NEW RELEASES (12.6.25)
New books for a new season! Click through to secure your copies. We can have your books delivered by overnight courier or ready to collect from our door.
Terrier, Worrier: A poem in five parts by Anna Jackson $25
"If sometimes I think of thoughts as being behind the eyes, sometimes I think of them more as floating, in a kind of cloud around the outside of my head." Part autobiography of thought, part philosophical tract, part poetics, a book about chickens and family and seasons, Terrier, Worrier is a literary sequence to be relished as language and as thought. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Terrier, Worrier is a remarkable and playful book on language, anxiety, poetry and the strangeness of being a person. I loved its short length especially, as well as its fragmentary form falling somewhere between a diary and a collection of poetic essays. I wish more of my favourite poets wrote these kinds of books.” —Nina Mingya Powles
”Terrier, Worrier is extraordinary, in both concept and form. It joins the conversations of great writers and thinkers, past and present, who analyse how we function aesthetically in our little lives.” —Anne Kennedy
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane $65
Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada — imperiled by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane's house, which flows through his own years and days. Powered by Macfarlane's dazzling prose and lit throughout by other voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers — and always has. [Hardback]
”Macfarlane is a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler." —Holly Morris, New York Times
”A rich and visionary work of immense beauty. Macfarlane is a memory keeper. What is broken in our societies, he mends with words. Rarely does a book hold such power, passion, and poetry in its exploration of nature. Read this to feel inspired, moved, and ultimately, alive.” —Elif Shafak
”This book is a beautiful, wild exploration of an ancient idea: that rivers are living participants in a living world. Robert Macfarlane's astonishing telling of the lives of three rivers reveals how these vital flow forms have the power not only to shape and reshape the planet, but also our thoughts, feelings, and worldviews. Is a River Alive? is a breathtaking work that speaks powerfully to this moment of crisis and transformation.” —Merlin Sheldrake
”This book is itself a river of poetic prose, an invitation to get onboard and float through the rapids of encounters with places and people, the eddies of ideas, to navigate the resurgence of Indigenous worldviews through three extraordinary journeys recounted with a vividness that lifts readers out of themselves and into these waterscapes. Read it for pleasure, read it for illumination, read it for confirmation that our world is changing in wonderful as well as terrible ways.” —Rebecca Solnit
Ripeness by Sarah Moss $38
It is the 60s and, just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth, and then make a phone call which will seal this baby's fate, and his mother's. Decades later, happily divorced and newly energised, Edith is living a life of contentment and comfort in Ireland. When her best friend Maebh receives a call from an American man claiming to be her brother, Maebh must decide if she will meet him, and she asks Edith for help. Ripeness is a novel about familial love and the communities we create, about migration and new beginnings, and about what it is to have somewhere to belong. [Paperback]
”Sex and childbirth, emigrant and exile, the present and the past: Sarah Moss's ambidextrous talent is evident on every page of this elegant novel. It is intelligent, but never disembodied; evocative, but never sentimental; honest, but never cruel. Ripeness is a book of tart and lasting pleasures.” —Eleanor Catton
”This book felt to me like I was reading the achievement of a lifetime, written by one of the best writers alive. Moving, unexpected, masterful, it is a story of stories, of belonging, of exits and entrances, and everything in between. Moss's understanding of who her characters are is also her understanding of all of us. A beautiful, powerful read that echoed for me long after.” —Jessie Burton
Short | Poto: The big book of small stories | Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero edited by Michelle Elvey and Kiri Piahana-Wong $37
Short short stories, sometimes known as flash fiction or microfictions, are one of the trickiest forms to write. Create a resonant world in fewer than 300 words? Not so easy! In this collection of 100 stories, a range of New Zealand writers, both well known and emerging, deliver emotionally charged stories that punch well above their weight and length. And there's more! Each of the stories has either been translated into te reo Māori from English or translated into English from te reo Māori by some of this country's most experienced translators, making this book a valuable contributor to our literary landscape that rewards repeated readings. [Paperback]
1985: A novel by Dominic Hoey $38
It's 1985 and Obi is on the cusp of teenagehood, after a childhood marked by poverty, dysfunctional family dynamics, (dis)organised crime and street violence. His father is delusional, his mother is dying, the Rainbow Warrior is bombed, and it's time for Obi to grow up and get out of the arcade. When he and his best mate Al discover a map leading to unknown riches, Obi wonders if this windfall could be the thing that turns his family's fortunes around. Instead, he's thrown into a quest very different from the games he loves. A novel about life in a multi-cultural, counter-cultural part of Auckland pre-gentrification. 1985 is an adventure story with a local flavour, a coming-of-age story for the underdogs, the disenfranchised, and the dreamers. [Paperback]
A Different Kind of Power: A memoir by Jacinda Ardern $60
What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be. When Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister at age thirty-seven, the world took notice. But it was her compassionate yet powerful response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, resulting in swift and sweeping gun control laws, that demonstrated her remarkable leadership. She guided her country through unprecedented challenges—a volcanic eruption, a major biosecurity incursion, and a global pandemic—while advancing visionary new polices to address climate change, reduce child poverty, and secure historic international trade deals. She did all this while juggling first-time motherhood in the public eye. Ardern exemplifies a new kind of leadership—proving that leaders can be caring, empathetic, and effective. She has become a global icon, and now she is ready to share her story, from the struggles to the surprises, including for the first time the full details of her decision to step down during her sixth year as Prime Minister. [Hardback]
Killing Time by Alan Bennett $25
”We have a choir and on special occasions a glass of dry sherry. It's less of a home and more of a club and very much a community.” Presided over by the lofty Mrs McBryde, Hill Topp House is a superior council home for the elderly. Among the unforgettable cast of staff and residents there's Mr Peckover the deluded archaeologist, Phyllis the knitter, Mr Cresswell the ex-cruise ship hairdresser, the enterprising Mrs Foss and Mr Jimson the chiropodist. Covid is the cause of fatalities and the source of darkly comic confusion, but it's also the key to liberation. As staff are hospitalised, protocol breaks down. Miss Rathbone reveals a lifelong secret, and the surviving residents seize their moment, arthritis allowing, to scamper freely in the warmth of the summer sun. “'Violet? She'll be having a little lie-down,' said Mrs McBryde. 'She likes to give her pacemaker a rest. I'll rout her out.'“ [Hardback]
”A mini-masterpiece.” —The Times
”Full of wit and style.” —Observer
”A geriatric Lord of the Flies.” —Spectator
How to Kill a Witch: A guide for the patriarchy (The witches of Scotland) by Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi $40
As a woman, if you lived in Scotland in the 1500s, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. Witch hunts ripped through the country for over 150 years, with at least 4,000 accused, and with many women's fates sealed by a grizzly execution of strangulation, followed by burning. Inspired to correct this historic injustice, campaigners and writers Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi, have delved deeply into just why the trials exploded in Scotland to such a degree. In order to understand why it happened, they have broken down the entire horrifying process, step-by-step, from identification of individuals, to their accusation, 'pricking', torture, confessions, execution and beyond. With characteristically sharp wit and a sense of outrage, they attempt to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, revealing the inner workings of exactly why the Patriarchy went to such extraordinary lengths to silence women, and how this legally sanctioned victimisation proliferated in Scotland and around the world. With testimony from a small army of experts, pen portraits of the women accused, trial transcripts, witness accounts and the documents that set the legal grounds for the hunts, How to Kill A Witch builds to form a rich patchwork of tragic stories, helping us comprehend the underlying reasons for this terrible injustice, and raises the serious question — could it ever happen again? [Paperback]
Pathemata, Or, The story of my mouth by Maggie Nelson $35
As the narrator contends with chronic pain, and with a pandemic raging in the background, she sets out to examine the literal and symbolic role of the mouth in the life of a writer. Merging dreams and dailies, Pathemata recounts the narrator's tragicomic search to alleviate her suffering, a search that eventually becomes a reckoning with various forms of loss — the loss of intimacy, the loss of her father and the loss of a pivotal friend and mentor. In exacting, distilled prose, her account blurs the lines between embodied, unconscious and everyday life. With characteristic precision, humour and compassion, Nelson explores the limits of language to describe experience, while also offering a portrait of an unnerving time in our shared history. An experiment in interiority by the author of Bluets and The Argonauts, Pathemata is a personal and poetic reckoning with pain and loss, both physical and emotional, as well as a meditation on love, affliction and resilience. [Hardback]
”Among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation” —Olivia Laing
”One of the most unique voices in non-fiction: enquiring, political, lyrically dazzling, empathetic.” —Sinead Gleeson
”Always brilliant.” —Geoff Dyer
”Her words come as though from a great distance and strike incredibly close.” —Anne Enright
”Maggie Nelson shows us what it means to be real, offering a way of thinking that is as challenging as it is liberating.” —Eula Biss
The Image of Her by Simone de Beauvoir (translated from French by Lauren Elkin) $38
Laurence lives what appears to be an ideal existence. Her life features all the trappings of 1960s Parisian bourgeoisie- money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind unbidden writes copy whilst she's at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office. But Laurence is a woman whose happiness was relegated long ago by the expectation of perfection. Relentlessly torn by the competing needs of her family, it is only when her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, starts to vocalise her despair about the unfairness of the world that Laurence resists. [Hardback]
The Passengers on the Hankyu Line by Hiro Arikawa (translated from Japanese by Hiro Arikawa (translated from Japanese by Allison Markin Powell) $38
Famously scenic, the Hankyu commuter train trundles daily through changing landscape unaware of the heartaches of the passengers it carries. On the outward journey we are introduced to the emotional dilemmas of five characters as we puzzle out how they will unravel; on the return journey six months later, we watch them resolve: a man meets the woman who always happens to borrow a library book just before he can take it out himself — a woman in a white bridal dress boards looking inexplicably sad — a university student leaves his hometown for the first time — a girl prepares to leave her abusive boyfriend — a widow discusses adopting the Dachshund she has always wanted with her granddaughter. As the season and the landscapes change, passengers jostle and connect, holding and releasing their dreams and desires, as this famous little train carries them ever forward towards the person each intends to become. From the author of The Travelling Cat Chronicles. [Hardback]
Lawn (‘Object Lessons’ series) by Giovanni Aloi $23
A quintessential feature in Western gardens and landscaping, the lawn is now at the center of a climate change controversy. The large carbon footprint maintenance, its unquenchable thirst for fertilisers, weed-killers, and water, and the notorious unfriendliness towards all forms of wildlife have recently attracted criticism and even spurred an anti-lawn movement. Lawn untangles the colonial-capitalist threads that keep our passion for mown grass alive despite mounting evidence that we'd be better off without it. The lawn is aesthetically and ideologically versatile. From museums and hospitals to corporate headquarters and university campuses, it has become the verdant lingua franca of institutions of all kinds. Its formal homogeneity and neatness imply reliability, constancy, and solicit our trust. But beneath the lawn lies a stratification of intricate ideological and ecological issues that over time have come to define our conception of nature. [Paperback with French flaps]
Against the Odds: New Zealand’s first women doctors by Cynthia Farquhar and Michaela Selway $55
In 2025, the year in which the Otago medical school celebrates 150 years, 50% of graduates are women. Back in 1891 when Emily Seideberg, who would go on to become the school's first woman graduate, applied for entrance it was not at all clear that it would be granted. There was active hostility in many quarters to the very idea that women could be doctors. This book traces the paths of the women who, between the 1880s and 1967 (when the Auckland medical school opened), battled indifference and chauvinism and, later, many of the other challenges that faced women in the professions, to become New Zealand's first women doctors. Their stories are often remarkable and the contribution to research, medical breakthroughs and improved patient care is to be honoured. [Paperback]
Peter Cleverley: Between Transience and Eternity by Alistair Fox $60
This heavily illustrated book traces Peter Cleverley's formation and evolution as an artist, identifying the influences that aroused in him a sense of the transience of human life and the paradoxical complexity of the human condition. The portrait that results shows how Cleverley's sense of the human condition has driven him to convey it symbolically in a way that simultaneously captures not only the fragility of human life, but also its joys. His art communicates an appreciation of the beauty of this world and the gift of being alive, together with the value of art as a means of transcending mutability. [Hardback]
NHOJ: A memoir that started backwards by John Lazenby $50
With an eye for peculiar detail and meticulous research, John Lazenby takes us on an evocative visit to the Britain of the 1960s, when, aged nine, he saw the Beatles play live in London before he could even hope to read, or write down, the lyrics from their iconic songbook. Along the way, we meet the warm and eccentric family who never gave up on him — and the array of severe teachers and tutors who did. We are reminded that it takes only one person to change a life for the better and, having been sent away to boarding school at the age of seven, John's young life pivoted on the miracle discovery of that person, a teacher who finally understood the boy that no one else could teach. NHOJ: A Memoir That Started Backwards is the story of his progress from seven-year-old who could write only one word — his own name, spelt backwards — to journalist and author who built a career around the very words that had initially been so elusive. [Hardback]
The Three Robbers by Tomi Ungerer $35
An old favourite (first published in 1962), ready for a new generation. The book tells the story of three fierce black-clad robbers who terrorise the countryside, scaring everyone they meet. One robber stops carriage horses with his pepper spray, the second destroys the wheels of the carriage with his axe, and the third robs the passengers by holding them up with his blunderbuss. One day the robbers stop a carriage only to find a small orphan girl called Tiffany inside. On her way to live with a strange aunt, Tiffany is delighted to meet the robbers, who take her back to their cave instead of their usual haul of money, gold and jewels. The next day, Tiffany sees the treasures the robbers have amassed and asks what they plan to do with their riches.The men are baffled, as they had never thought about spending their money. So they decide to buy a castle and welcome all the lost, unhappy and abandoned children they can find. The robbers dress them in tall hats and long capes, just like the ones they wear themselves, only in red instead of black. Years later, when they are grown up, the children build a village near the castle, full of people wearing red hats and red capes. They also build three tall towers, in honour of the three robbers. [Hardback]
Mānawatia a Matariki $5
This beautifully designed booklet contains karakia for each of the nine stars of Matariki to celebrate and educate readers about the traditions and cultural importance of Matariki.