VOLUME FLYERS (22.8.26)

Catch these five books!

Let this week’s flyers land on the top of your reading pile.

THAT WAS NOT MY INTENTION by Frances Pavletich $30
A scathing and satisfying look into the relationships we build and what sometimes happens to them. Inspired by: being a great friend, being a terrible friend, being too self-important to tell the difference, failing to get a person to desire you, using dishonest means to get a person to desire you, making a fool of yourself, the people we loved at first, the people we despised later, and the people we can never look in the eye again. Aotearoa fiction reflecting the caustic mood of a generation.

SAID THE DEAD by Doireann Ní Ghríofa $38
Blending detailed research with the sensitvities of a novelist and poet, Said the Dead breaches the boundaries that contain the past to resuscitate the voices of women who were inmates in a now-derelict Victorian mental hospital in the city of Cork. As the narrator follows their traces through the archives and through the corridors, she finds in the murmurings of these women much that resonate with her own life and experiences. Join our online discussion in September!

THE VALLEY: Crime and punichment in a New Zealand city by Asher Emanuel $40
‘This is a once-in-a-generation contribution to New Zealand writing about justice, class and wider society. The Valley combines meticulous reporting and deep thinking on the daily grind of the justice system. The result is a monumental book of stories that will stay with you long after you put it down.’ —Max Harris 

FACING UP TO OUR FUTURE: Challenges and choices for New Zealand edited by Peter Davis $35
21 prominent writers in their fields on climate change and the energy transition, demographics, the cost of living, housing and home ownership, health, environmental decline, fiscal sustainability, infrastructure, transparency and democracy, race relations and the Crown–Māori relationship, and the future of Pacific communities in Aotearoa. Published by the Helen Clark Foundation.

THE THINGS WE NEVER SAY by Elizabeth Strout $38
”One of the most profoundly moving books I have read — I envy anyone reading it for the first time. Elizabeth Strout is one of those rare novelists whose books leave you a little wiser, open and more compassionate than you were when you began reading. Her best novel yet.” —Rachel Joyce