VOLUME FLYERS (8.8.26)

Catch these five books!

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

ALL HER LIVES by Ingrid Horrocks $35
”Across nine elegant, probing stories that range from the late eighteenth century to the unsettled present, from rural Wairarapa to icy Norwegian ports and rave culture Berlin, All Her Lives explores the shifting expectations and constraints of womanhood. … Emotionally intelligent and historically alert, this book is an outrageously good addition to the top shelf of New Zealand fiction.” —Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges’ citation on awarding All Her Lives the 2026 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction

WHISTLER by Ann Paychett $39
When Daphne notices an older gentleman following her around the Met museum in New York, she doesn't expect it to be Eddie — her former stepfather. While their relationship was brief, it had a profound impact on them both. Reflecting on the short time they spent with each other, they begin to piece together the moments that have shaped who they have become.

THE FINEST HOTEL IN KABUL: A People’s History of Afghanistan by Lyse Doucet $40
The Winner of the 2026 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction ”plays to all Lyse Doucet's strengths: clarity, empathy, depth of knowledge and innate grasp of fine detail. Her subject is not just a hotel, but a hotel that tells the story of four decades of Afghanistan's proud and sometimes unbelievably painful history. This is a most readable account of joy, despair and resilience in one of the world's most fascinating countries.” —Michael Palin

TALKING CLASSICS: The Shock of the Old by Mary Beard $40
What's exciting about a piece of bread 4,000 years old? Or some pots of paint abandoned in the eruption Pompeii? Why should we be bothered with the distant past anyway? What's the point? The life, art and literature of ancient Greece and Rome have something to offer everyone. They are not the property of wealthy white men only.

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.