NEW RELEASES (22.11.24)
Build your reading pile, and the reading piles of others!
Click through to our website for your copies. We can dispatch your books by overnight courier — or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.
Gliff by Ali Smith $45
A new book from Ali Smith is always hugely exciting — here is a writer of immense capacity, who is always driven by the urgency of the modern world but responds with a humanity and playfulness that show us possibilities hidden inside crises. Gliff is the first of a new two-book project. It's a truism of our time that it'll be the next generation who'll sort out our increasingly toxic world. What would that actually be like? In a state turned hostile, a world of insiders and outsiders, what things of the past can sustain them and what shape can resistance take? And what's a horse got to do with any of this? Gliff is a novel about how we make meaning and how we are made meaningless. With a nod to the traditions of dystopian fiction, a glance at the Kafkaesque, and a new take on the notion of classic, it's a moving and electrifying read, a vital and prescient tale of the versatility and variety deep-rooted in language, in nature and in human nature. [Hardback]
”Here is a voice that moves with lightness and precision, where bravery and goodness triumph in spirit over jeopardy and fear. Smith is good at fable-ising, and at taking a young perspective in order to question afresh systems and inherited knowledge. Smith's fiction teaches with vitality that there is no such thing as a futile question.” —Financial Times
”Gliff is one of Smith's most propulsive stories — a dark adventure with high stakes, which, despite its bleak subject matter, is still a sparklingly crisp read. Typically tantalising stuff from one of our most playful writers. Smith is as frisky as ever, peppering with puns, and making hay with homonyms imbues her characters with this linguistic exuberance. A new Ali Smith book is always an event.” —Holly Williams
The Position of Spoons, And other intimacies by Deborah Levy $50
Levy invites the reader into the interiors of her world, sharing her intimate thoughts and experiences, as she traces and measures her life against the backdrop of the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her. From Marguerite Duras to Colette and Ballard, and from Lee Miller to Francesca Woodman and Paula Rego, Levy shares the richness of their work and, in turn the richness of her own. Each short essay draws upon Levy's life, encapsulating the precision and depth of her writing, as she shifts between questions of mortality, language, suburbia, gender, consumerism and the poetics of every day living. From the child born in South Africa, to her teenage years in Britain, to her travels across the world as a young woman, each page is reveals a questioning self. [Hardback]
”Under the blowtorch of Levy's attention, domestic space and everything in it is transformed into something radically meaningful. This is why people love Levy: she has an uncanny ability to honour and redeem aspects of experience routinely dismissed as trivial.” —Guardian
Poutini: The Ngāi Tahu history of the West Coast by Paul Madgwick $75
A landmark publication, bringing together a lifetime of knowledge and research by kaumatua and 'Coaster' Paul Madgwick (Kati Mahaki, Kai Tahu). Beginning with mythology associated with Te Tai Poutini (the West Coast), this richly illustrated work follows the story of human settlement including migration and occupation by different iwi, creation of different Māori settlements, the role of pounamu, the earliest interactions between Pākeha explorers and Ngāi Tahu, the Kai Tahu land sales and Maori reserves, through to the 1998 Ngāi Tahu Settlement and today's challenges and opportunities. [Hardback]
The City and Its Uncertain Walls by Haruki Murakami $55
When a young man's girlfriend mysteriously vanishes, he sets his heart on finding the imaginary city where her true self lives. His search will lead him to take a job in a remote library with mysteries of its own. When he finally makes it to the walled city, a shadowless place of horned beasts and willow trees, he finds his beloved working in a different library — a dream library. But she has no memory of their life together in the other world and, as the lines between reality and fantasy start to blur, he must decide what he's willing to lose. A love story, a quest, an ode to books and to the libraries that house them, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is a parable for these strange times. [Hardback]
”A 'cosy' masterpiece with agony between its lines, The City and Its Uncertain Walls is quietly miraculous.. The greatest books are those which enable us to enter their worlds, just as Murakami's narrator enters his mysterious libraries.” —Telegraph
”No other author mixes domestic, fantastic and esoteric elements into such weirdly bewitching shades. “ —Financial Times
Help Wanted by Adelle Waldman $38
At a superstore in a small town in upstate New York, the members of Team Movement clock in every day at 3.55 am. Under the red-eyed scrutiny of their self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty delivery trucks of mountains of merchandise, stock the shelves and stagger home (or to another poorly paid day job) before the customers arrive. When Big Will the store manager announces he's leaving, everything changes. The eclectic team members now see a way to have their awful line manager promoted up and away from them, and to dream of a promotion of their own. Together they set an extravagant plan in motion. [Hardback]
“A brilliant diagnosis and a moving account of retail workers hidden in plain sight all around us whose full humanity has simply never been so richly displayed or touchingly rendered.” —Joshua Ferris
”A classic of our age. Adelle Waldman turns the seemingly unremarkable matter of a retail job vacancy into a gripping study of conscience, morality and camaraderie. Help Wanted illuminates an entire universe that rarely features in literature revealing rich, nuanced, characters and the choices they face.” —Catherine O'Flynn
”Finally, the profoundly human big-box store truck-unloading novel you were waiting for. Help Wanted is like a great nineteenth-century novel about now, at once an effervescent workplace comedy and an exploration of the psychic toll exacted by the labour market. The characters are so richly drawn — so full, under all their defences, of the desire to be loved — that even the annoying ones will win your heart. When the book came to an end, I felt bereft. Adelle Waldman is a master.” —Elif Batuman
”Help Wanted is a serious moral inquiry, through the medium of fiction, into the lives of a group of people who work in a big-box store in an American town that has seen better days. It's a book about work; about the retail industry in the age of Amazon; and about the effects of late capitalism on human relations. It is also hard to put down. This book should be assigned in business schools, but it won't be; the world it depicts is not the one dreamt of in their philosophy.” —Keith Gessen
Shattered by Hanif Kureishi $40
On Boxing Day 2022, in Rome, Hanif Kureishi had a fall. When he came to, in a pool of blood, he was horrified to realise he had lost the use of his limbs. He could no longer walk, write or wash himself. He could do nothing without the help of others, and required constant care in a hospital. So began an odyssey of a year through the medical systems of Rome and Italy, with the hope of somehow being able to return home, to his house in London. While confined to a series of hospital wards, he felt compelled to write, but being unable to type or to hold a pen, he began to dictate to family members the words which formed in his head. The result was an extraordinary series of dispatches from his hospital bed — a diary of a life in pieces, recorded with rare honesty, clarity and courage. This book takes these hospital dispatches — edited, expanded and meticulously interwoven with new writing — and charts both a shattering and a reassembling: a new life born of pain and loss, but animated by new feelings — of gratitude, humility and love. [Hardback]
”Extraordinary, unique and unputdownable. An exceptional volume as original as Jean-Dominique Bauby's stroke classic The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and as profound and affected as Salman Rushdie's Knife . This fall provoked a rare, and inspiring, defiance, Shattered, with its unique authorship, has become a life-saver. For the reader, this compounds the intensity of its witness.” —Robert McCrum, Independent
The Place of Tides by James Rebanks $40
One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on. Back at home, Rebanks couldn't stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly — and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly — her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island. This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, building little wooden huts that will protect the ducks come spring; to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for the woman to gather. Slowly, Rebanks begins to understand that this woman and her world are not at all what he had previously thought. [Paperback]
”Humane, beautifully paced, gentle, and strangely compelling, The Place of Tides feels like, not only a modern classic, but one we very much need right now.” —George Saunders
”A magnificent book — wonderfully unlike any other. The Place of Tides is big-hearted and transporting, a quietly gripping reckoning with self-sufficiency and interdependence, with the lives that make us and the lives that we make. I didn't want it to end, and I can't wait to reread it.” —Philip Gourevitch
”James Rebanks has done a miraculous thing. He takes the reader with him to a stark, remote island on the strangest mission in the toughest circumstances and makes you feel like you're coming home. A profound, transformative, uplifting story.” —Isabella Tree
Head in the Clouds by Rocío Araya (translated from Spanish by Sarah Moses) $45
Sofia goes to school every day but she still has a lot of questions. Why are grown-ups always in a rush? What number comes after infinity? Sofia's teacher says she has her head in the clouds, she's seeing birds. In collages of graph paper, worksheets, and newsprint, punctuated by scratches of graphite and bold swaths of bright paint, Sofia's world springs to life. When she gives one of her birds to her teacher, her teacher's monochrome world of blank paper and grey lines bursts into colour, affirming the joy and necessity of always being curious. Inquisitive children, with a supply of questions as limitless as their imagination, will recognize themselves in Sofia, delighting in pondering her questions - and in coming up with more of their own. [Hardback]
The Contemporary African Kitchen: Home cooking recipes from the leading chefs of Africa by Alexander Smalls and Nina Oduro $75
A vibrant library of home cooking recipes and texts contributed by 33 chefs, restaurateurs, caterers, cooks, and writers at the heart of Africa's food movement. Organised geographically into five regions, The Contemporary African Kitchen presents 120 warm and delicious dishes, each beautifully photographed and brought to life through historical notes, personal anecdotes, and thoughtful serving suggestions. Home cooks will discover a bounty of diverse, delicious dishes ranging from beloved classics to newer creations, all rooted in a shared language of ingredients, spices, and cooking traditions. Learn to make Northern Africa's famed couscous and grilled meats; Eastern Africa's aromatic curries; Central Africa's Peanut Sauce Stew and Cocoyam Dumplings; Southern Africa's fresh seafood and street food; and Western Africa's renowned Chicken Yassa. With text contributions from experts including Pierre Thiam, Selassie Atadika, Anto Cocagne, Coco Reinarhz, and Michael Adé Elégbèdé, the essay and recipe contributors to this ground-breaking survey are at the heart of the food movement of Africa, making it an essential addition to every cook and food lover's library. [Hardback]
The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe $38
Post-university life doesn't suit Phyl. Time passes slowly living back home with her parents, working a zero-hour contract serving Japanese food to holidaymakers at Heathrow's Terminal 5. As for her budding plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere. That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He's been on the path to uncover a sinister think-tank, founded at Cambridge University in the 1980s, that's been scheming to push the British government in a more extreme direction. One that's finally poised to put their plans into action. But speaking truth to power can be dangerous - and power will stop at nothing to stay on top. As Britain finds itself under the leadership of a new Prime Minister whose tenure will only last for seven weeks, Chris pursues his story to a conference being held deep in the Cotswolds, where events take a sinister turn and a murder enquiry is soon in progress. But will the solution to the mystery lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old? [Paperback]
”Wonderfully accomplished and darkly funny. The Proof of My Innocence is a murder mystery, a satire on Britain's ever right-ward drift, culminating in Liz Truss; and an inquiry into truth and perception. Jonathan Coe gets better and better.” —Luke Harding
”A brilliant, shrewd, satirical novel — gimlet-eyed, funny, very clever and a searchingly profound look at the state of this strange country of ours.” —William Boyd
The Britannias, And the Islands of Women by Alice Albinia $37
The Britannias tells the story of Britain's islands and how they are woven into its collective cultural psyche. From Neolithic Orkney to modern-day Thanet, Alice Albinia explores the furthest reaches of Britain's island topography, once known (wrote Pliny) by the collective term, Britanniae. Sailing over borders, between languages and genres, trespassing through the past to understand the present, this book knocks the centre out to foreground neglected epics and subversive voices. The ancient mythology of islands ruled by women winds through the literature of the British Isles — from Roman colonial-era reports, to early Irish poetry, Renaissance drama to Restoration utopias — transcending and subverting the most male-fixated of ages. The Britanniaslooks far back into the past for direction and solace, while searching for new meaning about women's status in the body politic. [Paperback (though we do have the lovely hardback available too)]
”A dazzlingly brilliant book. Travelling by boat, swimming through kelp, riding on a fishing trawler, Alice Albinia takes us on an extraordinary journey around the British isles, revealing a liquid past where women ruled and mermaids sang and tracing the sea-changes of her own heart.” —Hannah Dawson
”An artful book of waterways and wildernesses, monastic havens and tax havens. A fascinating demonstration that Britain 'singular' is shorthand for something tectonically, volcanically plural. “ —Amy Jeffs
”There are books crafted from research, worthy and informative. And there are books that happen. That need to happen. That feel inevitable. As if they have always, somehow, been there waiting for us. The voyages of Alice Albinia around our ragged fringes range through time, recovering and resurrecting the most potent myths. A work of integrity and vision.” —Iain Sinclair
Leave Your Big Boots at the Door: Pākehā confronting racism against Māori edited by Lorraine McLeod $40
The effects of colonisation and the racism that accompanies it are seen in the lives of many Māori living in the inequitable, disadvantaged margins of society, heavily influenced by the loss of their land and cultural knowledge, and often living in poverty. The Pakeha interviewed in this book have all come to recognise how this racism blights our country, and they come from a range of occupations, including police, education, health, psychology, social services, Corrections, business, and the law. As well as each providing an historical angle on the subject, they offer positive suggestions about addressing bias, power and privilege in our country's constitutional documents, systemic racism in our institutions and organisations, and in personal ways of confronting racism. All advocate for a society in which Maori regain tino rangatiratanga (power and control) over their own lives. This is an important and inspiring book, one that encourages Pakeha to face up to our past and embrace an optimistic future for Aotearoa.
The Chess Deck: 50 cards for mastering the basics by Levy Rozman $45
Chess is all about practice. With this interactive, immersive deck of 54 cards, Levy Rozman distills the most important information players need to know in order to practice right. Fifty cards with chessboard diagrams feature the best openings for black and white; tactics to know like forks, pins, and skewers; historical games to learn from; and brainteasers to test your skills. Two introductory cards explain how each of the six pieces moves and how to understand chess notation so you can analyse positions. Suitable for those who have a rudimentary understanding of chess but challenging enough for more seasoned players.