NEW RELEASES (11.8.23)
New books — just out of the carton! Click through for your copies now.
Tsunami by Ned Wenlock $35
At school, being right isn't always the right answer. Peter's bull-headed commitment to the truth has already picked him out as a target for the school bullies. The misfit new girl is a complete badass, but seems as interested in his nemesis, Gus, as she is in Peter, and his parents are too busy bickering to care about any of it. It all feels overwhelming to Peter — like a tsunami is coming and he isn't sure he can stop it. Tsunami is a 278-page graphic novel about Peter, a self-righteous 12-year-old boy, and his fraught last six weeks at primary school. Told in Ned’s unique and beautifully pared down style, Tsunami is a taunt page turner, a coming-of-age story, and nuanced examination of teenage alienation and the unpredictable consequences of our actions.
”Heartbreaking, acutely and devastatingly observed, and distinctively drawn.” —Thomas
>>Look inside!
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey $35
When X — an iconoclastic artist, writer and polarising shape-shifter — dies suddenly, her widow, wild with grief, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognised as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora's box of secrets, betrayals and destruction. All the while she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the United States after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification. A counter-factual literary adventure, complete with ‘documentary’ images assembled by X's widow, Biography of X follows a grieving wife seeking to understand the woman who enthralled her. CM traces X's peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America's divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from David Bowie and Tom Waits to Susan Sontag and Kathy Acker. And when she finally understands the scope of X's defining artistic project, CM realises her wife's deceptions were far crueller than she imagined. Biography of X plumbs the depths of grief, art and love, and introduces an unforgettable character who shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves.
”Discerning facts from fiction is the pleasure of this Russian doll of a book: a biography of an imaginary subject, written by an imaginary biographer, housed inside a novel pretending not to be one. Biography of X is almost certainly one of the most interesting books you'll read this year.” —Financial Times
”From the superb opening line to Lacey's skewering of the art world and its pretensions, her discernments on grief and loss, the book is endlessly quotable. Come for the glamorous premise, stay for the icy precision of the prose.” —Irish Times
>>Pushing all the buttons at the same time.
>>A novel in disguise.
>>I cannot explain my wife.
>>A different America.
>>Blending fact and fiction.
Hiwa: Contemporary Māori short stories edited by Paula Morris and Darryn Joseph $45
Hiwa is an essential collection of contemporary Māori short stories, featuring twenty-seven writers working in English or te reo Māori. The writers range from famous names and award winners — Patricia Grace, Witi Ihimaera, Whiti Hereaka, Becky Manawatu, Zeb Nicklin — to emerging voices like Shelley Burne-Field, Jack Remiel Cottrell, Anthony Lapwood and Colleen Maria Lenihan. A showcase of contemporary talent, Hiwa includes biographical introductions for each writer’s work, and explores the range of styles and subjects in the flourishing world of Māori fiction. Named for Hiwa-i-te-rangi, the ninth star of Matariki, signifying vigorous growth and dreams of the year ahead, this anthology reveals the flourishing world of Māori writing today, in Aotearoa and beyond.
>>Paula Morris talks to the book.
Rōmeo rāua ko Hurieta by William Shakespeare (translated into te reo Māori by Te Haumihiata Mason) $40
He whakamāoritanga o te whakaari hinapōuri a Hakipia mō te aroha pūhou i waenga i ētahi whānau toheriri e rua. Whakaorangia ana i te pukapuka nei e tōna kaiwhakamāori e Te Haumihiata Mason te ao o Rōmeo rāua ko Hurieta ki te reo whakaatu i te wairua Māori. Mauroa ana te kaingākautia o ngā whakaari a Wiremu Hakipia i te ao Māori – mai i ngā whakamāoritanga a Tākuta Pei Te Hurinui o Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Wēneti, o Othello me Julius Caesar ki ngā whakamāoritanga a Tākuta Merimeri Penfold i ngā oriori aroha a Hakipia. Whāia ana e Te Haumihiata tēnei tikanga i tana whakamāoritanga o Toroihi rāua ko Kāhira i whakaaritia ki te Whare Whakaari o te Globe i Rānana i te 2012, tahuri ana ki te whakaari a Hakipia mō te aroha whaiāipo hinapōuri e tino kaingākautia ana. Te aroha, te tuku mātātahi, te tōwhare, te pākūhā – katoa atu kei a Rōmeo rāua ko Hurieta. Ka kawea ake te whakaari nei e tōna whakamāoritanga ki te manawa o Aotearoa.
>>Star-crossed lovers at Matariki.
Look by Gavin Bishop $25
Completely delightful (and developmentally valuable)! Presented as a two-metre long two-sided concertina board book, Look can be opened out to surround a baby during ‘tummy time’ (building motor skills and strength), or shared as a book (building concepts and affectionate ‘conversations’). The simple and very appealing illustrations show faces for one direction/side, and toys and other familiar objects for the other. This will immediately become one of those special books that are central to a baby’s (and a parent’s) life.
>>Recommended by a baby!
Te Rā : The Māori Sail by Ariana Tikao and Mat Tait $25
Te Rā, which means the sail in te reo Māori, is the last remaining customary Māori sail in the world. Woven from harakeke more than 200 years ago, Te Rā has for many years been held in storage at the British Museum in London. In July 2023, our oldest taonga will once again be brought into the light as it returns home to Aotearoa. Evocatively written by Ariana Tikao from the point of view of Te Rā and beautifully illustrated by Mat Tait, this book commemorates the homecoming of our oldest taonga, and celebrates our past, present and future as New Zealanders.
>>Look inside!
>>The old sail reaches shore.
Pyre by Perumal Murugan (translated from Hindi by Aniruddhan Vasudevan) $25
Saroja and Kumaresan are in love. After a hasty wedding, they arrive in Kumaresan's village, harboring a dangerous secret: their marriage is an inter-caste one, likely to upset the village elders should they get to know of it. Kumaresan is naively confident that all will be well. But nothing is further from the truth. Despite the strident denials of the young couple, the villagers strongly suspect that Saroja must belong to a different caste. It is only a matter of time before their suspicions harden into certainty and, outraged, they set about exacting their revenge. A devastating tale of innocent young love pitted against chilling savagery, Pyre conjures a terrifying vision of intolerance.
Listed for the 2023 International Booker Prize.
>>’Honour’ killings compelled me to write.
>>Read an extract.
Termush by Sven Holm (translated from Danish by Sylvia Clayton) $25
Welcome to Termush: a luxury coastal resort like no other. All the wealthy guests are survivors: preppers who reserved rooms long before the Disaster. Inside, they embrace exclusive radiation shelters, ambient music and lavish provisions; outside, radioactive dust falls on the sculpture park, security men step over dead birds, and a reconnaissance party embarks. Despite weathering a nuclear apocalypse, their problems are only just beginning. Soon, the Management begins censoring news; disruptive guests are sedated; initial generosity towards Strangers ceases as fears of contamination and limited resources grow. But as the numbers — and desperation — of external survivors increase, they must decide what it means to forge a new moral code at the end (or beginning?) of the world. Sven Holm’s 1967 post-apocalyptic dystopia feels eerily prescient today.
Beastly: A new history of animals and us by Keggie Carew $45
In a Polish forest a young woman befriends a boar. An Englishman sets up home with two beavers in Saskatchewan. A zoologist watches a fish make a conscious decision. Darwin finds the evidence for evolution in the backyards of pigeon fanciers. The entire population of Croatia anxiously awaits the arrival of a single stork. Animals have shaped our lives, our land, our civilisation, and they will shape our future. Yet as our impact on the world and the animals we share it with increases, there has never been a greater urgency to understand this foundational relationship. Beastly is the 40,000-year story of animals and humans as it has never been captured before, seen eye-to-eye and claw-to-hand through those humans who have stepped into the myriad worlds of our animal relatives. Our relationship with animals has always been paradoxical, but the greatest paradox may yet be this: diversity of life can heal ecosystems. Animals — if given the chance — could save us.
”What a wonderful and unexpected book. The very opposite of beastly: heavenly and amazing, powerful and affecting, a beloved and very fine teller of tales reminds us how small we are in the face of a nature that we neither understand nor wish to respect or, in any real sense, live with.” —Philippe Sands
”Full of necessary rage, joy and passion: Beastly should be mandatory reading for all humans.” —Claire Fuller
John Mulgan and the Greek Left: A regrettably intimate acquaintance by C.-Dimitris Gounelas and Ruth Parkin-Gounelas $40
In September 1943, New Zealand writer John Mulgan was parachuted by the British Special Services (SOE) into remote mountain terrain in the centre of Nazi-occupied Greece, where he worked with the left-wing resistance to facilitate some of WW2’s most successful episodes of guerrilla warfare. This experience shaped his leftist politics in critical ways, but with the Cold War climate taking over, Mulgan’s allegiance was torn between the andartes he fought alongside and the British command he served under. Found dead in his Cairo hotel room shortly after leaving Greece, Mulgan left many questions about his tragically shortened life unanswered. Drawing on extensive new research, including much Greek scholarship, as well as close readings of Mulgan’s own writings, this detailed investigation revises the political canvas of wartime and post-war Greece and provides new insight into Mulgan’s activities and contacts – including the identity of the mysterious woman he was with on the night he died – bringing us a much fuller understanding of Mulgan, one in which his ‘intimate acquaintance’ with the Greek left is proved to have been profound and enduring.
”Every generation has found something of its own debates in Man Alone and John Mulgan's complex legacy. C. Dimitris Gounelas and Ruth Parkin-Gounelas, in this scrupulously scholarly and utterly absorbing bi-focal exposition of Mulgan in the Greek crisis, give us a figure for our own day: enmeshed in an under-recognised anti-colonial struggle, caught and bucking against the political compromises of war, and drawn into the currents of the Greek left. An intimately detailed account of Mulgan's then, this story of austerity, resistance, and bureaucracy has much to teach our now.” —Dougal McNeill
A Bird Day by Eva Lindström (translated by Julia Marshall) $30
"Wash your beaks, it's time for lunch—flies again today," says Dad. After lunch the young birds get sent off to play—they sing, hunt mosquitos, compare leg size, and poke grubs. This is how birds spend a day! Eva Lindström reflects the familiar and the absurd in human behavior through this funny bird family. We all recognize the family dynamics of bickering over fried mosquitos and worm pie—only the youngest is allowed to pick out the worms. Toddlers will recognize key moments in a perfectly down to earth day—play, mealtimes, stretching boundaries, and sleep.
>>Look inside!
>>A ordinary day for some birds.
The Radical Potter: Josiah Wedgewood and the transformation of Britain by Tristram Hunt $32
From his kilns and workshops in Stoke-on-Trent, Wedgewood revolutionised the production of ceramics in Georgian Britain by marrying technology with design, manufacturing efficiency and retail flair. He transformed the luxury markets not only of London, Liverpool, Bath and Dublin but of America and the world, and helping to usher in a mass consumer society. But Wedgwood was radical in his mind and politics as well as in his designs. He campaigned for free trade and religious toleration, read pioneering papers to the Royal Society and was a member of the celebrated Lunar Society of Birmingham. Most significantly, he created the ceramic 'Emancipation Badge', depicting a slave in chains and inscribed 'Am I Not a Man and a Brother?' that became the symbol of the abolitionist movement.
”This is a remarkable and impassioned book. Josiah Wedgwood innovated across boundaries of technology and art and taste, commerce and scientific enquiry, and Tristram Hunt makes the powerful case for rediscovering his humane entrepreneurial spirit. The Radical Potter brings Wedgwood's protean energy alive for a new generation and I loved it.” —Edmund de Waal
Rental Person Who Does Nothing: A memoir by Shoji Morimoto $33
”If everyone has to be useful, that is just the law of the jungle. Civilisation also values the useless.” Shoji Morimoto was constantly being told that he was a ‘do-nothing’ because he lacked initiative. Dispirited and unemployed, it occurred to him that if he was so good at doing nothing, perhaps he could turn it into a business. And with one tweet, he began his business of renting himself out . . . to do nothing. Morimoto, aka Rental Person, provides a fascinating service to the lonely and socially anxious. Sitting with a client undergoing surgery, accompanying a newly-divorced client to her favourite restaurant, visiting the site of a client’s suicide attempt are just a few of his thousands of true life adventures. He is dependable, non-judgmental and committed to remaining a stranger and the curious encounters he shares are revelatory about both Japanese society and human psychology.
>>The only one who does nothing.
Too Many Rabbits by Davide Calì; illustrated by Emanuele Benetti $33
After a month of pleading, Dad finally takes Owen and Zoey to the pet store to adopt a rabbit. Once there, a two-for-one special offer just cannot be ignored; so they take home two rabbits - one male, and one female. Two rabbits make more rabbits, who then make even more rabbits, and soon there are just too many of the sweet little creatures. So begins a hilarious counting adventure as Owen and Zoey find homes for all of the rabbits. Full of little 'easter eggs' hidden in the art, Too Many Rabbits is a mirthful reminder to be careful of what you wish for and a hilarious lesson in chaos control for young readers. A very enjoyable counting book.
>>Look inside!