NEW RELEASES
Siri Hustvedt's relentlessly curious mind and expansive intellect are on full display in this new collection of essays, whose subjects range from the nature of memory and time to what we inherit from our parents, the power of art during tragedy, misogyny, motherhood, neuroscience, and the books we turn to during a pandemic. Drawing on family history as well as her own life and experiences, she examines the porousness of borders of all kinds in an intellectual journey that is at once personal and universal.
"It is Hustvedt's gift to write with exemplary clarity of what is by necessity unclear." —Hilary Mantel
From the author of A Little Life, a remarkable novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment. In an alternative version of 1893 America, New York is part of the Free States, where people may live and love whomever they please (or so it seems). The fragile young scion of a distinguished family resists betrothal to a worthy suitor, drawn to a charming music teacher of no means. In a 1993 Manhattan besieged by the AIDS epidemic, a young Hawaiian man lives with his much older, wealthier partner, hiding his troubled childhood and the fate of his father. And in 2093, in a world riven by plagues and governed by totalitarian rule, a powerful scientist’s damaged granddaughter tries to navigate life without him – and solve the mystery of her husband’s disappearances. Yanagihara sets up resonances between the three stories, enriching them all.
"A masterpiece for our times." —The Guardian
20-year old Lilja is in love. As a young university student, she is quickly smitten with the intelligent, beautiful young man from school who quotes Derrida and reads Latin and cooks balanced vegetarian meals. Before she even realises, she’s moved in with him, living in his cramped apartment. As the newfound intimacy of sharing a shower and a bed fuels her desire to please her partner, his acts of nearly imperceptible abuse continue to mount undetected. Lilja desperately tries to be the perfect lover, attempting to meet his every need. But in order to do so, she gradually lets go of her boundaries and starts to lose her sense of self. Hjörleifsdóttir sheds light on the commonplace undercurrents of violence that so often go undetected in romantic relationships.
>>Read an extract.
>>Read an extract.
Quarantine has shaped our world, yet it remains misunderstood. It is our most powerful response to uncertainty, but it operates through an assumption of guilt: in quarantine, we are considered infectious until proven safe. An unusually poetic metaphor for moral and mythic ills, quarantine means waiting to see if something hidden inside of us will be revealed. Until Proven Safe tracks the history and future of quarantine around the globe, chasing the story of emergency isolation through time and space – from the crumbling lazarettos of the Mediterranean to the hallways of the corporate giants hoping to disrupt the widespread quarantine imposed by Covid-19 before the next pandemic hits through surveillance and algorithmic prediction. Yet quarantine is more than just a medical tool: Manaugh and Twilley drop deep into the Earth to tour a nuclear-waste isolation facility beneath the New Mexican desert, strip down to nothing but protective Tyvek suits to see plants stricken with a disease that threatens the world’s wheat supply, and meet NASA’s Planetary Protection Officer tasked with saving the Earth from extraterrestrial infections.
When Halaby moved from California to Ramallah to teach conflict resolution in a school for a year, she kept a journal. Within its pages, she wrote her impressions of her homeland, a place she had only experienced through her mother's memories. As she settled into her teaching role, getting to know her students and the challenges they faced living in a militarised, occupied town, Halaby also embarked on a personal pilgrimage to find her mother's home in Jerusalem. Halaby had dreamed of being guided by her mother down the old souqs, and the leafy streets of her neighborhood, listening to the muezzin's call for prayer and the medley of church bells. But after fifty-nine years of exile, it was Halaby's mother who needed her daughter's guidance as they visited Jerusalem together, walking the narrow cobblestone alleys of the Old City.
From the city sundials of ancient Rome to the era of the smartwatch, clocks have been used throughout history to wield power, make money, govern citizens and keep control.
On an island in the shape of a teardrop live two sisters. One is admired far and wide, the other lives in her shadow. One is the Oracle, the other is destined for the Underworld. But what will happen when she returns to the island? Based on the Japanese myth of Izanami and Izanagi.
The changing seasons have shaped all of our lives, but what happens when the weather changes beyond recognition? Shute has spent years unpicking Britain's long-standing love affair with the weather. He has pored over the literature, art and music our weather systems have inspired and trawled through centuries of established folklore to discover the curious customs and rituals created in response to the seasons. But in recent years Shute has discovered a curious thing: the seasons are changing far faster and far more profoundly than we realise. Even the language we use to describe them is changing.
In this much-anticipated sequel to The Murderer's Ape, Sally Jones and The Chief discover a curious rose-shaped necklace hidden onboard their beloved Hudson Queen, and it's the start of another perilous adventure for the seafaring gorilla and her faithful friend. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, they set sail for Glasgow, but there fall into the clutches of one of the city's most ruthless gangs, commanded by a fearsome smuggler queen who will stop at nothing to snatch the necklace for herself. Held prisoner hundreds of miles from friendship and safety, Sally Jones must use all her strength, determination and compassion to escape and unravel the mysterious story of the False Rose.
Exercise changes the brain. But which exercises have what effect? Did you know that walking can improve your cognitive skills? That strengthening your muscular core reduces anxiety? That light stretching can combat a whole host of mental and bodily ailments, from stress to inflammation? We all know that exercise changes the way you think and feel. But scientists are just starting to discover exactly how it works.
Mandrill, Owl, Badger, Turtle, and Anteater want to do something terrific together. Anteater suggests climbing—but that is not terrific for them all. Mandrill suggests hanging upside down, but that is not terrific for them all, either. And so it goes, until Snake slithers into the group and nearly upends the whole lovely afternoon.
From the author/illustrator of Little Doctor and the Fearless Beast.
Stripping away the religious elements, Baggini, an atheist, asks how we should understand Jesus's attitude to the renunciation of the self, to politics or to sexuality. Do Jesus's teachings add up to a coherent moral system? If so, could this still be relevant today?
Missing persons don't always stay that way... Sandrine lives alone, rarely speaking to anyone other than her colleagues. She is resigned to her solitary life, until she sees on TV a man despairing for his wife who has mysteriously disappeared. Sandrine is drawn to him and eventually the two strike up a relationship. When the man's wife reappears, Sandrine is forced to confront the truth about him. Is he all she thought he was, or is he hiding an abusive and manipulative character? Who can she trust—the man she loves now, or the woman he loved first?
Spilt urine bottles, the patients who should have been in hospital months ago, existential crises, utterly unexplainable health problems, awkward silences...
Lockwood travels the world, often by bicycle, collecting first-person accounts of climate change. She talks to indigenous elders and youth in Fiji and Tuvalu about drought and disappearing coastlines, attends the UN climate conference in Morocco, and bikes the length of New Zealand and Australia, interviewing the people she meets about retreating glaciers, contaminated rivers, and wildfires. She rides through Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia to listen to marionette puppeteers and novice Buddhist monks. From Denmark and Sweden to China, Turkey, the Canadian Arctic, and the Peruvian Amazon, she finds that ordinary people sharing their stories does far more to advance understanding and empathy than even the most alarming statistics and studies.