NEW RELEASES
What will you read next?
Beautifully written stories, every line considered and catching the reader in an onward rush to the very edge of literary possibility.
"It's an open secret that David Hayden is one of the most interesting short story writers around. Why it's taken this long for his first collection to be published is beyond me but I, along with anyone with even the vaguest interest in looking at modernism anew, will be queuing up for a copy." - Eimear McBride
"Quietly innovative, subtle of tone, full of feeling - this is a superb debut." - Kevin Barry
What could be better than a new cookbook entirely devoted to baking and desserts from the author of several of the best cookbooks on your shelves? Ottolenghi and his long-time collaborator Goh present recipes that combine flavours and ingredients in interesting ways and yet are achievable, either easily or with a small amount of pleasurable effort. Delicious, beautifully presented and absolutely recommended for everyone from children to accomplished bakers.
>> Would you eat this?
"Sultry, sinister, hilarious and demented, Baby blazes with intelligence and murderous black humour. Heavenly Creatures for a new generation." – Eleanor Catton
"Patricia Highsmith meets reality TV in this compelling debut. Jochems nudges up the tension until we can’t bear to look – and can’t bear to look away: thrilling, dangerous and deliciously funny." – Catherine Chidgey
"This funny, sexy, unnerving novel challenges received ideas and delivers jolts of pleasure and disquiet throughout. Jochems, like her extraordinary creation Cynthia, is a force to be reckoned with." –Emily Perkins
>> "The best novel of 2017." - Spinoff
Death could come to us at any time, and in a range of guises. O'Farrell builds the memoir around the times in her life when death was nearer than at other times: childhood illness, teenage misadventure, mismanaged labour. Does the proximity of death make us act differently?
"O'Farrell is a breathtakingly good writer, and brings all her elegance and poise as a novelist to the story of her own life." - Guardian
A classic of silliness and imagination, Kalman's wonderfully quirky illustrations accompany stories that foreground the creative workings of a child's mind.
Everything that was ever good about the children's annuals of the past is good about the annuals of the present compiled by Kate De Goldi and Susan Price to include the best New Zealand writing and illustration for children. Last year's Annual was hugely popular, and this year's will be, too.
Companions by Christina Hesselholdt $45
Camilla, Charles, Alma, Edward, Alwilda and Kristian are a circle of friends hurtling through mid-life. Structured as a series of monologues jumping from one friend to the next, Companions follows their loves, ambitions, pains and anxieties as they age, fall sick, have affairs, grieve, host dinner parties and move between the Lake District, Berlin, Lisbon, Belgrade, Mozambique, New York and, their homeland, Denmark.
>> Read an excerpt.
When 10-year-old Siri's younger sister is captured by the Captain Whitehead's Ice Sea Pirates, she must face wolves, frozen landscapes and treacherous sailors and mermaids as she journeys through the north to rescue her. Completely involving.
The day a stained brown envelope arrives from Taduno's homeland, he knows that the time has come to return from exile. Arriving full of trepidation, the musician discovers that his community no longer recognises him, believing that Taduno is dead. His girlfriend Lela has disappeared, taken away by government agents. As he wanders through his house in search of clues, he realises that any traces of his old life have been erased. All that was left of his life and himself are memories. But Taduno finds a new purpose: to unravel the mystery of his lost life and to find his lost love. From the author of Wake Me When I'm Gone.
Traces the history of movements to counteract far-right, authoritarian and white supremacist movements from their roots in 1920s Europe to the grass-roots response to the fascist populism of Trump-era USA. The book also is a guide to recognizing and counteracting reactionary and racist invective and behaviour wherever it is found.
Quantum physics gets its graphic-novel explication as Bob and his dog Rick have crepes with Max Planck, chat with Einstein about atoms and hang out, uncertainly, with Heisenberg in Heligoland.
"Billed as 'Tintin meets Brian Cox', the book was created by theoretical physicist Thibault Damour and illustrator Mathieu Burniat so it's as scientifically accurate as it is beautiful." - BBC Focus
What makes a colour work? What do colours mean to artists or cultures? Why does grey make a colour stand out? What colour are the oceans? Why is the yellow of lemons something to treasure? Award-winning illustrator Marion Deuchars takes us on a journey through colour, showing how its language is at the centre of how we think and feel about the world.
"When Enebeli Okwara sent his girl out in the world, he did not know what the world did to daughters." Twelve stories set in Nigeria and the US, each concerning the way women and girls are treated, mixing realism and magic realism to vary the texture.
"One of the pleasures of reading Lesley Nneka Arimah’s collection is the feeling of being thrown off balance: not knowing where this playful and adventurous new talent will take you next. " - Guardian
An artist working with another artist or with other artists can, despite the difficulties, be creatively exciting. 25 duos or collectives share their perspectives on working together.
"The notion that the best art can only come from a single artist working alone is something of a myth."—Linda Yablonsky
"Collaboration isn’t, for most artists, a recipe for making masterpieces but rather a way of breaking habits –and new ground."—Griselda Murray Brown
The 'Explore and Discover' series is the perfect way for children to learn about New Zealand wildlife.
>> Also new from Ned Barraud: Watch Out for the Weka!
Ornithologists usually spend their time looking into the trees or out onto the water, but literary bird-spotter Alex Preston abandoned the outside world for the world of books. Here he surveys the incidence of avian specimens in literature: what do their wings carry into a reader's mind? Beautifully illustrated by Neil Gower.
"Both a joyful and a wondrous book, one that successfully captures the otherness of birds, while celebrating our yearning to transcend our lot, our yearning to touch the unknowable." - Guardian
The precariat is a class-in-the-making. The precariat are our fellow citizens (if they are not us) for whom poverty, age, disability, homelessness, estrangement, mental or physical illness or estrangement from communities and cultures have resulted in uncertainty, dependency, powerlessness, perilousness and insufficiency. The precariat is very much an outcome of the dismantling of the welfare state and the violation of unwritten social contracts by the privileged.
"Those who cannot remember the pasta / are condemned to reheat it."
Brown's sixth collection.
Why do young Muslim women and men reject their parents' dreams of economic betterment and personal freedom in favour of radical rebellion in the Middle East? Rooted in her own life story, Mekhennet reveals the Muslim immigrant roots of western Jihad.
Beautifully drawn comparisons between the everyday lives of seven actual children - how are they different and how are they the same?
In 2011 over 18000 people were killed by the tsunami that hit the coast of Japan following a Richter 9.1 earthquake. The trauma impacted deeply in the minds of the survivors and has manifested in several surprising ways, including the experience of 'ghosts'. Parry looks at the psychological and cultural wounds of the disaster.
"A remarkable and deeply moving book - describing in plain and perfect prose the almost unimaginable devastation and tragedy of the Japanese tsunami." - Henry Marsh
At last, a new edition of this classic book.
"Margaret Shaida's exquisite collection of recipes and fascinating information on the background and history of the food is both a joy and precious contribution to the world of gastronomy." - Claudia Roden
"Journeys between the decades to liberate Modernism from its traditional definitions and proposes its continuing presence in the work of 21st century architects. With elegant spreads and striking examples, this is an intriguing manifesto. Quotes from figures as diverse as Leonard Cohen and Kazimir Malevich reframe Modernism as a timeless dialogue." -Aesthetica
"Room Little Darker, June Caldwell’s debut collection, couldn’t get much blacker. It reads like boiling tar. The whole collection is an account of 'so much ugly craving'. The shape and conception of the stories are often shocking enough, but Caldwell’s linguistic verve is what keeps you paying attention, fascinated and appalled. A work more attentive to – and understanding of – the terrible derangements of simply being alive I have not read in a long time." - Ian Sansom, Guardian
A very cleverly designed interactive picture book, in which flexure of the page segments creates a range of fascinating and hilarious characters.
Now that Karin's high-flying criminal boyfriend is gone, how can she pull herself and her baby from the depths of her despair?
"A story of high tension, startling insights and lasting resonance." - Siri Hustvedt
"A short novel moving at a slow, suspenseful pace that matches Karin's post-natal sense of disconnection, and does a remarkable job of conveying the physicality of motherhood and the desperation of her circumstances." - Glasgow Sunday Herald
The Muslim world has often been accused of a failure to modernise, reform and adapt. But, from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present day, Islamic society in its Middle Eastern heartlands has in fact been transformed by modern ideals and practices, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from purdah and the development of democracy. Who were the scholars and scientists, writers and politicians that brought about these remarkable changes? And why is their legacy now under threat?
A Golden Bay local history with a remarkable collection of primary sources on Kotinga, Anatoki and Long Plain areas, with much research material on Takaka, land titles, inquests and new information about the Motupipi coal mine.
Albert Einstein kept a photograph of Faraday on his wall.
"When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time." - Ernest Rutherford
Fills the gap between Rough on Women: Abortion in 19th-Century New Zealand and Abortion Then and Now: New Zealand Abortion Stories from 1940 to 1980 to give a full picture of of the historic battle for women's bodies.
In theory, Maori, as subjects of the Queen, were to be ruled by British law. But in fact, outside the small, isolated, British settlements, most Maori and many settlers lived according to tikanga. How then were Maori to be brought under British law? Influenced by the idea of 'exceptional laws' that was circulating in the Empire, the colonial authorities set out to craft new regimes and new courts through which Maori would be encouraged to forsake tikanga and to take up the laws of the settlers.
Full of inventive ideas and creative solutions to practical problems. Includes houseboats, huts, and tricked-out caravans, alongside disaster shelters, wearable structures, and futuristic prototypes.
Possibly the most intimate portrait of Bowie likely to be written, Jones bases his work on 200 interviews with key figures in Bowie's life and career, many of whom had not previously spoken.
>> Launching a hundred faces.
Have a look at the skeletons. Can you work out which animal they belong to, and where the animal lives? Why do these animals have the skeletons they do? Full colour images with textured skeletons give an idea how the animal operates in its natural habitat.
>> Dry bones.