NEW RELEASES
Chased by monsters, each more comically hideous than the last, a child hides here and there inside three fairytale houses (the three little pigs' brick house, Cinderella's palace, the gingerbread house visited by Hansel and Gretel) before coming out and frightening the monsters away. Each house is a wonderland of lift-the-flap discoveries and hilarious details. This is a very enjoyable and special book.
>>Look inside.
Also by Clotilde Perrin:
Almost every day, the narrator visits ML, a close friend who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s. Based on these encounters and ML.’s fragments of memory, she constructs a powerfully moving tale about the breakdown of a mind that progressively erases everything in a very peculiar way. An attempt through writing to ‘make a relation endure despite the ruin, to hold up even if only a few words remain’. ‘How does someone who can’t remember say ‘I’?’ asks the narrator, considering this woman who shows her around the house as if she were visiting for the first time, or who is unable to say she feels dizzy, yet is perfectly capable of translating into English a message saying that she feels dizzy. Passages from a shared past and present that are transformed into fiction when faced with a forgetting that can no longer refute them. A book that opposes disintegration with a precise and vital prose and a unique sensibility.
"A masterclass in writing, with a brevity and clarity which is both rare and welcome, and firmly situates Molloy as an outstanding talent." —The Skinny
The famously reclusive writer shares with readers what he thinks about being a novelist; his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians. How does Murakami think about his own novels, and how does he craft them?
>>Read an extract.
>>Read an extract.
In 1920, New Zealanders were shocked by the news that the brilliant, well-connected mayor of genteel Whanganui had shot a young gay poet, D'Arcy Cresswell, who he thought was blackmailing him. They were then riveted by the trial that followed. Mackay was sentenced to hard labour and later left the country, only to be shot by a police sniper during street unrest in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis. Downfall shines a clear light on the vengeful impulses behind the blackmail and Mackay's ruination. The Mackay affair reveals the perilous existence of homosexual men and how society conspired to control and punish them. This careful examination of a little understood moment is unique for the queer lens through which it views the complex lives and motivations of key figures in late-Edwardian New Zealand and the systems within which they operated.
>>The mayor makes a comeback.
>>The mayor makes a comeback.
Gaspar is in danger. Only six-years-old, he is frightened he may have inherited the same strange abilities as his father, Juan; a powerful medium who can open locked doors, commune with the dead, and possess the ancient forces of the Darkness. Now father and son are in flight, hunted by the Order, a group of wealthy acolytes who seek to harness the Darkness, no matter the cost. Among them, Gaspar's grandmother, whose twisted desires have already driven her to commit unspeakable acts. Nothing will stop the Order, nothing is beyond them. Surrounded by horrors, can Gaspar and Juan break free? Spanning the brutal years of Argentina's military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a haunting, thrilling novel of broken families, cursed land, inheritance, power, and the terrible sacrifices a father will make to help his son escape his destiny. From the author of the International Booker short-listed The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
The globe-spanning narratives that explode across the trilogy take us from a lone poplar tree in the Nevada desert to a barnacle-covered cliff in Galicia, Spain, through scientific treatises and film-editing manuals, personal journals, and comic strips. The books are full of references to indie cinema, theoretical physics, conceptual art, practical architecture, the history of computers and the decadence of the novel. And yet, for all the freewheeling, fragmentary swagger, a startling order emerges and takes hold. The Nocilla Trilogy charts a hidden and exhilarating cartography of contemporary experience.
"Like having multiple browser windows open, and compulsively tabbing between them." —Chris Power, Guardian
"The most original and powerful author of his generation in Spain." —Mathias Enard
'Think of Nocilla Trilogy as three novels at the edge of the form, their manifold narratives folded into each other: all highly imaginative, all fairly unhinged, all methodically interrupted by a range of scientific, theoretical and literary quotations." —Kevin Breathnach, London Review of Books
In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message "Hello Everybody!" Known for shooting with her beloved Land Camera 250, Smith started posting images from her phone including portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo. Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smith's world, photographs of her daily coffee, the books she's reading, the graves of beloved heroes--William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Simone Weil, Albert Camus. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape. This book combines those images with vintage photographs: anniversary pearls, a mother's keychain, and a husband's Mosrite guitar; and photographs from Smith's archives of life on and off the road, train stations, obscure cafés, a notebook always nearby. In wide-ranging yet intimate daily notations, Smith shares dispatches from her travels around the world.
>>Look inside!
Re-Sisters: The lives of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe, and Cosey Fanni Tutti by Cosey Fanni Tutti $45
Swanfolk by Kristín Ómarsdóttir (translated by Vala Thorodds) $35
In the not-too-distant future, a young spy named Elisabet Eva is about to discover something that will upend her carefully controlled life. Elisabet's work is the lynchpin of her existence in the city; her friends and social life centre around the Special Unit. But recently Elisabet has found herself taking long solitary walks near the lake. One day, she sees two creatures emerging from the water, half-human, half-swan. She follows them through tangles of thickets into a strange new reality. Elisabet's walks turn into regular visits to these swan women, who reveal to her the enigma of their secret existence, and their deepest desires. Pulled further and further into the monomaniacal, and often violent, quest of the swanfolk she finds her own mind increasingly untrustworthy. Ultimately, Elisabet is forced to reckon with both the consequences of her involvement with these unusual beings and a past life she has been trying to evade.
"One of the most original authors in contemporary Icelandic literature, known for subverting traditional binaries like fantasy and realism, feminine and masculine, good and evil, and the animal and the human." —Ord um Baekur
The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger $23
Is This a Cookbook? Adventures in the kitchen by Heston Blumenthal $53
Moro Easy by Sam and Sam Clark $65
A Ballet of Lepers: A novel and stories by Leonard Cohen $37
Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor $23
A Is For Bee: An alphabet book in translation by Helen Peck $28
Living Pictures by Polina Barskova $25
Freedom, Only Freedom: The prison writings by Behrouz Boochani, edited by Moones Mansoubi and Omid Tofighian $35
Black and Female by Tsitsi Dangaremba $23
Empire City by John E. Martin $70
In 2018, boundary-breaking visual and sonic artist Cosey Fanni Tutti received a commission to write the soundtrack to a film about Delia Derbyshire, the pioneering electronic composer who influenced the likes of Aphex Twin and the Chemical Brothers. While researching Derbeyshire's life, CFT became immersed in Derbyshire's story and uncovered some fascinating parallels with her own life. At the same time she began reading about Margery Kempe, the 15th century mystic visionary who wrote the first English language autobiography.
Re-Sisters is the story of three women consumed by their passion for life, a passion they expressed through music, art and lifestyle; they were undaunted by the consequences they faced in pursuit of enriching their lives, and fiercely challenged the societal and cultural norms of their time.
In the not-too-distant future, a young spy named Elisabet Eva is about to discover something that will upend her carefully controlled life. Elisabet's work is the lynchpin of her existence in the city; her friends and social life centre around the Special Unit. But recently Elisabet has found herself taking long solitary walks near the lake. One day, she sees two creatures emerging from the water, half-human, half-swan. She follows them through tangles of thickets into a strange new reality. Elisabet's walks turn into regular visits to these swan women, who reveal to her the enigma of their secret existence, and their deepest desires. Pulled further and further into the monomaniacal, and often violent, quest of the swanfolk she finds her own mind increasingly untrustworthy. Ultimately, Elisabet is forced to reckon with both the consequences of her involvement with these unusual beings and a past life she has been trying to evade.
"One of the most original authors in contemporary Icelandic literature, known for subverting traditional binaries like fantasy and realism, feminine and masculine, good and evil, and the animal and the human." —Ord um Baekur
London, June 1965. Karl Braun arrives as a lodger in Pimlico: hatless, with a bow-tie, greying hair, slight in build. His new neighbours are intrigued by this cultured German gentleman who works as a piano tuner; many are fellow émigrés, who assume that he, like them, came to England to flee Hitler. That summer, Braun courts a woman, attends classical concerts, dances the twist. But as the newspapers fill with reports of the hunt for Nazi war criminals, the hunt is on for a Nazi surgeon hiding somewhere in Britain...
"A wonderfully compelling noir thriller and audacious and challenging act of imagination." —William Boyd
"A haunting, remarkable novel, as startlingly original as any of Pressburger's films." —Nicola Upson
This is probably Blumenthal's most intimate cookbook, allowing us to see the way he thinks and approaches (and rethinks) relatively simple but interesting food. Each of the seventy recipes includes Blumenthal's thoughts, hacks and anecdotes, and show that the most important ingredient is personality. Illustrated with gusto by Dave McKean.
"Heston's done it again. With the original molecular gastronomist, nothing is ever straightforward, and his latest cookbook is no exception. Why is banana and parsley such a winning combination? What is it about a cheese sandwich that causes such a nostalgic rush? But perhaps the biggest surprise is that every musing leads to a simple recipe well within the reach of any curious home cook." —Tony Turnbull, The Times
"This is a glorious sprawl of a book, beautifully illustrated by Dave McKean, that looks at the practical and emotional components of food. Is this a cookbook? For me this is a picture book, a collection of questions that hit you like little darts, and uncomplicated recipes you'll approach in a different, more thoughtful way." —Diana Henry, The Telegraph
Following their acclaimed Moro: The cookbook, which introduced us to the Moorish cuisine, fresh ingredients and fragrant spices of North Africa and Southern Spain, this new book continues their project to reinvigorate home cooking, with simple and speedy dishes such as Courgette, Lemon and Manchego Salad, Spiced Potato Cake with Egg, Asparagus and Jamon and Seabass with Migas, Lemon Zest and Garlic, as well as one-pot Spring Greens with Crispy Chorizo and Brown Rice and Potato Pilaf.
The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to dismantle systems of oppression to protect people + planet by Leah Thomas $28
Saving Freud: A life in Vienna and an escape to freedom in London by Andrew Magorski $37
Am I Normal? The 200-year search for normal people (and why they don't exist) by Sarah Chaney $40
"A rare and very special cookbook." —Nigel Slater
Oxygen Mask: A graphic novel by Jason Griffin and Jason Reynolds $23
Set within the walls of a family home, this graphic novel for young adults is an artefact of the historic year we have all lived through. We travel from the depths of despair but not without hope; the mundane details contained within four walls becomes our sanctuary. This is a gift in commemoration of a time and place, of a worldwide pandemic, of loss, and of the murder of George Floyd. It is a reminder of how, in uncertain times, we can cling to the simple things for respite, for hope. A reminder of how comforting books and artworks are in times of extreme stress.
>>Look inside.
Activist and environmental scientist Leah Thomas shows how Black, Indigenous and People of Colour are unequally and unjustly impacted by climate change and environmental degradation - and argues that the fight for the planet lies in tandem with the fight for civil rights. In fact, one cannot exist without the other. This book provides an accessible foundation in the theory, exploring everything from the birth of the environmental movement to Kimberle William Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality, 'mainstream feminism' to ecofeminism. It helps readers frame their experiences and those of their community, question concepts of privilege and ownership, and better understand how climate change impacts the most marginalised and how to help amplify their voices.
The dramatic true story of Sigmund Freud's last-minute escape to London following the German annexation of Austria, and of the group of friends who made it possible.
Existential Physics: A scientist's guide to life's biggest questions by Sabine Hossenfelder $38
>>Berggasse 19.
In this lively, thought-provoking book, Hossenfelder takes on the biggest questions in physics: Does the past still exist? Do particles think? Was the universe made for us? Has physics ruled out free will? Will we ever have a theory of everything? She lays out how far physicists are on the way to answering these questions, where the current limits are, and what questions might well remain unanswerable forever.
"Hossenfelder is a rare gem. There are other theoretical physicists out there who can write for a popular audience, but very few of them are able to do so in such a no-nonsense way. The result is not just illuminating, but enjoyable." —Charles Seife
Before the nineteenth century, the term normal was rarely ever associated with human behaviour. Normal was a term used in maths, for right angles. People weren't normal; triangles were. But from the 1830s, this branch of science really took off across Europe and North America, with a proliferation of IQ tests, sex studies, a census of hallucinations — even a UK beauty map (which concluded the women in Aberdeen were 'the most repellent'). This book tells the surprising history how the very notion of the normal came about, how it shaped us all, often while entrenching oppressive values. Sarah Chaney looks at why we're still asking the internet: Do I have a normal body? Is my sex life normal? Are my kids normal? And along the way, she challenges why we ever thought it might be a desirable thing to be.
"This fascinating collection of Cohen's early fiction foreshadows motifs and concerns that the performer later mined across decades." —Observer
When an Antarctic research expedition goes wrong, the consequences are far-reaching — for the people involved and for their families back home. Robert 'Doc' Wright, a veteran of Antarctic field work, holds the clues to what happened, but he is no longer able to communicate them. While Anna, his wife, navigates the sharp contours of her new life as a carer, Robert is forced to learn a whole new way to be in the world.
"It leaves the reader moved and subtly changed, as if she had become part of the story." —Hilary Mantel
"So moving and delicate and terrifying and haunting." —Maggie O'Farrell
A is for bee, L is for rabbit, M is for jellyfish, T is for octopus, U is for mouse, X is for bear, Y is for porcupine. Not in English, perhaps, but in other languages the names of things often start with different letters. Boldly illustrated, this book introduces children to language diversity.
Two lovers remain in a gallery of the Hermitage, refusing to shelter underground while Leningrad is under siege. Freezing and gnawed by hunger, they recite poems and stories to pass the time, re-enacting the paintings that are being evacuated from the museum. As their voices and bodies begin to fail and fragment, their conversation is interspersed with sections from a diary — a real document from a person who died during the blockade. This is the centrepiece of Living Pictures, Polina Barskova's genre-defying collection of fiction that reckons with the history and aftermath of the siege of Leningrad. Drawing on archival material and refracting it through fiction, Barskova draws arresting, fearless portraits of the lives caught up in the blockade. A work of inventiveness and richly poetic language, Living Pictures is a collage of a city and a culture in crisis.
"A precise, tremendous and beautiful book." —Maria Stepanova
Over six years of imprisonment on Australia's offshore migrant detention centre, the Kurdish Iranian journalist and writer Behrouz Boochani bore personal witness to the suffering and degradation inflicted on him and his fellow refugees, culminating eventually in his prize-winning book — No Friend but the Mountains — which was painstakingly typed out in text messages while he was incarcerated. In the articles, essays, and poems he wrote while detained, he emerged as both a tenacious campaigner and activist, as well as a deeply humane voice which speaks for the indignity and plight of the many thousands of detained migrants across the world. In this book, his collected writings are combined with essays from experts on migration, refugee rights, politics, and literature. Together, they provide a moving, creative, and challenging account of not only one writer's harrowing experience and inspiring resilience, but the wider structures of violence which hold thousands of human beings in a state of misery in migrant camps throughout the western hemisphere and beyond.
Being categorised as black and female does not constrain my writing. Writing assures me that I am more than merely blackness and femaleness. Writing assures me I am.
This paradigm-shifting essay collection weaves the personal and political in an exploration of Dangarembga's complex relationship with race and gender. At once philosophical, intimate and urgent, Dangarmebga's landmark essays address the cultural and political questions that underpin her novels.
"Poignant, profound, essential. The human cost of colonisation laid bare." —Audrey Magee
Empire City brings the story of Wellington to life, from the invasions of iwi from further north in the early 1800s and uneasy coexistence of different iwi to the purchase of land by the New Zealand Company and the beginnings of Pākehā settlement. Whaling was replaced by pastoralism, the mercantile community rose to prominence, and a viable town with a polyglot population was established. The tales are wide-ranging and compelling, from politicians butting heads, to merchants prospering and others going bankrupt, to earthquakes and shipwrecks, Māori endeavouring to keep the peace or resisting the depredations of Pākehā settlement, the impact of the military in town, the citizenry’s establishment of a variety of social institutions and their enjoyment of diverse entertainments and sports, tales of the distressed and unfortunate underclass as exposed in court, and prisoners escaping from gaol. For its long-term future Wellington needed to secure a rural hinterland but it was hemmed in by rugged hills and heavy bush and the lack of land further north. The war that erupted in 1846 consolidated British sovereignty, purchases of land in Wairarapa and the west coast and the extension of roading helped the town gain a stronger economic footing, while its commercial sector developed apace. Gaining its own provincial government allowed a voice for Wellington and the long campaign began for it to become the capital. Political deadlock and the involvement of the lower North Island in the wars for a time hindered the town’s development and its agitation to become the capital, but in 1865 what had been a long-held dream became a reality. Wellington had truly become the Empire City. In the contributions made by Māori, the New Zealand Company, early Pākehā settlers, merchants, shopkeepers, working people, worthy and less worthy citizens alike, together with a host of institutions and organisations, we appreciate how Wellington came to be from such unpromising beginnings. This diverse, rich and turbulent story is the key to understanding Wellington’s status as the capital of New Zealand.