NEW RELEASES (3.9.26)

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Girl, 1983 by Linn Ullmann (translated from Norwegian by Martin Aitken) $28
Paris, a winter's night in 1983. She is sixteen years old, lost in unfamiliar streets. On a scrap of paper in her pocket is the address of a photographer, K, thirty years her senior. Almost four decades later, as her life and the world around her begins to unravel, the grown woman seeks to comprehend the young girl of before and looks for ways to disclose a long-guarded secret. Set in Oslo, New York and Paris, Girl, 1983 is a genre-defying and bravura quest through layers of memory and oblivion — a raw and haunting exposure of beauty and forgetting, desire and shame, power and powerlessness. [Paperback]
'A masterpiece. It pushes the fused power of memoir and story to a new dimension.' —Ali Smith
'Ullmann's gaze on the power and pain of a teenage girl as remembered and restaged by her adult self is unflinching and startling.' —Deborah Levy
’Linn Ullmann's writing, already distinct for its rare moral clarity, attains a new authority in Girl, 1983. It is the authority of focus, of a grip on life that grows more tenacious as its scope determinedly narrows. In the manner of Annie Ernaux, Ullmann uses the act of attention as a weapon against indifference. It is as though, by reconstructing the disorder of certain realities, she is able to confer sanity on them. Yet there is also a brightness and generosity to her work that seems to turn its themes — the powerlessness of youth and femininity, the intermingling of memory and shame — inside out.’ —Rachel Cusk
>>Pretexts.

Simple Too by Yotam Ottolenghi $75
For the three million home cooks around the world who loved Simple, Ottolenghi brings us 135 brand-new easy recipes that are full of flavour, intensity and creativity. It’s a noisy world out there, so stop, take a minute or two, listen to the soup bubble or the egg crackle... and let simple cooking be your solution. Bring Yotam Ottolenghi’s innovation to your everyday with 135 new recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. Every dish has simplicity at its core and can be made in under 30 minutes, cooked in one pot, or prepped ahead. Whatever your barriers to cooking, this book brings you into the kitchen with a promise that even the simplest of meals can be full of flavour and joy.  [Hardback]

Sunrise by Téa Obreht $38
Three lives, 100 years, one forgotten town. In 2024, Nina's small aircraft crashes into a lake in the Wyoming mountains. Lost, freezing and alone on the shore, Nina stumbles upon Sunrise — an abandoned frontier town that is strangely well-maintained. In 2003, Sunrise's golden boy Coll is about to start rehearsals for the town's annual historical reenactment when he is linked with a scandalous incident at a local bar. And when an author comes to him with questions about one of Sunrise's most beloved figures, Coll is forced to reassess everything he thought he knew about the city — and himself. In 1902, town founder, gunslinger and adventure-novel hero Anton Vargas returns to Sunrise and helps the search for a missing boy. But who really is Vargas? What does he know about the boy's disappearance? And why has he returned after so many years away? These three are strangers, separated by time. But Sunrise has secrets that lie waiting like gunpowder: quiet, until they encounter a spark. From the author of The Tiger's Wife comes a novel that challenges the myths we think we know: of heroes and villains, of the places we lay claim to, and most of all, of our own lives. [Paperback]
 “I've loved every book Tea Obreht has written but I might love this one the most. It's tense and beautifully constructed, and it features Obreht's signature precision when it comes to both language and emotion. Please put this book into the hands of everyone you know.” —Liz Moore
”Sunrise is an engrossing, original and thought-provoking novel, effortlessly readable and beautifully told.” —Nina Allan,Guardian
>>No spoilers.
>>An intertextual tale of the American ‘Wild West’.

Pocket Observology: A field guide by Giselle Clarkson $28
Slip this practical field guide out of your pocket to identify, measure, compare, or find clues to the things you encounter every day in nature This pocket guide is a useful tool and fun reminder of how to look at the world around you with care and close observation every day. Use it to identify whether you've found a bee or wasp, centipede or millipede, moth or butterfly. Compare shapes of seeds, leaves, and feathers to deduce their origin. Notice snail trails and make discoveries by turning over a leaf. Learn how to observe—listen, look, record, and collect. With its how-to guides, comic illustrations, weatherproof cover, and built-in, useful tools—such as a ruler, key, and quick access sections—this handy guide will enliven every expedition. After poring over Giselle Clarkson's rich, oversized books indoors, every observologist and omnibirder can slip this guide in their pocket and set out on small scientific outings every day. [Paperback with French flaps]
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>>Get The Observologist too!.
>>And Omnibird!

Offshore Service, And other stories by Craig Cliff $35
'But I couldn't go home just yet. I would not be a man in anyone's eyes. That's how I wound up working for Anton, servicing the coal ships stranded off the coast.' In Offshore Service and Other Stories, award-winning author Craig Cliff explores the emotional, economic, cultural and climatic forces that drive our decisions.Farmers search for purpose on holiday in Fiji. A well-heeled Dunedin suburb receives an influx of refugees. Tensions flare at an Anzac Day barbecue in Perth. Playing out in recognisable settings these stories follow characters who find themselves beyond familiar shores, struggling to reconcile the passage of time, thwarted aspirations and unexpected responsibilities. What unfolds is explored with humour, heart and hopefulness through a mix of classic storytelling and innovative forms. [Paperback]
'Craig Cliff adds to the canon, but with such ambition, creativity and sheer energy that he shows there's still something new to say about a national narrative that can seem, at times, to hold no surprises.' - Charlotte Graham, New York Times

South Island Māori Rock Art by Philippa F. Graham $90
South Island Māori rock drawings, dating back to early Māori occupation, were examined as scientific curiosities by many early European explorers and, later, museum curators, including Julius von Haast, Alexander Hamilton, Robert Speight, W.H. Skinner and H.D. Skinner. Early on there was the inevitable debate in European circles about the artistic merits of the rock drawings, but their value to both local and international collectors is indicated by the fact that many artworks were vandalised — in 1916, motifs were first cut out of major sites by one Mr Elmore, a visiting American, encouraged by a few acquisitive museum curators. South Island Māori Rock Art: European interest from the 19th century to the present is the culmination of many years of exploring and checking the sites by local farmer Philippa Graham, encouraged by landowners, field staff from the Department of Lands and Survey and the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Examination of the Historic Places Trust records revealed numerous past reports about the drawings but little effective protection until recent years, and little has been written about the history of these fascinating sites since Michael Trotter and Beverley McCulloch’s popular 1971 publication, Prehistoric Rock Art of New Zealand. In South Island Māori Rock Art, Graham calls on her research at all of the major New Zealand institutions, in addition to the Thomas Burke Museum, Seattle. She has uncovered a plethora of fresh material about the sites, the landowners, the governments of the times, archaeologists’ contributions, museums’ involvement, library records and attitudes towards local Māori in early days. Accompanied by more than 350 illustrations and maps, an index and a Māori glossary, South Island Māori Rock Art concludes with a chapter focusing on New Zealand artists who have been inspired by the rock drawings. [Exhaustively illustrated hardback]
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Street, Palace, Square: The architecture of democratic spaces by Jan-Werner Müller $50
Can architecture ever be democratic? Building requires power and resources — then, once created, our built environment structures how we relate to each other. What would a distinctly democratic built environment look like?  Should we prioritise an inclusive process by which as many citizens as possible can decide how a building is designed? Or is it about how architecture and urban spaces can best represent democracy to citizens — and how building and city planning can concretely facilitate democratic action by citizens? Political theorist Jan-Werner Müller offers an elegant new account of architecture and democracy that draws on examples from Washington DC to Dhaka, Cairo to Berlin. Ranging widely across political philosophy, history and design, he shows that bringing architecture and democracy together has an unexpected benefit. As we reflect on spaces and symbols on the one hand and our understandings of democracy on the other, we might see possibilities we did not see before: how to create spaces for citizens to make politics their own. [Hardback]

Essays on the Self by Virginia Woolf $30
The essays in this collection are, of course, not merely concerned with the self. Virginia Woolf does also discuss the rights of women, the revolutions of modernity, the past, present and future of the novel. She is eloquent on social inequality and the agony of war. She is a robust literary antiquarian, she rakes through the past in search of treasure. She is transfixed, as well, by the aesthetic contests of the present, the dynamic incompleteness of her era. She fights with local demons, she mocks those who mock her, and generally prevails. The essays chosen here were written between 1919 when Woolf was 37 and 1940 when she was 58. During this time, Woolf changed, many times over, her opinions changed, her circumstances too; she was not a fixed entity. With an introduction by Joanna Kavenna. [Hardback]
"The book explores the idea of the self in a very thought-provoking way and is a real treat for Woolf fans who like to analyze the more complex themes and ideas in her works." —Virginia Woolf blog
"Underpinning all of the essays is the question of what it means to have a sense of self. A question that, in the age of the selfie, seems utterly topical." —Julia Bell, University College London

The Drunken Boat: Selected writings by Arthur Rimbaud (translated from French by Mark Polizzotti) $45
Poet, prodigy, precursor, punk — the short, precocious, uncompromisingly rebellious career of the poet Arthur Rimbaud is one of the legends of modern literature. By the time he was twenty, Rimbaud had written a series of poems that are not only masterpieces in themselves but that forever transformed the idea of what poetry is. Without him, surrealism is inconceivable, and his influence is palpable in artists as diverse as Henry Miller, John Ashbery, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith. In this essential volume, renowned translator Mark Polizzotti offers authoritative and inspired new versions of Rimbaud's major poems and letters, including generous selection of Illuminations and the entirety of his lacerating confession A Season in Hell — capturing not only the meaning but also the daredevil attitudes and incantatory rhythms that make Rimbaud's works among the most perpetually modern of his or any other generation. [Paperback]
"Mark Polizzotti is, without any doubt, right there with the very best translators of symbolist or any other French poetry, and here he surpasses even himself." —Mary Ann Caws

Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and hope in modern Iran by Yeganeh Torbati and Bozorgmehr Sharafedin $45
Fuelled by Iranians' dreams of social justice and political freedom, the 1979 revolution swept aside the US-backed shah's ailing repressive monarchy. But the revolution itself was taken over by an Islamic fundamentalist faction led by Ayatollah Khomeini, and the system built by his followers has been repressive of dissent and non-conformity, and has a poor record on human rights and freedoms. Journalists Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati tell the entwined stories of six Iranians, providing a new lens on Iran's recent history in all its bitter twists and stubborn hope. Mehdi Karroubi — a devotee of Khomeini, he rose to the heights of power on the wave of the revolution, before being cast out of its inner circle. Hila Sedighi — a young activist, who gave voice through her poetry to her peers' hopes during the reform years and ultimately immortalised their shattered dreams. Amir Moghadam — an ambitious government bureaucrat, who witnessed corruption and graft on a scale that impelled him to take enormous risks to expose the truth. Said Rahmani — a successful global tech entrepreneur who returned to Iran to spark a start-up boom in his native country, and encountered a ruthless security state that wanted his company for itself. Rozhin Yousefzadeh and Kosar Eftekhari — both born in the 1990s, they escaped their gendered destinies by leaving their hometowns for Tehran, where they joined a mass movement that confronted a ferocious state apparatus: the Woman Life Freedom protests. Each paid an enormous price. Stolen Revolution offers a new story of Iran, centring ordinary Iranians' lives, whilst providing understanding of how life is actually lived under a modern authoritarian state. [Paperback]
”This account of the Islamic Republic and its discontents told via six contrasting lives should be required reading. Bozorgmehr Sharafedin and Yeganeh Torbati's powerful history of the Islamic republic is a badly needed corrective because it is at once an engrossing story and a balanced, meticulously researched primer on modern Iran (the clearest I've ever read). It is dramatic, personal and often heartbreaking.” —Dina Nayeri, Guardian

Growing Vegetables: A simple guide for New Zealand gardeners by Sarah O’Neil $40
Completely revised edition of the old classic, this is everything a new gardener needs, and this is the perfect season to begin. Packed with tips and techniques, planning charts, and places to record notes, it’s a handy resource of trusted, reliable gardening information, quick to access and easy to understand. Growing Vegetables is like having an expert at your elbow, sleeves rolled up, ready to lend a hand and offer great advice. Illustrated throughout.
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