NEW RELEASES (23.5.25)
There’s still a week of autumn left to squirrel away your store of books for the winter. Click through to our website to place your orders. Your books can be sent to you by overnight courier or collected from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.
Cry When the Baby Cries by Becky Barnicoat $60
A glorious antidote to parenting books, this darkly humorous, candid and insightful graphic memoir brings the early years of parenthood to life — in all their chaos, wonder and delirium. Intimate, relatable and very funny, Becky Barnicoat explores everything from the anatomy of the hospital bag to the frantic obsession with putting your baby down drowsy but awake, to the tyranny of gentle parenting. From pregnancy to the feral toddler years, Barnicoat extends a sticky hand to all new parents grappling with the impossible but joyous jigsaw puzzle of their lives. Barnicoat gives us permission to cry when the baby cries — and also laugh, snort, lie on the floor naked, drool and generally revel in a deeply strange new world ruled by a tyrannical tiny leader, growing bigger and more loved by the day. [Hardback]
”This book is a perfect testament to the wild ride of early parenting. It's tender, moving, beautifully drawn and also, extremely hilarious. Parents everywhere: you will feel very very seen.” —Isabel Greenberg
Sad Tiger by Neige Sinno (translated from French by Natasha Lehrer) $40
"Reading Sad Tiger is like descending into an abyss with your eyes open. It forces you to see, to really see, what it means to be a child abused by an adult, for years. Everyone should read it. Especially teenagers." —Annie Ernaux
Sad Tiger is built on the facts of a series of devastating events. Neige Sinno was seven years old when her stepfather started sexually abusing her. At 19, she decided to break the silence that is so common in all cultures around sexual violence. This led to a public trial and prison for her stepfather, and Sinno started a new life in Mexico. Through the construction of a fragmented narrative, Sinno explores the different facets of memory — her own, her mother's, as well as her abusive stepfather's; and of abuse itself in all its monstrosity and banality. Her account is woven together with a close reading of literary works by Vladimir Nabokov, Virginia Woolf, Toni Morrison, Christine Angot, and Virginie Despentes among others. Sad Tiger — the title inspired by William Blake's poem ‘The Tyger’ — is a literary exploration into how to speak about the unspeakable. In this extraordinary book there is an abiding concern — how to protect others from what the author herself endured? [Paperback]
"An achingly vivid, cerebral memoir of her abuse and its long aftermath. Close-reading her own shards of memory alongside these texts, Sinno contends with both the power and the inevitable impotence of writing, particularly about abuse." —Lauren Christensen, New York Times
"Sad Tiger is not what you'd expect from a memoir about sexual abuse and trauma. Unlike Vanessa Springora's 2020 international bestseller Consent, say, which was also translated by Natasha Lehrer, Sad Tiger is not a taut narrative of devastation and reclamation. At times Sinno writes with the essayistic force of Virginie Despentes's King Kong Theory, at others with the vividness of Edouard Louis's novels. She shares Annie Ernaux's will to self-excavation and proclivity for experimentation. Sinno refuses to be hamstrung by genre, choosing a balletic approach, as if only a choreographed dance around her subject, again and again, will properly encapsulate its blast radius." —Elias Altman, Bookforum
An Uncommon Land: From an ancestral past of enclosure towards a regenerative future by Catherine Knight $50
A story of enclosure, dispossession, colonisation and — ultimately — hope for a better future. Through the lens of her ancestors’ stories, Catherine Knight throws light on the genesis and evolution of the commons, its erosion through enclosure and the ascendency of private property in parallel with the rise of capitalism — a history that has indelibly shaped New Zealand society and its landscape. Like other European settlers, the lives and future prosperity of the author’s ancestors had their foundations in war, land appropriation and environmental destruction — but in their histories lie glimmerings of the potentiality of commons: tantalising hints of an alternative path to a re-commoned, regenerative future. From a past of enclosure, resource exploitation and exponential growth, this book shines light on the potentiality of a different future, taking inspiration from our collective history. [Paperback]
”A highly original, intriguing and excellent work of scholarship, An Uncommon Land looks to the past to provide a pathway to a sustainable and fairer future. Weaving family histories of migration brilliantly into broader themes of colonisation, the commodification of land and climate change, Knight suggests we look to the concept of the commons as a way of managing finite environmental resources for the benefit of all. A timely, topical and essential read.” —Vincent O'Malley
I Shall Not Die: Titokowaru’s war, 1868—1869 by James Belich $40
"You were made a Pakeha, and the name of England was given to you for your tribe. I was made a Maori, and New Zealand was the name given to me. You forgot that there was a space fixed between us of great extent — the sea. You, forgetting that, jumped over from that place to this. I did not jump over from this place to that. Move off from my places to your own places in the midst of the sea." —Titokowaru.
Straddling the Maori and European worlds of the 1860s, Titokowaru was one of New Zealand's greatest leaders. A brilliant strategist, he used every device to save the Taranaki people from European invasion. When peaceful negotiation failed, he embarked on a stunning military campaign against government forces. His victories were many, before the battle he lost. Although he was 'forgotten by the Pakeha as a child forgets a nightmare', his vision was one that would endure. Titokowaru (Ngati Ruanui) was born in South Taranaki in 1823. Converting to Christianity (and pacifism) at 20, he later became disillusioned with Christianity and joined the bitter fighting of the period — protesting against continual land loss and the erosion of his people's rights. Leading a strong intertribal force, Titokowaru nearly succeeded in repelling the colonial forces in the Taranaki wars of 1868-69. But at the final hour his people deserted him, in circumstances that remain unclear. [Paperback]
Eurotrash by Christian Kracht (translated from German by Daiel Bowles) $30
Realising he and she are the very worst kind of people, our unnamed middle-aged narrator embarks on a highly dubious road trip through Switzerland with his terminally ill and terminally drunken mother. They try unsuccessfully to give away or squander the fortune she has amassed from investing in armament industry shares. Along the journey they bicker endlessly over the past, throw handfuls of francs into a ravine and exasperate the living daylights out of their long-suffering taxi driver. The crimes of the twentieth century are never far behind, but neither is the need for more vodka. Eurotrash is a bitterly comic, vertiginous mirror-cabinet of familial and historical reckoning. Kracht's novel is a narrative tour-de-force of the tenderness and spite meted out between two people who cannot escape one another. [Paperback]
Long-listed for the 2025 International Booker Prize.
”Eurotrash is the auto-fictional account of a writer contemplating his unpleasant and abusive childhood, his morally repugnant ancestry and his toxic financial inheritance as he drives his crotchety, alcoholic, senile mother through the landscape outside Zurich. This doesn’t sound like much fun! But this book is one of the most entertaining and ultimately moving stories we read. It is brilliantly, bitterly funny, even as it documents a vicious and tarnished emotional universe. This book is immaculately and wittily translated; on every page its sentences sparkle and surprise like guilty-legacy gold.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation
”Whether he's fictionalising history in order to question the validity of history, or fictionalising himself in order to question the validity of self, it is by now apparent to me and to his many readers that Christian Kracht is the great German-language writer of his generation.” —Joshua Cohen
”Christian Kracht is a master of the well-formed sentence, the elegance of which conceals horror. His novels involve Germany, ghosts, war and madness, and every conceivable fright, but they are also full of melancholy comedy, and they all hide a secret that one never quite fathoms.” —Daniel Kehlmann
Air by John Boyne $35
Being in limbo, 30,000 feet in the air, offers time to reflect and take stock. For Aaron Umber, it's an opportunity to connect with his 14-year-old son as they travel halfway across the world to meet a woman who isn't expecting them. Unsettled by his past, and anxious for his future, Aaron is at a crossroads in life. The damage inflicted upon him during his youth has made him the man he is, but now threatens to widen the growing fissures between him and his only child. This trip could bind them closer together, or tear them further apart. In this penetrating examination of action and consequence, fault and attribution, acceptance and resolution, John Boyne gives us a redemptive story of a father and a son on a moving journey to mend their troubled lives. This novella completes ‘The Elements’ quartet. [Hardback]
Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw $40
The Bookseller at the End of the World described the first part of Ruth Shaw's tumultuous life, touching readers in powerful ways. It became an international bestseller, translated into eleven languages. Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World picks up Ruth's story with more charming, heartbreaking, brave and funny tales. Having found the love of her life, Lance, she tells of their sailing adventures together, world travels, conservation efforts and their wee bookshops. Life has never been easy for Ruth but, despite that, her book is chock full of extraordinary people and situations, many of them laugh-out-loud funny. Tales from the bookshops are interwoven with Ruth's story, along with expert book recommendations. Written in Ruth's characteristic style, this absorbing memoir traverses the highs and lows of a life lived to the full. [Hardback]
The Sound of Utopia: Musicians in the time of Stalin by Michel Krielaas $55
When Stalin came to power, making music in Russia became dangerous. Composers now had to create work that served the state, and all artistic production was scrutinised for potential subversion. In The Sound of Utopia, Michel Krielaars depicts Soviet musicians and composers struggling to create art in a climate of risk, suspicion and fear. Some successfully toed the ideological line, diluting their work in the process; others ended up facing the Gulag or even death. While some, like Sergei Prokofiev, achieved lasting fame, others were consigned to oblivion, their work still hard to find. As Krielaars traces the twists and turns of these artists' fortunes, he paints a fascinating and disturbing portrait of the absurdity of Soviet musical life. [Hardback]
Mythica: A new history of Homer’s world, through the women written out of it by Emily Hauser $40
Hauser takes readers on an epic journey to uncover the astonishing true story of the real women behind ancient Greece's greatest legends — and the real heroes of those ancient epics, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Contrary to perceptions built up over three millennia, ancient history is not all about men. In Mythica Emily Hauser tells, for the first time, the extraordinary stories of the real women behind some of the western world's greatest legends. Following in their footsteps, digging into the history behind Homer's epic poems, piecing together evidence from the original texts, recent astonishing archaeological finds and the latest DNA studies, she reveals who these women — queens, mothers, warriors, slaves — were, how they lived, and how history has (or has not - until now) remembered them. A riveting new history of the Bronze Age Aegean and a journey through Homer's epics charted entirely by women — from Helen of Troy, Briseis, Cassandra and Aphrodite to Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso and Penelope — Mythica is a ground-breaking reassessment of the reality behind the often-mythologised women of Greece's greatest epics, and of the ancient world itself as we learn ever more about it. [Paperback]
The Midnight Plane: Selected and new poems by Fiona Kidman $40
The Midnight Plane comes in to land exactly half a century after the 1975 publication of Kidman’s debut book, the poetry collection Honey and Bitters and contains poems from each of her six published collections as well as new sequences. There’s a sense in which The Midnight Plane works like an alternative memoir, offering a poet’s immediacy of vision and gift of linguistic precision on a life unfolding in real time. The Midnight Plane speaks to human relationships, to connection and disconnection, to the mystery and the majesty of life, to seasons of loss and cycles of renewal. Each of these poems is, in its own way, a midnight plane, flying in the dark, navigating for home in sometimes perilous conditions. [Hardback]
The Eyes of Gaza: A diary of resilience by Plestia Alaqad $35
In early October 2023, Palestinian Plestia Alaqad was a recent graduate with dreams of becoming a successful journalist. By the end of November, she would be internationally known as the 'Eyes of Gaza'. Millions of people would be moved by her social media posts depicting daily life in Gaza amid Israel's deadly invasion and bombardment. Written as a series of diary extracts, The Eyes of Gaza shares the horrors of her experiences while showcasing the indomitable spirit of the men, women and children that share Plestia's communities. From the epicentre of turmoil, while bombs rained around her and devastation gripped her people, she witnessed their emotions, their gentle acts of quiet, necessary heroism, and the moments of unexpected tenderness and vulnerability amid the chaos. Through the raw honesty and vulnerability of a normal 22-year-old woman trying to make her way through a human tragedy, The Eyes of Gaza is a powerful call for peace. It recounts a harrowing experience, but it is not a heart-breaking lamentation. Rather, it is a manifesto for hope, advocating for a better future for Gaza, the Middle East, and our divided world. [Paperback]
Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent $40
In 2003, seventeen-year-old Australian exchange student Hannah Kent arrives at Keflavík Airport in the middle of the Icelandic winter. That night she sleeps off her jet lag and bewilderment in the National Archives of Iceland, unaware that, years later, she will return to the same building to write Burial Rites, the haunting story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman executed in Iceland. The novel will go on to launch the author's stellar literary career and capture the hearts of readers across the globe. Always Home, Always Homesick is Hannah Kent's love letter to a land that has forged a nation of storytellers, her ode to the power of creativity. [Hardback]
Limitarianism: The case against extreme wealth by Ingrid Robeyns $30
An expert in inequality makes the case for a hard limit on personal wealth. We all notice when the poor get poorer — when there are more rough sleepers and food bank queues start to grow. But if the rich become richer, there is nothing much to see in public and, for most of us, daily life doesn't change. Or at least, not immediately. In this game-changing intervention, leading philosopher and economist Ingrid Robeyns exposes the true extent of our wealth problem, which has spent the past fifty years silently spiralling out of control. In moral, political, economic, social, environmental and psychological terms, she shows, extreme wealth is not only unjustifiable but harmful to us all — the rich included. In place of our current system, Robeyns offers a breathtakingly clear alternative — limitarianism. The answer to so many of the problems posed by neoliberal capitalism — and the opportunity for a vastly better world — lies in placing a hard limit on the wealth that any one person can accumulate. [Paperback]
”Powerful — a must-read.” —Thomas Piketty
”Effortlessly navigating between ethics, political theory, economics and public policy, Ingrid Robeyns's nuanced and persuasive defence of limitarianism is also a much-needed manifesto for reimagining political institutions.” —Lea Ypi
A View from the Stars: Stories and essays by Cixin Liu $25
”We re mysterious aliens in the crowd. We jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core. We re as unassuming as fireflies, yet our numbers grow like grass in spring. We sci-fi fans are people from the future.” —Cixin Liu, from the essay 'Sci-Fi Fans'
A View from the Stars features a range of short works from the past three decades of bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years. [Paperback]
”His stories are filled with a sense of wonder as they push ideas about the future of humanity to their extremes, and the personal essays offer a rare glimpse into attitudes towards science fiction in China and how the genre has changed. A fascinating collection.” —Guardian