NEW RELEASES (19.1.24)
Out of the carton and onto your shelf!
Spent Light by Lara Pawson $38
A woman contemplates her hand-me-down toaster and suddenly the whole world erupts into her kitchen, in all its brutality and loveliness: global networks of resource extraction and forced labour, technologies of industrial murder, histories of genocide, alongside traditions of craft, the pleasures of convenience and dexterity, the giving and receiving of affection and care. “Everything in this damned world calls for indignation,” the woman says at one point. All of it’s there, all interconnected, and she can’t stop looking. The likeness between a pepper mill and a hand grenade, for example, or the scarcely hidden violence of an egg timer. And what if objects knew their own histories? What if we could allow ourselves to see those weird resonances, echoes, loops, glitches, just as Pawson does so beautifully and unnervingly here? Spent Light asks us to begin the work of de-enchanting all the crap we gather around ourselves to fend off the abyss — because we’ll never manage that anyway, the book warns, the abyss is already in us. But love is too. There might be no home to be found in objects, but there’s one to be made with other people. I think, in the end, this powerful, startling book is a love letter.’ —Jennifer Hodgson
”I’m flabbergasted by the naked determination on show here, not to say the talent. Page by page, image by image, association by association, Lara Pawson develops a picture of the world that you won’t be offered anywhere else: stark, unremitting, brilliantly formed and written.” —M. John Harrison
”A shocking book. Lara Pawson’s merciless and exquisite prose adorns everyday objects with the violence of history – the savage comedy by which living creatures have become broken, petrified things. I will never look at a toaster or a timer, a toenail or a squirrel, the same way again.” —Merve Emre
Unwords by Andrew Gallix $40
An enjoyable companion to the best new reading and to intriguing re-readings, this book contains essays on the highest form of intergloss (and everything having already been said), the death of the novel, the death of the author, the unwritten, the unread and unreadable, the International Necronautical Society, fictive realism, Alain Robbe-Grillet's reality hunger, the Oulipo and literary bondage, Rene Girard and mimetic desire, literary prizes, Andy Warhol's answer to Ulysses, the poetics of spam, the literati and digerati, the disappearance of 3:AM Magazine (and literature), umbilical worlds, the melancholy of Guy the Gorilla, the world without me, two interviews with philosopher Simon Critchley, and an after(un)word-cum-writing manifesto made up exclusively of quotations. It also contains reviews of works by Jenn Ashworth, Zygmunt Bauman, Claire-Louise Bennett, Gavin James Bower, Kevin Breathnach, Michel Butor, David Caron, Joshua Cohen, Douglas Coupland, Tim Etchells, Jonathan Franzen, Dan Fox, Paul Gorman, James Greer, Len Gutkin, Isabella Hammad, Jean-Yves Jouan.
”I'm starting to suspect that the last quarter century of literary history has in reality been a projection of the mind of Andrew Gallix, paused in reverie above the blank sheet of a masterpiece so perfect as to be unfeasible. We thought we were writing, reading and debating; in fact, he was daydreaming us all." —Tom McCarthy
"Andrew Gallix is the thinking punk's intellecual, a vital voice at the forefront of literary criticism. He is eminently readable, an alternative national (and international) treasure." —Benjamin Myers
"Andrew Gallix has long been one of our most astute, witty, and suprising critical thinkers. For a start, he understands how a modernist novel is put together. This is not to be taken for granted — it is one of the many reasons to enjoy the spirit of this valuable and intellectually entertaining collection." —Devorah Levy
The Good Die Young: The verdict on Henry Kissinger edited by Bhaskar Sunkara, René Rojas, and Jonah Walter $38
If the American foreign policy establishment is a grand citadel, then Henry Kissinger is the ghoul haunting its hallways. For half a century, he was an omnipresent figure in war rooms and at press briefings, dutifully shepherding the American empire through successive rounds of growing pains. For multiple generations of anti-war activists, Kissinger personified the depravity of the American war machine. The world Kissinger wrought is the world we live in, where ideal investment conditions are generated from the barrel of a gun. Today, global capitalism and United States hegemony are underwritten by the most powerful military ever devised. Any political vision worth fighting for must promise an end to the cycle of never-ending wars afflicting the world in the twenty-first century. This book follows Kissinger's fiery trajectory around the world because he, more than any other public figure, illustrates the links between capitalism, empire, and the feedback loop of endless war-making that plagues us today.
The I Wonder Bookstore by Shinsuke Yoshitake $30
At The I Wonder Bookstore, customers come in and ask the owner countless variations on its namesake question ("I wonder if you have any books about...") and he is happy to fill their requests — he has books that play at the edges (and yet somehow are central to) our ideas of books and reading. Readers will discover books that grow on trees, books designed to be read by two (or more) people at once, books that can only be read by moonlight, bookstore weddings, an underwater library, a boot camp for charismatic bookstore attendants, and many more wonders that celebrate, books, and bookshops. Hugely inventive, thoughtful, and fun.
A History of Queen’s Redoubt and the Invasion of the Waikato by Neville Ritchie and Ian Barton $50
On 12 July 1863, British and colonial troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Duncan Cameron crossed Mangatawhiri stream, Waikato Maori’s northern border, instigating the Waikato War. In order to do so they had amassed a vast infrastructure that included building the Great South Road (the ‘Road to War’), establishing a military supply train capable of providing for the needs of 6,000 soldiers, erecting a telegraph service between Auckland and Pokeno, forming a navy of armoured gunboats on the Waikato River, and constructing the second largest military fort built by the British Army in New Zealand: The Queen’s Redoubt. At the height of the invasion, some 14,000 British and colonial troops contested the Waikato against Maori forces which never exceeded 3000. The Waikato was occupied from July 1863 to April 1864, followed by massive land confiscations. This book tells the story of the Redoubt, and the buildup of military power along the Waikato border, which led directly to the most significant campaign of the New Zealand Wars, the invasion of the Waikato.
”Queen’s Redoubt was the launching pad for the invasion of Waikato in 1863. Ian Barton and Neville Ritchie have produced a valuable account of its place in this defining conflict in New Zealand’s history.” — Vincent O’Malley
Mountains of Fire: The secret lives of volcanoes by Clive Oppenheimer $40
olcanoes mean more than threat and calamity. Like our parents, they've led whole lives before we get to know them. They have inspired our imaginations, provoked pioneering explorations and shaped the path of humanity. Volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer has worked at the crater's edge in the wildest places on Earth, from remote peaks in the Sahara to mystical mountains in North Korea. He's faced down AK47s, learned from tribal elders, and watched red hot rocks shoot into the sky. More people have been into space than have set eyes on the fiery depths of Mount Erebus in Antarctica, where he has measured the Earth's powerful forces. In Mountains of Fire, he paints volcanoes as otherworldly, magical places where our history is laid bare, and shows us just how entangled volcanic activity is with our climate, economy, politics, culture and beliefs.
”What the French adventurer Jacques Cousteau was to the hidden world under our seas, Oppenheimer is to the hidden, molten world bubbling under our feet.” —Sunday Times
”Gripping ... reads] like a thriller. Perhaps one final attribute of a volcanologist is that he should be a good storyteller. Oppenheimer is better than good. This is terrific.” —Spectator
”A fantastic account of the power and importance of volcanoes to history. Clive Oppenheimer takes us on a wonderful tour of some of the world's best and least known volcanoes in a book that will make all readers want to become volcanologists.” —Peter Frankopan
High: A journey across the Himalayas through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, and China by Erika Fatland $30
The Himalayas meander for more than two thousand kilometres through many different countries, from Pakistan to Myanmar via Nepal, India, Tibet and Bhutan, where the world religions of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism are interspersed with ancient shamanic beliefs. Countless languages and vastly different cultures exist in these isolated mountain valleys. Modernity and tradition collide, while the great powers fight for influence.We have read about climbers and adventurers on their way up Mount Everest, and about travellers on a spiritual quest to remote Buddhist monasteries. Here, however, the focus is on the communities of these Himalayan valleys, those who live and work in this extraordinary region. As Erika Fatland introduces us to the people she meets along her journey, and in particular the women, she takes us on a vivid and dizzying expedition at altitude through incredible landscapes and dramatic, unknown histories.
Feeling and Knowing by Antonio Damasio $35
In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the question of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings in neuroscience, psychology and artificial intelligence have given us the necessary tools to solve its mystery. In Feeling & Knowing, Damasio elucidates the myriad aspects of consciousness and presents his analysis and new insights in a way that is faithful to our own intuitive sense of the experience. In forty-eight brief chapters, Damasio helps us understand the relation between consciousness and the mind; why being conscious is not the same as either being awake or sensing; the central role of feeling; and why the brain is essential for the development of consciousness. He synthesises the recent findings of various sciences with the philosophy of consciousness, and, most significantly, presents his original research which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behaviour. Now in paperback.
“Damasio has succeeded brilliantly in narrowing the gap between body and mind.” —The New York Times Book Review
Sylvie and the Wolf by Andrea Debbink, illustrated by Merce Lopez $38
Sylvie has a secret. She's seen a wolf in the woods and is afraid to tell anyone about it. She thinks people won't believe her or will make fun of her. As her fear begins to control her life, she stops going to the woods, spending time with friends, and doing the things she loves. Eventually, with the encouragement of a loving aunt, Sylvie is able to confront her fear. She learns that instead of running or hiding, she can live alongside her anxiety. She also learns that everyone is dealing with something that scares them — even the wolf.
In the Museum — 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle by Tomi Um $35
Familiar faces and delightful discoveries abound in this menagerie of art gallery visitors, from inquisitive art students, to selfie-snapping divas, and aspiring artists who happen to be mice. Each gallery offers new details to discover and allusions to art movement across time and history.