NEW RELEASES
When the stars were rhinestones. When your car was a blue Holden god. When kisses spread to your back teeth, marathons of sucking. When we pashed through jokes, through tunes, through homework, through the leftovers we shovelled out our schoolbags. When you let me tattoo you with talk. Thirty-one new stories from the author of Deleted Scenes for Lovers.
"If Slaughter is writing from the black block in her chest, she is also speaking directly into yours." —Charlotte Graham-McLay
Factory you shall never have my soul
I am here
And I count for so much more than you
And I count so much more because of you
Thanks to you
I am here
And I count for so much more than you
And I count so much more because of you
Thanks to you
Unable to find work in his field, Joseph Ponthus enlists with a temp agency and starts to pick up casual shifts in the fish processing plants and abattoirs of Brittany. Day after day he records with infinite precision the nature of work on the production line—the noise, the weariness, the dreams stolen by the repetitive nature of exhausting rituals and physical suffering. But he finds solace in a life previously lived. Shelling prawns, he dreams of Alexandre Dumas. Pushing cattle carcasses, he recalls Apollinaire. And, in the grace of the blank spaces created by his insistent return to a new line of text—mirroring his continued return to the production line—we discover the woman he loves, the happiness of a Sunday, Pok Pok the dog, the smell of the sea. A poet's ode to manual labour, and to the human spirit that makes it bearable.
The Back of the Painting: Secrets and stories from art conservation by Linda Waters, Sarah Hillary and Jenny Sherman $45
A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet $45
Rag and Bone: A family history of what we've thrown away by Lisa Woollett $45
A History of Bombing by Sven Lindqvist $44
Behind the scenes with the experts on famous paintings. The seal of the Prince of Yugoslavia, the icon that protected persecuted Russians, Monets repurposed canvas, the excised first wife, the stolen Tissot—all these stories can be found on the backs of paintings in New Zealand art museums. This fascinating book by three painting conservators explores the backs of 33 paintings, ranging from 15th century artworks to the present day, from Claude Lorrain to Ralph Hotere, and held in the collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Join them on their art-detective explorations. Fascinating.
A group of twelve eerily mature children endure a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group's ringleaders—including Eve, who narrates the story—decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside. As the scenes of devastation begin to mimic events in the dog-eared picture Bible carried around by her beloved little brother, Eve devotes herself to keeping him safe from harm.
"A blistering classic. Millet writes brilliantly about everything — politics, physics, mermaids — and she’s one of the leading writers of environmental fiction. Millet addresses the existential crisis of climate change with a technical understanding of the science and a humane understanding of the heart. She’s also ferociously witty. That rare combination has made her stories about species extinction and global warming profound and weirdly amusing." —The Washington Post
From relics of Georgian empire-building and slave-trading, through Victorian London's barged-out refuse to 1980s fly-tipping and the pervasiveness of present-day plastics, Rag and Bone traces the story of our rubbish, and, through it, our history of consumption. In a series of beachcombing and mudlarking walks—beginning in the Thames in central London, then out to the Kentish estuary and eventually the sea around Cornwall—Lisa Woollett also tells the story of her family, a number of whom made their living from London's waste, and who made a similar journey downriver from the centre of the city to the sea. Nicely written.
we love an underdog especially when it’s a whale
we see ourselves in them literally in them lounging
in their cathedral of a mouth just looking for love
All around us, life is both teeming and vanishing. How do we live in this place of so many others and so many last things? How to Live With Mammals is not a book of instruction but a book of reimagining and a book of longing. In these poems, Ash Davida Jane asks how we might reorient ourselves, and our ways of loving one another, as the futures that we once imagined grow ever more precarious.
"Urgent, funny and tender: these poems shine." —Louise Wallace
On November 1, 1911, over the North African oasis Tagiura, Lieutenant Giulio Cavotti leaned out of the cockpit of his primitive aircraft and dropped a Haasen hand grenade. Thus began one of the most devastating military tactics of the twentieth century: aerial bombing. With this point of entry, Sven Lindqvist, the author of the acclaimed Exterminate All the Brutes, tells the fascinating stories behind the development of air power, bombs, and the laws of war and international justice, demonstrating how the practices of the two world wars were born from colonial warfare.
Rita Angus: An artist's life by Jill Trevelyan $60
A YA novel about finding your calling, the extraordinary nun Mother Mary Joseph Aubert, and the realities of religious bigotry in late-nineteenth century New Zealand.
"One of the most consistently accomplished and versatile writers for teenagers in the country." —The New Zealand Listener
A revised edition of Trevelyan's consummate illustrated biography.
Leonie the Fire Fighter from the UK, Ahsan the Surgeon from Pakistan, Fabien the Mountain Rescuer from France, Tamika the Veterinarian from the US, Nick the Police Officer from the UK, Cecilia the Nurse from Spain, Koen the Lifeguard from the Netherlands, Jin the Research Scientist from China, David-Lawrence the Paramedic from Switzerland, Johanne the Counsellor from Germany, Andy the Flying Doctor from Australia, Giovanna the Foreign Aid Worker from Italy. Lots of visual appeal and interest.
It remains the most audacious spy plot in American history—an operation to invade Russia, defeat the Red Army, and mount a coup in Moscow against Lenin. After that, leaders in Washington, Paris, and London aimed to install their own Allied-friendly dictator in Moscow as a means to get Russia back into the the First World War against Germany. The Lenin Plot had the "entire approval" of President Woodrow Wilson. As he ordered a military invasion of Russia, he gave the American ambassador, the U.S. Consul General in Moscow, and other State Department operatives a free hand to pursue their covert action against Lenin. The result was thousands of deaths, both military and civilian, on both sides. Why don't we know more about this?
When war broke out between the British Empire and the Boer republics in 1899, New Zealand was among Britain's most enthusiastic supporters. The South African War was a chance for New Zealand to prove its military capabilities and loyalty to the Empire. There was a huge surge in nationalist feeling and intense interest in the fortunes of the imperial forces. Mafeking, Kimberley and Ladysmith became household names. Fundraising events were packed, and as men enlisted in contingents and Volunteer corps, women and children joined patriotic groups and cadet corps. This is the first book to examine in detail the enduring impact of the country's first overseas war.
Useful.