NEW RELEASES (18.11.25)

All your choices are good! Click through to our website (or just email us) to secure your copies. We will dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.

The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, loss, and kitchen objects by Bee Wilson $50
This strikingly original account from award-winning food writer Bee Wilson charts how everyday objects take on deeply personal meanings in all our lives. One ordinary day, the tin in which Bee Wilson baked her wedding cake fell to the ground at her feet. This should have been unremarkable, except that her marriage had just ended. Unsettled by her own feelings about the heart-shaped tin, Wilson begins a search for others who have attached strong and even magical meanings to kitchen objects. She meets people who deal with grief or pain by projecting emotions onto certain objects, whether it is a beloved parent’s salt shaker, a cracked pasta bowl or an inherited china dinner service. Remembering her own mother, a dementia sufferer, she explores the ways that both of them have been haunted by deciding which kitchen utensils to hold on to and which to get rid of when you think you are losing your mind. Looking to different continents, cultures and civilisations to investigate the full scope of this phenomenon, Wilson blends her own experiences with a series of touching personal stories that reflect the irrational and fundamentally human urge to keep mementos. Why would a man trapped in a concentration camp decide to make a spoon for himself? Why do some people hoard? What do gifts mean? How do we decide what is junk and what is treasure? We see firsthand how objects can contain hidden symbols, keep the past alive and even become powerful symbols of identity and resistance; from a child’s first plate to a refugee’s rescued vegetable corers. Thoughtful, tender and beautifully written, The Heart-Shaped Tin is a moving examination of love, loss, broken cups and the legacy of things we all leave behind. [Hardback]
”This beautifully written book about the deep significance of certain objects in our kitchen is nothing less than an intense, compassionate expression of the human condition. Both intimate and expansive, The Heart-Shaped Tin is a book I know I'll give, urgently and importantly, to those I love.” —Nigella Lawson
”Bee Wilson has changed the landscape of the kitchen by breathing life into ordinary objects. Through this remarkable book you will find yourself discovering meaning in plates, sadness in spoons, love in a measuring cup. I want to give this book to every cook I know.” —Ruth Reichl
>>Passing through different hands.
>>Look inside the book.

A Fictional Inquiry by Daniele del Giudice (translated from Italian by Anne Milano Appel) $45
This haunting novel was championed by acclaimed Italian author Italo Calvino who called it a "very simple book, straightforward to read, but at the same time possessing great depth and extraordinary quality." First published in 1983 and never before translated into English, A Fictional Inquiry tells of an unnamed narrator visiting Trieste and London to retrace the footsteps of a fabled literary figure. The narrator is intrigued by the elusive, long dead man of letters whose career proved decisive to the culture of his native Italy despite his apparently never having written a line. There are encounters with those who once loved him, walks along the streets he frequented, and visits to his favored cafés, bookstores, and a library in search of an answer. Why did he leave no written trace? In the end, as Italo Calvino wrote when this book originally appeared in Italian, who the legendary author manqué actually was is beside the point. What really matters are the questions and the disquiet running through these luminous pages, the dialectic between literature and life playing out just below the surface. A Fictional Inquiry — which includes notes from both Calvino and translator Anne Milano Appel — is a gem of unparalleled writing appearing in English for the first time. [Paperback]
"The vague state between writing and not writing, between the books written and the parallel world where they're not, this is what consumes the narrator of A Fictional Inquiry, a metaphysical detective story and a modern Italian classic. A strange and ambiguous novel and a brilliant meditation on the mysteries that inform literature." —Mark Haber
"Explores the nature of perception while critiquing both writers and the writing life. Anglophones at last have an opportunity to engage with this intriguing and intellectually stimulating novel for the first time." —On the Seawall
"Constant movement places A Fictional Inquiry in a line of texts narrated by a walker, from modernists like Robert Walser and Fernando Pessoa to more contemporary writers like Sebald." —Full Stop
>>An investigation into the nature of fiction and reality.

Mr Ward’s Map: Victorian Wellington, street by street by Elizabeth Cox $90
In 1891, a remarkable map of Wellington was made by surveyor Thomas Ward. It recorded the footprint of every building, from Thorndon in the north and across the teeming, inner-city slums of Te Aro to Berhampore in the south. Updated regularly over the next 10 years, it detailed hotels, theatres, oyster saloons, brothels, shops, stables, Parliament, the remnants of Maori kainga, the Town Belt, the prisons, the 'lunatic asylum', the hospital and much more, in detail so particular that it went right down to the level of the street lights. Luxuriously packaged, cloth-bound with a fold-out wrapper, Mr Ward's Map uses this giant map and historic images to tell marvellous stories about a vital capital city, its neighbourhoods and its people at the turn of the twentieth century. Very nicely presented in large format and full of valuable historical detail. [Hardback]
>>Look inside.
>>Victorian Google street-view.
>>88 A1 sheets.
>>Struggling.

Dead Ends by Laura Borrowdale $30
In the dark, uncanny world of Dead Ends, our ghosts live alongside us, break-ups come with a grisly cost, and there really are monsters under the bed. Laura Borrowdale's short story collection is full of the horrors of domestic banality, parenting, relationships, and womanhood. With deft and exacting prose, Borrowdale's stories reflect our own lives back at us told slant, revealing where something sinister lives just beneath the surface. [Paperback]
”Weird, disturbing and dystopian, but also at times warm and comical, Dead Ends reaches back to a tradition of New Zealand gothic, and forwards to a nebulous future. There is discord between siblings, parents and children, and romantic partners, the threat of AI artbots, annoying ghosts, and the menace of authoritarianism. This collection is filled with what ifs — What if you had to physically lose a limb to be allowed a divorce? What if you were forced to give yourself full body tattoos? What if a potter puts too much of her soul into her work? What if a pregnant woman's thoughts literally shape her baby? What if the government turned Jonestown on the populace? Laura Borrowdale is a skilled and imaginative storyteller with a pitch-perfect approach to the short story form.” —Airini Beautrais

The Late Marx’s Revolutionary Roads: Colonialism, gender and Indigenous communism by Kevin B. Anderson $47
In his late writings, Marx traveled beyond the boundaries of capital and class in the Western European and North American contexts. In research notebooks, letters, and brief essays during the years 1869-82, he turns his attention to colonialism, agrarian Russia and India, Indigenous societies, and gender. These texts, some of them only now being published, evidence a change of perspective, away from Eurocentric worldviews or unilinear theories of development. Anderson’s book focuses on how the late Marx sees a wider revolution that included the European proletariat being touched off by revolts by oppressed ethno-racial groups, peasant communes, and Indigenous communist groups, in many of which women held great social power. Anderson carries out a systematic analysis of Marx’s Ethnological Notebooks and related texts on India, Ireland, Algeria, and Latin America. This book will appeal to those concerned with the critique of Eurocentrism, racial domination, and gender subordination, but equally to those focusing on capital and class. For as Anderson shows, the late Marx transcended these boundaries as he elaborated a truly global, multilinear theory of modern society and its revolutionary possibilities. In all these ways, the writings of the late Marx speak to us today. [Paperback]
”Imperialism persists in the 21st century. Marx's last endeavors to overcome his Eurocentrism give an invaluable lesson to today's struggles against ongoing settler colonialism.” —Kohei Saito
”After the Young Marx, a Hegelian philosopher and the mature Marx, a political economist, we can now see the late Marx grappling with colonialism, globalization, various forms of landed property, and gradually questioning his own earlier Eurocentrism. This Third Marx, while the least well-known, may be the closest to our modern sensibilities and interests.” —Branko Milanovic

Before the Winter Ends by Khadro Mohammed $30
In the cold Wellington winter, Omar’s grades are slipping, his mum is unwell and his best friend is growing distant. Two decades earlier in Mogadishu, Asha and Yasser are falling in love and starting to build a life together while a burgeoning war threatens to take it away. Before the Winter Ends explores the relationship between mother and son across Aotearoa New Zealand, Somalia and Egypt as they search for understanding and try to bridge the distance between them. Khadro Mohamed’s debut novel is a stark portrayal of how the past illuminates the present and how grief shapes a family. [Paperback]
>>That prickly feeling.
>>An interview with the author.

The Neverending Book by Naoki Matayoshi and Shinsuke Yoshitake $40
A book that makes the sound of turning pages fractionally too early, infuriating its readers; a diary shared by two children with painful secrets; a photo album left by a dying father for when his daughter gets married. An elderly book-loving king sends two subjects on a mission: to travel the world collecting stories about weird and wonderful books. Upon their return, they recount their stories for the king over the course of thirteen nights. From the comically irreverent to the heartrending to the heartwarming, The Neverending Book delves into all that a book can be, forming an enchanting compendium that reveals the ways in which we interact with books, and the importance they hold in our hearts — all told in words and pictures through the tale of two subjects gathering stories about books for their blind, book-loving king. [Hardback]
>>Look inside.

The Traitors Circle: The rebels against the Nazis and the spy who betrayed them by Jonathan Freedland $40
The Traitors Circle tells the true, but scarcely known, story of a group of secret rebels against Hitler. Drawn from Berlin high society, they include army officers, government officials, two countesses, an ambassador's widow and a former model — meeting in the shadows, whether hiding and rescuing Jews or plotting for a Germany freed from Nazi rule. One day in September 1943 they gather for a tea party — unaware that one among them is about to betray them all to the Gestapo. But who is the betrayer of a circle themselves branded 'traitors'? [Paperback]
”A story of unlikely rebels who had much to lose from resisting the Nazi regime, which so many of their peers supported. What made them trade personal safety for moral rectitude? Freedland's answer is as tense as a thriller yet perceptive, thoughtful and thoroughly researched. It made me think long after I'd turned the last page.” —Katja Hoyer
>>The uses of a sofa bed.

Pox Romana: The plague the shook the Roman world by Colin Elliott $40
In the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sudden sickness struck the legions and laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This fast-spreading disease, now known as the Antonine plague, may have been history's first pandemic. Soon after its arrival, the Empire began its downward trajectory toward decline and fall. In Pox Romana, historian Colin Elliott offers a comprehensive, wide-ranging account of this pivotal moment in Roman history. Did a single disease its origins and diagnosis still a mystery bring Rome to its knees? Carefully examining all the available evidence, Elliott shows that Rome's problems were more insidious. Years before the pandemic, the thin veneer of Roman peace and prosperity had begun to crack: the economy was sluggish, the military found itself bogged down in the Balkans and the Middle East, food insecurity led to riots and mass migration, and persecution of Christians intensified. The pandemic exposed the crumbling foundations of a doomed Empire. Arguing that the disease was both cause and effect of Rome's fall, Elliott describes the plague's 'preexisting conditions' (Rome's multiple economic, social, and environmental susceptibilities); recounts the history of the outbreak itself through the experiences of physician, victim, and political operator; and explores post-pandemic crises. The pandemic's most transformative power, Elliott suggests, may have been its lingering presence as a threat both real and perceived. Interesting. [Now in paperback]

The Bagpipes: A cultural history by Robert McLauchlan $45
A diverse history of the pipes from inspiring terror on battlefields to enriching cultures worldwide. In the early second century CE, someone was described as playing a pipe “with a bag tucked under his armpit”. That man, the first named piper in history, was the Roman Emperor Nero. Since then, this improbable conflation of bag and sticks has become one of the most beloved and contested instruments of all time. When another piping emperor, Tsar Peter the Great, watched his pet bear take its last breath, he decided the creature would live on as a bagpipe. This rich and vivid history tells the story of an instrument boasting over 130 varieties, yet commonly associated with just one form and one country: Scotland, and its familiar Great Highland Bagpipe. In fact, the pipes are played across the globe, and their story is a highly diverse one, which illuminates society in remarkable, unexpected ways. Richard McLauchlan charts the rise of women pipers; investigates how class, privilege and capitalism have shaped the world of piping; and explores how the meaning of a 'national instrument' can shift with the currents of a people's identity. The vibrancy and inventiveness characterising today's pipers still speak to the potency of this fabled and once feared instrument, to which McLauchlan is our surefooted guide. [Hardback]
”Historically insightful and full of character. Captures the essence and beauty of piping's vibrant culture with historical, musical and characterful insight.” —Finlay MacDonald
”Richly entertaining and perceptive. A revelation in how an instrument can transform culture.” —Alastair Campbell
>>Pibroch at Braemar.

The Monster in the Lake by Leo Timmers $30
In this larger-than-life picture book, Eric the duck is nervous to swim in the lake for fear a monster might live there, but he bravely follows his friends and discovers something spectacular indeed lives beneath the surface. Four ducks are tired of their small pond and set out for an adventure in the big lake. Walking at the back, Eric isn't sure. He’s heard there’s a monster in the lake, but his friends don’t believe a word of that old story! Eric reluctantly tags along, only to make a startling discovery and find himself in a wonderful underwater adventure. This large-format picture book features a detailed fold-out underwater world of mechanical marvels and sea creatures. The story of a nervous duck who finds courage and the overconfidence of groups will resonate with anyone who’s nervously dipped a toe in unknown waters. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!