broad headings of writings on literature and language, climate change and environment, human lives, travel and discoveries, and opinions and conversations. They focus on the abiding concerns that are reflected in Ghosh's works of fiction and non-fiction: colonisation, colonialism and its effects; the complex and delicate link between humans and nature; the ways in which we understand and interact with the world we live in; the importance of history and (re)discovery; how we tell stories, how we use language; and the importance of speaking and writing on issues and events that are key to our times. [Paperback]
”We owe a great debt to Ghosh's brilliant mind, avenging pen, and huge soul.” —Naomi Klein
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko $30
This remarkable Australian novel features two extraordinary Indigenous stories set five generations apart. When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Granny Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives. In this brilliant epic novel, Melissa Lucashenko torches Queensland's colonial myths, while reimagining an Australian future. [Paperback]
”Lucashenko is an exhilarating writer, and this generous book is her most remarkable to date.” —Michelle de Kretser
Everything is Tuberculosis: The history and persistence of our deadliest infection by John Green $45
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticised as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year. In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry's story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
Your Face Belongs to Us: The secretive start-up that is dismantling your privacy by Kashmir Hill $39
When Kashmir Hill stumbled upon Clearview AI, a mysterious startup selling an app that claimed it could identify anyone using just a snapshot of their face, the implications were terrifying. The app could use the photo to find your name, your social media profiles, your friends and family – even your home address. But this was just the start of a story more shocking than she could have imagined. Launched by computer engineer Hoan Ton-That and politician Richard Schwartz, and assisted by a cast of controversial characters on the alt-right, Clearview AI would quickly rise to the top, sharing its app with billionaires and law enforcement. In this riveting feat of reporting Hill weaves the story of Clearview AI with an exploration of how facial recognition technology is reshaping our lives, from its use by governments and companies like Google and Facebook (who decided it was too radical to release) to the consequences of racial and gender biases baked into the AI. Soon it could expand the reach of policing — as it has in China and Russia — and lead us into a dystopian future. Your Face Belongs to Us is a gripping true story. It illuminates our tortured relationship with technology, the way it entertains us even as it exploits us, and it presents a powerful warning that in the absence of regulation, this technology will spell the end of our anonymity.
”The dystopian future portrayed in some science-fiction movies is already upon us. Whether you like it or not, your face has already been scraped from the internet, stored in a giant database, and made available to law enforcement agencies, private corporations, and authoritarian governments to track and surveil you. Kashmir Hill's fascinating book brings home the scary implications of this new reality.” —John Carreyrou
Unforgetting by Belinda Robinson $40
Good Friday, 1962. Belinda, who's just turned thirteen, is driving with her mother, obstetrician Diana Mason, to the country home of her family friends for the Easter break. As they bump along a dusty coastal road, Belinda tells her mother a shocking story of abuse she has kept secret for nearly eight years. At the same time, her younger brother Julian reveals the secret to their father, playwright Bruce Mason, as they converge on their friends' house from a different direction. It will take more than sixty years for Belinda to reveal the details of this story publicly. Who was going to believe her? Her parents were well known and respected, and not just in literary and medical circles. But finally, triggered by Julian's sudden death and inspired by one of New Zealand's finest writers, Belinda tackles the process of 'unforgetting', reviewing her traumatic past and coming to terms with its consequences.
Pranzo: Sicilian(ish) recipes and stories by Guy Mirabella $70
In Pranzo Guy Mirabella delves into his Sicilian heritage. Here you will find the gusto of Italian pastas and sauces, alongside herbs and spices, and ingredients like kolhrabi and prickly pear. Seasonal and sumptuous, Mirabella conveys his zest for food, art, and life in the pages of Pranzo. Designed with a playful eye, the book is a treat and the recipes infused with nourishment and pleasure.
Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks $38
Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz — just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy — collapsed and died on a Washington, DC street. After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, and living in Sydney, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on the US Memorial Day public holiday of 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf. Three years later, she booked a flight to remote Flinders Island off the coast of Tasmania with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on the island's pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death. [Hardback]
The End of Capitalism: Why growth and climate protection are incompatible — and how we will live in the future by Ulrike Herrmann $46
Capitalism has brought about many positive things. At the same time, however, it is ruining the climate and the environment, so that humanity's very existence is now at risk. 'Green growth' is supposed to be the saviour, but economics expert and bestselling author Ulrike Herrmann disagrees. In this book, she explains in a clear and razor-sharp manner why we need 'green shrinkage' instead. Greenhouse gases are increasing dramatically and unchecked. This failure is no coincidence, because the climate crisis goes to the heart of capitalism. Prosperity and growth are only possible if technology is used and energy is utilised. Unfortunately, however, green energy from the sun and wind will never be enough to fuel global growth. The industrialised countries must therefore bid farewell to capitalism and strive for a circular economy in which only what can be recycled is consumed. Herrmann makes a convincing argument that we won't get anywhere without personal restrictions and government planning. Her example for a solution is the British war economy of the 1940s. This is not a utopian scenario, but a comprehensive example of the restrictions and government-led plans needed now and in the future. [Paperback]
The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa (translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai) $25
Thirteen-year-old Nanami Kosaki loves reading. The local library is a home from home and books have become her best friends. When Nanami notices books disappearing from the library shelves, she’s particularly curious about a suspicious man in a grey suit whose furtive behaviour doesn’t feel right. Should she follow him to see what he’s up to? When a talking tabby cat called Tiger appears to warn her about how dangerous that would be, together they’re brave enough to follow the frightening trail to find out where all the books have gone. Will Nanami and Tiger overcome the challenges of the adventure ahead?
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25 April 2025
Carl Shuker’s The Royal Free has been sitting with me for a while. I finished this novel in two minds. Was it just clever, but slightly irritating? Or was it brilliant and unsettling? Distance has made the novel grow fonder. Sometimes you read a novel for its absorbing plot, page-turning qualities and when you close the cover and come up for air you declare it wonderful, but give yourself a few months and it’s often hard to pinpoint the substance of the story. It was absorbing at the time. Of course, there are those novels which you circle back to, that stay with you for random reasons across years and through experience. The Royal Free is neither of these, but it is something. When I reviewed A Mistake, it was all scalpel fine cuts — a novel that would leave a scar. I reckon The Royal Free is more rash-inducing.
This is probably relevant with a six-month baby in the mix and James Ballard (our main guy) an editor at a medical journal, the latter's impetuous (rash) behaviour driven by frustration and grief, and the violence that permeates the novel, both on a personal and society level. (James Ballard may even claim that errors in texts creep into the lines and pages of the articles he edits a bit like an unwanted disease if he was pushed to!). It’s London 2011: there’s disharmony in the air, riots on the streets and a distinct collision of worlds. In The Royal Free this clash is played out through the office and the estate where James and baby Fiona live, and through the stories of other characters and their own particular circumstances. James is our guide through all this. After all, he is writing the style guide, and Shuker is playing puppet master, as novelists are want to do. If they're not in charge, who is? The editor? There are literary tricks and editorial in-jokes here, not all of which I caught, but enough to know that Shuker is playfully throwing a rule book in the air with some irony, while also respecting the word on the page, of which this writer is a master. And beyond the word play, the often hilarious and uncomfortable office dynamics (laugh and weep), there is a tender story about parenting, grief, and the unexpected consequences of violence on an individual and society at large. Here is a disintegration; a breaking down of expectation and logic. James Ballard is a quandary. What kind of parent leaves his baby alone to go for a run in the park? An action which plays on repeat in Ballard’s mind, which spirals to something increasingly problematic. Yet he is performing his tasks to the letter, caring for Fiona, and attempting to adjust to life without his wife. And yet he will reach out and touch danger. What is this impulse that compels us to be so complex? The Royal Free is, I think, brilliant and unsettling, and a little vexing. A bit like Mr Ballard!
Anne Serre’s subtly inflected novel explores the difficulties of knowing another person (the very difficulties that may in fact induce us to the attempt), and contrasts these to the ways in which knowing is conveyed (or gives the illusion of being conveyed) in fiction. How does the relationship between an author and a reader resemble or differ from the relationships between actual people in the ‘real’ world?
”Anne Serre’s short novel is the deeply romantic telling of a platonic love story between the narrator and his complicated childhood friend, Fanny; a story so beautifully realised — and translated so sensitively by Mark Hutchinson — that the pair become part of the life of the reader. A perfectly balanced book, slender in size but bearing significant weight all the way through, A Leopard-Skin Hat is testament to the ways in which we continue to hold the people we love in our memories, with respect and dignity, after they die.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation
Autumn means more time indoors and the perfect temperature for kitchen adventures! And VOLUME has some tempting treats for your cookbook shelves and food-reading pleasure. Try a new cuisine, discover an inspiring chef, add to your everyday favourite dishes repertoire, and enjoy creating a delectable feast!
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Build an autumn store of books for the reading days ahead. We can send your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
House of Fury by Evelio Rosero (translated from Spanish by Victor Meadowcroft) $42
Taking place entirely on a single evening — Friday, April 10, 1970 — in a large Bogotá mansion, House of Fury tells a hair-raising story. Nacho Caiciedo, a magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice, lives with his wife Alma and their six grown daughters. The Caiciedos have planned an enormous celebration in their home. But before the party has even started, the family is shocked by two pieces of news: their teenage daughter Italia is pregnant, and Alma's prodigal brother Jesús is expected at any moment. Guests from all levels of Bogotá society arrive, two earthquakes strike, and the party descends into debauchery; Nacho, out in the city streets, searching for Italia, is kidnapped by a ragtag militia, and its troops eventually invade the party and bring more chaos. House of Fury begins as a black comedy and unravels into a grim portent of the conflict that would rage across Colombia for fifty years. House of Fury is an indelible, fantastical work that with its unforgettable characters and unflinching, poetic, and humane voice, brings to light Colombia's violent history. [Paperback]
”Chekhov would've been mesmerized. In lieu of a single gun, Evelio Rosero sets up the contents of an entire armory. Building the intricate, involute procession of a single terrible night, the Colombian writer braids the many threads of his story with a candor and a knowingness that always hints towards the devastation to come. That House of Fury still manages to astound, then, is a testament to Rosero's finesse of the macabre, his merciless indictment of his nation's brutal history, and his utter disregard for narrative comforts.” —Xiao Yue Shan, Asymptote Journal
On the Clock by Claire Baglin (translated from French by Jordan Stamp) $38
In one strand, a young family bumps and scrapes through life. The hapless father balances demanding factory shiftwork, while the mother constantly prioritises the needs of others over her own. But there is also happiness: a trip to the seaside; sibling squabbles, games and laughter; tenderness and support. In another strand, a young woman describes her days working in a burger chain. It is exhausting, repetitive labour, too often peopled by tricky customers and even trickier managers. Hours pass. Days, weeks, years. It is an existence that marks the body and mind and governs a life. What emerges, alive with eloquent detail, is a compelling exploration of social inequality. Writing with nimble nuance, a sly, subtle wit, and a sharp ear, Claire Baglin marks her debut in On the Clock as a blazingly original talent. [Paperback with French flaps]
”A sophisticated new voice exploring the French working-class experience and the ways in which language may express its precarious specificities.” —Times Literary Supplement
The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel (translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey) $36
When an albatross strays too far from its home, or loses its bearings, it becomes an 'accidental', an unmoored wanderer. The protagonists of these eight stories each find the ordinary courses of their lives disrupted by an unexpected event and are pushed into unfamiliar terrain: a girl encounters her uncle in hospital, who was cast out of the family for reasons unknown; a menacing force hovers over a fracturing family on a rural holiday; a couple and their children inhabit a stifling world where it is better to be asleep than awake; a man's desire for a solution to his marital dissatisfaction has unforeseen consequences. Deft and disquieting, oscillating between the real and the fantastical. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Guadalupe Nettel yet again walks into uncertain terrain with these mysterious stories. There are secrets everywhere, she says, especially in life's most intimate and familiar aspects. The Accidentals never loses its sense of things being out of joint, and Nettel explores these fears with calm and with beauty.” —Mariana Enriquez
”I adored this collection, it spread its roots out within me. Nettel is an extraordinary writer.'“ —Daisy Johnson
”The Accidentals is a striking and compelling collection that searches for the extraordinary within the ordinary. Each narrative veers seamlessly from the mundane to the existential; the writing is deft, and unsettling prose imbues the work with a profound resonance. I loved these stories, mad and controlled, and brilliant.” —Elaine Feeney
”Nettel is one of the leading lights in contemporary Latin American literature. I envy how naturally she makes use of language; her resistance to ornamentation and artifice; and the almost stoic fortitude with which she dispenses her profound and penetrating knowledge of human nature.” —Valeria Luiselli
Visas Now! Aotearoa’s response to global refugee emergencies by Murdoch Stephens et al $30
This incisive study examines Aotearoa’s history of humanitarian immigrations and then zooms in on the high-stakes, one-off intakes of Syrians, Afghans and Ukrainians in the past decade. The book also includes nine people who share how their communities came together to seek emergency refugee intakes, including some whose calls went unanswered. Essential reading for anyone interested in humanitarian protection in a time of crisis. [Paperback]
Atlas of the New Zealand Wars, Volume 1: 1834—1864, Early Engagements to the Second Taranaki War edited by Derek Leask $90
This splendid and completely fascinating book will add new dimensions to your understanding of this pivotal period, and demonstrates the central place of cartography to the colonial project. In the Atlas of the New Zealand Wars, five decades of maps and plans from 1834 to 1884 provide remarkable new insight into the deep conflicts running through nineteenth-century Aotearoa. Beginning with early skirmishes off the Taranaki coast and at the Chathams, Volume One follows the tracks inland from the Bay of Islands towards the Hokianga in the Northern Wars; it reveals the web of Te Rauparaha's influence radiating out from Kapiti to Port Nicholson and across Cook Strait to the Wairau; it takes us inside the barracks and ramparts of the colony's new towns; and concludes as the brewing unrest around Waitara in Taranaki explodes into war. Through the maps, we meet the people: Hone Heke and FitzRoy, Te Rangitake and Pratt, warriors and missionaries; and we go where they went: from the flagpole at Kororareka to Kawiti's pa at Ruapekapeka, up the Hutt River to Boulcott's farm, across Taranaki from Waitara to Kaitake pa. Through both tangata and whenua we understand the conflicts and their consequences anew. Based on thirty years of research, the Atlas of the New Zealand Wars reveals a complex series of challenges and misunderstandings, skirmishes and negotiations, battles and wars that have profoundly shaped the lives of Māori and Pākeha on these islands ever since. [Hardback]
”Derek Leask’s Atlas is a magnificent labour of love. It adds a whole new — visual — dimension to our understanding of the New Zealand Wars.” — James Belich, Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History, University of Oxford
Surplus Women by Michelle Duff $35
Survival, friendship, love, desire, pain, freedom. Jess is the only one in her group who hasn’t lost her virginity. Genevieve is being held captive in a dug-out with her gymnastics nemesis from 40 years ago. At night, Jade absorbs catcalls like Mario powering up on mushrooms. From heaven, the Dream Team data-analyses human destinies while worrying about their job security. As Whetū and Sia race to the hospital in the rain, Whetū remembers another night that changed everything. This is a collection of stories about women in past, present and future Aotearoa. Michelle Duff’s cast of hungry teenage girls, top detectives who forget to buy milk, frustrated archivists, duplicitous real estate agents, and ‘surplus women’ are all as vivid as wafts of Impulse from a backpack in the 90s. These stories move nimbly from realism to comic overdrive, from the outlandish to the simply true, with characters reappearing from new angles. As they meditate on power and patriarchy, love and bad decisions, these stories remind us of the sweet dreams we used to have and how it feels to wake up from them. [Paperback]
”Vibrant, eclectic, sharp as hell. We’re in the presence of a writer who is acutely aware of the way each story whispers to another — especially, crucially, around what girls and women leave chronically unsaid, the surplus silence in our lives.” —Tracey Slaughter
”The characters are unforgettable. This is a voice I am happy to spend time with, a voice that is offering something new.” —Tina Makereti
Zone by Mathias Énard (translated from French by Charlotte Mandell) $28
”Énard 's text is like a ball-bearing rolling around indefinitely inside a box over surfaces imprinted with every sort of information about the wider Mediterranean, from Barcelona to Beirut, and Algiers to Trieste (the ‘Zone’), past and present. Énard very effectively uses the necessarily one-directional movement of a sentence to sketch out, through endless repetition and variation, the multi-dimensional complexity of the political, cultural, historical, social and physical terrain of the entire Zone. The narrative, so to call it, takes the form of a single 496-page sentence perfectly capturing (or perfectly inducing the impression of) the thought processes of the narrator as he travels, in ‘real’ time by train from Milan to Rome bearing a briefcase of classified information on terrorists, arms dealers and war criminals to sell to the Vatican, speeding on amphetamines, fatigue and alcohol, in his memory through multistranded loops from his experiences, which include his involvement as a mercenary in Croatia and working for the French secret service as well as his string of personal relationships, and in even greater loops of knowledge and association that pertain to the places in which his experiences took place and the history associated therewith. Énard’s prose is so irresistible and so mesmeric that the reader is effortlessly borne along, its forward movement not at all inhibited by the encyclopedic effect of the loops, and the loops upon the loops, upon the strand of the narrator’s journey, nor by the pieces of painful psychological grit not yet abraded from the narrator’s personal history of involvement in the recent traumas of the Zone. By so seductively inhabiting the mind of his less-than-admirable narrator, a mind caught between obsessive focus and restless discursion, Énard provides a panoramic view of the political and personal violence that has shaped the history and cultures of the Zone, and also intimates the way in which an individual is caught irretrievably in the great web of their circumstances, submission to those circumstances being the price of travelling along them.” —Thomas. [New paperback edition]
Death Goddess Guide to Self Love by Carin Smeaton $30
Death Goddess sings loud, proud and offkey about the trauma, mess and gore of our awa atua, red river fox, our frenemy enemy ovaries! This goddess isn’t afraid of nothing. She’s not afraid to spill her moon sickness on the western line. She is not afraid to kick up a storm in colonial institutions. She’s not gonna wear their shame. Rather, this collection kicks these brutal systems high up into the whetu for a pulse check. She’s Carin Smeaton’s third full length collection of new original poetry, her unexpected baby, her new born freedom fighter! [Paperback]
"Carin’s kupu come sideways, they break the rules, they respect the kuia and the power of slang, her poems are a testament to staying sly and aware, her angles are always a beautiful surprise, she embraces the ordinary and the divine, and biting into her mahi is to experience both, like popping candy let loose in the cage of the waha." —Talia Marshall
Going Mainstream: Why extreme ideas are spreading, and what we can do about it by Julia Ebner $28
Incels. Anti Vaxxers. Conspiracy theorists. Neo-Nazis. Once, these groups all belonged on the fringes of the political spectrum. Today, accelerated by a pandemic, global conflict and rapid technological change, their ideas are becoming more widespread: QAnon proponents run for U.S. Congress, neo-fascists win elections in Europe, and celebrity influencers spread dangerous myths to millions. Going Mainstream asks the question: What is happening here? Going undercover online and in person, UK counter-extremism expert Julia Ebner reveals how, united by a shared sense of grievance and scepticism about institutions, radicalised individuals are influencing the mainstream as never before. Hidden from public scrutiny, they leverage social media to create alternative information ecosystems and build sophisticated networks funded by dark money. Ebner's candid conversations with extremists offer a nuanced and gripping insight into why people have turned to the fringes. She explores why outlandish ideas have taken hold and disinformation is spreading faster than ever. And she speaks to the activists and educators who are fighting to turn the tide. Going Mainstream is a dispatch from the darkest front of the culture wars, and a vital wake-up call. [Paperback]
''With unparalleled insight and urgency, Ebner reveals the dangerous spread of extremist beliefs. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the terrifying new reality we face.'' —Eliot Higgins, author of We Are Bellingcat
Powsels and Thrums: A tapestry of a creative life by Alan Garner $45
In this memoir, Garner traces the line of his life: from a working-class childhood in the landscape of Cheshire during World War II, through a grammar school education and on to the University of Oxford, and then home to see if he could become what he most desired: a writer. We see the serendipitous moments that drove his course, from coming-of-age in a period of great cultural change, to crossing paths with a famous mathematician while out long-distance running, to the fateful day he chanced across Blackden, the medieval hall, miraculously located next to the giant telescope at Jodrell Bank, that was to become his lasting home and the setting for Treacle Walker. As Garner tells us, a lifetime of working with a pen produces the powsels and thrums of research, imagination and story. These oddments can be shaped into something more than its parts: a vivid tapestry of a creative life that will inspire any reader. [Hardback]
”Who could resist such a title? The term derives from handloom weaving, Alan Garner's great-grandfather's trade, and refers to the scraps of cloth that weavers kept for themselves - an evocative metaphor for the writings collected herein. These snippets, produces on the same magical loom, together attain a mesmerizing wholeness, vibrating with life and curiosity.” —Observer
”A sequence of work collected from various sources across the years which offers a remarkable window into Garner's mind and heart. I use the word window advisedly, for Garner's prose is as clear as glass, perfectly conveying the precision of his thought. You don't have to know his work well to become immersed in this little book.” —Spectator
Colony by Annika Norlin (translated from Swedish by Alice E. Olsson) $38
One morning, Emelie can't get out of bed. Her therapist calls it burnout. Her neighbour calls it the tiny work death. She needs to get away from the brightness of the city lights, the noise of the people, the constant demands, so she goes to the woods, pitches her tent overlooking the lake, breathes. And that's where she sees them, the Colony- A man with a sad face. A tall, strong, older woman. A woman in her forties, squatting to examine an ant hill. Another woman in her forties, short, long hair, ample bosom, good posture - the leader? An extremely beautiful man. A slightly younger man, in a Helly Hansen jacket and trucker hat. And a teenage boy, standing a little way from the group. Who are they? What do they mean to each other? And why do they behave in such strange ways- thanking the fish they eat, sleeping under a tree, singing off key, dancing without music, never letting the boy fully in? As Emelie becomes more and more drawn to the Colony, she begins to re-evaluate her own lifestyle. Wouldn't it be nice to live as these seven do? Apart from society and its expectations. But groups always have their dynamics and roles. Which are you? And what if you want to change? [Paperback]
Te Moana o Reo | Ocean of Languages edited by Michelle Elvy and Vaughan Rapatahana $30
This sparkling collection of stories brings more than 40 languages together, highlighting the complex realities of Aotearoa’s multicultural and multilingual society. Including microfictions and creative nonfictions, plus 12 essays from language practitioners and experts, Te Moana o Reo holds words to the light, examining, contemplating and declaring who we are. This is a 21st-century view of Aotearoa, a taonga for our world. Writers include: David Eggleton, Airana Ngarewa, Melanie Kwang, Karlo Mila, Ghazaleh Gol, James Norcliffe, Robert Sullivan, Lynn Jenner, Harry Ricketts, Jana Grohnert, Serie Barford, Lynn Davidson, Renee Liang, Hēmi Kelly. [Paperback]
Mozart in Italy: Coming of age in the land of opera by Jane Glover $28
At thirteen years old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who had captured the hearts of northern Europe, but his father Leopold was now determined to conquer Italy. Together, they made three visits there, the last when Mozart was seventeen, all recounted here by conductor Jane Glover. Father and son travelled from the theatres and concert salons of Milan to the church-filled streets of Rome to Naples, poorer and more dangerous than the prosperous north, and to Venice, the carnivalesque birthplace of public opera. All the while Mozart was absorbing Italian culture, language, style and art, and honed his craft. He met the challenge of writing Italian opera for Italian singers and audiences, and provoked a variety of responses, from triumph and admiration to intrigue and hostility: in a way, these Italian years can be seen as a microcosm of his whole life. [Paperback]
Borderlines: A history of Europe told from the edges by Lewis Baston $40
Europe's internal borders have rarely been 'natural'; they have more often been created by accident or force. In Borderlines, political historian Lewis Baston journeys along twenty-nine key borders from west to east Europe, examining how the map of the continent has been redrawn over the last century, with varying degrees of success. The fingerprints of Napoleon, Alexander I, Castlereagh, Napoleon III and Bismarck are all there, but today's map of Europe is mostly the work of the Allies in 1919 and Stalin in 1945. To journey to the centre of the story of Europe, Baston takes us right to its edges, bringing to life the fascinating and often bizarre histories of these border zones. We visit Baarle, the town broken into thirty fragments by the Netherland-Belgium border, and stop in Ostritz, the eastern German town where Nazis held a rock festival. We meander the back lanes of rural Ireland, and soak up the atmosphere in the Viennese-style coffee houses of the elegant Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi. Through these borderlands, Baston explores how places and people heal from the scars left by a Europe of ethnic cleansing and barbed wire fences, and he searches for a better European future — finding it in unexpected places. [Paperback]
Uprooting: From the Caribbean to the countryside — Finding home in an English garden by Marchelle Farrell $28
What is home? It's a question that has troubled Marchelle Farrell for her entire life. Years ago she left Trinidad and now, uprooted once again, she heads to the peaceful English countryside — and finds herself the only Black woman in her village. Drawn to her new garden, Marchelle begins to examine the complex and emotional question of home in the context of colonialism. As her relationship with the garden deepens, she discovers that her two conflicting identities are far more intertwined than she had realised. Winner of the Nan Shepherd Prize. [Paperback]
Clara and the Birds by Emma Simpson $35
For as long as she can remember, Clara has always been fascinated with birds--where they go, how they take flight, and the way they immediately fly away from her when she comes into contact with them. Like the birds she so admires, Clara is considered shy by those around her. She too feels the urge to flee the company of others, preferring the comforting bubble of solitude instead. Convinced that her desire to be alone is a weakness, she fails to find her voice or recognize her own inner strength. That is, until she has a chance encounter with a bird who doesn't immediately fly away. [Hardback]
Pakistan: Recipes and stories from home kitchens, restaurants, and roadside stalls by Maryam Jillani $65
Thanks to shared borders with Afghanistan, China, India, and Iran, and a history of migration and trade, Pakistani dishes draw upon a marvelous array of flavours and ingredients that make food one of the country's finest qualities. With over 100 recipes for sauces, chutneys, aromatic curries and subtly spiced vegetables, Pakistan is a perfect introduction to readers new to the cuisine and a welcome reminder of favorites to those already familiar. A few of the recipes that await: Spiced Chicken Dumplings, Lentil Fritters in Yogurt, Tangy Potato Curry, Slow-Cooked Lamb, Saffron-Infused Flatbread, and Parsi Wedding Custard. Along with essays profiling each of the country's regions, abundant and dramatic photography, and a show-stopping package, Pakistan is a cookbook to be read, savoured, and cooked from. [Hardback]
Énard 's text is like a ball-bearing rolling around indefinitely inside a box over surfaces imprinted with every sort of information about the wider Mediterranean, from Barcelona to Beirut, and Algiers to Trieste (the ‘Zone’), past and present. Énard very effectively uses the necessarily one-directional movement of a sentence to sketch out, through endless repetition and variation, the multi-dimensional complexity of the political, cultural, historical, social and physical terrain of the entire Zone. The narrative, so to call it, takes the form of a single 520-page sentence perfectly capturing (or perfectly inducing the impression of) the thought processes of the narrator as he travels, in ‘real’ time by train from Milan to Rome bearing a briefcase of classified information on terrorists, arms dealers and war criminals to sell to the Vatican, speeding on amphetamines, fatigue and alcohol, in his memory through multistranded loops from his experiences, which include his involvement as a mercenary in Croatia and working for the French secret service as well as his string of personal relationships, and in even greater loops of knowledge and association that pertain to the places in which his experiences took place and the history associated therewith. Énard’s prose is so irresistible and so mesmeric that the reader is effortlessly borne along, its forward movement not at all inhibited by the encyclopedic effect of the loops, and the loops upon the loops, upon the strand of the narrator’s journey, nor by the pieces of painful psychological grit not yet abraded from the narrator’s personal history of involvement in the recent traumas of the Zone. By so seductively inhabiting the mind of his less-than-admirable narrator, a mind caught between obsessive focus and restless discursion, Énard provides a panoramic view of the political and personal violence that has shaped the history and cultures of the Zone, and also intimates the way in which an individual is caught irretrievably in the great web of their circumstances, submission to those circumstances being the price of travelling along them.
Pick a fruit — pick a book! A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more: