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15 March 2024
Our Philosopher by Gert Hofmann (translated from German by Eric Mace-Tessler)
“One understands only what one expects, says Father.” Through the perspective of a young boy in a small town, Gert Hofmann’s pitch-perfect novel tells of the gradual, sure and awful destruction of a Professor Veilchenfeld, who comes to live in the town after (we deduce) his expulsion from a university. Hofmann is careful to limit the narrative to what the boy knows, learns and asks, and the answers he gets from his parents — answers progressively unable to encompass or explain the situation. Although the novel does not contain the words ‘Jew’ or ‘Nazi’, but narrates the abuses heaped upon Veilchenfeld directly as the actions of persons upon another person — Hofmann provides no buffer of abstraction or identity to Veilchenfeld’s heart-rending fate (the abusers, after all, are the ones motivated by identity) — the novel, evidently set in the years preceding World War 2, gives subtle and devastating insight into how an attrition of civility in German society in the 1930s prepared it to both tolerate and perpetrate the Holocaust. The change in society is seen as a loss, a narrowing, a degradation, a stupifaction; the abusers themselves seem helpless and perplexed even at the height of their abuse. Fascism is the opposite of thought. For others, what cannot be accepted is erased from awareness. “What one does not absolutely have to know, one can also live without knowing,” says Father. What begins as some surreptitious stone-throwing and more general avoidance escalates over the three-year period of the book into community-approved violence and brazen cruelty. As Hofmann shows well, degradation also degrades the degrader, for which the degrader hates their victim still more and therefore subjects them to yet greater degradation — thereby degrading themselves still more and hating the victim still more in a cycle that quickly becomes extreme. Veilchenfeld applies to leave Germany but has his passport torn up and his citizenship revoked by an official at the town hall. Ultimately, his abjection cannot be borne; he hides in his apartment, despairs, loses the will to live, awaits his ‘relocation’. Eventually even the narrator’s father, Veilchenfeld’s doctor, sees Veilchenfeld’s death as the only solution. For the degraded degraders, though, there is no such simple release from the degradation they have wrought, only further escalation. “Reality is a gruesome rumour,” says Father. Towards the end of the book the townsfolk hold, for the first time ever, a unifying and nationalistic ‘traditional folk festival’, with the children grouped into different cohorts supposedly emblematic of the town’s traditions (though nobody actually recognises the supposed woodsman’s costume the narrator is issued to wear). This ludicrous festival is an innovation, a lie, emotive quicksand; all Fascism is retrospective fantasy, fraudulent nostalgia, a mental weakness, a sentimental longing to return to an imagined but non-existent collective past. Hofmann was the age of the narrator in the period described and was concerned when he wrote the book at the ongoing relevance of what happened then. History is a good teacher, Herr Veilchenfeld says, but, time and again, we are proven to be very poor students.
Out of the carton and into your hands!
Choose from this selection of books that have just arrived at VOLUME:
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken $35
It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over asks how much of yourself can you lose before you are lost…and then what happens? The heroine of this haunting, spare novel is voraciously alive in the afterlife. Adrift yet keenly aware, our undead narrator notes every bizarre detail of her new reality. She has forgotten even her name, but she remembers with unbearable longing the place where she knew herself and was known — where she loved and was loved. She heads west and into mind-boggling adventures, carrying a dead but laconically opinionated crow in her chest. A bracing writer of great nerve and verve, Anne de Marcken bends reality (and the reader’s mind) with throwaway assurance. It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over plumbs mortality and how it changes everything, except possibly love. Delivering a near-Beckettian whopping to the reader’s imagination, this is one of the sharpest and funniest novels of recent years, a tale for our dispossessed times. Joint winner of The Novel Prize.
”Astounding, inventive, and utterly original, Anne de Marcken has written a freakish classic with wisdom to spare about life, death, and the eerily vast space between. I was absolute putty in this book’s hands.” — Alexandra Kleeman
”Anne de Marcken must write in a charmed ink that first erases the line between the living and the dead, and then — with prose as elegant as it is spooked — tells the story of what lies underneath. I have never read anything like this brilliant debut.” —Sabrina Orah Mark
The Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener (translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches) $37
A provocative autobiographical novel that reckons with the legacy of colonialism through one woman's family ties to both colonised and coloniser. Alone in an ethnographic museum in Paris, Gabriela Wiener is confronted with her unusual inheritance. She is visiting an exhibition of pre-Columbian artefacts, the spoils of European colonial plunder, many of them from her home country of Peru. Peering through the glass, she sees sculptures of Indigenous faces that resemble her own - but the man responsible for pillaging them was her own great-great-grandfather, Austrian colonial explorer Charles Wiener. In the wake of her father's death, Gabriela begins delving into all she has inherited from her paternal line. From the brutal trail of racism and theft Charles was responsible for, to revelations of her father's infidelity, she traces a legacy of abandonment, jealousy and colonial violence, and questions its impact on her own struggles with desire, love and race in a polyamorous relationship. Blending personal, historical and fictional modes, Undiscovered tells of a search for identity beyond the old stories of patriarchs and plunder. Incisive and fiercely irreverent, it builds to a powerful call for decolonisation.
”Wiener has rescued an intimate story from the family archive, a story that is also the infamous history of our continent, with her trademark intelligence and irreverent humor. Her prose, sober and forward, is fresh air; her view allows us to be testimonies of Latin America's cycles of plundering and looting.” —Valeria Luiselli
”Reading Undiscovered, I wondered what so captivated me about this novel. Was it Gabriela's innate ability to plunder all sorts of convention? Her persistent exploration of our deepest despairs-the weight and falsehoods of the stories and imperatives we inherit? All this, but Undiscovered is also spurred on by a yet more profound and radical strength: the spirit of fury. Powerful and searing, this novel snaps, bucks, heals, and snaps again.” —Samanta Schweblin
”Undiscovered's beautiful blend of fiction and personal feeling on everything from sex, to death, to Peru's traumatic history to France's heritage-colonial industry could not be more contemporary, vital and important, or expressed in more dynamic and immersive prose.” —Preti Taneja
Tell by Jonathan Buckley $38
“I can talk for as long as you like, no problem. You'll just have to tell me when to stop. How far back do you want to take it?” Tell is a probing, exuberant and complex examination of the ways in which we make stories of our lives and of other people's. Structured as a series of interview transcripts with a woman who worked as a gardener for a wealthy businessman and art collector who has disappeared, and may or may not have committed suicide, it is a novel of strange, intoxicating immediacy, and the co-winner of the 2022 Novel Prize.
”Always well crafted, this novel is engaging in parts and digressive in others, which adds to its realism, capturing how people chatter their way down alleys, rarely hewing to the main road of a tale…. The buildup in Tell is perpetual, a sense that an explanation must be coming. But the author diverges from expectations and converges on reality, where remembering is not the same as understanding. Abruptly, someone may just disappear, and all that remains is the sight of a figure wandering across a bridge — no splash heard, just the fading ripples of ‘why’.” — Tom Rachman, New York Times
”Buckley's fiction is subtle and fastidiously low-key...every apparently loose thread, when tugged, reveals itself to be woven into the themes [and] gets better the more you allow it to settle in your mind.” —Michel Faber, The Guardian
”Exactly why Buckley is not already revered and renowned as a novelist in the great European tradition remains a mystery that will perhaps only be addressed at that final godly hour when all the overlooked authors working in odd and antique modes will receive their just rewards.” —Ian Sansom, Times Literary Supplement
The Unsettled: Small stories of colonisation by Richard Shaw $40
After Richard Shaw published his acclaimed memoir The Forgotten Coast in 2021, he made contact with Pakeha with long settler histories who were coming to grips with the truth of their respective families' 'pioneer stories'. They were questioning the foundation of aggressive acts of colonisation and land confiscation on which those stories had been constructed. The Unsettled weaves those stories with Shaw's own and features New Zealanders who are trying to figure out how to live well with their own pasts, their presents and their possible futures. They may be unsettled, but they are doing something about it. It is an indispensable companion for the journey towards understanding the complex and difficult history of the New Zealand Wars and their ongoing aftermath.
'“Heartfelt, poetic; a pleasure to read." —RachelBuchanan, The Spinoff
"A fresh and exciting approach to the history of Aotearoa.” —Paul Diamond
Kin: Family in the 21st century by Kim Kamenev $43
The shape of family has changed in the 21st century. While the nuclear family still exists, many more types of kinship surround us.Kin is an investigation into what influences us to have children and the new ways that have made parenthood possible. It delves into the experiences of couples without children, single parents by choice and rainbow families, and investigates the impacts of adoption, sperm donation, IVF and surrogacy, and the potential for a future of designer babies. Assisted reproductive technology has developed quickly, and the ways in which we think and speak about its implications — both legally and ethically — need to catch up.
The Beautiful Afternoon by Airini Beautrais $38
In The Beautiful Afternoon, award-winning poet and short-story writer Airini Beautrais plumbs history, literature, Star Wars, sea hags, beauty products, tarot, swimwear, environmentalism and pole dancing to deliver a virtuoso inquiry into how we become, and change, who we are. Beautrais surveys the many influences on her life, from Lord Byron and Dante to Dolly magazine and 90s R&B, with intense curiosity and a fierce intelligence. Whether saving the planet in her Quaker childhood and activist youth, surviving the lonely years of early motherhood, or confronting the fears and freedoms of midlife , Beautrais’s lucid examination of experience reveals that the personal is inescapably political. Throughout these wide-ranging essays her vigilant critique of entrenched patriarchal control turns anger to resistance, as a woman finds a way out of its grip, back to herself and the world.
Te Ata o Tū: The Shadow of Tumatauenga edited by Matiu Baker, Katie Cooper, Michael Fitzgerald and Rebecca Rice $70
The wars of 1845–72 were described by James Belich as “bitter and bloody struggles, as important to New Zealand as were the Civil Wars to England and the United States”. The conflict’s themes of land and sovereignty continue to resonate today. This richly illustrated book, developed in partnership with iwi, delves into Te Papa’s Mātauranga Māori, History and Art collections to explore taonga and artefacts intimately connected with the key events and players associated with the New Zealand Wars, sparking conversation and debate and shedding new light on our troubled colonial past. Contributing essays from Basil Keane, Arini Loader, Danny Keenan, Jade Kake, Mike Ross, Paul Meredith, Monty Soutar, Puawai Cairns, and Ria Hall.
Ngātokimatawhaorua: The biography of a waka by Jeff Evans $50
Ngātokimatawhaorua, the longest waka taua to be built in modern times, is a national taonga and resides at the Treaty Grounds at Waitangi. The inspiration for its construction came from Te Puea Harangi's dream to build seven waka for the 1940 centennial commemorations of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. But it was to be many decades before the true power of this mighty waka taua was realised. The story of Ngātokimatawhaorua, and those who carved and crewed it, is a fascinating window into te ao Maori and the revival of carving and voyaging traditions in Aotearoa.
When I Open the Shop by romesh dissanayake $35
In his small noodle shop in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, a young chef obsessively juliennes carrots. Nothing is going according to plan: the bills are piling up, his mother is dead, and there are strangers in his kitchen. The ancestors are watching closely. Told through a series of brilliant interludes and jump cuts, When I open the shop is sometimes blackly funny, sometimes angry and sometimes lyrical, and sometimes — as a car soars off the road on a horror road trip to the Wairarapa — it takes flight into surrealism. A glimpse into immigrant life in Aotearoa, this is a highly entertaining, surprising and poignant debut novel about grief, struggle and community.
”It’s an exhilarating read, the general vibe of the novel akin to chancing on a frozen lake and deciding then and there to get your skates on. But there’s unpredictability in the firmness of the ice and fascinating things lurk underneath; those figure-eight loops demand rigorous attention to craft.” —Angelique Kasmara
”When I open the shop is a novel about loss, exile and dislocation, in which time, space, and memory become a beautiful, fluid thing. It is very funny, angry and constantly pleasurable and moving in the way it depicts people opening space for themselves, and finding comfort, in spite of everything.” —Brannavan Gnanalingam
”This is a beautiful and compelling work. The language is magnificent on a sentence-by-sentence level, but I think that the structure is an incredibly adept act of decolonisation.” —Pip Adam
A Memoir of My Former Self: A life in writing by Hilary Mantel $40
'I breathed in stories, as soon as I breathed in air. Sometimes I think I wasn't born, but I just came out of an ink blot.' As well as her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel long contributed to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. This strand of her writing was an integral part of how she thought of herself. 'Ink is a generative fluid,' she explains. 'If you don't mean your words to breed consequences, don't write at all.' A Memoir of My Former Self collects the finest of this writing over four decades. Mantel's subjects are wide-ranging. She discusses nationalism and her own sense of belonging; our dream life flopping into our conscious life; the mythic legacy of Princess Diana; the many themes that feed into her novels - revolutionary France, psychics, Tudor England - and other novelists, from Jane Austen to V. S. Naipaul. She writes about her father and the man who replaced him; she writes fiercely and heartbreakingly about the battles with her health she endured as a young woman, and the stifling years she found herself living in Saudi Arabia. Here, too, is a selection of her film reviews - from When Harry Met Sally to RoboCop - and, published for the first time, her Reith Lectures, which explore the process of art bringing history and the dead back to life. From her unique childhood to her all-consuming fascination with Thomas Cromwell that grew into the ‘Wolf Hall Trilogy’, A Memoir of My Former Self reveals the shape of Hilary Mantel's life in her own dazzling words, 'messages from people I used to be.'
”A smart, deft, meticulous, thoughtful writer, with such a grasp of the dark and spidery corners of human nature.” —Margaret Atwood
The End of Eden: Wild nature in the age of climate breakdown by Adam Welz $47
The stories we usually tell ourselves about climate change tend to focus on the damage inflicted on human societies by big storms, severe droughts, and rising sea levels. But the most powerful impacts are being and will be felt by the natural world and its myriad species, which are already in the midst of the sixth great extinction. Rising temperatures are fracturing ecosystems that took millions of years to evolve, disrupting the life forms they sustain — and in many cases driving them towards extinction. The natural Eden that humanity inherited is quickly slipping away. Although we can never really know what a creature thinks or feels, The End of Eden invites the reader to meet wild species on their own terms in a range of ecosystems that span the globe. Combining classic natural history, firsthand reportage, and insights from cutting-edge research, Adam Welz brings us close to creatures like moose in northern Maine, parrots in Puerto Rico, cheetahs in Namibia, and rare fish in Australia as they struggle to survive. The stories are intimate yet expansive and always dramatic. An exquisitely written and deeply researched exploration of wild species reacting to climate breakdown, The End of Eden offers a radical new kind of environmental journalism that connects humans to nature in a more empathetic way than ever before and galvanises us to act in defence of the natural world before it's too late.
Our Philosopher by Gert Hofmann (translated from German by Eric Mace-Tessler) $40
“O, it has happened little by little, as many things simply happen little by little, Mother said, and told us everything about Herr Veilchenfeld, as far as it was known to her.” Germany, late 1930s. Walking into town on a hot summer evening, the elderly professor Herr Veilchenfeld encounters a group of local drunks. He is humiliated and assaulted; his hair is shorn. The police ‘don’t interfere in such minor matters’. What happens to Veilchenfeld is recounted by the young son of the doctor who attends the professor. The boy observes, listens in to his parents’ conversations, and asks for ice creams. He cannot know the true import of the events he witnesses. First published in Germany 1986 and now translated into English as Veilchenfeld / Our Philosopher, this mmorable book is a salutary masterpiece about the destructive effects of persecution not only for the victims, but for the community as a whole.
”One of the best holocaust novels in postwar German literature.” —Milena Ganeva
”The past in Gert Hofmann’s books is not dead. Indeed, it is not even past.” —Lutz Hagestad
Sweet France: The 100 best recipes from the greatest French pastry chefs by François Blanc $65
France has a rich history of sweet traditions and talented pâtissiers, and with Sweet France, discover 100 recipes for irresistible cakes and pastries. The very clearly laid-out book includes the essentials, classics revisited, pastries, signature cakes, cookies, and other bite-size treats. Indulge yourself with canelés de Bordeaux, gâteau Basque, traditional fraisier cake, chocolate éclairs, and the legendary Saint-Honoré. Inside, you’ll find recipes for every level of proficiency to try at home, including the favorite creations of Cédric Grolet, Yann Couvreur, Pierre Hermé, Philippe Conticini, and a host of other big names and up-and-coming talents in contemporary French pâtisserie.
Mole Is Not Alone by Maya Tatsukawa $38
Mole is invited to a party, which is very worrisome. What if the party is too rowdy for Mole? What if Mole doesn't know anyone there? What if Mole is just too shy to make friends? Mole worries through the tunnels, around Snake's burrow, under the forest, past Bear's den, and all the way to Rabbit's door. But despite all those worries, maybe Mole can find a quiet way to make friends . . .
For the shy, and the brave and the thoughtful. Let’s start with the shy…
Mole has been invited to Rabbit’s Moon Harvest Party. It’s a dilemma. Mole wants to go, but what if they don’t know anyone apart from Rabbit? Mole knows Rabbit likes cream puffs, but what if no one else does? Mole decides they will go. They make the cream puffs, wrap them up and tie the gift box of goodies with a beautiful yellow bow. Mole starts on the journey underground, not very sure they will get there. Maybe it would be better to just go home and try again another time. Mole makes a deal with themself: if they get past sleeping Snake, they will carry on. Snake sleeps and Mole is both pleased and apprehensive all at once. Maybe I should go home, Mole thinks. I wish I had stayed home exclaims Mole as they continue along the tunnels. In spite of the desire to turn back, and the endless deliberation, Mole finds themself popping up from underground at Rabbit’s place. Apprehensively, with the gift clutched in their paws, they venture above ground. But wait, there's someone else there! Hiding in the bushes. A someone just as shy as Mole. This is the cutest picture book I’ve come across recently. It’s sweet, without being saccharine, and delightfully illustrated. The depictions of the characters’ personalities are spot on; from the wonderfully shy Mole, to timid Skunk, clever Rabbit, and the more adventurous animal friends. There’s a charming picture of the walk to Rabbit’s house. Here is Raccoon pushing a cake on a cart, followed by Chipmunk playing a tune, Bear clutching some tasty drink, Fox with a fresh baguette, and rounding off the line, Hedgehog with a bunch of balloons. Below them, you can’t see Mole, but there’s some distinctly Mole-ish mumblings popping up in speech bubbles. And if you look carefully, you might spy Skunk. Maya Tatsukawa’s illustrations are joyful, brimming with humour and delightful detail. Check the books in Mole’s home — Moomins by the bed, the History of Burrows and Tunnels 101 on the reference shelf, to mention just a few. Mole is Not Alone is a lovely story about being unsure, of trying new things, and most of all, about being comfortable with who you are. The illustrations and the text fit together well and work seamlessly to give depth of understanding with subtlety and quiet humour.
And now a complete contrast. Things in the Basement is the latest graphic novel for kids from Ben Hatke. Milo has twin siblings, the household is busy, and the babies are crying. One of them is missing a pink sock and Milo has been sent to the laundry to find it. The laundry is in the basement. The pink sock is there somewhere, along with something else. Or many something elses! In Milo’s search for the pink sock, he will find stairs that keep going down, much further down than in any ordinary house, secret doors, trapdoors, strange cracks in the walls, rooms that open on to other rooms, and a world that is both fascinating and strange, and a little bit terrifying. Milo’s determined to get the sock back, so in spite of his fear he ventures forth. Not all things in the Basement World are foe, there are friends to help as well. Hatke’s murky colour palette adds to the feeling of imminent danger and contrasts nicely with the shining torches, glimpses of pink wool and humorous moments. The curious, if nervous, Milo is our guide through this underworld and don’t worry he’ll get you back to the world above with a pink sock, of sorts. This is aimed at 7 years up, but not for the faint-hearted. It’s wonderfully imaginative and magical, and an excellent graphic novel for those that like their stories with a spooky edge.
And as thinking is a wonderful pastime, here is the latest from the excellent pen of Shinsuke Yoshitake. Here, our protagonist, Akira, wonders about growing up — “When I’m big..,” ; is frustrated by having to rely on others — parents; and imagines themselves being super competent! Well, doesn’t everyone? In I Can Open It For You, we have screwed up faces, too tight jars, packages that won’t release their yummy food contents, tantrums and just plain old frustration. When you’re too little to manage, you have to ask for help. But when you grow up, you’ll be running about in demand: open this, that and everything else. Akira imagines all the things he will be able to open — jars, packets, houses, the earth, purses, suitcases, bottles and animal cages — when he’s bigger. Luckily, while he’s small, there’s always someone to help and show Akira all the wonderful ways to open boxes, packets, windows to views and a box with a new pet. A book about growing up, being open to new experiences and finding out together. Funny, thoughtful and enjoyable for small children who will instantly relate to Akira’s dilemma, and enjoy the experience of opening a book together.
In Thunderclap: A Memoir of Life and Art and Sudden Death, art critic Laura Cumming connects the lives of herself, her painter father, and the artists of the Dutch golden age. An outstanding book, this week it won the highly regarded Writers’ Prize (formerly the Folio Prize) non-fiction category, is long-listed for the Women’s Prize, and has garnered dazzling reviews:
“This is an extraordinary book, full of beauty and feeling and immediacy and depth (and impressive detective work)...Thunderclap is a work of genius.” —India Knight
“Cumming is a word-painter ... When something fascinates Laura Cumming, she makes sure, with her beguiling prose, that we too are caught up in her fascination.” —The Times
“Cumming writes with the sureness of carefully laid paint. This is not art historical scholarship of the academic kind – there are no footnotes or references to sources beyond her own feelings and intuition. It is an emotionally informed approach to art. “ —Kathryn Hughes, The Guardian
“We see with everything that we are.” On the morning of 12 October 1654, a gunpowder explosion devastated the Dutch city of Delft. The thunderclap was heard over seventy miles away. Among the fatalities was the painter Carel Fabritius, dead at thirty-two, leaving only his haunting masterpiece ‘The Goldfinch’ and barely a dozen known paintings. For the explosion that killed him also buried his reputation, along with answers to the mysteries of his life and career. What happened to Fabritius before and after this disaster is just one of the discoveries in a book that explores the relationship between art and life, interweaving the lives of Laura Cumming, her Scottish painter father, who also died too young, and the great artists of the Dutch Golden Age. Thunderclap takes the reader from Rembrandt's studio to wartime America and contemporary London; from Fabritius's goldfinch on its perch to de Hooch's blue and white tile and the smallest seed in a loaf by Vermeer. This is a book about what a picture may come to mean: how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap. For the explosion of the title speaks not only to the precariousness of our existence, but also to the power of painting: the sudden revelations of sight.
A selection of books from our shelves.
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Read our latest newsletter. Read our reviews. Discover new and interesting books. Find out which books have been shortlisted for the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
8 March 2024 (International Women’s Day)
“Take Two moves beyond the conventions of family memoir, fusing narrative with something like the spirit of a compendium or almanac, gathering up song titles, drawings of household objects, letter extracts, playscripts, poems, and illuminated micro-stories. The book accumulates into a vivid portrait of a family of German and British heritage, set up in post-WW2 London and torn between impulses to close ranks or break apart. It’s a fascinating and provocative act of witnessing, one that offers up new insights and patterns with each re-reading.” —Michael Loveday
Here’s a gem of a book. Take Two is a project by two sisters about growing up in post-war London which subtly reveals more than you expect. It is published by the excellent CB Editions, the small (one-man) publishing house of the well-regarded Charles Boyle, who in his recent newsletter (in which he breaks down the negative profit of publishing books) stated, “If I’m putting a book into the world — adding to the world’s sheer stuff — I want, obviously, this book to be a decent thing”. Caroline and Vivian Thonger, among other things, are both writers: Caroline of non-fiction and translation; Vivian poetry and short fictions. Caroline lives in Switzerland and Vivian in Aotearoa, as does the illustrator Alan Thomas. The book is a collection of short pieces, of episodes, that cleverly coalesce to build a picture of a sometimes fraught family life, through childhood memories, letters, remembered pieces of music, and household objects. There are micro-stories, poems, and short plays, all working together to reveal the dynamics of family life and familial relationships. For Caroline and Vivian, their parents figure strongly, each a dominating presence in their lives. Their mother, Ursula, seems glamorous and unconventional — she’s continental and fiercely independent, which must have made her unusual in the Britain of the 1950s, while her mother (the German grandmother), the rather daunting Oma, is opinionated and yet wry. When her sister suddenly dies landing face down in her pudding, she announces that it is very inconvenient. Their father, Richard, is a complex individual. Cambridge-educated, but it's difficult to place him in Britain’s society of the time — he seems contradictory to his core. Immersed in his study surrounded by words within a cloud of smoke, he’s obviously an intellectual, but he’s prone to fly off the handle and his temper has little regard for his daughters’ feelings, particularly Caroline, his eldest child. This is what I gather from reading the entries in this volume, and reading between the lines, for it is not spelled out. Both sisters have set aside their adult knowledge to rekindle the child’s viewpoint. It is deliberate and makes this memoir so very captivating. For the reader these impressions, along with our adult perspective and experiences, allow us to join the dots and fit the pieces into the jigsaw puzzle. Whether we do this accurately is beside the point, for memory is not accurate and perspectives are usually varied. There are ordinary childhood accounts followed by traumatic events, evenly told so that the reader does not notice at first and then pauses in shock. Look for the clues in the addresses in London as the family moves and dynamics change between the parents. See the summer holiday entries, hiking in France with their too-ambitious father or the visits to relatives which are laced with snippets of information. Follow as the sisters recount their childhood — their voices melding — and then take their own paths as young adults. Add in the delightful drawings of Alan Thomas of remembered household objects, which tell their own story of a place and a time. The illustrations have revealing snippets of text. “Item 15: Coat hanger, padded, floral pattern, used to discipline teenage girls.” These fleeting glimpses offer us so much. In the final few pieces, some disquieting revelations come to light, demanding that you read again, much as one revisits one’s life with new-found knowledge. These facts have been sitting there the whole time, subtly in the sub-conscious of Take Two. This two-sister project is innovative, enjoyable, and a wonderfully distinct gem.
Humans have continued to evolve, he thought, by making objects that are extensions of themselves, extensions not only in a physical and practical sense but in a mental sense also. Thinking is done mainly outside my head, he thought, my memories and intentions are embodied in and enacted by the great commonwealth of objects in which I hang suspended, displacing my volume perhaps, but entirely at the mercy of objects that mediate my every experience and over which I have only very narrow and limited control. These objects grasp me more tightly than ever I could grasp them, he thought, they define the scope of my thoughts and actions, they call to each other through the qualities they share with each other, and they bind me to all the other people similarly caught in this inescapable infinite web of objects. I am caught, he thought, I am connected through objects to everyone and to everything that everyone does with any object anywhere. I am not sure that I like this. Through the objects around me, both useful and ornamental, through these objects’ connections with and similarities to other and yet other objects, I am implicated in all actions committed by all humans using objects that embody intentions, that are made for a purpose or suggest themselves as suitable for a purpose, that are available for the use of humans, that press their purpose on the minds of humans. We are all connected through objects because all objects are connected. “Everything in this damned world calls for indignation,” states the protagonist, so to call her, of Lara Pawson’s excellent little book, Spent Light. Although the ostensible scope of the book is entirely domestic and simple and small and plausibly claustrophobic, the quotidian household objects that she considers, objects that are seldom considered but merely used, reveal, by similarity, connections with objects used in and enabling acts of violence, injustice and exploitation committed on both humans and the environment anywhere in the world. A pepper mill is connected to a grenade, an egg timer is the same mechanism used to detonate a time bomb, on the toaster given to her by her disconcerting neighbour “above each light is a word printed in the same restrained font found in CIA documents. Together, they form a synopsis of the anthropocene: REHEAT DEFROST CANCEL”. Every characteristic of every thing twitches a web of association and resemblance often leading to her memories or at least knowledge of despicable actions committed with similar objects or implicated by the functions of her objects somewhere distant or else. These associations often reveal Pawson’s close observation of cruelties from her time as a war reporter in parts of the world seemingly different from but in fact not unconnected with her current rather domestic existence. But although the reader never knows when they will next be shocked by Pawson’s association of an object, an object that they very likely have themselves or which is very similar to an object that they have in their own intimate environment, with an act of cruelty, torture or genocide, an association that may change forever the way that the reader looks at their own object, the same world-wide web of objects that links us to these acts contains also associations that connect us, despite or because of the objects that we own, with others in acts of support, nurture or love; acts of support, nurture and love that are all the more angry, vital and beautiful because of the global contexts in which they must be waged. Lara Pawson, he thought, on the evidence of this book, is good company in the waging of such acts.
Choose your next book straight out of the cartons that arrived this week:
La Bâtarde by Violette Leduc (translated from French by Derek Coltman) $35
An obsessive and revealing self-portrait of a remarkable woman humiliated by the circumstances of her birth and by her physical appearance, La Bâtarde relates Violette Leduc's long search for her own identity through a series of agonizing and passionate love affairs with both men and women. When first published, La Bâtarde earned Violette Leduc comparisons to Jean Genet for the frank depiction of her sexual escapades and immoral behavior. A confession that contains portraits of several famous French authors, this book is more than just a scintillating memoir--like that of Henry Miller, Leduc's brilliant writing style and attention to language transform this autobiography into a work of art.
”Notoriety aside, Leduc is first and foremost a first-rate writer. Not someone who just tells a provocative story and is unafraid to reveal the most offensive parts of her personality and of her experience, but someone who is in love with words, struggles with them, wrestles with language, dies for adjectives, is tortured by her search for le mot juste." —Women's Review of Books
North Woods by Daniel Mason $38
When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave - only to discover that the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: as each inhabitant confronts the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.
”A monumental achievement . . . it sweeps the reader through hundreds of years and an array of protagonists with a deft, heartbreaking, idiosyncratic zeal. I loved it.” —Maggie O'Farrell
I Seek a Kind Person: My father, seven children, and the adverts that helped them escape the Holocaust by Julian Borger $38
'I SEEK A KIND PERSON WHO WILL EDUCATE MY INTELLIGENT BOY, AGED 11.' In 1938, Jewish families are scrambling to flee Vienna. Desperate, they take out advertisements offering their children into the safe keeping of readers of a British newspaper, the Manchester Guardian. The right words in the right order could mean the difference between life and death. Eighty-three years later, Guardian journalist Julian Borger comes across the advert that saved his father, Robert, from the Nazis. Robert had kept this a secret, like almost everything else about his traumatic Viennese childhood, until he took his own life. Drawn to the shadows of his family's past and starting with nothing but a page of newspaper adverts, Borger traces the remarkable stories of his father, the other advertised children and their families, each thrown into the maelstrom of a world at war. From a Viennese radio shop to the Shanghai ghetto, internment camps and family homes across Britain, the deep forests and concentration camps of Nazi Germany, smugglers saving Jewish lives in Holland, an improbable French Resistance cell, and a redemptive story of survival in New York, Borger unearths the astonishing journeys of the children at the hands of fate, their stories of trauma and the kindness of strangers.
”A powerful, eloquent and deeply affecting book. I loved it.” —Edmund de Waal
”Julian's book is profoundly affecting, part memoir, part detective story, part history, at once elegiac and fascinating, it is so deeply relevant for our times, I zipped through it with the deepest personal interest.” —Philippe Sands,
Your Utopia by Bora Chung (translated from Korean by Anton Hur) $35
From the author of Cursed Bunny, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. "Nothing concentrates the mind like Chung's terrors, which will shrivel you to a bouillon cube of your most primal instincts" (Vulture), yet these stories are suffused with Chung's inimitable wry humour and surprisingly tender moments, too — often between unexpected subjects. In 'The Center for Immortality Research', a low-level employee runs herself ragged planning a fancy gala for donors, only to be blamed for a crime she witnessed during the event, under the noses of the mysterious celebrity benefactors hoping to live forever. But she can't be fired - no one can. In 'One More Kiss, Dear', a tender, one-sided love blooms in the A.I.-elevator of an apartment complex; as in, the elevator develops a profound affection for one of the residents. In 'Seeds', we see the final frontier of capitalism's destruction of the planet and the GMO companies who rule the agricultural industry in this bleak future, but nature has ways of creeping back to life.
”Chung's writing is haunting, funny, gross, terrifying - and yet when we reach the end, we just want more.” —Alexander Chee
Fevered Planet: How diseases emerge when we harm nature by John Vidal $39
Covid-19, mpox, bird flu, SARS, HIV, AIDS, Ebola; we are living in the Age of Pandemics — one that we have created. As the climate crisis reaches a fever pitch and ecological destruction continues unabated, we are just beginning to reckon with the effects of environmental collapse on our global health. Fevered Planet exposes how the way we farm, what we eat, the places we travel to, and the scientific experiments we conduct create the perfect conditions for deadly new diseases to emerge and spread faster and further than ever. Drawing on the latest scientific research and decades of reporting from more than 100 countries, former Guardian environment editor John Vidal takes us into deep, disappearing forests in Gabon and the Congo, valleys scorched by wildfire near Lake Tahoe and our densest, polluted cities to show how closely human, animal and plant diseases are now intertwined with planetary destruction. He calls for an urgent transformation in our relationship with the natural world, and expertly outlines how to make that change possible.
”Urgent, fascinating and essential.” —George Monbiot
”John Vidal has travelled far and wide, and we would be wise to take seriously the reports he sends back; human lives, particularly of the rich, are not just altering the planet in devastatingly predictable ways, they are setting us up for some nasty surprises.” —Bill McKibben
”A searing, vital work. Plagues and epidemics determine human history - now it is time to learn that how we live today is driving disease on a planetary level.” —Bettany Hughes
”Drawing on a lifetime's experience as a frontline journalist, John Vidal compellingly joins the dots between accelerating climate change, population growth, dangerously disrupted ecosystems, our obsession with economic growth - and the inevitability of future pandemics. Fevered Planet is the most illuminating and disturbing book I've read in years.” —Jonathon Porritt
Sounds Good! Discover 50 instruments by Ole Könnecke and Hans Könnecke $40
What does a double bass or a sitar sound like? What's the difference between bongos and congas? Which instrument has only one note? Which one takes just 30 seconds to learn? What do these instruments really sound like? This book engagingly presents 50 common and uncommon musical instruments with practical and curious facts that will spark interest in music of all kinds. Each instrument features a piece of music composed by an award-winning musician, accessed via QR code. Very appealingly presented and full of good information.
Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil by Timothy Mitchell $32
Oil is a curse, it is often said, that condemns the countries producing it to an existence defined by war, corruption and enormous inequality. Carbon Democracy tells a more complex story, arguing that no nation escapes the political consequences of our collective dependence on oil. It shapes the body politic both in regions such as the Middle East, which rely upon revenues from oil production, and in the places that have the greatest demand for energy. Timothy Mitchell begins with the history of coal power to tell a radical new story about the rise of democracy. Coal was a source of energy so open to disruption that oligarchies in the West became vulnerable for the first time to mass demands for democracy. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the development of cheap and abundant energy from oil, most notably from the Middle East, offered a means to reduce this vulnerability to democratic pressures. The abundance of oil made it possible for the first time in history to reorganize political life around the management of something now called "the economy" and the promise of its infinite growth. The politics of the West became dependent on an undemocratic Middle East. In the twenty-first century, the oil-based forms of modern democratic politics have become unsustainable. Foreign intervention and military rule are faltering in the Middle East, while governments everywhere appear incapable of addressing the crises that threaten to end the age of carbon democracy--the disappearance of cheap energy and the carbon-fuelled collapse of the ecological order. In making the production of energy the central force shaping the democratic age, Carbon Democracy rethinks the history of energy, the politics of nature, the theory of democracy, and the place of the Middle East in our common world.
A Line in the World: A year on the North Sea coast by Dorthe Nors (translated from Danish by Caroline Waight) $28
Me, my notebook and my love of the wild and desolate. I wanted to do the opposite of what was expected of me. It's a recurring pattern in my life. An instinct.. There is a line that stretches from the northernmost tip of Denmark to where the Wadden Sea meets Holland in the south-west. Dorthe Nors, one of Denmark's most acclaimed contemporary writers, grew up on this line; a native Jutlander, her childhood was spent among the storm-battered trees and wind-blasted beaches of the North Sea coast. In A Line in the World, her first book of non-fiction, she recounts a lifetime spent in thrall to this coastline - both as a child, and as an adult returning to live in this mysterious, shifting landscape. This is the story of the violent collisions between the people who settled in these wild landscapes and the vagaries of the natural world. It is a story of storm surges and shipwrecks, sand dunes that engulf houses and power stations leaching chemicals into the water, of sun-creased mothers and children playing on shingle beaches. In this singularly thrilling work, Nors invites the reader on a journey through history and memory - the landscape's as well as her own.
”'A beautiful, melancholy account of finding home on a restless coast. In Dorthe Nors's deft hands, the sea is no longer a negative space, but a character in its own right. I loved it.'“ —Katherine May
Every Man for Himself and God against All: A memoir by Werner Herzog $55
From his early movies to his later documentaries, he has made a career out of exploring the boundaries of human endurance: what we are capable of in exceptional circumstances and what these situations reveal about who we really are. But these are not just great cinematic themes. During the making of his films, Herzog pushed himself and others to the limits, often putting himself in life-threatening situations. Filled with memorable stories and poignant observations, Every Man for Himself and God against All unveils the influences and ideas that drive his creativity and have shaped his unique view of the world.
The Taming of the Cat by Helen Cooper $33
A story within a story, featuring a mouse who is forced to tell stories to save his life, a cat who plans to eat said mouse as soon as the story is finished — and our protagonist’s protagonist, a princess in trouble. It’s a lifesaving tale – about a runaway princess, a cat that can grow to the size of a panther, an enchanted feast, a vanishing cavern and a quest to find a magical herb. But the cat is getting hungry. If the mouse wants its life to be spared, this must be the best story he has ever told.
My Baby Sister is a Diplodocus by Aurore Petit $30
is a delightful and excellent introduction to being a sibling. Perfect for anyone embarking on this adventure: the excitement, the pitfalls, the frustration, and the curiosity. From the wonderful French author and illustrator Aurore Petit (her previous book was the thoughtful A Mother is A House), translated by Daniel Hahn and published by Gecko Press.
Alebrijes: Flight to a New Haven by Donna Barba Higuera $20
For 400 years, Earth has been a barren wasteland. The few humans that survive scrape together an existence in the cruel city of Pocatel - or go it alone in the wilderness beyond, filled with wandering spirits and wyrms. They don't last long. 13-year-old pickpocket Leandro and his sister Gabi do what they can to forge a life in Pocatel. The city does not take kindly to Cascabel like them - the descendants of those who worked the San Joaquin Valley for generations. When Gabi is caught stealing precious fruit from the Pocatelan elite, Leandro takes the fall. But his exile proves more than he ever could have imagined - far from a simple banishment, his consciousness is placed inside an ancient drone and left to fend on its own. But beyond the walls of Pocatel lie other alebrijes like Leandro who seek for a better world - as well as mutant monsters, wasteland pirates, a hidden oasis, and the truth.
How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto $38
Helen, a graduate student on a quest to save the planet, is one of the best minds of her generation. But when her irreplaceable advisor’s student sex scandal is exposed, she must choose whether to give up on her work or accompany him to RIP, a research institute which grants safe harbour to the disgraced and the deplorable. As Helen settles into life at the institute alongside her partner Hew, she develops a crush on an older novelist, while he is drawn to an increasingly violent protest movement. As the rift between them deepens, they both face major – and potentially world-altering – choices. How I Won A Nobel Prize approaches contemporary moral confusion in a fresh way, examining the price we’re willing to pay for progress and what it means, in the end, to be a good person.
16 excellent books have been short-listed for this year’s OCKHAM NEW ZEALAND BOOK AWARDS.
Find out what the judges have to say, and click through to secure your copies:
JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE FOR FICTION
A Better Place by Stephen Daisley (Text Publishing) $38
The tragedies of war and prevailing social attitudes are viewed with an unflinching but contemporary eye as Stephen Daisley’s lean, agile prose depicts faceted perspectives on masculinity, fraternity, violence, art, nationhood and queer love in this story about twin brothers fighting in WW2. With its brisk and uncompromising accounts of military action, and deep sensitivity to the plights of its characters, A Better Place is by turns savage and tender, absurd and wry.
Audition by Pip Adam (Te Herenga Waka Univeristy Press) $35
Three giants hurtle through the cosmos in a spacecraft called Audition powered by the sound of their speech. If they are silent, their bodies continue to grow. Often confronting and claustrophobic, but always compelling, Audition asks what happens when systems of power decide someone takes up too much space and what role stories play in mediating truth. A mind-melting, brutalist novel, skillfully told in a collage of science fiction, social realism, and romantic comedy.
Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton (Te Herenga Waka University Press) $38
When Mira Bunting, the force behind guerilla gardening collective Birnam Wood, meets her match in American tech billionaire Robert Lemoine, the stage is set for a tightly plotted and richly imagined psychological thriller. Eleanor Catton’s page-turner gleams with intelligence, hitting the sweet spot between smart and accessible. And like an adrenalised blockbuster grafted on to Shakespearian rootstock, it accelerates towards an epic conclusion that leaves readers’ heads spinning.
Lioness by Emily Perkins (Bloomsbury) $25
After marrying the older, wealthier Trevor, Teresa Holder has transformed herself into upper-class Therese Thorn, complete with her own homeware business. But when rumours of corruption gather around one of Trevor’s property developments, the fallout is swift, and Therese begins to reevaluate her privileged world. Emily Perkins weaves multiple plotlines and characters with impressive dexterity. Punchy, sophisticated and frequently funny, Lioness is an incisive exploration of wealth, power, class, female rage, and the search for authenticity.
MARY AND PETER BIGGS AWARD FOR POETRY
At the Point of Seeing by Megan Kitching (Otago University Press) $25
With a polymath’s ear and a photographer’s eye, Megan Kitching creates sharp, complex pictures of the landscapes and lifescapes of Aotearoa. Many of her best poems focus on unruly coastal zones as points of contact, where history is always being made and remade, but she doesn’t ignore the human domain with its ‘petty hungers or awkward flutters’. Importantly, her work insists on the fact that difficult social and political questions cannot be separated from aesthetic ones.
Chinese Fish by Grace Yee (Giramondo Publishing) $30
Grace Yee’s sequence narrates a family’s assimilation into New Zealand life from the 1960s to the 1980s with a striking aesthetic. We navigate swerves in personae, extratextuality, illustrations, Cantonese-Taishanese phrases and English translations provided on the back pages. Yee skillfully bends genres and displaces the reader, evoking the unsettledness of migration. An invigorating read with its tapestry of scenes, characters, food, and language, Chinese Fish contributes a new archival poetics to the Chinese trans-Tasman diaspora.
Root Leaf Flower Fruit by Bill Nelson (Te Herenga Waka University Press) $30
This intriguing verse novel leads us at a walking pace – sometimes tumbling and scraping – across country and suburb, and volatile seasons. There are pivots in perspective and a rich sense of deep time as we encounter nature, injury and recovery, and a settler farming legacy. Bill Nelson’s writing has a sonic quality, protean line breaks, and surprise story threads. The final section with its hint of the New Zealand gothic, is gripping.
Talia by Isla Huia (Te Āti Haunui a-Pāpārangi, Uenuku) (Dead Bird Books)
These poems buzz with energy: intellectual, linguistic, literary. Sharply conceived, engaged in conversation and debate across poetry, place, history, and language, Isla Huia’s work brings unexpected material into productive collision. English and te reo Māori meet this way, as do lines and echoes from older poets with present concerns. Huia has an inspired ear and engaged eye, and her poems’ sonic range and sense of adventure combine with a crafter’s care on the page.
BOOKSELLERS AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND AWARD FOR ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION
Don Binney: Flight Path by Gregory O’Brien (Auckland University Press) $90
In this wonderfully rich and honest portrait of the artist Don Binney, Gregory O’Brien is never an unquestioning cheerleader for his subject. So while readers see and appreciate his famous works and learn about his interest in both geology and royalty, they also discover his sometimes prickly and sardonic personality. Binney neither liked nor identified with the description ‘bird man’, but hear the name Don Binney and his soaring solo birds come instantly to mind.
Fungi of Aotearoa: A Curious Forager’s Field Guide by Liv Sisson (Penguin Random House) $45
Liv Sisson’s fungi field guide is a joyous combination of information and advice that is totally practical, potentially lifesaving and deliciously quirky. If you don’t know a black landscaping morel from a death cap or a stinky squid from a dog vomit, look no further. Fungi might not move but they are notoriously hard to photograph, so full credit to Paula Vigus and the other photographers for making the mostly tiny subject matter look enticing, and even monumental.
Marilynn Webb: Folded in the Hills by Lauren Gutsell, Lucy Hammonds and Bridget Reweti (Ngāti Ranginui, Ngāi Te Rangi) (Dunedin Public Art Gallery) $70
From its irresistibly tactile cover to the end note from the Webb estate that the humble Marilynn would have been honoured by the book, this is a magnificent publication. Creating a book from an exhibition has many fishhooks, but the writers, contributors and designer have produced a book that shines. Webb’s life story and her artistic practice are told in both te reo Māori and English, and her art is lovingly and accurately reproduced on the page.
Rugby League in New Zeaqland: A People’s History by Ryan Bodman (Bridget Williams Books) $60
One of Ryan Bodman’s many achievements with this, his first book, is the fact that you don’t have to know or even be interested in rugby league to enjoy it. He presents us with a genuinely fascinating social history which includes identity, women in sport, gangs, politics and community pride in their teams. The photographs taken on and off the field are an absolute treasure-trove of a record of the sport.
GENERAL NON-FICTION AWARD
An Indigenous Ocean: Pacific Essays by Damon Salesa (Bridget Williams Books) $50
Damon Salesa’s collection of essays re-frames our understanding of Aotearoa New Zealand’s colonial history in the South Pacific. A seminal work, An Indigenous Ocean asserts Pacific agency and therefore its ongoing impact worldwide, despite marginalisation by New Zealand and others. Salesa brings together academic rigour, captivating stories and engaging prose, resulting in a masterful book that will endure for generations.
Laughing in the Dark: A Memoir by Barbara Else (Penguin Random House) $40
In this beautifully crafted memoir, Barbara Else reflects on her writing career and its impact on her life. Else’s narrative is both resolute and nuanced, artful and authentic. A story that perhaps could only be told decades after the death of her first husband, Jim Neale – the archetypal patriarchal man in the 1960s and 1970s – Else also explores how toxic masculinity took its toll on him while examining when she herself needed to be held to account.
Ngātokimatawhaorua: Biography of a Waka by Jeff Evans (Massey University Press) $50
Beginning with an expedition into the Puketi forest alongside master waka builder Rānui Maupakanga, Jeff Evans takes us on a vivid journey of discovery as he tells tell the story of the majestic waka taua Ngātokimatawhaorua, a vessel that is both a source of pride and a symbol of wayfaring prowess. Evans’ biography showcases both the whakapapa of the waka, including the influence of Te Puea Hērangi, and its role in the renaissance of voyaging and whakairo (carving) traditions.
There’s a Cure for This: A Memoir by Emma Wehipeihana (Ngāti Tukorehe, Ngāti Porou) (Penguin Random House) $35
Engaging, eloquent and occasionally confronting, Emma Wehipeihana’s [Emma Espiner’s] memoir is comprised of a series of powerful essays about her journey as a Māori woman through both her early life and her time in medical school. Emerging as a doctor, she recounts the racism she and others experience and highlights the structural inequalities in New Zealand’s health system. This book brims with candour, pathos, and wry humour.
A selection of books from our shelves.
Click through to find out more:
Read our latest newsletter and find out what we’ve been reading and recommending.
1 March 2024
Blue Self-Portrait by Noémi Lefebvre (translated from French by Sophie Lewis)
He had been reading, re-reading in fact, a book that he particularly liked, Noémi Lefebvre’s Blue self-Portrait, from Les Fugitives, a publisher that he also particularly liked, largely because they published books that he particularly liked, such as this one. He had chosen to re-read Blue Self-Portrait, which he remembered as being wonderfully well-written and translated, funny and painful and claustrophobic, all the qualities he wanted in a book, and, he thought, it would be a pity to read at any time anything other than what I most would like to read at that time, even if I have already read it and written a review of it also. In the case of this book that reading and that writing was a while ago, he thought, perhaps not a long while but a while long enough for me to re-use my review without anyone noticing that I have re-used my review, not that anyone reads my reviews anyway, he thought, if they don’t read them they won’t notice that I have re-used my review. It made little sense, he thought, to think that he should fill such reading time as he has with good literature as opposed to less-good literature, it is hard to see what difference this would make, but to do the opposite would make even less sense, and it is impossible not to consider what to read without reference to the real limitation of his time to read, it cannot be unlimited and the world is so full of surprises that could make it more limited still, he thought, somewhat ominously but entirely unspecifically. As my reading time is limited and as it is impossible to know how limited this reading time might be, he thought, I have chosen to read, or re-read, Blue Self-Portrait, and I am doing this without committing myself to writing another review. Let me write or not write, he thought, but, if I write, why write or re-write or overwrite what I have already written? There are only so many words in the world, after all, he thought. Had he read that somewhere? It cannot be the case that there are an infinite number of words he will write, but the opposite doesn’t seem quite right, either. One good sentence would do. Lefebvre could write sentences that he wished that he had written himself, which, for someone who prized a good sentence above all other prizes, earned her his devotion as a reader and perhaps as a writer as well. If a sentence was well enough written, he thought, he could read about anything, but he had less and less time for sentences that were less than excellent, if excellent was the right word, no matter what other qualities they might have, if there are other qualities worth having or qualities to have. All is vacuity, he declared, all is vacuity but the way that vacuity is structured gives meaning. Meaning exists only in grammar if meaning exists at all, he thought, now there’s an aphorism for a calendar. Beyond the sentences there was a musical patterning to the book Blue Self-Portrait, he thought, he recognised a musical grammar of repetitions and variations and motifs probably related to the serialism of Arnold Schoenberg, not something he knew enough about to enlarge upon though probably the case since Schoenberg, both the music of Schoenberg and the painting of Schoenberg, is mentioned often in the book, Schoenberg being the painter of the ‘Blue Self-Portrait’ of the title and the book recognisably musically structured, as opposed to employing the range of mundane structural conventions usually forced upon a novel. In any case, he thought, I shall re-use my review for the book I have re-read, there is nothing wrong with that, because the afternoon has worn on, it is growing cool, there is dinner to be made, there are mosquitoes about, I am boring myself. The world will not be worse off for not having a new review from me this week, the world will be better off. Better off without my blather. When all I can write is an aphorism for a calendar it is better not to write, he thought. If anyone wants a review of what I have been reading they can read my old review, the book hasn’t changed. I have changed and my reading has changed, he supposed, but no-one should care about that, if they want a review let them read my old review, but it would be much better if they just read the book, they don’t need me for that.
Ella loves horses. She loves her gran Grizzly and her home in a southern rural town. She’s most at home on her pony Magpie and cantering across the hills, especially at her favourite time of the day — the grimmelings — a time when magic can happen. Yet she’s lonely and wishes for a friend for the summer. Mum’s busy, and grumpy, looking after everyone and running the trekking business; Grizzly’s getting sicker, although she still has time to tell Ella and her little sister Fiona strange tales and wild stories of Scotland; and the locals think they are a bunch of witches. Ella knows there is power in words and when she curses the bully, Josh Underhill, little does she know she will be in a search party the next day. With Josh missing, and a strangely mesmerising black stallion appearing out of nowhere, this is not your average summer. When Ella meets a stranger, she strikes up an unexpected friendship. Has her wish come true? Why does she feel both attracted and wary of this overly confident boy, Gus? With Josh still missing, Mum’s made the lake out of bounds. That’s the last place Dad was seen six years ago. The lake with its strangely calm centre is enticing. What lurks in its depths — danger or the truth? Rachael King’s The Grimmelings is a gripping story of a girl growing up, of secrets unfolded, and a vengeful kelpie. Like her equally excellent previous children’s book, Red Rocks, King cleverly entwines the concerns of a young teen with an adventure story steeped in mythology. In Red Rocks, a selkie plays a central role, here it is the kelpie. King convincingly transports these myths to Aotearoa, in this case, the southern mountains, and in the former novel, the coast of Island Bay. There are nods to the power of language in the idea of curses, but more intriguing, and touching, are the scraps of paper from Grizzly with new words and meanings for Ella — and for us, the readers. Words are powerful and help us navigate our place in the world and ward off dangers when necessary. Yet the beauty of The Grimmelings lies in its adventure and in the courage of a girl and her horse, who together may withstand a powerful being, and maybe even break a curse. Laced with magical words, intriguing mythology, and plenty of horses, it’s a compelling, as well as emotional, ride.
Out of the carton and into your hands! Choose from some of the new books that arrived this week:
Chinese Fish by Grace Yee $30
When Ping leaves Hong Kong to live in the South Island of Aotearoa New Zealand, she discovers that life in the Land of the Long White Cloud is not the prosperous paradise she was led to believe it would be. Every day she works in a rat-infested shop frying fish, and every evening she waits for her wayward husband, armed with a vacuum cleaner to ‘suck all the bad thing out’. Her four children are a brood of monolingual aliens. Eldest daughter Cherry struggles with her mother’s unhappiness and the responsibility of caring for her younger siblings, especially the rage-prone, meat-cleaver-wielding Baby Joseph. Chinese Fish is a family saga that spans the 1960s through to the 1980s. Narrated in multiple voices and laced with archival fragments and scholarly interjections, it offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of women and girls in a community that has historically been characterised as both a ‘yellow peril’ menace and an exotic ‘model minority’. Listed for the 2024 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.
”An unflinchingly honest look at life behind closed doors, where resentment simmers, generations clash, and individual dreams are set aside for the interests of family.” —Chris Tse, New Zealand Poet Laureate
”As visually provocative as it is poetic, Chinese Fish portrays the fractured, multilayered, imperiled body of the immigrant story in a stunning work of genre-bending prose poetry. Yee has given the Chin family a literary resting place as complex and as searing as the New Zealand in which they survived.” —Juli Min
”A major poetic work of feminist, so-called ‘minority’ writing, its originality and brilliance more than earning its space alongside such works as Kathleen Fallon’s Working Hot, Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands, and Alison Whittakers’s BlakWork.” – Marion May Campbell
Woven: First Nations poetic conversations edited by Anne-Marie Te Whiu $33
to open up / to respond as genuinely as possible / to offer hope / we want things to change / weaving solidarity from place and history / into collective purpose (Ellen Van Neerven and Layli Long Soldier)
The Fair Trade Project inspired a series of poetic conversations between First Nations poets throughout the world, including Aotearoa, and was commissioned by Red Room Poetry. This collection weaves words across lands and seas, gathering collaborative threads and shining a light on common themes and apporaches of First Nations poetry.
“By anchoring the project in relationality, Woven's foundation is about how we connect with each other and what we are prepared, as First Nation artists, to offer and receive. The emphasis was about (re)generating poetic First Nations bonds — solidarity, consensus, family, land, oceans, the moon, remembering, dreaming, sharing, opening, mourning, respect, celebrating, finding, losing, healing and more healing.” —Anne-Marie Te Whiu
Poet collaborations in the anthology: Linda Tuhiwai Smith & Jackie Huggins; Evelyn Araluen & Anahera Gildea; Alison Whittaker & Nadine Hura; Chelsea Watego & Emma Wehipeihana; Raelee Lancaster & essa may ranapiri; Ali Cobby Eckermann & Joy Harjo; Natalie Harkin & Leanne Betasamosake Simpson; Samuel Wagan Watson & Sigbjorn Skaden; Tony Birch & Simon J. Ortiz; Ellen Van Neerven & Layli Long Soldier; Lorna Munro & January Rodgers; Rhyan Clapham (aka Dobby) & Nils Rune Utsi (aka SlinCraze); Declan Fry & Craig Santos Perez; Bebe Backhouse-Oliver & Peter Sipeli; Jazz Money & Cassandra Barnett; Charmaine Papertalk Green & Anna Naupa.
Intervals by Marianne Brooker $32
What makes a good death? A good daughter? In 2009, with her forties and a harsh wave of austerity on the horizon, Marianne Brooker's mother was diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. She made a workshop of herself and her surroundings, combining creativity and activism in inventive ways. But over time, her ability to work, to move and to live without pain diminished drastically. Determined to die in her own home, on her own terms, she stopped eating and drinking in 2019. In Intervals, Brooker reckons with heartbreak, weaving her first and final memories with a study of doulas, living wills and the precarious economics of social, hospice and funeral care. Blending memoir, polemic and feminist philosophy, Brooker joins writers such as Anne Boyer, Maggie Nelson, Donald Winnicott and Lola Olufemi to raise essential questions about choice and interdependence and, ultimately, to imagine care otherwise.
Listed for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.
”Intervals is an exceptional book, for which every deserved superlative seems cliched, in part because the language of illness, death and bereavement often feels too hollowed out by use to accommodate the magnitude of those experiences.… [W]ritten with such clarity and precision... this angry, loving, sorrowing and profound book is a magnificent starting point for [a] radical imaginative act.’” — Alex Clark, Observer
”Intervals is an endlessly moving and profoundly generous telling of what it means to give and receive care. Stunning in its intimacy and expansive in its political purpose, Brooker’s writing invites us to think deeply about the relationship between giving care and honouring life. Through visceral, tactile details of creating, working, making and tending, Brooker brings us into the spaces where caring happens, where life and its endings happen. A rare, revelatory, and truly radical book.” — Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women
The Britannias: An island quest by Alice Albinia $70
By looking more closely at the periphery we might learn something about the centre. The Britannias tells the story of Britain's islands and how they are woven into its collective cultural psyche. From Neolithic Orkney to modern-day Thanet, Alice Albinia explores the furthest reaches of Britain's island topography, once known (wrote Pliny) by the collective term, Britanniae. Sailing over borders, between languages and genres, trespassing through the past to understand the present, this book knocks the centre out to foreground neglected epics and subversive voices. The ancient mythology of islands ruled by women winds through the literature of the British Isles — from Roman colonial-era reports, to early Irish poetry, Renaissance drama to Restoration utopias — transcending and subverting the most male-fixated of ages. The Britannias looks far back into the past for direction and solace, while searching for new meaning about women's status in the body politic. Boldly upturning established (un)truths about Britain, it pays homage to the islands' beauty, independence and their suppressed or forgotten histories.
Long-listed for the 2024 Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction.
”A dazzlingly brilliant book. Travelling by boat, swimming through kelp, riding on a fishing trawler, Alice Albinia takes us on an extraordinary journey around the British isles, revealing a liquid past where women ruled and mermaids sang and tracing the sea-changes of her own heart.” —Hannah Dawson
”There are books crafted from research, worthy and informative. And there are books that happen. That need to happen. That feel inevitable. As if they have always, somehow, been there waiting for us. The voyages of Alice Albinia around our ragged fringes range through time, recovering and resurrecting the most potent myths. A work of integrity and vision.” —Iain Sinclair
Bird Child, And other stories by Patricia Grace $37
Mythology and contemporary Māori life are woven together in this eagerly anticipated new collection from this beloved author. The titular story ‘Bird Child’ plunges you deep into Te Kore, an ancient time before time. In another, the formidable goddess Mahuika, Keeper of Fire, becomes a doting mother and friend. Later, Grace’s own childhood vividly shapes the world of the young character Mereana; and a widower’s hilariously human struggle to parent his seven daughters is told with trademark wit and crackling dialogue.
A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestinian story by Nathan Thrall $40
Milad is five years old and excited for his school trip to a theme park on the outskirts of Jerusalem, but tragedy awaits — his bus is involved in a horrific accident. His father, Abed, rushes to the chaotic site, only to find Milad has already been taken away. Abed sets off on a journey to learn Milad's fate, navigating a maze of physical, emotional, and bureaucratic obstacles he must face as a Palestinian. Interwoven with Abed's odyssey are the stories of Jewish and Palestinian characters whose lives and pasts unexpectedly converge — a kindergarten teacher and a mechanic who rescue children from the burning bus; an Israeli army commander and a Palestinian official who confront the aftermath at the scene of the crash; a settler paramedic; ultra-Orthodox emergency service workers; and two mothers who each hope to claim one severely injured boy. A Day in the Life of Abed Salama is a deeply immersive, stunningly detailed portrait of life in Israel and Palestine.
”Shows humanity on both sides. The author writes coolly, carefully, without rhetoric or invective. He does not claim neutrality — the daily humiliations of Israeli occupation thud like a drumbeat on every page — but he avoids arm-twisting reportage or cartoonish history. No one portrayed here lacks humanity or complexity.” —Boyd Tonkin, Financial Times
”A compelling work of nonfiction, a book that is by turns deeply affecting and, in its concluding chapters, as tense as a thriller. Not only a meticulously detailed account of one event but perhaps the clearest picture yet of the reality of daily life in the occupied territories.” —Jonathan Freedland, Guardian
”Nathan Thrall's book made me walk a lot. I found myself pacing around between chapters, paragraphs and sometimes even sentences just in order to be able to absorb the brutality, the pathos, the steely tenderness, and the sheer spectacle of the cunning and complex ways in which a state can hammer down a people and yet earn the applause and adulation of the civilized world for its actions.” —Arundhati Roy
”The book combines heart-wrenching prose with rare political insight. It tells a deeply moving story about one tragic road accident, which illuminates the tragedy of the millions of Palestinians who live under Israeli Occupation.” —Yuval Noah Harari
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan $37
When we look beyond the headlines, everyone has a story to tell It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the "peasants” — ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star looks set to rise when he stumbles across a scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents loved across the neighbourhood, and the finger of suspicion pointing at one reclusive family of Irish immigrants and 'bad apples': the Greens. At their heart sits Carmel: beautiful, otherworldly, broken, and once destined for a future beyond her circumstances until life — and love — got in her way. Crushed by failure and surrounded by disappointment, there's nowhere for her to go and no chance of escape. Now, with the police closing in on a suspect and the tabloids hunting their monster, she must confront the secrets and silences that have trapped her family for so many generations.
”A subtle, accomplished and lyrical study of familial and intergenerational despair, a quiet book about quiet lives... An excellent novel: politically astute, furious and compassionate. A genuine achievement.” —Guardian
Chinese Dress in Detail by Sau Fong Chan $65
Chinese Dress in Detail reveals the beauty and variety of Chinese dress for women, men and children, both historically and geographically, showcasing the intricacy of decorative embroidery and rich use of materials and weaving and dyeing techniques. The reader is granted a unique opportunity to examine historical clothing that is often too fragile to display, from quivering hair ornaments, stunning silk jackets and coats, festive robes and pleated skirts, to pieces embellished with rare materials such as peacock-feather threads or created through unique craft skills, as well as handpicked contemporary designs. A general introduction provides an essential overview of the history of Chinese dress, plotting key developments in style, design and mode of dress, and the traditional importance of clothing as social signifier, followed by eight thematic chapters that examine Chinese dress in exquisite detail from head to toe. Each garment is accompanied by a short text and detail photography; front-and-back line drawings are provided for key items. An extraordinary exploration of the splendour and complexity of Chinese garments and accessories.
French Boulangerie: Recipes and techniques from the Ferrandi School of Culinary Arts $65
A very clear and approachable complete baking course from the world-renowned professional culinary school École Ferrandi, dubbed the "Harvard of gastronomy" by Le Monde newspaper. From crunchy baguettes to fig bread, and from traditional brioches to trendy cruffins, this comprehensive volume teaches aspiring bakers how to master the art of the French boulangerie. This new cookbook focuses on bread and viennoiserie, the category of French baked goods traditionally enjoyed for breakfast (like croissants and pains au chocolat). The culinary school's team of experienced chef instructors provides more than 40 techniques, explained in 220 step-by-step instructions — from making your own poolish or levain to kneading, shaping, and scoring various types of loaves, and from laminating butter to braiding brioches. Base recipes for doughs, fillings, and classic viennoiserie provide fundamental building blocks. Organized into four categories — traditional breads, specialty breads, viennoiserie, and sandwiches — the 83 easy-to-follow recipes provide home chefs with sweet and savory options for breakfast or snacks--from country bread to grissini, pastrami bagels to croque-monsieurs, and kougelhopf to beignets. Includes gluten-free, vegetarian, and vegan recipes. A general introduction explains the fundamentals of bread and viennoiserie making, including key ingredients, the importance of gluten, the steps of fermentation, and an informative glossary.
Sophie’s World: A graphic novel about the history of philosophy, Volume 1: From Socrates to Galileo by Jostein Gaardner, adapted by Vincent Zabus and drawn by Nicoby $40
One day, Sophie receives a cryptic letter posing an intriguing question: "Who are you?" A second message soon follows: "Where does the world come from?" It is the beginning of an unusual correspondence between our curious young heroine and her mysterious penpal. As the questions begin to pile up, Sophie is propelled headlong into a startling adventure through the history of Western philosophy. Her search for answers will see her explore each of the major schools of thought, as she tries to uncover the true nature of the letters, her secretive teacher — and, above all, herself! In this witty comics adaptation, Zabus and Nicoby have reinvented Jostein Gaarder's novel of ideas to bring Sophie's exploration of meaning and existence to a whole new medium.
Traditional Lifeways of the Southern Māori by James Herries Beattie (edited by Atholl Anderson) $50
Journalist James Herries Beattie recorded southern Māori history for almost fifty years and produced many popular books and pamphlets. Traditional Lifeways of the Southern Māori is his most important work. This significant resource, which is based on a major field project Beattie carried out for the Otago Museum in 1920, was first published by Otago University Press in 1994 and is now available in this new edition. Beattie had a strong sense that traditional knowledge needed to be recorded fast. For twelve months, he interviewed people from Foveaux Strait to North Canterbury, and from Nelson and Westland. He also visited libraries to check information compiled by earlier researchers, spent time with Māori in Otago Museum recording southern names for fauna and artefacts, visited pā sites, and copied notebooks lent to him by informants. Finally he worked his findings up into systematic notes, which eventually became manuscript 181 in the Hocken Collections, and now this book. Editor Atholl Anderson introduces the book with a biography of Beattie, a description of his work and information about his informants. Beattie wrote a foreword and introduction to the Murihiku section, which are also included here.
My Heavenly Favourite by Lucas Rijneveld (translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison) $37
I heard you laughing from time to time and you stayed lying there on the flattened hay, and after you left, your body's imprint was left behind, and I rested my hand on the dry blades of grass that were still slightly warm and I wanted to carry on feeling you forever, really I did, but everything changed when you began to speak to me, on 7 July to be precise.
In the tempestuous summer of 2005, a 14-year-old farmer's daughter makes friends with the local veterinarian who looks after her father's cows. He has reached 'the biblical age of seven times seven' and is trying to escape trauma, while she is trying to escape into a world of fantasy. Their obsessive reliance on each other's stories builds into a terrifying trap, with a confession at the heart of it that threatens to rip their small Dutch community apart. From the author of the International Booker-winning The Discomfort of Evening.
”My Heavenly Favourite belongs to a tiny, controversial subgenre: novels about child sex abuse rendered in exquisite prose. It is all the more transgressive in that it’s narrated by the abuser, who addresses his victim in an incantatory, unflinchingly graphic second-person rant about his eternal love. Such a book has to clear a very high bar not to seem like a cynical exercise. Rijneveld’s novel leaps effortlessly over, with room to spare. What is truly extraordinary here is how, although the voice is Kurt’s, the ruling consciousness is Little Bird’s. … My Heavenly Favourite squares up deliberately to Lolita, citing it throughout, and Rijneveld compares well with Nabokov in the richness of his invention and the delicacy of his prose, while taking a much more serious approach to their shared subject. Indeed, Rijneveld conveys the squalor and despair of sexual violence with more fidelity than any other author I have read. But this novel is not only a surprisingly successful treatment of a difficult subject. It’s a unique creation and a tour de force of transgressive imagination – a dazzling addition to the oeuvre of an author of prodigious gifts.” —Sandra Newman, Guardian
Award-winning Albanian writer Ismail Kadare unpicks a three-minute conversation in thirteen views in his latest novel, A Dictator Calls. Here history, memoir, fiction, and myth merge to analyse a short and tense telephone conversation between Joseph Stalin and Boris Pasternak. Within these factual and imagined viewpoints Kadare probes the relationship between art and autocracy — how to write under a dictatorship — with verve and wit.
“An inquiry concerning power, artistic integrity, fame, memory and more. A Dictator Calls is slim, but its themes are not — the riddles of this novel are still ringing in my mind. “ —Sunday Telegraph
A selection of books from our shelves.
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23 February 2024
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