NEW RELEASES (5.1.26)
New books for a new year! Click through to our website (or just email us) to secure your copies. We will dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.
Helm by Sarah Hall $38
Helm is a ferocious, mischievous wind — a subject of folklore and wonder, who has blasted the sublime landscape of the Eden Valley since the very dawn of time. This is Helm's life story, formed from the chronicles of those the wind enchanted: the Neolithic tribe who tried to placate it, the Dark Age wizard priest who wanted to banish it, the Victorian steam engineer who attempted to capture it - and the farmer's daughter who fell in love. But now Dr Selima Sutar, surrounded by measuring instruments, alone in her observation hut, fears the end is nigh. Rich, wild and vital, Helm is the elemental tale of a unique life force — and of a relationship: between nature and people, neither of whom can weather life without the other. [Paperback]
”Hall makes language shimmer and burn.” —Damon Galgut
”No one writes like Sarah Hall.” —Sarah Perry
”I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers.” —Benjamin Myers
”A wondrous, elemental novel from a writer of show-stopping genius.” —Guardian
”Hall's writing is alchemical, magnificent, divine, bodily. Here are new ways to understand what it feels like to be human. Here are books to cherish. I lay myself at the altar of everything Hall writes.” —Daisy Johnson
>>The wind was like a childhood friend.
>>Slow motion.
Slanting Towards the Sea by Lidija Hilje $28
Spanning across twenty years and one life-altering summer in Croatia, Slanting Towards the Sea is at once an unforgettable love story and a powerful exploration of what it means to come of age in a country younger than oneself. Ivona divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago. They met as students at the turn of the millennium, when newly democratic Croatia was alive with hope and promise. But the challenges of living in a burgeoning country extinguished Ivona's dreams one after another — and a devastating secret forced her to set him free. Now Vlaho is remarried and a proud father of two, while Ivona's life has taken a downward turn. In her thirties, she has returned to her childhood home to care for her ailing father. Bewildered by life's disappointments, she finds solace in reconnecting with Vlaho and is welcomed into his family by his spirited new wife, Marina. But when a new man enters Ivona's life, the carefully cultivated dynamic between the three is disrupted, forcing a reckoning for all involved.
Set against the mesmerizing Croatian coastline, Slanting Towards the Sea is a cinematic, emotionally searing debut about the fragile nature of potential and the transcendence of love. [Paperback with French flaps]
”With illuminating prose and gripping storytelling, Lidija Hilje ascertains her place as an exciting new voice in world's literature. Slanting Towards the Sea is a love letter to Croatia and to anyone who dares to dream.” —Nguyen Phan Que Mai
”Oh, what a beautiful book this is — deeply felt, humane, gorgeously written. Hilje's prose is positively hypnotic — I sunk in and didn't want to come up for air.” —Claire Lombardo
>>Trying and failing to write a universal story.
The Devil Book by Asta Olivia Nordenhof (translated from Danish by Caroline Waight) $38
A classic girl-meets-boy-meets-devil story. A woman meets a man on a train in Copenhagen and agrees to visit him in London. While she sits out a two-week Covid quarantine in his apartment, she begins to tell her story. Years ago and desperate for money, she sold herself to a stranger called T. He offered her a suitcase full of money and lavish gifts in exchange for total control of her body. In the bed between them lay a large kitchen knife and the promise of an iconic death. But at the last moment, she aborted the treacherous game and fled. Now in London, she reflects on the forces — financial and social — that led her to the brink of destruction, and wonders what it would take to believe in love again. Frank, intimate and dazzling entertaining, The Devil Book takes us from Copenhagen to London to the inside of a mental institution, as well as a fancy apartment block, this unmissable stand-alone novel is the follow up to the critically-acclaimed Money to Burn. [Hardback]
”Covering much of the same ground as her last novel — the interrelation between money, sex, violence and gender, capital's power to console or benumb — The Devil Book shares the same bristling, didactic prose, but with a welcome barbed humour. a lacerating literary harnessing of rage at a decrepit system, held together by Nordenhof's defiantly unique voice.” —Financial Times
>>Writing as a political act.
>>Money to Burn.
Portrait of an Island on Fire by Ariel Saramandi $45
A deeply moving and revelatory reading experience, the essays collected in Portrait of an Island on Fire form a searing account of Mauritius at a crucial moment in its history. Unceasing in its critiques of racist, patriarchal abuses of power, in its unpicking of the ills at the core of contemporary Mauritian society and their roots, the collection is a milestone in thinking about the lasting social and political effects of colonialism and how they play out at the level of government policy, the handling of environmental issues, in schools, in hospitals, in families, in language. For all its well-placed anger, Ariel Saramandi’s sparklingly intelligent and intimate debut is full of love and momentum – a push for a better future for Mauritius and, by extension, for the world. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Ariel Saramandi's interweaving essay collection presents a courageous, stringent and mesmerizing portrait of the island, her home, and the social and political effects of colonialism. She's a great writer.” —Wendy Erskine, The Observer
”Portrait of an Island on Fire is a fascinating look at Mauritius, a personal account of a homeland told with rage, rigour and love. Saramandi brilliantly, subtly teases out the threads of Mauritian history, politics and culture, honouring both the particularities of this unique place and showing the troubled connections — rapacious capitalism, racism, creeping authoritarianism, right-wing paranoia — that seem to stretch across the whole of our fragile planet. This is a beautifully written book of deep knowledge, righteous anger and fierce hope.'“ —Lydia Kiesling, author of Mobility
”Ariel Saramandi is a courageous and mesmerising new voice, a chronicler of contemporary Mauritius whose writing refracts the influences of her Mauritian compatriots, Ananda Devi, Nathacha Appanah and Shenaz Patel in French, Lindsey Collen in English, in a voice which is wholly her own. Portrait of an Island on Fire unpicks the knots of Mauritius's entangled histories — of plantation slavery, of indentured labour, of colonisation, of communalism and patriarchy — laying out the threads which make up her own history of ancestral oppression and structure her lived experience of privilege and pain; which form the fabric of contemporary capitalist Mauritius, and its particular intersections of race, class, gender, and language - its politics - and its particular forms of the white supremacy, anti-Blackness and toxic masculinity acted out on the bodies of those without power the world over. Saramandi is laser-focused in her rage, joyful in both her refusal to look away, and in her insistence on what sustains her: writing, motherhood, her marriage, friendships, community - and the beauty of her island.” —Natasha Soobramanien, co-author of Diego Garcia
False War by Carlos Manuel Álvarez (translated by Natasha Wimmer) $37
What is the difference between an immigrant, someone living in exile, and a refugee? The characters in False War are ambivalent castaways living lives of deep estrangement from their home country, stranded in an existential no-man’s land. Some of them want to leave and can’t, others left and never quite finished getting anywhere. In this choral novel, employing a dazzling range of narrative styles from noir to autofiction, Carlos Manuel Álvarez brings together a series of interconnected stories of the perennially displaced. From Havana to Mexico City to Miami, from New York to Paris to Berlin, whether toiling in a barber shop, lost in the Louvre, competing in a chess hall in Cuba, plotting a theft, or on a trip for émigré dissidents, these characters learn that while they may appear to be on the move, in reality they are paralysed, living in permanent stasis. With a fractured narrative that brilliantly reflects the disintegration that comes with uprooting, full of tenderness, disenchantment and melancholy, False War is an extraordinary novel that confirms Carlos Manuel Álvarez as one of the indispensable voices of his generation. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Carlos Manuel Álvarez’s second novel is a hugely rewarding, polyphonic narrative of migration from Cuba. Through its characters’ rich and eccentric interior worlds, it gives articulation to people whose lives are often reduced to stereotypes and offers a new vision of migration. False War is a rich and capacious novel that has much to say about our contemporary moment.” — Arin Keeble, Guardian
”Álvarez has not fashioned a linear story, but braided these threads together into a polyphonic motet of voices that are alternately sardonic, weary and, above all, angry. It is a tribute to Wimmer’s peerless translation that she effortlessly captures their range, cadence, humour and rage. False War is a poignant study of exile and exclusion, one that avoids the easy tropes of nostalgia and sentimentality: for Álvarez, exile is not an escape but a condition – permanent, internal and profoundly personal.” —Frank Wynne, Irish Times
”I was blown away by this novel. Nothing in the story is reducible. Its formal ambition is met by its execution, and the effect is staggering. Álvarez is an immense writer, a generational talent, and this, for me, is a generation-defining work.” — Michael Magee
Good Girl by Aria Aber $37
In Berlin's underground, where techno rattles buildings still scarred with the violence of the last century, nineteen-year-old Nila finds her tribe. In their company she can escape the parallel city that made her, the public housing block packed with refugees and immigrants, where the bathrooms are infested with silverfish and the walls outside are graffitied with swastikas. Escaping into the clubs, Nila tries to outrun the shadow of her dead mother, once a feminist revolutionary; her catatonic, defeated father; and the cab-driver uncles who seem to idle on every corner. To anyone who asks, her family is Greek, not Afghani. And then Nila meets American writer Marlowe Woods, whose literary celebrity, though fading, opens her eyes to a world of patrons and festivals, one that imbues her dreams of life as an artist with new possibility. But as she finds herself drawn further into his orbit and ugly, barely submerged tensions begin to roil and claw beneath the city's cosmopolitan veneer, everything she hopes for, hates, and believes about herself will be challenged. [Paperback]
”Aber touches the heart of a young woman struggling to find herself in the heat of clashing cultures ... You'll be immediately arrested by the haunting beauty of her work and the way desire pushes against the seams of despair.” —Washington Post
”At heart, the novel is about the allure of freedom and the estrangement from others that is the cost of both exile and artistic creation. Aber writes with the masterful precision of an archivist. Exile, migration, displacement: These will splinter even the most solid self. But out of the shards, it is possible to make art, as Nila finally realizes — and as Aber has done in this touching novel.” —The Atlantic
”Captures the ache of Muslim girlhood and the vertigo of never feeling quite at home. Aber ingests the millennial playbook and spits out something that happens to be more interesting.” —Vulture
>>Identity and exile.
My First Ikura: A story for growing girls and their whānau by Qiane Matata-Sipu and Isobel Joy Te Aho-White $30
Rooted in te ao Māori, My First Ikura is a beautifully illustrated children’s book that follows a young girl’s first period, guided by the support of her whānau. More than a story of physical change, it celebrates womanhood as a sacred rite of passage. Addresses first menstruation through a Māori cultural framework. Emphasises ceremony, family support and ancestral wisdom — also includes a specially written karakia for families to learn together. Nicely illustrated and produced. [Hardback]
>>Look inside.
Crucible of Light: Islam and the forging of Europe from the 8th to the 21st century by Elizabeth Drayson $45
Drayson pulls together the epic interwoven history of the Muslim and Christian worlds over an 800-year span, taking in the conquest and re-conquest of Spain, the meteoric rise of Arabo-Norman Sicily, the Ottoman renaissance of the 16th to 18th centuries, the ebb and flow of Balkan history and the fate of contested islands like Cyprus and Malta, with their very different outcomes. Focusing on major turning points, individual stories and key places, from Mecca to Cordoba, from Damascus to Venice, and from Vienna to Istanbul, Drayson tracks unifying themes — classical learning preserved in Islamic libraries, the enduring influence of Moorish architecture and design, the food, the goods traded and the continuing discourse between individuals and cultures that has permeated Europe's history and shaped its borders. Drayson also explores the growing dialogue between Muslims and Christians across Europe today, a dialogue prefigured in the history of medieval and early modern Europe, in which harmony and enlightenment rise above perennial conflicts. These ideas challenge the way contemporary European identity is defined and point to the vital impact of Islamic civilisation upon the continent. Surprisingly few people are aware of how much Europe owes to its Islamic heritage except via pockets of tourism, and this book aims to correct that while exploring the endless complexities that this vexed relationship throws up. At a time when Islam is so narrowly identified with terrorism and migration in Europe it is a necessary corrective. [Paperback]
Taco (‘Object Lessons’ series) by Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado $23
Taco is a deep dive into the most iconic Mexican food from the perspective of a Mexico City native. In a narrative that moves from Mexico to the United States and back, Sánchez Prado discusses the definition of the taco, the question of the tortilla and the taco shell, and the existence of the taco as a modern social touchstone that has been shaped by history and geography. Challenging the idea of centrality and authenticity, Sánchez Prado shows instead that the taco is a contemporary, transcultural food that has always been subject to transformation. [Paperback with French flaps]
>>Other books in the ‘Object Lessons’ series.
Physics for Cats: Science cartoons by Tom Gauld $38
What happens to a cat who goes through a wormhole? Find out why every scientist worth their sodium chloride has a Tom Gauld cartoon taped to their electron microscope. This new batch of hilarious gags will be as important to every self-respecting scientist as a lab coat and goggles and oversize rubber gloves. Find out what the hadron's news alert about CERN says! Everyone asks, "What is dark matter?" and "Where is dark matter?" but do they ever take the time to ask, "How is dark matter?" Based all on previous data, we can predict with a 99.99% certainty that you will either laugh, guffaw, chortle or snort (we don't have a large enough sample set to be able to say which particular type of mirth you will experience). [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
We Are Your Children: A history of LGBTQ+ activism by David Roberts $65
A gorgeously illustrated, accessible celebration of queer activism, by the creator of the award-winning Suffragette, David Roberts. With an afterword by Juno Dawson. Touching on major moments in the story of the fight for LGBTQ+ rights including the Stonewall Uprising, the first Gay Pride Rally and the dazzling history of drag and the ballroom scene, We Are Your Children is a wide-ranging and inclusive account of a multifaceted movement, with detailed and characterful colour artwork. This book showcases figures from queer history like Harvey Milk, Julian Hows, Carla Toney, Crystal LaBeija, We Wha, Vincent Jones, Marsha P. Johnson, Alan Turing, Sylvia Rivera and many more. From the secret slang adopted by gay Londoners in the 60s, to the decades of sit-ins and marches, there are countless fascinating stories to be told: stories of resistance, friendship, love, fear, division, unity and astonishing perseverance in the face of discrimination and oppression. Encyclopedic in scope, this will expand anyone’s knowledge and understanding. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!