NEW RELEASES (16.8.24)

Out of the carton and (nearly) into your hands.
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The Mermaid Chronicles: A midlife mer-moir by Megan Dunn $35

The true tale of how one woman's lifelong obsession became a midlife mermaid odyssey. Forty, freckled and facing infertility, writer and disgruntled project manager Megan Dunn hears the siren call that reawakens her lifelong obsession and sets off in pursuit of mermaids. Real mermaids. From Coney Island and Copenhagen to Courtenay Place, Wellington, New Zealand; from Waterhouse's classic painting ‘A Mermaid’ to the 1984 romantic comedy Splash to Skyping the first freelance mermaids of the new millennium, her odyssey takes her fathoms deep to strange and unlikely places, probing the collective unconscious and asking the question that has plagued humans for millennia — What is it about mermaids? Diving into the caves of her own life, Megan loses the plot but finds her voice and hears the mermaids singing. Shimmeringly intellectual and devastatingly deadpan, tragicomic and true, The Mermaid Chronicles is an off-the-hook tale about sex and marriage, mothers and daughters, middle age, women's work, obsession, the stories we tell ourselves and the myths that define us all. (And Daryl Hannah, too.)

 

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak $37

“A storm is approaching Nineveh, the sky swollen with impending rain. One of the clouds approaching the world's largest and wealthiest city, built on the banks of the river Tigris, is bigger and darker than the others-and more impatient. It floats suspended above a majestic building adorned with marble columns, pillared porticos and monumental statues. This is the North Palace, where the king resides in all his might and glory. The cloud casts a shadow over the imperial residence. For unlike humans, water has no regard for social status or royal titles. Dangling from the edge of the cloud is a single drop of rain - no bigger than a bean and lighter than a chickpea. For a while it quivers precariously - small, spherical and scared. How frightening it is to observe the earth open down below like a lonely lotus flower. Remember that raindrop, inconsequential though it may be compared to the magnitude of the universe. Inside, it holds a miniature world, a story of its own...” Shafik’s astounding, expansive new novel, set between the 19th century and modern times, is about love and loss, memory and erasure, hurt and healing, centred around three enchanting characters living on the banks of the River Thames and the River Tigris — their lives all curiously touched by the epic of Gilgamesh.
”Gloriously expansive and intellectually rich — a magnificent achievement.” —The Spectator
”An absorbing novel. Shafak is a novelist whose interest in mapping the intricately related world and its history goes beyond literary device.” —Guardian
”Make place for Elif Shafak on your bookshelf. Make place for her in your heart too. You won't regret it.” —Arundhati Roy
”It will surprise no one that this is a brutal, elegant and incredible book. Amazing what Elif Shafak has done here — again! Magic.” —Evie Wyld
”An odyssey, an epic, a lament, and a tale of redemption, There are Rivers in the Sky is a clarion call to honor the elemental forces that shape our memories, our histories, and our world. In short, a masterpiece.” —Ruth Ozeki

 

Like Love: Essays and conversations by Maggie Nelson $50

A raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson's incisive work.  These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson's passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide — from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker — but certain themes recur- intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression and perversity; the roles of the critic and language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making. Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson's own development and a testament to the sustenance offered by art and artists. [Hardback]
”One of the most electrifying writers at work in America today, among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation.” —Olivia Laing.
”Maggie Nelson is one of the most unique voices in non-fiction: enquiring, political, lyrically dazzling, empathetic.” —Sinead Gleeson
”Like Love may be one of the most movingly specific, the most lovingly unruly celebrations of the ethics of friendship we have.” —Guardian
”To read Like Love is to watch [Nelson] circling issues of gender and sexuality, but refracted through a variety of different prisms, so that the end result is a constellation of ideas that seem to be expanding outwards.” —Telegraph

 

The Third Love by Hiromi Kawakami (translated from Japanese by Ted Goossen) $37

Having married her childhood sweetheart, Riko now finds herself trapped in a relationship that has been soured by infidelity. One day, by chance, she runs into her old friend Mr Takaoka, who offers friendship, love, and an unusual escape: he teaches her the trick of living inside her dreams. And so, each night, she sinks into another life: first as a high-ranking courtesan in the 17th century, and then as a serving lady to a princess in the late Middle Ages. As she experiences desire and heartbreak in the past, so Riko comes to reconsider her life as a 21st century woman, as a wife, as a mother, and as a lover, and to ask herself whether, after loving her husband and loving Mr Takaoka, she is now ready for her third great love.

 

Metamorphoses: In search of Franz Kafka by Karolina Watroba $45

It might seem obvious, where our obsession with Kafka's life stems from. We want to know what made Kafka Kafka. But there is also another part to this story, a part that does not get told nearly as often. To understand how Kafka became Kafka, we cannot stop in 1924, the year of his death, where most biographies end. To gain the status he gained, Kafka needed readers. Karolina Watroba, the first Germanist ever elected as a Fellow of Oxford's All Souls College, will tell Kafka's story beyond the boundaries of language, time and space, travelling from the Prague of Kafka's birth through the work of contemporary writers in East Asia, whose award-winning novels are in part homages to the great man himself. Metamorphoses is a non-chronological journey through Kafka's life, drawing together literary scholarship with the responses of his readers through time. It is a both an exploration of Kafka's life and an exciting new way of approaching literary history.
”A high-spirited, richly informed, and original portrait, a cross between biography, literary analysis and a study in modern canonisation: Karolina Watroba is an inspired guide and her book a pleasure to read.” —Marina Warner

 

Around the World with Friends by Philip Waechter $30

Raccoon finishes his book and is ready for his own adventure — he wants thrills, excitement and to conquer the sea! He borrows everything he needs from his friends: a boat from Badger, who insists on coming along because you should never go on an expedition alone. Fox packs them eggs for the omelette — then must join to be the cook. Bear insists on coming to scare away the jellyfish, and Crow says he should be lookout. The friends sail through rapids, collect sweet blackberries, chase away bees, and play soccer, until a little rain and thoughts of home bring their excursion to an end. That, thinks Raccoon, was the most thrilling magnificent adventure with friends I've ever had. Let's go again soon — and next time we'll bring the chickens.

 

The Architecture of Modern Empire: Conversations with David Barsamian by Arundhati Roy $30

A piercing exploration of modern empire, nationalism and rising fascism that gives us the tools to resist and fight back. Over a lifetime spent at the frontline of solidarity and resistance, Arundhati Roy's words have lit a clear way through the darkness that surrounds us. Combining the skills of the architect she trained to be and the writer she became, she illuminates the hidden structures of modern empire like no one else, revealing their workings so that we can resist. Her subjects — war, nationalism, fundamentalism and rising fascism, turbocharged by neoliberalism and now technology. But also — truth, justice, freedom, resistance, solidarity and above all imagination — in particular the imagination to see what is in front of us, to envision another way, and to fight for it. Arundhati Roy's voice — as distinct and compelling in conversation as in her writing — explores these themes and more in this essential collection of interviews with David Barsamian, conducted over two decades, from 2001 to the present.

 

Future of Denial: The ideologies of climate change by Tad DeLay $47

Capitalism is an ecocidal engine constantly regenerating climate change denial. Emissions continue to rise while gimmicks, graft, and green-washing distract the public from the climate violence suffered by the vulnerable. This timely, interdisciplinary contribution to the environmental humanities draws on the latest climatology, the first shoots of an energy transition, critical theory, Earth's paleoclimate history, and trends in border violence to answer the most pressing question of our age: Why do we continue to squander the short time we have left? The symptoms suggest society's inability to adjust is profound. Near Portland, militias incapable of accepting that the world is warming respond to a wildfire by hunting for imaginary left-wing arsonists. Europe erects nets in the Aegean Sea to capture migrants fleeing drought and war. An airline claims to be carbon neutral thanks to bogus cheap offsets. Drone strikes hit people living along the aridity line. And all the while, hypocritical governments and corporations pretend that increasing fossil fuel consumption is a way to ‘transition’ to cleaner energy. Yes, Exxon knew as early as the 1970s, but the fundamental physics of carbon dioxide warming the Earth was already understood before the American Civil War. Will capitalists ever voluntarily walk away from hundreds of trillions of dollars in fossil fuels unless they are forced to do so? And, if not, who will apply the necessary pressure?
”It is through denial that the climate crisis deepens, but we have hardly begun to get our heads around how it works. In this sweeping survey, Tad DeLay turns and twists the concept and uses it to shine light on a range of aspects of the crisis. It is a leap forward in the study of denial." —Andreas Malm
”The contradictions of daily life in the global North in the face of accelerating climate change have become normalized. Sure there are those who refuse to ‘believe’ in climate change, but even people who recognize the magnitude of the problem have to manage the chasm between how contemporary capitalism works and the radical otherwise that is required. This requires a vast arsenal of denial that we rarely if ever talk about, and Tad DeLay is its generous but unflinching diagnostician. This book uncovers not only the scams, lies and misinformation that sustain the degradation of people and planet, but just as importantly the repressions and suppressions that have for many become essential to making it through the day. It is also an excellent guide to how we might move forward without them, but without giving in to doom-saying.” —Geoff Mann
”An impressive, beautifully written and unsparing book. DeLay's precise, controlled fury lends itself to mournful ironies and asperous satire as he brutally exposes the sources of denial and weighs the options for a future beyond denial. Not a word is wasted in this vital intervention.” —Richard Seymour
”Tad DeLay is one of the most important and disquieting theorists of consciousness and politics writing today. His work is indispensable.” China Mieville

 

Jumpnauts by Hao Jingfang (translated by Ken Liu) $39

2080, the world is divided, dominated by two antagonistic factions, the Pacific League and the Atlantic Alliance. Tensions are high and the smallest disturbance in the status quo could set the world on fire. And a signal flickering through deep space could be just that spark. As three young scientists form an alliance to decode the signal, they realise that the answers don't only lie in deep space, they also lie deep in humanity's past. What they discover will change everything — our past, present and future. If we have one.
”A fresh approach — emphasising Chinese history, and including scenes of martial artistry along with philosophical debates — adds extra zest to the popular idea of wise and helpful aliens in this entertaining adventure.” —The Guardian
”Relentlessly charming. It is precisely its madcap range that makes it such a treat, its total lack of interest in distinctions between highbrow and lowbrow entertainment or between philosophy and mere fancy.” —Washington Post

 

How to Make a Bomb by Rupert Thomson $37

Philip Notman, an acclaimed historian, attends a conference in Bergen, Norway. On his return to London, and to his wife and son, something unexpected and inexplicable happens to him, and he is unable to settle back into his normal life. Seeking answers, he flies to Cadiz to see Inés, a Spanish academic with whom he shared a connection at the conference, but his journey doesn't end there. A chance encounter with a wealthy, elderly couple sends him to a house on the south coast of Crete. Is he thinking of leaving his wife, whom he claims he still loves, or is he trying to change a reality that has become impossible to bear? Is he on a quest for a simpler and more authentic existence, or is he utterly self-deluded? As he tries to make sense of both his personal circumstances and the world surrounding him, he finds himself embarking on a course of action that will push him to the very brink of disaster.
”An exceptional, frightening and curiously persuasive novel. I hope it brings Thomson the attention and reward that one our finest and most imaginative novelists clearly deserves.” —Miranda Seymour, Financial Times
”A magnetic portrait of one man's radicalisation. The text sparkles with clarity and precision, and frequently beauty too. A book that strikes to the core of our age of uncertainty.” —Lucy Scholes, The Telegraph

 

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See $29

According to Confucius, ‘an educated woman is a worthless woman’, but Tan Yunxian — born into an elite family, yet haunted by death, separations, and loneliness — is being raised by her grandparents to be of use. Her grandmother is one of only a handful of female doctors in China, and she teaches Yunxian the pillars of Chinese medicine, the Four Examinations — looking, listening, touching, and asking — something a man can never do with a female patient. From a young age, Yunxian learns about women's illnesses, many of which relate to childbearing, alongside a young midwife-in-training, Meiling. The two girls find fast friendship and a mutual purpose — despite the prohibition that a doctor should never touch blood while a midwife comes in frequent contact with it — and they vow to be forever friends, sharing in each other's joys and struggles. No mud, no lotus, they tell themselves: from adversity beauty can bloom. But when Yunxian is sent into an arranged marriage, her mother-in-law forbids her from seeing Meiling and from helping the women and girls in the household. Yunxian is to act like a proper wife — embroider bound-foot slippers, recite poetry, give birth to sons, and stay forever within the walls of the family compound, the Garden of Fragrant Delights. How might a woman like Yunxian break free of these traditions and lead a life of such importance that many of her remedies are still used five centuries later? How might the power of friendship support or complicate these efforts? A re-imagining of the life of one person who was remarkable in the Ming dynasty and would be considered remarkable today.

 

The House at the End of the Sea by Victoria M. Adams $20

Saffi doesn't want her new life, living with her dad, little brother and old-fashioned grandparents in their B&B by the sea. She is grieving for her mum and longs for things to go back to normal. But this new home is anything but normal: the walls change colour, a face appears in the mirror, and the pantry is suddenly filled with fancy food. When a party of extraordinary visitors arrive at midnight, Saffi begins to realise that her family has a dark, magical secret. It will take all her bravery to discover the truth and find a way into another world.
”A delightfully eerie mystery that explores complicated family histories. A twisty tale of fairy folklore and what it means to stand betwixt and between." —Skye McKenna
"Majestic, in the tradition of Garner and Cooper. A debut with real magic in its pages." —Sinead O'Hart

 
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