NEW RELEASES
Any of these new books could be in your hands in a jiffy.
A beautifully illustrated and absorbing compendium of real and mythical beasts with 100 images from the collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.
"From my first reading of Knots I have been been captivated by Gunnhild Øyehaug's wit, imagination, ironic social commentary, and fearless embrace of any and every form of storytelling. These are stories to be relished, inspiring in their art and humanity both. How fortunate that we can now read them in Kari Dickson's sparkling and magically faithful English." - Lydia Davis
"Formally playful, poignant, understated, and often acutely funny. A near-perfect collection about the knots we tie ourselves into and the countless ways we intertwine in the pursuit of sex, love, compassion and family." - Kirkus
On a quest to explain how and why his father mysteriously disappeared twenty years ago, a writer embarks on an epic journey in search of a stolen bicycle and soon finds himself immersed in the strangely overlapping histories of the Japanese military during World War II, Lin Wang, the oldest elephant who ever lived, and the secret world of antique bicycle collectors in Taiwan.
From the author of The Man with the Compound Eyes.
A novel steeped in the folklore and traditions of life in a Nigerian village.
“A beautiful, dreamlike story which lingers in the mind and heart. There is oppression and tragedy, sincerely conveyed, but there is also remarkable triumph, a stunning rebirth and shimmering hope. A treat - especially for fans of Ben Okri and Elechi Amadi” - Leila Aboulela
A beautifully written novel about the relationship between a family and a landscape after the father's decision to withdraw from society. Long-listed for the 2017 Man Booker Prize.
"I already feel like I've won."
A good survey of his work, well illustrated, with a thoughtful alphabetical exploration of themes and influences.
Randolph, a successful architect, and his family move into a beautiful apartment in a desirable part of Berlin. Life seems perfect - until they meet the man living in the basement below them. Their downstairs neighbour is friendly at first, if a little strange, but then he starts to frighten them. And the situation quickly becomes intolerable.
"Fear shifts our moral codes. It makes us sympathetic to violent revenge, accessories to murder. Do we want the victim to survive? No, we don't. Long after I had put this book down I still didn't. A great achievement." - Herman Koch
Imogen is an heiress, a runaway, and a cheat. Jule is a fighter, a chameleon, and a liar. Imogen is done pretending to be perfect, and Jule refuses to go back to the person she once was. Somewhere between the mansions of Martha's Vineyard and the shores of Cabo San Lucas, their intense friendship takes a dark turn. From the author of We Were Liars.
The last decade of life in Manhattan is distilled in the lives of the Golden tycoon family, as seen through the eyes of their neighbour.
"A modern masterpiece. If you read a lot of fiction, you know that every once in a while you stumble upon a book that transports you, telling a story full of wonder and leaving you marveling at how it ever came out of the author's head. The Golden House is one of those books." - NZ Herald
"This is a recognizably Rushdie novel in its playfulness, its verbal jousting, its audacious bravado, its unapologetic erudition, and its sheer, dazzling brilliance." - Thrity Umrigar, Boston Globe
My All by Sophie Calle $45
A retrospective survey of the projects of this photographer in the form of 110 postcards, one for each of her experiments in the ambivalences of photography and memory.
A rather charming facsimile edition of a hand-drawn and hand-lettered account.
This collection of 100 artists' manifestos from across the globe over the last 100 years brings together activists, post-colonialists, surrealists, socialists, nihilists and a host of other voices. From the Negritude movement in Africa and Martinique to Brazil's Mud/Meat Sewer Manifesto, from Iraqi modernism to Australia's Cyberfeminist Manifesto, they are by turns personal, political, utopian, angry, sublime and revolutionary. Some have not been published in English before.
Locatelli's books are remarkable not only for their exquisite, authentic and achievable recipes, but for the personable way in which he imparts his knowledge of Italian food and food culture. His Made in Italy is a classic in the field.
A new edition of Solnit's fascinating book on the benefits of wandering, being lost, losing yourself and things and other people, and in the uses of the unknown.
>> Other books by Solnit at VOLUME.
Three earl novels recording the authors memories of growing up in occupied Paris, and of the antiSemitism practised by occupiers and occupied alike. The novels also bear witness to Modiano's emergence as a writer.
What are the origins of human rights? Who gets to decide what they are? Can human rights be legitimately used as a justification for political or even military intervention?
Beautifully illustrated and full of feline facts.
>> Also available: Smart About Sharks and Mad About Monkeys.
Stuck between global war and global finance, between identity and capital, we seem incapable of producing the radical change that is so desperately needed. Meanwhile the struggle for dominance over the world is a battlefield with only two protagonists: the forces of neoliberalism on one side, and the new order led by the likes of Trump and Putin on the other. How can we imagine a new emancipatory vision, capable of challenging the deadlock of the present? Is there still a way to disentangle ourselves from a global order that shapes our politics as well as our imagination? Is the Slough of Despond just beyond, or on this side of, the Horizon of Impossibility?
Surveys the black radical traditions since the nineteenth century to provide context for the new international wave of protests and awareness, tied to a critique of capitalism, privilege and power.
>> Angela Davis on TV.
What is the relationship between the books we read and the lives we lead?
Almost true stories for a post-truth world. Does being an American mean anything any more?
"These bang-up-to-the-minute stories feel like essential reading as we get to grips with a bizarre new era." - Guardian
"Like taking a street-level tour through six decades of new York." - New York Times
"Why, having stood up for and held their own place in a once absolutely male world, have women not stood up for their history? Their words and feelings? A whole world is hidden from us. Their war remains unknown. I want to write the history of that war. A women's history." An important oral history of Russian women's experiences in World War Two, in English for the first time.
Why do some of the wealthiest countries, such as the US, have the greatest levels of inequality, and the poorest quality of life for many of their citizens? Molander looks widely at the causes of inequality and examines steps that can be taken to address injustice and to rectify inequality and its resulting social ills.
""For a long time, I've been shaking the most debated book of the spring, Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Now, out falls the core: Per Molander's The Anatomy of Inequality." - Aftonbladet
"Studying Latin for fun in later life is a niche fantasy, but the impulse to do something substantial is a more widely shared experience. So is the desire to repair some deficit of one's youth. Patty's book is an effort on the part of the author to decipher her own life by deciphering two-thousand-year old texts. Most vital are the moments in which Patty lets her word-nerd flag fly." - The New Yorker
>> She doesn't move her lips.
Geoffrey Palmer (The Reformer); the Trader: Mike Moore (The Trader); Jim Bolger (The Negotiator); the Challenger: Jenny Shipley (The Challenger); Helen Clark (The Commander).
>> The Podcasts.
What is the essence of chess? How has chess developed alongside society? What can learning chess teach you about yourself and about how to operate in the world? Can you escape dilettantism in your chosen field and become an expert? What does in mean to 'win'? Moss alternates 64 'black' and 'white' chapters in this engrossing book.
>> Personality is both the ultimate strength and the ultimate weakness.
Conjoined twins with very different personalities are trapped with each other and also hidden away s 'defective' in Soviet society.
>> Based on a true story.
Harold Musson wrote almost daily to his wife from the trenches of France during World War One, giving a vivid picture of life under unnatural conditions. Kennard's return letters, written for this book, chart her journey of discovery about her grandfather's life. Local author.
What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states?
Surveys the wider manifestations of this icon of ceramic art.
>> The changing context of the teabowl.
Little Bird Goodness by Megan May $60
More than 130 irresistible, mostly raw, plant-based recipes from the author of The Unbakery.