NEW RELEASES (2.5.25)
New books for a new month! Autumn is the season for gathering enough books to see you through the reading months ahead. Click through to our website to secure your copies. We can have your books dispatched by overnight courier or ready to collect from our door.
On the Calculation of Volume: I by Solvej Balle (translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland) $30
”It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences. That we wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for these curious twists of fate.” Tara Selter has involuntarily stepped off the train of time: in her world, November eighteenth repeats itself endlessly. We meet Tara on her 122nd November 18th: she no longer experiences the changes of days, weeks, months, or seasons. She finds herself in a lonely new reality without being able to explain why: how is it that she wakes every morning into the same day, knowing to the exact second when the blackbird will burst into song and when the rain will begin? Will she ever be able to share her new life with her beloved and now chronically befuddled husband? And on top of her profound isolation and confusion, Tara takes in with pain how slight a difference she makes in the world. (As she puts it: "That's how little the activities of one person matter on the eighteenth of November.") Balle is hypnotic in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs. The first volume's gravitational pull — a force inverse to its constriction — has the effect of a strong tranquiliser, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is intoxicating. [Paperback with French flaps]
“On the Calculation of Volume I takes a potentially familiar narrative trope — a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day — and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist, to want to be alive, to need to share one’s time with others. The sheer quality of the sentences was what struck us most, rendered into English with deft, invisible musicality by the translator. This book presses its mood, its singular time signature and its philosophical depth into the reader. You feel you are in it, which is sometimes unnerving, sometimes soothing, and this effect lingers long after the book is finished.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation
Slowing the Sun: Essays by Nadine Hura $40
”Hope is a shovel and will give you blisters.” Overwhelmed and often unmoved by the scientific and political jargon of climate change, Nadine Hura sets out to find a language to connect more deeply to the environmental crisis. But what begins as a journalistic quest takes an abrupt and introspective turn following the death of her brother. In the midst of grief, Hura works through science, pūrākau, poetry and back again. Seeking to understand climate change in relation to whenua and people, she asks: how should we respond to what has been lost? Her many-sided essays explore environmental degradation, social disconnection and Indigenous reclamation, insisting that any meaningful response must be grounded in Te Tiriti and anti-colonialism. Slowing the Sun is a karanga to those who have passed on, as well as to the living, to hold on to ancestral knowledge for future generations. [Paperback]
”Nadine’s writing can make us feel seen, less alone, more hopeful, more enlightened. He kaiwhakairo i te kupu, hekaituhi ngā kokonga ngākau – a carver of words, a writer for all corners of the heart.” —Stacey Morrison (Ngāi Tahu, Te Arawa, Pākehā)
The Covid Response: A scientist’s account of New Zealand’s pandemic and what happens next by Shaun Hendy $40
New Zealand’s pandemic response delivered one of the lowest Covid-19 health burdens in the world, thanks to early elimination and high vaccination rates. While border controls and early lockdowns were strict, domestic freedoms ultimately exceeded those in other advanced economies, making the country a global case study. Yet, these successes came at a cost — financial strain, social isolation and unequal access to support. How did we get here, and how did science shape decisions in real time? In The Covid Response, physicist Professor Shaun Hendy offers an insider’s perspective on New Zealand’s unique approach to the pandemic. He takes readers behind the scenes of the country’s science-driven response, sharing firsthand experiences as a key member of the advisory team at Te Pūnaha Matatini. Through this engaging narrative, Hendy unpacks the science behind critical decisions — ranging from lockdowns to the strategic use of genomic sequencing and data modelling. This book examines high-stakes decisions made in real time, their impact on New Zealand, and the lessons they offer for the future. [Paperback]
There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die by Tove Ditlevsen (translated from Danish by Jennifer Russell and Sophia Hersi Smith) $30
While Tove Ditlevsen is now famous around the world as an extraordinary prose writer, in Denmark she has also long been celebrated as a poet. She published her first collection in her early twenties, and continued writing and publishing poetry until the end of her life. This new selection offers English readers a chance to explore her brilliant, surprising verse across nearly four decades of writing. In this playful, mournful, witty collection, little girls stand tip-toe inside adult bodies, achievements in literature and lethargy are unflinchingly listed, and lovers come and go like the seasons. With an introduction by Olga Ravn. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Meet the finest (and darkest) poet you've never read. Her poems read, at their best, like illuminations, transfiguring her life again and again” —Telegraph
The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth by Adrian Duncan $30
The contemplative and moving third novel from Irish author Adrian Duncan, exploring love, grief and their representations in art. John Molloy, an Irish restorative sculptor meets an Italian sociologist Bernadette Basagni while working on a contemporary-art project in the Alpine city of I_. As he falls in love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view — when his mother, Sandra, while one night praying alone at a country grotto, has a holy vision that leads to his family's ostracisation and disintegration. The disastrous outfall of this has resonated unchecked through his life. The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth is a novel told in two parts, a decade apart: the first is told in fragments or 'blinks' that lead John to Bologna and Bernadette; the second opens with a letter from home asking him to pray for the speedy death of an dying friend, which sets in motion a day-long odyssey through the ancient streets and churches of Bologna, where John must confront not just his present and his past but also the bedrock of his psyche. [Paperback with French flaps]
”One of the most important and intriguing writers working now.” —Niamh Campbell
”Uncanny, strange and exquisite, akin to the fictions of Laszlo Krasznahorkai.” —Financial Times
”The kind of work that makes you remember why you read.” —Sunday Business Post
”A deliberative and delicate reading experience, revelatory in the truest sense of that word.” —Guardian
The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A graphic biography by Janine Barchas and Isabel Greenberg $50
Through vivid artwork and compelling narrative, readers are invited to journey alongside Jane Austen as she navigates the challenges and triumphs that shaped her works. Told in three parts (Budding Writer 1796-1797; Struggling Artist 1801-1809; Published Author 1809-1817), the gritty circumstances of Austen's own genteel poverty and the small daily injustices so often borne by creative women at this time, are shown against the backdrop of Georgian England and reflect many of the plots and characters woven into Austen's greatest works. All the settings and scenarios presented are based upon the historical record, including the clothing, architecture, decor and Regency locations. Sprinkled throughout, the Easter eggs and witty references to popular screen adaptations of Austen's novels will satisfy the casual and avid Austen fan alike. [Hardback]
”Where does wonderful literature come from? This exciting and thoughtful book explores this wondrous mystery for those who love the work of Jane Austen and for those who find her name only vaguely familiar. My hat is off to the terrific Janine Barchas and the terrific Isabel Greenberg. I wonder how they do it.” —Daniel Handler
”Truly delightful and charming; so fresh, informative and funny. Even the most devoted ‘Janeite’ will learn something new. The graphics are sensational. All in all, a truly magical way to learn about the life and works of Jane Austen.” —Paula Byrne
Alive: An alternative anatomy by Gabriel Weston $40
What does it mean to live in a body? For Gabriel Weston, there was always something missing from the anatomy she was taught at medical school. Medicine teaches us how a body functions, but it doesn't help us navigate the reality of living in one. As she became a surgeon, a mother, and ultimately a patient herself, Weston found herself grappling with the gap between scientific knowledge and unfathomable complexity of human experience. In this captivating exploration of the body, Weston dissolves the boundaries that usually divide surgeon and patient, pushing beyond the limit of what science has to tell us about who we are. Focusing on our individual organs, not just under the intense spotlight of the operating theatre, but in the central role they play in the stories of our lives, a fuller and more human picture of our bodies emerges — more fragile, frightening and miraculous than we could have imagined. [Paperback]
”An exceptional, beautiful and absolutely absorbing book. Gabriel Weston is one of the best writers around, and when it comes to medicine and anatomy she redefines the genre. Alive is a tour of human life and bodies, but she also brings her own body, in the context of her own life, into an absolutely compelling narrative; sex, pregnancy, asylum seekers, breast implants and hearts — especially the author's own heart, in every sense. It is essential reading if you own a body and should be mandatory for all those who study them.” —Chris van Tulleken
”As Gabriel Weston demonstrates in this remarkable book, each organ of our body is a miracle of evolutionary imagination, performing tasks that are outlandishly creative and brilliant. An unusually compelling and illuminating book.” —Misha Glenny
Universality by Natasha Brown $33
Words are your weapons, they're your tools, your currency. On a Yorkshire farm, a man is brutally bludgeoned with a solid gold bar. A plucky young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement. She solves the mystery, but her viral long-read exposé raises more questions than it answers. Universality is a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power. Through a voyeuristic lens, it focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean. A compellingly nasty celebration of the spectacular force of language. [Paperback]
”Universality is a precise dissection of class, wealth and power, written with a spareness that elevates and electrifies her prose. It's both intelligent and very entertaining.” —Elizabeth Day
”I emerged from this novel with the conviction that the murder victim Brown is here to avenge is discourse itself. Original, vital, and unputdownable.” —Tess Gunty
Pub (‘Object Lessons’ series) by Philip Howell $23
The pub is an English institution. Yet its history has been obscured by myth and nostalgia. In this unique book, Philip Howell takes the public house as an object, or rather as a series of objects: he takes the pub apart and examines its constituent elements, from pub signs to the bar staff to the calling of "time." But Pub also explores the hidden features of the pub, such as corporate control, cultural acceptance and exclusion, and the role of the pub in communities. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Erudite, quirky, and amusing.” —Sebastian Faulks
”I never expected to read a philosophically alert book on British pubs. Philip Howell breathes life into this well-known but poorly understood object.” —Graham Harman
Mere by Danielle Giles $38
Norfolk, 990 AD. Deep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous mere, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God's path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can. But when the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg's grip falters and Hilda quickly realizes this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom. Then proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a vision: a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set — one she cannot help but follow . [Paperback]
”It is rare for an author to fully recreate the strangeness of the past, but Danielle Giles has done exactly that.” —Costanza Casati
Wild Fictions by Amitav Ghosh $40
Wild Fictions is a collection of essays written over the past 25 years or so and published in various journals and periodicals. The essays can be clubbed under the broad headings of writings on literature and language, climate change and environment, human lives, travel and discoveries, and opinions and conversations. They focus on the abiding concerns that are reflected in Ghosh's works of fiction and non-fiction: colonisation, colonialism and its effects; the complex and delicate link between humans and nature; the ways in which we understand and interact with the world we live in; the importance of history and (re)discovery; how we tell stories, how we use language; and the importance of speaking and writing on issues and events that are key to our times. [Paperback]
”We owe a great debt to Ghosh's brilliant mind, avenging pen, and huge soul.” —Naomi Klein
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko $30
This remarkable Australian novel features two extraordinary Indigenous stories set five generations apart. When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Granny Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives. In this brilliant epic novel, Melissa Lucashenko torches Queensland's colonial myths, while reimagining an Australian future. [Paperback]
”Lucashenko is an exhilarating writer, and this generous book is her most remarkable to date.” —Michelle de Kretser
Everything is Tuberculosis: The history and persistence of our deadliest infection by John Green $45
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticised as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year. In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry's story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
Your Face Belongs to Us: The secretive start-up that is dismantling your privacy by Kashmir Hill $39
When Kashmir Hill stumbled upon Clearview AI, a mysterious startup selling an app that claimed it could identify anyone using just a snapshot of their face, the implications were terrifying. The app could use the photo to find your name, your social media profiles, your friends and family – even your home address. But this was just the start of a story more shocking than she could have imagined. Launched by computer engineer Hoan Ton-That and politician Richard Schwartz, and assisted by a cast of controversial characters on the alt-right, Clearview AI would quickly rise to the top, sharing its app with billionaires and law enforcement. In this riveting feat of reporting Hill weaves the story of Clearview AI with an exploration of how facial recognition technology is reshaping our lives, from its use by governments and companies like Google and Facebook (who decided it was too radical to release) to the consequences of racial and gender biases baked into the AI. Soon it could expand the reach of policing — as it has in China and Russia — and lead us into a dystopian future. Your Face Belongs to Us is a gripping true story. It illuminates our tortured relationship with technology, the way it entertains us even as it exploits us, and it presents a powerful warning that in the absence of regulation, this technology will spell the end of our anonymity.
”The dystopian future portrayed in some science-fiction movies is already upon us. Whether you like it or not, your face has already been scraped from the internet, stored in a giant database, and made available to law enforcement agencies, private corporations, and authoritarian governments to track and surveil you. Kashmir Hill's fascinating book brings home the scary implications of this new reality.” —John Carreyrou
Unforgetting by Belinda Robinson $40
Good Friday, 1962. Belinda, who's just turned thirteen, is driving with her mother, obstetrician Diana Mason, to the country home of her family friends for the Easter break. As they bump along a dusty coastal road, Belinda tells her mother a shocking story of abuse she has kept secret for nearly eight years. At the same time, her younger brother Julian reveals the secret to their father, playwright Bruce Mason, as they converge on their friends' house from a different direction. It will take more than sixty years for Belinda to reveal the details of this story publicly. Who was going to believe her? Her parents were well known and respected, and not just in literary and medical circles. But finally, triggered by Julian's sudden death and inspired by one of New Zealand's finest writers, Belinda tackles the process of 'unforgetting', reviewing her traumatic past and coming to terms with its consequences.
Pranzo: Sicilian(ish) recipes and stories by Guy Mirabella $70
In Pranzo Guy Mirabella delves into his Sicilian heritage. Here you will find the gusto of Italian pastas and sauces, alongside herbs and spices, and ingredients like kolhrabi and prickly pear. Seasonal and sumptuous, Mirabella conveys his zest for food, art, and life in the pages of Pranzo. Designed with a playful eye, the book is a treat and the recipes infused with nourishment and pleasure.
Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks $38
Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz — just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy — collapsed and died on a Washington, DC street. After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, and living in Sydney, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on the US Memorial Day public holiday of 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf. Three years later, she booked a flight to remote Flinders Island off the coast of Tasmania with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on the island's pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death. [Hardback]
The End of Capitalism: Why growth and climate protection are incompatible — and how we will live in the future by Ulrike Herrmann $46
Capitalism has brought about many positive things. At the same time, however, it is ruining the climate and the environment, so that humanity's very existence is now at risk. 'Green growth' is supposed to be the saviour, but economics expert and bestselling author Ulrike Herrmann disagrees. In this book, she explains in a clear and razor-sharp manner why we need 'green shrinkage' instead. Greenhouse gases are increasing dramatically and unchecked. This failure is no coincidence, because the climate crisis goes to the heart of capitalism. Prosperity and growth are only possible if technology is used and energy is utilised. Unfortunately, however, green energy from the sun and wind will never be enough to fuel global growth. The industrialised countries must therefore bid farewell to capitalism and strive for a circular economy in which only what can be recycled is consumed. Herrmann makes a convincing argument that we won't get anywhere without personal restrictions and government planning. Her example for a solution is the British war economy of the 1940s. This is not a utopian scenario, but a comprehensive example of the restrictions and government-led plans needed now and in the future. [Paperback]
The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa (translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai) $25
Thirteen-year-old Nanami Kosaki loves reading. The local library is a home from home and books have become her best friends. When Nanami notices books disappearing from the library shelves, she’s particularly curious about a suspicious man in a grey suit whose furtive behaviour doesn’t feel right. Should she follow him to see what he’s up to? When a talking tabby cat called Tiger appears to warn her about how dangerous that would be, together they’re brave enough to follow the frightening trail to find out where all the books have gone. Will Nanami and Tiger overcome the challenges of the adventure ahead?