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29 May 2026
Frank doesn’t like the dark. He’s not so keen on annoying little brothers and not great at sports. He likes books and he likes Alice, his next door neighbour. Apart from Alice and her sweet dog Woof, Frank doesn’t have any friends. He’s shy. So there aren’t many guests at his birthday party, but something unexpected happens when Frank offers the small dog some cake. Woof nips Frank’s finger. The cake is devoured, despite the single drop of blood spreading through the icing. Later…Frank has a dream that he’s runing through the forest on all fours! Waking up he sees muddy footprints all over his bedroom floor. Strange! And things get stranger. Frank’s the monster. A very sweet shaggy white furry monster. One that expands in the mind of the townsfolk to a sharp-toothed, massive-clawed howling terror. Things come to a head one day when Frank heads for the beach sniffing out some delcious food and you guessed it, he’s in his monster form. A part of Frank knows he’s heading towards danger. The townsfolk are ready to capture the ‘terrible monster’, but Frank makes an escape with the help of some unexpected new friends. Here’s where the story takes an unexpected turn. There are new friends to be made, and a watchful owl to meet. A golden key and a library of surprises are sure to play a bigger part in the next two books in this charming series. Mats Strandberg is a writer of horror and mystery for adults and children, and the story moves along with pace when action demands it and as well as quiet interludes for Frank’s reflective thoughts on his situation. There are familar settings as well as the unexpected underworld, humour to keep a young reader hooked and just the right amount of ‘scary’. For anyone feeling awkward, they are sure to feel right at home. The illustrations by Sofia Falkenhem are both whimsical and detailed, and she captures the characters perfectly. Her depicition of Frank as nine year old boy reveals his awkwardness and hesitation, while Frank the shifter in his animal form is all bounding cuteness (i.e. not scary at all). Translated from the Swedish by Julia Marshall. This is a delightful ‘read to’ for 5 to 7, or ‘read alone’ up to 9. And with two more books in the series out this year, Frank the Monster is sure to become a new favourite.
“What are we going to do with all those cats?” Hrabal’s wife asks throughout Hrabal’s book, All My Cats, for there are, over the years, a varying but large number of cats at the Hrabals’ country cottage in Kersko, near Prague, some of whom just arrive and start living there but most of whom are the offspring of other cats already living there, as desexing cats does not seem to have occurred to Hrabal or to Hrabal’s wife, or perhaps was not common practice in Czechoslovakia in the period about which the book was written. Hrabal’s love for the cats is immense and respectful, he is a perceptive and sensitive companion for the cats, he seems to feel greater affinity for the cats than for humans, especially than for his neighbours, but Hrabal is a man who is easily overwhelmed, a man also constantly resisting the urge to hang himself from the willow tree beside the stream, as the fortune teller had told him he would, and he succeeds in this: he died falling from a hospital window, after he had written this book, obviously. The greater Hrabal’s love for all his cats, the greater Hrabal’s feelings of guilt about those times when he has taken certain of his cats and killed them in the old mail sack in the shed, killed them for there being too many of them, for their demands being too great for Hrabal, both practically and emotionally, and Hrabal’s capacity to love ensures that his guilt will never be assuaged, his guilt grows more intense over the years, so much so that he even buys a brown car. How lucky you are, say Hrabal’s friends and acquaintances, to have this cottage at Kersko, bought with the income from your literary success, this cottage at Kersko to which you can go and write, to which you can go and enjoy the mental space and the mental time, the same thing, in which thoughts reveal their clinamen and collide with other thoughts to make that writing happen, but for Hrabal the mental space and the mental time spent in his cottage in Kersko are entirely filled with his cats, with his love for his cats and his guilt about killing his cats, and his time and his space are a torment, Hrabal could have made a torment of anything, the cats are central and everything else, from his accident in his brown car to his attempts to rescue a swan frozen into the river, gain their meaning for Hrabal from their relationship to the love-guilt axis he has with his cats. All of Hrabal’s writing is an elaboration on this love-guilt axis, or on the love-guilt axis of the characters in his books, a love-guilt axis that draws its authenticity from the love-guilt axis of their author. Hrabal shows how the mental space and mental time required for writing is also the mental space and mental time that runs what could be termed a constant existential risk, why else would we construct our normal lives, so to call them, our cultural and social and practical lives, so carefully to minimise our mental space and our mental time, if not to avoid the realisation of an underlying existential void, if not to avoid what we might call, offhandedly, a Kierkegaardian moment of enlightenment, an intolerable recognition of the meaningless, purposelessness and ennui that assail us from all sides and at every moment but which we avoid thinking about by deceiving ourselves. Thank goodness for love and guilt. Do I have enough of either?
“Why do you write?” the organiser of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempted answer from Toews — all of them unsatisfactory to the organiser — reveals new layers of grief, guilt and futility connected to her sister’s suicide. She realsies she has been keeping up a decades-old internal correspondence with her sister, using her writing to fill a silence she barely understands. Inventive yet controlled; wrenching and joyful, in A Truce That Is Not Peace Toews remakes her world and invents an astonishing new literary form to contain it.
A very few of all the books on our shelves. Click through to find out more:
LAND by Maggie O'Farrell, author of the award-winning bestseller Hamnet, is landing ON June 2. We're offering you a special pre-order price: 15% off until the first of June only. Use the code LAND and check out through our website or email us to secure your pre-order copy.
Inspired by the mapping of Ireland in the mid nineteenth century, Land is a novel about separation and reunion, tragedy and recovery, colonisation and rebellion. It is a story of buried treasure, overlapping lives, ancient woodland, persistent ghosts, a particularly loyal dog, and how, when it comes to both land and history, nothing ever goes away.
All your choices are good! Click through to our website (or just email us) to secure your copies. We will dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.
The Witch by Marie NDiaye (translated from French by Jordan Stump) $35
Lucie comes from a long line of witches, powers passed down from mother to daughter. Her own mother was formidable in her powers, but ashamed of her magic. Perhaps as a result, Lucie's own gift is weak: she can see into the future, sometimes — but more often, she can only see the present of some other location. Not very useful. And the worst part? All she can ever see are insignificant details — a scrap of outfit, the colour of the sky. Lucie's own children are initiated into their family's peculiar womanhood when they reach twelve years of age, and in a few short months, Maud and Lise are crying the curious tears of blood that denote their magical powers. Having learned, they take off quickly and fly the nest. Literally. Witty, dreamlike, vaguely unsettling, and utterly enchanting, The Witch brings the mysteries of womanhood and motherhood into sharp relief and leaves us teetering on the edge, unbalanced by questions as seemingly unbreakable relationships break down left and right. [Paperback]
Short-listed for the 2026 International Booker Prize.
”Family alienation meets suburban witchcraft in this short, fantastical work from one of France’s greatest living novelists, which is finally getting an English translation nearly 30 years after it appeared in France. Lucie, a middling witch, is instructing her two daughters in the family’s matrilineal talent of seeing the future — visions produce tears of blood — but their professionally disempowered father all but approves. As the bitter marriage at the center of the family unravels, the girls embrace their new gift more fully than Lucie could have imagined. This is NDiaye at her disquieting best.” —Vulture
>>Hear an extract.
>>Read an extract.
>>The magical and the banal.
The Light Room: On art and care by Kate Zambreno $30
In The Light Room, Zambreno offers a candid chronicle of life as a mother of two young daughters in a moment of profound uncertainty about public health, climate change, and the future we can expect for our children. Moving through the seasons, returning often to parks and green spaces, Zambreno captures the isolation and exhaustion of being home with a baby and a small child, but also small and transcendent moments of beauty and joy. Inspired by writers and artists ranging from Natalia Ginzburg to Joseph Cornell, Yuko Tsushima to Bernadette Mayer, Etel Adnan to David Wojnarowicz, The Light Room represents an impassioned appreciation of community and the commons, and an ecstatic engagement with the living world. How will our memories, and our children's, be affected by this time of profound disconnection? What does it mean to bring new life, and new work, into this moment of precarity and crisis? In The Light Room, Kate Zambreno offers a vision of how to live in ways that move away from disenchantment, and toward possibility. [Paperback]
”Kate Zambreno has invented a new form. It is a kind of absolute present, real life captured in close-up.” —Annie Ernaux
”The Light Room is both a gift and a beacon.” —Sinead Gleeson
”Kate Zambreno has performed a miracle, capturing real, lived time from within the exhaustion of pandemic-era parenthood. The Light Room reminded me of that fundamental magic of writing — that the details of another person's life, so precisely and honestly rendered, can instantly loosen the edges of your own life and make you feel less alone.” —Jenny Odell
>>”It’s nonwork, but I have to do it.”
The Annotated Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, edited and with an introduction by Merve Emre $67
"Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself." So begins Virginia Woolf's much-beloved fourth novel. First published in 1925, Mrs. Dalloway has long been considered Woolf's masterpiece. A pivotal work of literary modernism, its simple plot — centered on an upper-class Londoner preparing to give a party — is complicated by Woolf's satire of the English social system. For decades, Woolf's rapturous style and vision of individual consciousness have challenged and inspired readers, novelists, and scholars alike. In this annotated volume based on the original Hogarth Press edition, Merve Emre mines Woolf's diaries and notes on writing to take us into the making of Mrs. Dalloway, revealing the novel's depths and originality. Alongside her perceptive commentary, Emre offers hundreds of illustrations and little-known photographs from Woolf's life in this attractive and informative edition. [Hardback]
>>Look inside.
>>Annotating Mrs Dalloway.
>>Emre and Levy meet Mrs Dalloway.
Lucky Creatures by Jospeh Trinidad $35
Trinidad’s essays explore the lessons of his grandmother’s chicken farm and his grandfather’s lucky golden fish; the vibrancy of his home country and its rites of passage such as tuli, beauty pageants and national Boy Scout jamborees; the contradictions of Aotearoa, which welcomes his family’s labour but insists they leave their mother tongues at the border; and his own journey of coming out, along with the hard work of actualisation that follows as he and his partner grapple with the desire to have a baby. Inspired by the creatures of Filipino folktales and migrant touchstones such as FaceTime and 'that one cousin from the States', Lucky Creatures seeks to answer the eternal question: 'Was the move worth it?' Each resulting essay is an unforgettable exploration of life as a queer, Brown, transnational hybrid – filled with the warmth, grace and humour of the lucky creatures who can hear the call of home. [Paperback]
”There’s an entirely original voice in these essays that seems to me created out of a tremendous intimacy. Trinidad is making space on the page for the people in the stories he is telling, their languages, their lives, the money they earned and the money they didn’t, the heartbreak and the connections both.” —Alexander Chee
”Magnificent – the kind of book you can’t help telling everyone about. I was still smiling and laughing long after I put it down.” —Saraid de Silva
”An unforgettable book, with a captivating sense of conviction in the strange.” —Rose Lu
”Lucky Creatures is a vibrant intervention into the literary landscape – a playful and moving collection from one of Aotearoa's most exciting new voices.” —Lana Lopesi
Have This Heart by Lawrence Patchett $38
A story collection about men who are trying to do better. Whether training a rescue dog, starting a bucket chain to put out a raging fire, raising a marquee beside a line of Ferraris, or reporting on a sensitive workplace accident, the men in Have This Heart are striving for more — for connection, for humour, for a way back into the world. Lawrence Patchett's stories are about men at work and what happens when your life doesn't let you hide. These are tightly coiled stories, rich with rough talk and fear-sweat and tenderness. [Paperback]
”On the surface, Lawrence's writing has a rugged, frontier, quality, but underneath, holding it all together, is a delicate web, almost fragile in its nature. There is a rawness on the page that is underscored by a rich emotional intelligence that enables him to capture love and loss.” —Laurence Fearnley
For an Ecology of Images by Peter Szendy (translated from French by Marco Roth) $30
When Susan Sontag first proposed the idea of an ‘ecology of images’ in On Photography, she meant it as an exhortation to be vigilant against the onslaught of images from advertising and television that she believed threatened our ability to truly see. Today, beyond deep anxieties over a diminishing ‘attention economy’, concern focuses on the environmental cost of storing and circulating the digital images that confront us with unprecedented speed. Against the disposable rapidity demanded by digital media, Peter Szendy emphasises the labour and time required to produce and properly view images. His inquisitive mind and sparkling, associative style of writing take us from the animal kingdom to the scientific history of the shadow, the theorems of Pliny to Nabokov's butterflies, the first use of slo-mo in film and the first aerial photograph. [Paperback]
”Peter Szendy is a dazzlingly original philosopher, as witty as he is erudite. For an Ecology of Images finds him at the height of his powers, as he outlines what he calls the 'shadows' of our future.” —Adam Shatz
”Wide-ranging across the history of science, visual arts, and photography, this short book packs a lot in. Szendy understands the Kabbalistic principle that moving one letter can alter the universe: cosmicomic is cosmiconic, economy is iconomy, ecology is icology. He has shown us how to swim when we are all drowning in pictures.” —John Durham Peters
”This book made me feel wild reverence, joy, and wonder for everything Szendy looks at-like a six-year-old who, having just learned about sharks, corners you to tell you about ‘the coolest thing in the world’.” —The Paris Review
>>Sontag On Photography.
Frank the Monster by Mats Strandberg and Sofia Falkenhem $20
Frank is nipped by a dog on his ninth birthday, and his life turns inside out. His nights fill with mysterious dreams and eery adventures. A wild beast is reported roaming the town after dark. Frightening encounters lead to Frank’s discovery that he is the werewolf. But he can’t understand why everyone is afraid. Frank is still a nine-year-old boy inside—one who feels a strong urge to have his tummy scratched. Forced to own his new identity, Frank learns about the town’s secret underbelly. Beneath the streets live other monsters, cast out of their human families. Perhaps he has found his pack of misfits. [Paperback with French flaps]
>>Look inside.
>>Don’t get bitten by a Woof.
John of John by Douglas Stuart $38
Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry back home to the island of Harris to find that little has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal begrudgingly resumes his old life, stuck between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, tweed weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his maternal grandmother Ella, a profanity-loving Glaswegian who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for several decades. Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, while John is dismayed by his son's long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As lambing season turns to shearing season, everything seems poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly knotted. John of John is a singular novel about duty and patience and the transformative power of the truth. From the Booker-winning author of Shuggie Bain and Young Mungo. [Paperback]
”John of John has the emotional range and sense of sympathy of his earlier books, but this book is special, it has an urgency, an immediacy, a brilliant sense of place, the drama of fierce emotion repressed, concealed and volcanically exposed.” —Colm Toibin
”To read John of John is to move to the Isle of Harris and take up residence in the family croft. The novel is so immersive, so all-encompassing, that I felt like I was living in it. Douglas Stuart has written something brilliant and rare.” —Ann Patchett
”John of John is a fierce, glorious sting of a novel. Douglas Stuart has somehow lifted the rocky, windswept landscape of the Scottish Western Isles — as well as its externally stark and thwarted, if internally blazing, characters — and replicated both with utter flawlessness on the page. What an astonishing feat of literary fiction.” —Lauren Groff
The Lost Girls of Autism: The untold story of women on the spectrum by Gina Rippon $45
The history of autism is male. Nearly all the first studies focused on boys. The classic hallmarks of autism, such as avoiding eye contact, are heavily biased towards men. When autistic girls meet doctors, they are still misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, and even personality disorders. As millions of women discover they have the condition later in life, we are only now starting to realise what has been missed. In this groundbreaking book, neurologist Gina Rippon examines why neurodivergence in women has been systematically ignored and why girls have been denied the help and support they need. Raising huge questions about how boys and girls are socialised differently, Rippon reveals the fascinating science behind female neurodivergence and what it tells us about the medical establishment. Exploring the unique challenges faced by women who have lived undiagnosed for years, Rippon argues it is high time for society to recognise and embrace the full spectrum of autistic experience. [Paperback]
”A treasure trove of information and good humour.” —Cordelia Fine
>>What has been missed.
>>Unmasked.
>>Off the spectrum.
A Moon Will Rise from the Darkness: Reports on Israel's genocide in Palestine by Francesca Albanese $36
Israel's genocide in Palestine and the complicity of powerful Western states is undermining international human rights and the UN system. The United States has imposed sanctions on lawyers, UN experts, and Palestinian officials in an attempt to bully and intimidate them into silence. One prominent example is UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who has played an important role in documenting Israel's atrocities and those who profit from its oppression of Palestinians. This book compiles Albanese's indispensable and damning reports on Israel's conduct in Palestine since October 2023. First outlining the case that this period should be understood as a genocide, Albanese goes on to explain how the ongoing violence fits into a longer history of Israel's settler colonialism, and finally presents a devastating indictment against the international corporations that treat mass killing and destruction as a business opportunity. [Paperback]
"Francesca Albanese's clear moral voice and expert analysis sheds light on Palestine's darkest moment in history. This book will help to judge those who were on the right and wrong side of history." —Ilan Pappe
"When I came out of Gaza at the end of November 2023, I discovered that Israel was only the tip of the genocidal iceberg. The rest of the iceberg was the enablement apparatus — a system of states, institutions and individuals whose sole purpose was to ensure the longevity of a genocidal project now into its third year. This book dissects this apparatus, shedding light on its constitutive accomplices." —Ghassan Abu-Sittah, trauma surgeon
Silent Coup: How corporations overthrew democracy by Claire Provost and Matt Kennard $33
As European empires crumbled in the 20th century, the power structures that had dominated the world for centuries were up for renegotiation. Yet instead of a rebirth for democracy, what emerged was a silent coup — namely, the unstoppable rise of global corporate power. Exposing the origins of this epic power grab as well as its present-day consequences, Silent Coup is the result of two investigative journalists' reports from 30 countries around the world. It provides a guide to the rise of a corporate empire that now dictates how resources are allocated, how countries are governed, and how justice is defined. [Paperback]
”Silent Coup is a crime story: a gripping description of the murky legal, and regulatory structures and policy changes that privilege big corporations. It's a tragedy, outlining the terrible consequences for people and nature, for democracy and accountability. It's a lesson in economics, providing fascinating and important insights into the functioning of global capitalism today. But finally it's also a story of hope, about apparently powerless people resisting these trends in the struggle for better and more just futures. Don't miss this.” —Jayati Ghosh
Read our latest newsletter. Find out about our Book of the Week, and about the winner of the 2026 International Booker Prize.
22 May 2026
A few years ago, I accidently came across a podcast called Ear Hustle when I was searching for something else. Ear Hustle is a non-fiction podcast about prison life centred around San Quentin State Prison. It’s a fascinating and honest insight into the lives of the prisoners: often sad, sometimes brutual, yet also laced with humour and pathos. It’s eye-opening, as is Asher Emanuel’s brilliant The Valley: Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City, which shares some of the same attributes. Here, the action focuses on the criminal justice system. The courts, the Hutt Valley in particular (although this could be any district court in Aotearoa), and the systems that intertwine with these courts: social welfare, the police, bailiffs, probation officers, housing services, and rehab, to name a few. I say action, because Emanuel’s reportage style burns with immediacy; with its intimate portrayals and authentic dialogue. The book is predominantly verbatim conversation, and centres around two defendants, Nathan Morley and Rikihana Wallace, and their overworked defence lawyer Lewis Skerett. I dare you to read the first few chapters and not be hooked. The lives are real, the crimes are ordinary, but this is a world many live outside of, and often our knowledge of the justice system is only of sound-bite news items which reveal very little of substance or tend towards the sensational. The Valley avoids this dramatic nonsense, giving instead a direct and sometimes confronting view of what the criminal justice system looks like from the inside, and more importantly from the perspective of those that navigate it, whether they are the defendents, the lawyers or the special courts that attempt to mitigate the glaring problems at the heart of the justice system and the wider welfare system. Asher Emanuel draws us into this world with clarity, calmness and care. The Valley has integrity, and is vitally important. The wider issues of poverty, government policy over several decades, our degraded welfare system, issues with our addiction services, as well as housing supply, all pulse simulatneously alongside the stories of Nathan and Rikihana. If you read one book this year make it this one. (We will be discussing The Valley at our June Talking Books session).
Whether life is worth living or not is not something that can be philosophically contested, but, if it is not worth living, whether suicide is justifiable and well as understandable is perhaps open to examination. Critchley interrogates the standard arguments against suicide and finds them unsupportable (in this he is much aided by an (anticipatory) afterword from David Hume). The general argument in justification of suicide (or, rather, against the proscription of suicide) is one of what I would call ‘possessive individualism’, the assertion of the absolute freedom to dispose of oneself as one chooses. This argument leaves unexamined the easy belief that the bundle of impulses, tendencies and glimmerings of consciousness that we think of as ourselves in fact belong to or ‘are’ us, rather than being mere nodes in a field of impulses, tendencies and glimmerings and indivisible from the other nodes therein. In fact, we find ourselves constantly constrained by the wider consequences of an act of freedom to the extent that this freedom is not free, and thus suicide can never be merely the sovereign removal of oneself from the hole into which one had been consigned. From the individualistic point of view, suicide is both an assertion of oneself as the sole subject of one’s life and the relinquishment of oneself as the subject, a determination to be relieved of an unbearable subjectivity, to stop experiencing the story from the point of view of a character, to become, for the instant that the story ends, the reader of that story, a reader who will perish, as all readers do, in the cessation of the story. Critchley considers Cioran’s assertion that suicide is the recourse of optimists: “Is it not inelegant to abandon a world which has so willingly put itself at the service of our melancholy?”, and makes some concluding attempts to the effect that it is the fact that life is not worth living that makes life worth living. In this he strays near the philosophically unreachable consideration of suicide where it is not possible to make assertions without being at least judgemental if not insensitive. If there is an argument against suicide it is not that life is worth living, but, perhaps, a general one against the possessive individualism upon which our culture, and indeed modern consciousness, depends.
Taiwan Travelogue is a bittersweet story of love between two women, nestled in a mouthwatering exploration of food, language, history, and power. Set in May 1938, the young novelist Aoyama Chizuko sails from Japan to Taiwan where her interpreter proffers tantalising glimpses of island life and helps her to taste as much of its cuisine as her larger-than-life appetite can bear.
Disguised as a translation of a rediscovered text by a Japanese writer, this novel has been awarded the 2026 International Booker Prize. Taiwan Travelogue unburies lost colonial histories and deftly reveals how power dynamics inflect our most intimate relationships.
”With sumptuous food writing, laugh-out-loud dialogue and metafictional twists, this novel was impossible to put down. Taiwan Travelogue pulls off an incredible double act: it succeeds as both a delicious romance and an incisive postcolonial novel.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation
This important book provides unfiltered insight into the workings and shortcomings of the New Zealand criminal justice system by tracing its impacts on the lives of those who experience it first-hand. Written with a novelist’s eye for detail, entirely gripping and told largely in verbatim dialogue (the result of hundreds of hours of interviews over two years), The Valley follows three Hutt Valley men through courtrooms, prison, hospital, rehab, boarding houses, and welfare offices, demonstrating the particular mechanisms, disappointments and frustrations that perpetuate individual and social harm. If this is not already your world, this book is an eye-opener, providing a place of empathy from which to work to make life better for us all.
A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more:
All your choices are good! Click through to our website (or just email us) to secure your copies. We will dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.
A Truce That Is Not Peace by Miriam Toews $45
‘Why do you write?’ the organiser of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempted answer from Toews — all of them unsatisfactory to the organiser — surfaces new layers of grief, guilt and futility connected to her sister’s suicide. She has been keeping up, she realises, a decades-old internal correspondence, filling a silence she barely understands. And we, her readers, come to see that the question is as impossible to answer as deciding whether to live life as a comedy or a tragedy. A Truce That Is Not Peace is the first time Toews has written about her own life in nonfiction. Inventive yet controlled; wrenching and joyful — Toews remakes her world and invents an astonishing new literary form to contain it. [Hardback]
”A layered confrontation with the deaths, grief, and guilt that have animated her work for nearly 30 years, providing haunting insights on how to live after tragic loss.” —The Atlantic
”A profoundly moving meditation on the frailty of memory and the permanence of loss. Nothing short of a masterpiece.” —San Francisco Chronicle
”An affirmation of life in all its richness and variety. This remarkable book will live forever.” —Celia Paul
>>Are writing and suicide related?
>>Loss, literature, and the unspoken.
>>Grief, guilt, and memory.
>>Why do you write?
>>How to stay alive.
Ambivalence by Brian Dillon $42
When Brian Dillon was sixteen his mother died and he simply gave up all schoolwork. While he courted exam failure, his real education was going on elsewhere: with books, music, films and television. When at last he made it to university, his head was already full of avant-garde writing, art and ideas. Could academia live up to the hopes and dreams he had invested in it? Halfway through university his father died, and the stakes of reading and writing seemed even higher. Ambivalence explores what learning meant to its author, what it enabled and denied, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-six, when he left his native Dublin. It's at once a memoir of that city in the 1980s and 1990s, an uncynical portrait of the adolescent and early-adult mind, and an intimate defence of radical thinking about literature and life. In vivid present-tense fragments, Dillon describes his first encounters with writers such as Virginia Woolf, Walter Benjamin, Samuel Beckett, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida. He recalls being seduced by ambivalence, ambiguity and androgyny — on the page and in the life he hoped his reading would transfigure. The era he describes seemed to demand new ways of thinking about aesthetics and politics. Today, when rights are fragile, arts and humanities attacked, and students dismissed as radicals or narcissists, Ambivalence is an argument for the poetic and revolutionary force of changing yourself and even the world by changing what you know. [Paperback with French flaps]
”What, then, does Ambivalence amount to? Perhaps simply the assertion that uncertainty has its own value. This is persuasive when we acknowledge just how often, as politicians demonstrate for us daily, people lay claim to conviction that is unearned. At the start of the memoir, we meet B as a boy who, standing at a crossroads, ‘considers his limited options’. By the end, despite considerable personal tragedy, he has accessed an open-minded way of thinking through books that, in their complex variety, carry ‘the promise of promise itself’. This is a surprisingly hopeful book. The state of being uncertain carries with it a rich source of possibility.” —Sarah Moorhouse, Spectator
”Brian Dillon is one of the true treasures of contemporary literature — a critic and essayist of unmatched style, sensitivity and purpose.” —Mark O'Connell
”Brian Dillon is always invigoratingly brilliant. His sentences, his stylistic innovations, the range and potency of his intellectual adventures; he is a true master of the literary arts and a writer I would never hesitate to read, whatever his subject.” —Max Porter
”Brian Dillon's essays match discernment and critical thinking with a sense of pleasure in finding a work of art that speaks to him and lures him into contemplating its mystery and intricacy. His writing is exact and calm; rather than explain he explores, playing what is tentative against what is certain.” —Colm Toibin
>>Other books by Brian Dillon.
>>Remastered.
Aotearoa in Bloom: The hisotry, culture and practical uses of New Zealand’s flowers by Rachel Clare and Tryphena Cracknell $60
He puāwai, he kōrero. For every flower, a story. Did you know that Aotearoa has more than 2000 species of flowering plants, and that more than 80 per cent of them are found nowhere else on Earth? This book invites you on a botanical hīkoi through Aotearoa's flowers. Discover where they grow, when they bloom, the roles they play in their ecosystems, and which ones you can grow in your garden. From native mistletoes and around 120 orchid species to the fuzzy edelweiss, the iconic pōhutukawa and the precious ngutukākā, which is almost extinct in the wild, you will learn about their ornamental and practical uses and their significance in te ao Māori. Explore the stories behind their names and how these plants have taken root in our modern cultural identity. Combining photographs with historic botanical drawings, Aotearoa in Bloom weaves together stories of people and plants. Part social history, part gardening guide, this special book is a blossoming celebration of Aotearoa's unique natural heritage. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
Song of the Saltings by Rachael King $28
On the isolated island of Brack, the people live by an ancient bargain: every year, a sacrifice must be made to the Glimm, the creature that haunts the salt marshes.Eight years after the monster spared her, 16-year-old Lotta tends the Council's sacrificial horses and keeps her distance from the villagers who whisper about her fate. But something is stirring. The island is dying. It hums beneath her feet, and a song threads through her dreams. Is the Glimm calling Lotta back? A chance encounter with Moss, a village outcast, will change both their lives, and the fate of the island, forever. To uncover Brack's deepest secrets, Lotta and Moss will need to trust each other and risk everything they hold dear.Because on Brack, monsters come in many forms. [Paperback]
”Utterly gripping, lyrical and haunting.” —Rachael Craw
Human Capital: The tragedy of the education commons by Guy Standing $30
Does the education system make better people? Why are so many — teachers and students alike — stressed and dissatisfied? Do we need to revive real education? Ideally, education is about the pursuit of truth, beauty and morality. But in the last few decades, a perilous fixation with ‘human capital’ — skills, knowledge and aptitudes required for the labour market — has trampled over curricula, schools and universities. Rather than learning how to think critically about the world, from cradle to grave students are trained to be more effective workers, to make more money, and to serve an hegemonic ideology. Teachers and researchers are pressed to serve those goals. Standing shows us how education — intrinsically a common public good — has been enclosed, privatised, financialised and corrupted, turned into an instrument of societal control, not human emancipation, weakening democracy, not strengthening it. Human Capital charts how the education industry largely serves commercial interests, not its teachers and students, and considers how to revive its lost values, to save society for the common good. Very timely. [Paperback]
”Urgent and compelling, Human Capital is a rallying cry for a radically different kind of education system — one that puts imagination and empathy at its heart, and genuinely equips young people for the challenges ahead, instead of the current narrow joyless focus on 'schooling', where success is measured in money and status alone. A searing attack on the 'education industry', Standing's latest book should be required reading for every education minister.” —Caroline Lucas
Quantum Listening by Pauline Oliveros $28
What is the difference between hearing and listening? Does sound have consciousness? Can you imagine listening beyond the edge of your own imagination? In response to the anti-war movements of the 1960s, pioneering musician and composer Pauline Oliveros began to expand the way she made music, experimenting with meditation, movement and activism in her compositions. Fascinated by the role that sound and consciousness play in our daily lives, Oliveros developed a series of Sonic Meditations that would eventually lead to the creation of Deep Listening — a practice for healing and transformation open to all, rooted in her musicianship. Quantum Listening is a manifesto for listening as activism. Through simple yet profound exercises, Oliveros shows how Deep Listening is the foundation for a radically transformed social matrix: one in which compassion and peace form the basis for our actions in the world. First published at the turn of the millennium, this timely edition brings Oliveros's futuristic vision — blending technology and spirituality — together with a new Foreword and Introduction by Laurie Anderson and IONE. [Paperback]
"Pauline's Quantum Listening is a clearly worded manifesto advocating for the practice of Deep Listening - the practice of practice. Accessing both the focal and the global at once makes us Futurists too, both creators and recipients of the newness, the peace and the health we long for. A champion of the underserved and underrepresented, Pauline dares us to embrace change, the unfamiliar and even the unknown. She wants us to be bold enough to imagine a benevolent society that can embrace technology to create a sublime music." —IONE
"Quantum Listening is not really a Buddhist exercise. But like Buddhism, Deep Listening puts experience before everything else. It emphasises both detail and scope of, in Pauline's words, 'the sounds of daily life, of nature, or one's own thoughts'. 'We're not a nation of listeners,' she wrote. To say the least! Deep Listening is inside your head and empathetic. Both focal and global." —Laurie Anderson
>>The difference between hearing and listening.
>>Deep Listening.
Edith: The girl who was 100 years old by Catharina Valckx $20
A philosophical adventure story for early readers that playfully combines fairytale with absurd comedy to ask a big question about what makes a good life. As a newborn, Edith received two gifts: the ability to bring any object to life and eternal childhood. That’s why today, 100 years later, Edith is celebrating her centenary as a seven-year-old. What will she wish for this time? Certainly a new life—being seven forever has its downside. On her birthday, Edith sets off to find the fairy who bewitched her and reverse the spell. She takes her only friends, a wise dog and a talking lemon. Fully illustrated in colour, this one-of-a-kind chapter book bursts with good things: the dry wit of a faithful dog, a fairytale adventure, camping, boating, friendship and danger, and a question that matters. [Paperback with French flaps]
>>Look inside.
The Chief and the Empire: The incredible story of Te Pahi, the Māori trailblazer betrayed by the Crown by Eugene Bingham $40
The Chief and the Empire uncovers the extraordinary true tale of Te Tai Tokerau rangatira Te Pahi — the first influential Māori leader to cross the Tasman — whose curiosity about the Pākehā world forged alliances, saved lives, and ultimately cost him his own. On a visit to Sydney in 1805 Te Pahi was feted as a celebrity. He built close ties with the Governor of NSW, Philip Gidley King, even staying as a guest in the Governor's house for several months. He also met the missionary, Samuel Marsden, both men recognising Te Pahi's remarkable character and mana.Te Pahi examined the budding NSW colony and its brutal justice system with intelligence and compassion — and shocked King, by condemning the death sentences for a group of men accused of stealing food, ultimately sparing some of their lives. But history did not reward his courage. On returning home, Te Pahi was wrongly blamed for a deadly attack on a British ship, the Boyd, and killed, his name darkened for generations.Part history, part true-crime investigation, this is a riveting account of Te Pahi's remarkable journey and early Māori-Pākehā encounters, the injustice that destroyed a leader, and the unexpected legacy carried by the descendants of the men he fought to protect. [Paperback]
Tsundoku: The Japanese art of collecting books by Taiki Raito Pym $40
Drawing on the evocative Japanese term tsundoku — first coined in the Meiji era to describe the growing stacks of unread books that accumulate around devoted readers — this insightful and warmly humorous book reframes what some might see as clutter or guilt as a deeply meaningful way of living. From the tactile pleasure of flipping through pages to the quiet ritual of rearranging overflowing shelves, Tsundoku explores the psychology, culture, and poetry behind the irresistible urge to collect and cherish books. It offers meditations on the joy of choosing and buying books, the rebellion against reading lists, creative ways to organise your shelves, foolproof excuses for sneaking in yet another new title, techniques for remembering what you've read, and the guilty — but glorious — pleasure of re-reading. Above all, this philosophy reminds us that we do not necessarily have to have read all the books we own to love them unconditionally. Feelings of guilt, be gone! Unread books can be even more fascinating because they take us on wonderful journeys, and speak to us regardless, whether we open them or keep them closed. We know that books are a cure for the soul: just touching one, smelling one, or leafing through one makes us feel better immediately. [Hardback]
The Good Settler: Essays from other people’s lands by Richard Shaw $40
”Where once I saw a view as I drove around the Taranaki coast along State Highway 45, I now see confiscated land from an invasion road. The creation story I used to subscribe to, the one in which hard-working people came here and settled the land, now jars. Weirdly, even the lawn looks different. The form of things just won't settle.” So writes Richard Shaw in his third book examining colonisation. Both have been warmly welcomed by readers and this third volume of powerful essays, with its wide lens, will not disappoint. As he says, “Growing numbers of Pākehā find themselves standing on restless ground these days: they, too, are seeing things differently, and in these pages you will also hear their voices as we reach — fitfully and painfully, individually and collectively — for an accommodation with our colonial past.” [Paperback]
>>The Unsettled.
>>The Forgotten Coast.
The Swedish Cookbook: Lagom flavours for the modern kitchen by Niklas Ekstedt $55
The best Swedish cuisine starts with a touch of lagom. Meaning 'balanced' or 'just right', lagom informs the culinary traditions of Sweden — the fresh, bright ingredients in its recipes, and the rich, harmonious flavours that come together on its tables. Following the lagom philosophy, Michelin-starred chef Niklas Ekstedt has perfected classic and modern Swedish cooking alike, and in The Swedish Cookbook, he shares his best recipes from everyday meals to special feasts, showing home cook how to master it all. These are fuss-free recipes handed down through generations, full of nourishment and sure to become family favourites. So whether you're a seasoned cook or just starting your culinary journey, it's time to find your lagom in the kitchen and savour the delightful simplicity of Swedish cuisine. Swedish Meatballs with Potatoes & Pressed Cucumber; Swedish Waffles Two Ways; Gravlax; Cabbage Salad with Blueberries & Shaved Frozen Feta Cheese'; Potato Pancakes with Lingonberries & Sour Cream; Rhubarb Pie with Vanilla Sauce; Cardamom Buns… [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
Read our laterest newsletter. Find out the category winners in the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
15 May 2026
All your choices are good! Click through to our website (or just email us) to secure your copies. We will dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.
The Original by Nell Stevens $40
Oxfordshire, 1899. Grace Inderwick grows up on the peripheries of a once-great household, an unwanted guest in her uncle’s home. She has unusual skills and unusual predilections: for painting, though faces elude her; for lurking in the shadows; for other girls. Then a letter arrives, postmarked Saint Helena. After years missing at sea, Grace’s cousin Charles is ready to come home. When Charles returns, unrecognisable and uncanny, a rift emerges between those who claim he is an imposter and Grace’s aunt, who insists he is her son. And Grace, whose intimate knowledge of forgeries is her own closely-guarded secret, must decide who and what to believe in, and what kind of life she wants to live. Deftly-plotted and shimmering with distinctive intelligence, style and wit, The Original is a novel about the value of authenticity in art and in love, and what it means to be a true original. [Now in paperback]
”A marvel of a novel.” —Ali Smith
”What a bewitching book this is. A sinuous, thrilling meditation on fakes and forgers, with echoes of Daphne du Maurier and Sarah Waters and an audacity that is totally original to Nell herself.” —Olivia Laing
”A delightful, playful puzzle of a novel, and a brilliant twist on the nineteenth century orphan-makes-good story. The Original asks whether, sometimes, faking it is the right thing to do.” —Claire Fuller
”A wonderful novel about identity, creativity, money and belonging. It's so witty and propulsive you will forget how brilliantly constructed it is, this tale that brims with the beauty of art, of how to triumph in a difficult world.” —Jessie Burton
”Intricate, and endlessly intriguing. The reader is kept guessing until the very end; as Stevens deftly raises the stakes, the pages seem to turn themselves. The narrative captivates intellectually, too, probing questions of authenticity, imitation, and self-realisation, in love and in art. The overall effect is of an author boldly stepping out on her own, pursuing themes that were hers all along.” —Observer
>>Written by the light of a lava lamp.
Between Dreams: Resistance and representation in Asian Aotearoa edited by Grace Gassin (林素真) $50
This landmark collection presents fresh, progressive perspectives on what it means to be ‘Asian’ in Aotearoa. Te Papa curator Grace Gassin draws together journalists, researchers, activists, filmmakers and political commentators to relate experiences of living between cultures and to explore the legacies of New Zealand’s diverse Asian diaspora histories. Featuring a broad range of taonga from the museum’s collections, this timely book brings these social histories into focus, revealing shared themes of resistance and representation that offer ways to reckon with the past and imagine new futures. Contributions by: Umi Asaka, Mohan Dutta, Christopher Fung, Rebekah Jaung, Tze Ming Mok, Keith Ng, Sun-Min Elle Park, Sapna Samant, Balamohan Shingade, Isaac Te Awa (Ngāpuhi, Kāti Māmoe, Kāi Tahu, Waitaha) and Sidney Wong. [Flexibound]
>>Look inside.
>>Lip service.
Attention-Seeking Behaviour by Aea Varfis-van Warmelo $45
The narrator of Attention-Seeking Behaviour, a woman in her mid-twenties, is “complex, creative and nasty.” She is also, by her own admission, a compulsive liar. Trying to break this habit for the sake of Normal Ben, an honest and uncomplicated man, she looks back over her life. By turning to writing she attempts an honest reckoning with her long history of deception, its psychological roots, and the terrible cost it has exacted on her romantic and professional relationships. But can we believe a word she says? Hilarious, sexy, and politically astute, Attention-Seeking Behaviour is at once a personal confessional and a critical history of lie detection methods and their role in modern policing. Blending fiction and non-fiction — memoir, novel, and essay — it wields confession shamelessly while positively embracing the proximity of literature and lying. [Hardback]
”I loved Aea Varfis-van Warmelo's Attention-Seeking Behaviour. Aea speaks with such clarity to the mutability of memory and self-narration, and the painful difficulty of breaking out of one's own patterns and specific self. Her honest look at lying has produced a novel which is both amazingly playful and deeply serious; warm and destabilising, intellectually rigorous and aesthetically stylish.” —Harriet Armstrong
”Attention-Seeking Behaviour is a book to be read for its sentences alone. Each line reveals the author's control over fiction's delicate veils, shaping a mercurial, lyrical reality that embroils the reader into an eerily unstable sense of certainty. Through quiet inversions, diminishments, and disillusions of account, Varfis-van Warmelo offers a voice that is all brain, all mammal-suspended within the mechanics of social life, yet governed by a vulnerable, perhaps universal will to power. The result is painterly and polymorphous: a book that does so much more than seek attention, it renewed what I now hope to find in the contemporary novel altogether.” —Eve Esfandiari-Denney
”Sexy, frightening, immaculately written and mercilessly perceptive. It's also the most exacting, eviscerating self-critique since St Augustine. Left me with a deeper understanding of myself that I sort of wish I didn't have. I loved every page.” —Luke Kennard
>>Making the reader complicit.
ATTENSITY! A manifesto of the Attention Liberation Movement by The Friends of Attention $50
A rallying cry to fight the commodification of human attention, with the tools we need to reclaim our humanity, by a group of writers, artists, and activists in the vanguard of the movement. We all feel it — something is seriously wrong. Our attention — that essential ability to give our minds and senses to the world — is being trapped, gutted, and sold out from under us by an industry of immense technological and financial power. The heedless exploitation of this vital capacity by a handful of tech companies is harming us all, reducing our very selfhood to that which can be quantified, bought, and sold — and shaking the foundations of our democracy. To push back against this 'human fracking’, we need more than individual will-power or isolated efforts. We need a movement of collective resistance. Such a movement is beginning to bloom, and in this radical, first-of-its-kind guide, The Friends of Attention show us how to join the fight. We meet welders, nurses, poets, and surfers, all of whom are engaged in attentional practices. We learn to seek out sanctuaries — theatres and museums, houses of worship, dance parties — where together we can take refuge from the frackers. Drawing on a rich legacy of critical intellectuals and the creative wisdom of diverse traditions, Attensity! takes our apocalyptic present, turns it on its head, and reveals new vistas of human flourishing. [Hardback]
”Attensity! reminds us that how we attend to the world shapes what the world can be for us, and for one another. With a lively, even joyful blend of philosophical seriousness and practical imagination, it invites us to see attention not as a private asset to be hoarded but as a shared capacity to be cultivated and protected.” —Kwame Anthony Appiah
”At a time when most reports are of the world getting worse, here's a zinging, erudite book that arrives with the happy news that one thing can get better if we put our minds to it. Attensity! is about how to reclaim one of our most powerful and valuable qualities — our attention-through a path back to the human things that matter: community, care, imagination, and art. It's both a keen historical analysis and a call to movement-building from a group of people who have spent years working in the libraries and the classrooms but also, with the shared force of their attention, in the ever-changing streets.” —Nathan Heller
>>Visit the Friends of Attention.
Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní Chuinn $33
A young girl spends her days on a double-decker bus. A bride-to-be prays to St Valentine's bones. Bouquets are found all over a museum. Teenagers gather to dissect a human body. Brimming with compassion and thrumming with energy, these stories are scrupulous in their attention to detail, epic in their scope. In this bravura debut collection, Liadan Ní Chuinn delivers a blend of the personal and the political. [Paperback]
”Here's a writer who knows how to swerve gracefully from the expected. Her work is instinctive, intriguing and truly exciting. I cannot wait to see what's in store for her.” —Lisa McInerney
”It's a long time since I've read a short story collection where I've felt such an aching tenderness for the people within its pages. These stories are rich. They have heart and weight. This is singular, controlled, dextrous writing from someone who is now one of my favourite writers.” —Wendy Erskine
”These are exceptional stories, stark yet richly textured and told in a voice that is at once plain-spoken and lyrical. Liadan Ni Chuinn is the real deal.” —Louise Kennedy
”An extraordinary book by an extraordinary author who refuses to look the other way. Ni Chuinn's incantatory sentences quiver like seismographs, registering the quakes and ruptures that can crack a life in two.” —Thomas Morris
>>Causing harm, or failing to prevent it.
The Social Photo: On photography and social media by Nathan Jurgenson $27
With the rise of the smart phone and social media, cameras have become ubiquitous, infiltrating nearly every aspect of social life. The glowing camera screen is the lens by which many of us apprehend and communicate our experience. But our thinking about photography has been slow to catch-up; this major fixture of everyday life is still often treated in the terms of art or journalism. In The Social Photo, social theorist Nathan Jurgenson develops bold new ways of understanding the transformations wrought by these image-making and sharing technologies and the cultural objects they have ushered in: the selfie, the faux-vintage photo, the self-destructing image, the food photo. Jurgenson shows hows these devices and platforms have remade the world and our understanding of ourselves within it. [Paperback]
”Like Susan Sontag's On Photography to which it self-consciously responds, The Social Photo is slim, hard-bitten and picture-free. For if the average photo is ever dumber, photography matters even more; the social photo, in Mr. Jurgenson's phrase, has effected a "fusion of media and bodies" that has made every gallerygoer a cyborg.” —Jason Farago, New York Times
”’Social photos are not primarily about making media but about sharing eyes,' Nathan Jurgenson writes in this important and timely book. Grappling with the significance of the billions of largely ephemeral images that inhabit social media, he persuasively delineates many of the key boundaries between what was previously understood to be photography and the contemporary image environment.” —Fred Ritchin, author of Bending the Frame
>>Why this moment will be mis-remembered.
>>Susan Sontag On Photography.
Representations of the Intellectual by Edward W. Said $33
In these impassioned and inspiring essays, based on his 1993 Reith Lectures, Edward Said explores the role of the intellectual in the modern world. Are intellectuals merely the servants of special interests or do they have a larger responsibility? In these wide-ranging essays, one of our most brilliant and fiercely independent public thinkers addresses this question with extraordinary eloquence. Said sees the intellectual as an exile and amateur whose role it is 'to speak the truth to power' even at the risk of ostracism or imprisonment. Drawing on the examples of Jonathan Swift and Theodor Adorno, Robert Oppenheimer and Henry Kissinger, Vietnam and the Gulf War, Said explores the implications of this idea and shows what happens when intellectuals succumb to the lures of money, power, or specialisation. [Paperback with French flaps]
”For all that's changed, Said's principles for a worthwhile intellectual life — in particular, remaining independent despite the financial temptations offered by governments or institutions, and being relentlessly honest, whatever the risks — are as vital as ever.” —Juliet Jacques, Novara Media
”What is the task of the intellectual at a time when, at the heart of liberal democracies, genocide is normalised and protest suppressed? Said understood that the intellectual's position is not easy to occupy, certainly not with any kind of consistency. There is no template, and no guarantee that the intellectual's willingness to put themselves on the line will make a difference in the short term. Because they cannot trust institutions, states, or religions, conscience must be their guide. But the resonance of Said's books in our particular moment — the fact that they matter in certain respects now even more than they did at the time of their composition — shows that short-term calculus is not always the most relevant measure of their value. Sometimes, the intellectual must also look to the future.” —Rebecca Ruth Gould, Los Angeles Review of Books
”Representations of the Intellectual is a masterly meditation on some of the most important questions with which intellectuals must grapple, notably their relation to power and their responsibility to speak the truth out of a commitment to a bedrock of universal values. It speaks of such issues in a way that is satisfying and at the same time whets the reader's appetite for more, surely the sign of an important work.” —Rashid Khalidi
hello, world? by Anna Poletti $40
Abandoned by their Dutch partner after giving up their home and their job to follow him to the Netherlands, Seasonal finds themself single in a strange place for the first time in a decade. Still adjusting to life outside Australia, they turn to the internet to find a new anchor. Dipping into the rabbit hole of digital eroticism, Seasonal meetsLászló, a male sub who volleys back their cerebral sexts and is seeking a dominant guide. His dating-app profile thinly veils his desire to be annihilated. It's a desire that Seasonal senses they can fulfil. But to do it, Seasonal must forget the hard earned ways of keeping themself safe they developed in the milieu of violence and sexual threat that marked their upbringing in working-class, small-town Australia. At home, men were usually a threat. What if the roles were reversed? Seasonal and László embark on an experiment in remaking intimacy outside the Republic of Gender. But as it continues, the two realise they are staging separate confrontations with domination: Seasonal finds they must confront what it has meant to be raised as woman in Australia, while László stages his own confrontation with his decision to leave Viktor Orbn's Hungary. As the two improvise a theatre of domination in search of freedom, the energies of their sexuality stalk this collaboration, threatening to give them exactly what they bargained or begged for. A reverse novel of education, where two people try to unlearn everything they think they know about intimacy, Anna Poletti's hello, world? dares to fully face the violence, beauty, and uncharted territories of human sexuality. [Paperback]
“The delight in this book is not just in how closely observed and felt its themes are, but how closely thought as well.” —McKenzie Wark
”A stunning and radical book.” —Chris Kraus
>>Glitching the binary.
>>Not knowing how to keep warm.
>>Inconvenient and ungovernable.
The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain $37
In the early 1960s, in a small town near Dartmoor, the church bells ring. The people of North Tawton go about their days, catching glimpses of one another's lives. There's the local GP, who knows more about his patients than he would sometimes prefer. There's the young shop assistant at Kestrels, who understands that the ladies who come there for a new outfit sometimes hope to find a new self. There's the tenant farm labourer who rings the tower bells at the church three times a week, the notes harmonious and clashing rippling out across the rooftops of the town. Amid all these lives, a young couple move into focus. New to the town with their small daughter, they have escaped London for a quieter existence in the thatched house beside the church, Court Green. The life they intend to build here out of fresh lino tiles, second-hand furniture painted with hearts and flowers, and expertly-cooked suppers for weekend guests will be a good and happy one. The Daffodil Days depicts a pivotal year in the marriage of one of the 20th-century literature's most infamous couples, witnessed by the people they lived among. It is a kaleidoscopic portrait of this enigmatic pair, refracted through the rich inner lives of a rural community caught if only for a moment in their light. [Paperback]
”Beautiful, affecting and deeply impressive, this is an ingeniously constructed novel, told slant. I loved it.” —Louise Kennedy
”An exceptional novel, with shades of Hilary Mantel. Helen Bain takes the familiar and makes it utterly new. I loved it.” —Meg Mason*
”A luminous, deeply researched debut, The Daffodil Days reimagines Sylvia Plath's Court Green period through a chorus of village voices — letting the known story fall away until what remains feels bracingly human and close. Helen Bain's prose is exact and alive, and the novel builds with a quietly devastating inexorable force you can't look away from.” —Paula McLain
>>A free, supple life.
>>The injured thumb.
The Asset Class: How private equity turned capitalism against itself by Hettie O’Brien $40
You don't know their names, but they own the house you rent. They own your hospitals, nurseries and care homes, the media you consume and the companies you work for. They even own the tools your union uses to fight back. Business is a contest — and they say their people are built to win. But when does competition become a struggle to the death? For decades, private equity firms have infiltrated every corner of modern life. Wielding debt as a weapon, they push vital services into crisis. Their cover story: that this is merely the 'creative destruction' essential to growth. Old-school capitalists say they're dismantling everything that made our economies work. In The Asset Class, reporter Hettie O'Brien penetrates a hidden empire of billion-dollar deals and covert financial warfare. From Copenhagen to San Francisco, Barcelona to the Yorkshire Dales, she follows the money, the ideological roots and the trail of destruction. What she finds is chilling: private equity isn't just reshaping the economy — it's selling out the foundations of Western society. The new owners think they can hide in the shadows. But the owned are fighting back. Pertinent. [Paperback]
”Private equity has quietly taken control of the foundations of everyday life, spreading insecurity and 'enshittifying' everything from coffee shops to care homes. O'Brien reveals its arcane dynamics by telling the stories of the fascinating — and often unscrupulous — characters at its heart. This is essential reading.” —Grace Blakely, author of Vulture Capitalism
”The story of how money to fund housing, social care and hospitals was captured by the few. We should call this what it is: a legalised smash-and-grab raid on public infrastructure whilst governments, many bought with donations, sat and watched. A wild and engaging ride.” —Jolyon Maugham, author of Bringing Down Goliath
”A scary book. Through a dazzling investigation, it shows how the secretive industry of private equity has extended its dominion over everyday life and is now tearing apart the very fabric of our society. However, it is ultimately empowering. It clearly tells us how this industry works and what its pressure points are, knowing which is the first step towards fighting back. The struggle to rebuild a decent society should start with this book.” —Ha-Joon Chang
The Noma Guide to Building Flavour: Including recipes and techniques for sauces, butters, broths, reductions, preserves, vinaigrettes, flavoured salts, and infused oils by the Noma Test Kitchen $90
The long-anticipated follow-up to the bestselling The Noma Guide to Fermentation offers more than 150 recipes for infused oils, vinaigrettes, fudges, spice mixes, rubs, sauces, and other flavour-boosting condiments that professional and home cooks can use to elevate every part of their cooking. These are the components that define the inimitable taste of Noma, including iconic preparations such as roasted kelp salt, smoked egg yolk sauce, Nordic pesto, and lacto-koji beurre blanc. Most of the recipes are illustrated with step-by-step photo sequences detailing the techniques needed to transform surprisingly familiar ingredients into elements of Noma's distinctive cuisine. Noma uses these recipes to create elevated preparations for the restaurant (a selection of plated-dish photos are included), but readers — whether professionals or avid home cooks — will find plenty of inspiration for their own kitchens, aided by do-able suggestions from Noma chefs. In conversational essays and anecdotes woven throughout the book, Rene Redzepi shares how staff members from around the globe have influenced Noma's flavour palette, and how Noma chefs take pristine seasonal ingredients and blend, grind, dry, smoke, macerate, reduce and otherwise elicit the most potent and desirable flavours that make up the sensory language of Noma. [Hardback]
"Brillat-Savarin once wrote that the discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a star. The Noma team have developed an entire galaxy of flavours in this new book, giving chefs everywhere the vocabulary to speak — and cook — an entirely new language in the kitchen." —Jose Andres
>>Look inside!
When life is a bit tough, we all need a good book. When you’re unsure and feel like a square peg in a round hole, you need a good book even more. Ever been eleven and lonely? Or wondered why your best friend is hanging out with the mean kids? Or wished your mother didn’t sigh so much? If you answer yes to any of these questions then you need Cricket Karlsson. Ever wanted to make art? Ride a horse in the moonlight? Ever been unable to get out of bed or unable to get someone you love out of bed? Then you need Cricket Karlsson. Cricket Karlsson is eleven, has a ‘potato’ heart (which is currently mashed because her best friend Noa isn’t talking to her), is finding out about love, is visiting her aunt in the psych ward, loves to draw and doesn’t like the horse girls. And she has secrets — secrets that only a best friend, like Noa, knows! The Secrets of Cricket Karlsson from the pen of Kristina Sigunsdottir and the brush of Ester Eriksson is another standout from Gecko Press. I loved it, and it’s even better on the second reading. It has lists of not very Ugliest Words, absurd and unlikely Things Grandpa Says you Can Die From, unusual Psychiatric Illnesses I Don’t Want, and delightful Secrets I Have Only Told to Noa. Told with the keen observation of an eleven-year-old with all the concerns of childhood and changing circumstances, the words leap off the page with feistiness, humour and pathos. It lightly touches on worries and fears (climate change, mental health, sadness, regret) while embracing the best things about being that age when you’ll still a kid, but only just. Who hasn’t noticed the horse girls with their neighing and prancing, or squirmed when a boy (or a girl) is doe-eyed and you just don’t like him like that, or locked themselves in the bathroom (sometimes crying) to avoid being harassed? Cricket Karlsson finds out that life isn’t always what you expect, that loneliness passes, and that even an eleven-year-old can make a sad person happy. Black humour abounds and Cricket Karlsson is a star (with secrets and lists, a big heart and a little mischief, and her favourite food is cheese-on-cheese-in-cheese).
Do you know about our Children’s Book Subscriptions? We offer a personally curated book subscription service for all ages from age zero. Some of our subscribers have grown with us and are now well into their teens. Every month or second month we select and send a book to a child or teen. Each book is selected according to their age, reading level, and interests. We always like to choose for the individual rather than rattling out the next same bestseller to everybody. If you are interested in purchasing a book subscription for a child you know, get in touch or have a look at our packages here. We can accommodate your needs, and work to your budget, so just let us know via email if you have a special request.
“When what is distant disappears, what is near tenderly draws nearer,” said Robert Walser, according to Carl Seelig, about walking in the fog. Walser’s collar is crooked, or worn, or both, he carries his furled umbrella under his arm along the mountain path, his hat is battered, the band torn, he is wearing a suit, somewhat raffish, somewhat the worse for wear, but he has no overcoat. Walser does not feel the cold, says Seelig. He enjoys the clouds, the rain. He distrusts clarity. Walser enjoys his walks with Seelig but asks Seelig not to call for him on any day but Sunday, so as not to disturb the routine of the asylum, in Herisau. There he assembles paper bags with glue, sorts beans and lentils, cleans the rooms. “It suits me to disappear,” says Walser, according to Seelig, “as inconspicuously as possible.” Not only to disappear, but to do so inconspicuously. Even from his early days, according to Seelig, who did not know Walser in his early days and so must have had this information from Walser, or possibly from another source, though no other source suggests itself, Walser took long walks to overcome the effects of nightmares. Or anxiety. Or the panic that results from the inability to engage. Not that Walser suffers from the inability to engage, exactly, though he seldom talks without prompting, not even to Seelig, says Seelig. Seelig spends little time with Walser in the asylum, but instead on the mountain paths, walking in the cloud, and in the rain, the best weather, to the small village inns where they enjoy this wine or that, or beer, or cider, and cutlets, or fried eggs, or dumplings, or cheese pies, whatever they are, or meatloaf, and pommes frites, or cabbage, or mashed potatoes and peas and white beans. Seelig records it all, afterwards, each detail of the walk and of the food and the drink and the waitresses, and every word that Walser speaks, we suppose, or, anyway, at least the essentials. With great equivalence. Off they walk again together, over the ridge, around the base of the mountain, Switzerland has many ridges and many bases of mountains, to clear their heads after the wine, and then to catch the train that will return Walser to the asylum and Seelig to wherever Seelig lives. Walser “harbours a deep suspicion of the doctors, the nurses, and his fellow patients, which he nonetheless skilfully tries to hide behind ceremonial politeness,” says Seelig, who either observes Walser more frequently than is recorded or has this information from the doctors. Seelig becomes, after all, Walser’s guardian after the deaths of Walser’s brother Karl and his sister Lisa. He republishes Walser’s work. To no avail. But Seelig is invisible to us, through making Walser visible when Walser doesn’t want to be visible. Seelig is Walser’s Boswell. Seelig is the narrator of Walser now that Walser narrates nothing. “Restraint is my only weapon,” says Walser, narrates Seelig. The restraint that made Walser significant as a writer is no different from the restraint that stopped him writing. “The less plot a writer needs, and the more restrained the setting, the more significant his talent,” says Walser, the author of, first, novels, then stories, then feuilletons, then microscripts approximating a millimeter in height in pencil on tiny scraps of paper, hidden about his person, in the Asylum in Waldau, unrecognised as actual writing until after his death, until they were deciphered in the 1990s, and then nothing. When he first meets Seelig, because Seelig admires Walser's writing, Walser has already stopped writing. He has written nothing since he left Waldau and entered Herisau. Walser blames Hitler. Or society. Or the new superintendent at Waldau, according the Seelig. Walser blames editors, critics, other writers, according to Seelig. Walser’s work was admired by Kafka. He was admired by Benjamin, Sebald, Bernhard and Handke, according to them. To mention only a few. One critic called The Tanners “nothing more than a collection of footnotes,” according to Walser, according to Seelig. The Assistant was true, which is a surprise, at one time you could visit the advertising clock designed by Tobler, says Walser, says Seelig. Walser wrote the book in six weeks. The world changed. Walser changed, or he failed to change. He was celebrated and then increasingly ignored. He found it hard and then harder to get his work published. Even in the newspapers. “I could not perform for society’s sake,” says Walser, of his failure, according to Seelig, “All the dear, sweet people who think they have the right to criticise me and order me around are fanatical admirers of Herman Hesse. They are extremists in their judgement. That’s the reason I have ended up in this asylum. I simply lacked a halo, and that is the only way to be successful in literature,” says Walser to Seelig, according to Seelig, not without bitterness. Writing can only be done if it is the only thing done. Once, Walser alternated his writing with jobs as a servant or as a clerk, for money, for the time to write. Now he does not write. He wants to disappear. “It is absurd and brutal to expect me to scribble away even in the asylum. The only basis on which a writer can produce is freedom. As long as this condition remains unmet, I will refuse to write ever again,” says Walser, as recorded by Seelig. Walser’s turning away is from writing and from life. Walser's ceremonial politeness is his way of not existing, or of existing in his own absence. He is distant and withdrawn. He likes long walks, alone, we find out later, or with Seelig. He talks with Seelig, a little, when prompted, but not with others. As far as we know. The withdrawal that gives his writing such brilliance is the withdrawal that makes life unlivable, in the end, or at some point some way before the end, when one lets go of something, it is uncertain what, that everyone else grasps, naturally, or, more commonly, desperately, whatever it is, that keeps them clutching their lives. Walser, says Seelig, failed to take his own life, on more than a single occasion. His sister showed him the asylum at Waldau. He could think of no option but to enter. He did what was expected. He is diagnosed, when the term becomes available, as a catatonic schizophrenic, whatever that means, but his enjoyment of the walking, of the scenery, of the food and more especially the drink, and of the waitresses, seems genuine, at least through the eyes of Seelig, who knows him better than anyone, who sought him out because of his work and befriended him in the asylum and who accompanies him on long walks, who records everything and is sympathetic and transparent, at least to us, so that there is no reason to doubt Walser’s small and simple pleasures as they are recorded by Seelig, an affectionate man, on the level of smallness and simplicity at which they are experienced by Walser, who has set about perfecting smallness and simplicity until it resembles so very little it is almost nothing, who is the sworn enemy of his own individuality, who shows no emotion when told of the death of his brother, whom he loves, who refuses to break his routine to visit his sister, whom he loves, when she lies dying and asks him to come. “I too am ill,” says Walser, says Seelig. He doesn’t want to do what the other patients in the asylum aren't doing. He has an intestinal ulcer. “Must I be sick?” he asks the doctor, “Are you not satisfied to have me here in good health?” He refuses the operation. Just as well. “Is it true that you destroyed four unpublished novels?” asks Seelig. “That may be,” answers Walser, according to Seelig. Seelig says that Walser’s brother’s wife Fridolina had been told by Walser’s sister Lisa that Walser had destroyed a photograph of himself that had been taken by his brother Karl. “That may be,” answers Walser, records Seelig. Walser is convinced of his failure. At least of his inability to perform as he is expected to perform, to be successful as a writer, though he has an ambivalence towards success, and to live even an ordinary life. Everything must be made smaller. “The snow has now turned to hail,” describes Seelig, of the weather. Walser carries steadfastly on. A life is full of details, even when those details are small, or insignificant, if there is such a thing as insignificant. If you wish to disappear you pay attention to the small. You have relinquished everything else and are relinquishing that too, with great care. The doctor says Walser has a disease of the lungs. It affects his heart. He should not leave the asylum grounds, says the doctor, according to Seelig. Walser accompanies Seelig to the train. The next time they walk, Walser does not walk well, says Seelig. He tires and stumbles. It seems there is not much of life left. Almost nothing. One day Walser goes for a walk. They find him later, face-up in the snow.
All Her Lives follows women across generations as they resist, nurture and transform. These are lives shaped by love and politics, motherhood and memory, constraint and defiance. From girls raised in the garden of Plunket founder Truby King, to a queer university student at a mid-2000s Berlin rave, to a mother facing the cost of her son's climate rebellion, the women of All Her Lives are complex, resilient and deeply human. Shadowing their stories is the early feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, whose journey of grief and revolution will become a vessel for what endures — and for finding hope. Vast and intimate, All Her Lives explores the layered selfhood of women — all that they inherit, sacrifice, imagine and carry forward — and the power found in unravelling and reweaving those selves on their own terms.
“Poet, memoirist and scholar Ingrid Horrocks turns to fiction and crushes it. Across nine elegant, probing stories that range from the late eighteenth century to the unsettled present, from rural Wairarapa to icy Norwegian ports and rave culture Berlin, All Her Lives explores the shifting expectations and constraints of womanhood. Characters confront leaky rentals and sexual assault, join anti-nuclear and climate movements, while seeking many forms of love. Sparks from one story and one generation ignite elsewhere in the book, illustrating how material conditions, freedoms and ideologies can be shaped, for better or worse, by our forebears. Emotionally intelligent and historically alert, this book is an outrageously good addition to the top shelf of New Zealand fiction.” —Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges’ citation on awarding All Her Lives the 2026 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
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