These new books are keen to get onto your shelf. We can have them dispatched by overnight courier or ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.

Tony Fomison: Life of the artist by Mark Forman $60
In a career spanning three decades, Tony Fomison (1939- 1990) produced some of Aotearoa's most artistically and culturally significant paintings and drawings, the backdrop of which was a life — inseparable from his art — of enduring intrigue. A man of multitudes and a self-perceived outsider, Fomison was a son, sibling and lover; activist, archaeologist and scholar; trickster, addict and disrupter; and — above all else — an artist who shed light on the human condition and reimagined life in Aotearoa. In this compelling biography, developed over more than a decade, Mark Forman draws on archival material and interviews with more than 150 people including Fomison's family and close friends, leading contemporary artists, political activists, and art professionals. The result is a comprehensive yet lively and accessible biography that reveals the man and his art to a new generation of readers. [Hardback]
”As a boy Tony had drawn maps and diagrams and medieval battle scenes. He' d read fairy tales and been enchanted by local sites of Maori history. As a young man he was a vagrant on the streets of Paris, was twice imprisoned, spent time in a mental hospital, battled destructive addictions, and experienced unrequited love and loneliness. All of this would become the underworld of his art, the subterranean realm where he could dwell so as to create work that expressed something of the human condition. But it was always far wider than just his own story. Endlessly curious about Pacific and Maori history and art, and enchanted by European Renaissance art, he wanted to find a new visual language for what it meant to live in the Pacific; he wanted to make room at the back of our heads.” —from the author’s introduction
”I had been convinced that someone who had not known Tony personally, who was not party to the secret painting cultures of that time, was not the right person to write Tony’s life. I was quite wrong . . . Mark Forman’s understanding of Tony’s painting is profound and insightful, and his research is remarkable, as he recovers the memories of the survivors of the art scenes that Tony was part of with intelligence and sensitivity. You get a window that opens onto an Aotearoa rarely glimpsed. Yes, the interviews are telling, but Mark keeps his focus on Tony’s paintings: Tony’s pursuit of the exact technique to express his passionate hunger for transcendence through seeing. That way Tony could find redemption. Best image? Shirley Grace’s ‘Tony at Williamson Ave’. Brilliant. The first image, the all-too-human Tony, magicking himself into a best-version Tony, the role he so aspires to, the Tagaloa of the visually inspired.” —Jacqueline Fahey, artist and friend of the artist

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You Are Here by Whiti Hereaka and Peata Larkin $45
Jan Medlicott Acorn Fiction Prize winner Whiti Hereaka and the artist Peata Larkin, cousins who share the same whakapapa, collaborate in a project based on the Fibonacci number sequence. In a feat of managed imagining, Hereaka's words spiral out to the centre of the book and then back in on themselves to end with the same words with which the text began. As the pattern spools out and then folds back, Peata Larkin's meticulous drawings of tāniko and whakairo and her lush works on silk weave their own entrancing pattern. 'It is my hope that by the time you have walked that path that you are now a different reader and will read those words in a new way,' Hereaka says. You Are Here is a beguiling and important addition to the ‘kōrero’ series. [Hardback]

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• What is it that stops you now?

• Listen to Stella’s review on RNZ.

• How the book came to be made.

• Other collaborations in the Kōrero series.

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami (translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda) $37
In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small tribes across the planet under the observation and care of the Mothers. Some children are made in factories, from cells of rabbits and dolphins; some live by getting nutrients from water and light, like plants. The survival of the species depends on the interbreeding of these and other alien beings — but it is far from certain that connection, love, reproduction, and evolution will persist among the inhabitants of this faltering new world. Unfolding over geological eons, Under the Eye of the Big Bird is at once an astonishing vision of the end of our species as we know it and a meditation on the qualities that, for better and worse, make us human. [Paperback]
”Haunting. Less experimental fiction and more fiction on the human experiment — what kinds of new approaches to mating, community and family will allow people to survive? Kawakami finds humour and warmth in the puzzles of existence and extinction." -Hilary Leichter, The New York Times Book Review
"An accomplished mosaic novel spanning thousands of years, it investigates change on the grandest scale: the evolutionary fate of humanity. The power and the pain of the novel lies in its ability to bridge between humanity as an abstract and humanity as a characteristic, to pick out moments from a vast sweep of time and show their insignificance and their simultaneous, ultimate importance. The novel ends with a plea from a speaker who doesn't know if they will ever be heard: I wanted to reach back into the page and say, you are." —Niall Harrison, Locus Magazine

• Read an extract.

• Other books long-listed for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico (translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes) $40
Anna and Tom, an expat couple, have fashioned a dream life for themselves in Berlin. They are young digital "creatives" exploring the excitements of the city, freelancers without too many constraints, who spend their free time cultivating house plants and their images online. At first, they reasonably deduce that they've turned their passion for aesthetics into a viable, even enviable career, but the years go by, and Anna and Tom grow bored. As their friends move back home or move on, so their own work and sex life — and the life of Berlin itself — begin to lose their luster. An attempt to put their politics into action fizzles in embarrassed self-doubt. Edging closer to forty, they try living as digital nomads only to discover that, wherever they go, "the brand of oat milk in their flat whites was the same." Perfection — Vincenzo Latronico's first book to be translated into English — is a scathing novel about contemporary existence, a tale of two people gradually waking up to find themselves in various traps, wondering how it all came to be. Was it a lack of foresight, or were they just born too late? [Paperback with French flaps]
”Perfection gave me the gift of being able to hold a long span of time — in a relationship, in a city — and the experience of being young, and the experience of being not so young — all in my head at once. I could hold it there the way you hold a parable or fable, but with all these tiny details, too. It also functioned like a kind of murder mystery: what slowly killed the magic? Was it their values, was it aging, was it... was it...? It's such a beautiful, thoughtful, impeccably crafted book.” —Sheila Heti

• Other books long-listed for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer (translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott) $43
Noenka is a courageous Black woman trying to live a life of her own choosing. When her abusive husband of just nine days refuses her request for divorce, Noenka flees her hometown in Suriname, on South America's tropical northeastern coast, for the capital city of Paramaribo. Unsettled and unsupported, her life in this new place is illuminated by romance and new freedoms, but also forever haunted by her past and society's expectations. Newly translated by Lucy Scott, Astrid Roemer's classic queer novel is a tentpole of European and post-colonial literature. And amid tales of plantation-dwelling snakes, rare orchids, and star-crossed lovers, it is also a blistering meditation on the cruelties we inflict on those who disobey. Roemer, the first Surinamese winner of the prestigious Dutch Literature Prize, carves out postcolonial Suriname in barbed, resonant fragments. [Paperback]
”A modern classic set in Suriname and lyrically rendered into English for the first time, On a Woman’s Madness is a testament to both the resilience of queer lives that exist everywhere and everytime and the alchemy of literary translation where a perfect book meets its perfect translator. Through its heightened understanding of character and history filtered through a lush and enriched language, Astrid Roemer draws from suffering, heat, and imprisonment to create a story of love, survival, and freedom that translator Lucy Scott expertly reweaves into English with an empathetic, artistically accomplished touch.” —International Booker judges’ citation

• Read an extract.

• Other books long-listed for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

Clay Eaters by Gregory Kan $30
Clay Eaters traverses a network of fault lines diverging and converging at unexpected angles: a mysterious jungle island, military reconnaissance training, the spirits in the trees and abandoned temples, old family homes, the echoes across rooms, the dining table set for the archetypal feast. Here the author asks what it means to write the self, and what it is the living must carry. [Paperback]
”Kan is a sophisticated and accomplished poet and he creates a unique tone in his poems, using simple language in a sort of alchemy to make emotional depth. The poems come together to create a feeling of an unhurried, loving and honest gaze at his family, himself and his world. Clay Eaters is an original and significant collection.” —Lynn Jenner

Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa (translated from Japanese by Polly Barton) $35
Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka Isawa has severe spine curvature and uses an electric wheelchair and ventilator. Within the limits of her care home, her life is lived online: she studies, she tweets indignantly, she posts outrageous stories on an erotica website. One day, a new male carer reveals he has read it all — the sex, the provocation, the dirt. Her response? An indecent proposal... Written by the first disabled author to win Japan's most prestigious literary award and acclaimed instantly as one of the most important Japanese novels of the 21st century, Hunchback is an extraordinary, thrilling glimpse into the desire and darkness of a woman placed at humanity's edge. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Filled with unforgettable insight.” —Sayaka Murata
”Written with guts and wit, Hunchback is a tender and defiant story which forces readers to think far beyond ableist concepts of who gets to desire and be desired.” —AnOther Magazine
”Uproariously funny, unflinching, and merciless. It's not very often you encounter this provocative and yet so refreshingly honest a read.” —Mariana Enriquez

• Other books long-listed for the 2025 International Booker Prize.

Makeshift Seasons by Kate Camp $25
The failings of the body
can be a form of company
a trapped nerve ringing in the night
like music.
Kate Camp's poetry has been described by readers as fearless, affable, and containing a surprising radicalism and power. In her new collection, she is ever alert to the stories unfolding all around us and inside our own bodies. As she is striding away from hope, she is also holding on tightly to the promise of morning. The poems move between distant planets and Chappies Dairy, between Mont-Saint-Michel and the lighthouse in Island Bay, with every moment, every feeling, every conviction on the edge of becoming another. Like the plumber who can hear water running deep underground, Makeshift Seasons is a book of extraordinarily sharp sensing and knowing. [Paperback]
”These magical, knotty works react to a fragile world, and Camp navigates the light along with the dark.” —Paula Green
”Each poem’s like a bumper ride in a fairground, crashing into obstacles, at once jarring and exhilarating.” —David Eggleton
”Here is ‘the so-called outside world’, and here is its wonderfully sensitive, fluently understated poet.” —Stephanie Burt

Pātaka Kai: Growing food sovereignty by Jessica Hutchings, Jo Smith, Johnson Witehira and Yvonne Taura $45
We face a biodiversity crisis and a climate meltdown. Our food systems are broken, our soils are depleted and our seeds are owned by global corporations. Colonial capitalism dictates the mainstream response to these crises, drowning out Indigenous perspectives and solutions, yet Indigenous practices and understandings of kai (food) offer important pathways to ensuring ecological, cultural and socio-economic sustainability as well as greater connection to kai in our everyday lives. This book salutes Indigenous food heroes from across Aotearoa and neighbouring islands in Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa who take a holistic approach that considers the interconnectedness of people, land and food. Their inspiring stories show how change begins locally and on a small scale. Written by verified hua parakore farmers, activists, Indigenous researchers and Indigenous food sovereignty leaders Jessica Hutchings and Jo Smith, Pataka Kai encourages a return to Indigenous values and practices to achieve kai sovereignty and well-being. [Flexibound]

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A Training School for Elephants by Sophy Roberts $40
From the author of The Lost Pianos of Siberia comes a new book tracing the contexts and implications of a forgotten colonial folly in the Congo. In 1879, King Leopold II of Belgium launched an ambitious plan to plunder Africa's resources. The key to cracking open the continent, or so he thought, was its elephants — if only he could train them. And so he commissioned the charismatic Irish adventurer Frederick Carter to ship four tamed Asian elephants from India to the East African coast, where they were marched inland towards Congo. The ultimate aim was to establish a training school for African elephants. Following in the footsteps of the four elephants, Roberts pieces together the story of this long-forgotten expedition, in travels that take her to Belgium, Iraq, India, Tanzania and Congo. The storytelling brings to life a compelling cast of historic characters and modern voices, from ivory dealers to Catholic nuns, set against rich descriptions of the landscapes travelled. She digs deep into historic records to reckon with our broken relationship with animals, revealing an extraordinary — and enduring — story of colonial greed, ineptitude, hypocrisy and folly. [Paperback]
”History and travelogue combine wonderfully in this tale of colonial plunder and hubris. Sophy Roberts' luminous new book is a journey through Africa from Zanzibar to Lake Tanganyika and back, retracing the steps of a long-forgotten expedition. Reflective, watchful, calm, Roberts is such a vivid travel writer that you forget what a brilliant historian she is. She has the water-diviner's gift for stories in unlikely places.” —Guardian

over under fed by Amy Marguerite $25
perhaps the good things
that come to those who wait
are the leftovers
of those who have
already waited.
In her debut collection, Amy Marguerite explores the peculiar loveliness and specific loneliness of the human condition. Writing from experiences with anorexia nervosa, limerence and a particularly tumultuous situationship, these poems act as a confessional to hunger, desire and immoderation. Precise, vivid and sometimes disturbing in detail, over under fed seeks to reconcile chaos and recovery. [Paperback]
”Amy Marguerite has a completely original voice and sensibility that makes everything she writes extraordinary and compelling. This is a collection as much about desire, requited and unrequited love, and other forms of relationships — especially relationships with women — as it is about the hunger to live fully and beautifully, the hunger for beauty and intensity, the hunger for a charged, combustible life of dreams and elation.” —Anna Jackson
”In this stunning debut collection from Amy Marguerite, we are taken on an ever-dizzying but always dazzling journey of obsession and love and obsessive love that guides us through a landscape of pain, dysphoria, eating disorders, trauma, mental health and hope, with the compelling, compassionate and incisive insight of someone who has struggled in the webs of their ghosts and is weaving anew. These poems dare you to enter into the spirals and not be changed, slowly but certainly finding solace in the flux. With a masterful use of repetition, an eloquently distressed and elegantly restrained lyricism, over under fed explores the spirals of the mind in a knowing chaos of the body, asking us how we might map our way through perpetually falling as we yearn to be caught and seek to fly.” —Amber Esau

The Futures of Democracy, Law, and Government by Geoffrey Palmer et al, edited by Mark Hickford and Matthew S.R. Palmer $70
A stock-take of increasingly urgent issues underlying our collective life in Aotearoa in the form of essays by leading judges, scholars, and politicians on constitutional government; democracy and its integrity; indigenous-state relations and Te Tiriti o Waitangi/The Treaty of Waitangi; the environment and climate change; law reform and human rights. The papers were originally presented at a conference in honour of Geoffrey Palmer, and reflect the themes that have animated his career in public affairs. Contents include: ‘Law, politics, policy and government’ by Geoffrey Palmer; ‘Some reflections on Cabinet government: A former minister’s perspective’ by David Caygill; ‘The role of political parties in New Zealand’s democracy’ by Margaret Wilson; ‘Safeguarding democracy through prudent anticipatory governance: the case of climate change adaptation’ by Jonathan Boston; ‘Governing an unimaginable future’ by Simon Upton; ‘Legal myth-takes and the Crown’s claim to sovereignty over Aotearoa New Zealand: The implications for New Zealand’s constitution’ by Claire Charters; ‘Ultimate legal principles for Aotearoa New Zealand: The place of the Treaty of Waitangi’ by Alex Frame; ‘Constitutional legitimacy and diversity: The value of pluralism and filling gaps in the common law’ by Mai Chen; ‘Back to the future: Sir Geoffrey Palmer’s 'new public law'‘ by Dean Knight; ‘Legal change: 'reform', 'legality' and the (once?) 'political constitution'‘ by Jack Hodder; ‘The rights frame of mind’ by Helen Winkelmann; ‘Bills of rights: “Nonsense upon stilts” or an enhancement of democracy?’ by Kenneth Keith; ‘Some lessons for governance in New Zealand drawn from the global context’ by Colin Keating; ‘Normative mismatch and the failure of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’ by Jonathan Carlson. [Hardback]

Toitū te Whenua: People and places of the New Zealand Wars by Lauren Keenan $45
An accessible guide to significant places and people of the New Zealand Wars from a Māori perspective. This comprehensive guidebook journeys through the pivotal sites of the New Zealand Wars, from the Far North to Wellington, offering a unique perspective on events that shaped Aotearoa. Lauren Keenan (Te Ātiawa ki Taranaki) brings to life the key battles, influential figures, and significant locations on an essential chapter in this country's past. Complete with detailed maps and easy-to-follow driving directions, Toitū te Whenua- Places and People of the New Zealand Wars is the perfect companion for exploring these historic sites. As the only guide of its kind written from a Māori viewpoint, it is an invaluable resource for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of New Zealand's colonial history. [Paperback]

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Clay: A human history by Jennifer Lucy Allan $60
People have been taking handfuls of earth and forming them into their own image since human history began. Human forms are found everywhere there was a ceramic tradition, and there is a ceramic tradition everywhere there was human activity. The clay these figures are made from was formed in deep geological time. It is the material that God, cast as the potter, uses to form Adam in Genesis. Tomb paintings in Egypt show the god Khum at a potter's wheel, throwing a human. Humans first recorded our own history on clay tablets, the shape of the characters influenced by the clay itself. The first love poem was inscribed in a clay tablet, from a Sumerian bride to her king more than 4000 years ago. Born out of a desire to know and understand the mysteries of this material, the spiritual and practical applications of clay in both its micro and macro histories, Clay: A Human History is a book of wonder and insight, a hybrid of archaeology, history and lived experience as an amateur potter. [Hardback]
 “I read this book and immediately went out to buy some clay. Fascinating and powerful.” —Brian Eno
”I thought I knew a lot about pottery, but I didn't, not as much as I do now. From the earliest earthenware to the history of porcelain, along with the author's own progress working with different clays and glazes, I have loved learning from every chapter in this beautiful and affecting book.” —Vashti Bunyan

A Atlas of Endangered Alphabets: Writing systems on the verge of vanishing by Tim Brookes $70
If something is important, we write it down. Yet 85% of the world's writing systems are on the verge of vanishing — not granted official status, not taught in schools, discouraged and dismissed. When a culture is forced to abandon its traditional script, everything it has written for hundreds of years — sacred texts, poems, personal correspondence, legal documents, the collective experience, wisdom and identity of a people — is lost. This Atlas is about those writing systems, and the people who are trying to save them. From the ancient holy alphabets of the Middle East, now used only by tiny sects, to newly created African alphabets designed to keep cultural traditions alive in the twenty-first century: from a Sudanese script based on the ownership marks traditionally branded into camels, to a secret system used in one corner of China exclusively by women to record the songs and stories of their inner selves: this unique book profiles dozens of scripts and the cultures they encapsulate, offering glimpses of worlds unknown to us — and ways of saving them from vanishing entirely. [Hardback]

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NEW BOOKS AND BOOK NEWS

Read our latest newsletter. Take a ride on our Literary Carousel. Find out about the finalists in the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, and the long list for the International Booker Prize. See some very lovely children’s books. Find out what we (and our cat) have been reading. And more!

7 March 2025

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“The disasters that befall you are always different from the ones you imagine,” states a character in one of the stories in Ursula Scavenius’s riveting and unsettling collection The Dolls, a collection suffused with unidentifiable or unquantifiable threats, threats that leave the narrators transfixed by the mundane details of lives distorted by unbearable forces that they cannot comprehend or name. It is hard to make a case that 'real life', so to call it, operates any differently. Is it the case that the unbearable arises from the mundane, that the unbearable is inherent in the mundane but suppressed to make the mundane bearable, or, rather, is it that by suppressing the unbearable we are left with the mundane, the only evidence we have, perhaps, of the forces set against us? Is the mundane therefore the surest point of access to the unbearable? Is the most unbearable closest to the most mundane? The potentising restraint of Scavenius’s prose, the withholding of all but the most resonant details, gives great power to that which is excluded, to that which it is impossible to include. Just as the universe is, supposedly, comprised mostly of dark matter, which we cannot sense and for which the only evidence is the effect it has upon that portion of the universe that we can sense, so too literature is most effective when attending to the effects upon the mundane of forces that cannot otherwise be directly or adequately addressed. The total, comprised primarily of dark matter, cannot be expressed. Any idea of 'the total' comes at the expense of the parts, by the suppression of some parts and the magnification of other parts. Any idea of 'the total' is a distortion of that which it purports to represent. A ‘story’, a ‘development’, likewise, is a totalitarian concept. Naturalism is a totalitarian concept. Scavenius has Kafka’s gift of being able to allow her details to resonate in the spaces that surround them, echoing in spaces that cannot otherwise be delineated, intimating the complex forces seething beneath her deceptively simple prose. Her characters move about in worlds strangely sloped, the familiar becoming unfamiliar and revealed as evidence of the unbearable. Time slips, the past is seen to be a threat, even an idyllic past is a threat because it contains the circumstances out of which the problematic present arose. “Birds chirp in the bushes outside. I laugh, realising it’s only a memory.” Every detail, every occurrence is a point of pressure, a point at which the mundane is assailed by dark matter. In the title story, ‘The Dolls’, the arrival of some refugees reveals the fascistic potential latent in the local community, including in the narrator’s father, and the distorting effect of that force upon thought and language: “There is no way to prove whether the scream was real, someone on the radio says. … It sounds real, but these days anything could be propaganda.” The force of the unbearable is always felt first upon language. 

If a ghost door-to-door salesperson called at your place, what would you do? In the opening story of Matsuda Aoko’s collection, Shinzaburō tries to ignore the doorbell. It’s persistent and there’s no getting out of answering the door. They know he’s home. His attempts at turning them away are fruitless. There they are — two women dressed identically, yet with different manners. “..the younger one,...raised her head to look towards the spyhole, and said in a weak, sinuous voice, “Come now, don’t be so inhospitable! O-pen up!” If a willow tree could speak, Shinzaburō thought, this is the kind of voice…He blinked and found himself in the living room.” And so, the story carries on, with our hapless Shinzaburō finding himself unable to resist the two women and their special lanterns. His wife is none too pleased when she returns and sees how he’s been duped by the ghost women. The story is premised by a traditional folktale of love and woe, 'The Peony Lantern'. Matsuda Aoko takes these traditional ghost stories and bends them into contemporary settings with her own sense of intrigue and humour. The short stories are variously gothic and satirical in their feminist reinterpretations. In 'Smartening Up', a young woman, obsessed with her body hair, is visited by her interfering dead aunt, an aunt who has definite opinions about an ex-boyfriend, and money wasted on beauticians and clothes. Mostly though she’s concerned — the young woman is destroying the power of her hair! After a bit of a tussle, the two women settle into a discussion about the aunt’s suicide and a housewife’s lot. It’s a conversation that entwines the legend of Kiyohime and ultimately, triggers a programme of hair restoration for our young heroine. “Let’s become monsters together.” Some ghosts just want to be recognised. 'Quite A Catch' dredges up a ghost from the depths, a beautiful woman who long ago in the past was murdered finds a willing partner in Shigemi who fishes her skeleton from the lake. Haunting, it’s an observant eye on expectation and loneliness. The rakugo (a Japanese form of verbal storytelling) Tenjinyama is the inspiration for the tale 'A Fox’s Life', the story of a striking unusual woman. Brilliant, at school she excels in all her subjects and in sports, always finding a shortcut to problems, finding beautiful solutions with little effort, yet she has no desire to take her learning to the next level. At work, this was no different: everything comes easily to her, but she eschews success. She marries a kind-hearted man, stays home, has children, who grow and leave home. Something remains buried within her — a reticence to fully engage all her skills. “Throughout her life, Kuzuha had always had the feeling that she was just pretending to be a regular woman. Of course, that was the path she had selected as a shortcut, and she had never once doubted her decision had been the right one…one day…it occurred to Kazuha that maybe she really was a fox.” Each story in the collection recounts a woman’s life and her place within contemporary Japanese society with links to folktales of love, woe, revenge and mystery. Running throughout the book is another thread — a fascinating twist which draws some of these stories and characters together. It’s a thread that concerns a factory, populated by both a ghost and living human workforce, producing magical or special items which find their way into the world of the living. What these items represent is never fully articulated, but the idea of this place is intriguing and it seems to represent a bridge between the two worlds of the living and dead — each fascinated by the other. 

There are new children’s books arriving at VOLUME every week. Here are a few special ones we think you might like.

Let’s Go Ruru! , written and illustrated by Kate Muir, is a bilingual sturdy board book with lift-the-flaps, bright colours, and bold images perfect for a small one. The text uses repetition and rhythm to keep small ones engaged, and there’s a handy pull-out pronunciation guide. Join the sweet ruru to get dressed ready to venture out.

Little Pea is adorable (the brainchild of Davide Cali, charmingly illustrated by Sébastien Mourrain). In this story, Little Pea, the great artist of postage stamps, opens a drawing school. Creatures come from far and near to study in the hollow of a large tree. Some have no drawing experience, others are confident, some are hestitant. Cricket is careful, worm more free-flowing, while Tarantula just draws dots — no matter what the assignment! The end of year exhibition is approaching and a surprise awaits! Little Pea’s Drawing School is a book that celebrates individuality, learning from each other, and the joy of creativity.

The Magic Cap is absolutely wonderful! With its beautiful illustrations by Charlotte Parent and its charming story by Mireille Messier, this is a standout picture book. It is kind and gentle, intriguing and magical, and compliments these characteristics with a hint of humour. It has a folktale atmosphere, set in a forest with sweet woodland creatures, and the rumour of magical beings. When the children’s pet hedgehog Crispin falls ill, Isaura and Arlo do everything they can to make him better. Nothing works. Magic is what they need! They have to find a gnome! Into the forest they go bowl of milk in their hands. The woodland creatures like it. They try wild berries, but a greedy toad eats them all. What’s left to forage? A mushroom — that’s all! Will it work?

A landmark publication, bringing together oral history and a lifetime of knowledge and research by kaumatua and 'Coaster' Paul Madgwick (Kati Mahaki, Kai Tahu).  Beginning with mythology associated with Te Tai Poutini (the West Coast), this richly illustrated work follows the story of human settlement including migration and occupation by different iwi, creation of different Māori settlements, the role of pounamu, the earliest interactions between Pākeha explorers and Ngāi Tahu, the Kai Tahu land sales and Maori reserves, through to the 1998 Ngāi Tahu Settlement and today's challenges and opportunities.

• Gathering what is scattered or hidden.

• The legacy of pounamu.

• “Our histories told by us.”

Be wild — read a book!
A selection of books from our shelves and ready for the wilderness of your reading pile. Click through to find out more:

Three Wild Dogs

The Wild Fox of Yemen

Wild Houses

This One Wild and Precious Life

What the Wild Sea Can Be

The Vaster Wilds

Wild Thing

Where the Wild Ladies Are

… Wild children’s books

The Bear and the Wildcat

The Wild Folk

Under Wildwood

Kei Reira Ngā Weriweri

Wild Bird

The Wolf Wilder

Growing older is not something to look forward to, but the alternatives are probably worse. Mary’s and Pete’s decision to move to a retirement village not only stirs up matters they thought were long in the past, but also makes them rethink their attitudes to their wider family and to the numerous pitfalls and converging paths through aging. How do we care for others, and for ourselves? If second chances come around, will be recognise them and will we choose differently?
”A New Zealand novel of grace and humanity. How does Wilkins do it? These are flawed and immensely satisfying characters – you close your eyes at the faulty, circuitous routes they take. Delirious is a marvel of a book.” —Witi Ihimaera
”This is just a beautifully powerful, wonderful book.” —Pip Adam, RNZ
”Funny, sharp, sad and profound, Delirious made me laugh, think, weep and actually beat my breast. A masterpiece.” —Elizabeth Knox, The Conversation
”Delirious is an accurate and sympathetic study of change, age and growth. Set on the very edge of land, the novel is poised between rational assessment and the mysteries of the deep.” —David Herkt, NZ Listener

• Death-cleaning, aging, and loss. .

• Real estate is where we let ourselves feel.

• “The best book of any kind.”

• Right up close.

• There’s always a bam! around the corner.

• Be bold and unafraid.

• On meeting Janet Frame.

• The year ahead.

• Join our April on-line book group to discuss this book!

• Other finalists in the 2025 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards.

Find out what the judges have to say about the 16 excellent books short-listed for the four categories of this year’s book awards. Click through to our website to find out more, and to secure your copies.

We can send your books to you by overnight courier, or have them ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.

Tell us which ones are your favourites!

JANN MEDLICOTT ACORN PRIZE FOR FICTION

At the Grand Glacier Hotel by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin, Penguin Random House)
While recovering from a leg sarcoma, Libby is temporarily stranded in the Grand Glacier Hotel. At the base of the swiftly retreating Fox Glacier, she gradually rediscovers her self-confidence and mobility. This novel introduces an ordinary but spectacular world in which it’s possible to imagine that the extinct South Island kōkako yet lives. The sense of place, the fascinating cast of characters, and the investigation of human relationships linger long after the book is closed.

Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
A novel of humanity, humour and understated prose, Delirious is a luminously written and poignant exploration of aging, memory and the fraught ties of family. Retired policewoman Mary and recently retired librarian Pete decide to shift into a retirement home, but an unexpected development in the 40-year-old case of their son’s death immerses them in a journey that recasts what might have been the end as an uplifting new beginning.

Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn (Otago University Press)
What is ugly in this collection are the conflicts and secrets that drive each plot: burning wind turbines, mutated salmon and mortal hatred. In stories set in the UK and New Zealand, Kirsty Gunn’s characters confront forces that challenge their capacity to endure. Images of triumph are brought into sharp focus by a masterful wordsmith: memories of a pristine river, a herd of running deer and the shot not fired.

The Mires by Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi-Matakore, Pākehā) (Ultimo Press)
Keri and her daughter Wairere, whose psychic sensitivity allows her insight into the minds of the living and the dead, share a row of flats with a family of climate refugees and a Pākehā woman whose radicalised son returns home. Audaciously located at the leaky intersection of race, class and climate justice, The Mires navigates themes of racism and disinformation in ways that are mana enhancing and yet surprising.

MARY AND PETER BIGGS AWARD FOR POETRY

Hopurangi - Songcatcher: Poems from the Maramataka by Robert Sullivan (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu) (Auckland University Press)
Robert Sullivan’s collection presents a distinctive and musical poetic voice, inflected with te reo Māori. The poet is almost a tribal shaman, making observations that invoke planetary energies. In this way he offers a visionary way of seeing that connects to the natural world. In search of self transformation he invokes metamorphosis and the Māori spirit world. Māori creation myths, Treaty claims, Ovid, Dante, recent iwi histories and cradle Catholicism are all part of the rich mix.

In the Half Light of a Dying Day by C.K. Stead (Auckland University Press)
Love and grief and a breakthrough from Catullus’ familiar stance to raw emotion mark C.K. Stead’s meditation on the death of his beloved, Kezia (wife, Kay). The poems are the more moving because the Stead virtues still play their part in the telling selection of details (what to wear in a casket; the company of a cat). In this exploration of time and loss, sentimentality is banished. Everything has been changed, utterly and profoundly.

Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit by Emma Neale (Otago University Press)
This is a collection concerned with fibs and fables, and telling true stories perceived by others as tall stories. Emma Neale’s word alchemy takes everyday fustian and transforms it into something fine and precious and enduring as she strives for epiphanies, for transcendence, for truth-telling — for telling moments sifted from the quotidian flux. Fastidious attention to precise luminous detail, a vigilant ear for sound patterns, and an ironically self-aware literary consciousness are in play.

Slender Volumes by Richard von Sturmer (Spoor Books)
This substantial publication with its witty and paradoxical title is a meditative poetry journal, artfully constructed to present what amounts to a series of mirabilia: anecdotes that might arouse astonishment or wonder in a spiritual sense. Richard von Sturmer’s poems seek illumination from the ordinary everyday world. Drawing partly on Buddhist teachings, life itself is here seen as miraculous. There's a dancing intelligence at work, highly alert, self aware, and fearless.

BOOKHUB AWARD FOR ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION

Edith Collier: Early New Zealand Modernist by Jill Trevelyan, Jennifer Taylor and Greg Donson (Massey University Press)
A celebration of the Whanganui-born artist Edith Collier (1885–1964), this attractive publication coincided with the reopening of the Sarjeant Gallery and an exhibition of over 150 of Collier’s works. Jill Trevelyan’s substantial introductory essay and further essays by other writers and artists offer fresh insights into Collier’s life and the continuing impact of her work, illustrated with historical photographs and a generous selection of high quality reproductions of her art.

Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer by Athol McCredie (Te Papa Press)
Meet Leslie Adkin (1888-1964), a hard-working farmer and amateur photographer whose intellectual curiosity often challenged the established wisdom of New Zealand’s higher educated, scientific elite. Athol McCredie’s longstanding dedication to bringing Adkin’s story and photographs to wider public attention is clearly evident. The result is a surprisingly intimate portrait that rewards the reader with carefully curated, stunning imagery, complemented with a well-researched, accessibly-written text. Elegantly designed, the book is a pleasure to handle, browse and read.

Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa by Matiu Baker (Ngāti Toa Rangatira, Te Āti Awa, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Whakaue), Katie Cooper, Michael Fitzgerald and Rebecca Rice (Te Papa Press)
How do you tell stories from a bleak chapter in New Zealand’s history when your own institutional forebears had a less-than honourable role in the narrative? A curatorial team from Te Papa attempts exactly that through 500 collection objects. Complemented by longer-form essays from guest writers, this richly illustrated book is accessible to a general audience, and relevant to the Aotearoa New Zealand histories curriculum. It is also very topical with the current public discourse on Te Tiriti.

Toi Te Mana: An Indigenous History of Māori Art by Deidre Brown (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kahu), Ngarino Ellis (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Porou) and Jonathan Mane-Wheoki (Ngāpuhi, Te Aupōuri, Ngāti Kurī) (Auckland University Press)
A magnum opus with an ambitious kaupapa: to establish a Maori framework for indigenous art history. The result of 12 years of research, this book is destined to become a standard New Zealand art history text that will feature on tertiary reading lists and library shelves, both in New Zealand and overseas, for years to come. Flawlessly designed and extensively illustrated, it makes excellent use of archival institutional sources.

GENERAL NON-FICTION AWARD

Bad Archive by Flora Feltham (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
These beautifully crafted and meditative essays are by turns moving, delightful and challenging. Building on each other in unexpected but always illuminating ways, taken together they present an intimate portrait of the author Flora Feltham’s life and relationships, and invite the reader to reflect on the duality of love and grief, the meaning of family and the importance of craft – with both words and textiles – in the making of meaning.

Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery by Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku (Te Arawa, Tūhoe, Ngāpuhi, Waikato) (HarperCollins Publishers Aotearoa New Zealand)
Hine Toa defies easy categorisation. It is a rich, personal, stunningly evocative and creative memoir of Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku’s life, from early childhood on ‘the pā’ at Ōhinemutu to academic achievements such as being the first wahine Māori to be awarded a PhD in New Zealand. But it is also a fiery social and political history of this country through the mid late 20th century from a vital, queer, Māori, feminist perspective that deserves – and here claims – centre stage.

The Chthonic Cycle by Una Cruickshank (Te Herenga Waka University Press)
How would we know if we are living through a mass extinction? Are there signs in the physical archive – the fossils, stories, jewellery and perfumes humans have carried into the 21st century but perhaps failed to interpret? In this singular essay collection, Una Cruickshank unpacks the science and history of pearls, jet, amber, coral and other talismans from the biosphere to open new perspectives on climate change, humanity, and maybe hope.

The Unsettled: Small Stories of Colonisation by Richard Shaw (Massey University Press)
Building on his earlier memoir The Forgotten Coast, Richard Shaw commits to the confronting but critical work of decolonisation, weaving his own stories and family histories with those of other Pākehā ‘settler’ descendants willing to look the trauma and intergenerational implications of colonisation in the eye. What if the benign family stories you grew up with masked something very different? An important and timely read for tangata Tiriti.

A revolving selection of excellent recent fiction and literary gems, significantly reduced in price to encourage your discovery. 

Just enter the discount code CIRCUS when adding the books to your cart for a 20% discount.

This offer is extended on these books only until 18 March 2025, and is limited to the copies currently in stock.

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This is a remarkable piece of writing. A memoir, a story about his parents, a family history, an island’s history, a treatise on writing, a question — the question, an exploration of death, of guilt, of shame, and of dominance and harm, but also a book of forgiveness, of wonder, hope, and most definitely, of love. Here tossed up in a looping story literary geniuses rub shoulders with brilliant physicists, and the ordinary Tasmanian, alongside the forgotten, are wheeled in and brilliantly scooped up into a telling of the everything and the particular, and it’s also immensely personal. A telling which is now, the future, and the past. A past which is 40,000 years; and just a blip— a few 1000, and also the merest moment. The bomb. This is a book which talks of war and consequence, where trauma feeds its way into the rivers of generations, where violence is erased, where memory is what we have in all its unreliability, where a truth may be found in what is unsaid or voided. As the reader, are we in the river, beside it keeping pace, or watching it flow past?  Or do we find ourselves in one of its many tributaries letting the current take us, to discover we need to turn back and fight our way upstream? Or is this just the task of the writer? There is turbulence — a power working at us. But when we are midstream all is clear whether we are swimming or flying. There is calm, and humour, and an imagination that brilliantly guides us and buoys us on. Flanagan’s father was a POW in Japan. Without the bombing of Hiroshima he would have died. If he had died, the author would not exist. The bomb changed the world. H.G. Wells wrote a book because he was confused about love. A book which inspired a Hungarian Jewish scientist to have an idea about nuclear chain reaction, and then fear drove him to both embrace and reject the consequences. The wry brilliance of Chekhov filters through the pages. The love of language — of words — is delightfully explored on the page and in childhood memories, and in the author’s descriptions of his father’s reading and reciting. And here is the connection to the earth: as his mother fills bags of red soil at the side of the open road for her grey Hobart suburban plot, as Flanagan lies beneath his car by the river on a dewy night, as his great-great-grandfather labours, and his mother’s father ploughs. And here is the story of genocide, whether it is here, or over there, of violence that permeates and of lives that cannot be extinguished. Question 7 is compelling, thoughtful and almost overwhelming. It’s storytelling at its finest — powerful, beautiful and deeply moving.

What is the relation between the real-life Sheila and the Sheila of this book, her real-life friend Margaux and the Margaux of this book, between her other real-life friends and acquaintances and their counterparts in this book? These are not interesting questions (unless you happen to be Sheila’s demon-lover Israel (in which case, serve you right)). This book is at once an excoriating self-examination, a pitiless self-satire (although it may in fact not be as satirical as it seems to be) and an unforgivably self-indulgent exercise in self-exposure (and is these things all at once and not by turns). You will be irritated by Sheila, but she is irritating in pretty much the same way that you are irritating to yourself, and you will grow tired of Sheila, but in the same way that you grow tired of yourself. You will put the book aside, but, without really knowing why, you will keep coming back to it in pretty much the same way you keep coming back to vaguely important but imprecise and somewhat irritating aspects of your own life. Sheila nobly asks herself “How should a person be?”, and gets the same unsatisfactory, earnest and ridiculous answers as you would get if you asked yourself the same impossible question. The book contains passages of painful honesty and vapid bullshit (both at the same time, mostly), and beautiful, sad and hilarious passages, too (again, beautiful, sad and hilarious all at once and not by turns). By asking big questions in a life that contains only small answers, Sheila holds herself up to show us that we don’t know how to be, or how to make our lives the way we want them, or even to know what we want with any sureness or consistency: “Most people live their entire lives with their clothes on, and even if they wanted to, couldn’t take them off. Then there are those who cannot put them on. They are the ones who live their lives not just as people but as examples of people. They are destined to expose every part of themselves, so the rest of us can know what it means to be human. Some of us have to be naked, so the rest can be exempted by fate.”

"The ultimate hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently." Thinking against the grain of received ideas, anthropologist, activist and author David Graeber imagined new ways of understanding of the past and a liberatory vision of the future — a social order based on fundamental freedoms. In these essays published over three decades and ranging across the biggest issues of our time — inequality, technology, the identity of ‘the West’, democracy, art, power, anger, mutual aid, and protest — he challenges old assumptions about political life. During a moment of daunting upheaval and pervasive despair, as we find ourselves in converging political, economic, and ecological crises and our politics dominated by either ‘business as usual’ or nostalgia for a mythical past, Graeber offers us new ways to think about how we live together — and how we can live together better.

• It does not have to be this way.

• Anarchism and the principle of play.

• Why fun is fun.

• The Dawn of Everything.

• Pirate Enlightenment.

• Bullshit Jobs.

• Debt: The First 5000 Years.

• The Utopia of Rules.

• Due soon: Cities Made Differently.

As I was fixing the puncture on the delivery bike last week, I remembered the last puncture event. It was December and I was in the process of making the Christmas cakes (yes, multiple, and yes, a bit late to the party for a good aging — saying that, my recipe is delicious straight away or well in advance. Thank you Lois Daish!). There was going to be a social media post. Hashtag #whatbooksellersdointheweekend. Alas, December had more pressing matters, like book enquiries and chasing stock, in the ascendant. Anyway, the cakes are eaten, the punctures fixed, but the idea of sustaining treats is still very much on the agenda. For years now, I’ve made at least 2 fruit-filled cakes: one to eat and get you through December and the other for the festive season quietly waiting its turn.
A cake in the tin is a promise of a sit-down and a cup of tea, or a piquantly paired coffee if spice is the taste game. (Top recommended coffee match is the Cardamom Cake recipe from Magnus Nilsson’s The Nordic Baking Book. And our coffee of choice KUSH Port Blend). But back to the point of this post. Puddings et al. , not punctures. If a tinful of cake is a promise, a pudding is the cherry on top.

Belgian culinary historian Regula Ysewijn’s cookbooks are a delightful, and wonderfully informative! From the nifty titles to the contents, to the results. The Belgian writer and photographer focuses on food and social history of Britain and the Low Countries. Pride and Pudding is a history of British puddings (both savoury and sweet), Oats from the North, Wheat from the South is focused on British baking, and Dark Rye and Honey Cake covers festive baking of the Low Countries.* The books are packed with recipes, history and great photogrpahy (her own) and charming illustrations.

In Dark Rye and Honey Cake enjoy Regula’s Waffles for breakfast, a rich Kramiek loaf for morning tea, find out about the Earl of Laetare, partake in a Flemish pancake, and find delight in a special apple cheesy tart.

Pride and Pudding — so many good things, Let’s start with Syllabub — even the word is delcious! Quinces are rippening on the tree, so try that intricate pastry pie — it looks divine. Icecream without a machine? And break out your molds! Filled with recipes, processes, hints, history and joy.

*She’s also produced the recipes for The Officail Downton Abbey Christmas Cookbook and more recently, The Official Bridgerton Cookbook.

A selection of books from our shelves.
Click through to find out more:

My Little Book of Big Questions

What is Existentialism?

What Can a Body Do?

Who Owns the Clouds?

Question 7

The Question of Palestine

How Should a Person Be?

Are Friends Electric?

Your new books — just out of the carton! We can have your order dispatched by overnight courier or ready to collect from our door in Church Street, Whakatū.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang (translated from Korean by E. Yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris) $40
One morning in December, Kyungha receives a message from her friend Inseon saying she has been hospitalised in Seoul and asking that Kyungha join her urgently. The two women have last seen each other over a year before, on Jeju Island, where Inseon lives and where, two days before this reunion, she has injured herself chopping wood. Airlifted to Seoul for an operation, Inseon has had to leave behind her pet bird, which will quickly die unless it receives food. Bedridden, she begs Kyungha to take the first plane to Jeju to save the animal. Unfortunately, a snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon's house at all costs, but the icy wind and snow squalls slow her down as night begins to fall. She wonders if she will arrive in time to save Inseon's bird — or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. Lost in a world of snow, she doesn't yet suspect the vertiginous plunge into the darkness which awaits her at her friend's house. There, the long-buried story of Inseon's family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in the archive painstakingly assembled at the house, documenting a terrible massacre on the island of 30,000 civilians, murdered in 1948-49. We Do Not Part is a hymn to friendship, a eulogy to the imagination, and above all a powerful indictment against forgetting. [Hardback]
”Unforgettable. A disquietingly beautiful novel about the impossibility of waking up from the nightmare of history. Hang Kang's prose, as delicate as footprints in the snow or a palimpsest of shadows, conjures up the specters haunting a nation, a family, a friendship.” —Hernan Diaz
”A visionary novel about history, trauma, art and its tremendous costs. Han Kang is one of the most powerfully gifted writers in the world. With each work, she transforms her readers, and rewrites the possibilities of the novel as a form.” —Katie Kitamura

• “A great act of creative culmination.”

• Other books by Han Kang, 2024 Nobel Laureate in Literature.

Mountainish by Zsuzsanna Gahse (translated from German by Katy Derbyshire) $36
A narrator and her dog are criss-crossing the Swiss Alps. She travels with friends who share her interest in food, languages and their topographical contexts. They collect colours, even look for colourlessness, and develop the idea of a walk-in diary, a vain attempt to archive their observations. Gradually, other mountains appear in their observations and memories, as do the mountains of literature and art. Mountains may be sites of fear and awe, of narrow-mindedness, racism and ever-looming collapse; Alpine lodges may be places of hospitality, retreat and unexpected encounters; of nature under threat. In 515 notes, Zsuzsanna Gahse unfolds a finely woven interplay between her six characters while giving us a vivid panorama of mountain worlds, a multi-layered typology of all things mountainish. [Paperback]

• Nothing is done because it was there.

Gloss by Kyra Wilder $38
Transposing the Greek myth of the Hesperides nymphs (guarding the Golden Apples in the legend of Hercules) to Marin County at the turn of the millennium, Gloss is an unconventional psychological thriller with feminist bite. Apple farmer Lee Lotan is a passionate cook who runs an alternative therapy programme for young women suffering from an unnamed eating disorder. Ari, Eleni and Hesper meet at his farm, Golden Apples, one summer. His seemingly benevolent methods have a long-term impact on his young charges. A year later, a trial is underway and the girls reunite to testify. From the chorus of their voices emerges a surreal, kaleidoscopic picture of trauma and its aftermath: ambivalence, guilt, denial, lingering fascination, and the gaps left by things too difficult to speak aloud. As the story reaches its surreal climax, the girls discover the incompetence of the criminal justice system and the cathartic delights of personal revenge. Wilder paints desire and disgust alike in sensuous, delicate prose. [Wrappered paperback][
”Taut and vivid. It is like stepping into a delicately described hallucinatory nightmare and I was completely mesmerised all the way through. The themes of coercive control and psychological disintegration are so chilling and important.” —Suzanne Joinson

• Read an extract.

Cold Kitchen: A year of culinary journeys by Caroline Eden $50
”With its union of practicality and magic, a kitchen is a portal offering extended range and providing unlikely paths out of the ordinary. Offering opportunities to cook, imagine and create ways back into other times, other lives and other territories. Central Asia, Turkey, Ukraine, the South Caucasus, Russia, the Baltics and Poland. Places that have eased into my marrow over the years shaping my life, writing and thinking. They are here, these lands I return to, in this kitchen.” A welcoming refuge with its tempting pantry, shelves of books and inquisitive dog, Caroline Eden finds comfort away from the road in her basement Edinburgh kitchen. Join her as she cooks recipes from her travels, reflects on past adventures and contemplates the kitchen's unique ability to tell human stories. This is a hauntingly honest, and at times heartbreaking, memoir with the smell, taste and preparation of food at its heart. From late night baking as a route back to Ukraine to capturing the beauty of Uzbek porcelain, and from the troublesome nature of food and art in Poland to the magic of cloudberries, Cold Kitchen celebrates the importance of curiosity and of feeling at home in the world. Nicely written [Hardback]
”A quiet and beautiful book, a unique blend of history, place, love, food and belonging. Eden writes so sincerely and so intimately you miss her as soon as you've read the last page.” —Diana Henry
”Powerfully evocative and beautifully written Cold Kitchen will warm your heart. Curl up with this book and let it gently take you places near and far; you will find a sense of home, the hearthstone of our shared humanity.” —Elif Shafak
”A hugely accomplished work that manages to be wildly enjoyable, often moving and always thoughtful.” — Olivia Potts, The Spectator
”One of the most brilliant travel writers of her generation, Caroline Eden is masterful at evoking the flavours and emotions of her encounters while on the road in eastern Europe and Central Asia. In Cold Kitchen, she weaves together the contemporary and the historical, the mundane and the magical, in a heartfelt memoir on the meanings of both distant adventures and the comforts of home.” —Fuchsia Dunlop

• Other books by Caroline Eden.

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton $45
”Imagine you could hold a baby hare and bottle-feed it. Imagine that it lived under your roof and lolloped around your bedroom at night, drumming on the duvet cover when it wanted your attention. Imagine that, over two years later, it still ran in from the fields when you called it and snoozed in your house for hours on end. This happened to me.” When lockdown led busy professional Chloe to leave the city and return to the countryside of her childhood, she never expected to find herself custodian of a newly born hare. Yet when she finds the creature, endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she is compelled to give it a chance at survival. Raising Hare chronicles their journey together and the challenges of caring for the leveret and preparing for its return to the wild. We witness an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife. This improbable bond of trust serves to remind us that the most remarkable experiences, inspiring the most hope, often arise when we least expect them. [Hardback]
”I savoured every carefully chosen and perfectly polished word and I cared so deeply about Hare that I found myself holding my breath . . . This is more than a wildlife memoir, it's a philosophical masterpiece ruminating on our place as human beings in nature.” —Clare Balding
”Raising Hare is an astounding achievement. Not since I read Salar the Salmon by Henry Williamson have I witnessed such insight into a creature of the wild. This is a great and important tale for our times, for all of us, in the same league as Ted Hughes, Alice Oswald, Thomas Hardy and indeed Henry Williamson himself. I am so pleased Chloe Dalton told us about raising hare. I will not forget it and nor will anyone who reads it.” —Michael Morpurgo
”A beautiful book that makes you think profoundly about how we so often tune out the natural world around us. Chloe Dalton is a tender, curious, wise, mind-expanding guide, connecting readers with the wild we humans once knew so well. I will be recommending this to everyone.” —Matt Haig

Mrs Calder and the Hyena by Marjorie Ann Watts $38
”Mrs Calder is frail and distracted. She annoys her daughter by living in disorder, taking up with vagrants, hanging around churchyards and giving free rein to her imagination (she thinks about her doctor with no clothes on). But the real hindrances to right perception in this tale, and throughout Marjorie Ann Watts’s exhilarating second collection, produced at the tender age of ninety-eight, are not the fantasies by which we sustain ourselves but the suffocating illusions of others. Particularly those who want what’s best for us. Where is safe? Where can we start again? Whether in homes troubled by age and bereavement or foreign cities consumed by idealistic revolution, ‘there are no answers’, as Mrs Calder herself puts it, except to pick up these stories wherever we left off, and – gratefully – read on.” —Will Eaves
”As in the fiction of Penelope Fitzgerald, which whom Watts shares attributes, there runs through these stories the sometimes unnerving perspective of the visionary. Watts is especially good on the alchemy that chance affinities between seemingly disparate sorts can generate. An extension of this is her sense of the liberation that attends a confluence between the natural world and the human spirit. Humankind, with its frailties and follies but occasional defiant triumphs, is portrayed within a world where birdsong, the scent of wild narcissi, the sound of water and the broad palette of skies complement the coolly ironic but compassionate voice of a born storyteller.” —Salley Vickers, Spectator

• Read an extract.

Playing Possum: How animals understand death by Susana Mons $58
When the opossum feels threatened, she becomes paralysed. Her body temperature plummets, her breathing and heart rates drop to a minimum, and her glands simulate the smell of a putrefying corpse. Playing Possum explores what the opossum and other creatures can teach us about how we and other species understand mortality, and demonstrates that the concept of death, far from being a uniquely human attribute, is widespread in the animal kingdom. With humour and empathy, Susana Mons tells the stories of ants who attend their own funerals, chimpanzees who clean the teeth of their dead, dogs who snack on their caregivers, crows who avoid the places where they saw a carcass, elephants obsessed with collecting ivory, and whales who carry their dead for weeks. Mons, an expert on animal cognition and ethics, shows how there are more ways to conceive of mortality than the human way, and challenges the notion that the only emotional reactions to death worthy of our attention are ones that resemble our own. Blending philosophical insight with new evidence from behavioral science and comparative psychology, Playing Possum dispels the anthropocentric biases that cloud our understanding of the natural world, and reveals that, when it comes to death and dying, we are just another animal. [Hardback]
"Mons upends our anthropocentric views of death and makes the case that other species possess the cognitive requirements to understand death and mortality." —Francisco J. Rivera Rosario
"Playing Possum is an unexpected mix of witty and grisly, cerebral and earthy. Monso doesn't so much answer questions about death as raise new ones, encouraging us to shed our reflexive anthropocentrism by paying close attention to what animals do, even when it fails to accord with human modes of behavior." —Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
"Playing Possum identifies a new discipline: comparative thanatology, the study of 'how animals react to individuals who are dead or close to dying, the physiological processes that underlie their reactions, and what these behaviors tell us about the minds of animals.' Monso is tender-hearted in her empathic descriptions but hard-headed when it comes to interpreting what an animal might be experiencing."—David P. Barash, Wall Street Journal

Hekla and Laki by Marine Schneider $40
Carried in by a strong wind, a tiny creature named Hekla twirls delicately into a crater, falling at the feet — and, very suddenly, into the life — of an old giant named Laki. Each is vastly different from the other: Laki is a solitary being, preferring order and calmness, while Hekla is young, spirited, and messy. But in their newfound state of coexistence, they learn to live together and help each other grow, forging an attachment that binds them in life — and in death. Inspired by two Icelandic volcanoes, Hekla and Laki is a story about the beauty and the brutality of life, the passing of knowledge over time, and new possibilities that follow loss. [Hardback]

• Look inside!

The National Telepathy by Roque Larraquy (translated from Spanish by Frank Wynne) $38
In September 1933, the Peruvian Rubber Company delivers nineteen indigenous people from the Amazon to businessman Amado Dam, intended for Argentina's first Ethnographic Theme Park. Unexpected among the human cargo is an artefact harbouring a sloth with a fascinating yet terrifying secret: the ability to create erotically explosive telepathic connections between people. What ensues is a raucous satire of men's fear of women's bodies, of the illusion of logic in the structures of so-called civilisation, and the way class and race obscure identities when the observer is a man with power. In The National Telepathy, Roque Larraquy, one of the most original voices in contemporary Argentinian literature, brings us a literary high-wire act, an over-the-top comic grotesque about atrocity. This shocking, bizarre, funny, imaginative novel lays all-too-bare the secret longings and not-so-secret machinations of a social class that will stop at nothing in order to stay on top. [Paperback with French flaps]
"The National Telepathy is a graphic, acerbic work of satirical science fiction unlike anything you're likely to have ever read." —The Skinny

The Elements of Baking: Make any recipe gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, or vegan by Katarina Cermelj $70
The definitive guide to making any recipe gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, vegan or even gluten-free vegan. With a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry, Katarina Cermelj lays out the science behind baking and the ingredients that make it work, so you can easily adapt your baking to your diet and lifestyle, and still make sure it tastes spectacular. With an abundance of mouth-watering recipes together with actual quantitative rules that you can use to convert any recipe into whatever version you fancy, The Elements of Baking will transform the way you think about ingredients. It will be a constant companion in the kitchen and the book you refer to every time you want to bake. Interesting and useful for gluten-inclusive, dairy-inclusive, egg-inclusive no-vegans too! [Hardback]

• Look inside!

The Universe in Verse: 15 portals to wonder through science and poetry by Maria Popova $40
Poetry and science, as Popova writes in her introduction, "are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply." In 15 short essays on subjects ranging from the mystery of dark matter and the infinity of pi to the resilience of trees and the intelligence of octopuses, Popova tells the stories of scientific searching and discovery. These stories are interwoven with details from the very real and human lives of scientists--many of them women, many underrecognized--and poets inspired by the same questions and the beauty they reveal. Each essay is paired with a poem reflecting its subject by poets ranging from Emily Dickinson, W. H. Auden, and Edna St. Vincent Millay to Maya Angelou, Diane Ackerman, and Tracy K. Smith, and is stunningly illustrated by celebrated artist Ofra Amit. Together, they wake us to a "reality aglow with wonder." [Hardback]

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A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: A Palestine story by Nathan Thrall $30
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, and an illumination of the reality of one of the most contested places on earth. [New paperback edition]
”A deeply immersive portrait of daily life in Israel and the West Bank arranged around the story of a Palestinian child and a school trip that ends in tragedy following a traffic accident. Weaving together the ordinary and interwoven lives of Jewish and Palestinian inhabitants, Thrall, a Jerusalem-based author and journalist, illuminates the complex realities of one of the world's most contested regions.” —Financial Times

How to Choose a Chess Move by Andrew Soltis $37
International Grandmaster Andrew Soltis brings you a foolproof guide to choosing your best next chess move, every time. There are more than 30 moves you can choose from an average position, yet Chess Masters regularly manage to select the best moves - and they do it faster, more confidently and with less calculation than other players. This practical guide, a brand new, fully updated edition of a chess classic, explains the tricks, techniques and shortcuts Masters employ to find the best way forward, at every stage of a game. Drawing on the wisdom of some of the greatest chess players of all time, with analysis from over 180 games, it covers: Employing specific cues to identify good moves. Streamlining analysis of the consequences of moves. Using both objective and highly subjective criteria to find the right move - from any position. This invaluable book provides a fascinating insight into the way Chess Masters think, and is a must for all players who want to hone their decision-making skills. [Paperback]

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21 February 2025

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My life is a sort of an orbit, he thought. My life is a repetitive circular thing, or something very closely approximating a circle, not that an orbit needs to be circular, necessarily, but I think mine is. How many times will I pass this same point in the geography of my life, so to call it, how many times will I pass by, caught in the momentum of my orbit, unable to touch what I observe of my life below, changing slowly, or fast, as it does by the influence of various forces that I also cannot touch. But what am I if I am remote from what I have just called my life, he thought, what am I, the orbiting observer, if I am not my life, if I am orbiting above my life as the astronauts or cosmonauts in the space station in Samantha Harvey’s novel Orbital orbit above the planet Earth, orbiting and observing, enthralled by the attractive wonderful damaged planet below, remote from it but falling always towards it though never getting closer, in an equilibrium of gravity and momentum. An orbit, after all, he thought, is always firstly an act of attention. “Is it necessarily the case that the further you get from something the more perspective you have on it?” Harvey asks in the novel, as the astronauts stand in awe at the systems and patterns below them. “If you could get far enough away from Earth you’d be able finally to understand it.” Are understanding and participation mutually exclusive, he wondered, then, in my life, on this planet, necessarily, or is participation in itself a form of understanding, albeit enabled by an inescapable narrowing of perspective? As I circle in my orbit, far above my life, falling towards the object of my attention but carried away anyway by momentum, there in the equilibrium of my distance, I see there are no borders, no edges, no entities other than a oneness, if that could even be thought of as an entity, no entities other than those that exist in our minds, arbitrary borders, arbitrary edges, arbitrary entities, not seen from above but only by the participants in the struggle that they enable, the struggle that they condemn us to maintain. The moonshot is the opposite of an orbit. We divide ourselves with edges to get things done, to act one thing upon another, to intend and do, to participate or at least be aware of what we think of as our participation to the limited extent that we are somehow aware. This is how we get things done. This also is how harm is done. Up here in my orbit I observe how tiny all that is, I understand to the extent that I am remote, I am in a plotless place, I am in a place where everything is in an indefinite tense, where everything is a submission to a larger system, somewhere that I am hardly me. “As long as you stay in orbit you will be OK,” says the astronaut. “You will not feel crestfallen, not once.” I do not want to return, he thought. I do not want to leave my space of suspension, though “our hearts, so inflated with ecstasy at the spectacle of space, are at the same time withered by it.”

There’s nothing like a journal to keep you up with the play, reinvigorate your thinking and introduce you to new ideas. Counterfutures is published biannually in Aotearoa, it’s peer reviewed, and has a bunch of good people on its editorial and advisory boards. It’s a multidisciplinary journal of Left research and thought, and includes essays, interviews and reviews. Published here, and about here, it also connects with international colleagues, both scholarly and grassroots. In this issue, editor Neil Vallelly interviews Princeton Professor Wendy Brown. ‘Towards a Counter-Nihilistic Politics’ is a wide-ranging interview that looks at the 2023 protests on American campuses, an analysis of current left politics, specifically in the US but also broadly relevant to other nations; — its reinvention in the face of one might say disenchantment, and a delve into political philosopher Max Weber, as well as Brown’s own work on neoliberalism and nihilism. In ‘Whakapapa of a Prison Riot’ Emma Rākete and Ti Lamusse, unpack the 2020 uprising at Waikeria Prison with an eye-opening and passionate exposition on the riot, prisoner rights, censorship and free speech. Their critique is sharp and powerful drawing on history, injustices of the past and present, and it’s a call to action for change in our criminal justice system — the kind of thinking and discussion that is missing from most media. In ‘Māori Marx, Māori Modernism: Hone Tuwhare’ Dougal McNeill gets under the skin of the poet’s work. Here is Tuwhare’s socialist connections in his words and deeds. Engaging, and adding further depth to this excellent poet’s body of work. And if you are needing to continuously find a way to unpick the complexities of Israel-Palestine, a conversation between Tariq Ali and historian Rashid Khalidi is enlightening and thoughtful. ‘The Neck and the Sword’ is an in-depth interview which gives excellent insight into Palestinian struggles for statehood. Khalidi goes back to the Arab Revolts of the late 1930s, and how it connects to the Nakba of 1947-8. He highlights the impacts of displacement, the war of 1967, the evolution of the PLO and later Hamas. This is a conversation with clarity of thought, facts and analysis, a conversation rooted in a people’s struggle, and above all humanity. While this interview was recorded in mid-2023, it feels even more important now, when booksellers can be arrested for doing their job, and powerful players are intent on a course of action in Gaza and the West Bank which will lead to further disenfranchisement. And these are just a few of the journal’s entries. Get Counterfutures: Left Thought and Practice Aotearoa on your radar and on your reading pile!