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2 May 2025
David Coventry's novel is informed and formed and de-formed by his experience suffering from ME, an illness of chronic systemic dysregulation that makes ‘normal’ life impossible, fractures the supposed link between the self and its biography, narrows and distorts the focus of awareness, and disestablishes comfortable conventional notions of the ongoingness of time. Dealing not much at all with the half-life of bed and sofa that is the main occupation of the chronically ill, the book is rather a multi-stranded literary performance of remembered travels, conversations, stories and encounters, seemingly Coventry’s own or those of persons close to him, burning with moments of great vividness and intensity yet also constrained by the blockages and blanks imposed on narrative by his illness, which reaches backwards through the medium of his memory to the whole of his life and beyond. Coventry’s illness is an unconsented catalyst to ways of writing freed from the performative conventions of literature and into territory where the urge to impart sense and form burns where both sense and form are impossible. The book contains much that I found compelling, thoughtful, memorable, suitably frustrating and disconcerting. It is a unique contribution to the literature of illness.
Read Thomas’s interview with David Coventry about this book:
Emily St John Mandel’s SEA OF TRANQUILITY is a book to be lost in. It’s a book about time, living and loving. Superbly constructed, it stretches from 1912 to 2401; from the wildness of Vancouver to a moon colony of the future. A remittance man, Edwin St.John St.Andrew, is sent abroad. He’s completely at sea in this new world — he has no appetite for work nor connection — and makes a haphazard journey to a remote settlement on a whim. Here, he has an odd experience which leaves him shaken. He will return to England only to find himself derailed in the trenches of the First World War and later struck down by the flu pandemic. It’s 2020 and Mirella (some readers will remember her from The Glass Hotel) is searching for her friend Vincent (who has disappeared). She attends a concert by Vincent’s brother Paul and afterwards waits for him to appear, along with two music fans at the backstage door. It’s here, on the eve of our current pandemic, that she discovers that Vincent has drowned at sea. Yet it is an art video that Vincent had recorded and been used in Paul’s performance which is at the centre of the conversation for one of the music fans. The film is odd — recounting an unworldly experience in the Vancouver forest. A short clip — erratic and strangely out of place, out of time. It’s 2203 and Olive Llewellyn, author, is on a book tour of Earth. She lives on Moon Colony Two and is feeling bereft — missing her husband and daughter. It’s a gruelling schedule of talks, interviews and same-same hotel rooms; and, if this wasn’t enough, there’s a new virus on the loose. Her bestselling book, Marienbad is about a pandemic. Within its pages is a description of a strange occurrence which takes place in a railway station. When an interviewer questions her about this passage, she’s happy to talk about it, as long it is off the record. It’s 2401, and detective Gaspery-Jacques Roberts from the Night City has been hired to investigate an anomaly in time. Drawing on his experiences and the book, Marienbad, and finding connections between the aforementioned times and people, will lead him to a place where he will make a decision that may have disruptive consequences. A decision which will cause upheaval. Emily St.John Mandel is deft in her writing, keeping the threads of time and the story moving across and around themselves without losing the reader, and making the knots — the connections — at just the right time to engage and delight intellect and curiosity. Moving through time and into the future makes this novel an unlikely contender to be a book of our time, but in so many ways it is. Clever, fascinating, reflective and unsettling, it’s a tender shout-out to humanity.
Planet Earth needs us and we need it. In the news every day there are stories of climate devastation, whether this is the latest storm to tear through a community, refugees searching for environmental and economic stability, food insecurity, or the decline of animal, insect, or plant species. This is the world young people face and this can be overwhelming. The books selected here are antidotes: each is a positive and engaging call to action that embraces nature and our relationship with it.
For teens and upwards, Elizabeth Kolbert’s H is for Hope investigates climate change in an A-Z format. Kicking off with Arrhenius who created the world’s first climate model in 1894 to Z associated with the familiar term Ground Zero and what this means, this book is packed with information, history, facts and ideas. In between A and Z there are O for Objections, P for Power, U for Uncertainty, W for Weather, and of course, H is for Hope. Kolbert’s knowledgable and enquiring text is matched with super illustrations by Wesley Allsbrook. This publication is ideal for 12 up and right through to adult readers. Inspiring and alarming, these 26 pieces are accessible, lightly written without losing gravitas, and empowering.
If you are looking for something a little less confronting for younger readers, The Big Book of Belonging provides a delightful child-centric observation of us and our place in the natural world. Here on the page, a child can see themselves as a person that belongs on the planet along with animals, insects and plants.
Yuval Zommer in word and image allows a child to see how nature works, the similarities between humans and other species, why community and home matter, the wonders of the natural world, and the importance of celebrating as well as nurturing this relationship with the Earth. Sweet, gentle and quietly advocating for cooperation, The Big Book of Belonging, ideal for 4-7 years, is perfect for the next generation of environmentalists.
And if rewilding is your jam, you can’t go past Steve Mushin’s Ultrawild. Winner of the Elsie Locke Non-Fiction Award in 2024, this is the best climate change/science/natural history book that I have come across in publishing in Aotearoa, ever!
So much fun, so inspiring and as the subtitle says — audacious. Part-graphic novel, part-infometrics, completely packed with ideas, facts, action and inventions, Ultrawild is inspiring, zany, and creative. This is the book that every kid (and a few adults, too!) should have under their arm, by the bed, on the sofa, and out in the wild (urban wilderness, suburban scape, backyard or apartment deck) every day, everywhere, problem-solving for a better future. Genius!
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.
Time to read! A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more
New books for a new month! Autumn is the season for gathering enough books to see you through the reading months ahead. Click through to our website to secure your copies. We can have your books dispatched by overnight courier or ready to collect from our door.
On the Calculation of Volume: I by Solvej Balle (translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland) $30
”It seems so odd to me now, how one can be so unsettled by the improbable. When we know that our entire existence is founded on freak occurrences and improbable coincidences. That we wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for these curious twists of fate.” Tara Selter has involuntarily stepped off the train of time: in her world, November eighteenth repeats itself endlessly. We meet Tara on her 122nd November 18th: she no longer experiences the changes of days, weeks, months, or seasons. She finds herself in a lonely new reality without being able to explain why: how is it that she wakes every morning into the same day, knowing to the exact second when the blackbird will burst into song and when the rain will begin? Will she ever be able to share her new life with her beloved and now chronically befuddled husband? And on top of her profound isolation and confusion, Tara takes in with pain how slight a difference she makes in the world. (As she puts it: "That's how little the activities of one person matter on the eighteenth of November.") Balle is hypnotic in her remixing of the endless recursive day, creating curious little folds of time and foreshadowings: her flashbacks light up inside the text like old flash bulbs. The first volume's gravitational pull — a force inverse to its constriction — has the effect of a strong tranquiliser, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is intoxicating. [Paperback with French flaps]
“On the Calculation of Volume I takes a potentially familiar narrative trope — a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day — and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist, to want to be alive, to need to share one’s time with others. The sheer quality of the sentences was what struck us most, rendered into English with deft, invisible musicality by the translator. This book presses its mood, its singular time signature and its philosophical depth into the reader. You feel you are in it, which is sometimes unnerving, sometimes soothing, and this effect lingers long after the book is finished.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation
Slowing the Sun: Essays by Nadine Hura $40
”Hope is a shovel and will give you blisters.” Overwhelmed and often unmoved by the scientific and political jargon of climate change, Nadine Hura sets out to find a language to connect more deeply to the environmental crisis. But what begins as a journalistic quest takes an abrupt and introspective turn following the death of her brother. In the midst of grief, Hura works through science, pūrākau, poetry and back again. Seeking to understand climate change in relation to whenua and people, she asks: how should we respond to what has been lost? Her many-sided essays explore environmental degradation, social disconnection and Indigenous reclamation, insisting that any meaningful response must be grounded in Te Tiriti and anti-colonialism. Slowing the Sun is a karanga to those who have passed on, as well as to the living, to hold on to ancestral knowledge for future generations. [Paperback]
”Nadine’s writing can make us feel seen, less alone, more hopeful, more enlightened. He kaiwhakairo i te kupu, hekaituhi ngā kokonga ngākau – a carver of words, a writer for all corners of the heart.” —Stacey Morrison (Ngāi Tahu, Te Arawa, Pākehā)
The Covid Response: A scientist’s account of New Zealand’s pandemic and what happens next by Shaun Hendy $40
New Zealand’s pandemic response delivered one of the lowest Covid-19 health burdens in the world, thanks to early elimination and high vaccination rates. While border controls and early lockdowns were strict, domestic freedoms ultimately exceeded those in other advanced economies, making the country a global case study. Yet, these successes came at a cost — financial strain, social isolation and unequal access to support. How did we get here, and how did science shape decisions in real time? In The Covid Response, physicist Professor Shaun Hendy offers an insider’s perspective on New Zealand’s unique approach to the pandemic. He takes readers behind the scenes of the country’s science-driven response, sharing firsthand experiences as a key member of the advisory team at Te Pūnaha Matatini. Through this engaging narrative, Hendy unpacks the science behind critical decisions — ranging from lockdowns to the strategic use of genomic sequencing and data modelling. This book examines high-stakes decisions made in real time, their impact on New Zealand, and the lessons they offer for the future. [Paperback]
There Lives a Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die by Tove Ditlevsen (translated from Danish by Jennifer Russell and Sophia Hersi Smith) $30
While Tove Ditlevsen is now famous around the world as an extraordinary prose writer, in Denmark she has also long been celebrated as a poet. She published her first collection in her early twenties, and continued writing and publishing poetry until the end of her life. This new selection offers English readers a chance to explore her brilliant, surprising verse across nearly four decades of writing. In this playful, mournful, witty collection, little girls stand tip-toe inside adult bodies, achievements in literature and lethargy are unflinchingly listed, and lovers come and go like the seasons. With an introduction by Olga Ravn. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Meet the finest (and darkest) poet you've never read. Her poems read, at their best, like illuminations, transfiguring her life again and again” —Telegraph
The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth by Adrian Duncan $30
The contemplative and moving third novel from Irish author Adrian Duncan, exploring love, grief and their representations in art. John Molloy, an Irish restorative sculptor meets an Italian sociologist Bernadette Basagni while working on a contemporary-art project in the Alpine city of I_. As he falls in love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view — when his mother, Sandra, while one night praying alone at a country grotto, has a holy vision that leads to his family's ostracisation and disintegration. The disastrous outfall of this has resonated unchecked through his life. The Gorgeous Inertia of the Earth is a novel told in two parts, a decade apart: the first is told in fragments or 'blinks' that lead John to Bologna and Bernadette; the second opens with a letter from home asking him to pray for the speedy death of an dying friend, which sets in motion a day-long odyssey through the ancient streets and churches of Bologna, where John must confront not just his present and his past but also the bedrock of his psyche. [Paperback with French flaps]
”One of the most important and intriguing writers working now.” —Niamh Campbell
”Uncanny, strange and exquisite, akin to the fictions of Laszlo Krasznahorkai.” —Financial Times
”The kind of work that makes you remember why you read.” —Sunday Business Post
”A deliberative and delicate reading experience, revelatory in the truest sense of that word.” —Guardian
The Novel Life of Jane Austen: A graphic biography by Janine Barchas and Isabel Greenberg $50
Through vivid artwork and compelling narrative, readers are invited to journey alongside Jane Austen as she navigates the challenges and triumphs that shaped her works. Told in three parts (Budding Writer 1796-1797; Struggling Artist 1801-1809; Published Author 1809-1817), the gritty circumstances of Austen's own genteel poverty and the small daily injustices so often borne by creative women at this time, are shown against the backdrop of Georgian England and reflect many of the plots and characters woven into Austen's greatest works. All the settings and scenarios presented are based upon the historical record, including the clothing, architecture, decor and Regency locations. Sprinkled throughout, the Easter eggs and witty references to popular screen adaptations of Austen's novels will satisfy the casual and avid Austen fan alike. [Hardback]
”Where does wonderful literature come from? This exciting and thoughtful book explores this wondrous mystery for those who love the work of Jane Austen and for those who find her name only vaguely familiar. My hat is off to the terrific Janine Barchas and the terrific Isabel Greenberg. I wonder how they do it.” —Daniel Handler
”Truly delightful and charming; so fresh, informative and funny. Even the most devoted ‘Janeite’ will learn something new. The graphics are sensational. All in all, a truly magical way to learn about the life and works of Jane Austen.” —Paula Byrne
Alive: An alternative anatomy by Gabriel Weston $40
What does it mean to live in a body? For Gabriel Weston, there was always something missing from the anatomy she was taught at medical school. Medicine teaches us how a body functions, but it doesn't help us navigate the reality of living in one. As she became a surgeon, a mother, and ultimately a patient herself, Weston found herself grappling with the gap between scientific knowledge and unfathomable complexity of human experience. In this captivating exploration of the body, Weston dissolves the boundaries that usually divide surgeon and patient, pushing beyond the limit of what science has to tell us about who we are. Focusing on our individual organs, not just under the intense spotlight of the operating theatre, but in the central role they play in the stories of our lives, a fuller and more human picture of our bodies emerges — more fragile, frightening and miraculous than we could have imagined. [Paperback]
”An exceptional, beautiful and absolutely absorbing book. Gabriel Weston is one of the best writers around, and when it comes to medicine and anatomy she redefines the genre. Alive is a tour of human life and bodies, but she also brings her own body, in the context of her own life, into an absolutely compelling narrative; sex, pregnancy, asylum seekers, breast implants and hearts — especially the author's own heart, in every sense. It is essential reading if you own a body and should be mandatory for all those who study them.” —Chris van Tulleken
”As Gabriel Weston demonstrates in this remarkable book, each organ of our body is a miracle of evolutionary imagination, performing tasks that are outlandishly creative and brilliant. An unusually compelling and illuminating book.” —Misha Glenny
Universality by Natasha Brown $33
Words are your weapons, they're your tools, your currency. On a Yorkshire farm, a man is brutally bludgeoned with a solid gold bar. A plucky young journalist sets out to uncover the truth surrounding the attack, connecting the dots between an amoral banker landlord, an iconoclastic columnist, and a radical anarchist movement. She solves the mystery, but her viral long-read exposé raises more questions than it answers. Universality is a twisty, slippery descent into the rhetoric of truth and power. Through a voyeuristic lens, it focuses on words: what we say, how we say it, and what we really mean. A compellingly nasty celebration of the spectacular force of language. [Paperback]
”Universality is a precise dissection of class, wealth and power, written with a spareness that elevates and electrifies her prose. It's both intelligent and very entertaining.” —Elizabeth Day
”I emerged from this novel with the conviction that the murder victim Brown is here to avenge is discourse itself. Original, vital, and unputdownable.” —Tess Gunty
Pub (‘Object Lessons’ series) by Philip Howell $23
The pub is an English institution. Yet its history has been obscured by myth and nostalgia. In this unique book, Philip Howell takes the public house as an object, or rather as a series of objects: he takes the pub apart and examines its constituent elements, from pub signs to the bar staff to the calling of "time." But Pub also explores the hidden features of the pub, such as corporate control, cultural acceptance and exclusion, and the role of the pub in communities. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Erudite, quirky, and amusing.” —Sebastian Faulks
”I never expected to read a philosophically alert book on British pubs. Philip Howell breathes life into this well-known but poorly understood object.” —Graham Harman
Mere by Danielle Giles $38
Norfolk, 990 AD. Deep in the Fens, isolated by a vast and treacherous mere, an order of holy sisters make their home. Under the steely guidance of Abbess Sigeburg they follow God's path, looking to their infirmarian, Hilda, to provide what comfort and cures she can. But when the mere takes a young servant boy, Sigeburg's grip falters and Hilda quickly realizes this place holds secrets darker and more unholy than she can fathom. Then proud Sister Wulfrun, a recent arrival to the convent, has a vision: a curse is upon them and change must be brought. Is she saint or serpent? To Hilda, Wulfrun is a signal bolder and brighter than any fire set — one she cannot help but follow . [Paperback]
”It is rare for an author to fully recreate the strangeness of the past, but Danielle Giles has done exactly that.” —Costanza Casati
Wild Fictions by Amitav Ghosh $40
Wild Fictions is a collection of essays written over the past 25 years or so and published in various journals and periodicals. The essays can be clubbed under the broad headings of writings on literature and language, climate change and environment, human lives, travel and discoveries, and opinions and conversations. They focus on the abiding concerns that are reflected in Ghosh's works of fiction and non-fiction: colonisation, colonialism and its effects; the complex and delicate link between humans and nature; the ways in which we understand and interact with the world we live in; the importance of history and (re)discovery; how we tell stories, how we use language; and the importance of speaking and writing on issues and events that are key to our times. [Paperback]
”We owe a great debt to Ghosh's brilliant mind, avenging pen, and huge soul.” —Naomi Klein
Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko $30
This remarkable Australian novel features two extraordinary Indigenous stories set five generations apart. When Mulanyin meets the beautiful Nita in Edenglassie, their saltwater people still outnumber the British. As colonial unrest peaks, Mulanyin dreams of taking his bride home to Yugambeh Country, but his plans for independence collide with white justice. Two centuries later, fiery activist Winona meets Dr Johnny. Together they care for obstinate centenarian Granny Eddie, and sparks fly, but not always in the right direction. What nobody knows is how far the legacies of the past will reach into their modern lives. In this brilliant epic novel, Melissa Lucashenko torches Queensland's colonial myths, while reimagining an Australian future. [Paperback]
”Lucashenko is an exhilarating writer, and this generous book is her most remarkable to date.” —Michelle de Kretser
Everything is Tuberculosis: The history and persistence of our deadliest infection by John Green $45
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticised as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it. In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year. In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry's story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
Your Face Belongs to Us: The secretive start-up that is dismantling your privacy by Kashmir Hill $39
When Kashmir Hill stumbled upon Clearview AI, a mysterious startup selling an app that claimed it could identify anyone using just a snapshot of their face, the implications were terrifying. The app could use the photo to find your name, your social media profiles, your friends and family – even your home address. But this was just the start of a story more shocking than she could have imagined. Launched by computer engineer Hoan Ton-That and politician Richard Schwartz, and assisted by a cast of controversial characters on the alt-right, Clearview AI would quickly rise to the top, sharing its app with billionaires and law enforcement. In this riveting feat of reporting Hill weaves the story of Clearview AI with an exploration of how facial recognition technology is reshaping our lives, from its use by governments and companies like Google and Facebook (who decided it was too radical to release) to the consequences of racial and gender biases baked into the AI. Soon it could expand the reach of policing — as it has in China and Russia — and lead us into a dystopian future. Your Face Belongs to Us is a gripping true story. It illuminates our tortured relationship with technology, the way it entertains us even as it exploits us, and it presents a powerful warning that in the absence of regulation, this technology will spell the end of our anonymity.
”The dystopian future portrayed in some science-fiction movies is already upon us. Whether you like it or not, your face has already been scraped from the internet, stored in a giant database, and made available to law enforcement agencies, private corporations, and authoritarian governments to track and surveil you. Kashmir Hill's fascinating book brings home the scary implications of this new reality.” —John Carreyrou
Unforgetting by Belinda Robinson $40
Good Friday, 1962. Belinda, who's just turned thirteen, is driving with her mother, obstetrician Diana Mason, to the country home of her family friends for the Easter break. As they bump along a dusty coastal road, Belinda tells her mother a shocking story of abuse she has kept secret for nearly eight years. At the same time, her younger brother Julian reveals the secret to their father, playwright Bruce Mason, as they converge on their friends' house from a different direction. It will take more than sixty years for Belinda to reveal the details of this story publicly. Who was going to believe her? Her parents were well known and respected, and not just in literary and medical circles. But finally, triggered by Julian's sudden death and inspired by one of New Zealand's finest writers, Belinda tackles the process of 'unforgetting', reviewing her traumatic past and coming to terms with its consequences.
Pranzo: Sicilian(ish) recipes and stories by Guy Mirabella $70
In Pranzo Guy Mirabella delves into his Sicilian heritage. Here you will find the gusto of Italian pastas and sauces, alongside herbs and spices, and ingredients like kolhrabi and prickly pear. Seasonal and sumptuous, Mirabella conveys his zest for food, art, and life in the pages of Pranzo. Designed with a playful eye, the book is a treat and the recipes infused with nourishment and pleasure.
Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks $38
Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz — just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy — collapsed and died on a Washington, DC street. After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, and living in Sydney, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humour, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on the US Memorial Day public holiday of 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf. Three years later, she booked a flight to remote Flinders Island off the coast of Tasmania with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on the island's pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the various ways in which cultures grieve, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death. [Hardback]
The End of Capitalism: Why growth and climate protection are incompatible — and how we will live in the future by Ulrike Herrmann $46
Capitalism has brought about many positive things. At the same time, however, it is ruining the climate and the environment, so that humanity's very existence is now at risk. 'Green growth' is supposed to be the saviour, but economics expert and bestselling author Ulrike Herrmann disagrees. In this book, she explains in a clear and razor-sharp manner why we need 'green shrinkage' instead. Greenhouse gases are increasing dramatically and unchecked. This failure is no coincidence, because the climate crisis goes to the heart of capitalism. Prosperity and growth are only possible if technology is used and energy is utilised. Unfortunately, however, green energy from the sun and wind will never be enough to fuel global growth. The industrialised countries must therefore bid farewell to capitalism and strive for a circular economy in which only what can be recycled is consumed. Herrmann makes a convincing argument that we won't get anywhere without personal restrictions and government planning. Her example for a solution is the British war economy of the 1940s. This is not a utopian scenario, but a comprehensive example of the restrictions and government-led plans needed now and in the future. [Paperback]
The Cat Who Saved the Library by Sosuke Natsukawa (translated from Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai) $25
Thirteen-year-old Nanami Kosaki loves reading. The local library is a home from home and books have become her best friends. When Nanami notices books disappearing from the library shelves, she’s particularly curious about a suspicious man in a grey suit whose furtive behaviour doesn’t feel right. Should she follow him to see what he’s up to? When a talking tabby cat called Tiger appears to warn her about how dangerous that would be, together they’re brave enough to follow the frightening trail to find out where all the books have gone. Will Nanami and Tiger overcome the challenges of the adventure ahead?
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25 April 2025
Carl Shuker’s The Royal Free has been sitting with me for a while. I finished this novel in two minds. Was it just clever, but slightly irritating? Or was it brilliant and unsettling? Distance has made the novel grow fonder. Sometimes you read a novel for its absorbing plot, page-turning qualities and when you close the cover and come up for air you declare it wonderful, but give yourself a few months and it’s often hard to pinpoint the substance of the story. It was absorbing at the time. Of course, there are those novels which you circle back to, that stay with you for random reasons across years and through experience. The Royal Free is neither of these, but it is something. When I reviewed A Mistake, it was all scalpel fine cuts — a novel that would leave a scar. I reckon The Royal Free is more rash-inducing.
This is probably relevant with a six-month baby in the mix and James Ballard (our main guy) an editor at a medical journal, the latter's impetuous (rash) behaviour driven by frustration and grief, and the violence that permeates the novel, both on a personal and society level. (James Ballard may even claim that errors in texts creep into the lines and pages of the articles he edits a bit like an unwanted disease if he was pushed to!). It’s London 2011: there’s disharmony in the air, riots on the streets and a distinct collision of worlds. In The Royal Free this clash is played out through the office and the estate where James and baby Fiona live, and through the stories of other characters and their own particular circumstances. James is our guide through all this. After all, he is writing the style guide, and Shuker is playing puppet master, as novelists are want to do. If they're not in charge, who is? The editor? There are literary tricks and editorial in-jokes here, not all of which I caught, but enough to know that Shuker is playfully throwing a rule book in the air with some irony, while also respecting the word on the page, of which this writer is a master. And beyond the word play, the often hilarious and uncomfortable office dynamics (laugh and weep), there is a tender story about parenting, grief, and the unexpected consequences of violence on an individual and society at large. Here is a disintegration; a breaking down of expectation and logic. James Ballard is a quandary. What kind of parent leaves his baby alone to go for a run in the park? An action which plays on repeat in Ballard’s mind, which spirals to something increasingly problematic. Yet he is performing his tasks to the letter, caring for Fiona, and attempting to adjust to life without his wife. And yet he will reach out and touch danger. What is this impulse that compels us to be so complex? The Royal Free is, I think, brilliant and unsettling, and a little vexing. A bit like Mr Ballard!
Anne Serre’s subtly inflected novel explores the difficulties of knowing another person (the very difficulties that may in fact induce us to the attempt), and contrasts these to the ways in which knowing is conveyed (or gives the illusion of being conveyed) in fiction. How does the relationship between an author and a reader resemble or differ from the relationships between actual people in the ‘real’ world?
”Anne Serre’s short novel is the deeply romantic telling of a platonic love story between the narrator and his complicated childhood friend, Fanny; a story so beautifully realised — and translated so sensitively by Mark Hutchinson — that the pair become part of the life of the reader. A perfectly balanced book, slender in size but bearing significant weight all the way through, A Leopard-Skin Hat is testament to the ways in which we continue to hold the people we love in our memories, with respect and dignity, after they die.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation
Autumn means more time indoors and the perfect temperature for kitchen adventures! And VOLUME has some tempting treats for your cookbook shelves and food-reading pleasure. Try a new cuisine, discover an inspiring chef, add to your everyday favourite dishes repertoire, and enjoy creating a delectable feast!
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Build an autumn store of books for the reading days ahead. We can send your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
House of Fury by Evelio Rosero (translated from Spanish by Victor Meadowcroft) $42
Taking place entirely on a single evening — Friday, April 10, 1970 — in a large Bogotá mansion, House of Fury tells a hair-raising story. Nacho Caiciedo, a magistrate of the Supreme Court of Justice, lives with his wife Alma and their six grown daughters. The Caiciedos have planned an enormous celebration in their home. But before the party has even started, the family is shocked by two pieces of news: their teenage daughter Italia is pregnant, and Alma's prodigal brother Jesús is expected at any moment. Guests from all levels of Bogotá society arrive, two earthquakes strike, and the party descends into debauchery; Nacho, out in the city streets, searching for Italia, is kidnapped by a ragtag militia, and its troops eventually invade the party and bring more chaos. House of Fury begins as a black comedy and unravels into a grim portent of the conflict that would rage across Colombia for fifty years. House of Fury is an indelible, fantastical work that with its unforgettable characters and unflinching, poetic, and humane voice, brings to light Colombia's violent history. [Paperback]
”Chekhov would've been mesmerized. In lieu of a single gun, Evelio Rosero sets up the contents of an entire armory. Building the intricate, involute procession of a single terrible night, the Colombian writer braids the many threads of his story with a candor and a knowingness that always hints towards the devastation to come. That House of Fury still manages to astound, then, is a testament to Rosero's finesse of the macabre, his merciless indictment of his nation's brutal history, and his utter disregard for narrative comforts.” —Xiao Yue Shan, Asymptote Journal
On the Clock by Claire Baglin (translated from French by Jordan Stamp) $38
In one strand, a young family bumps and scrapes through life. The hapless father balances demanding factory shiftwork, while the mother constantly prioritises the needs of others over her own. But there is also happiness: a trip to the seaside; sibling squabbles, games and laughter; tenderness and support. In another strand, a young woman describes her days working in a burger chain. It is exhausting, repetitive labour, too often peopled by tricky customers and even trickier managers. Hours pass. Days, weeks, years. It is an existence that marks the body and mind and governs a life. What emerges, alive with eloquent detail, is a compelling exploration of social inequality. Writing with nimble nuance, a sly, subtle wit, and a sharp ear, Claire Baglin marks her debut in On the Clock as a blazingly original talent. [Paperback with French flaps]
”A sophisticated new voice exploring the French working-class experience and the ways in which language may express its precarious specificities.” —Times Literary Supplement
The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel (translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey) $36
When an albatross strays too far from its home, or loses its bearings, it becomes an 'accidental', an unmoored wanderer. The protagonists of these eight stories each find the ordinary courses of their lives disrupted by an unexpected event and are pushed into unfamiliar terrain: a girl encounters her uncle in hospital, who was cast out of the family for reasons unknown; a menacing force hovers over a fracturing family on a rural holiday; a couple and their children inhabit a stifling world where it is better to be asleep than awake; a man's desire for a solution to his marital dissatisfaction has unforeseen consequences. Deft and disquieting, oscillating between the real and the fantastical. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Guadalupe Nettel yet again walks into uncertain terrain with these mysterious stories. There are secrets everywhere, she says, especially in life's most intimate and familiar aspects. The Accidentals never loses its sense of things being out of joint, and Nettel explores these fears with calm and with beauty.” —Mariana Enriquez
”I adored this collection, it spread its roots out within me. Nettel is an extraordinary writer.'“ —Daisy Johnson
”The Accidentals is a striking and compelling collection that searches for the extraordinary within the ordinary. Each narrative veers seamlessly from the mundane to the existential; the writing is deft, and unsettling prose imbues the work with a profound resonance. I loved these stories, mad and controlled, and brilliant.” —Elaine Feeney
”Nettel is one of the leading lights in contemporary Latin American literature. I envy how naturally she makes use of language; her resistance to ornamentation and artifice; and the almost stoic fortitude with which she dispenses her profound and penetrating knowledge of human nature.” —Valeria Luiselli
Visas Now! Aotearoa’s response to global refugee emergencies by Murdoch Stephens et al $30
This incisive study examines Aotearoa’s history of humanitarian immigrations and then zooms in on the high-stakes, one-off intakes of Syrians, Afghans and Ukrainians in the past decade. The book also includes nine people who share how their communities came together to seek emergency refugee intakes, including some whose calls went unanswered. Essential reading for anyone interested in humanitarian protection in a time of crisis. [Paperback]
Atlas of the New Zealand Wars, Volume 1: 1834—1864, Early Engagements to the Second Taranaki War edited by Derek Leask $90
This splendid and completely fascinating book will add new dimensions to your understanding of this pivotal period, and demonstrates the central place of cartography to the colonial project. In the Atlas of the New Zealand Wars, five decades of maps and plans from 1834 to 1884 provide remarkable new insight into the deep conflicts running through nineteenth-century Aotearoa. Beginning with early skirmishes off the Taranaki coast and at the Chathams, Volume One follows the tracks inland from the Bay of Islands towards the Hokianga in the Northern Wars; it reveals the web of Te Rauparaha's influence radiating out from Kapiti to Port Nicholson and across Cook Strait to the Wairau; it takes us inside the barracks and ramparts of the colony's new towns; and concludes as the brewing unrest around Waitara in Taranaki explodes into war. Through the maps, we meet the people: Hone Heke and FitzRoy, Te Rangitake and Pratt, warriors and missionaries; and we go where they went: from the flagpole at Kororareka to Kawiti's pa at Ruapekapeka, up the Hutt River to Boulcott's farm, across Taranaki from Waitara to Kaitake pa. Through both tangata and whenua we understand the conflicts and their consequences anew. Based on thirty years of research, the Atlas of the New Zealand Wars reveals a complex series of challenges and misunderstandings, skirmishes and negotiations, battles and wars that have profoundly shaped the lives of Māori and Pākeha on these islands ever since. [Hardback]
”Derek Leask’s Atlas is a magnificent labour of love. It adds a whole new — visual — dimension to our understanding of the New Zealand Wars.” — James Belich, Beit Professor of Global and Imperial History, University of Oxford
Surplus Women by Michelle Duff $35
Survival, friendship, love, desire, pain, freedom. Jess is the only one in her group who hasn’t lost her virginity. Genevieve is being held captive in a dug-out with her gymnastics nemesis from 40 years ago. At night, Jade absorbs catcalls like Mario powering up on mushrooms. From heaven, the Dream Team data-analyses human destinies while worrying about their job security. As Whetū and Sia race to the hospital in the rain, Whetū remembers another night that changed everything. This is a collection of stories about women in past, present and future Aotearoa. Michelle Duff’s cast of hungry teenage girls, top detectives who forget to buy milk, frustrated archivists, duplicitous real estate agents, and ‘surplus women’ are all as vivid as wafts of Impulse from a backpack in the 90s. These stories move nimbly from realism to comic overdrive, from the outlandish to the simply true, with characters reappearing from new angles. As they meditate on power and patriarchy, love and bad decisions, these stories remind us of the sweet dreams we used to have and how it feels to wake up from them. [Paperback]
”Vibrant, eclectic, sharp as hell. We’re in the presence of a writer who is acutely aware of the way each story whispers to another — especially, crucially, around what girls and women leave chronically unsaid, the surplus silence in our lives.” —Tracey Slaughter
”The characters are unforgettable. This is a voice I am happy to spend time with, a voice that is offering something new.” —Tina Makereti
Zone by Mathias Énard (translated from French by Charlotte Mandell) $28
”Énard 's text is like a ball-bearing rolling around indefinitely inside a box over surfaces imprinted with every sort of information about the wider Mediterranean, from Barcelona to Beirut, and Algiers to Trieste (the ‘Zone’), past and present. Énard very effectively uses the necessarily one-directional movement of a sentence to sketch out, through endless repetition and variation, the multi-dimensional complexity of the political, cultural, historical, social and physical terrain of the entire Zone. The narrative, so to call it, takes the form of a single 496-page sentence perfectly capturing (or perfectly inducing the impression of) the thought processes of the narrator as he travels, in ‘real’ time by train from Milan to Rome bearing a briefcase of classified information on terrorists, arms dealers and war criminals to sell to the Vatican, speeding on amphetamines, fatigue and alcohol, in his memory through multistranded loops from his experiences, which include his involvement as a mercenary in Croatia and working for the French secret service as well as his string of personal relationships, and in even greater loops of knowledge and association that pertain to the places in which his experiences took place and the history associated therewith. Énard’s prose is so irresistible and so mesmeric that the reader is effortlessly borne along, its forward movement not at all inhibited by the encyclopedic effect of the loops, and the loops upon the loops, upon the strand of the narrator’s journey, nor by the pieces of painful psychological grit not yet abraded from the narrator’s personal history of involvement in the recent traumas of the Zone. By so seductively inhabiting the mind of his less-than-admirable narrator, a mind caught between obsessive focus and restless discursion, Énard provides a panoramic view of the political and personal violence that has shaped the history and cultures of the Zone, and also intimates the way in which an individual is caught irretrievably in the great web of their circumstances, submission to those circumstances being the price of travelling along them.” —Thomas. [New paperback edition]
Death Goddess Guide to Self Love by Carin Smeaton $30
Death Goddess sings loud, proud and offkey about the trauma, mess and gore of our awa atua, red river fox, our frenemy enemy ovaries! This goddess isn’t afraid of nothing. She’s not afraid to spill her moon sickness on the western line. She is not afraid to kick up a storm in colonial institutions. She’s not gonna wear their shame. Rather, this collection kicks these brutal systems high up into the whetu for a pulse check. She’s Carin Smeaton’s third full length collection of new original poetry, her unexpected baby, her new born freedom fighter! [Paperback]
"Carin’s kupu come sideways, they break the rules, they respect the kuia and the power of slang, her poems are a testament to staying sly and aware, her angles are always a beautiful surprise, she embraces the ordinary and the divine, and biting into her mahi is to experience both, like popping candy let loose in the cage of the waha." —Talia Marshall
Going Mainstream: Why extreme ideas are spreading, and what we can do about it by Julia Ebner $28
Incels. Anti Vaxxers. Conspiracy theorists. Neo-Nazis. Once, these groups all belonged on the fringes of the political spectrum. Today, accelerated by a pandemic, global conflict and rapid technological change, their ideas are becoming more widespread: QAnon proponents run for U.S. Congress, neo-fascists win elections in Europe, and celebrity influencers spread dangerous myths to millions. Going Mainstream asks the question: What is happening here? Going undercover online and in person, UK counter-extremism expert Julia Ebner reveals how, united by a shared sense of grievance and scepticism about institutions, radicalised individuals are influencing the mainstream as never before. Hidden from public scrutiny, they leverage social media to create alternative information ecosystems and build sophisticated networks funded by dark money. Ebner's candid conversations with extremists offer a nuanced and gripping insight into why people have turned to the fringes. She explores why outlandish ideas have taken hold and disinformation is spreading faster than ever. And she speaks to the activists and educators who are fighting to turn the tide. Going Mainstream is a dispatch from the darkest front of the culture wars, and a vital wake-up call. [Paperback]
''With unparalleled insight and urgency, Ebner reveals the dangerous spread of extremist beliefs. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the terrifying new reality we face.'' —Eliot Higgins, author of We Are Bellingcat
Powsels and Thrums: A tapestry of a creative life by Alan Garner $45
In this memoir, Garner traces the line of his life: from a working-class childhood in the landscape of Cheshire during World War II, through a grammar school education and on to the University of Oxford, and then home to see if he could become what he most desired: a writer. We see the serendipitous moments that drove his course, from coming-of-age in a period of great cultural change, to crossing paths with a famous mathematician while out long-distance running, to the fateful day he chanced across Blackden, the medieval hall, miraculously located next to the giant telescope at Jodrell Bank, that was to become his lasting home and the setting for Treacle Walker. As Garner tells us, a lifetime of working with a pen produces the powsels and thrums of research, imagination and story. These oddments can be shaped into something more than its parts: a vivid tapestry of a creative life that will inspire any reader. [Hardback]
”Who could resist such a title? The term derives from handloom weaving, Alan Garner's great-grandfather's trade, and refers to the scraps of cloth that weavers kept for themselves - an evocative metaphor for the writings collected herein. These snippets, produces on the same magical loom, together attain a mesmerizing wholeness, vibrating with life and curiosity.” —Observer
”A sequence of work collected from various sources across the years which offers a remarkable window into Garner's mind and heart. I use the word window advisedly, for Garner's prose is as clear as glass, perfectly conveying the precision of his thought. You don't have to know his work well to become immersed in this little book.” —Spectator
Colony by Annika Norlin (translated from Swedish by Alice E. Olsson) $38
One morning, Emelie can't get out of bed. Her therapist calls it burnout. Her neighbour calls it the tiny work death. She needs to get away from the brightness of the city lights, the noise of the people, the constant demands, so she goes to the woods, pitches her tent overlooking the lake, breathes. And that's where she sees them, the Colony- A man with a sad face. A tall, strong, older woman. A woman in her forties, squatting to examine an ant hill. Another woman in her forties, short, long hair, ample bosom, good posture - the leader? An extremely beautiful man. A slightly younger man, in a Helly Hansen jacket and trucker hat. And a teenage boy, standing a little way from the group. Who are they? What do they mean to each other? And why do they behave in such strange ways- thanking the fish they eat, sleeping under a tree, singing off key, dancing without music, never letting the boy fully in? As Emelie becomes more and more drawn to the Colony, she begins to re-evaluate her own lifestyle. Wouldn't it be nice to live as these seven do? Apart from society and its expectations. But groups always have their dynamics and roles. Which are you? And what if you want to change? [Paperback]
Te Moana o Reo | Ocean of Languages edited by Michelle Elvy and Vaughan Rapatahana $30
This sparkling collection of stories brings more than 40 languages together, highlighting the complex realities of Aotearoa’s multicultural and multilingual society. Including microfictions and creative nonfictions, plus 12 essays from language practitioners and experts, Te Moana o Reo holds words to the light, examining, contemplating and declaring who we are. This is a 21st-century view of Aotearoa, a taonga for our world. Writers include: David Eggleton, Airana Ngarewa, Melanie Kwang, Karlo Mila, Ghazaleh Gol, James Norcliffe, Robert Sullivan, Lynn Jenner, Harry Ricketts, Jana Grohnert, Serie Barford, Lynn Davidson, Renee Liang, Hēmi Kelly. [Paperback]
Mozart in Italy: Coming of age in the land of opera by Jane Glover $28
At thirteen years old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a child prodigy who had captured the hearts of northern Europe, but his father Leopold was now determined to conquer Italy. Together, they made three visits there, the last when Mozart was seventeen, all recounted here by conductor Jane Glover. Father and son travelled from the theatres and concert salons of Milan to the church-filled streets of Rome to Naples, poorer and more dangerous than the prosperous north, and to Venice, the carnivalesque birthplace of public opera. All the while Mozart was absorbing Italian culture, language, style and art, and honed his craft. He met the challenge of writing Italian opera for Italian singers and audiences, and provoked a variety of responses, from triumph and admiration to intrigue and hostility: in a way, these Italian years can be seen as a microcosm of his whole life. [Paperback]
Borderlines: A history of Europe told from the edges by Lewis Baston $40
Europe's internal borders have rarely been 'natural'; they have more often been created by accident or force. In Borderlines, political historian Lewis Baston journeys along twenty-nine key borders from west to east Europe, examining how the map of the continent has been redrawn over the last century, with varying degrees of success. The fingerprints of Napoleon, Alexander I, Castlereagh, Napoleon III and Bismarck are all there, but today's map of Europe is mostly the work of the Allies in 1919 and Stalin in 1945. To journey to the centre of the story of Europe, Baston takes us right to its edges, bringing to life the fascinating and often bizarre histories of these border zones. We visit Baarle, the town broken into thirty fragments by the Netherland-Belgium border, and stop in Ostritz, the eastern German town where Nazis held a rock festival. We meander the back lanes of rural Ireland, and soak up the atmosphere in the Viennese-style coffee houses of the elegant Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi. Through these borderlands, Baston explores how places and people heal from the scars left by a Europe of ethnic cleansing and barbed wire fences, and he searches for a better European future — finding it in unexpected places. [Paperback]
Uprooting: From the Caribbean to the countryside — Finding home in an English garden by Marchelle Farrell $28
What is home? It's a question that has troubled Marchelle Farrell for her entire life. Years ago she left Trinidad and now, uprooted once again, she heads to the peaceful English countryside — and finds herself the only Black woman in her village. Drawn to her new garden, Marchelle begins to examine the complex and emotional question of home in the context of colonialism. As her relationship with the garden deepens, she discovers that her two conflicting identities are far more intertwined than she had realised. Winner of the Nan Shepherd Prize. [Paperback]
Clara and the Birds by Emma Simpson $35
For as long as she can remember, Clara has always been fascinated with birds--where they go, how they take flight, and the way they immediately fly away from her when she comes into contact with them. Like the birds she so admires, Clara is considered shy by those around her. She too feels the urge to flee the company of others, preferring the comforting bubble of solitude instead. Convinced that her desire to be alone is a weakness, she fails to find her voice or recognize her own inner strength. That is, until she has a chance encounter with a bird who doesn't immediately fly away. [Hardback]
Pakistan: Recipes and stories from home kitchens, restaurants, and roadside stalls by Maryam Jillani $65
Thanks to shared borders with Afghanistan, China, India, and Iran, and a history of migration and trade, Pakistani dishes draw upon a marvelous array of flavours and ingredients that make food one of the country's finest qualities. With over 100 recipes for sauces, chutneys, aromatic curries and subtly spiced vegetables, Pakistan is a perfect introduction to readers new to the cuisine and a welcome reminder of favorites to those already familiar. A few of the recipes that await: Spiced Chicken Dumplings, Lentil Fritters in Yogurt, Tangy Potato Curry, Slow-Cooked Lamb, Saffron-Infused Flatbread, and Parsi Wedding Custard. Along with essays profiling each of the country's regions, abundant and dramatic photography, and a show-stopping package, Pakistan is a cookbook to be read, savoured, and cooked from. [Hardback]
Énard 's text is like a ball-bearing rolling around indefinitely inside a box over surfaces imprinted with every sort of information about the wider Mediterranean, from Barcelona to Beirut, and Algiers to Trieste (the ‘Zone’), past and present. Énard very effectively uses the necessarily one-directional movement of a sentence to sketch out, through endless repetition and variation, the multi-dimensional complexity of the political, cultural, historical, social and physical terrain of the entire Zone. The narrative, so to call it, takes the form of a single 520-page sentence perfectly capturing (or perfectly inducing the impression of) the thought processes of the narrator as he travels, in ‘real’ time by train from Milan to Rome bearing a briefcase of classified information on terrorists, arms dealers and war criminals to sell to the Vatican, speeding on amphetamines, fatigue and alcohol, in his memory through multistranded loops from his experiences, which include his involvement as a mercenary in Croatia and working for the French secret service as well as his string of personal relationships, and in even greater loops of knowledge and association that pertain to the places in which his experiences took place and the history associated therewith. Énard’s prose is so irresistible and so mesmeric that the reader is effortlessly borne along, its forward movement not at all inhibited by the encyclopedic effect of the loops, and the loops upon the loops, upon the strand of the narrator’s journey, nor by the pieces of painful psychological grit not yet abraded from the narrator’s personal history of involvement in the recent traumas of the Zone. By so seductively inhabiting the mind of his less-than-admirable narrator, a mind caught between obsessive focus and restless discursion, Énard provides a panoramic view of the political and personal violence that has shaped the history and cultures of the Zone, and also intimates the way in which an individual is caught irretrievably in the great web of their circumstances, submission to those circumstances being the price of travelling along them.
Pick a fruit — pick a book! A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more:
Read our latest newsletter and find out which books you will be reading next.
17 April 2025
Mary and Pete are sorting things out. They are going to make the ‘big move’. Time to downsize, to choose low maintenance over steps one may tumble down. Mary knows Pete’s heart isn’t up to it. Pete knows Mary’s state of mind is tentative. So, no choice really. Or is there? Damien Wilkins’s Delirious is a spotlight on that thing that looms for all of us — old age. A novel on ageing and the problems this conjures, whether practical or philosophical, doesn’t sound very promising. Think again. Wilkins uses his exceptional craft as a writer, a sharp analysis of human behaviour, and an observant eye to bring us a thoughtful novel. One rich in emotion, without being cloying. In these pages are grief and loss: for Mary a phone call triggers a trauma from the past — a trauma which neither she nor Pete have fully resolved. Here is Mary, ex-cop, unsure how to proceed. Here is Pete, ex-librarian, searching for the right words. This is a novel with a heart that beats and not all the beats are the same. Take Pete’s mother. In dementia, Margaret finds an escape, of sorts. An escape from her overbearing husband and from conformity. Her mind’s slippage is both frightening and hilarious.
Mary and Pete are the every-people: people you know and maybe who you are. They are what we might call average. Mary’s a bit more aloof than Pete. Pete’s keen on helping out. The community that revolves around them, friends, family, colleagues and neighbours are all set up a little by Wilkins. Delirious takes a gentle poke at our society, and a less subtle, but delightfully funny, dig at ‘the village’. From Mary’s ex-boss perfecting his bowling, to the snide comments of the narrow-minded, to the heat-pump “we will never have one of those”, to the new but not quite right interior decor, there is something about the retirement village that doesn’t encourage the couple to unpack their boxes. What they don’t say — especially to each other — and don’t do underscores much of the novel. Then something changes. Mary and Pete will make the big move, but not the one you or they expected.
Delirious is by turns sad and funny. It’s profoundly honest about ageing and caring for others in illness, and all the dilemmas this poses, yet cleverly balances this poignancy with sly satire. Up for the big prize — The Acorn* — it’s a worthy contender and in very good company. A village of books waiting for judgement day.
* The Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction will be announced May 14th at the Ockham Book Awards. Read the shortlist now!
Capture a moment — capture a book. A selection of books from our shelves. Click through to find out more:
Tara Selter has slipped out of time. Every morning, she wakes up to the 18th of November. She no longer expects to wake up to the 19th of November, and she no longer remembers the 17th of November as if it were yesterday. She comes to know the shape of the day like the back of her hand — the grey morning light in her Paris hotel; the moment a blackbird breaks into song; her husband’s surprise at seeing her return home unannounced. But for everyone around her, this day is lived for the first and only time. They do not remember the other 18ths of November, and they do not believe her when she tries to explain. As Tara approaches her 365th 18th of November, she can’t shake the feeling that somewhere underneath the surface of this day, there’s a way to escape.
“The first volume's gravitational pull — a force inverse to its constriction — has the effect of a strong tranquiliser, but a drug under which your powers of observation only grow sharper and more acute. Give in to the book's logic (its minute movements, its thrilling shifts, its slant wit, its slowing of time) and its spell is utterly intoxicating.”
“On the Calculation of Volume I takes a potentially familiar narrative trope — a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day — and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist, to want to be alive, to need to share one’s time with others. The sheer quality of the sentences was what struck us most, rendered into English with deft, invisible musicality by the translator. This book presses its mood, its singular time signature and its philosophical depth into the reader. You feel you are in it, which is sometimes unnerving, sometimes soothing, and this effect lingers long after the book is finished.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation
An essay is at once a wound and an act of piercing. An essay is not only about (‘about’) its subject but also, whether the writer is aware of this or not, about (‘about’) writing about the subject (and also, by extension, about (‘about’) reading about the subject (although Brian Dillon in his excellent and thoughtful book Essayism is interested primarily the writing of essays (or rather in what he terms ‘essayism’: “not the practice of the form but an attitude to the form — to its spirit of adventure and unfinished nature — and towards much else. Essayism is tentative and hypothetical, and yet it is also a habit of thinking, writing and living that has definite boundaries.” (note here, incidentally, the introduction of the subject of this review within (closer to the surface, though, than this observation) two levels of parentheses)))). An essay is a transparent barrier, a means of focus at once providing intimacy with and distance from its subject, or, better metaphor (if any metaphor can be better than another (and better by what criteria, we might ask (though that is another matter))), an essay is a stick at once both joining and separating the writer and the subject, a tool by which the writer can lever weight upon the subject, which, although never able to be wrenched free from its context (what we might call the hypersubject), a context innately amorphous, unwieldable and inconceivable, provides a point of leverage from which the writer may rearrange the disposition of that grab-bag (or “immense aggregate” (William Gass)) of feelings, thoughts and impressions that is, out of convenience and little more, referred to as the self. To write is to continually and simultaneously pull apart and remake the ‘I’ that writes. An essay is, in Dillon’s words, “a combination of exactitude and evasion,” an eschewing of the compulsion for, or the belief in the possibility of, completion or absolutism, an affirming instead of the fragmentary, the transitory, the subjective. The operating principle of the essay is style, the advancing of the text “through the simultaneous struggle and agreement between fragments,” the production of “spines or quills whose owner evades and attacks at the same time.” Style is the application of form to content, or, rather, form results from the application of style to content. Style can be applied to any subject with equivalent results. Essayism is an essay about essays, or a set of essays about essays, about the reading and, more devotedly, the writing of essays, about the approaches to, reasons for and functions of essays. Dillon especially examines the connection, for him at least, between the essay and depression: “Writing had become a matter of distracting myself from the urge to destroy myself” (even though “away from my desk it was possible to suppress or ignore the sense of onrushing disaster” (suggesting perhaps that it was only writing itself that presents the void from which it must then rescue the writer (always at the risk of failure))). Is the essay a cure or palliative for depression, or a contributor to, or ‘styler’ of, depression? “What if the ruinous and rescuing affinity between depression and the essay is what got you into this predicament in the first place? Will a description of how you made your way along the dry riverbeds of prose and self-pity provide any clues as to how to get out of the gulch again? How to connect once more, if in fact you have ever really known it, with the main stream of human experience? Such questions seem too large, too embarrassing even — though they have never been too grand for the essay. Or they may seem too small, too personal. Same answer.” As the best essays do, Essayism provides understanding without answers and leaves the reader with a habit of thinking, writing and living which will help them to ask just the sorts of unanswerable questions about their own experience, so to call it, that will increase both their intimacy with and detachment from it.
These books are all keen to sit on the top of your reading pile. Which will you choose? We can dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.
Phantom Limb by Chris Koehler $45
One evening, Gillis — a young Scottish minister who technically doesn't believe in god — falls into a hole left by a recently dug up elm tree and discovers an ancient disembodied hand in the soil. He's about to rebury it when the hand beckons to him. He spirits it back to his manse and gives it pen and paper, whereupon it begins to doodle scratchy and anarchic visions. Somewhere, in the hand's deep history, there lies a story of the Scottish reformation, of art and violence, and of its owner long since dead. But for Gillis, there lies only opportunity: to reinvent himself as a prophet, proclaim the hand a miracle and use it for reasons both sacred and profane: to impress his ex-girlfriend, and to lead himself and his country out of inertia and into a dynamic, glorious future. [Hardback]
”Thrillingly unfettered. Phantom Limb is its own kind of miraculous relic: disturbing and mesmerising, the work of a writer possessed of a rare power and vision.” —Daily Telegraph
”At once playful and deeply moving, ancient and shockingly new, Phantom Limb is a tremendous read: full of wisdom, madness, kindness and action. You won't read anything quite like it.” —Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
The Ways of Paradise: Notes from a lost manuscript by Peter Cornell (translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel) $28
A book at the intersection of fiction and essay, on the connections between art, literature, spirituality and the occult through history. In his foreword, Peter Cornell presents this so-called found manuscript as the work of a now-deceased, obscure researcher who spent three decades in the National Library of Sweden working on his magnum opus. Upon his death, no trace of this work remains aside from this set of footnotes notes and fragments which form an enigmatic set of texts. Ranging from the Crusades to Ruskin, Freud to surrealism, cubism, automatic writing, Duchamp, the Manhattan Project, Pollock and Smithson, this cult book, first published in Sweden in 1987, is now translated into English for the first time. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Like a collision between the fantastical libraries of Borges, David Markson’s art obsessed micronarratives and Iain Sinclair’s occult strain of psychogeography. The Ways of Paradise is a labyrinth I never wanted to escape.” —Chris Power
”Who could have imagined that a set of imaginary orphaned footnotes could yield so much pleasure and fascination? More than a study of the labyrinth motif, The Ways of Paradise is itself a labyrinth, an apparently slim volume pulsing with infinite, overlapping worlds, an intricate meditation on the abysses of reality and illusion.” —Joshua Cohen
”The Ways of Paradise is the story of a lost manuscript and the labyrinth of enigmas through which its obscure author wandered, a book that pleasurably situates the reader at the centre of the idea of fiction, a place of everything and nothing from which ever-widening circles of mystery and meaning spread out.” —David Hayden
”Just as any person tracking a spiral or walking a labyrinth will find their sense of space and time collapsed, viewing moments in the past and future of their journey from vividly altered perspectives as they make their way, so the reader of this remarkable ‘manuscript’ will be similarly enlightened. Open, allusive, constantly expanding its appreciation of the covert relations between culture and history, place and belief, The Ways of Paradise embodies its own utopian premise. Assembled with a lightness of touch and a precision in detail, profound in its accumulative insights, it understands that any book aspiring to the fullest incarnation of its potential remains in process more than it offers an arrival. No longer are fragments deployed only formally; rather they serve as waymarkers on a quest passage to the interior, the final labyrinth of human imagination, and the mind’s own mysterious corridors. The spaces between entries are where the doors to this charged site lie. Each traveller will find their own entrance, and each will surely be entranced.’ —Gareth Evans
Mark Adams: A survey — He kohinga whakaahu by Sarah Farrar $80
Photographer Mark Adams is known for his focus on Samoan tatau, Māori–Pākehā interactions in Rotorua, carved meeting houses, locations of significance for Ngāi Tahu in Te Waipounamu, and Captain James Cook’s landing sites reflect his deep engagement with our postcolonial and Pacific histories. This first-ever comprehensive survey of his work honours one of our most distinguished — and continually compelling — photographers. It includes photographs taken across the Pacific, the United Kingdom and Europe that explore the migration of artistic and cultural practices across the globe, and examine the role of museums, and photography itself, in this dynamic and ongoing cross-cultural exchange. [Hardback]
Being, Seeing, Making, Thinking: 50 Years of the Chartwell Project edited by Sue Gardiner and Megan Shaw $50
Since its establishment in 1974, Chartwell has championed the importance of creative visual thinking, shaping an expansive collection of contemporary art and an enduring programme of philanthropic and educational support. Illustrating over 150 images from the Chartwell Collection, the book features new writing on 50 selected artworks from New Zealand, Australia and further afield as well as rarely seen archival images of artists and exhibitions. The book offers unprecedented insight into the art, artists and remarkable story and philosophy of The Chartwell Project. Featuring a preface by Chartwell’s founder, Rob Gardiner, an essay by Chartwell’s chair, Sue Gardiner, a Timeline by co-editor Megan Shaw and 50 accompanying texts on artworks, this landmark book offers unprecedented insight into the art, artists and remarkable story and philosophy of the Chartwell Project. [Flexibound]
Groundwork: The art and writing of Emily Cumming Harris by Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson $60
Part inspired creative endeavour and part determined detective work, this long overdue book brings to light one of New Zealand's most significant botanical artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Just as Emily Harris's beautiful paintings occupy a liminal space between scientific botanical illustration and art, so this book occupies a shifting ground between biography and imagineered monograph. The result is often moving and always intriguing. Importantly, it restores to Aotearoa art history a figure who had almost disappeared. Emily Harris has been examined alongside her artist peers Sarah Featon and Georgina Hetley, but until this book neither her distinctive voice nor her almost 200 surviving images have been heard or seen in any quantity outside of archival or online spaces. Her life story is remarkable and her diaries, letters, poems and paintings constitute a fascinating legacy. Harris was born in England in 1837 and dies in Nelson in 1925. [Hardback]
Shade and Breeze by Quynh Tran (translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson) $45
Má dreams of wealth and grandeur, Hieu dreams of Finnish girls. The younger brother, always on the periphery, always an observer, gradually disappears into his schoolwork, mesmerised by his own intellect. The three of them form a solitary world in a small Ostrobothnian town on the west coast of Finland. Má and Hieu, constantly on a collision course with each other and the community’s suffocating social codes. They live among people who want to talk openly about everything, who don’t understand the necessity of sometimes remaining in the shade. In sensitive and transfixing prose that has the effect of a series of tableaux, and with chapter headings reminiscent of the intertitles in a silent film, Tran’s multi-award-winning debut is a moving story about love, the compulsion to create, and the meaning of family. [Paperback]
”A magic voice. Working with the coming-of-age in a smalltown narrative, Quynh Tran creates a world completely of its own kind, a story of belonging and estrangement, and of the refugee experience. In a sensual, dreamy prose, still so very real, with an authority reminiscent of Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Tran has written a first novel that shines like a precious gem.” —Monika Fagerholm
”A perceptive debut, where the significant events are intentionally placed in the background, in line with the family’s wishes. Not everything should be discussed, claims the mother whose anger instead turns into a physical condition — a slap here and there. Nobody is capable of seeing how their actions cause a ripple effect, how human darkness is passed down through generations. In different ways, the family members try to find a mutual place where they can love one another. This makes Shade and Breeze a complex, delicate, and wistful debut. It deserves to be pulled into the light.” —Sydsvenskan
The Jade Cabinet by Rikki Ducornet $33
Made speechless by her eccentric father, the beautiful Etheria is traded for a piece of precious jade. Memory, her sister, tells her story, that of a childhood enlivened by Lewis Carroll and an orangutan named Dr. Johnson and envenomed by the pernicious courtship of Radulph Tubbs, Queen Victoria's own Dragon of Industry. The novel travels from Oxford to Egypt where one million ibis mummies wait to be transformed into fertiliser, where Baconfield the architect will cause a pyramid to collapse, and where a scorned and bloated hunger artist who speaks in tongues will plot a bloody revenge. Jade Cabinet is both a riveting novel and a reflection on the nature of memory and desire, language and power. [Paperback]
The History of Medicine in Twelve Objects by Carol Cooper $45
THE TREPHINE, THE BONE SAW, THE MASK. THE MICROSCOPE. THE STETHOSCOPE. THE ETHER INHALER, THE HYPODERMIC SYRINGE, THE OBSTETRIC FORCEPS, THE X -RAY MACHINE, THE E.C.T. MACHINE, THE HIP PROSTHESIS, THE HEART-LUNG MACHINE. Over the course of centuries, the ways in which doctors have engaged with sickness has changed drastically, and so too have the tools at their disposal. The history of these medical tools is truly astounding, revealing the true extent of human ingenuity, curiosity, and compassion. [Hardback]
The Companion to Volcanology by Brent Kininmont $25
The Companion to Volcanology is not a field guide to volcanoes. But tectonic shifts are present in Brent Kininmont's second book of poetry, and so are companions. The child, for instance, carried up a mountain in the titular opening poem, and companions alive to the brevity of their time together. Kininmont, who grew up in Aotearoa, has lived in Japan for many years, and so these poems are of a life between two places and of the body in anxious or joyful motion. [Paperback]
”Kininmont’s terrific second book has that sense of lived experience finding forms which release thought and feeling. I read it in one go as a kind of interrupted story.” —Damien Wilkins
”Luminous, surprising, inventive, original.” —Paula Green
Umai: Recipes from a Japanese Home Kitchen by Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares $65
In this beautiful book, you have precision alongside the simple and relaxed. Discover unfussy lunch dishes and favorite family meals. Find recipes that are a joy to make together and to share. Millie Tsukagoshi Lagares guides you through her home kitchen and out onto the streets to experience food is both serene and exhilarating. From dumplings to fungi to matcha cookies, you will find accessible recipes that will delight and sooth in the making and the eating. [Hardback]
”A vibrant exploration of Japanese cuisine with beautiful writing and exciting recipes to nourish the soul.” —Ixta Belfrage
Caret by Adam Mars-Jones $30
”We make lazy assumptions about the centre of things and its location. Who's to say that the centre of things isn't in a corner, way over there?”; “People in authority are always saying you should know your rights, though I've noticed they don't much enjoy it when you do.”; “Nobody can be a person twenty-fours hours a day - it just can't be done. At night the sets dissolve and the performance falls away... We're off the books.” That's John Cromer talking, in this fresh instalment of his lifelong saga. For John, embarking on a new stage of life in 1970s Cambridge, charm and wit aren't just assets, they are survival skills. It may be a case of John against the world. If so, don't be in too much of a hurry to bet on the world. Conjuring a remarkable voice and mind, Caret is a feast of a novel, served on a succession of small plates, each portion providing an adult's daily intake of literary nourishment. Reading it is guaranteed to help you work, rest and play. [Paperback]
”Thank god for John Cromer and his creator Adam Mars-Jones, one of the funniest, most self-aware characters in English fiction, whose minute observations on everything from constipation to lust are a source of unexpected delight.” —Linda Grant
”Mars-Jones is building a facsimile of existence; a map with a scale that seems, when you’re reading it, to be closing on 1:1. It’s an inordinately bold technique, but in the end it succeeds: it feels, as we follow the seemingly endless meander of Cromer’s thoughts, that we’re not so much reading a story, as living in one.” —The Guardian
God and the Devil: The life and work of Ingmar Bergman by Peter Cowie $40
A chronicle of the life and career of one of film's defining figures, God and the Devil draws on exclusive extracts from Bergman's diaries, letters and production workbooks. Peter Cowie brings us close to the man and the artist, as he wrestled with themes of love, sex and betrayal — with the figure of Death always hovering overhead. [Now in paperback]
"A commanding portrait: one that consistently ties events in his life to specific scenes, themes and locations in his movies. Having met Bergman in 1969 and corresponded with him until 1995, veteran film author Peter Cowie is able to channel first-hand knowledge of Bergman into a book that's respectful without being overly reverential." —Matt Looker, Total Film
"Indispensable, rich, engaging, thorough." —Sight & Sound
Munichs by David Peace $40
February 6, 1958, British European Airways Flight 609 crashed on take-off at Munich Airport. On board were the young Manchester United team, 'the Busby Babes', and the journalists who followed them. Twenty-one of the passengers died instantly, four were left fighting for their lives while six more were critically injured. Twenty-four hours later, Jimmy Murphy, the assistant manager of Manchester United, faced the press at the Rechts der Isar Hospital: 'What of the future, you ask? It will be a long, hard struggle. It took Matt Busby, Bert Whalley and myself twelve years to produce the 1958 Red Devils. It was long, hard, tiring work, but we succeeded. At the moment, I am so confused, so tired and so sad, I cannot think clearly, but what I do know is that the Red Devils will rise again.' Munichs is the story of how Manchester United rose again, of the crash and its aftermath, of those who survived and those who did not, of how Britain and football changed, and how it did not; a novel of tragedy, but also of hope. [Paperback]
”Peace writes the boldest and most original British fiction of his generation.” —Richard Lloyd Parry, The New York Times
Pearl: A graphic novel by Sherrie Smith and Christine Norrie $21
”We are in Japan in the 1940s with Amy, a 13-year-old Japanese American girl born in Hawaii, sent to visit her ailing great-grandmother. After Pearl Harbour is bombed Amy is stuck in Japan, where she is conscripted by the military to be a Monitor Girl listening in and translating U.S. radio messages. The other story thread is the one her great-grandmother tells her: the Japanese annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom in Okinawa in 1879. Both are stories of survival and hope, and for Amy, identity, the conflict of being both Japanese and American. Christine Norrie’s illustrations capture the confusion and emotion of the situation, and the sharp singular colour palette has great impact.” —Stella
Crack-Up Capitalism: Market radicals and the dream of a world without democracy by Quinn Slobodian $30
An important book right now, showing how capitalist extremists profit from the collapse of the democratic nation. Look at a map of the world and you'll see a neat patchwork of nation-states. But this is not where power actually resides. From the 1990s onwards, globalisation has shattered the map, leading to an explosion of new legal entities — tax havens, free ports, gated enclaves and special economic zones. These spaces are freed from ordinary forms of regulation, taxation and mutual obligation — and with them, ultracapitalists believe that it is possible to escape the bonds of democratic government altogether. Slobodian follows the most notorious radical libertarians — from Milton Friedman to Peter Thiel — around the globe as they search for the perfect home for their free market fantasy. The hunt leads from Hong Kong in the 1970s to South Africa in the late days of apartheid, from the neo-Confederate South to the medieval City of London, charting the relentless quest for a blank slate where capitalism and democracy can be finally uncoupled. [Paperback]
Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good by Eley Williams $35
Eley Williams returns with a thrilling collection of short stories exploring the nature of relationships both intimate and transient — from the easy gamesmanship of contagious yawns to the horror of a smile fixed for just a second too long. A courtroom sketch artist delights in committing portraits of their lover to paper but their need to capture likenesses forever is revealed to have darker, more complex intentions. A child's schoolyard crush on a saint marks a confrontation with the reality of a teenage body in flux. Elsewhere, an editor of canned laughter loses their confidence and seeks divine intervention, and an essayist annotates their thoughts on Keats by way of internet-gleaned sex tips. Moderate to Poor, Occasionally Good hums with fossicking language and ingenious experiments in form and considers notions of playfulness, authenticity and care as it holds relationships to account: their sweet misunderstandings, soured reflections, queer wish fulfilments and shared, held breaths. [Paperback]
”Stories that work from the inside out: glancing, intriguing.” —Guardian
”Erudite and audacious.” —Kieran Goddard
”Frequently brilliant and deeply pleasurable.” —Caoilinn Hughes
Windswept: Life, Nature and Deep Time in the Scottish Highlands by Annie Worsley $29
Annie Worsley traded a busy life in academia to take on a small-holding or croft on the west coast of Scotland. It is a land ruled by great elemental forces — light, wind and water — that hold sway over how land forms, where the sea sits and what grows. Windswept explores what it means to live in this rugged, awe-inspiring place of unquenchable spirit and wild weather. Walk with Worsley as she lays quartz stones in the river to reflect the moonlight and attract salmon, as she watches otters play tag across the beach, as she is awoken by the feral bellowing of stags. Travel back in time to the epic story of how Scotland’s valleys were carved by glaciers, rivers scythed paths through mountains, how the earliest people found a way of life in the Highlands — and how she then found a home there millennia later. [Paperback]
”Windswept is a wonderful work, prose-painted in bold, bright strokes like a Scottish Colourist's canvas. It is a story of learning to keep time differently, in one of the most spectacular landscapes in Britain. Annie Worsley has written a gorgeous almanac or year-book in which the minutes, hours and months are marked not by the tick of clock-hands but weather-fronts, bird migrations and plant-patterns of growth and decay.” —Robert Macfarlane
”A shaft of golden stormlight, a blast of pure Highland air, Windswept is an exhilarating account of life lived closer to the elements than most of us will ever have the chance to experience.” —Melissa Harrison
”I have read pages and pages of this wonderful book, swept away by its beauty and understanding, its chromatic brilliance, flickering and surging into colour at every turn, moulded to its mountains and all the subtleties of its winds and skies. Honestly it is a great, great book.” —Adam Nicolson
Fog Island by Tomi Ungerer $35
Two young siblings find themselves cast away on mysterious Fog Island. No one has ever returned from the island's murky shores, but when the children begin to explore, they discover things are not quite as they expected. Ungerer's captivating drawings evoke the eerie beauty and magic surrounding this timeless adventure. [Hardback]
Pop-Up Surrealism by Gérard Lo Monaco $454
In this magical book, pop-up engineer Gérard Lo Monaco brings to life eight works of art by leading surrealists: Salvador Dalí, Victor Brauner, Jean Arp, Man Ray, Joseph Cornell, Dora Maar, René Magritte and André Breton. Short texts introduce each work and its historical context, while hand-painted illustrations bring a new dimension to this revolutionary period in modern art. [Hardback]