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Lili Is Crying by Hélène Bessette (translated from French by Kate Briggs) $30
Lili is Crying, Hélène Bessette's debut novel, explores the fraughtness and depth of the troubling relationship between Lili and her mother Charlotte. With a near-mythic quality, Bessette's stripped-back prose evokes at once the pain of thwarted love — of desire run cold — and the promise of renewal. Lauded by critics on its initial publication in 1953 for its boundary-pushing style, Lili is Crying marked the beginning of a singular writing career. Bessette's work is here translated into English for the first time. [Paperback with French flaps]
”In Hélène Bessette’s novel Lili is Crying, the tears are unavoidable. They’re in the title, and ten pages in, I was emailing everyone I could about the book. It felt electric and urgent, as if Bessette should have long been in my canon, with Ingeborg Bachmann or Elizabeth Hardwick, Lynne Tillman and Annie Ernaux. Lili shares the cartoon’s casual violence, which is not to say the novel is comic, though at times it is, yes, darkly funny. It is beautiful, brutal.” —Jennifer Kabat, 4 Columns
”Kate Briggs’s deft translation brings Hélène Bessette’s novel into English for the first time. Bessette plays with line breaks and typography, exercising what Eimear McBride refers to in her beautiful introduction as ‘formal indiscipline’. Lili is Crying is the loudest book I have ever read. From Lili’s ‘desperate sobs’ to the ‘trumpeting love’ of Lili and the shepherd, the writing rattles like a set of cutlery in a tumble dryer. Miraculously, all the noise coheres into an elegant symphony.” —Oonagh Devitt-Tremblay, Literary Review
”I’m grateful to Kate Briggs for her translation of Lili is Crying – a tragic, comic, invigorating book with an eccentric staccato style that blurs speech and thought.” —Kathryn Scanlan
The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey $40
A genre-bending story about breaking — both of the heart and literary form itself. The sudden, devastating breakup of a relationship in the winter of 2021 left Catherine Lacey depressed and adrift. She began cataloguing the wreckage of her life and the beauty of her friendships, a process that led to the writing of fiction that was both entirely imagined and strangely, utterly true. She soon realised that she was writing about her relationship with faith. Betrayed by the mercurial partner she had trusted and suddenly catapulted into the unknown, Lacey's appetite vanished completely, a visceral reminder of the teenage emaciation that followed the ending of her belief in God. Bending form, both she and her fictional characters recall gnostic experiences with animals, close encounters with male anger, grief-driven lust and the redemptive power of platonic love and narrative itself. A hybrid work that is both non-fiction and fiction with no beginning and no ending, The Möbius Book troubles the line between memory and imagination with an open-hearted defence of faith's inherent danger. [Hardback]
''A deliciously weird mix of theology, allegory and dark humour; The Moebius Book is every bit as brilliant and electrifying as everything Lacey has ever written.'' —Sara Baume
''A page-turner in both directions, The Moebius Book explores some of the most propulsive questions at the core of human intimacy. I was absolutely spellbound.'' —Leslie Jamison
>>Read from either end!
>>Infinite regress.
>>Now and next.
Orlanda by Jacqueline Harpman (translated from French by Ros Schwartz) $26
There's a voice in Aline's head — a voice that wants out. Brash, boisterous and sexually adventurous, this voice seems to be the antithesis of Aline, a prim literature professor for whom each day promises to be as quiet and conventional as the last. That is until, after thirty-five years of imprisonment, her alter ego breaks free. Taking on a life of his own, Orlanda — Aline's second self — slips into the taut, rugged body of a young man. As Aline continues unaware, Orlanda follows, dragging gleeful chaos in his wake, vowing to leave both their existences forever altered. From the author of I Who Have Never Known Men. [Paperback]
>>Chaos ensues.
Whenua $70
At nearly 400 pages, this beautifully designed book from the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū is rich with large images of paintings, prints, sculptures, weaving, carving, ceramics, photographs and moving image artworks. The landscapes of Aotearoa New Zealand have long been a powerful source of inspiration for artists. This major new book explores the importance of whenua in our art history through the work of more than 100 of this country’s most celebrated artists. Beginning in Te Waipounamu and reaching outwards, across Aotearoa and beyond to Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, the Pacific, Whenua thoughtfully explores ideas of identity and belonging, kaitiakitaka, land use, migration, environmentalism and activism through a selection of important historical and contemporary artworks. A vibrant and very readable range of texts, interviews and perspectives by leading writers—including Su Ballard, Emalani Case, Huhana Smith, Cosmo Kentish-Barnes, Lily Lee, Hana O’Regan, Rebecca Rice, Matariki Williams and many more—provides insight into the many ways that whenua is fundamental to the visual language and identity of the arts in Aotearoa. Artists include: Mark Adams, Rita Angus, John Gibb, Bill Hammond, Louise Henderson, Ralph Hotere, Lonnie Hutchinson, Robyn Kahukiwa, Emily Karaka, Doris Lusk, Riki Manuel, Colin McCahon, John Miller, Buck Nin, John Pule, Bridget Reweti, Baye Pewhairangi Riddel, Olivia Spencer Bower, Margaret Stoddart, Bill Sutton, Wi Taepa, Areta Wilkinson and many more. Beautifully presented and full of both iconic and surprising images. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovitz $38
What’s left when your kids grow up and leave home? When Tom Layward’s wife had an affair, he resolved to leave her as soon as his youngest daughter turned 18. Twelve years later, while driving her to Pittsburgh to start university, he remembers his pact. He is also on the run from his own health issues, and the fact that he’s been put on leave at work after students complained about the politics of his law class — something he hasn’t yet told his wife. So, after dropping Miriam off, he keeps driving, with the vague plan of visiting various people from his past — an old college friend, his ex-girlfriend, his brother, his son — on route, maybe, to his father’s grave in California. Pitch perfect, quietly exhilarating and moving, The Rest of Our Lives is a novel about family, marriage and those moments which may come to define us. [Paperback]
Short-listed for the 2025 Booker Prize.
”It’s clear author Ben Markovits has spent time teaching. This novel speaks like a much-loved professor, one whose classes have a terribly long waitlist. It’s matter of fact, effortlessly warm, and it uses the smallest parts of human behaviour to uphold bigger themes, like mortality, sickness, and love. The Rest of Our Lives is a novel of sincerity and precision. We found it difficult to put it down.” —Booker Prize judges’ citation
”The Rest of Our Lives is another quiet triumph, an elegant, devastating book that lays bare the way time calcifies our failures, how we find ourselves trapped not by circumstance but by the slow erosion of the will to escape. Markovits has long been one of our most under-appreciated novelists; this is yet more proof that he deserves far greater recognition.” —Alex Preston, Guardian
>>Read an extract.
>>Watch a bit.
>>On writing about middle age.
How To Art: Bringing a fancy subject down to earth so we can all enjoy it by Kate Bryan, illustrated by David Shrigley $40
A funny, inviting and full-colour book about art for people who don't know about 'art'. Featuring original artworks by David Shrigley What is art, where do I find it, and once I'm in front of it, what am I supposed to think about it? Kate Bryan is a self-confessed art addict who has worked with art for over twenty years. But before she studied art history at university, she'd been into a gallery just twice in her life and had no idea she was entering an elitist world. Now, she's on a mission to help everybody come to art. Like playing or listening to music, or cooking and eating great food, reading or watching films, making art or looking at other people's deserves to be an enriching part of all our lives. So here, in How to Art, is a nifty way to take art on your own terms. From where it is to what it is, to tips on how to actually enjoy really famous artworks like the Mona Lisa, to how to own art and make art at home, through to vital advice for making a career as an artist and even how to make your dog more cultural, How to Art gives art to everyone, and makes it fun. Laced throughout with original artworks by the very down-to-earth artist David Shrigley. [Hardback]
>>Look inside.
”Finally! Art without terror!” —Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood $38
Amid a global pandemic, one young woman is trying to keep the pieces together — of her family, stunned by a devastating loss, and of her mind, left mangled and misfiring from a mystifying disease. She's afraid of her own floorboards, and ‘What is love? Baby don’t hurt me’ plays over and over in her ears. She hates her friends, or more accurately, she doesn't know who they are. Has the illness stolen her old mind and given her a new one? Does it mean she'll get to start over from scratch, a chance afforded to very few people? The very weave of herself seems to have loosened: time and memories pass straight through her body. "I'm sorry not to respond to your email," she writes, "but I live completely in the present now.” Will There Ever Be Another You is the phosphorescent story of one woman's dissolution and her attempt to create a new way of thinking, as well as an investigation into what keeps us alive in times of unprecedented disorientation and loss.” [Paperback]
”This novel offers moments of hilarity, scenes of rich drama, and a dazzling number of references. It is determined to be less than the sum of its parts. It is deliberately perverse, refusing to hang together. Lockwood is not arguing that the centre cannot hold: she is showing that it does not hold.” —Claire Monagle, Australian Book Review
>>Long Covid from the inside.
>>Unclear moral standing.
The Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung (translated from Korean by Anton Hur) $37"
A novel-in-ghost-stories, set in a mysterious research centre that houses cursed objects, where those who open the wrong door might find it's disappeared behind them, or that the echoing footsteps they're running from are their own. An employee on the night shift at the Institute learns why some employees don't last long at the centre. The handkerchief in Room 302 once belonged to the late mother of two sons, whose rivalry imbues the handkerchief with undue power and unravels those around it. The cursed sneaker down the hall is stolen by a live-streaming, ghost-chasing employee, who later finds he can't escape its tread. A cat in Room 206 reveals the crimes of its former family, trying to understand its own path to the Institute's halls. But Chung's haunted institute isn't just a chilling place to play. As in her astounding collections Cursed Bunny and Your Utopia, these violent allegories take on the horrors of animal testing, conversion therapy, domestic abuse, and late-stage capitalism. Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny, and deeply political. [Paperback]
”Timetable will absorb you in the shadows of its imagination, marvellous oddness, humour and heart. It's a wild midnight tour of a uniquely brilliant and exquisitely demented world, terrifying and enchanting — a world I did not want to leave!” —Gerardo Samano Cordova
>>Waiting for the bus.
Israel on the Brink: Eight steps for a better future by Ilan Pappe $39
Israel can’t go on like this. 7 October and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza laid bare the cracks in its foundations. It was unveiled as a country unable to protect its citizens, divided between messianic theocrats and selective liberals, resented by its neighbours and losing the support of Jews worldwide. While its leaders justify bombing campaigns, atrocities and manmade famine in the Gaza Strip, Israel is becoming a pariah state. Its worst enemy is not Hamas, but itself. Ilan Pappe paves a path out of the Jewish state, rooted in restorative justice and decolonisation, including the release of all Palestinian prisoners, the end of illegal settlements, and building bridges with the Arab world. The future can be one of peace, not endless war. [Paperback]
”When you think that everything that could be said has been, Ilan Pappe provides this eye-opening, original and, most importantly, hopeful book.” —Eyal Weizman, author of Hollow Land: Israel's Architecture of Occupation
”Ilan Pappe supplants slogans for a single democratic state with a detailed program comprising eight mini-revolutions. This is a bold undertaking and offers abundant ground upon which to debate a vision and transform it into a program. Even, and especially, for those in disagreement, Israel on the Brink offers a point of departure to take seriously the work of decolonization.” —Noura Erakat, author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine
”Ilan Pappe's Israel on the Brink is a tour de force, essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand the disintegration of the Zionist project and its consequences. Pappe, one of the foremost scholars on the Israel-Palestine conflict, has authored a series of ground-breaking and important books. This one is no exception.” —Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times
>>Other books by Ilan Pappe.
>>In conversation with Avi Shlaim.
Broken Republik: The inside story of Germany’s descent into crisis by Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes $39
For many years, the post-war recovery of Germany was an inspirational story. All of Europe looked on with admiration and envy as the nation rebuilt and set standards for the rest to follow. Companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Siemens and Bayer rose to become global titans, while the country's political leaders earned respect around the world — even their football teams were the best. Such was its success that when the Berlin Wall fell, it appeared to reunify almost seamlessly. Where Germany led, the rest followed. But, even at its zenith, there were signs of trouble. So, when events started to turn against Germany, the whole edifice began to crumble. As political and business leaders benefited from the status quo, they couldn't see the problems heading their way. Volkswagen's emissions fraud tainted its industrial reputation; abandoning nuclear power left the country at the mercy of Russia for its energy needs; and a growing divide between rich and poor stoked international tensions that opened the door to the rise of the far-right AfD party. Journalists Chris Reiter and Will Wilkes have been reporting for years on the problems the country faces. Germany is not alone in this, but it is singularly ill-equipped to deal with them. [Paperback]
”A splendid book by authors who long ago detected Germany's fragility — and aimed at readers who take no pleasure in the sight of its precipitous decline.” —Yanis Varoufakis
The Floral Dream: A guide to growing cut flowers in New Zealand by Olivia McCord $50
A practical and inspiring guide for New Zealand home gardeners who dream of growing their own cut flowers. Whether the reader is new to gardening or already has dirt under their nails, this book offers down-to-earth advice on how to grow beautiful blooms in the back yard. It begins with preliminary advice on garden layout, soil preparation, a planting calendar and crucially, sowing seeds. At the heart of the book, though, is detailed advice on growing the specific flowers that flourish in New Zealand conditions, with the author's recommendations on favourite varieties. These include focal flowers that serve as the main attraction in arrangements, filler flowers that add volume and texture, and foliage varieties that provide greenery and structure. The book finishes with advice on how to pick and arrange flowers, as well as instructions for creating spectacular bouquets. Nicely done and full of good information and photographs. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!