>>The book she was born to write.
>>In conversation with Ann Patchett.
>>A literary ancestor.
>>Seething with love and outrage.
>>The voice of Demon Copperhead.
>>Hillbillies not included.
>>Get your copy now!
>>The book she was born to write.
>>In conversation with Ann Patchett.
>>A literary ancestor.
>>Seething with love and outrage.
>>The voice of Demon Copperhead.
>>Hillbillies not included.
>>Get your copy now!
Irresistible Cookbook Reductions. We are offering a selection of superb cookbooks at reduced prices as a gesture towards the coming season. Single copies only of most titles. We send books anywhere—and gift-wrap too! >>Choose now! >>Browse our other cookbooks.
Kiwi Christmas Books. If you can't imagine the festive season without a pile of good books, remember that there are children whose whānau are experiencing hardship and who have little to look forward to at Christmas. If you would like to give books to needy children in our community, either 1. Make a donation and we will choose books on your behalf; or 2. Choose books from our website yourself and just put "Kiwi Christmas Books" in the 'notes' field as you check out. Thank you for making a difference! >>Find out more about the Kiwi Christmas Books scheme.
| >> Read all Stella's reviews. | |
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| >> Read all Thomas's reviews. | ||
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NEW RELEASES
Zoe's father isn't home. She still sees him in photographs, laughing and playing tennis, but for now she can only visit him in a building where everyone looks sad and the walls are an ugly pink color. Some days Zoe's father is too sad to see her, but she goes to the hospital anyway. While waiting she meets Sabina, who invites her to swim across the world. Zoe's not sure it's possible, but Sabina tells her, "A girl can do everything she wants." Even though Sabina sometimes dives deep into her own thoughts, the two of them swim around the world many times that summer, until eventually Zoe's father is ready to come home. A tender and thoughtful book. Lundberg's beautiful paintings reflect and validate a child's feelings of loss and longing for closeness when a parent's joy for living temporarily fades.
"This poignant, gentle book will be immensely helpful to anyone caring for the child of someone with major depression. It fills an important gap in literature for young children." —Andrew Solomon
>>See some sample pages.
Fabienne is dead. Her childhood best friend, Agnès, receives the news in America, far from the French countryside where the two girls were raised - the place that Fabienne helped Agnès escape ten years ago. Now, Agnès is free to tell her story. As children in a backwater town, they'd built a private world, invisible to everyone but themselves — until Fabienne hatched the plan that would change everything, launching Agnès on an epic trajectory through fame, fortune, and terrible loss. The Book of Goose is a beautifully written story of disturbing intimacy and obsession, of exploitation and strength of will.
"A dazzling, subtle, skilful knockout — I loved it." —Charlotte Mendelson
"One of our finest living authors. Propulsively entertaining." —New York Times
"Wonderfully strange and alive." —Jon McGregor
>>"I'm not that nice friendly Chinese lady who writes."
>>"I'm not that nice friendly Chinese lady who writes."
In a rocky cove in the bay of Hakata, the bodies of a young couple are discovered. The police see nothing to investigate: the flush of the couple's cheeks speaks clearly of cyanide, of a lovers' suicide. But in the eyes of two men, Torigai Jutaro, an old and shabby detective, and Kiichi Mihara, a young gun from Tokyo, something is not quite right. Together, they will begin to pick at the knot of a unique and calculated crime.
"This 1958 classic of postwar Japanese crime fiction was banned in its day for its 'decadent western ideas'. Now, the fascinatingly detailed investigations of Inspector Torigai echo those of Simenon's Maigret in a pared-down narrative shot through with political critique." —Financial Times
Since the discovery of the cell in the 1660s and the discovery in the 1850s that most diseases can be traced back to our cells, human beings have been understood as an ecosystem of units that produce exponentially complex structures and effects. How did we discover these units, and their functions? How did we begin to understand hearts, brains, kidneys as collections of cooperating cells? What are cells anyway? How do they work, and how (why?) do they work together? Why build organs and organisms out of these units? And could we re-assemble a new kind of human? Could we alter cells to become resistant to diseases? Could we make new humans out of new kinds cells, endowed with novel properties, functions or intentions? Another fascinating book from the author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene.
Does a mental health diagnosis have the power to perpetuate, or even create, symptoms as its subject adapts to live within it? Is there another way of talking about their experience? Are patients being truly heard? In an attempt to answer these questions, Aviv has chosen five subjects who have the capacity to interrogate the theories and explanations they have been given for their own mental states — subjects who at some stage fundamentally reject psychiatry's explanatory framework, and see their own suffering through another lens —spirituality, loneliness, legitimate existential despair. Aviv believes that it is a writer's job to listen and imagine and so tell the stories that other disciplines may be missing. Alongside her subjects' stories she will write about the evolution of psychiatry, with particularly interesting and troubling reference to its imposition through colonial history. How far can we go to the edge of experience and emotion and still remain sane? What happens to us — socially, culturally, medically, psychologically — when we step into the spaces outside of 'ordinary life'?
"So attuned to subtlety and complexity. A book-length demonstration of Aviv's extraordinary ability to hold space for the 'uncertainty, mysteries and doubt' of others." —New York Times Book Review
Sixteen years in the writing and now twenty-five years bringing pleasure and knowledge to cooks and foodies worldwide, this wonderful book is endlessly rewarding both to cook from and to read. Roden shines a light on the diverse flavours and cultural origins of overlooked dishes, revealing the beauty and simplicity of traditional Ashkenazi and Sephardi food on the page. This 25th anniversary edition has some new content and recipes.
"One can't imagine a better food book than this, ever: for the reader and the cook." —Nigella Lawson
"The first great encyclopedia of Jewish life. I love it for the narrative embroidery around the recipes." —Simon Schama
A woman's life, erupting with brilliance and promise, is fissured by betrayal and the pressures of duty. What had once seemed a pastoral family idyll has become a trap, and she struggles between being the wife and mother she is bound to be and wanting to do and be so much more. The woman in question is Sylvia Plath in the final year of her life, reimagined in fictive form by Elin Cullhed. As Plath's marriage to Ted Hughes unravels through the heady days of their first summer in Devon together, Sylvia turns increasingly to writing to express her pain and loss, yet also her resilience and power. She has decided to die, but the art she creates in her final weeks will make her name.
An unnamed man arrives in Berlin as a visiting professor. It is a place fused with Western history and cultural fracture lines. He moves along its streets and pavements; through its department stores, museums and restaurants. He befriends Faqrul, an enigmatic exiled poet, and Birgit, a woman with whom he shares the vagaries of attraction. He tries to understand his white-haired cleaner. Berlin is a riddle—he becomes lost not only in the city but in its legacy. Sealed off in his own solitude, and as his visiting professorship passes, the narrator awaits transformation and meaning. Ultimately, he starts to understand that the less sure he becomes of his place in the moment, the more he knows his way.
"Chaudhuri has already proved that he can write better than just about anybody of his generation." —Jonathan Coe
"Chaudhuri has, like Proust, mastered the art of the moment." —Hilary Mantel
Arresting and darkly prescient, these stories navigate the fault lines of relationships. A middle-aged novelist devoid of inspiration alights on material in the form of an obsessive pet-shop worker from Cincinnati. A pregnant mother of two finds herself increasingly in thrall to her help, Nat. For Joad, the discovery of a haunting type-written document in an old desk in need of restoration is overwhelming. And when Roxanne rescues her sister from an institution, she comes to realise how vulnerable they both are.
"Miller is a luminous writer." —Olivia Laing
"Miller possesses the soaring eye of the epicist and the sly instinct of the satirist." —New Yorker
Set during the 2020 lockdowns, this relatable narrative introduces a protagonist who, faced with a global pandemic and a marriage in crisis, looks to the ancient art of prophecy for consolation. A darkly funny and heartbreaking novel about the way we live now; the way we lived before and the stories, connections and consolations that help us keep on living in a world where everyone is watching and yet none of us feels seen. This is a story about now. It's a story about a woman, and a family. It's about the dramas unfolding on our screens and behind the curtains of our homes, and how time and certainty and, sometimes, those we love can slip away. But it's also about before. It's about the questions we have always asked and the answers that are coming for us whether we like them or not.
"For anyone looking for ways of thinking creatively and with love about art in an emergency and what just happened to us all I would recommend it, because despite the bleakness - you can't have realism without bleakness now - this is clever, warm and funny writing." —Sarah Moss, Guardian
"Funny and sharp and ripe with references and allusions, Delphi is not just a novel about Covid; it's also about how a given historical moment such as the pandemic can connect us to the past and to the universal." —John Self
"Delphi distils something elusive and upsetting about all the things we can't quite see or understand about the present moment, even as all we ever do is look. This feels impressive, part of what good fiction is meant to do." —New York Times
Contemporary life is defined by excess. There must always be more, there is never enough. We need a surplus to what we need to be able to truly enjoy what we have. Slavoj Žižek's guide to surplus (and why it's enjoyable) begins by arguing that what is surplus to our needs is by its very nature unsubstantial and unnecessary. But, perversely, without this surplus, we wouldn't be able to enjoy, what is substantial and necessary. Indeed, without the surplus we wouldn't be able to identify what was the perfect amount.Is there any escape from the vicious cycle of surplus enjoyment or are we forever doomed to simply want more? Engaging with everything from The Joker film to pop songs and Thomas Aquinas to the history of pandemics, Žižek argues that recognising the society of enjoyment we live in for what it is can provide an explanation for the political impasses in which we find ourselves today. And if we begin, even a little bit, to recognise that the nuggets of 'enjoyment' we find in excess are as flimsy and futile, might we find a way out?
"Surplus-Enjoyment is the author at his most supple, addressing urgent current concerns and the need for a global solidarity that cannot be divorced from egalitarianism. Zizek is a pick-me-up for fatigued brains." —Prisma
Alabanza examines seven phrases people have directed at them about their gender identity. These phrases that have stayed with them over the years. Some are deceptively innocuous, some deliberately loaded or offensive, some celebratory; sentences that have impacted them for better and for worse; sentences that speak to the broader issues raised by a world that insists that gender must be a binary. Through these seven phrases, which include some of their most personal transformative experiences as a Black, working-class, non-binary trans person, Travis Alabanza turns a mirror back on society, giving us reason to question the very framework in which we live and the ways we treat each other.
"Alabanza lifts the lid on our potential for empathy, alliance and complicity." —Irish Times
“Once upon a time, in fact it was Tuesday,” the Bear went into the woods to settle in for his long winter nap. But when he awoke what had happened? The trees were gone, the grass was gone, the flowers were gone, and in their place were buildings, cars, a fenced-off courtyard. The Bear had no idea that he was in the middle of a factory. “Get back to work!” a man yelled out of the blue. “I don’t work here,” said the Bear, “I’m a bear.” The man laughed and laughed. “Fine excuse for a man to keep from doing any work—saying he’s a bear.” And so it began and so it went, with the Bear protesting his bearness all the way from the Third Vice President to the First, and no one willing to believe that he wasn’t just a silly man in a fur coat who needed a shave. How the bear endured and how he finally prevailed are the subject of this delightful modern classic—beautifully illustrated with the author’s inventive line drawings—about sticking up for yourself, no matter how many Foremen, General Managers, Vice Presidents, or even Company Presidents stand in your way. A nice hardback edition.
The Latin term for the female genitalia, pudendum, means 'parts for which you should be ashamed'. Until 1651, ovaries were called female testicles. The fallopian tubes are named for a man. Named, claimed, and shamed: Welcome to the story of the female body, as penned by men. But now, a new generation of (mostly) women scientists is redrawing the map of female genitalia. With modern tools and fresh perspectives, they're looking at the organs traditionally bound up in reproduction—the uterus, ovaries, vagina—and seeing within them a new biology of change and resilience. Gross takes readers on an anatomical odyssey to the center of this new world—a world where the uterus regrows itself, ovaries pump out fresh eggs, and the clitoris pulses beneath the surface like a shimmering pyramid of nerves. Vagina Obscura is a celebratory testament to how the landscape of knowledge can be rewritten to better serve everyone.
"The vagina is having a much-belated moment, and thanks to Rachel E. Gross, now so are the ovaries, clitoris, and uterus. In Vagina Obscura, Gross clears away the linguistic and scientific shroud from the least investigated and most misunderstood structures in the human body and tells their story deftly and beautifully." —Emily Willingham
England, 1877. Aquarium fever is at its height. Twelve-year-old Vinnie Fyfe works in the tea-shop at Brighton aquarium, and waits for her milliner mother to return from Paris. The arrival of a giant octopus changes her life for ever. Discovering a talent for art, Vinnie begins to draw the extraordinary beast. She soon realises she can communicate with the octopus through colour and — as a gripping mystery begins to unfold — discovers what true courage really means.
There is a vast class of properties that science has so far almost entirely neglected. These properties are central to an understanding of physical reality both at an everyday level and at the level of fundamental phenomena, yet they have traditionally been thought of as impossible to incorporate into fundamental explanations. They relate not only to what is true — the actual — but to what could be true — the counterfactual. This is the science of can and can't.
Chiara Marletto, a pioneer in this field, explores the promise that this fascinating, far-reaching approach holds not only for revolutionising how fundamental physics is formulated, but also for confronting existing technological challenges, from delivering the next generation of information-processing devices to designing AI.
"A wonderful book, which has taught me new ways of thinking and expanded my mind. It's extremely beautifully written, full of wonder and passion and humour and energy." —Hermione Lee
"Clear, sharp and imaginative. The Science of Can and Can't will open the doors to a dazzling set of concepts and ideas that will change deeply the way you look at the world." —David Deutsch
"I enjoyed this book very much, not least because of the freshness of its approach to a subject that can easily become hard for the non-scientific mind to grasp. The theory of 'can and can't' is an intriguing way of describing problems that are not only scientific (it describes very well what a storyteller does, for instance), and Marletto's account of some things I thought I more or less understood (the nature of digital information, for one) illuminated them from an angle that showed them more clearly than I'd seen them before." —Philip Pullman
A clear and well-photographed examination of 100 geological features of Aotearoa, the forces that formed them and how they are continually changing.
Leslie Kern, author of Feminist City, travels from Toronto, New York, London, Paris and San Francisco and scrutinises the myth and lies that surround this most urgent urban crisis of our times. First observed in 1950s London, and theorised by leading thinkers such as Ruth Glass, Jane Jacobs and Sharon Zukin, this devastating process of displacement now can be found in every city and most neighbourhoods. Beyond the yoga studio, farmer's market and tattoo parlour, gentrification is more than a metaphor, but impacts the most vulnerable communities. Kern proposes an intersectional way at looking at the crisis that seek to reveal the violence based on class, race, gender and sexuality. She argues that gentrification is not natural, that it can not be understood in economic terms, or by class. That it is not a question of taste. That it can be measured only by the physical displacement of certain people. Rather, she argues, it is an continuation of the setter colonial project that removed natives from their land. And it can be seen today is rising rents and evictions, transformed retail areas, increased policing and broken communities. But if gentrification is not inevitable, what can we do to stop the tide? In response, Kern proposes a genuinely decolonial, feminist, queer, anti-gentrification. One that demands the right to the city for everyone and the return of land and reparations for those who have been displaced.
>>Housing as a human right.
>>Housing as a human right.
Taking its title from a chilling warning made by the United Nations that the world's soils could be lost within a lifetime, Sixty Harvests Left uncovers how the food industry is threatening the planet. Put simply, without soils there will be no food. And time is running out. From the United Kingdom to Italy, from Brazil to the Gambia to the USA, Philip Lymbery, author of Farmageddon, goes behind the scenes of industrial farming and confronts 'Big Agriculture', where mega-farms, chemicals and animal cages are sweeping the countryside and jeopardising the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the nature that we treasure. However, he also finds hope in the pioneers who are battling to bring landscapes back to life, who are rethinking farming methods, rediscovering traditional techniques and developing technologies to feed an ever-expanding global population.
"A call to action — to change our world from the ground up. A vitally necessary book." —Isabella Tree
Growing up on the outskirts of Sheffield, Hugh Brody ate roast beef and Yorkshire pudding but was always given to understand that the real, the perfect food came from his mother's home, Vienna. He attended Hebrew classes three times each week but was sent off to a Church of England boarding school. Conflicted and bewildered, he sought places to which he could escape — but everywhere he discovered deep and troubling silences. He takes us on his first journeys to the Arctic, a world so far removed from anything he had known as to be a chance to learn, all over again, what it can mean to be alive. As he reveals, the realities of the far north were a joy, but even there he found abuses of the people and the land — and voices that were deeply silenced by the forces of colonialism. In these landscapes, human well-being appears to be both possible and impossible. Yet in memory, in the land, in the defiance of silence, Hugh Brody sees a profound humanity — as well as hope.
"Landscapes of Silence is a remarkable, often uncomfortable, exploration of difficult terrains in which the author's pain and the damage done to indigenous peoples is livid and raw." —Literary Review
VOLUME FOCUS : Mythology
A selection of books from our shelves.
The animal world is endlessly varied, fascinating and inspiring, and needs to be preserved both for its own sake and for the richness it adds to human experience and thought. Rundell considers 22 animals (including the human) whose existence is endangered by humans, and reveals the depths of wonder embodied in these animals. For instance, did you know that the Golden Mole is luminescent, but blind and therefore unable to see its own radiance? This hardback book is beautifully presented (it even has gilt edges), and illustrated by Tayla Baldwin.
>>Startling astonishments.
>>Consider the golden mole.
>>Consider the hummingbird.
>>Consider the hare.
>>The world will not starve for want of wonders.
>>On the illustrations.
>>Weird and wonderful.
>>A 21st century bestiary.
>>Consider a copy of the book.
>>Other books by Katherine Rundell.
| >> Read all Stella's reviews. | |
 | Unraveller by Frances Hardinge {Reviewed by STELLA} The country of Raddith is an odd place, complex and unpredictable. Kellen, once a weaver, has been gifted or cursed, depending on your perspective, with the ability to ‘unravel’ curses. Nettle, his trusty sidekick (she’s always there — a watchful appeaser to Kellen’s unpredictable temperament) was not so long ago a heron cursed to feed on fish and watch her siblings (each other bird species) struggle with their human-bird / bird-human natures. Though she’s back in her human body, her experience has altered her and some of her heron qualities linger. She’s not the only one haunted by their recent past. Kellen was a weaver from a weaving village, but once he was cursed with unravelling, it wasn’t too long until his parents had to cast him out or suffer the consequences of a village’s livelihood undone. But there is always work for a curse-fixer, and Kellen and Nettle mostly stay on the right side of law and order. Not all things go smoothly though in the curse game and it’s not too long until Kellen’s temper gets the better of him and they find themselves arrested. No fear, a stranger seeks them out and makes them an offer they are in no position to reject. Gall, a man bonded to a marsh horse (a strange and demonic creature) employs them on behalf of an official. Dark magic and conspiracy are afoot in the chambers of powers and someone wants to see the equilibrium — the deal struck with the Little Brothers (spidery inhabitants of the lowlands) — undone. The Little Brothers spin webs of mystical power and gift the curse eggs to those who carry loathing and hate in their guts. Curse eggs can be controlled, but not easily, and cursers and the cursed alike often regret their actions. Step in the likes of Kellen, who can unpick these spells. With no choice but to follow Gall’s instructions, Kellen and Nettle find themselves pulled tighter into a web of danger and confusion. Will their friendship endure? Will the Little Brothers help or hinder Kellen when he needs them most? The story weaves in uneven and unexpected ways as the two teens travel to the capital to meet their employer — a startling discovery, head to a remote village through a haunted forest, and end up in the lowlands and on the treacherous waters of the Moonlight Market where a clever hand will need to be played if Kellen is to keep his head and Nettle survive a deceit that will surprise the reader as well as her. Hardinge’s latest is a highly structured tale, much like a spider’s web, with two competing but complementary protagonists at its centre. It has those classic elements of loyalty and betrayal, trust and deceit alongside a vividly portrayed fantastical world (at times wonderfully overwhelming and darkly unsettling), which Hardinge does so well. Another stunner from the author of The Lie Tree and A Skinful of Shadows.
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NEW RELEASES
Te Motunui Epa by Rachel Buchanan $50
The story begins in the early 1800s in Peropero swamp, just north of Waitara. Taranaki was teetering on the edge of what would be almost a century of war, and Te Atiawa hapu moved quickly to dismantle their most important public buildings and hide significant pieces in the swamps. The epa – serpentine figures carved in five totara panels – went to sleep, only to awaken one hundred and fifty years later to hands that would take them to New York, Geneva, London and the Royal Courts of Justice. Te Motunui Epa have journeyed across the world and changed practices, understanding and international law on the protection and repatriation of stolen cultural treasures. By placing these taonga/tupuna at the centre of the story, Rachel Buchanan (Taranaki, Te Atiawa) presents a vivid narrative, richly illustrated, that draws on newly released government records to tell a story of art, ancestors and power.
>>A return home.
>>Book trailer.
>>Look inside.
In Book Manifest, renowned Dutch designer Irma Boom presents her vision on the essence, meaning and relevance of the book. Based on the in-depth research that Boom conducted into the development of the book in the library of the Vatican, Book Manifest is at once a survey of the history of the book and a miniature Irma Boom retrospective, reproducing a selection of more than 350 books she has designed over the course of her eminent career. Alongside reproductions, Boom extensively discusses the relationship between her work and older book forms. With this tiny (65mm x 75mm), 1000-page, richly illustrated volume, Boom aims to inspire and encourage designers to experiment and develop new ways of conceiving this simplest and most enduringly effective of forms. Irresistible.
>>Some of the 1000 pages.
>>The architecture of the book.
>>Some of the 1000 pages.
>>The architecture of the book.
Once there were many stories in the world. Some had beautiful sunsets, some lived at the bottom of the sea, and some were simply about dogs. Until one story decided that it was going to be the most important story ever. It called itself the One and started to consume every other story in existence. Soon it seemed that the One was all that was left ... or was it?
Inspired by the Endangered Alphabets Project, aimed at preserving cultures by sharing their unique scripts, author-illustrator Sam Winston incorporates writing systems such as cuneiform, Canadian aboriginal, Egyptian hieroglyphs and ogham in the abstract illustrations of this colourful, wonderful book.
From a lifetime of cooking with some of the UK's greatest chefs — as well as lessons from his cookery teacher mother's home cooking — this book is about good food honed from good ingredients whether that be some great potatoes, asparagus or some berries. It is they that invariably and best spark the idea of what to cook. The book is a masterclass in simple things done well. There are sections on the usefulness and frugality of breadcrumbs, whether black olive crumbs or parsley to serve on spaghetti, impromptu puddings like peaches in wine with bay leaves or plum compote with ricotta and hazelnuts, pea dishes galore, the most useful jams and jellies from a Dundee childhood, classics like potatoes and wild garlic aioli, essentials like anchovy dressing.
"A beautifully written instant classic that is every bit as exuberant and delicious as the man himself!" —Nigella Lawson
"Already a classic." —Fergus Henderson
"One of the most beautiful cookery books I have ever seen. It should be prescribed." —Rachel Roddy
>>Have a look inside.
>>Have a look inside.
Granta 160: Conflict features Lindsey Hilsum and Volodymyr Rafeyenko (tr. Sasha Dugdale) on the war in Ukraine, but the theme of conflict is internal as well as external. This issue also includes memoir by Janet Malcolm, Sarah Moss, Suzanne Scanlon, and essays by Rebecca May Johnson, George Prochnik, Daniel Trilling and Sana Valiulina (tr. Polly Gannon). Plus: new fiction by Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, Jane Delury and Dizz Tate and poetry by Rae Armantrout, Sandra Cisneros and Peter Gizzi. Photography by Aline Deschamps (introduced by Rattawut Lapcharoensap) and Thomas Duffield.
>>Issue sampler.
>>Issue sampler.
Bill Andersen was one of the most significant figures in New Zealand's trade union movement in the later twentieth century. Locke's biography recovers the relationships between communism and working class trade unionism during World War Two and the following decades, drawing over forty oral interviews, as well as Bill's unpublished autobiography, to explore what it meant to be a working class, communist trade unionist through those years of social change. The post-war splintering of the world communist movement fractured New Zealand communists; in the 1970s, the Northern Drivers' Union emerged as a powerful social movement; and Maori land rights and sovereignty activism reframed radicalism through the last decades of the century. The impact of neo-liberalism on trade unions in the late 1980s and 1990s is starkly shown.
A collection of Shaun Tan’s artwork from the past 25 years. The drawings and paintings in the book come from his work in picture books and other works including films and graphic novels. Others were created for no specific purpose beyond the desire to see what something looks like, or just to follow a sketched line to see where it goes. Many works are previously unpublished. As the title suggests the collection and accompanying essays by Shaun explore his use of non-human creatures as a motif throughout his artwork.
Between the Flags by Rachel Fenton $25
Nietzsche in Italy by Guy de Pourtales (translated by Will Stone) $25
Small Fires: An epic in the kitchen by Rebecca May Johnson $38
Sleeping Among Sheep under a Starry Sky: Essays, 1985—2021 by Wallace Shawn $40
Look! We Have Come Through! Living with D.H. Lawrence by Lara Feigal $33
The Edge of the Plain: How borders make and break our world by James Crawford $45
Kāinga Tahi, Kāinga Rua: Māori housing realities and aspirations edited by Fiona Cram, Jessica Hutchings and Jo Smith $40
How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo $40
Faith, Hope and Carnage by Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan $50
What if the worst thing that could ever happen to you had already happened, but you didn't realise? Like your brain couldn't handle it, so you turned it into a comic. Then closed it. Fourteen-year-old trainee lifeguard Mandy Malham has wanted to beat Jen in the surf lifesaving championships at Soldier Tree Bay ever since Jen bullied her in primary school, but to do that, Mandy comes to realise that first she must rescue herself. Some days it feels like the only friend you have is the pen in your hand. A YA novel from author and graphic artist Rachel J Fenton.
For fifteen years, after his first visit to the country in1876, Nietzsche was repeatedly and irresistibly drawn back to Italy's climate and lifestyle. It was there that he composed his most famous works, including Thus Spake Zarathustra and Ecce Homo. This classic biography, now translated into English for the first time) follows the troubled philosopher from Rome, to Florence, via Venice, Sorrento, Genoa, Sicily and finally to the tragic denouement in Turin, the city in which Nietzsche found a final measure of contentment before his irretrievable collapse.
Cooking is thinking! The spatter of sauce in a pan, a cook's subtle deviation from a recipe, the careful labour of cooking for loved ones: these are not often the subjects of critical enquiry. (cooking, we are told, has nothing to do with serious thought), but in this fascinating, innovative memoir, Rebecca May Johnson rewrites the kitchen as a vital source of knowledge and revelation. Drawing on insights from ten years spent thinking through cooking, she explores the radical openness of the recipe text, the liberating constraint of apron strings and the transformative intimacies of shared meals. Dissolving the boundaries between abstract intellect and bodily pleasure, domesticity and politics, Johnson awakens us to the richness of cooking as a means of experiencing the self and the world.
"An intense, thought-provoking enquiry into the very nature of cooking, which stayed with me long after I finished it." —Nigella Lawson
"One of the most original food books I've ever read, at once intelligent and sensuous, witty, provoking and truly delicious, a radical feast of flavours and ideas." —Olivia Laing
>>The recipe.
Born in 1943 in New York, Shawn has been writing plays since 1967. He has also worked as an actor. As he says of himself, he can be seen as someone who has spent his life 'sunk deep in the not particularly grown-up world of pretending and make-believe, but one could also note that writing plays and acting both involve the close observation of human society and human behaviour'. In a way entirely unique to himself, Shawn here attempts to understand the social and political realities of his time, whilst also offering some of his thoughts about 'the relatively innocent and provincial activity of creating small imaginary worlds with made-up characters'. His ultimate goal in the book is to determine whether people who are intimately concerned with the pursuit of the beautiful, can play a role in fighting against the horrifying injustice and vicious destructiveness that characterise our world.
"Shawn has a powerful sense, both as an actor and political essayist, of the extent to which our better selves are constrained by lines that have been written for us; by received ideas, the comforting deceptions of class, agency and so on. Behind most of these essays are questions about the unfairness of life to which the author responds — fairly, I think — without answers, only further questions of his own." —Will Eaves
"Shawn has a powerful sense, both as an actor and political essayist, of the extent to which our better selves are constrained by lines that have been written for us; by received ideas, the comforting deceptions of class, agency and so on. Behind most of these essays are questions about the unfairness of life to which the author responds — fairly, I think — without answers, only further questions of his own." —Will Eaves
Lara Feigel listens to birds outside her window their circling, strident calls and thinks of D. H. Lawrence. It is the spring of 2020 and, as the pandemic takes hold, she locks down in rural Oxfordshire with her partner, her two children, and that most explosive of writers. Proceeding month by month through the year, she sets out to start again with Lawrence — to find vital literary companionship; to use him as a guide to rural living and even, unexpectedly, to child-rearing; to find a way through his writing to excavate the modern world she feels he helped bring into being. Tracing the arc of Lawrence's life and delving deep into his writings, she confronts his anger, his passion, his tumultuous vitality. In the process, she faces some of today's most urgent dilemmas, from secular religion to the climate crisis, from sex and sexuality to feminism's ideas about motherhood. And, as she watches the seasons change alongside Lawrence, Feigel finds the rhythms of her own life shifting in unexpected ways.
"A lovely, urgent, serious book." —Tessa Hadley
Crawford argues that our enduring obsession with borders has brought us to a crisis point: that we are entering the endgame of a process that began thousands of years ago, when we first started dividing up the earth. Today, nationalism, climate change, globalisation, technology and mass migration are all colliding with ever-hardening borders. At stake is the future of the world as we know it. Borders are the ultimate test — can we let go of the lines that separate us? Or are we fated to repeat the mistakes of the past, as our angry, warming and segregated planet lurches towards catastrophe?
surveys the many ways Maori experience home and housing across Aotearoa New Zealand. These accounts range from the broader factors shaping Maori housing aspirations through to the experiences of whanau, hapu and iwi that connect to specific sites and locations. From statistically informed analyses to more poetic renderings of the challenges and opportunities of Maori housing, the book encompasses a rich range of voices and perspectives, including many wahine Maori authors. Opening with chapters on the wider contexts - history, land, colonisation - the book moves through to focused, and often intimate, discussions of the relationships between housing, home and identity. An expansive concluding section explores how Maori are developing housing solutions that are being called papakainga. These chapters cover rural, urban and big-city developments and complete a book that revitalises our understanding of what constitutes a home for Maori in the twenty-first century.
An exploration and manifesto investigating the power of reading - and our potential to become radically better readers in the world. How many times have we heard that reading builds empathy? That we can travel through books? How often have we were heard about the importance of diversifying our bookshelves? Or claimed that books saved our life? Of course, these beautiful words are sometimes true. But reading is—and can be—more powerful, more relevant, and more vital than we currently let it be. Castillo illuminates—and insists upon—our potential to become better readers, readers who will wield the power of reading ruthlessly, effectively, and to startling result to enact equity, kindle authentic connection, and clear space for voices to be heard.
Idol, Burning by Rin Usami $33
High school student Akari has only one passion in her life: her oshi, her idol. His name is Masaki Ueno, best known as one fifth of Japanese boyband Maza Maza. Akari's devotion to her oshi consumes her days completely. She keeps a blog entirely devoted to him, piously chronicling and analysing all his events. He is the spine of her life, she cannot survive without him. When Masaki is rumoured to have assaulted a female fan, facing waves of social media backlash, Akari's world falls apart. Offering a vivid insight into otaku culture and adolescence, Idol, Burning is a story of obsession, coming-of-age and the addictive, relentless nature of fandom culture.
Winner of the 2021 Akutagawa Prize.
Created from over forty hours of conversations, this book is a thoughtful exploration, in Cave's own words, of what really drives his life and creativity. The book examines questions of faith, art, music, freedom, grief and love. It draws candidly on Cave's life, from his early childhood to the present day, his loves, his work ethic and his dramatic transformation in recent years.
>>'Straight to You'.
Kahurangi Out West: More stories from Northwest Nelson by Gerard Hindmarsh $40
From the Bottom... to the Top by Harry Bell $48
Following Kahurangi Calling and Kahurangi Stories, this book is the final in this trilogy of stories from the backcountry of Northwest Nelson. An area of outstanding ecological and geological complexity, Kahurangi also generated a rich and colourful social history. Told here are the stories which start with the earliest human arrivals and finish with the family stories of the graziers who live along Kahurangi’s wild western flank today. Drovers, loggers, mill workers, top secret coast watchers, linesmen, miners and uranium prospectors, there’s also the story of King Tom of the Matakitaki, and one man’s obsession with traversing the formidable Dragon’s Teeth of the Douglas Range. Highly readable and engaging.
Starting as a young rope boy at Liverpool No 2 coalmine near Greymouth in 1948, Harry Bell went on to manage other mines around New Zealand, including Strongman, Denniston and Huntly. He also became chief mines inspector around New Zealand – including at Ohai.
VOLUME FOCUS : Anatomy
A selection of books from our shelves.
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This book is exquisite. It’s not just the packaging, even though this is a great start: cloth-covered, gilt-edged, and excellent layout make this a pleasure to hold in the hand and eye. The cover is a triptych of patterns, reminiscent of wallpaper, fabric sheets or curtains and the golden edges are just the right touch of tack and glamour. The endpapers are the perfect hotel green. For this is a book about hotels, or rather those who stay in them through, the eyes of a chambermaid. In fact, a not-a-chambermaid. French artist Sophie Calle spent a few months in 1981 employed at a Venetian hotel. Here she conducted a series of observations in photography and text of the rooms she cleaned when the guests were absent. She was a voyeur, an explorer into what is both intimate and anonymous. She cleaned rooms and took photographs, read guests postcards, noted their underwear, the way in which they slept in the beds. She opened suitcases and clicked her camera. She pried. The result was an exhibition and later a book — a book which until now has been available only in French. This new English-language edition from Silglo is a welcome addition to Calle’s other artist books. The photographs are a mix of black and white and stunning colour. The elaborate decor (the floral glitz and the formal wooden furniture) of the hotel rooms is lovingly juxtaposed with the personal effects of the visitors: some drab, commonplace; others surprising and cumulatively interesting. Why does this guest have a letter from 16 years ago on holiday with them? What can it be but nostalgia? The two women in Room 26 have near-matching pyjamas, porn magazines and cigarettes — they leave behind the two coke bottles, mostly empty and the magazines in the rubbish. The family in Room 47 have a balloon tied to a drawer handle, towels piled up in the bidet, repetitive postcards, and Calle’s assessment on day one, “On the luggage stand, a second suitcase. It is full. I don’t go through it; I just look. I am bored with these guests already.” And what do they leave behind — a deflated balloon and stale biscuits. Some guests are neat, others unpack everything. Calle notes their nightclothes, whether they use them, the arrangement of their pillows — the different approaches between couples. What medicines and cosmetics do they carry with them? She leaves us to draw our own conclusions as to the why. The photographs are intriguing — the objects, the angles with which Calle captures these fleeting moments, these ‘peepings’ into others’ lives through things and the way in which they interact with their environment — the hotel room. The careful calculations of light that cross these rooms, highlighting a crease in the sheet, or a slight rucking of the carpet, or the shine of new luggage or the wear and tear of old, is testament to Calle's skill behind the lens. And the text adds another dimension. It tells us what Calle does, how she sees the guests and what she does in the rooms. Each episode is recorded by Room, date and time. The best episodes straddle multiple days — with each visit to a room (with the same occupants) Calle seems bolder and more intrigued with the evidence of the guests. This isn’t merely reportage — Calle laces her words with droll humour and a storyteller’s gift, taking us, the readers, into our own imagination as we become voyeurs alongside her. Somehow it never seems that she is stepping over a border, although she trends very closely to the edge. We are briefly submerged in the lives of others while remaining at a distance, remote, despite this most intimate experience. |
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>>Walk in!
Also by Clotilde Perrin:
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Chased by monsters, each more comically hideous than the last, a child hides here and there inside three fairytale houses (the three little pigs' brick house, Cinderella's palace, the gingerbread house visited by Hansel and Gretel) before coming out and frightening the monsters away. Each house is a wonderland of lift-the-flap discoveries and hilarious details. This is a very enjoyable and special book.
>>Look inside.
Also by Clotilde Perrin:
Almost every day, the narrator visits ML, a close friend who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s. Based on these encounters and ML.’s fragments of memory, she constructs a powerfully moving tale about the breakdown of a mind that progressively erases everything in a very peculiar way. An attempt through writing to ‘make a relation endure despite the ruin, to hold up even if only a few words remain’. ‘How does someone who can’t remember say ‘I’?’ asks the narrator, considering this woman who shows her around the house as if she were visiting for the first time, or who is unable to say she feels dizzy, yet is perfectly capable of translating into English a message saying that she feels dizzy. Passages from a shared past and present that are transformed into fiction when faced with a forgetting that can no longer refute them. A book that opposes disintegration with a precise and vital prose and a unique sensibility.
"A masterclass in writing, with a brevity and clarity which is both rare and welcome, and firmly situates Molloy as an outstanding talent." —The Skinny
The famously reclusive writer shares with readers what he thinks about being a novelist; his thoughts on the role of the novel in our society; his own origins as a writer; and his musings on the sparks of creativity that inspire other writers, artists, and musicians. How does Murakami think about his own novels, and how does he craft them?
>>Read an extract.
>>Read an extract.
In 1920, New Zealanders were shocked by the news that the brilliant, well-connected mayor of genteel Whanganui had shot a young gay poet, D'Arcy Cresswell, who he thought was blackmailing him. They were then riveted by the trial that followed. Mackay was sentenced to hard labour and later left the country, only to be shot by a police sniper during street unrest in Berlin during the rise of the Nazis. Downfall shines a clear light on the vengeful impulses behind the blackmail and Mackay's ruination. The Mackay affair reveals the perilous existence of homosexual men and how society conspired to control and punish them. This careful examination of a little understood moment is unique for the queer lens through which it views the complex lives and motivations of key figures in late-Edwardian New Zealand and the systems within which they operated.
>>The mayor makes a comeback.
>>The mayor makes a comeback.
Gaspar is in danger. Only six-years-old, he is frightened he may have inherited the same strange abilities as his father, Juan; a powerful medium who can open locked doors, commune with the dead, and possess the ancient forces of the Darkness. Now father and son are in flight, hunted by the Order, a group of wealthy acolytes who seek to harness the Darkness, no matter the cost. Among them, Gaspar's grandmother, whose twisted desires have already driven her to commit unspeakable acts. Nothing will stop the Order, nothing is beyond them. Surrounded by horrors, can Gaspar and Juan break free? Spanning the brutal years of Argentina's military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a haunting, thrilling novel of broken families, cursed land, inheritance, power, and the terrible sacrifices a father will make to help his son escape his destiny. From the author of the International Booker short-listed The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.
The globe-spanning narratives that explode across the trilogy take us from a lone poplar tree in the Nevada desert to a barnacle-covered cliff in Galicia, Spain, through scientific treatises and film-editing manuals, personal journals, and comic strips. The books are full of references to indie cinema, theoretical physics, conceptual art, practical architecture, the history of computers and the decadence of the novel. And yet, for all the freewheeling, fragmentary swagger, a startling order emerges and takes hold. The Nocilla Trilogy charts a hidden and exhilarating cartography of contemporary experience.
"Like having multiple browser windows open, and compulsively tabbing between them." —Chris Power, Guardian
"The most original and powerful author of his generation in Spain." —Mathias Enard
'Think of Nocilla Trilogy as three novels at the edge of the form, their manifold narratives folded into each other: all highly imaginative, all fairly unhinged, all methodically interrupted by a range of scientific, theoretical and literary quotations." —Kevin Breathnach, London Review of Books
In 2018, without any plan or agenda for what might happen next, Patti Smith posted her first Instagram photo: her hand with the simple message "Hello Everybody!" Known for shooting with her beloved Land Camera 250, Smith started posting images from her phone including portraits of her kids, her radiator, her boots, and her Abyssinian cat, Cairo. Followers felt an immediate affinity with these miniature windows into Smith's world, photographs of her daily coffee, the books she's reading, the graves of beloved heroes--William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, Simone Weil, Albert Camus. Over time, a coherent story of a life devoted to art took shape. This book combines those images with vintage photographs: anniversary pearls, a mother's keychain, and a husband's Mosrite guitar; and photographs from Smith's archives of life on and off the road, train stations, obscure cafés, a notebook always nearby. In wide-ranging yet intimate daily notations, Smith shares dispatches from her travels around the world.
>>Look inside!
Re-Sisters: The lives of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe, and Cosey Fanni Tutti by Cosey Fanni Tutti $45
Swanfolk by Kristín Ómarsdóttir (translated by Vala Thorodds) $35
In the not-too-distant future, a young spy named Elisabet Eva is about to discover something that will upend her carefully controlled life. Elisabet's work is the lynchpin of her existence in the city; her friends and social life centre around the Special Unit. But recently Elisabet has found herself taking long solitary walks near the lake. One day, she sees two creatures emerging from the water, half-human, half-swan. She follows them through tangles of thickets into a strange new reality. Elisabet's walks turn into regular visits to these swan women, who reveal to her the enigma of their secret existence, and their deepest desires. Pulled further and further into the monomaniacal, and often violent, quest of the swanfolk she finds her own mind increasingly untrustworthy. Ultimately, Elisabet is forced to reckon with both the consequences of her involvement with these unusual beings and a past life she has been trying to evade.
"One of the most original authors in contemporary Icelandic literature, known for subverting traditional binaries like fantasy and realism, feminine and masculine, good and evil, and the animal and the human." —Ord um Baekur
The Glass Pearls by Emeric Pressburger $23
Is This a Cookbook? Adventures in the kitchen by Heston Blumenthal $53
Moro Easy by Sam and Sam Clark $65
A Ballet of Lepers: A novel and stories by Leonard Cohen $37
Lean Fall Stand by Jon McGregor $23
A Is For Bee: An alphabet book in translation by Helen Peck $28
Living Pictures by Polina Barskova $25
Freedom, Only Freedom: The prison writings by Behrouz Boochani, edited by Moones Mansoubi and Omid Tofighian $35
Black and Female by Tsitsi Dangaremba $23
Empire City by John E. Martin $70
In 2018, boundary-breaking visual and sonic artist Cosey Fanni Tutti received a commission to write the soundtrack to a film about Delia Derbyshire, the pioneering electronic composer who influenced the likes of Aphex Twin and the Chemical Brothers. While researching Derbeyshire's life, CFT became immersed in Derbyshire's story and uncovered some fascinating parallels with her own life. At the same time she began reading about Margery Kempe, the 15th century mystic visionary who wrote the first English language autobiography.
Re-Sisters is the story of three women consumed by their passion for life, a passion they expressed through music, art and lifestyle; they were undaunted by the consequences they faced in pursuit of enriching their lives, and fiercely challenged the societal and cultural norms of their time.
In the not-too-distant future, a young spy named Elisabet Eva is about to discover something that will upend her carefully controlled life. Elisabet's work is the lynchpin of her existence in the city; her friends and social life centre around the Special Unit. But recently Elisabet has found herself taking long solitary walks near the lake. One day, she sees two creatures emerging from the water, half-human, half-swan. She follows them through tangles of thickets into a strange new reality. Elisabet's walks turn into regular visits to these swan women, who reveal to her the enigma of their secret existence, and their deepest desires. Pulled further and further into the monomaniacal, and often violent, quest of the swanfolk she finds her own mind increasingly untrustworthy. Ultimately, Elisabet is forced to reckon with both the consequences of her involvement with these unusual beings and a past life she has been trying to evade.
"One of the most original authors in contemporary Icelandic literature, known for subverting traditional binaries like fantasy and realism, feminine and masculine, good and evil, and the animal and the human." —Ord um Baekur
London, June 1965. Karl Braun arrives as a lodger in Pimlico: hatless, with a bow-tie, greying hair, slight in build. His new neighbours are intrigued by this cultured German gentleman who works as a piano tuner; many are fellow émigrés, who assume that he, like them, came to England to flee Hitler. That summer, Braun courts a woman, attends classical concerts, dances the twist. But as the newspapers fill with reports of the hunt for Nazi war criminals, the hunt is on for a Nazi surgeon hiding somewhere in Britain...
"A wonderfully compelling noir thriller and audacious and challenging act of imagination." —William Boyd
"A haunting, remarkable novel, as startlingly original as any of Pressburger's films." —Nicola Upson
This is probably Blumenthal's most intimate cookbook, allowing us to see the way he thinks and approaches (and rethinks) relatively simple but interesting food. Each of the seventy recipes includes Blumenthal's thoughts, hacks and anecdotes, and show that the most important ingredient is personality. Illustrated with gusto by Dave McKean.
"Heston's done it again. With the original molecular gastronomist, nothing is ever straightforward, and his latest cookbook is no exception. Why is banana and parsley such a winning combination? What is it about a cheese sandwich that causes such a nostalgic rush? But perhaps the biggest surprise is that every musing leads to a simple recipe well within the reach of any curious home cook." —Tony Turnbull, The Times
"This is a glorious sprawl of a book, beautifully illustrated by Dave McKean, that looks at the practical and emotional components of food. Is this a cookbook? For me this is a picture book, a collection of questions that hit you like little darts, and uncomplicated recipes you'll approach in a different, more thoughtful way." —Diana Henry, The Telegraph
Following their acclaimed Moro: The cookbook, which introduced us to the Moorish cuisine, fresh ingredients and fragrant spices of North Africa and Southern Spain, this new book continues their project to reinvigorate home cooking, with simple and speedy dishes such as Courgette, Lemon and Manchego Salad, Spiced Potato Cake with Egg, Asparagus and Jamon and Seabass with Migas, Lemon Zest and Garlic, as well as one-pot Spring Greens with Crispy Chorizo and Brown Rice and Potato Pilaf.
The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to dismantle systems of oppression to protect people + planet by Leah Thomas $28
Saving Freud: A life in Vienna and an escape to freedom in London by Andrew Magorski $37
Am I Normal? The 200-year search for normal people (and why they don't exist) by Sarah Chaney $40
"A rare and very special cookbook." —Nigel Slater
Oxygen Mask: A graphic novel by Jason Griffin and Jason Reynolds $23
Set within the walls of a family home, this graphic novel for young adults is an artefact of the historic year we have all lived through. We travel from the depths of despair but not without hope; the mundane details contained within four walls becomes our sanctuary. This is a gift in commemoration of a time and place, of a worldwide pandemic, of loss, and of the murder of George Floyd. It is a reminder of how, in uncertain times, we can cling to the simple things for respite, for hope. A reminder of how comforting books and artworks are in times of extreme stress.
>>Look inside.
Activist and environmental scientist Leah Thomas shows how Black, Indigenous and People of Colour are unequally and unjustly impacted by climate change and environmental degradation - and argues that the fight for the planet lies in tandem with the fight for civil rights. In fact, one cannot exist without the other. This book provides an accessible foundation in the theory, exploring everything from the birth of the environmental movement to Kimberle William Crenshaw's concept of intersectionality, 'mainstream feminism' to ecofeminism. It helps readers frame their experiences and those of their community, question concepts of privilege and ownership, and better understand how climate change impacts the most marginalised and how to help amplify their voices.
The dramatic true story of Sigmund Freud's last-minute escape to London following the German annexation of Austria, and of the group of friends who made it possible.
Existential Physics: A scientist's guide to life's biggest questions by Sabine Hossenfelder $38
>>Berggasse 19.
In this lively, thought-provoking book, Hossenfelder takes on the biggest questions in physics: Does the past still exist? Do particles think? Was the universe made for us? Has physics ruled out free will? Will we ever have a theory of everything? She lays out how far physicists are on the way to answering these questions, where the current limits are, and what questions might well remain unanswerable forever.
"Hossenfelder is a rare gem. There are other theoretical physicists out there who can write for a popular audience, but very few of them are able to do so in such a no-nonsense way. The result is not just illuminating, but enjoyable." —Charles Seife
Before the nineteenth century, the term normal was rarely ever associated with human behaviour. Normal was a term used in maths, for right angles. People weren't normal; triangles were. But from the 1830s, this branch of science really took off across Europe and North America, with a proliferation of IQ tests, sex studies, a census of hallucinations — even a UK beauty map (which concluded the women in Aberdeen were 'the most repellent'). This book tells the surprising history how the very notion of the normal came about, how it shaped us all, often while entrenching oppressive values. Sarah Chaney looks at why we're still asking the internet: Do I have a normal body? Is my sex life normal? Are my kids normal? And along the way, she challenges why we ever thought it might be a desirable thing to be.
"This fascinating collection of Cohen's early fiction foreshadows motifs and concerns that the performer later mined across decades." —Observer
When an Antarctic research expedition goes wrong, the consequences are far-reaching — for the people involved and for their families back home. Robert 'Doc' Wright, a veteran of Antarctic field work, holds the clues to what happened, but he is no longer able to communicate them. While Anna, his wife, navigates the sharp contours of her new life as a carer, Robert is forced to learn a whole new way to be in the world.
"It leaves the reader moved and subtly changed, as if she had become part of the story." —Hilary Mantel
"So moving and delicate and terrifying and haunting." —Maggie O'Farrell
A is for bee, L is for rabbit, M is for jellyfish, T is for octopus, U is for mouse, X is for bear, Y is for porcupine. Not in English, perhaps, but in other languages the names of things often start with different letters. Boldly illustrated, this book introduces children to language diversity.
Two lovers remain in a gallery of the Hermitage, refusing to shelter underground while Leningrad is under siege. Freezing and gnawed by hunger, they recite poems and stories to pass the time, re-enacting the paintings that are being evacuated from the museum. As their voices and bodies begin to fail and fragment, their conversation is interspersed with sections from a diary — a real document from a person who died during the blockade. This is the centrepiece of Living Pictures, Polina Barskova's genre-defying collection of fiction that reckons with the history and aftermath of the siege of Leningrad. Drawing on archival material and refracting it through fiction, Barskova draws arresting, fearless portraits of the lives caught up in the blockade. A work of inventiveness and richly poetic language, Living Pictures is a collage of a city and a culture in crisis.
"A precise, tremendous and beautiful book." —Maria Stepanova
Over six years of imprisonment on Australia's offshore migrant detention centre, the Kurdish Iranian journalist and writer Behrouz Boochani bore personal witness to the suffering and degradation inflicted on him and his fellow refugees, culminating eventually in his prize-winning book — No Friend but the Mountains — which was painstakingly typed out in text messages while he was incarcerated. In the articles, essays, and poems he wrote while detained, he emerged as both a tenacious campaigner and activist, as well as a deeply humane voice which speaks for the indignity and plight of the many thousands of detained migrants across the world. In this book, his collected writings are combined with essays from experts on migration, refugee rights, politics, and literature. Together, they provide a moving, creative, and challenging account of not only one writer's harrowing experience and inspiring resilience, but the wider structures of violence which hold thousands of human beings in a state of misery in migrant camps throughout the western hemisphere and beyond.
Being categorised as black and female does not constrain my writing. Writing assures me that I am more than merely blackness and femaleness. Writing assures me I am.
This paradigm-shifting essay collection weaves the personal and political in an exploration of Dangarembga's complex relationship with race and gender. At once philosophical, intimate and urgent, Dangarmebga's landmark essays address the cultural and political questions that underpin her novels.
"Poignant, profound, essential. The human cost of colonisation laid bare." —Audrey Magee
Empire City brings the story of Wellington to life, from the invasions of iwi from further north in the early 1800s and uneasy coexistence of different iwi to the purchase of land by the New Zealand Company and the beginnings of Pākehā settlement. Whaling was replaced by pastoralism, the mercantile community rose to prominence, and a viable town with a polyglot population was established. The tales are wide-ranging and compelling, from politicians butting heads, to merchants prospering and others going bankrupt, to earthquakes and shipwrecks, Māori endeavouring to keep the peace or resisting the depredations of Pākehā settlement, the impact of the military in town, the citizenry’s establishment of a variety of social institutions and their enjoyment of diverse entertainments and sports, tales of the distressed and unfortunate underclass as exposed in court, and prisoners escaping from gaol. For its long-term future Wellington needed to secure a rural hinterland but it was hemmed in by rugged hills and heavy bush and the lack of land further north. The war that erupted in 1846 consolidated British sovereignty, purchases of land in Wairarapa and the west coast and the extension of roading helped the town gain a stronger economic footing, while its commercial sector developed apace. Gaining its own provincial government allowed a voice for Wellington and the long campaign began for it to become the capital. Political deadlock and the involvement of the lower North Island in the wars for a time hindered the town’s development and its agitation to become the capital, but in 1865 what had been a long-held dream became a reality. Wellington had truly become the Empire City. In the contributions made by Māori, the New Zealand Company, early Pākehā settlers, merchants, shopkeepers, working people, worthy and less worthy citizens alike, together with a host of institutions and organisations, we appreciate how Wellington came to be from such unpromising beginnings. This diverse, rich and turbulent story is the key to understanding Wellington’s status as the capital of New Zealand.
VOLUME FOCUS : Rooms
A selection of books from our shelves.
