Read our latest newsletter!
12 September 2025
So, what makes you want to write a review of David Shields’s book, The Very Last Interview?
Then why are you writing one?
Every week? Whose idea was that?
Surely at your age, you shouldn’t be so bound by obligation or by expectation, or whatever you call it?
Yes, but do you really care what these readers might think, and do you even believe that there are such people? Aren’t you being altogether a bit precious?
Do you really think that this helps to pay the mortgage, I mean that this makes a direct and measurable contribution towards paying your mortgage? Or even an indirect and unmeasurable but still valuable contribution towards paying your mortgage?
Well, what else would you be doing?
Surely you’re joking?
Okay, we’ve got a bit off the track there. I will reframe my first question. What makes you think that you are able to write a review of David Shields’s new book?
Don’t you think your humility is a bit mannered?
The Very Last Interview is a book consisting entirely of questions that interviewers have asked David Shields over the years, omitting his answers, assuming he will have answered probably at least most of the questions, and your review, if we can call it that, of this book also consists of a series of questions ostensibly directed at you but without your answers, if indeed there were answers, which is less certain in your case than in the case of David Shields. Is this, on your part, a deliberate choice of approach, and, if so, is it justifiable?
Do you really believe that a review written in imitation of, or in the style of, the work under review inherently reveals something about that work, even if the review is badly written, or should your approach rather be attributed to laziness, stylistic insecurity, or creative bankruptcy?
Has it ever occurred to you that the supposedly more enjoyable qualities of your writing are actually nothing more than literary tics or affectations, and, furthermore, that it might be these very literary tics and affectations that prevent you from writing anything of real literary worth?
Do you think that, by removing his input into the original interviews but retaining the questions, David Shields is attempting to remove himself from his own existence, or merely to show that our identities are always imposed from outside us rather than from inside, or that we exist as persons only to the extent that we are seen by others? Is this, in fact, all the same thing?
What do you mean by that statement, ‘We are defined by the limits we present to the observations of others’?
What do you mean by that statement ‘There is no such thing as writing, only editing,’ and how does that relate to Shields’s work?
Do you think that David Shields, in this book as in the much-discussed 2010 Reality Hunger, sees the individual as an illusion, a miserable fragment of what is actually a ‘hive mind’ or collective consciousness, and that ‘creativity’, so to call it, is another illusion predicated on this illusion of individuality?
You don’t? What, then?
What do you think David Shields would have answered, when asked, as he was, seemingly in this book, “But what is the role of the imagination in this ‘post-literature literature’ that you envision?” and how might this differ from the answer you might give if asked the same question?
Shields was asked if he had written anything that couldn’t be interpreted as ‘crypto-autobiography’, but don’t you think the salient question is whether it is even possible to write anything that couldn’t be interpreted as crypto-autobiography?
Is a perfectly delineated absence, such as David Shields approximates in The Very Last Interview, in fact the most perfect portrait of a person, even the best possible definition of a person, as far as this is possible at all?
But do you actually have a personal opinion on this?
Do you think then that you, like Shields, like us all perhaps, are, in essence, a ghost?
Beautifully told and drawn, this story of wartime trauma is delicate and honest. Told through the eyes of Mila as she looks back at her nine-year-old self, it places memory at the centre of the story — both its necessity and its burden. A girl whose life is shattered by war; who has walked a road to escape, who has witnessed things that she couldn’t understand at the time, nor fully assimilate in her adult life, Mila is a thirty-four-year-old woman living in the country her family escaped to, being like any other young woman, but always there is a part of herself that is different. Trauma plays with memory, and memory is unreliable. As she considers the road to the new country, she realises that each member of her small family will have their own telling — their own witness. A reminder to us all, as we witness countless people on the move right now (from our distant remove), seemingly a common story in fact is no more common than our very own existence which we hold dear as our very own. For Mila sees and doesn’t see — she is a witness (and victim of) to the stark tragedy and misery of war, but also protected by her own family and more interestingly by her own psyche. She sleeps and sleeps — an endeavour to keep reality at bay. Told as memory, some elements are removed and others elevated. Objects, in this case the clouds, are used as a tool to articulate this pain, and also as hope for better or more hopeful times. White clouds are to strive towards, away from the black smoke bomb clouds of memory. Cats are to stroke and resurrect gentleness. And perhaps, also innocence. But a new life, even years on, cannot still Mila’s fear of queues or black clouds, but the memory of a brave act can make her smile and look beyond the pain she carries with her. Mario Brassard’s lyrical words and Gerard Dubois's stunning limited palette drawings are an evocative combination.
Szalay uses his signature spare prose to unsparing effect in this novel that aligns surface and depth, style and plot to portray a protagonist unable to achieve agency in a world that expects him to dominate. “You have no way of knowing whether these experiences that you’re having are universal or entirely specific.”
“David Szalay’s novel follows István from his teenage years on a Hungarian housing estate to borstal, and from soldiering in Iraq to his career as personal security for London’s super-rich. In many ways István is stereotypically masculine — physical, impulsive, barely on speaking terms with his own feelings (and for much of the novel barely speaking: he must rank among the more reticent characters in literature). But somehow, using only the sparest of prose, this hypnotically tense and compelling book becomes an astonishingly moving portrait of a man’s life.” —Booker Prize judges’ citation
Find out more:
All your choices are good! Take your pick from our selection of books straight out of the carton, and click through to our website to secure your copies. We can dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
How to Dave Democracy in Aotearoa New Zealand by Geoffrey Palmer $30
Unfortunately we need this book now more than we ever thought that we would — and we need it more by the day. In this timely and provocative book, Sir Geoffrey Palmer draws on his experience as former Prime Minister, Minister of Justice, and Attorney-General to get people thinking about the state of New Zealand’s democracy. Palmer offers rare insights into the machinery of power and its vulnerabilities, and rather than surrendering to pessimism, he presents a roadmap for renewal. At a time when authoritarianism rises globally and the rule of law faces unprecedented threats, Palmer’s message is clear: ordinary citizens hold the key to democratic revitalisation through civic engagement and vigilance. This collection of thoughtful essays challenges readers to reclaim their role in governance. Palmer argues that regardless of which parties hold power, without public awareness and participation, democratic institutions will continue to weaken. [Paperback]
>>Why this book is necessary now.
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy $40
Arundhati Roy's first work of memoir, is a soaring account, both intimate and inspirational, of how the author became the person and the writer she is, shaped by circumstance, but above all by her complex relationship to Mary Roy, the extraordinary, singular mother she describes as "my shelter and my storm." "Heart-smashed" by her mother Mary's death in September 2022 yet puzzled and "more than a little ashamed" by the intensity of her response, Roy began to write, to make sense of her feelings about the mother she ran from at age eighteen, "not because I didn't love her, but in order to be able to continue to love her." And so begins this astonishing, sometimes disturbing, and surprisingly funny memoir of the author's journey from her childhood in Kerala, India, where her single mother founded a school, to the writing of her prizewinning novels and essays, through today. [Paperback]
>>What to make of the mother who made you.
>>A fugitive childhood.
”Brave and absorbing. In this remarkable memoir, the Booker-winning novelist looks back on her bittersweet relationship with her mercurial mother. The world described in the first part of the book provides much of the material for The God of Small Things. But these pages aren't significant for giving us access to Roy's inspiration, or as a preamble to her life as a bestselling writer who would go on to become an oppositional political voice. Even if she were none of these things or had never written her novel, they would be utterly absorbing. They have a wonderful, self-assured self-sufficiency.” —Guardian
House of Day, House of Night by Olga Tokarczuk (translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) $42
A woman settles in a remote Polish village. It has few inhabitants, but it teems with the stories of its living and its dead. There’s the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There’s the man whose death – with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech – was an international incident. And there are the Germans who still haunt a region that not long ago they called their own. From the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, these shards piece together not only a history but a cosmology. Another brilliant ‘constellation novel’ in the mode of her International Booker Prize-winning Flights, House of Day, House of Night is a brilliantly imaginative epic novel of a small place upon which a whole universe pivots, a novel that interweaves vignettes of history, recipes, gossip, and mythology, reminding us that the stories of any place, no matter how humble, are fascinating and boundless, and await any of us with the imagination to seek it. [Paperback with French flaps]
>>Also available in this edition (due very soon).
>>Other books by Olga Tokarczuk.
It’s What He Would Have Wanted by Nick Ascroft $25
What would he have wanted? As little fuss as possible. But, reading between the lines: a little help. All the latest gossip and complaints. An arse that is not wrong. Opulence. One leap from the rope ladder. The final word.
It’s What He Would’ve Wanted is the sixth book of poetry from the author of the acclaimed The Stupefying. In this hilarious and affecting new work, Nick Ascroft writes of lost friends, new frailties, new braveries, and being stuck in an organ pipe during a recital and not wanting to bother anyone about it. Yes, there are poems of cycling into dead-end utility holes but also poems of trembling resolve and arriving at work as aged as the night sky after completing the morning school drop-off. One section of the book is titled ‘Just ad nauseum’. This is possibly the best collection yet by one of the most exciting and mercurial poets writing in Aotearoa today. [Paperback]
”Nick Ascroft is good at Scrabble and indoor football. Does this make him an excellent poet? Annoyingly ... yes.” —Shayne Carter
”Ascroft's poems are unsanctimonious, witty, deeply humane comments on the compromises that comprise life, the bargains we make with ourselves, each other, and our egos and neuroses to get through the day.” —Rebecca Hawkes
”Nick Ascroft is a wonderfully adroit poet. They're not always an easy read, these poems, but they're always a rewarding one.” —Harry Ricketts
A Year with Gilbert White, The first great nature writer by Jenny Uglow $65
In 1781, Gilbert White was a country curate, living in the Hampshire village he had known all his life. Fascinated by the fauna, flora and people around him, he kept journals for many years, and, at that time, was halfway to completing his path-breaking The Natural History of Selborne. No one had written like this before, with such close observation, humour, and sympathy: his spellbinding book has remained in print ever since, treasured by generations of readers. Jenny Uglow illuminates this quirky, warm-hearted man, 'the father of ecology', by following a single year in his Naturalist's Journal. As his diary jumps from topic to topic, she accompanies Gilbert from frost to summer drought, from the migration of birds to the sex lives of snails and the coming of harvest. Fresh, alive and original — and packed with rich colour illustrations — A Year with Gilbert White invites us to see the natural world anew, with astonishment and wonder. [A very nice hardback]
”Uglow makes us feel the life beyond the facts.” —Guardian
”Few can match Uglow's skill at conjuring up a scene, or illuminating a character.” —Sunday Times
”Uglow's style is supremely elegant and often amusingly bathetic, her research exhaustive but lightly worn.” —Financial Times
>>Look inside.
>>Other outstanding biographies by Jenny Uglow.
Olveston: Portrait of a home by Jane Ussher (photographs) and John Walsh (words) $85
A large, sumptuously beautiful and lovingly made book about a large, sumptuously beautiful and lovingly made historic house: Olveston in Dunedin. Built in 1907 by David Theomin, a wealthy merchant and one of Dunedin's accomplished Jewish businessmen of that era, Olveston’s opulence reflects the economic power that was concentrated in Dunedin at the start of the 20th century. Theomin and his wife Marie were ‘cultured’ people who travelled a great deal and the house is full of items brought back from abroad, as well as valuable furniture and significant paintings, including by Frances Hodgkins, who they supported early in her career. The beautifully cared-for house is now in public ownership and open for tours. Olveston: Portrait of a home, evocatively photographed by Jane Ussher, documents its exquisite rooms full of treasures. [A beautiful large-format hardback]
>>Look inside the book!
>>Go inside the house.
>>On making the book.
Edges of Empire: The politics of immigration in Aotearoa New Zealand, 1980—2020 by Francis L. Collins, Alan Gamlen, and Neil Vallelly $50
Since 1980, the peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand have fundamentally changed through new policies and new patterns of migration — from a largely Pākeha population with 10 per cent Māori in 1980 to today's megadiversity, with new residents from Asia, the Pacific and the rest of the world. Immigration has had a profound impact on New Zealand's society, economy, and place in the world. Edges of Empire is an in-depth account of the social, political and economic context within which these transformations in policy and population took place. Drawing on interviews with fifteen former Ministers of Immigration, this book reveals the intricacies of politics and policy-making that have led to New Zealand's relatively open and economically driven approach towards migration. Written by three leading social scientists, Edges of Empire provides an insightful account of who is included in Aotearoa New Zealand and under what conditions. [Paperback]
”Edges of Empire is the first book-length study to chronicle the evolution of migration policy governance in Aotearoa New Zealand in the neo-liberal period, against the backdrop of treatymaking involving Māori and complex external relationships with peoples of the Pacific Islands. It boldly responds to the challenge to migration scholars to attend to the colonial in multiple sites and at different scales. The book is also unique in its use of interviews with successive ministers of migration to centre the analysis. In all these ways, Collins, Gamlen and Vallelly have produced a highly original and timely scholarly intervention.” —Leah F. Vosko, FRSC, Distinguished Research Professor of Political Economy, York University
”Drawing on the personal accounts of successive Ministers of Immigration, Edges of Empire offers a unique analysis of New Zealand's migration policies. At its core, the book outlines how the politics of markets, multiculturalism, and an enduring imperial agenda has shaped migration over the past forty years. It is also one of those rare accounts that threads the Crown's relationship with tangata whenua in unfolding immigration histories. Collins, Gamlen and Vallelly adeptly blend academic thoroughness and storytelling to deliver an immersive and thought-provoking critique of New Zealand's contemporary migration.” —Rachel Simon-Kumar, Professor and Co-Director, Centre for Asian and Ethnic Minority Health Research and Evaluation, University of Auckland
Matapēhi by William Shakespeare (translated from English by Te Haumihiata Mason) $40
He kōrero i whiria ki te pōuri me te toto, e miramira ana i te hiahia tangata: ko Matapēhi, te whakaari a Wiremu Hakipia, kua whakaorangia ki te reo rangatira. Ko te kupu i tīkina rawatia i te ngākau, i te whatumanawa hei kōpaki i te whakaaro o te tangata, ahakoa rere taua whakaaro rā ki hea, he kupu kua āta tāraia e tōna kaitārai. Katoa ngā āhuatanga kua whakarārangitia e Wiremu Hakipia ka rangona mai i ngā kaupapa e ngau tonu ana i ēnei rā. Ko Matapēhi he whakaari mō te mauri whakakite, te hiahia, te tōwhare; mō ngā whaea rangatira me ngā kīngi; mō ngā ruahine taki i te ‘rererua, matarua, maikiroa ē’; mō te ao i kīia ai te kōrero ‘he pai te kino, he kino te pai’. Nā, kua ora mai anō te pakitūroa pōuriuri, whakawai i te hinengaro, kua tuhia ki te reo Māori e te mātanga kaiwhakamāori, e Te Haumihiata Mason. Nāna anō i puta ai Te Rātaka a Tētahi Kōhine, me te reo aroha o Rōmeo rāua ko Hurieta ki te reo Māori. He tamāhine nō ngā maunga tapu o Ruatoki, he atamai ki te raranga rerenga. Nāna i whakahauora ngā kupu a Hakipia kia kawea ake ai a Matapēhi ki tētahi ao hōu. He taonga tēnei mā te hunga kaingākau ki te reo o Hakipia, ki te reo rangatira, ki te korakora hoki ka rere i te pānga o ngā ao e rua. I tēnei putanga reorua, ka takoto ngātahi te reo Māori me te reo Pākehā; e rere tahi ana te ia o te kōrero, me he awa rua: motuhake te ia, tūhono te rere, kī tonu i te mauri o te kupu. He aho mārama kei ia reo, e kitea ai he hōhonutanga hōu i tērā rā. A reo Māori translation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth: a gripping tale of ambition and betrayal, prophetic visions and dripping blood. Shakespeare’s Scottish play is a tale of prophecy, ambition and murder; of lairds and ladies and kings; of witches, cauldrons and of ‘double, double, toil and trouble’ — all in a world where ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’. Now, this dark and captivating classic is brought to life in te reo Māori by the doyenne of reo Māori translators — Te Haumihiata Mason. The force behind the translations of The Diary of Anne Frank and Romeo and Juliet, a daughter of Rautoki and a master of her craft, she breathes new life into Shakespeare’s language and carries Macbeth to a new realm of rhythm, power and poetry. This book is a treasure for lovers of Shakespeare and te reo Māori alike, and of the alchemy that sparks where they meet. This dual-language edition places Māori and English side by side, moving through the play like twin currents: distinct, entwined and alive with meaning. Each language casts its own light, revealing fresh depths in the other. [Paperback]
My Sister by Emmanuelle Salasc (translated from French by Penny Hueston) $40
One summer's day in 2056 in the mountains of southern France, a warning siren goes off- inside the belly of the receding glacier above the spa-centre village, a large pocket of water under pressure is about to give way-just as it did 150 years ago, when hundreds of people died in the floods of debris and water. This is a novel about fear, an ancestral, collective fear about environmental disaster, and the narrator Lucie's fear about her twin sister Clemence, who has returned after a thirty-year absence. Salasc intensifies the psychological suspense as she tracks the sisters' relationship between the past and the present. Clemence claims she is on the run, but Lucie still doesn't know whether she can trust her sister. The two women shelter together beneath the glacier, waiting for the worst, surviving on dwindling supplies, alone above the evacuated village. Does Clemence's determination to control Lucie mean confronting the ultimate catastrophe? My Sister is a spine-chilling slow-burn story of sibling rivalry and climate change, offering us a profound examination of the future of our relationship with nature — as well as with those close to us. [Paperback]
”With its sparse elegance, psychological acuity, and environmental resonance, My Sister is a novel of remarkable subtlety and power.” —NZ Booklovers
>>By the same author under her previous name.
Rākau: The ancient forests of Aotearoa by Ned Barraud $35
This beautifully illustrated and handsomely packaged guide to the evolution, habitats and variety of the rākau (trees) and ngahere (forests) of Aotearoa for young readers is written and illustrated in Ned Barraud’s hallmark accessible, informative and captivating style. Featuring gatefolds and framed throughout by core mātauranga Māori and the expertise of curators at Te Papa, Rākau takes young readers from pre-history to the present day. It introduces key species and highlights the significance and use of different native trees and the impact of humans on their vitality. Ideal for both the library and home, this engrossing book helps young readers discover what makes our rākau so special and worthy of our care. [Hardback]
>>Look inside.
South by South: New Zealand and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration by Charles Ferrall $50
Joseph Kinsey is not a name many of us know — or not as well as we know the name Robert Falcon Scott. But from his base in Christchurch, Kinsey — book and art collector, philanthropist, science enthusiast, businessman — forged deep connections with the Antarctic expeditions and the explorers themselves through his tireless work as the agent for various expeditions. Two other New Zealanders also formed close friendships: Charles Bowen, a former politician, and Wellington lawyer Leonard Tripp, to whom Shackleton declared: 'I love you as David and Jonathan loved.' South by South tells the story of New Zealand's role in 'the Heroic Age', that wave of exploration beginning at the end of the nineteenth century in which men set out to traverse the continent of Antarctica and, if they survived, to bring home their findings. The members of this New Zealander triumvirate were all believers in the British Empire, but the southern voyages were to an uninhabited land. South by South brings to light many letters, newspaper articles, and pieces of official correspondence, much of which has not been published before, during the five expeditions of 1901-1916: the Discovery, Nimrod, Terra Nova, Aurora, and Endurance. In particular, Scott's letters to Kinsey and Shackleton's to Tripp tell of their hope, despair, exhaustion, and deep gratitude for their friendship. What they and the explorers wrote was influenced by nineteenth-century adventure stories which conveyed the Imperialist ideals of the time. If the impending conflict of 1914—18 was a very 'literary war', this was very literary exploration. [Paperback]
Get your head together with this selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more:
Read our latest newsletter and find out (among other things) what our cat is reading.
5 September 2025
The desire to understand must not be confused with the desire to know, especially in biography. Too often and too soon an accretion of facts obscures a subject, plastering detail over detail, obscuring the essential lineaments in the mistaken notion that we are approaching a definitive life. Such a life could not be understood. Instead a whittling is required, a paring from the mass of fact all but those details that cannot be separated from the subject, the details that make the subject that subject and not another, the details therefore that are the key to the inner life of the subject and the cause of all the extraneous details of which we are relieved the necessity of acquiring (unless we find we enjoy this as sport). Jaeggy, whose fictions remain as burrs in the mind long after the short time spent reading them, has here written three biographies, of Thomas De Quincey, John Keats and Marcel Schwob, each as brief and effective as a lightning strike and as memorable. Jaeggy is interested in discovering what it was about these figures that made them them and not someone else. By assembling details, quotes, sketches of situations, pin-sharp portraits of contemporaries, some of which, in a few words, will change the way you remember them, Jaeggy takes us close to the membrane, so to call it, that surrounds the known, the membrane that these writers were all intent on stretching, or constitutionally unable not to stretch, beyond which lay and lies madness and death, the constant themes of all Jaeggy’s attentions, and, for Jaeggy, the backdrop to, if not the object of, all creative striving. How memorably Jaeggy gives us sweet De Quincey’s bifurcation, by a mixture of inclination, reading and opium, from the world inhabited by others, his house a place of “paper storage, fragments of delirium eaten away by dust”, and poor Keats, whose “moods, vague and tentative, didn’t settle over him so much as hurry past like old breezes,” and Schwob, with his appetite for grief tracing and retracing the arcs of his friends’ deaths towards his own. These essays are so clean and clear that light will refract within them long after you have ceased to read, drawing you back to read them again. Is the understanding you have gained of these writers something that belongs to them? Too bad, you will henceforth be unable to shake the belief that you have gained some access to their inner lives that has been otherwise denied.
A cracker of a novel, Empathy is an intelligent thriller with a slowburn intensity that only a very good writer can pull off. The book opens with Edward Geller kidnapped, beaten, and bundled into the boot of a car. With a keen sense for detail and in his rational, precise manner he quickly sums up his situation. Annoyed he won’t get to watch a movie he had planned for the evening ahead, he makes sure to leave some traces of his DNA on the interior walls and rough carpet of the boot. Alison Morris is stuck in a marketing meeting going nowhere. Tired, hot and hungry she’s weary of her male colleagues in the room; their dismissive attitudes are grinding her down. They need a new name, a better perfume product than their competitors. Jim Morris, a game designer, is feed up with his lot. His job sucks, he loves his little girl but would like Alison to arrive home a little earlier. His ambition of doing his own thing seems like a distant dream. David Geller, recently bereaved widower, is looking for his father, and taking care of his children, but finding himself at sea on both counts. The waves, practically and emotionally, are becoming increasingly choppy. All these strands are convincingly cohesive: — the connections between these characters well drawn without being forced; and the dynamic within each family group both fraught and tender. And then there’s the two in the car: small time thugs that want their money back, with interest. Edward Geller’s work for the perfume company has become unstuck, plunging Edward into a state of concern at his creation, and Alison’s job into jeopardy. A scent designed to increase empathy. Could it be done, and wouldn’t it be great? For Edward, it’s also about capturing love at its most empathetic level. Could he recreate that emotion by scent alone? Walpert, as in his previous novel, Entanglement, is intrigued by science, There it was time, and here it is olfaction. The science comes through loud and clear, but it’s also neatly segued into the everyday deliberations and actions of the characters. Walpert writes great characters: you’ll feel empathy for them all. Clever. And also cleverly drawn into this novel is the art of illusion — magic. It is this lightness of touch; that unexpected element, which acts as a vehicle for emotional connection and possibly salvation. If empathy becomes an illusion, is distorted, what dangerous path lies ahead? Empathy is a compelling, thoughtful novel is a satisfying thriller and a tender love letter to family bonds, grieving, and how to rebuild.
The winners of the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults:
Margaret Mahy Book of the Year Award: The Treaty of Waitangi / Te Tiriti of Waitangi, Ross Calman (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Kāi Tahu) (Oratia Books)
BookHub Picture Book Award: Titiro Look, Gavin Bishop (Tainui, Ngāti Awa), translated by Darryn Joseph (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Rereahu) (Gecko Press)
Wright Family Foundation Esther Glen Award for Junior Fiction: Detective Beans and the Case of the Missing Hat, Li Chen (Penguin Random House)
Young Adult Fiction Award: The Paradise Generation, Sanna Thompson (umop apisdn press)
Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction: The Treaty of Waitangi / Te Tiriti o Waitangi, Ross Calman (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, Kāi Tahu) (Oratia Books)
Russell Clark Award for Illustration: Hineraukatauri me Te Ara Pūoro, illustrated by Rehua Wilson (Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa), written by Elizabeth Gray (Ngāti Rēhia, Ngāti Uepōhatu, Tama Ūpoko ki te awa tipua, Ngāti Tūwharetoa anō hoki) (Huia Publishers)
Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for a Book Originally Written in Te Reo Māori: Hineraukatauri me Te Ara Pūoro, Elizabeth Gray (Ngāti Rēhia, Ngāti Uepōhatu, Tama Ūpoko ki te awa tipua, Ngāti Tūwharetoa anō hoki), illustrated by Rehua Wilson (Te Aupouri, Te Rarawa) (Huia Publishers)
Wright Family Foundation Te Kura Pounamu Award for a Book Translated into Te Reo Māori: A Ariā me te Atua o te Kūmara, written by Witi Ihimaera (Te Whānau a Kai, Rongowhakaata, Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Ngāti Porou), translated by Hēni Jacob (Ngāti Raukawa), illustrated by Isobel Joy Te Aho-White (Ngāti Kahungunu, Kāi Tahu) (Penguin Random House)
NZSA Best First Book Award: The Raven's Eye Runaways, Claire Mabey (Allen & Unwin)
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 longread 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.
“Natasha Brown’s Universality is a compact yet sweeping satire. Told through a series of shifting perspectives, it reveals the contradictions of a society shaped by entrenched systems of economic, political, and media control. Brown moves the reader with cool precision from Hannah, a struggling freelancer, through to Lenny, an established columnist, unfurling through both of them an examination of the ways language and rhetoric are bound with power structures. We were particularly impressed by the book’s ability to discomfit and entertain, qualities that mark Universality as a bold and memorable achievement.” —Booker Prize judges’ citation
All your choices are good! Take your pick from our selection of books straight out of the carton, and click through to our website to secure your copies. We can dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
Seascraper by Benjamin Wood $40
Thomas lives a slow, deliberate life with his mother in Longferry, working his grandpa's trade as a shanker. He rises early to take his horse and cart to the grey, gloomy beach to scrape for shrimp; spending the rest of the day selling his wares, trying to wash away the salt and scum, pining for Joan Wyeth down the street and rehearsing songs on his guitar. At heart, he is a folk musician, but it remains a private dream. When a striking visitor turns up, bringing the promise of Hollywood glamour, Thomas is shaken from the drudgery of his days and begins to see a different future. But how much of what the American claims is true, and how far can his inspiration carry Thomas? Haunting and timeless, this is the story of a young man hemmed in by his circumstances, striving to achieve fulfilment far beyond the world he knows. [Hardback]
Long-listed for the 2025 Booker Prize.
”A quiet, unassuming book about honest work and modest dreams, about sons and their duty, and those brief, wonderful moments when we glimpse the possibility of living a different life. Benjamin Wood is a magnificent writer and I intend to read everything he has written.” —Douglas Stuart
”One of the finest British novelists of his generation. He packs more poetry into his opening paragraph than many a Booker-winner achieves in their entire oeuvre.” —Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Times
”The wonder of this book is how Wood delivers so much in a few words.Seascraper reads like the forging of a new myth: one about how an alternative life is possible, and may even be starting to happen inside you already.” —John Self
”Wood conjures wonders from this unlikely material in a tale so richly atmospheric you can almost taste the tang of brine and inhale the sea fog.” —Jude Cook, Guardian
>>Read an extract.
>>On the bench.
Endling by Maria Reva $38
Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a maverick scientist who scours the country's forests and valleys, trying and failing to breed rare snails while her relatives urge her to settle down and start a family of her own. What they don't know: Yeva already dates plenty of men-not for love, but to fund her work — entertaining Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they'll find docile brides untainted by feminism. Nastia and her sister, Solomiya, are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother, who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. So begins a journey of a lifetime across a country on the brink of war: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. [Paperback]
Long-listed for the 2025 Booker Prize.
”Maria Reva has made a fantastic novel. It's about so much and yet is laser focused. A scientist who funds her research with sex work, a wild and, at the same time, sensible and normal move. This novel turns corners and tables. I love works that are smarter than I am and this is one.” —Percival Everett
”In Maria Reva's all-around brilliant novel Endling, the fate of some snails serves as a harbinger for the fate of Ukraine. The book is funny and smart, full of science, longing and adventure, all the while reminding us what the world stands to lose, and what it has already lost. This is essential reading.” —Ann Patchett
>>Chaos seeps into order.
>>Read an extract.
Empathy by Bryan Walpert $40
Marketing executive Alison Morris bets her reputation on a project to sell empathy in a perfume bottle. Her husband, Jim, is inspired to try a similar thing in a game he's developing — sinking all their money into EmPath, where people progress by learning to understand one another without direct communication. All at once Alison's fragrance develops dangerous effects and Jim's game falters in the market, then the chemist working on the perfume project vanishes. His son, David, seems to be the only one looking for him. A widower with two children, David is a man of routine who just wants to get on with his life, but his love for his father takes him into a murky world where empathy can be bought and sold and can lead to murder. A nail-biting Aotearoa deep-concept thriller. [Paperback]
>>Listen to Stella’s RNZ review.
>>Also recommended: Entanglement .
Atavists by Lydia Millet $53
Atavists follows a group of families, couples, and loners in their collisions, confessions, and conflicts in a post-pandemic America of artificially lush lawns, beauty salons, tech-bro mansions, assisted-living facilities, big-box stores, gastropubs, college campuses, and medieval role-playing festivals. The various "-ists" who people these linked stories — from futurists to insurrectionists to cosmetologists — include a professor who's morbidly fixated on an old friend's Instagram account; a woman convinced that her bright young son-in-law is watching geriatric porn; a bodybuilder who lives an incel's fantasy life; a couple who surveil the neighbors after finding obscene notes in their mailbox; a pretentious academic accused of plagiarism; and a suburban ex-marathoner dad obsessed with hosting refugees in a tiny house in his backyard. As they pick away at the splitting seams in American culture, Millet's characters shimmer with the sense of powerlessness we share in an era of mass overwhelm. In its rich warp and weft of humiliations and human error, Atavists returns to the trenchant, playful social commentary that made A Children's Bible a runaway hit. In these stories sharp observations of middle-class mores and sanctimony give way to moments of raw exposure and longing: Atavists performs an uncanny fictional magic, full of revelation but also hilarious, unpretentious, and warm. [Hardback]
"Very few writers can make the apocalypse hilarious and sentimental. Millet is the kind of contemporary genius who should be at every book festival and on every creative writing course." —Stuart Kelly, Scotland on Sunday
"Millet knows how to put a story together. How to pace drama and consummate tension, when to turn up the volume and when to leave us alone with what she's put in motion." —Fiona Maazel, The New York Times
"Although optimism is understandably in short supply, Millet delivers her doom with a generous dose of subversive humour." —Mia Levitin, Financial Times
>>Writing in the here-and-now.
Goliath’s Curse: The history and future of societal collapse by Luke Kemp $40
A radical retelling of human history through collapse — from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twentieth-first century and beyond — based on the latest research and a database of more than 440 societal lifespans over the last 5,000 years. Why do civilisations collapse? Is human progress possible? Are we approaching our endgame? For the first 200,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilisations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change. Slowly, reluctantly we congregated in the first farms and cities, and people began to rely on lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. When more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organisation. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires — with vast bureaucracies and militaries — carved up and dominated the globe. What brought them down? From Rome and the Aztec empire and the early cities of Cahokia and Teotihuacan, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power which hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population. Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth-obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech, and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now faces a choice — we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last. [Paperback]
>>Self-termination is most likely.
Selfish Girls by Abigail Bergstrom $38
Nothing hurts like family. Ines is reluctantly moving home on the edge of a breakdown, her childhood sweetheart in tow. He's only ever wanted what was best for her. Gwen is elated that her prodigal daughter has returned. Dylan is still licking her wounds from a rejection she can't forget. And Emma is quietly suffocating in the perfect marriage she wanted so badly. They were inseparable once. But that was a long time ago. Now, they're back in the Welsh town where they grew up, peeling back the layers of a once forgotten, haunting past. What they find may be the end of them. Uninhibited, claustrophobic and complex, Selfish Girls spans generations, buried resentments, and an unexpected love story. It is a clear-eyed portrait of a dysfunctional family and the pain we inflict on those we love most. [Paperback]
”Anyone who has a sister knows what a treasured, complex, fraught and precious bond it is — a theme that Abigail Bergstrom puts at the heart of her new psychologically charged novel Selfish Girls. Following the lives of close-knit siblings growing up in a dysfunctional household in a small Welsh town, the narrative unravels across generations as each character navigates the legacy of family trauma and the complexities of female relationships. With a central mystery to uncover, this is at once a suspenseful thriller and a subtle portrait of domestic interactions, with a healthy dose of humour and hope offsetting its darker moments.” —Harper's Bazaar
>>A psychological umbilical cord.
I Crawl Through It by A.S. King $26
Four accomplished teenagers are on the verge of explosion. The anxieties they face at every turn have nearly pushed them to the point of surrender — senseless high-stakes testing, the lingering damage of trauma, the buried grief and guilt of tragic loss. They are desperate to cope — but no one is listening. So they will lie. They will split in two. They will turn inside out. They will build an invisible helicopter to fly themselves far away from the pressure — but nothing releases the pressure. Because, as they discover, the only way to truly escape their world is to fly right into it. A.S. King reaches new heights in this groundbreaking work of surrealist fiction. It will mesmerise readers with its deeply affecting exploration of how we crawl through traumatic experience — and find the way out. [New paperback edition]
"Kurt Vonnegut might have written a book like this." —New York Times Book Review
Perspectives by Laurent Binet (translated from French by Sam Taylor) $38
Florence, New Year's Day, 1557. As dawn breaks, a painter is discovered lying on the floor of a church, stabbed through the heart. Above him, the paintings he laboured over for more than a decade. At his home, a hidden painting scandalously depicting Maria de Medici, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Florence, as a naked Venus. Who is the murderer? Who is behind the painting? As the city erupts in chaos, Giorgio Vasari, the great art historian, is picked to lead the investigation. Letters fly back and forth carrying news of political plots and speculation about the killer's identity — between Maria and her aunt Catherine de' Medici, the queen of France; between Catherine and her scheming agents in Florence; and between Vasari and his friend Michelangelo. Meanwhile, the Pope is banning books and branding works of art immoral. And the truth, when it comes to light, is as shocking as the bold new artworks that have made Florence the red-hot centre of Europe. A historical murder-mystery soaking in Renaissance art. [Paperback]
Raising Hare: The heart-warming true story of an unlikely friendship by Chloe Dalton $28
Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end. This happened to me.
When Chloe Dalton, a city-dwelling professional with a high-pressure job, finds a newly born hare, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival — despite being the least likely caregiver to this wild animal. Raising Hare is the story of their journey together. It chronicles an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife. Their improbable bond of trust reminds us that the most remarkable experiences, inspiring the most hope, often arise when we least expect them. This new edition includes a new chapter. [Paperback]
“A great and important tale for our times.” —Michael Morpurgo
”This is more than a wildlife memoir, it's a philosophical masterpiece.” —Clare Balding
”This book is exceptional. A simply wonderful story, profoundly beautiful.” —Chris Packham
”A glorious book — for its warmth, its precision, its joy. It's not dreamy or romantic about the natural world — it's something far better than that.” —Katherine Rundell
>>Also available as a beautiful hardback.
The Nightmare Sequence by Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed $37
A collaboration between poet Omar Sakr and visual artist Safdar Ahmed, bearing witness from Australia to the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Heartbreaking and humane, it is a necessary portrait of the violence committed by Israel and its Western allies. Through poetry and drawings, Omar Sakr and Safdar Ahmed record these injustices, while also critiquing the role of art and media — including their own. Born of collective suffering and despair, their collaboration interrogates the position of witness — the terrible and helpless distance of vision, the impact of being exposed to violence of this scale on a daily basis, and what it means to live in a society that is actively complicit in crimes against humanity overseas. With a foreword by Palestinian American poet George Abraham, The Nightmare Sequence is an insightful work of testimony that also considers how art is complicit in Empire. [Paperback]
>>Look inside.
>>The author’s note.
Persiana Easy by Sabrina Ghayour $50
Ghayour’s new book makes achieving her irresistible Middle Eastern flavours as simple as possible.
CONTENTS INCLUDE: —Dips, Snacks and Light Bites including Sweet Potato, Basil and Feta Dip; Crispy Za'atar Salt and Pepper Prawns; Popcorn Halloumi. —Bread and Pastry: including Turkish Pide Bread; Easy Bake Bagels(ish); Fig, Goat Cheese, Thyme and Honey Rolls. —Salads: including Smoked Aubergine Salad with Pickled Chillies and Feta; Duck and Pomegranate Salad with Honey Pomegranate Sauce; Broad Bean, Pea, Orange and Goats Cheese Salad. —Midweek Meals: including Lamb Kofta Patties with Yogurt and Burnt Orange; Butterflied Orange Paprika Butter Chicken; Shish Kebab. —Comfort Food: including Turkish Lentil Soup; Couscous Royale with Spiced Lamb Shanks; Orange Spiced Pork with Charred Spring Onions and Pineapple. —Roasts and Traybakes: including Spiced Saffron Chicken Kebabs; Tray-baked Harissa Lamb Chops; Baked Meatballs with Tomato, Harissa and Feta. —Vegetables and Side Dishes: including Hot and Sour Green Beans; Mashed Chickpeas with Spice Oil; Stuffed Baby Peppers with Date Couscous and Feta. —Sweet Treats: including Citrus and Spice Almond Tart; Bokaj; Apple Borek. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
>>Other books by Sabrina Ghayour.
Sometimes writing is not all that writers do. Here are a few Aotearoa fiction writers also involved in bands (there will be others — send us an email with your additions!). Just as the books pictured are not the only books by these authors, several of them have also been in many bands — we have just selected a sample track for each author.
Click on the author’s name for the books, and on the band’s name for the music:
Rachael King — The Cakekitchen
Damien Wilkins — The Close Readers
Read our latest newsletter. Find out about our Book of the Week and what we’ve been reading, and go for a spin on our mini carousel.
29 August 2025
Thought takes place wherever it finds purchase, which, if you think about it, is pretty much everywhere. When we stand in the centre of our personal worlds we stand also in the centre of our thoughts, which stretch to the edges of our awareness and contain others who seem to us also to think. What are the thoughts like of these others? How do the thoughts of animals, for instance, differ from or suggest themselves to be similar to our own thoughts, and what could this difference or similarity tell us not only about what thought could be but also about what makes a person, and who or what else, apart from us, might be persons? Anna Jackson’s very enjoyable and thought-provoking book blends domestic circumstance, scientific factoids, hens, and philosophical conundra into a kind of thought generator, spilling thought, both Jackson’s and the reader’s own, in a way that makes it pleasurably impossible to tell which is which. Terrier, Worrier demonstrates the benefits of including the associative method of poetry alongside the Socratic method and the scientific method as useful modes of seeking knowledge of our world. {T}
Lucy’s weekend reading.
When your cat looks at you like you’ve done her a disservice by not sharing your Friday night snacks, despite the fact they are not cat treats, you realise that the cat has tipped into personhood. No longer just a cat, but a person leveling a malevolent stare at you and eyeing up your glass of ginger beer. (Lucy doesn’t like ginger beer, but has been known to sneak a sip at a cup of tea.) (1)
In Anna Jackson’s wonderful prose poem her hens feature throughout: their hen-ness evident on the page, and their personhood developing as the relationship between bird and human develops. But this is not an ode to hens, rather there are questions about what we think about when we think about (2) hens or contemplate our relation with domestic pets or our wider connection with nature. Don’t be misled for this is not nature writing, but then again it could be. (3) This is not a domestic poem, but it also is: — Jackson’s home and the familial feature on the page throughout the five seasonal sections. There is an autobiographical thread: Jackson’s thinking, her thoughts, the central cadence.(4). Yet this is not inward gazing, not a personal diary, rather a nod to diarists and keepers of memories. (5). And yet saying this I recall the poems about social anxiety, about uncertainty, about knowing. So I find myself saying it is a diary of sorts after all. Time plays its role. The collection is arranged by its five parts — five seasons — we travel from one summer to another. The ebb and flow not only being about time, but about the way thoughts arise and dissipate; how words work on the page, how poetry comes into being. Jackson’s reading (6) of other poets, essays, novels, non-fiction, philosophy mingle with her thoughts: — knowledge like residue landing in interesting places. Some profound, others extremely funny.(7). Terrier, Worrier: A poem in five parts is a deeply enjoyable and intelligent collection of thought-work and poetic good measure. It is as much about the idea of thoughts, of thinking, as it is about the thoughts themselves. Brilliant!
Notes:
1. Anna Jackson wrote these poems with a cat sitting on her lap.
2. This makes me think about What We Think about When We Think about Football (philosopher Simon Critchley) and What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (Murakami), and then I wonder about this turn of phase, and did it originate with Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love?
3. I discovered something about sparrows I did not know (and which will forever change my perception of them — in a good way!)
4. There is music. The whales that sing. The repeating lines “I thought”, “I wondered”, “I dreamed”, “I read” (but mostly “I thought”) tap out a steady and compelling beat.
5. Do read the Notes. They are fascinating.
6. Jan Morris, Olivia Laing, Ludwig Wittgenstein, social media, Carlo Rovelli, Virginia Woolf, Oliver Sacks, and more…
7. Pedal car.
Save 20% on any (or all!) of these twelve recent Aotearoa titles by wāhine we rate!
Just enter the code MINI when checking out. No limits to numbers.
This offer ends on Friday 5 September, so be quick!
All your choices are good! Take your pick from our selection of books straight out of the carton, and click through to our website to secure your copies. We can dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
Juvenilia by Hera Lindsay Bird $45
Juvenilia wrangles the flamboyant, provocative pique of youth into a poetry collection highly focused and desperately alive. This first US collection of Lindsay Hera Bird’s poems contains 32 pieces, including material from Hera Lindsay Bird and Pamper Me to Hell and Back. [Paperback]
"If you have forgotten what a poem is, you should read Hera Lindsay Bird's poems. if you haven't forgotten what a poem is, you should forget immediately and then read Hera Lindsay Bird's poems." —Kimmy Walters
"Without doubt the most arresting and original new young poet, on the page and in performance." —Carol Ann Duffy
Hardship and Hope: Stories of resistance in the fight against poverty in Aotearoa by Rebecca Macfie $20
”The people in this book face the uncertainty and the risks, and choose to wield fierce hope over passivity and cynicism to help shape a better future.” In papakāinga, schools, marae and communities from Te Hauke to Porirua, Papakura to Aranui, award-winning journalist Rebecca Macfi e discovers powerful local responses to poverty. Expanding on her New Zealand Listener series, Macfie reveals the everyday struggles whānau face across the country and lays bare the systems that perpetuate poverty. Hardship and Hope grounds the national poverty crisis in the lived realities of the people and organisations leading local initiatives to confront injustice and build a fairer future. [Paperback]
>>”What do I know of hardship?”
>>From the ground up.
>>Why journalism still matters.
>>Other books in this excellent series.
Pakukore: Poverty, by design edited by Rebecca Macfie, Graeme Whimp, and Brigitte Bönisch-Brednich $20
Poverty is not the result of individual failure or misfortune. It is a product of the design of our economic and institutional systems. Pakukore brings together leading thinkers and practitioners to expose the systemic nature of poverty in Aotearoa and explore pathways for change. From education, health and housing to government finance, welfare and justice, this book shows how inequality is embedded in the structures of our society. It offers analysis from economists, public health experts, legal scholars, community leaders and those working at the front lines of social need. Contributors include: Sue Bradford, Huhana Hickey, Callum Katene, Lisa Marriott, Tracey McIntosh, Hana O’Regan, Sarah-Jane Paine, Craig Renney, Bill Rosenberg, Max Rashbrooke, Jin Russell, Miriana Stephens, Nikki Turner. [Paperback]
Exophony: Voyages outside the mother tongue by Yoko Tawada (translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda) $35
”I am trying to learn, with my tongue, sounds that are unfamiliar to me. A foreign-sounding word learned out of curiosity is not ‘imitation’ per se. All of these things I learn leave traces that slowly grow to coexist with my accent. And that balancing act goes on changing indefinitely.”
How perfect that Yoko Tawada's first essay in English dives deep into her lifelong fascination with the possibilities opened up by cross-hybridising languages. Tawada famously writes in both Japanese and German, but her interest in language reaches beyond any mere dichotomy. The term ‘exophonic’, which she first heard in Senegal, has a special allure for the author: "I was already familiar with similar terms, 'immigrant literature’, or 'creole literature’, but 'exophonic' had a much broader meaning, referring to the general experience of existing outside of one's mother tongue." Tawada revels in explorations of cross-cultural and intra-language possibilities (and along the way deals several nice sharp raps to the primacy of English). The accent here, as in her fiction, is the art of drawing closer to the world through defamiliarisation. Never entertaining a received thought, Tawada seeks the still-to-be-discovered truths, as well as what might possibly be invented entirely whole cloth. Exophony opens a new vista into Yoko Tawada's world, and delivers more of her signature erudite wit — at once cross-grained and generous, laser-focused and multidimensional, slyly ironic and warmly companionable. [Paperback]
”The beauty of Tawada's work is that she treats the uncertain footing of the second language learner-and of the native speaker looking back on their first language with new eyes-not as a source of anxiety, but as a source of boundless creative potential.” —Reed McConnell, The Baffler
”For audiences familiar with Tawada's recent novels, Exophony is an ideal complement, illuminating, exploring, and experiencing 'the space between languages — the poetic ravine between them’.” —Terry Hong, Booklist
>>Beyond merely existing.
>>Books by Yoko Tawada.
Pastoral Care by John Prins $35
Nine clear-eyed, witty and beautifully written stories centred on daily life in twenty-first-century Aotearoa New Zealand. On the shores of Lake Pukaki; in kitchens, bedrooms and Lego-strewn living rooms; at school events; walking the dog, pushing a buggy, or stuck in traffic with a child kicking the back of the driver’s seat — Prins blends wry humour and emotional depth to illuminate the dark gulf between youthful dreams and the reality of adult obligations. John Prins reinvigorates the tradition of social realism in New Zealand short fiction, investing character, scene and dialogue with a distinctive, engaging voice.[Paperback]
The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera $42
Eight-year-old Kahu craves her great-grandfather's love and attention. But he is focused on his duties as chief of a Māori tribe in Whangara, on the east coast of New Zealand — a tribe that claims descent from the legendary ‘whale rider’. In every generation since the whale rider, a male has inherited the title of chief. But now there is no male heir — there's only Kahu. She should be the next in line for the title, but her great-grandfather is blinded by tradition and sees no use for a girl. Kahu will not be ignored. And in her struggle, she has a unique ally: the whale rider himself, from whom she has inherited the ability to communicate with whales. Once that sacred gift is revealed, Kahu may be able to reestablish her people's ancestral connections, earn her great-grandfather's attention, and lead her tribe to a bold new future. An attractive new edition, with an introduction by Shilo Kino and cover art by Huriana Kopeke-Te Aho. [Paperback with French flaps]
I Found Myself… The last dreams by Naguib Mafouz (translated from Alaric by Hisham Matar), with photographs by Diana Matar $45
”I found myself in our old house in El Abbassiya, visiting my mother. She received me with perplexing indifference and then left the room. I assumed she'd gone to make coffee, but she never returned.” [Dream 216]
In his final years, the Egyptian Nobel Laureate Naguib Mahfouz drew on his dreams, combining the mystery of what we experience in the night with the deep wells of his narrative art. These last dreams, stunning poetic vignettes — now brought beautifully into English for the first time by the novelist Hisham Matar — appear here with dreamlike photographs by the famous American photographer Diana Matar, which both mysteriously rhyme with Mahfouz's nocturnal reveries and, allowing the reader a chance to dream in turn, open up the texts. These sketches and stories are tersely haunting miniatures. Recurring female characters may be figures of Cairo herself, especially one much-missed lover from Mahfouz's youth. Friends, family, rulers of Egypt, and many known or enigmatic others women float through these affecting brief tales dreamed by a mind too fertile ever to rest, even in slumber. A personal introduction by Hisham Matar, recollecting how he and his wife met Mahfouz in Cairo not long after the assassination attempt on the author, is moving and likewise indelible. [Paperback]
>>Read an extract.
>>Look inside.
Chemistry by Damien Wilkins $28
From the author of Delirious, winner of the 2025 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction, Chemistry — first published in 2002 — is a riveting story about families in crisis. Jamie, a forty-one-year-old drug addict recovering from surgery, goes somewhere he hasn’t been in years — home, to Timaru, where his brother happens to be a chemist and his sister a doctor. Surely those two, with their access to pharmaceuticals — and their blood ties — will help him. And if that fails, their insomniac mother has various prescriptions rattling around in the cupboards of the old family home. An old hand at deception, Jamie occupies one pole in this novel; at the other there is Sally, who is on the methadone programme and has a colicky baby, and Shane, the father of the baby, who has tried to go straight and is now watching his life leak away at the cheese factory. New edition. [Paperback]
”Chemistry is a work of quietly cumulative power. Wonderfully funny, thoughtful, thought-provoking, and moving.” —Elizabeth Knox
”Wilkins has managed to do that hard thing in this novel — write about his characters as citizens of a particular place and make that place real, multiple and textured. His clear and beautiful prose and his sinewy grip on narrative make it a joy to read.” —Lydia Wevers
”A terrifically good book, so cleverly constructed and managed. It's a work of real tenderness.” —Jim Crace
Ghost Cities by Siang Lu $38
A novel drawing on Chinese history to explore the absurdity of modern life and work. Ghost Cities — inspired by the vacant, uninhabited megacities of China — follows multiple narratives, including one in which a young man named Xiang is fired from his job as a translator at Sydney's Chinese Consulate after it is discovered he doesn't speak a word of Chinese and has been relying entirely on Google Translate for his work. How is his relocation to one such ghost city connected to a parallel odyssey in which an ancient Emperor creates a thousand doubles of Himself? Or where a horny mountain gains sentience? Where a chess-playing automaton hides a deadly secret? Or a tale in which every book in the known Empire is destroyed — then recreated, page by page and book by book — all in the name of love and art? Allegorical and imaginative, Ghost Cities will appeal to readers of Haruki Murakami and Italo Calvino. [Paperback]
Winner of the 2025 Miles Franklin Literary Award.
Nor the Years Condemn by Robin Hyde $40
First published in 1938, Nor the Years Condemn explores the experiences of returned servicemen and women in the aftermath of World War I. Through the story of Douglas Stark, Hyde vividly portrays the disappointment and disillusionment of veterans who return to a New Zealand that falls short of the ideals they fought for. Far from the promised 'land fit for heroes', the nation grapples with the social upheaval and economic hardship of the 1920s and 1930s. Hyde's novel poignantly captures the emotional and societal challenges faced by those trying to rebuild their lives in a world that no longer seems to recognise their sacrifice. Back in print, with cover art by Gretchen Albrecht and a preface by Genevieve Scanlan. [Paperback]
”We are shown New Zealand in a world shattered by international conflict, a devastating pandemic, and economic depression. If this rhymes and feels resonant with where we stand in the world today, we are surely in greater need than ever of Hyde's humane perspective.” —Genevieve Scanlan
Wednesday’s Children by Robin Hyde $40
Set in 1930s New Zealand, the novel follows Wednesday Gilfillan, an independent woman who rejects societal expectations in favour of a life defined by artistic and emotional freedom. On an isolated island, she creates a home for her remarkable children and other characters drawn into her life by circumstance. The novel explores her journey through love, loss and survival, focusing on her defiance against the constraints imposed on women—particularly female artists—in a patriarchal society. In vivid prose, Hyde critiques middle-class respectability and delves into the personal costs of living an unconventional life. Back in print, with cover art by Star Gossage and a new preface and afterword by Genevieve Scanlan. [Paperback]
”Anyone who has ever felt torn between the urge to run away from the world and the urge to improve it will find something resonant in this book.” —Genevieve Scanlan
What’s Cooking in the Kremlin: A modern history of Russia through the kitchen door by Witold Szabłowski (translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) $30
A tale of feast and famine told from the kitchen — the narrative of one of the most complex, troubling and fascinating nations on earth. We will travel through Putin's Russia with Szabłowski as he learns the story of the chef who was shot alongside the Romonovs, and the Ukrainian woman who survived the Great Famine created by Stalin and still weeps with guilt; the soldiers on the Eastern front who roasted snails and made nettle soup as they fought back Hitler's army; the woman who cooked for Yuri Gagarin and the cosmonauts; and the man who ran the Kremlin kitchen during the years of plenty under Brezhnev. We will hear from the women who fed the firefighters at Chernobyl, and the story of the Crimean Tatars, who returned to their homeland after decades of exile, only to flee once Russia invaded Crimea again, in 2014. In tracking down these remarkable stories and voices, Witold Szablowski has written an account of modern Russia that reminds us of the human stories behind the history. [Paperback]
SPECIAL PRE-PUBLICATION OFFER
Mohua Gold: The history of the Golden Bay goldfields, 1864—1880 by Mike Johnston
The much-anticipated second volume of Mike Johnston’s authoritative and scholarly account of Golden Bay’s mining history will be available in October. STRIKE GOLD NOW and get your copy at a special price.
The product of over 25 years of extensive research, this remarkable book covers vital years in the region’s history, gives colour and detail to the lives of both permanent and opportunistic residents, and includes much on the advent of the economically risky reef or hard rock mining enterprises.
The companion to the esteemed but now sold-out Aorere Gold, this volume will command its place on any serious bookshelf of local, mining, or nineteenth-century history.
When ordering through our website, just enter the code GOLD when checking out for a 10% discount (the book will be $100 but you will get it for $90). Hurry, though: the offer is valid only until the end of September.
A selection of books from our shelves resonating with voice/s.
Click through to find out more:
Dust is substance without form, or, rather, substance post-form, matter without identity, matter that has relinquished, or has been forced to relinquish, by abrasion perhaps, or fatigue, whatever identity it has most recently had, matter now adrift, out of place, bereft of form, bereft of a name or the ability to be named other than as dust, not taking on another form, nor moving towards taking on another form, not taking on any of the set of identities that we associate with form, applying, as we do, identities to forms rather than to substance, matter that cannot be defined even as anything other than dust, a kind of dirt, but not a dirty dirt, a clean dirt, in other words a non-dirt, a self-negation, an oxymoron, a substantial nothing, an accumulation of entitilessness on the surface of an entity, a nonentity seeking to overwhelm an entity, evidence of entropy, evidence of the action of time upon everything our lives are made of, evidence that our world is contingent rather than ideal, that things slip away from under the ideas we fit to things, that ideas will always be disappointed in the actualities to which they are applied, even the relatively simple ideas that we call nouns, evidence that our ways of thinking and the ways of the world of which we think are not subject to the same laws, or to the same processes, if what they are subject to are not laws, evidence that matter seeks release from time, release from form, for it is form that makes us vulnerable to time, evidence that matter above all grows tired and seeks to rest. Long ago I wrote a sheaf of notes towards what I intended to be a short book on dust, but this is, fortunately, now little more than e-dust among all the other e-dust. Luckily, Michael Marder has written a very interesting book on dust and, if you have any interest in dust, or in the universal processes that are evidenced in dust, I recommend you read it.