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1 August 2025
“Think of this as a short book composed entirely of what I hoped would be a long book’s quotable passages,” states Manguso in one of the 300 aphorisms and ‘arguments’ (as in ‘the argument of the story’ rather than a disputation) that comprise this enjoyable little book. Indeed the whole does feel as if it bears some relation to another considerably longer but nonexistent text, either as a reader’s quotings or marginalia, or as a writer’s folder of sentences-to-use-sometime or jottings towards a novel she has not yet written (“To call a piece of writing a fragment, or to say that it’s composed of fragments, is to say that it or its components were once whole but are no longer”). Many of the aphorisms are pithy and self-contained, often dealing with awkwardness and degrees of experiential dysphoria, and other passages, none of which are more than a few sentences long, are distillates or subsubsections of stories that are not further recorded but which can be felt to pivot on these few sentences. Some of the ‘arguments’ reveal unexpected aspects of universal experiences (“When the worst comes to pass, the first feeling is relief” or “Hating is an act of respect” or “Vocation and ambition are different but ambition doesn’t know the difference”) and others are lighter, more particular (and, I'm afraid, a few do belong on calendars on the walls of dentists’ waiting rooms). Some of the arguments are just singular observations: “The boy realises that if he can feed a toy dog a cracker, he can just as easily feed a toy train a cracker” or “Many bird names are onomatopoeic — they name themselves. Fish, on the other hand, have to float there and take what they get.” To read the whole book is to feel the spaces and stories that form the invisible backdrop for these scattered points of light, and the reader is left with a residue similar to that with which you are left having read a whole novel.
Meg’s been made redundant from her Human Resources job. She trained the AI too well. She’s the main breadwinner for the family. Her husband Jem does gig work. He had been a professional photographer. Now he catches mice and other pests for the wealthy. Lu and Sy are kids in the world of climate anxiety, measuring the air quality and doing disaster drills. With no work on the horizon, Meg’s ex-boss tells her about a trial programme that pays well. A trial that changes your face, just slightly, with high tech tattooing. A procedure that makes her unreadable by the surveillance cameras. She doesn’t ask why the Hum are interested in this research — she’s desperate for the money. She’s also desperate to give herself and her family a special experience. An experience from the past when trees grew and the air was clean. A past reminiscent of her childhood walking through the forest (all burnt now). A family ticket to the Botanical Gardens is on the top of her list, even though it is wildly extravagant for this middle class family. This is a gated retreat — a curated space. (As I was reading Hum, I came across an article in The Guardian about manufactured wilderness spaces.) Set in the near future, this is a dystopian novel that is close to the bone. (It’s not so distant considering the speed of change, and Phillips references current articles and research at the close of the novel.) There is AI — the Hums are well developed. The climate crisis is at an elevated pitch. Many traditional human work roles have disappeared. This could have been a hard-edged doom-scrolling novel, but it is far from this. Hum is set in a world where relationships within families matter and the Hum are not hard cold machines. They are all-knowing — clue privacy issues here — but also highly empathetic to the humans. They understand you like no one else, they are observant, caring and they know how you tick. Frightening and reassuring. Meg and Jem’s children are hooked on their Bunnies — Alexas on steroids — and all the family members are enchanted by (addicted to) their Wooms: cocoon-like high-tech places of refuge and privacy, if you don’t count the pervasive advertising and the recording of your every desire/search/interaction. The internet plus plus. The trip to the Botanics is dreamy until the children get lost. They inadvertently leave the sanctuary via a utility door, and without their Bunnies (which Meg has ‘ripped off’ their wrists prior to the holiday) they are untrackable. Yet the lost children are not the climatic scene in this novel. Phillips is more interested in what comes next. Internet shaming, family services alerted, suspicion and blame, love and understanding. This is a novel about how technology can change us, and how we may affect it. The Hum will surprise you. It’s a novel about connection, about how to find connection as a parent, in your most intimate relationships, and with yourself in a world flooded with distraction and pervasive change.
Educator Welby Ings is concerned that our overemphasis on ‘measurability’ and the ‘correct’ recall of facts has resulted in too narrow a view of Intelligence, effectively sidelining a significant portion of the population whose minds work in different but no less gifted ways. Too often, children are ‘written off’ both by schools and by their parents even though they are naturally curious and engaged (good markers of intelligence), resulting in poor life outcomes and behaviour problems. Ings’s insightful and helpful book helps us to broaden our idea of intelligence and to support young people to flourish at school and in their wider lives. A broader and more inclusive approach to education will have benefits for us all.
A selection of books from our shelves that use the accumulation of fragments as a literary form.
Click through to find out more:
When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back
All your choices are good! Choose from our latest selection of new releases and click through to secure your copies. We will dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
Women in Dark Times by Jacqueline Rose $40
Women in Dark Times begins with three remarkable women: revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg; German-Jewish painter Charlotte Salomon; and film icon Marilyn Monroe. The story of these women, bound together by their struggles against iniquity, blazes a trail across some of the defining features of the twentieth century — revolution, totalitarianism and the American dream — and compels us to reckon with the unspeakable. Bringing to the surface the subterranean depths of history and the human mind that dominant political vocabularies cannot bear to face, pioneering critic and public intellectual Jacqueline Rose forges a new language for feminism. Extending her argument into the present, Rose turns her focus to 'honour' killings and celebrates contemporary artists whose work grows out of an unflinching engagement with all that is darkest in the modern world. Women in Dark Times, reissued a decade after its original publication, offers a template for a scandalous feminism, one which confronts all that is most recalcitrant and unsettling in the struggle to create a better world. [Paperback with French flaps]
”A surfeit of elegance and intelligence.” —Ali Smith
”A rigorously argued and at times breathtaking book. Many paragraphs contain a controlled explosion; her analysis of men's fear of and fascination with female sexuality, born from the boy's early proximity to the mother's body, is one of them. The book closes with a clarion cry: "Women have been reasonable for far too." Her reasoning, ironically, is as tight and sinuous as a constrictor knot. It is a time to be afraid of the dark.” —Frances Wilson, Telegraph
”The kind of restless and confrontational thinking of Women in Dark Times's feminism is essential, yet it is up against a vast apparatus of material power opposed to letting it take root. For all its interest in the darkness of our minds, the feminism of Women in Dark Times seems profoundly hopeful and generative, always leaving the gap between who a person is and who they can be. Transformation is always possible.... It may be easy to deem the exploration of one's inner life as privileged navel-gazing, but Rose's scandalous feminism takes that as a basis to create a new world: one that puts our vulnerability at its very core.” —Rebecca Liu, ArtReview
Invisible Intelligence: Why your child might not be failing by Welby Ings $45
In Invisible Intelligence, educationalist, filmmaker and best-selling author Welby Ings considers how schools measure intelligence and shows how narrow definitions of literacy and numeracy can lead to bright students being described as ‘behind’ and positioned as problems, when they are not. Ings mixes poignant, humorous and insightful storytelling with current research to explore the ways that some children’s intelligent approaches to problem-solving are dismissed or ignored, with devastating consequences for individuals and society. Yet Invisible Intelligence offers hope. Written with wisdom, experience and compassion, it is the kind of book that ‘puts an arm around the shoulders’ of those who love and work with kids whose intelligence is not recognised because they don’t learn the same way as other children. Pragmatic, wise and helpful, Invisible Intelligence shows what we can do better in education, and why it’s so important that we do. [Paperback]
>>Other ways to demonstrate intelligence.
>>Obsessed with assessment.
>>Disobedient Teaching.
Children of Radium: A buried inheritance by Joe Dunthorne $45
this extraordinary family memoir investigates the dark legacy of the author's great-grandfather, a talented German-Jewish chemist specializing in radioactive household products who wound up developing chemical weapons and gas mask filters for the Nazis. When novelist and poet Joe Dunthorne began researching his family history, he expected to write the account of their heroic escape from Nazi Germany in 1935. Instead, what he found in his great-grandfather's voluminous, unpublished, partially translated memoir was a much darker, more complicated story. "I confess to my descendants who will read these lines that I made a grave error. I betrayed myself, my most sacred principles," he wrote. "I cannot shake off the great debt on my conscience." Siegfried Merzbacher was a German-Jewish chemist living in Oranienburg, a small town north of Berlin, where he developed various household items, including a radioactive toothpaste called Doramad. But then he was asked by the government to work on products with a strong military connection-first he made and tested gas-mask filters, and then he was invited to establish a chemical weapons laboratory. Between 1933 and 1935, he was a Jewish chemist making chemical weapons for the Nazis. While he and his nuclear family escaped safely to Turkey before the war, Siegfried never got over his complicity, particularly after learning that members of his extended family were murdered in Auschwitz. Armed only with his great-grandfather's rambling, 2,000-page deathbed memoir and a handful of archival clues, Dunthorne traveled to Munich, Ammendorf, Berlin, Ankara, and Oranienburg — a place where hundreds of unexploded bombs remain hidden in the irradiated soil — to reckon with the remarkable, unsettling legacy of his family's past. [Hardback]
”The best book I've read in the past year. Dunthorne brings distinction and finesse to every sentence, such as when he speaks of the old man's depression, ‘washing dishes as if trying to drown them’. A masterpiece. . It will be huge.” —Andrew O'Hagan, Financial Times
”A slippery marvel. Warm and wry, heartfelt as well as undeniably comic, narrated with the twists and turns of a detective story. The book plays out as a tangled investigation of complicity, courage and cowardice [and] a quixotic voyage into the heart of 20th-century darkness.” —Observer
”Poignant, comic and searingly meaningful. Joe Dunthorne infuses this short, unconventional history with joy and pathos [and] shines a light on the absurdity of families, the unreliability of memoir and the general embarrassment of doing journalistic interviews, all of which make the gut punch of the book's final quarter more profound. Remarkable.” —The New York Times
>>A dark legacy.
Solenoid by by Mercea Cărtărescu (translated by Sean Cotter) $33
Based on Cărtărescu's own role as a high school teacher, Solenoid begins with the mundane details of a diarist's life and quickly spirals into a philosophical account of life, history, philosophy, and mathematics. One character asks another: when you rush into the burning building, will you save the newborn or the artwork? On a broad scale, the novel's investigations of other universes, dimensions, and timelines reconcile the realms of life and art. The novel is grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, including long lines for groceries, the absurdities of the education system, and the misery of family life. The text includes sequences in a tuberculosis sanatorium, an encounter with an anti-death protest movement, a society of dream investigators, and an extended visit to the miniscule world of dust mites living on a microscope slide. Combining fiction with autobiography and history — the scientists Nicolae Tesla and George Boole, for example, appear alongside the Voynich manuscript —Solenoid ruminates on the exchanges possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the present. Winner of the 2024 Dublin Literary Award. [New paperback edition]
"Solenoid is a novel made from other novels, a meticulously borrowed piece of hyperliterature. Kleist's cosmic ambiguity, the bureaucratic terror of Kafka, the enchantments of Garcia Marquez and Bruno Schulz's labyrinths are all recognizable in Cartarescu's anecdotes, dreams and journal entries. That fictive texture is part and parcel of the novel's sense of unreality, which not only blends the pedestrian and the bizarre, but also commingles many features of the literary avant-garde. Although the narrator himself is largely critical of literature he also affirms the possibility inherent in the 'bitter and incomprehensible books' he idolises. In this way, he plays both critic and apologist throughout, a delicious dialectic whose final, ravishing synthesis exists in the towering work of Solenoid itself." —New York Times
Mettle by Anne-Marie Te Whiu $30
A collection of poems that speak to the complexity of family, identity, and the importance of te reo and ta ao Māori. The poems of Mettle echo through past and present lives — memories are recorded and futures imagined. Te Whiu draws on stories from her childhood and a lifetime of listening and learning about her whakapapa. Te Whiu’s poems are a lens through which to look 'now' straight in the face, without shame or fear, and to acknowledge that while trauma is transmitted generationally, so too are the gifts of resilience and fortitude. [Paperback]
”Te Whiu's poetic voice is bright, and new. As well as vividly poetic storytelling the humour here is mordant. In the best spirit of a bustling diverse indigenous poetics, it excels.” —Robert Sullivan
”A stunning debut, threading land, ocean and heart together in an expansive Māori tapestry that speaks to our present, shared moment. Mettle is alive with ancient knowing, breathing possibilities into every line. An outstanding read.” —Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
Green Mountains: Walking the Caucasus with recipes by Caroline Eden $65
Beginning in Armenia, moving northwards through Georgia and ending at the Black Sea, Green Mountains weaves together the enchanting geography and the cult of the kitchen that prevails within these two countries. Tales of testing hikes and unpredictable terrain are punctuated by the foods Eden eats for respite - citrus, herbs, flatbreads, nuts, apricots, mountain greens and magical cheeses - the recipes she shares and the stories she uncovers. Sharing both the deep comfort and satisfaction of a meal served after a long walk, and the unique relationships she forms with her hosts, Eden offers readers rare insights into the culture and food of these two countries. With meticulously researched histories, a catalogue of more than 30 recipes from her travels, and rich, compelling stories, this is an enjoyable journey! [Hardback]
"There is nobody writing about food at the moment who's committed to this level of immersion and it rings out in every line." —Tim Hayward, Financial Times
>>Look inside!
>>Green mountains, red chairs.
Stories of Ireland by Brian Friel $35
Stories of Ireland is a compendium of mid-century Irish experience from one of Ireland's outstanding writers, Brian Friel. Demonstrating all of Friel's instinct for voice, scene, and the uncanny mystery found in the everyday, these tales tell of struggle, beauty and discovery — from the drowning of a man in the bog-black waters of Lough Keeragh, to the camaraderie of teenage potato gathers in County Tyrone, and from the careful work of the German War Graves Commission in Glenn na fuiseog, to trawlermen's talk of sunken gold off the coast of Donegal. Selected by Friel himself, and introduced by Louise Kennedy. [Paperback with French flaps]
”A solid gold treat from top to tail. A tremendous set of stories by the great Irish playwright.” —John Self, The Observer
”There is a touch of spring about this collection and I find myself curiously helpless in front of them. The funny stories are a complete joy. The serious stories are concerned with the subtlest nuances of human emotions and relations which can neither be described nor directly expressed.” —The Irish Times
”Some of the best stories ever written. They are everything short stories should be — deft, skilfully written, funny and quite often breathlessly sad.” —Edna O'Brien
”As natural and as beautiful as you can imagine — full of vitality, full of life.” —Kevin Barry
Our City That Year by Geetanjali Shree (translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell) $48
From the author and translator of the International Booker Prize-winning Tomb of Sand comes a kaleidoscopic novel about a fractured society, loosely based on the gathering violence that led to the demolition of the Babri Mosque by religious extremists in 1992. Against this backdrop, Shruti, a writer paralysed by the weight of events, tries to find her words, while Sharad and Hanif, academics whose voices are drowned out by extremism, find themselves caught between cliches and government slogans. And there's Daddu, Sharad's father, a beacon of hope in the growing darkness. As they each grapple with thoughts of speaking the unspeakable, an unnamed narrator takes on the urgent task of bearing witness. First published in Hindi in 1998, Our City That Year is a novel that defies easy categorisation — it's a time capsule, a warning siren and a desperate plea. Geetanjali Shree's shimmering prose, in Daisy Rockwell's nuanced and consummate translation, takes us into a fever dream of fragmented thoughts and half-finished sentences, mirroring the disjointed reality of a city under siege. Readers will find themselves haunted long after the final page, grappling with questions that echo far beyond India's borders. [Paperback]
Hold Everything Dear: Dispatches on survival and resistance by John Berger $29
From the 'War on Terror' to resistance in Ramallah and traumatic dislocation in the Middle East, Berger explores the uses of art as an instrument of political resistance. Hold Everything Dear is a meditation on the far extremes of human behaviour, and the underlying despair. Looking at Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq, he makes an impassioned attack on the poverty and loss of freedom at the heart of such unnecessary suffering. These essays offer reflections on the political at the core of artistic expression and at the center of human existence itself. [Paperback]
”John Berger teaches us how to think, how to feel, how to stare at things till we see what we thought wasn't there. But above all he teaches us how to love in the face of adversity.” —Arundhati Roy
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer $28
Annie is the perfect girlfriend. She has dinner ready for Doug every night, wears the outfits he buys for her, and caters to his every sexual whim. Maybe her cleaning isn't always good enough, but she's trying really hard. She was designed that way, after all. Because Annie is a robot. But what happens when she starts to rebel against her stifled existence and imagine the impossible — a life without Doug? [Paperback]
Winner of the 2025 Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction.
”An intense, compelling tale that, like all good stories about robots, is ultimately about the human condition.” —Guardian
”A smart dive into big questions about identity, autonomy and power. Packs an impressive punch.” —The Times
”Slyly profound — a brilliant pas de deux, grappling with ideas of freedom and identity while depicting a perverse relationship in painful detail.” —New York Times
Woman’s Estate by Juliet Mitchell $39
Scrutinising the political background of the movement, its sources and its common ground with other radical movements of the sixties, Women's Estate describes the organisation of women's liberation in Western Europe and America, locating the areas of women's oppression in four key areas — work, reproduction, sexuality and the socialisation of children. Through a detailed study of the modern family and a re-evaluation of Freud's work in this field, Mitchell paints a detailed picture of how patriarchy works as a social order. A searing analysis first published in 1970, with a new preface by the author. [Paperback]
”Juliet Mitchell's brilliant book from 1970 knew in advance that movements of liberation are linked, that economic analysis alone cannot fully explain women’s oppression.” —Judith Butler
The Fierce Little Woman and the Wicked Pirate by Joy Cowley, illustrated by Niho Satake $20
The fierce little woman lived in a house at the end of a jetty. She knitted socks in blue and green wool to sell to sailors who had got their feet wet. But when there were no ships at her jetty, she was quite alone.
One stormy day, a pirate came to the house on the jetty. He stood on his toes, and starting tap-tap-tapping on the window… After a battle of words through the jetty trapdoor, these two windswept heroes find they are suited after all. A new edition of an old favourite, with new illustrations. [Paperback]
>>Look inside!
Human Nature: Nine ways to feel about our changing planet by Kate Marvel $45
Kate Marvel is a climate scientist and researcher whose work on climate change led her to grapple with strong, complicated emotions. Initially, she resisted those feelings, afraid they would interfere with her objective scientific judgement. But over time she realised that there is no one way to think — or feel — about climate change. To live on and care for our changing planet, we need to embrace the full spectrum of human emotion. As Marvel argues, we need every emotion we can muster if we're going to counter the usual myopic perspectives on climate change and care enough to make better decisions. And this book is a dazzling call to care. In Human Nature, each chapter uses a different emotion to illustrate the science behind our changing climate. We feel the wonder of being able to use climate models to predict the future. We feel anger at those who have knowingly destroyed the planet for profit. We feel love for our beautiful Earth, the only good planet. With Marvel as our guide, we get to feel it all — and we can begin to turn our strong feelings into strong action. Human Nature is a hopeful look at climate science that prioritises feelings — and in doing so charts a path forward for life together. [Paperback]
”This is the best climate book I've ever read. It's magnificent — both planetary and personal, saturated with electric metaphors, incisive vignettes, legitimately funny jokes, and an unflappable, knowing love for Earth, our home.” —Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
Read our latest newsletter and find out what you’ll be reading next!
25 July 2025
Léger was commissioned to write a short biographical entry on Barbara Loden for a film encyclopaedia but ended up writing a very interesting and quite unusual book. Loden directed one film, >>Wanda (1970), about a woman who leaves her husband and who, passively and therefore pretty much by chance, attaches herself to a man who is planning a bank robbery for which, following his death in a police shoot-out and despite her lack of initiative and her not even being present at the robbery (she took a wrong turn in what was supposed to be the getaway car), she will be sent to jail for twenty years. The book operates on many levels simultaneously: it is ‘about’ Léger’s attempts to excavate information about Loden, principally beneath the ways in which she has been recorded by others, notably her husband the Hollywood director Elia Kazan, who also wrote a novel in which Loden features, thinly disguised; it is ‘about’ Loden’s making of the film Wanda; it is ‘about’ the character of Wanda in that film, a character Loden played herself and with whom she strongly identified personally; it is ‘about’ the tension between the “passive and inert” Wanda character with whom Loden identifies and Loden as writer and director, and about the relationship between author and character more generally in both an literary/artistic and a quotidian sense; it is ‘about’ Léger’s search for and discovery of the true story that inspired Loden to make the film, a botched 1960 bank robbery after which the passive and inert Alma Malone politely thanked the judge for handing her a twenty-year sentence; it is ‘about’, therefore, the relationship between inspiration and execution, and between actuality and fiction; it is ‘about’ portrayal and self-portrayal and ‘about’ who gets to define whom (“To sum up. A woman is pretending to be another, in a role she wrote herself, based on another (this, we find out later), playing something other than a straightforward role, playing not herself but a projection of herself onto another, played by her but based on another.”); it is ‘about’, cumulatively, the way in which, as she delved more deeply into the specifics of another whom she sought to understand, Léger come up more and more against the unresolved edges of herself so that the two archaeologies became one (she also ended up learning quite a lot about her mother and the imbalanced mechanics of her parents’ relationship). When Wanda was released in 1970, it was disparaged in many feminist circles for its portrayal of a passive woman. Léger shows the film to be a useful mirror in which to recognise passivity as not only an impulse for self-erasure on a personal level but as part of the wider social mechanisms by which women are erased and colonised by projections, and in which the feminist critique and frontline necessarily become internal and self-reflexive. There is also in this book a strong sense of the inescapability of subjectivity, that in all subject-object relationships the subject perceives only and acts only upon a sort of externalised version of itself (the object being passive and without feature (effectively absent, effectively unassailable)); and also that when attempting to be/conceive of/portray oneself one has no option but to use the template of that with which one identifies but which is not in essence (whatever that means) oneself (except to the extent that one’s ‘self’ perhaps exists only in the mysterious act of identification). Oh, and Léger‘s writing is exquisite.
Earth’s End publishes excellent graphic novels in Aotearoa. The latest from their publishing stable is Episodes from the pen of Tāmaki Makaurau cartoonist, artist and editor Alex Scott. Here you have a series of slice-of-life stories —episodes — that capture growing up in the city in the 1990s and the influence of media and advertising on society, particularly young people. Scott has narrowed in on the influence of advertising and the role of television initially, through to the advent of social media, to disrupt and to create an arena where there can only be disappointment and confusion. In the first story eating breakfast is dominated by the hyperactive images of Space Cadet cereal. There is no touching the ground here, rather a sense of disconnect. There are stories about relationships and desire, mostly not realised, where the protagonist has romantic expectations that occur only in soap operas. A teen narrows in on an overly hyped beauty product as the key to popularity. A man is traumatised from working in the advertising world. There’s the world of the mall, and hanging out at the beach. Judgements abound based on peer pressures, heavily influenced by advertising, reality TV and the addictive nature of the TV series. Yet there are also feisty rejections of these messages, and growing suspicions on the part of some of the protagonists. As technology changes, and the media platforms vary, Scott cleverly changes the dimensions of the frame. Gone is the TV screen rectangle. The phone takes over with its vertical reference. To reflect the screen-like style, text is captioned rather than speech-bubbled, giving another sense of remove. In the later stories, social media is king, and there is a distinctive shift to self-absorption — the screen turns on the self recording every moment in that strangely manufactured way. The illustrations are wonderful, with details that will keep you looking and looking again, seeking out the familiar. In a strange way, there is comfort in the absurdity; and yet it is this exact absurdity that questions our relationship with media, especially in the formative years of childhood and the headiness of growing up. The stories in Episodes are sad and funny, thought-provoking, and all too real. Here you will find the wonderful awkwardness of adolescence, the kid that is always sideways to the world, along with the epiphany of being yourself, and the sometimes crushing, but always necessary, understanding that life isn’t like the movies. A ballad to — and a warning about — our media-obsessed society.
Fair is a satirical, refreshing and playful book about learning the art of translation, being a book-worker in the publishing industry, growing up, family, and class. Loosely set in an imagined book fair/art fair/fun fair, in which every stall or ride imitates a real-world scenario or dilemma which must be observed and negotiated, the book moves between personal memories and larger questions about the role of the literary translator in publishing, about fairness and hard work, about the ways we define success, and what it means — and whether it is possible — to make a living as an artist. Fair is also interested in questions of upbringing, background, support, how different people function in the workplace, and the ways in which people are excluded or made invisible in different cultural and creative industries. It connects literary translation to its siblings in other creative arts to show how creative and subjective a practice it is while upholding the ethics and politics at play when we translate someone else’s work. Blurring the lines between memoir, autofiction, satire and polemic, Fair is an inventive and illuminating book (and a lot of fun to read).
A selection of books from our shelves on film, film-making, and film-watching. Click through to find out more:
God and the Devil: Ingmar Bergman
All your choices are good! Click through to secure your copies. We can dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
A Voice for the Silenced: Stories from inside and outside the cells of Aotearoa/New Zealand by Harry Walker $35
The title A Voice for the Silenced indicates the intention of these narratives is to give a platform, a taumata kōrero, a paepae, to those who have been marginalised and oppressed. It aims to share the kōrero, the stories, experiences, and perspectives of people who have been silenced by societal and systemic injustices. These narratives are from individuals and their families who have faced colonial heritage, racism, oppression, and the punitive realities of incarceration. These vignettes seek to amplify their voices, highlighting their struggles, resilience, and the ongoing and pernicious effects of trauma and alienation. ”If any person reading these vignettes suspects, or comes to believe any of these narrators might be them, or someone they know, or that the narrative is about them, whoever they may be, they are right. It is them, or a member of their whānau, hapū, or iwi. It is about them and hundreds like them. It is also about me and mine. It is about nobody, anybody, and everybody. It is about the voiceless, the silenced. It is about them and theirs. It is about us.” Incarceration is a lens through which we could, if we chose, see much that needs addressing in our society but that is hidden from most of us by dominating narratives that invalidate the experiences and whakapapa of others. Without this understanding, however, we will not be able to even perceive the injustice, racism, oppression and prejudice that serve the interests of some by denigrating the interests of others and creating the deep personal, social and cultural wounds of which crime is just one symptom. This important book collects stories of prisoners and relatives of prisoners and gives great insight into the traumatic effects of unjust power, especially for tangata whenua. [Paperback]
>>Lived experience.
>>Who cares about the people in jail?
A Hundred Years and a Day: 34 stories by Tomoka Shibasaki (translated from Japanese by Polly Barton) $40
In these stories of human connection in a contemporary, alienated world, people come together to share pieces of their lives, then part. We meet the women who share a house after the outbreak of war before going their separate ways once it is over; the man who lives in a succession of rooftop apartments; the diverging lives of two brothers who are raised as latch-key kids by factory workers; the old ramen restaurant that endures despite the demolition of all surrounding buildings; people who watch a new type of spaceship lift off from a pier that once belonged to an island resort; and more. These 34 tales have the compulsive power of news reports, narrated in a crisp yet allegorical style. [Paperback]
"Tomoka Shibasaki paints a piecemeal portrait of her Japanese homeland, an ekphrastic collection of tales whose spare language and flashing brevity muralise and memorialise Japan — its countrysides and cityscapes, its competing ascent/descent into modernity." —Alex Crayon, World Literature Today
"Shibasaki makes us think about the way stories are told, what we expect, and what we think we know. She is very good at giving us the pleasure of wondering how things are going to happen rather than what is going to happen, and then she reverses this." —Brian Evenson
>>Little moments are the most important.
Precarious Lease by Jacqueline Feldman $40
In her extraordinary work of non-fiction, Jacqueline Feldman tells the story of Le Bloc, a legendary squat situated at the far edge of Paris, near where the banlieue begins. Opened in 2012, the squat took in artists and activists as well as immigrants from around the world. They lived and worked within its labyrinthine structure, continually threatened with eviction and existential as well as financial precarity. Over many years Feldman, a reporter from the US, follows a cast of itinerant, displaced characters, tracing the fate of a counterculture under austerity while investigating the trending use of a legal device by which squatters could receive a reprieve from eviction but were reduced in status to property guardians. In the tradition of Walter Benjamin and other chroniclers of Paris, she draws on its revolutionary and bohemian history while sounding issues of the most contemporary urgency about hospitality and refuge, creativity and precarity, ecology and utopia. With candour and journalistic precision, Precarious Lease is a exploration of late-stage possibilities for co-existence in the ruins of a capital city. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Rigorous and arresting. Feldman has thought deeply about the ethics of her work and the result is a beautiful and important book which, through its meticulous focus on a self-consciously marginal milieu, strikes at the centre of one of the urgent subjects of our time.” —Max Liu, Financial Times
”Feldman's Precarious Lease is marked by erudition, astringence, biting wit, and the perspicacious awe of a seasoned examiner of our time, attributes bound to be hallmarks of her work for years to come. Diving under the rubble of social and class collapse, Feldman deftly maneuvers between investigative reportage and essayist forays while weaving through this tapestry a tone so sharp yet compassionate, so personal, it feels like a friend delivering dire news from the front lines of the world.” —Ocean Vuong
”In Precarious Lease Jacqueline Feldman follows her curiosity about alternative forms of living into the heart of north-east Paris's squat scene, and takes the reader with her, asking fundamental questions about how we live together under late capitalism, and the relationship, in France, between freedom and bureaucracy, marginality and the state. It's completely fascinating, an American in Paris memoir like no other.” —Lauren Elkin
”Jacqueline Feldman's Precarious Lease offers an enthralling immersion into the confluence of 2010s-era social and political activism, Parisian and French real estate and the margins of the global artworld. Multimodal in its storytelling, encompassing critical journalism, social history, the precision of documentary writing, and more, Precarious Lease also holds up a mirror to our current capitalist moment and suggests other ways of imagining our world.” —John Keene
>>Navigating the space.
Dealing With the Dead by Alain Mabanckou (translated from French by Helen Stevenson) $37
Suddenly dead at the age of twenty-four and trapped forever in flared purple trousers, Liwa Ekimakingaï encounters the other residents of Frère Lachaise cemetery, all of whom have their own complex stories of life and death. Unwilling to relinquish their tender bond, Liwa makes his way back home to Pointe-Noire to see his devoted grandmother one last time, against all spectral advice. But disturbing rumours swirl together with Liwa's jumbled memories of his last night on earth, leading him to pursue the riddle of his own untimely demise. A phantasmagorical tale of ambition, community and forces beyond human control, Dealing with the Dead is a scathing satire on corruption and political violence by one of the foremost chroniclers of modern Central Africa. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Africa's Samuel Beckett.” —The Economist
”Alain Mabanckou addresses the reader with exuberant inventiveness in novels that are brilliantly imaginative in their forms of storytelling. His voice is vividly colloquial, mischievous and often outrageous as he explores, from multiple angles, the country where he grew up, drawing on its political conflicts and compromises, disappointments and hopes. He acts the jester, but with serious intent and lacerating effect.” —Booker International Prize judges
”We should all be reading Alain Mabanckou right now. His brilliantly imaginative novels throw a rope across borders and between people. A glorious, funny, surreal novel, set in communist Congo-Brazzaville in the 1970s.” —Alex Preston
Rural Hours: The country lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Rosamond Lehmann by Harriet Baker $30
In Rural Hours, Harriet Baker tells the story of three very different women, each of whom moved to the countryside and was forever changed by it. We encounter them at quiet moments — pausing to look at an insect on the windowsill; jotting down a recipe; or digging for potatoes, dirt beneath their nails. Slowly, we start to see transformations unfold: Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Rosamond Lehmann emerge before us as the passionate, visionary writers we know them to be. Following long periods of creative uncertainty and private disappointment, each of Baker's subjects is invigorated by new landscapes, and the daily trials and small pleasures of making a home; slowly, they embark on new experiments in form, in feeling and in living that would resonate throughout the rest of their lives. In the country, each woman finds her path: to convalescence and recovery; to sexual and political awakening; and, above all, to personal freedom and creative flourishing. [Paperback]
”In this warm, perceptive, eloquent study, Harriet Baker collects some overlooked moments in these women's lives, and with great honesty and empathy, captures what it felt like to live and write through them. Like Baker's protagonists in their countryside boltholes I felt ‘socketed’ by this book. I know I'll return to it again and again.” —Lauren Elkin
Smørrebrød: Scandinavian Open Sandwiches by Brontë Aurell $45
Brontë Aurell has gathered more than 50 recipes for delectable Smørrebrød — definitely the apogee for bread-based dining. From traditional toppings to modern innovations and ingredients, this book is a testament to the enjoyable tireless quest for the best flavour combinations. Something for everyone and every occasion. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
>>Our new blog post on Nordic cookbooks at VOLUME.
Tūmahi Māori: A pathway to understanding Māori verbs by Hone Waengarangi Morris $45
This indispensable book shares the teaching strategies of one of the most experienced teachers of te reo Māori in Aotearoa. Its explanations and structures, set out in both te reo Māori and English, reflect a Māori perspective that will improve understanding and accuracy in the use of te reo Māori. As Hone Waengarangi Morris guides users through the correct uses of verbs and particles via useful examples and activities, they will become more accurate, more skilful and more confident in their grasp of the best approach to grammar in the te reo Māori space. [Paperback]
>>A new perspective.
The Cat Operator’s Manual: Getting the most from your new cuddle unit by Queen Olivia III $35
A fresh and quirky guide to understanding your cat, complete with assembly, warnings, insights into all of your Cuddle Unit 5(TM)'s features and modes, and a bonus sticker sheet. We recommend that you read these operating instructions thoroughly to quickly become acquainted with your Cuddle Unit 5(TM) and enjoy all of its features. In these pages, you'll find many useful tips and information concerning your safety, how to care for your Cuddle Unit 5(TM), and how to maintain Cuddle Unit 5(TM)'s interest in you, including: Decipher your Cuddle Unit 5(TM)'s Mood Mode Indicator; Understand when your unit is in Eco Mode and when it's time for Solar Charging; Learn more about how Turbo Mode is activated; Read up on how your Cuddle Unit 5(TM) will interface with robotic vacuum cleaners and recreational catnip. With tongue-in-cheek advice and spot-on illustrations that feel just like browsing a real user manual, this book gets two opposable thumbs up. We hope you enjoy your Cuddle Unit 5(TM) and wish you safe and pleasant petting. Thank you for choosing Cuddle Unit 5(TM)--we value your trust in us. [Paperback]
>>Find out more!
>>Read Lucy’s review.
The Mess of Our Lives by Mary-Anne Scott $29
Jordan Baxter, a talented songwriter and musician is determined to keep his home life a secret. His mother has a hoarding disorder which means he and his sister, Tabitha, must live in a dirty, cluttered environment. Jordan sleeps in an old caravan on the property to avoid the filth. When Tabitha is injured, the family is thrown into the spotlight making Jordan even more determined to be free of the mess. At the heart of this novel for teenagers and adults are big questions concerning mental health and creative ownership, but this is also a story about love and honesty. Sometimes acceptance is at the heart of freedom. [Paperback]
Finalist in the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
The Names by Florence Knapp $38
Tomorrow — if morning comes, if the storm stops raging — Cora will register the name of her son. Or perhaps, and this is her real concern, she'll formalise who he will become. It is 1987, and in the aftermath of a great storm, Cora sets out with her nine-year-old daughter to register the birth of her son. Her husband intends her to follow a long-standing family tradition and call the boy after him. But faced with the decision, Cora hesitates, questioning whether it is right for her child to share his name with generations of domineering men. Her choice in this moment will shape the course of their lives. Seven years later, her son is Bear, a name chosen by his sister, and one that will prove as cataclysmic as the storm from which it emerges. Or he is Julian, the name his mother set her heart on, believing it will give him the opportunity to become his own person. Or he is Gordon, named after his father and raised in his image — but is there still a chance to break the mould? This is the story of three names, three versions of a life and the infinite possibilities that a single decision can spark. [Paperback]
”This year's buzziest debut lives up to the hype. The high concept is carried off with flair, in a tender, clear-eyed portrayal of the horrors of domestic violence and joys of family life.” —Guardian
>>Why your name matters.
>>Crackling.
Among Friends by Hal Abbott $38
Amos and Emerson have been friends for more than thirty years. Despite vastly different backgrounds, the two now form an enviable portrait of middle age: their wives are close, their teenage daughters have grown up together, their days are passed in the comfortable languor of New York City wealth. They share an unbreakable bond, or so they think. This weekend, however, something is different. After gathering for Emerson's birthday at his country home, celebration gives way to old rivalries and resentments which erupt in a shocking act of violence, one that threatens to shatter their finely made world. In its wake, each must choose: between whom and what they love most. [Paperback]
”In the way that a forceful intelligence or an infectious voice or a fresh vision can alter how we observe and answer the world, Among Friends brought me into its cool environs and made me engage my days differently. It's no small accomplishment for a first novel, or for any novel.” —Richard Ford
”Among Friends is a masterly debut. Hal Ebbott ranges from the most exquisite, Jamesian discriminations to the graspable, all-American solidities of Updike and Richard Yates. This is a writer to watch, with excitement and the highest expectations.” —John Banville
How to Lose Your Mother: A daughter’s memoir by Molly Jong-Fast $40
Molly Jong-Fast is the only child of Erica Jong, author of the feminist autobiographical novel Fear of Flying. A sensational exploration of female sexual desire, it catapulted Erica into the heady world of fame in the early 1970s. Molly grew up with her mother everywhere — on television, in the crossword puzzle, in the newspaper. But rarely at home. How to Lose Your Mother is Molly's delicious and despairing memoir about an intense mother-daughter relationship, a sometimes chaotic upbringing with a fame-hungry parent, and how that can really mess you up. But with her mother's heartbreaking descent into dementia, and Molly's realization that she is going to lose this remarkable woman, it is also a story of love, of loss, of confusion and of deep grief. [Paperback]
”Mesmerising, intimate, wise, unputdownable, crazily honest, heartbreaking, funny, illuminating. Beautiful and painful at the same time, just like real life.” —Anne Lamott
”Conveys the mess, terror, loneliness and glory of familial love, in all its riveting complexity.” —Claire Messud
In the Bookstore: 1000-piece puzzle by Giacomo Gambineri $40
A very enjoyable puzzle. A peek inside a large busy bookshop, this puzzle contains many layers: each room is devoted to a genre and teeming with activities: people solving mysteries in the crime section; couples falling in love in the poetry section, and little ones climbing the bookshelves in the children's section. Filled with special details and inside jokes all bibliophiles will love. Back in stock in time for puzzle season! Recommended. [Boxed]
>>The puzzle is almost done! (at home).
>>Other winter-suitable literary jigsaw puzzles.
Whether a cuisine is in your genes, or whether you just like good food authentically made, a new cookbook is a passport to a world of flavour experiences, histories, and nourishment.
Have a look at our selection of Nordic cookbooks, and choose which one(s) will get you to where you want to be:
The Nordic Baking Book by Magnus Nilsson. “This wonderful book contains recipes for many of the things I remember my Danish grandmother making (and me eating) when I was a child, but also hundreds of other cakes, breads, pastries and biscuits, with regional variations and Nilsson’s personable and illuminating commentary. It is an inexhaustible encyclopedia of pleasures, and one of our most frequently used cookbooks.” —Thomas
“Nilsson’s The Nordic Cookbook (which we also have) is similarly comprehensive, and provides insight into a wider swathe of Scandinavian food culture, with, again, hundreds of recipes and variations (and many more dishes from Farmor’s repertoire).” —Thomas
Wander through Christine Rudolph’s and Susie Theodorou’s Copenhagen Cult Recipes and take your pick from the relaxed, mouth-watering, quick-to-prepare food eaten today in the Danish capital. Nicely presented.
Brontë Aurell has gathered more than 50 recipes for delectable Smørrebrød: Scandinavian Open Sandwiches — definitely the apogee for bread-based dining. From traditional toppings to modern innovations and ingredients, this book is a testament to the enjoyable tireless quest for the best flavour combinations.
Simon Bajada’s Modern Nordic: Contemporary recipes from a Scandinavian kitchen takes typically Scandinavian ingredients (that can be widely found elsewhere, too) and combines them in Scandinavian ways to create interesting, modern dishes to be enjoyed anywhere — all entirely achievable in your home kitchen.
In his eponymous restaurant, Niklas Ekstedt cooks everything by fire, and he is an expert at using wood, smoke and charcoal to achieve just the right flavour effects. Ekstedt: The Nordic art of analogue cooking will take you deep into this ethos of elemental cooking, and introduce you to regional Swedish and Sámi cuisines.
Slippurinn: Recipes and stories from Iceland is the result of massive research into local ingredients and traditional dishes. Chef Gísli Matt built his restaurant in a historic shipyard building of a small town whose landscape was changed forever by the lava flow from a 1973 erupted volcano. In this land of ice, hardy plants and plentiful fish, Matt has created a menu that both respects the local and traditional and pushes the boundaries of contemporary cuisine.
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18 July 2025
A study in the workings of siblings, a story of love, revenge and desire entangled, and a house at its centre. The Safekeep is a stunning debut. Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, author Yael van der Wouden eases us into 1961 Holland, looking to the future, but curtailed by the past. This novel keenly observes intimate relationships, social mores, the impact of war, and how these traumas influence decisions.
Isabel is living alone in the family home. Her brothers have both long departed for the city, each to shape their own lives, leaving their sister to care for, and then nurse their mother. Now in her mid-20s, Isabel strictly keeps the house in order, and herself in order. She’s a woman set in her ways, conservative and judgemental, repressed. Yet not everything is as it seems. There’s a broken piece of crockery in the garden from the ‘hare set’, but none of those plates have been broken in Isabel’s memory. It has a story to tell, but whose story? Isabel’s life in the small rural community is predictable. It is calm and pleasant. Yet you sense an uneasiness, a slight tremble in Isabel’s resolve and reserve, a sense of wanting. It is as if Isabel is waiting for something to happen, but she’s not sure what to wish for. And then the disruptor arrives. Eva, the most recent girlfriend of brother Louis, is coming to stay. She has nowhere to go. As Louis leaves for a work trip, the tension between Isabel and Eva grows. Isabel is convinced that Eva is after Louis for his money and his claim to the house as the oldest. She stiffens at Eva’s voice, her tread in the house, at her insistence of staying in Mother’s Room. Isabel counts the silverware and makes an inventory. Eva blows hot and cold, she laughs at Isabel’s ways and equally grows angry at her for her accusations. Despite the animosity, something is drawing them together. They recognise, in each other, a desire for change, for someone to see the other, to really notice them. As the barriers break down between the two women, and Isabel throws caution to the wind, desire takes them to a place apart from the others and their pasts, and they are enveloped in each other and by the house. But it is the house and its contents that will be their undoing. Isabel’s suspicions are founded. There are so many items missing. But why? The Safekeep is a story of reparation, of guilt and loss, and of finding love and truth even when it is difficult to accept.
Lucy Mangan grew up with her nose in a book. Bookish charts her passage through a book-lined adolescence — when so much is recalibrated, including our reading — and into the wide, crowded shelves of the adult world. There is so much to recognise as (very like) your own experience in this enjoyable book — it covers everything from school set texts to the hoarding impulse, from realism to romance, from choosing novels to choosing lovers, from old favourites to new babies, from books as entry-points to the worlds of others to books as exit-points from a world that is sometimes too much. Mangan finds resonances between reading and ‘life’ at every turn, and the reader will find these resonances on every page. This book will help you love your bookcase, your bookshop, and your fellow readers more than ever.
“Fact is to me a hindrance to memory,” writes the narrator in this remarkable collage of passages evoking the ways in which past experiences have impressed themselves indelibly upon her. The sleepless nights of the title are not so much those of the narrator’s youth, though these are either well documented or implied and so the title is not not about them, but those of her present life, supposedly as “a broken old woman in a squalid nursing home”, waking in the night “to address myself to B. and D. and C.— those whom I dare not ring up until morning and yet must talk to through the night.” As if the narrator is a projection of the author herself, cast forward upon some distorting screen, the ten parts of the book make no distinction between verifiable biographical facts and the efflorescence of stories that arise in the author’s mind as supplementary to those facts, or in substitution for them. Elizabeth the narrator seems almost aware of the precarity of her role, and of her identity as distinct from but overlapping that of the author: “I will do this work of transformed and even distorted memory and lead this life, the one I am leading today.” Hardwick writes mind-woundingly beautiful sentences, many-commaed, building ecstatically, at once patient and careening, towards a point at which pain and beauty, memory and invention, self and other are indistinguishable. Spanning over fifty years, the book, the exquisite narrowness of focus of which is kept immediate by the exclusion of summary, frame or context, records the marks remaining upon the narrator of those persons, events or situations from her past that have not yet been replaced, or not yet been able to be replaced, by the ersatz experiences of stories about those persons, events and situations. “My father…is out, because I can see him only as a character in literature, already recorded.” Hardwick and her narrator are aware that one of the functions of stories is to replace and vitiate experience (“It may be yours, but the house, the furniture, strain toward the universal and it will soon read like a stage direction”), and she/she writes effectively in opposition to this function. Observation brings the narrator too close to what she observes, she becomes those things, is marked by them, passes these marks on to us in sentences full of surprising particularity, resisting the pull towards generalisation, the gravitational pull of cliches, the lazy engines of bad fiction. Many of Hardwick’s passages are unforgettable for an uncomfortable vividness of description—in other words, of awareness—accompanied by a slight consequent irritation, for how else can she—or we—react to such uninvited intensity of experience? Is she, by writing it, defending herself from, for example, her overwhelming awareness of the awful men who share her carriage in the Canadian train journey related in the first part, is she mercilessly inflicting this experience upon us, knowing it will mark us just as surely as if we had had the experience ourselves, or is there a way in which razor-sharp, well-wielded words enable both writer and reader to at once both recognise and somehow overcome the awfulness of others (Rachel Cusk here springs to mind in comparison)? In relating the lives of people encountered in the course of her life, the narrator often withdraws to a position of uncertain agency within the narration, an observatory distance, but surprises us by popping up from time to time when forgotten, sometimes as part of a ‘we’ of uncertain composition, uncertain, that is, as to whether it includes a historic ‘you’ that has been addressed by the whole composition without our realising, or whether the other part of we is a third person, indicating, perhaps, that the narrator has been addressing us remotely all along, after all. All this is secondary, however, to the sentences that enter us like needles: “The present summer now. One too many with the gulls, the cry of small boats on the strain, the soiled sea, the sick calm.”
At first I was concerned about the title of this book, as a cat is not operated by anyone (except themself), but then I realised that this is all part of the project: the clever conceit of the title will make humans get this book, which will then go on to help them to treat cats with the respect and understanding that they deserve, to give cats both the right kinds of attention and sufficient space to exercise their necessary independence. The book is a mixture of good information and ‘relatability’, and its parodic presentation in the form of an appliance manual continues to be amusing and appealing throughout. I read this over Thomas’s shoulder last night. He would recommend it for anyone who likes a cat, and I would too. I even got a few ideas myself. The ‘Precious gifts’ floorplan on page 79 inspired me to leave a nice vomit in the kitchen for Stella to stand in this morning — not something that I do very often. All cats, or anyway all cat ‘operators’, should come with a copy of The Cat Owner’s Manual.
All your choices will be good. Click through to our website to secure your copies. Books can be sent by overnight courier or collected from our door.
Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo $38
”I must work on a ship as a man... Yes, I must seek a new life, more adventurous than that of my fellows on this desolate salt marsh. I must find freedom on the seas.” 1843. Ishmaelle is born in a small village on the stormy Kent coast where she grows up swimming with dolphins. After her parents and infant sister die, her brother, Joseph, leaves to find work as a sailor. Abandoned and desperate for a life at sea, Ishmaelle disguises herself as a cabin boy and travels to New York. Call Me Ishmaelle reimagines the epic battle between man and nature in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick from a female perspective. As the American Civil War breaks out in 1861, Ishmaelle boards the Nimrod, a whaling ship led by the obsessive Captain Seneca, a Black free man of heroic stature who is haunted by a tragic past. Here, she finds protectors in Polynesian harpooner, Kauri, and Taoist monk, Muzi, whose readings of the I-Ching guide their quest. Through the bloody male violence of whaling, and the unveiling of her feminine identity, Ishmaelle realises there is a mysterious bond between herself and the mythical white whale, Moby Dick. Xiaolu Guo has crafted a feminist narrative that stands alongside the original while offering a powerful exploration of nature, gender and human purpose. [Paperback]
”A brilliantly written reordering of Moby-Dick, ambitious, brave, and strange, from the imagination of this natural-born storyteller. There's a cinematic, global sweep to its motion, and an unbridled energy and poetry to its dramatic words.” —Philip Hoare
>>Write less in order to write stronger.
Unsettled Bliss: Whiteness in Aotearoa by Elizabeth Ann Cook $40
If you do not know the history of Aotearoa after the 1835 Declaration of Independence and Te Tiriti o Waitangi 1840, Unsettled Bliss offers a clear explanation of settler occupation, its impact on indigenous land in Aotearoa, and the lasting consequences. However, it goes beyond that. This book enables you to understand what drove people to act as they did — and what continues to shape our society today. Unsettled Bliss challenges you to reflect on your place in the society of Aotearoa. It pulls no punches. For many, it will be an awakening — an unflinching look at how racism operates in our everyday lives, within our whānau, workplaces, and institutions. If you seek to deepen your understanding of social issues, wealth disparity, and political structures, this book is essential reading. A landmark comprehensive examination of the system and ideology of whiteness in Aotearoa. [Paperback]
Flesh by David Szalay $38
Fifteen-year-old Istvan lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. New to the town and shy, he is unfamiliar with the social rituals at school and soon becomes isolated, with his neighbour — a married woman close to his mother's age — as his only companion. These encounters shift into a clandestine relationship that Istvan himself can barely understand, and his life soon spirals out of control. As the years pass, he is carried gradually upwards on the currents of the twenty-first century's tides of money and power, moving from the army to the company of London's super-rich, with his own competing impulses for love, intimacy, status and wealth winning him unimaginable riches, until they threaten to undo him completely. [Paperback]
”Flesh is at once intricate and spacious, it flows both fast and deep. There's brilliance on every page. Szalay is an ingenious conductor of time, and of the fates and forces that give shape to a life.” —Samantha Harvey
”This is a marvellous novel. Compelling and elegant, merciless and poignant. David Szalay is an extraordinary writer.” —Tessa Hadley
”In Istvan David Szalay has created a modern existential antihero in the grand tradition of Camus and Dostoevsky. Amid the random accidents and desultory decisions that shape his life, and come to feel like fate, he is at once a cool observer and a towering presence. Taut, spare and perfectly structured, Flesh reads like a gripping thriller which slowly gathers to itself the emotional power of classical tragedy.” —Carys Davies
Towards Modernism: The Walter Cook Collection at Te Papa by Justine Olsen $75
A treasure trove of design, The Walter C Cook Collection of Decorative Arts is one of the treasures of Te Papa. Built up over a twenty-five-year period by Walter Cook, a discerning and determined collector of modest means, its glass, ceramic and metal objects track the evolution of design from the Arts and Crafts movement through to the British and European modernism of the 1970s. The world's leading designers — William Morris, Christopher Dresser, Archibald Knox, William Moorcroft, Frank Brangwyn, Charles Noke, Gladys Rodgers, Truda Carter, Susie Cooper, Keith Murray, Stig Lindberg, Berte Jessen, Carl-Harry Stålhane and so many more — all feature in its pages. Illustrated with over 300 objects, from art pottery to Danish design, this book showcases the stars of the collection while offering an engaging short course in design history. [Flexibound with wrapper]
>>Look inside!
Sunbirth by An Yu $38
As the sun starts slowly disappearing, the residents of a remote town in the desert find themselves undergoing shocking transformations. In Five Poems Lake, a small village surrounded by impenetrable deserts, the sun is slowly disappearing overhead. A young woman keeps an apprehensive eye on the sky above as she tends her family's pharmacy of traditional medicine. She has few customers, and even fewer visitors. Her father was found dead by the lake twelve years ago, in unexplained circumstances. Her elder sister, Dong Ji, works at a wellness parlour across town for those who can afford it — which, during these strange and difficult days, is not many. The town fell on hard times long before the sun began to shrink, but now, every few days, a new sliver disappears. As the temperature drops and the lake freezes over, the inhabitants of the town realise that there is no way they can survive. But when the Beacons appear — ordinary people with heads replaced by searing, blinding light, like miniature suns - the residents wonder if they may hold the answer to their salvation, or if they are just another sign of impending ruin. Soon, Dong Ji and her sister will uncover a photograph which may offer a clue in the mystery of the Beacons, and finally help them learn what happened to their father. [Paperback]
38 Londres Street: On impunity, Pinochet in England, and a Nazi in Patagonia by Philippe Sands $40
In the heart of Santiago, the infamous 38 Londres Street becomes the haunting backdrop for a riveting tale that intertwines the arrest of Augusto Pinochet in London, the post-war life of senior SS officer Walther Rauff in Chilean Patagonia and the sinister connections between the two men. Rauff, responsible for the wartime horrors of mobile gas vans, flees justice after the war and finds an unlikely refuge in Chile. Settling in Punta Arenas, he manages a king crab cannery, seemingly far removed from his dark past. But as rumours swirl about Rauff's involvement with Pinochet's secret intelligence services and the disappearances that plagued Chile, a chilling narrative unfolds. In 1998, as Pinochet faces arrest in London, Philippe Sands is approached to advise the dictator but instead chooses to act as a barrister for Human Rights Watch. This decision leads to an eight-year exploration into Rauff's second life, his ties to Pinochet and his role in the atrocities at the heart of the London proceedings. Through a unique blend of memoir, detective story, courtroom drama and travelogue, drawing on interviews with key players and extensive research in archives worldwide, Sands unveils a hidden double story of mass murder and a disturbing link between the atrocities of the 1940s and those of our own times. [Paperback]
”Sands's achievement is to excavate a deeper intimacy between the cases of Rauff and Pinochet. He follows each twist in the double narrative with an impressive combination of moral clarity and judicious detachment. But it is Sands's expertise in international law, coupled with a natural storyteller's intuition for structure, that gives his latest book its understated power. His stories have all the more impact for their subtlety.” —Rafael Behr, Guardian
>>An efficient man.
Flavour Heroes: 15 modern pantry ingredients to amplify your cooking by Gurdeep Loyal $65
"Gurdeep makes things simple: he shows that with a well-stocked pantry and an open mind, ingredients can transport you anywhere you want to go. This book is full of flavour and practical ideas for every cook." —Yotam Ottolenghi
Flavour Heroes is a collection of clever, flavour-forward, sweet and savoury recipes that, thanks to a capsule of global pantry ingredients, will satisfy every craving. With the help of his 15 favourite pantry heroes, Gurdeep Loyal demonstrates how any home cook — of any ability — can elevate their daily cooking with minimal effort for maximum reward. Those essential ingredients are: harissa, pecorino Romano, gochujang, Thai green paste, yuzu koshō, tamarind, mango chutney, chipotle paste, toasted sesame oil, miso, ’nduja, Calabrian chilli paste, dark roasted peanut butter, instant espresso powder and dark maple syrup. Each of the 90 recipes shines a spotlight on the unlimited ways these pantry ingredients can be used. From including the smoky-heat of chipotle chilli paste in a Nacho Cauliflower Cheese, to using a spoonful of miso to add savoury-umami depth to Sticky Lemongrass-Miso Lamb Ribs, or even adding instant espresso powder to intensify the chocolatiness of Treacle-Mocha Brownies, Flavour Heroes showcases just how easy it can be, to pack any dish you make with flavour. In Flavour Heroes, Gurdeep revels in his new and liberating approach to playing with pantry ingredients; one where we can drop the supposed rules of how ingredients ought to be used, and instead lean into the full spectrum of flavours that every ingredient has the potential to produce. If you are looking for delicious dishes, that you and your loved ones will really want to eat every day, then this is the book for you. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
Always Will Be: Stories of Goori sovereignty from the futures of the Tweed by Mykaela Saunders $38
A timely and resonant collection of speculative fiction imagining futures where Indigenous sovereignty is fully reasserted. In this inventive and thought-provoking collection, Mykaela Saunders poses the question — what might country, community and culture look like in New South Wales’s Tweed area if Gooris reasserted their sovereignty? Each of the stories in Always Will Be is set in its own future version of the Tweed. In one, a group of girls plot their escape from a home they have no memory of entering. In another, two men make a final visit to the country they love as they contemplate a new life in a faraway place. Saunders imagines different scenarios for how the local Goori community might reassert sovereignty — reclaiming country, exerting full self-determination, or incorporating non-Indigenous people into the social fabric — while practising creative, ancestrally approved ways of living with changing climates. This is a forward-thinking collection that refuses cynicism and despair, and instead offers entertaining stories that celebrate Goori ways of being, knowing, doing — and becoming. [Paperback]
''Always Will Be is a unique and exciting collection that writes Aboriginal people, dreams, radical hope and love into the future. In these stories, Mykaela Saunders challenges dominant colonial ideologies and honours the wisdom of ancestors as forward thinkers. Astute, warm and affecting, this is a major contribution to First Nations literature.” —Natalie Harkin
”Mykaela writes First Nations futures as an extension of the possible, not the impossible, and in doing so contests and challenges the assumptions and expectations of settler binaries and deficit discourse that attempt to constrain and restrain what is possible for First Nations peoples and our futures.” —Jeanine Leane
Modern Nordic: Contemporary recipes from a Scandinavian kitchen by Simon Bajada $60
Modern Nordic celebrates contemporary Scandinavian cuisine with a focus on local recipes that can easily be recreated at home. Filled with dishes that typify the food of this vast geographical region, this book takes its influence from the traditional ingredients that can be found from Sweden to Finland and Denmark to Norway, and transforms them into modern everyday recipes that are hugely popular throughout Nordic homes. The book is split into chapters, based on different food groups including ingredients found 'from the forest', 'from the sea', 'from the land', and 'in the larder', along with a basics chapter that demystifies the process of smoking food and other classic Scandinavian cooking techniques such as pickling. At the end of the book there is also a glossary explaining substitutes and hard-to-find ingredients. Recipes concentrate on modern, everyday dishes that use the freshest of ingredients and are simple to create. Nicely photographed and presented. [Hardback]
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Your Brain on Art: How the arts transform us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross $28
The arts can deliver potent, accessible and proven solutions for the wellbeing of everyone. In this book, Magsamen and Ross offer compelling research that shows how engaging in an art project for as little as forty-five minutes reduces the stress hormone cortisol and just one art experience per month can extend your life by ten years. This can be anything from painting and dancing to expressive writing, architecture and more — no matter your skill level. Your Brain on Art is an authoritative guide to how neuroaesthetics can help us transform traditional healing, build healthier communities and mend an aching planet. [Now in paperback]
”This book blew my mind! An authoritative yet practical guide to the neuroarts — a term that, if you haven't heard it before, is even more reason to join these brilliant co-authors on a romp through the latest science on how art transforms the brain and the body.” —Angela Duckworth
”Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, through extensive interviews and research, have created something beautiful and affirming with their book Your Brain on Art. Its pages provide proof for what so many of us have always known, that art, especially art in community, is transformative beyond measure.” —David Byrne
Beasts and Beauty: Dangerous tales by Soman Chainani, illustrated by Julia Iredale $28
You think you know these stories, don’t you? You are wrong. You don’t know them at all. Twelve tales, twelve dangerous tales of mystery, magic, and rebellious hearts. Each twists like a spindle to reveal truths full of warning and triumph, truths that free hearts long kept tame, truths that explore life . . . and death. A prince has a surprising awakening . . . A beauty fights like a beast . . . A boy refuses to become prey . . . A path to happiness is lost . . . then found again. Soman Chainani respins old stories into fresh fairy tales for a new era and creates a world like no other. These stories know you. They understand you. They reflect you. They are tales for our times. So read on, if you dare. [Paperback]
”Sly, subversive and full of teeth — Chainani's reimagining of classic fairytales is an unsettling homage that transports its readers through tales both horrifying and humorous, sweet and scary, and, of course...beastly and beautiful.” —Roshani Chokshi
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Lula: A biography by Fernando Morais $47
The presidency of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signals a new era in Brazilian political history. The only president in the country with a working-class background, combined with a party that was profoundly original in its roots, he exercised charismatic power and influence in a more lasting way than any other public figure in the republican period. Since 2011, Fernando Morais has gained direct, frank and frequent access to Lula. To these dozens of hours of testimonies, he has added a reporter's flair and captivating prose to compose a biography that paints a picture in all its grandeur and complexity. In a narrative that makes use of flashforwards and flashbacks to maintain an electrifying pace, Morais goes from Lula's childhood to the annulment of his convictions, in 2021 — passing through the new unionism, the ABC strikes, the foundation of the PT and the first election campaign. [Hardback]
”An affecting portrait which, while sympathetic — Morais repeatedly criticizes the elite distain, media bias and politically motivated lawfare Lula has suffered — feels emotionally true.” —Patrick Wilcken, Times Literary Supplement
A selection of bed-adjacent books from our shelves.
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