NEW RELEASES (20.1.26)
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Delirious New Lynn, or, Portage and Euphoria, or, The Carryover: A guidebook by Oscar Mardell $35
Delirious New Lynn is the record of an obsession with an unnavigable backwater, a voracious drift down various culs-de-sac, an anti-psychogeography, a map of the schisms between mind and place, a poetics of trash, a rummage through the wastelands of Neoliberalism, a scavenger-hunt for meaning and nothingness, coincidence and randomness, beauty and ugliness, comedy and tragedy, comfort and horror, magnificence and absurdity, and spirituality too. Above all, it is a profusion of lists and digressions. This new book from the author of Great Works will have you in intellectual stitches as it snidely nails the Auckland suburb (and so much else about life in these times and on these shores). [Paperback]
>>Read an extract.
>>Look inside.
The Endless Week by Laura Vazquez (translated from French by Alex Niemi) $48
Like Beckett's novels or Kafka's stranger tales, The Endless Week is a work outside of time, as if novels had never existed and Laura Vazquez has suddenly invented them. And yet it could not be more contemporary, as startling and constantly new as the scrolling hyper-mediated reality it chronicles. Its characters are Salim, a young poet, and his sister Sara, who rarely leave home except virtually; their father, who is falling apart; and their grandmother, who is dying. To save their grandmother, Salim and Sara set out in search of their long-lost mother, accompanied by Salim's online friend Jonathan, though their real quest is through the landscape of language and suffering that saturates both the real world and the virtual. The Endless Week is sharp and ever-shifting, at turns hilarious, tender, satirical, and terrifying. Not much happens, yet every moment is compulsively engaging. [Paperback]
"Reading this book feels like falling into a whirlpool: it's inescapable." —Maggie Lange, W Magazine
"Vazquez has created a unique and enduring novel. Something hard and real and tangible glitters amid the vapour of text and image she describes." —Dustin Illingworth, New Left Review
"Are the kids ok? Are the elders? Are the gods? Are the dead? In this mesmeric novel, loneliness and the (online) community, language and image, the immediate and the mediated, violence and care construct a tender, precarious microzone called intimacy. A lumbar puncture of a book, a golden strain." —Joyelle McSweeney
"It's a rigorously unsettling reading experience, without plot, tension, or character development. But the details and countless vignettes deliver an immense range of emotion. Grotesquely inventive and amusing, like a corner torn from a Hieronymus Bosch painting." —Kirkus
"They say a truly great author can write about anything and make it interesting, and with The Endless Week Laura Vazquez proves that true on every page. If you're in search of an ultra-contemporary novel that shatters all the rules with inimitable humor and style to spare, look no further — she's arrived." —Blake Butler
>>Inside out experience.
Sister Europe by Nell Zink $65
As a Berlin night draws in around the pristine glass exterior of the Hotel Interconti, a ragtag group of friends, family, and potential lovers find themselves frustrated. By promise or threat, they have all gathered at a lavish celebration of an elderly author's venerable career. But dinner is delayed, the speeches are a drag and the gang — a young trans teen and her father; an ageing publisher and his flakey date; a dog, a troubled heiress and an Arab Prince — begin to feel the pinch of boredom, hunger and horniness. Together they will make their bid for freedom, and will soon embark on an exhilarating odyssey through the city's shadow and light. Sophisticated, sexy and exquisitely funny, Sister Europe is the remarkable new novel from one of the most singular, brilliant writers working today: a vivid tale of growing up, growing old and getting down. [Hardback]
"To stay out late in Zink's world, loitering, is a pleasure. Her voice is cool and fastidious, but she has a screwball quality-a comic sensibility rooted in pain. She grinds her own sophisticated colors as a writer; her ironies are finely tuned; she is uniquely alert to the absurdities of human conduct." —Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review
"This sly, sprightly novel provides a distraction from the news while the news is all over it. One of the pleasures of Sister Europe is that it's thoroughly up-to-date but still shaped in the timeless way of Wodehousian comedy of errors." —Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
"Zink is one of the most humane writers we've got, and one of the best. As ever, Zink is funny in a way that requires careful observation and precision. The night narrated here feels like the kind of time outside of time in which classical comedies take place — a liminal space in which characters experience transformations impossible in the everyday world. Here, some characters find each other, some find their way home, and some get a bit closer to finding themselves." —Kirkus Review
”Nell Zink is a writer of extraordinary talent and range. Her work insistently raises the possibility that the world is larger and stranger than the world you think you know.” —Jonathan Franzen
”Zink writes with a joyful recklessness that makes her one of the freshest talents around.” —The Guardian
>>Not entirely sure.
>>Connecting the dots.
>>At the back.
>>Somehow connected.
Books: A manifesto, Or, How to build a library by Ian Patterson $50
This is a book about books, about the subversive power of reading and the strange, enduring magic of books as objects. Ever since childhood, books have been at the centre of Ian Patterson's life, as a poet, teacher, translator, bookseller, and collector. As he constructs the last of many libraries, he makes an impassioned case for the radical importance of reading in our lives — from Proust to Jilly Cooper, from golden-age detective novels to avant-garde poetry. Wise, irreverent and exhilaratingly wide-ranging, Books: A Manifesto reminds us that poems know things that we might not yet know ourselves, urges us to seek out the puzzles alive in the art of translation and celebrates the singular elasticity of the 'bookshop minute'. But even more than this, the book insists on reading not as a luxury but a necessary part of reality: we live within language, and when we think, it's with the tools that reading gives us. Our time of cultural and political crisis demands more than books — but without them, and without the breadth of knowledge, sense of history, awareness of alternatives and hope for the future they offer, things will not get better. At once a primer for enriching your own library and a manifesto for why that matters, this book is an invitation to a deeper, richer world of thought and feeling — and a reminder of just how much books matter. [Hardback]
”A bibliophile's autobiography, a supremely generous instruction in reading and collecting, a short history of antiquarian bookselling, a celebration of unserious pleasures and a polemic for the most serious ones — Books: A Manifesto is all of this and more. Of course Patterson hasn't read everything: he's reread it, bought and sold it a few times, might even have translated it, and has profound and genial thoughts.” —Brian Dillon
Temple Alley Summer by Sachiko Kashiwaba (translated from Japanese by Avery Fischer Udagawa), illustrated by Mihi Satake $23
Kazu knows something odd is going on when he sees a girl in a white kimono sneak out of his house in the middle of the night was he dreaming? Did he see a ghost? Things get even stranger when he shows up to school the next day to see the very same figure sitting in his classroom. No one else thinks it's weird, and, even though Kazu doesn't remember ever seeing her before, they all seem convinced that the ghost-girl Akari has been their friend for years! When Kazu's summer project to learn about Kimyo Temple draws the meddling attention of his mysterious neighbour Ms. Minakami and his secretive new classmate Akari, Kazu soon learns that not everything is as it seems in his hometown. Kazu discovers that Kimyo Temple is linked to a long forgotten legend about bringing the dead to life, which could explain Akari's sudden appearance is she a zombie or a ghost? Kazu and Akari join forces to find and protect the source of the temple's power. An unfinished story in a magazine from Akari's youth might just hold the key to keeping Akari in the world of the living, and it's up to them to find the story's ending and solve the mystery as the adults around them conspire to stop them from finding the truth. [Paperback]
”This imaginative tale, enchantingly written and charmingly illustrated by veteran Japanese creators for young people, has a timeless feel. Its captivating blend of humor and mystery is undergirded with real substance that will provoke deeper contemplation. Udagawa's translation naturally and seamlessly renders the text completely accessible to non-Japanese readers. An instant classic filled with supernatural intrigue and real-world friendship. This charming story is both a layered, profound reflection on living life with purpose and a funny, suspenseful book with all the hallmarks of classic middle-grade literature.” —Kirkus Reviews
The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt $36
”Maman was exigeante — there is no English word-and I had the benefit of her training. Others may not be so fortunate. If some other young girl, with two million dollars at stake, finds this of use I shall count myself justified.” Raised in Marrakech by a French mother and English father, a 17-year-old girl has learned above all to avoid mauvais ton ("bad taste" loses something in the translation). One should not ask servants to wait on one during Ramadan: they must have paid leave while one spends the holy month abroad. One must play the piano; if staying at Claridge's, one must regrettably install a Clavinova in the suite, so that the necessary hours of practice will not be inflicted on fellow guests. One should cultivate weavers of tweed in the Outer Hebrides but have the cloth made up in London; one should buy linen in Ireland but have it made up by a Thai seamstress in Paris (whose genius has been supported by purchase of suitable premises). All this and much more she has learned, governed by a parent of ferociously lofty standards. But at 17, during the annual Ramadan travels, she finds all assumptions overturned. Will she be able to fend for herself? Will the dictates of good taste suffice when she must deal, singlehanded, with the sharks of New York? A testament to the power of false friends. [Glazed hardback]
"A staggeringly intelligent examination into the nature of truth, love, respect, beauty and trust. This is that rare thing, or merle blanc, as maman might say: a perfect book. I've read it four times, which you can do between breakfast and lunch." —Nicola Shulman, The Times Literary Supplement
"This is a short, sharp sliver of a story-only 64 pages — but every single word is pitch perfect. Think of it as the literary equivalent of a shot of ice-cold vodka-Belvedere or Grey Goose only, of course." —Lucy Scholes, Prospect
"A wonderfully sideways take on the complex intersections between class, wealth and power — intersections that invariably favour those who have most of them already." -- Alex Clark, The Observer
"The English Understand Wool is Helen DeWitt's best and funniest book so far — quite a feat given the standards set by the rest of her work. Its pages are rife with wicked pleasures. It incites and rewards re-reading." —Heather Cass White, The Times Literary Supplement
If You Come to Earth by Sophie Blackall $45
Inspired by the thousands of children she has met in travels around the word for Save the Children and UNICEF, two-time Caldecott winner Sophie Blackall has crafted an ambitious yet child-accessible book of ... well ... everything. Simultaneously funny and touching, it is a call to each of us to take care of both the Earth and each other, and to celebrate the many way that people live their lives on earth. [Hardback]
>>Look inside!
The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz by Anne Sebba $40
In 1943, German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Almost fifty women and girls from eleven nations were drafted into a hurriedly assembled band that would play marching music to other inmates, forced labourers who left each morning and returned, exhausted and often broken, at the end of the day. While still living amid the most brutal and dehumanising of circumstances, they were also made to give weekly concerts for Nazi officers, and individual members were sometimes summoned to give solo performances of an officer's favourite piece of music. It was the only entirely female orchestra in any of the Nazi prison camps and, for almost all of the musicians chosen to take part, being in the orchestra was to save their lives. What role could music play in a death camp? What was the effect on those women who owed their survival to their participation in a Nazi propaganda project? And how did it feel to be forced to provide solace to the perpetrators of a genocide that claimed the lives of their family and friends? Sebba traces these tangled questions of deep moral complexity with sensitivity and care. From Alma Rose, the orchestra's main conductor, niece of Gustav Mahler and a formidable pre-war celebrity violinist, to Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, its teenage cellist and last surviving member, Sebba draws on meticulous archival research and exclusive first-hand accounts to tell the full and astonishing story of the orchestra, its members and the response of other prisoners for the very first time. [Paperback]
The Ant Rebellion by Toprak Işık (translated from Turkish by Alvin Parmar), illustrated by Sedat Girgin $26
Ants are famous for their hard work, but some ants prefer exploiting others rather than doing it themselves. One day the warrior ants discover the nest of the farmer ants and set out to make the farmers their slaves — but they don’t count on the spirit of resistance from the farmers. The Ant Rebellion is a universal allegory about freedom, resistance and change, featuring memorable characters from the loving couple Honey and Glasswing to the hilarious beetle Loafer. [Paperback]
In Venezuela by Michael Palin $45
In February 2025, Michael Palin travelled to Venezuela to get a sense of what life is like in one of South America's most culturally rich, vibrant but also troubled nations. In the journal he kept during his trip he gives a vivid account of the towns and cities he visited, the landscapes he travelled through, and the people he met. Illustrated throughout with colour photographs taken on the trip, and permeated with his warmth and humour, this is a vivid and varied portrait of a complex country. [Hardback]
Homegrown Fruit: A practical guide by Kath Irvine and Jason Ross $58
Kath and Jason take you step by step to create a naturally, healthy orchard that thrives with minimal effort. You’ll learn how to choose the right varieties, plan a productive layout, build a living soil, assess tree health, and confidently prune, train, and care for your trees year-round. Real-world examples, sample plans and down-to-earth advice provide simple, practical solutions for gardens of every shape, size and climate. This inspiring, accessible book is perfect for beginners setting up a new orchard, busy people who want homegrown fruit without the fuss, and seasoned growers seeking deeper knowledge. Kath and Jason have over 25 years experience designing and managing home orchards in a diversity of environments across Aotearoa. The book's focus is on creating a healthy setup and choosing well-suited varieties. From this solid foundation fruit trees flourish, care is easy, there are a lot fewer pests and diseases and, most importantly, growing is fun! [Paperback]