NEW RELEASES (27.3.25)
Replenish your reading pile with these new arrivals! Books can be sent by overnight courier or collected from our door.
The Place of Shells by Mai Ishizawa (translated from Japanese by Polly Barton) $40
In the summer of 2020, as Germany slowly emerges from lockdown, a young Japanese woman studying in Göttingen waits at the train station to meet an old friend. Nomiya died a decade earlier in the Tōhoku tsunami, but he has suddenly returned without any explanation. The reunited friends share a past that's a world away from the tranquillity of Göttingen. Yet Nomiya's spectral presence destabilises something in the city: mysterious guests appear, eerie discoveries are made in the forest and, as the past becomes increasingly vivid, the threads of time threaten to unravel. With a literary style reminiscent of W. G. Sebald, Yoko Tawada, and Yu Miri, The Place of Shells is an astounding exploration of the strange orbits of memory and the haunting presence of the past. [Paperback]
"A work of great delicacy and seriousness. Ishizawa anchors the temporal and the ghostly with a transfixing pragmatism, and the result is a shifting, tessellated kaleidoscope of memory, architecture, history and grief." —Jessica Au
”This attempt to imprint upon humanity the experiences of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami in a way that only a novel can achieve deserves to be highly esteemed.” —Yoko Ogawa
”Here we find a form of language that attempts to venture, dancing, into a past enveloped in silence.” —Yoko Tawada
Central Otago Couture: The Eden Hore Collection by Jane Malthus and Claire Regnault, with photographs by Derek Henderson $70
In 1975, a makeshift museum opened on a farm in the tussocked hills of the Maniototo region of Central Otago. The main feature of this new attraction was the more than 220 high-end fashion garments on display. It has been called one of the most significant collections of its kind in Australasia. And it was housed in an old tractor shed. It had been amassed by J Eden Hore, a successful but quietly spoken high-country farmer — a man of many contrasts. He embodied and boldly defied the stereotype of the ' Southern Man' , confidently forging his own idiosyncratic path through life. Central Otago Couture tells the compelling story of his string of eccentric and memorable obsessions, from Miss New Zealand shows to a menagerie of animals, at the centre of which was his collection of over 270 high-fashion garments. The collection' s continued existence, acquired by the Central Otago District Council, honours and recognises the skills of New Zealand creatives and designers of the 1970s and 1980s, and represents a unique slice of couture fashion not found anywhere else in the country. To this end, fashion photographer Derek Henderson has captured these extraordinary garments in the empty majesty of the Central Otago landscapes that Eden Hore loved, bringing these stories to life for a new generation. [Hardback]
Dysphoria Mundi by Paul B. Preciado $48
A mutant text assembled from essays, philosophy, poetry and autofiction that captures a moment of profound change and possibility. Rooted in the isolation of the Covid-19 pandemic, and taking account of the societal convulsions that have ensued, Preciado tries to make sense of our times from within the swirl of a revolutionary present moment. The central thesis of this monumental work is that dysphoria, to be understood properly, should not be seen as a mental illness but rather as the condition that defines our times. Dysphoria is an abyss that separates a patriarchal, colonial and capitalist order hurtling toward its end from a new way of being that, until now, has been seen as unproductive and abnormal but is in fact the way out of our current predicament. With echoes of visionaries such as William S. Burroughs and Kathy Acker, Preciado's theoretical writing is propelled by lyric power while providing us with a critical toolbox full of new concepts that can guide our thinking and our actions: transition, cognitive emancipation, denormalization, disidentification, 'electronic heroin', digital coups, necro-kitsch. Dysphoria Mundi is Preciado's most accessible and significant work to date, in which he makes sense of a world in ruins around us and maps a joyous, radical way forward. [Paperback with French flaps]
"How lucky we are to have Paul Preciado as companion and interpreter of all we've just been through, with a global pandemic — luckier still is the gift of his revolutionary optimism, which runs through his thorough, gritty analysis of our current predicament. If you're tired of ricocheting between neofascists and doomer dudes, here comes Dysphoria Mundi to recast our situation as ‘the most beautiful (or devastating) collective adventure we have ever embarked on’, and give us new strategies and inspiration to reconceptualise — and stay on — the ride." —Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts
"Paul Preciado's singular genius is for writing vividly within the immediacy of everyday life, and then also unraveling from there the deeper historical forces that shape those moments. In Dysphoria Mundi we learn how the invisible traces of a virus thread bodies and societies together, lacing us into shifting regimes of power and commodification. Preciadio has that rare ability to lead the reader through familiar situations to unexpected conceptual insight. An essential thinker for the contemporary world." —McKenzie Wark, author of Reverse Cowgirl
”This monumental work brings the commitments of the bibliophile to bear on a time and a world now irreversibly out of joint. Drawing on theories of language, mind, technology, immunology to retell a story of this world, Preciado's work more firmly shatters the binaries responsible for the destruction of love and futurity." —Judith Butler
Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix (translated from French by Helen Stevenson) $43
In November 2021, an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the United Kingdom capsized in the Channel causing the death of 27 people on board. Despite receiving numerous calls for help, the French authorities wrongly told the migrants they were in British waters and had to call the British authorities for help. By the time rescue vessels arrived on the scene, all but two of the migrants had died. The narrator of Delecroix's fictional account of the events is the woman who took the calls. Accused of failing in her duty, she refuses to be held more responsible than others for this disaster. Why should she be more responsible than the sea, than the war, than the crises behind these tragedies? A shocking, moral tale of our times, Small Boat reminds us of the power of fiction to illuminate our darkest crimes. [Paperback]
”Following the disastrous deaths of 27 people, when a dinghy capsizes while crossing the Channel, the book’s narrator — who works for the French authorities and who had refused to send a rescue team — attempts to justify the indefensible and clear her conscience. In a world where heinous actions often have no consequence, where humanity’s moral code appears fragile, where governments can condemn whole swathes of society to poverty or erasure, Small Boat explores the power of the individual and asks us to consider the havoc we may cause others, the extent to which our complacency makes us complicit – and whether we could all do better. A gut-punch of a novel. “ —judges’ citation, International Booker Prize 2025
There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem (translated from French by Laëtitia Saint-Loubert and Karen Fleetwood) $42
The name Dessaintes is one to reckon with. A bombastic, violent and increasingly dangerous clan, little do they know that their downfall is being chronicled by one of their own. This is La Reunion in the 1980s: high unemployment and low expectations, the legacy of postcolonialism. One little girl makes a bid for escape from her sadistic parents' reign of terror and turns to school for salvation. Rich in the history of the island's customs and superstitions, and driven by a wild, offbeat humour, this picaresque tale manages to satirize the very notion of freedom available in this French territory, and perhaps even the act of writing itself and where it might lead you. [Paperback]
“A rollicking, sardonic picaresque set on the French outpost of La Réunion in the. 1980s. The novel has important things to say about colonialism and society, but it’s also tremendous fun — darkly funny, acerbic, energetic. There’s scarcely a dull moment on the page, and the translation is remarkably slick.” —judges’ citation, Republic of Consciousness Prize 2025
”A tour-de-force as volcanic as the little island of La Reunion, a tiny sliver of France marooned in the Indian Ocean, ‘a heap of rubble on the edge of the world’. The narrator of Gaëlle Bélem's novel, a little girl no-one wanted, the unloved daughter of the Dessaintes, is determined to be someone, to tell the story of her family, and through them the story of an island founded on slavery, poverty, cruelty and superstition with a caustic wit and a keen eye. It is a tragi-comedy worthy of Zola, candid and unflinching, yet shot through with humour and poignancy and even a glimmer of hope. Belem's novel is a joyous discovery and in Laetitia Saint-Loubert and Karen Fleetwood she has found translators alert to the nuances of French and Creole and to the poetry threaded through this startling debut.” —Frank Wynne
Pox Romana: The plague that shook the Roman world by Colin Elliott $70
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 ‘pre-existing 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 postpandemic crises. The pandemic's most transformative power, Elliott suggests, may have been its lingering presence as a threat both real and perceived. [Hardback]
”Enlightening. Elliott expertly draws on trace evidence such as census records, real estate contracts, and paleoclimate research to make his case. It's an informative history that serves to encourage better pandemic preparedness today." —Publishers Weekly
Mother Naked by Glen James Brown $38
The City of Durham, 1434. Out of a storm, an aging minstrel arrives at the cathedral to entertain the city's most powerful men. Mother Naked is his name, and the story he's come to tell is the Legend of the Fell Wraith: the gruesome 'walking ghost' some say slaughtered the nearby village of Segerston forty years earlier. But is this monster only a myth, born from the dim minds of toiling peasants? Or does the Wraith - and the murders - have roots in real events suffered by those fated to a lifetime of labour? As Mother Naked weaves the strands of the mystery — of class, religion, art and ale — the chilling truth might be closer to his privileged audience than they could ever imagine. Taking its inspiration from a single payment entered into Durham's Cathedral rolls, 'Modyr Nakett' was the lowest-paid performer in over 200 years of records. Set against the traumatic shadow of the Black Death and the Peasant's Revolt, Mother Naked speaks back from the margins, in a fury of imaginative recuperation. [Paperback]
”Exhilarating, freewheeling, brilliantly plotted and politically scathing, Mother Naked is a tour de force of language and style, and absolutely a novel for our times.” —Preti Taneja
Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda (translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches and Heather Cleary) $35
In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is Life as they fight, sew, skirt, cheat, cry, and lie their way through their tangled circumstances. From the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss to the victim of transfemicide, from a houseful of spinster seamstresses to a socialite who supports her politician husband by faking Indigenous roots, these women spit on their own reduction and invent new ways to survive, telling their stories in bold, unapologetic voices. At once social critique and black comedy, Reservoir Bitches is a raucous debut from one of Mexico's most thrilling new writers. [Paperback]
”Reservoir Bitches is a blisteringly urgent collection of interconnected stories about contemporary Mexican women. It absolutely bangs from the first page to the last. It’s extremely funny but deadly serious and we loved the energy and flair of the dual translators’ approach. It packs an enormous political and linguistic punch but is also subtle, revelatory and moving about the ways in which these women hustle, innovate, survive or don’t, in a world of labyrinthine dangers. This book weaves the riotous testimony of the living and the dead to create an expletive-rich feminist blast of Mexican literature. “ —judges’ citation, International Booker Prize 2025
How to Leave the World by Marouane Bakhti (translated from French by Lara Vergnaud) $40
Everyone is asking about his identity. Gay? Muslim? French? Moroccan? Instead of choosing a side, he writes a book. A book about the forest and the city, Paris and Tangiers, shame and forgiveness, dating apps and spiritual discovery. A book about growing up as a diaspora kid in rural France, with desires that want to emerge at any cost. Told in mesmerising prose, How to Leave the World is a beautiful non-answer. [Paperback]
One Day, Everyone Will Always Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad $38
As an immigrant, Omar El Akkad believed the West would be a place of freedom and justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the various Wars on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests and more, and watching the slaughter in Gaza, he has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. This powerful book is a chronicle of that painful realisation, a moral grappling with what it means — as a citizen of the US, as a father — to carve out some sense of possibility during these devastating times. [Paperback]
”This book is a howl from the heart of our age. I struggle to find more precise wording that might capture its ferocious, fracturing rage, as it seeks to describe the indescribable, make coherent an increasingly incoherent world.” —Richard Flanagan
”It is difficult to understand the nature of a true rupture while it is still tearing through the fabric of our world. Yet that is precisely what Omar El Akkad has accomplished, putting broken heart and shredded illusions into words with tremendous insight, skill and courage. A unique and urgently needed book.” —Naomi Klein
The Fermentation Kitchen: Recipes and techniques for kimchi, kombucha, koji, and more by Sam Cooper $48
Explore a wide range of authentic and adapted techniques from across cultures and continents and harness bacteria, yeast, and fungus to create a variety of ferments to add flavour to dishes, boost gut health, and give perishable produce a new lease of life. Reconnect with these natural processes and learn to incorporate ferments into your everyday cooking with guides to flavour, texture and aroma alongside recipe ideas serving as inspiration. [Hardback]
”Definitely the best koji book in the world written in English by far!” —Haruko Uchishiba, founder of The Koji Fermentaria
Cities Made Differently by David Graeber and Nika Dubrovsky $40
Full of playful graphics, provocative questions, and curious facts, this book asks what makes a city and how we might make them differently. What makes a city a city? Who says? Drafted over decades out of a dialogue between artist and author Nika Dubrovsky, the late anthropologist David Graeber, and Nika's then four-year-old son, this delightful and provocative book opens a space for invention and collaboration. Fusing anthropology, literature, play, and drawing, the book is essentially a visual essay that asks us to reconsider our ideas about cities and the people who inhabit them. Drawing us into a world of history and myth, science and imagination, Graeber and Dubrovsky invite us to rethink the worlds we inhabit — because we can, and nothing is too strange or too wonderful to be true. With inspired pictures and prompts, Cities Made Differently asks what a city is, or could be, or once was. Sleeping at the bottom of the ocean? Buried in lava? What were those cities of long ago, and what will the cities of the future be? They might be virtual, ruled by AI, or islands of beautiful architecture afloat in seas of greenery. They might be utopian places of refuge or refugee camps as far as the eye can see. On land, underground or aloft, excavated or imagined, cities, this book tells us in provocative and funny ways, can be anything we want them to be-and what we want them to be can tell us something about who we are. [Paperback]
An Architecture of Hope: Reimagining the prison, Restoring a house, Rebuilding myself by Yvonne Jewkes $48
Should architecture be used for punishment? How might the spaces we inhabit nurture or damage us? How can we begin to start over after the worst has happened? Criminologist Yvonne Jewkes grapples with these questions every day as the world's leading expert on rehabilitative prison design; she also faces them in her personal life when her partner of 25 years leaves her in the middle of a nightmare renovation project and then lockdown sees her trapped there. Used to fighting the punitive prison system to create spaces that encourage reflection, healing, even hope for those incarcerated, she must learn to be similarly compassionate to herself, as she considers what might help someone at the lowest point in their life to rebuild. There are 11.5 million prisoners worldwide, and most of them will eventually be released back into society. Yvonne asks, 'Who would you rather have living next door to you? Or sitting on the train next to your daughter? Someone who has been treated with decency in an environment that has helped to heal them and instilled hope for their future? Or someone who has effectively been caged and dehumanised for years?' Challenging our expectations of what prisons are for, she takes us along their corridors, into cells, communal spaces, visitors' areas, and staffrooms, to the architects' studios where they are designed, and even into her own home, to show us the importance of an architecture of hope in the face of despair. [Hardback]
”A book full of insights to illuminate the way we look at architecture. Jewkes's beautiful descriptions not only evoke the feel of the air in a space, but also reveal the moral significance of its design. So refreshingly distinctive from other types of prison books — a beautiful meditation on the universal need for sanctuary, what it means when it is taken away from us, and the courage it takes to reclaim it.” —Andy West
”Yvonne Jewkes takes a vital question — what are prisons for? — and turns it into a much wider and beautifully written reflection on the meaning of home. Her book is full of hard-won authority and expertise conveyed in tenderly human ways.” —Joe Moran
Einstein in Kafkaland: How Albert fell down the rabbit hole and came up with the universe by Ken Krimstein $55
A fascinating and superbly executed graphic biography. During the year that Prague was home to both Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka from 1911-1912, the trajectory of the two men's lives wove together in uncanny ways — as did their shared desire to tackle the world's biggest questions in Europe's strangest city. In stunning words and pictures, Einstein in Kafkaland reveals the untold story of how their worlds wove together in a cosmic battle for new kinds of truth. For Einstein, his lost year in Prague became a critical bridge set him on the path to what many consider the greatest scientific discovery of all time, his General Theory of Relativity. And for Kafka, this charmed year was a bridge to writing his first masterpiece, ‘The Judgment’. Based on diaries, lectures, letters, and papers from this period amid a planet electrifying itself into modernity, Einstein in Kafkaland brings to life the emergence of a new world where art and science come together in ways we still grapple with today. [Hardback]
"Clever, charming, amusing, and just plain brilliant. Ken Krimstein is the most inventive graphic biographer on the planet-and certainly the only one who could explain both Einstein and Kafka. A page turner on gravity and relativity!" —Kai Bird
Squares and Other Shapes with Joseph Albers $25
This book uses the vivid artworks of Josef Albers to guide small children through a wide range of geometrics, one artwork per page, beginning with squares and returning to them as a familiar refrain throughout. The variations between the vibrant shapes adds to the book’s visual richness, and the accompanying text provides an engaging commentary that will encourage discussion. Josef Albers was a leading pioneer of 20th-century Modernism, best known for his ‘Homages to the Square’ paintings and his publication Interaction of Colour. Albers was a teacher, a writer, a painter, and a theorist. In this attractive book, his art is used to teach shapes, one of the most important concepts for young children to learn. [Board book]