NEW RELEASES (1.7.25)

New books for a new month! Take your pick, and click through to our website to secure your copies. We can dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq (translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi) $37
In these twelve stories, Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it’s in her characters — the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost — that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well as India’s most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come. [New paperback edition]
Winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize

 

The Book of Records by Madeleine Thien $38
In ‘The Sea’, a sprawling, mysterious building-complex that endlessly receives migrants from everywhere and seems to exist somewhere outside of normal space and time, adolescent Lina cares for her ailing father. Having landed at The Sea with only what could be carried by hand, Lina grows up with nothing but a trio of books to read--three volumes in a series about the lives of famous ‘voyagers’ of the past. Soon, however, she discovers three eccentric neighbours in the building who have stories of their own to share. These neighbours are Bento (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Baruch Spinoza), a Jewish scholar in seventeenth-century Amsterdam who was excommunicated for his radical thought; Blucher (whose life mirrors Hannah Arendt), a philosopher whose academic promise in 1930s Germany became a quest to survive Nazi persecution; and Jupiter (or shades of Du Fu), a poet of Tang Dynasty China whose brilliance went unrecognised by the state, and whose dependence on fickle patrons barely sustained him while lesser artists thrived. As she grows up in the building, Lina spends many hours listening to the fascinating tales of these friends. But it is only when she is finally told her father's account of how the two of them came to reside in The Sea that she truly understands the unbearable cost of betrayal in her own life. And the combined force of these stories soon sets her on her own path into the unknown future. The Book of Records holds a mirror to the idea of fate in history, interrogates questions of legacy, explores how the political factors of a collective moment may determine an individual's future, and beautifully shows the importance and power of art and intellectual endeavour. [Paperback]
"Deeply humane. In an aching, dreamlike narrative that overlaps distant centuries and geographies to chart cycles of authoritarianism and loss, Thien uncovers glimmers of community among disparate individuals. With her imagined worlds, incandescent prose and malleable sense of time and history, Thien strikes worthy comparisons to Italo Calvino, Walter Benjamin, Gaston Bachelard and Ali Smith's seasonal quartet. This staggering novel blurs the line between fact and fiction to underscore the importance of storytelling itself, as a practice of endurance, and resistance. Try to read without weeping profusely." —New York Times Book Review

 

Memories of a Catholic Girlhood by Mary McCarthy $37
Mary McCarthy, one of the leading American intellectuals of the twentieth century, skewers her strict Catholic upbringing in this witty and compelling memoir, one of her major works. Blending memories and family myths, Mary McCarthy takes us back to the 1920s, when she was orphaned into a world of relations as colourful, potent and mysterious as the Catholic religion. There was her Catholic grandmother who combined piousness with pugnacity, and her veiled Jewish grandmother who mourned the disastrous effects of a face-lift; there was wicked Uncle Myers who beat her for the good of her soul, and Aunt Margaret who laced her orange juice with castor oil, and taped her lips at night to prevent unhealthy 'mouth-breathing'. 'Many a time in the course of doing these memoirs,' Mary McCarthy says, 'I have wished that I were writing fiction.' But these were the people, along with the Ladies of the Sacred Heart convent school, who inspired her engaging perception, her devastating sense of the sublime and ridiculous, and her witty, novelist's imagination. Memories of a Catholic Girlhood is a major work by one of the leading American intellectuals of the twentieth century — witty, scathing, piercingly insightful and stylishly written. New edition, with an introduction by Colm Tóibín. [Paperback with French flaps]
”When my friends and I were in our twenties in the 1950s, we read two writers — Colette and Mary McCarthy — as others read the Bible: to learn better who we were and how, given the constraint of our condition, we were to live.” —Vivian Gornick
”Published in 1957, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood is considered by some to be the best of her two dozen books, including eight novels and several volumes of essays, reportage and criticism. Its superiority derives not only from the passionate sense of justice that imbues the depiction of her ghastly Cinderella childhood, but also the singular circumstances of its composition.” —J. Michael Lennon, TLS
”Superb. So heartbreaking that in comparison Jane Eyre seems to have got off lightly.” - Anita Brookner

 

Hollow Land: Israel’s architecture of occupation by Eyal Weizman $45
In this journey from the deep subterranean spaces of the West Bank and Gaza to their militarised airspace, Eyal Weizman unravels Israel's mechanisms of control and its transformation of the Occupied Territories into a theoretically constructed artifice, in which all natural and built features function as the weapons and ammunition with which the conflict is waged.  Weizman traces the development of these ideas, from the influence of archaeology on urban planning, Ariel Sharon's reconceptualisation of military defence during the 1973 war, through the planning and architecture of the settlements, to contemporary Israeli discourse and practice of urban warfare and airborne targeted assassinations. In exploring Israel's methods to transform the landscape and the built environment themselves into tools of domination and control, Hollow Land lays bare the political system at the heart of this complex and terrifying project of late-modern colonial occupation. [Paperback]

 

Capitalism and Nothingness: Critical theory in uncertain times by Peter Fleming $44
Drawing on Marcuse, Adorno, Arendt and a variety of other critical social philosophers, this book introduces us to a familiar character amid the wreckage of the post-pandemic economy: no-dimensional man. A cousin of Marcuse's one-dimensional man, they are a figure so compressed by the unending present of capitalism that they have ceased to be genuinely present in any ethical or political sense. This is Peter Fleming's brilliant analysis of the psychological and institutional mechanisms that drive the demise of capitalist democracies. The scene is set in no-dimensional man's natural habitats — the modern office, the corporate suite, the government bureau and the corporate university. In these treacherous climes Fleming reveals the dark power relations currently shaping the post-industrial system. This deep dive into the post-industrial pit explains the failure of capitalism in terms of its most contagious symptoms, including micro-jobs, multinational spread, shadow banking, financial predation, the working poor, and government by algorithm. Beset by every malaise of modern economic institutions, from cognitive dissonance to bleak performance metrics and almost deliberate vacuity, no-dimensional man is a living mirror image of the new culture of nothingness characterising capitalism today. [Paperback]
”Splicing genres to brilliant effect, Peter Fleming's critically fuelled revolutionary pessimism delivers shards of humour in the midst of a world ruined by feckless managers and gormless agents of industry. Capitalism and Nothingness furnishes diagrams of scenario planning grafted to the shadow of the apocalypse.” —Ned Rossiter, Professor of Communication and Director of Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

 

The Destruction of Palestine Is the Destruction of the Earth by Andreas Malm $25
Israel’s pulverization of Gaza since October 7, 2023 is not only a humanitarian crisis, but an environmental catastrophe. Far from the first event of its kind, the devastation Israel has inflicted on Palestine since October 2023 has merely ushered in a new phase in a long history of colonisation and extraction that reaches back to the nineteenth century. In this book, Andreas Malm argues that a true understanding of the present crisis requires a longue duree analysis of Palestine's subjugation to fossil empire. Returning to the British empire’s first use of steam-power in war, in which it destroyed the Palestinian city of Akka, Malm traces the development of Britain s fossil empire and shows how this enduring commitment to fossil energy continues to drive Western support for the destruction of Palestine today. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Malm's analysis, which concludes with the current genocide in Gaza and Palestinian resistance against colonialism, offers a new approach towards understanding the role imperialism plays in maintaining the Zionist colonial project and one that may be overlooked due to the more immediate focus on the depletion of Palestinian territory and the Palestinian people themselves.” —Ramona Wadi, Middle East Monitor

 

The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei $38
Singapore, 1996. Before Arin, Genevieve Yang was an only child. Living with her parents and grandmother in a single-room flat in Bedok, Genevieve is saddled with an unexpected sibling when Arin appears, the shameful legacy of a grandfather long believed to be dead. Gen and Arin grow up as sisters in Singapore: a place where insistence on achievement demands constant sacrifice in the realms of imagination and play. As the sisters struggle toward individual redemption, their story reveals the fault lines of Singaporean society, our desperate need for acceptance, and our yearning to be loved. [Paperback]
”Fiery, funny, and incisive, The Original Daughter is at its core a ghost story. Once, invisibility was the hallmark of the working class, but Jemimah Wei knows in today's world, where an internet connection allows one to walk through walls, be seen, disappear, and haunt from beyond the analog grave, a soulless transparency is power. A societal privilege ironically afforded to most everyone. This novel adroitly, yet playfully, turns the ways we see cultural appropriation, nepotism, and identity upside down. What a wise and wonderful read.” —Paul Beatty

 

Sicily: Recipes from an Italian island by Enza Genovese $65
From the bustling streets of Palermo to the colourful markets of Cefalu, from arancini to cannoli, Sicily is home to some of the world's freshest, most delicious food. In this collection of recipes curated by Sicilian Enza Genovese, travel the entire island of Sicily in food, learning how to easily prepare the tastiest hallmark dishes of this Italian region, alongside some new favourites, at home. Chapters include: Antipasti: arancini, Nonna's eggplant parmigiana, Sicilian focaccia. Pasta: Casarecce alla Norma, spaghetti with ricotta and pistachios, sardine bucatini. Risotto and couscous: artichoke and pea risotto, Trapanese couscous, lobster risotto. Meat: meatballs in white sauce, pork ragu, vegetable polpettone. Fish: stuffed calamari, swordfish with capers and almonds, tuna millefoglie. [Hardback]

 

The Bookshop Woman by Nanako Hanada (translated from Japanese by Cat Anderson) $28
Nanako Hanada's life has hit rock bottom. Separated from her husband, she's living between 4-hour capsule hostels and pokey internet cafes in Tokyo. Work is going no better as sales at her eccentric bookstore dwindle. Reading is the only thing keeping her alive. That's until Nanako downloads an app called Perfect Strangers which offers 30 minutes with someone you'll never see again. Introducing herself as a sexy bookseller, she recommends strangers 'the book that will change their life'. In the ensuing year, Nanako meets hundreds of people, some of whom want more than just a book. The Bookshop Woman offers a glimpse into the quirky side of Tokyo in this story about the beauty of free diving into a book and resurfacing on the last page, ready to breathe a different kind of air. [Paperback]

 

Abundance: How we build a better future by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson $40
In Abundance, veteran journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson reveal the structural, economic and political forces that have led to the America, and much of the liberal world, of today: where scarcity and preservation drive the agenda, and we have forgotten how to deliver on big ideas. Decades of slashing immigration, off-shoring manufacture, preventing house-building and stalling ambitious infrastructure projects like high-speed rail means America has a shortage of workers, houses, innovative products and climate-change solutions. It's a story repeated across the Western World. To progress on the greatest challenges of our time, from housing to climate change, healthcare to infrastructure, progressives need a vision of abundance, and the ability and willingness to enact transformative strategies. Here, the authors lay out the barriers to consequential action, and how we can overcome them to actively build a better, more abundant future. [Paperback]

 

What Art Does: An unfinished theory by Brian Eno and Bette A. $37
Why do we need art?  What Art Does is an invitation to explore this vital question.  It is a chance to understand how art is made by all of us. How it creates communities, opens our worlds, and can transform us. Curious and playful, richly illustrated, full of ideas and life, it is an inspiring call to imagine a different future. This book can reshape our understanding of how art and our lives are intrinsically linked. These are planet-sized ideas in a pocket-sized package. [Illustrated hardback]
"Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s I wasn't afraid of Art even though my family was poor and undereducated and knew nothing about it. I was excited and wanted to join in, even to be part of contemporary art-making. I lost that confidence along the way. Became scared of Art, felt excluded by it. Reading What Art Does has helped me regain that confidence by reminding me we're all making art all the time. That Art is for us and by us." —Viv Albertine
"Remarkable for its ability to render sophisticated and sometimes slippery ideas in clear, accessible language. The most powerful ideas here present art as conduit to community, as a way to be vulnerable, to surrender. This is a beautiful book." —Peter Murphy, Irish Times

 
VOLUME BooksNew releases
THE UNNAMABLE by Samuel Beckett — reviewed by Thomas

For that about which all that can be said is that it exists, the imperative is to go on existing. There is a voice, desperate to go on (longing perhaps to cease but unable to cease) but conscious of the insufficiency of any attempt to go on. Terrified of each full stop and the cessation it threatens, the voice assumes one character after another, each with a ‘story’ or set of circumstances, but these characters and circumstances are quickly abraded and abandoned, unravelled as quickly as they are knitted, insufficient not through their imperfection but because Beckett refuses to let them conceal the essential nature of the fictive act. That which must speak in order to exist must dissemble in order to speak. In ‘successful’ fictions this desperate underlying impersonal subjectivity is obscured by the characters and circumstances it clads itself in and the reader is scintillated by the provisional ‘reality’ of the story, but in his wonderful stuttering attempts to force the mechanisms of fiction to run against their springs and ratchets, Beckett interrogates the workings of the novel and lays bare the usually unexamined assumptions and motivations that underlie the relationship between writer and reader.

GET THE (SO-CALLED) ‘TRILOGY’ IN THESE NEW PAPERBACK EDITIONS:

VOLUME BooksReview by Thomas
A GHOST IN THE THROAT by Doireann Ní Ghríofa — reviewed by Stella

“Perhaps the past is always trembling inside the present, whether or not we sense it.” Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s debut novel is a triumph of obsession, self-reflection and love. Obsessed with the eighteenth-century poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, a young mother negotiates her desire to unpick the mystery of this woman as she navigates the daily tasks of her life. “I try to distract myself in my routine of sweeping, wiping, dusting, and scrubbing. I cling to all my little rituals. I hoard crusts.” Out of small spare moments, car trips to historic sites (houses, cemeteries and libraries) with her youngest child and late-night searches on her phone the shape of Eibhlín Dubh’s life is constructed or more accurately imagined. Who was she? What happened to her? Why can this woman’s life not be tracked while her father's, husband's and sons’ lives can? At the heart of the story is a poem—a lament—written by Eibhlín Dubh for her husband Art O’Leary slain by the orders of the  English magistrate. “Trouncings and desolations on you, ghastly Morris of the treachery”. The poem becomes a touchstone for the narrator, a place where she can rest, where she can dream—imagine the world of this other woman who is dealing with loss, a woman who is resolute and tough, who will not lie down nor succumb to expectation from either her family nor the authorities. A Ghost in the Throat questions the telling of history—the invisibility of female voices. Scattered throughout the novel is the phrase “This is a female text”, making us aware that stories are told and histories revealed in other ways, through the body and its scars, through cloth and object, through the tasks that make us human, through the words that are sometimes unsaid and in the margins where many do not look. As the narrator discovers the poet, she frees herself along with this woman trapped in time and neglect.  Ní Ghríofa writes with bewitching clarity as she describes the daily grind, with dreamlike essence in the moments of childhood memory—the longing and discovery—with realist angst about entering adulthood and motherhood, and with compelling atmosphere as the narrator unpicks the past. Rich in content and language, A Ghost in the Throat is both a scholarly endeavour and an autofiction—endlessly curious and achingly beautiful.

VOLUME BooksReview by Stella
Book of the Week: THE VAST EXTENT: ON SEEING AND NOT SEEING FURTHER by Lavinia Greenlaw

How do we make sense of what we see? The Vast Extent is a constellation of ‘exploded essays’ about light and image, seeing and the unseen. Each is a record of how thought builds and ideas emerge, aligning art, myth, strange voyages and scientific scrutiny with a poet's response so that they cast light upon each other. Greenlaw invites us to observe our world and beyond with a new sensitivity. Beautifully written and deeply thoughtful; both personal and universal.

VOLUME BooksBook of the week
NEW RELEASES (25.6.25)

Revitalise your reading pile! Click through to our website to secure your copies. We can dispatch your books by overnight courier or have them ready to collect from our door.

Ultramarine by Mariette Navarro (translated from French by Eve Hill-Agnus) $38
A female captain in a male-dominated field, the unnamed narrator of Ultramarine has secured her success through strict adherence to protocol; she now manages a crew of twenty men and helms her own vessel. Uncharacteristically, one day, she allows her crew to cut the engines and swim in the deep open water. Returning from this moment of leisure, the crew of mariners no longer totals twenty men: now, they are twenty-one. Sparse and psychological, Ultramarine grips the reader in a tussle with reality, its rhythmic language mimicking the rocking of the boat. As instruments fail, weather reports contradict the senses, and the ship's navigation mechanisms break down, Navarro lulls her readers into accepting the unacceptable through deft, lyrical prose and pared-down dialogue. [Paperback]
"With Ultramarine, Mariette Navarro gives us an eerily beautiful portal into the submerged depths of our own interior worlds." —Asymptote
"The burden of power, and how it might be exercised, is explored in Mariette Navarro's beguiling fiction." —The Irish Times 
"A taut exploration of how the imaginable confronts the unbelievable. And the novel's beauty rests in figuring out which is which." —Chicago Review of Books 

 

Money to Burn by Asta Olivia Nordenhof (translated from Danish by Caroline Wright) $38
Maggie and Kurt are struggling to hold their marriage together after their only daughter has left home. They live in an old farmhouse in Nyborg but somehow keep missing each other, unable to discuss the events that brought them together. Decades ago, a passenger ferry called the Scandinavian Star caught fire, killing 159 people. The event is still considered a national tragedy in Denmark and Norway. Years later, it was revealed not to be an accident, but the result of an insurance scam gone wrong. How is the Scandinavian Star disaster connected to Maggie and Kurt? How does money affect and infect our closest relationships? And is it ever possible to escape? [Hardback]
”Nordenhof's writing crackles with indignation, conviction, ferocious wit, and savvy human insight. Startling, irresistible, and thoroughly enlivening, reading her words is not unlike looking at the entrancing flames of a tremendous fire.” —Claire-Louise Bennett
”A comet in Scandinavian literature. Her sentences are like lightning, they hold great beauty and destruction. Funny, furious and masterful — Money to Burn is a declaration of war against capitalism.” —Olga Ravn

 

Boustany: A celebration of vegetables from my Palestine by Sami Tamimi $65
Boustany translates from Arabic as 'My Garden', and the down-to-earth, relaxed and plentiful recipes are reflective of Sami's signature style and approach to food. Bold, inspiring and ever-evolving, Boustany picks up where Falastin left off, with flavour-packed, colourful and simple vegetable- and grain-led dishes; this is how Sami grew up eating — platters of aubergine and chickpeas with a spicy green lemon sauce and fragrant lentil fatteh that always tasted better the next day. These are the dishes he has known, loved, cooked and shared with friends. With over 100 recipes, Tamimi offers recipes for breakfast, sharing plates, big celebrations, simple breads, moreish sweet treats, easy dinners and more. It's an approach that's strongly present in Palestinian cuisine, from building your mooneh, or pantry, by preserving seasonal vegetables and herbs to lining the dinner table with a variety of salads and condiments reflective of a love for fresh and vibrant food. Nicely presented. [Hardback]
”I have known Sami for over 25 years now and have always loved his food and his personal modern take on classics from our region. In this book, he applies that same inspired take on vegetarian and vegan dishes from his tragic homeland, making this collection of recipes and stories even more invaluable given the systematic erasure of both Palestine and Palestinians.” —Anissa Helou
”This is my dream cookbook. It's full of heart, soul and Sami's very delicious food. I have a library of cookbooks, but Sami's are one of the only ones I genuinely cook from.” —Meera Sodha
”I love Sami Tamimi's wonderful Boustany. It is thrilling and also moving to see what a great chef has done with the flavourful home cooking of a people with a rich and diverse culinary tradition and a deep connection with the land.” —Claudia Roden

 

Embers of the Hands: Hidden histories of the Viking age by Eleanor Barraclough $55
A comb, preserved in a bog, engraved with the earliest traces of a new writing system. A pagan shrine deep beneath a lava field. A note from an angry wife to a husband too long at the tavern. Doodles on birch-bark, made by an imaginative child. From these tiny embers, Eleanor Barraclough blows back to life the vast, rich and complex world of the Vikings. These are not just the stories of kings, raiders and saga heroes. Here are the lives of ordinary people: the merchants, children, artisans, enslaved people, seers, travellers and storytellers who shaped the medieval Nordic world. Immerse yourself in the day-to-day lives of an extraordinary culture that spanned centuries and spread from its Scandinavian heartlands to the remote fjords of Greenland, the Arctic wastelands, the waterways and steppes of Eurasia, all the way to the Byzantine Empire and Islamic Caliphate. [Hardback]
”Eleanor Barraclough's splendid new book offers an introduction to the ordinary people of a time best known for its kings and warlords, getting up close and personal with the things that mattered to them. In lively prose she ranges from Greenland to Baghdad, showing us bar-rooms and bedrooms, daydreaming children at their lessons, gossiping neighbours, the scars of war, and much more besides. An intimate portrait of the Viking Age that is thoughtful, vivid and warm, while ignoring none of its hardships — highly recommended.” —Neil Price, author of  The Children of Ash and Elm

 

The North Pole: The history of an obsession by Erling Kagge $55
Throughout recorded human time, few places on Earth have inspired as much fascination as the North Pole. This is an otherworldly place where the sun rises and stays aloft for six whole months before setting, plunging the expanse of ice and water into darkness for half a year. Foot-stepping alongside Erling Kagge, who ventured to the North Pole in the spring of 1990, we hear the story of the North Pole as never told before. From Herodotus who first wondered what the northernmost point of our planet might be like, to the intrepid early cartographers who mapped the world, and the legendary expeditions led by Fridtjof Nansen and Robert Peary - the first polar explorer global celebrities - who were in the grip of a dangerous obsession to get to the North Pole first. What emerges is a new history of the world, spanning thousands of years, as seen from the 'silver-shining vacantness' of the North Pole. Blending memories from Kagge's own 1990 trip with this epic history, The North Pole is an adventure story, a book about enacting hidden human dreams, about difficult fathers and their difficult sons, and a psychological record of what it means to keep putting one foot in front of the other in the face of adversity. It is for anyone who's gazed out at the horizon - and wondered what happens if you just keep walking.   [Hardback]
”Erling Kagge is a deeply thoughtful writer. The North Pole proves to be the perfect subject for him>” —Michael Palin
”The book of a lifetime, from a rare writer-adventurer whose obsession and passion for his subject know no bounds.” —Elif Shafak

 

Remembering Peasants: A personal history of a vanished world by Patrick Joyce $30
A way of life that once encompassed most of humanity is vanishing in one of the greatest transformations of our time: the eclipse of the rural world by the urban. In this new history of peasantry, Patrick Joyce tells the story of this lost world and its people. In contrast to the usual insulting stereotypes, we discover a rich and complex culture: traditions, songs, celebrations and revolts, across Europe from the plains of Poland to the farmsteads and villages of Italy and Ireland, through the nineteenth century to the present day. Into this passionate history, written with exquisite care, Joyce weaves remarkable individual stories, including those of his own Irish family, and looks at how peasant life has been remembered — and misremembered — in contemporary culture. This is a people whose voice is vastly underrepresented in human history. Yet for Joyce, we are all the children of peasants, who must respect the experience of our ancestors. This is particularly pressing when our knowledge of the land is being lost to climate crisis and the rise of industrial agriculture. Enlightening, timely and vital, this book commemorates an extraordinary culture whose impact on our history and our future remains profoundly relevant. [Paperback]
 “A dozen pages in I realized that I had been waiting for much of my life to read this extraordinary book. Anyone who has ever tried to unravel the intertwined skeins of ancestry, sociology, music, geography and history will gape at Joyce's skill. On almost every page the reader gets a jolt, a palpable sensation of immersion in the disappeared world of peasantry. A central part of the book is Joyce's own family's peasant past. I too, like many people, am only two generations and one language away from these ancestors. Because the time of the peasants is still palpable there are clues and messages here for every fortunate reader who picks up this book.” —Annie Proulx
”Joyce is the modern historian of uncharted lives and the landscapes of post-industry and post-agriculture. Like all the Joyces, he writes with extraordinary precision and grace.” —Colm Toibin

 

Audition by Katie Kitamura $38
An exhilarating, destabilising Mobius strip of a novel that asks whether we ever really know the people we love. Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She's an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He's attractive, troubling, young — young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day — partner, parent, creator, muse — and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately. [Hardback]
”You have never read anything like this gorgeously disquieting book. Audition challenges our preconceptions about love, art and selfhood — and, magnificently, our very idea of how a novel should unfold. If all the world's a stage, Kitamura reminds us that we never stop auditioning for our parts.” —Hernan Diaz
”Katie Kitamura is a dizzyingly skilled writer, whose fictions always seem to manage two contradictory effects: a supple seductive surface, under which the chaos of minds and repressed realities roil. She's an original, building an entire metier of her own.” —Rachel Kushner

 

Clara and the Man with Books in His Window by Maria Teresa Andruetto and Martina Trach $35
So begins Clara and the Man With Books in His Window. In this beautifully illustrated book, set in rural 1920s Argentina, Hans Christian Andersen Award-winning author Mara Teresa Andruetto shares the true story of how her mother, Clara, the daughter of a poor laundress, meets Juan, a wealthy and bookish recluse who never leaves his house because he is afraid society will not accept who he really is. A powerful tale about friendship and about the world available to us when we open a book, but also when we have the courage to be our true selves. [Hardback]

 

Twelve Post-War Tales by Graham Swift $40
In the aftermath of the Second World War Private Joseph Caan, a young Jewish soldier stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members; in the 1960s a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis brings the world to the brink of disaster; in 2001, while planes fly into the Twin Towers, a maid working for US Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination shaped her life; and at the height of a pandemic lockdown, Dr. Cole, a retired specialist in respiratory disease, returns to work and recalls a formative childhood encounter with illness and much more. These are just a few of the challenged characters we meet in Graham Swift’s Twelve Post-war Tales. Tender, humane, funny and moving, Swift’s latest work of fiction displays his quietly commanding ability to set the personal and the ordinary against the harsh sweep of history. [Hardback]

 

Absolution by Jeff Vandermeer $38
When the ‘Southern Reach Trilogy’ was first published a decade ago, it was an instant sensation, celebrated in a front-page New York Times story before publication, hailed by Stephen King and many others. Each volume climbed the bestsellers list; awards were won; the books made the rare transition from paperback original to hardcover; the movie adaptation became a cult classic. All told, the trilogy has sold more than a million copies and has secured its place in the pantheon of twenty-first-century literature. And yet for all this, for Jeff VanderMeer there was never full closure to the story of Area X. There were a few mysteries that had gone unsolved, some key points of view never aired. There were stories left to tell. There remained questions about who had been complicit in creating the conditions for Area X to take hold; the story of the first mission into the Forgotten Coast — before Area X was called Area X — had never been fully told; and what if someone had foreseen the world after Acceptance? How crazy would they seem? Structured in three parts, each recounting a new expedition, there are some long-awaited answers here, to be sure, but also more questions, and profound new surprises. Absolution is a brilliant, beautiful, and ever-terrifying plunge into unique and fertile literary territory. It is the final word on one of the most provocative and popular speculative fiction series of our time. [Paperback]

 

Time’s Echo: Memory, music, and the Second World War by Jeremy Eichler $28
A stirring account of how music acts as a witness to history and a medium of cultural memory in the post-Holocaust world. When it comes to how societies commemorate their own distant dreams and catastrophes, we often think of books, archives, or memorials carved from stone. But in Time's Echo, Jeremy Eichler makes a case for the power of music as culture's memory, an art form uniquely capable of carrying forward meaning from the past. Eichler shows how four towering composers — Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich — lived through the era of the Second World War and the Holocaust and later transformed their experiences into deeply moving works of music, scores that carry forward the echoes of lost time. A lyrical narrative full of insight and compassion, this book deepens how we think about the legacies of war, the presence of the past, and the possibilities of art in our lives today. [Now in paperback]
”Profoundly moving.” —Edmund de Waal
”A most rare book: extraordinarily powerful — magisterial, meticulously rich and unexpected, deeply affecting and human.” —Philippe Sands

 

40 Maps that Will Change the Way You See the World by Alastair Bonnett $45
Turn the pages of this thought-provoking book and discover maps that challenge conventional wisdom, confront social and political norms and offer fresh perspectives on familiar landscapes. This meticulously curated selection of 40 maps spans the ages, from ancient parchment scrolls to cutting-edge digital creations. Each map is a window into a different facet of our world, shedding light on the complex interplay of geography, geopolitics, art, history, science and society. Maps have always held the power to transport us, not just from one place to another, but from one state of mind to another. Beyond their utilitarian function, maps have an extraordinary ability to tell stories, reveal truths and inspire revolutions. They are not mere drawings of geographic boundaries, but gateways to the collective wisdom of humanity. You'll encounter maps that dissect the intricate tapestry of human migration, maps that unveil the secrets of the cosmos and maps that expose the stark realities of our changing climate. [Hardback]

The Assault by Harry Mulisch (translated from Dutch by Claire Nicholas White) $28
In the bitter final months of the Second World War, the body of a Dutch Nazi collaborator is found on the doorstep of an ordinary family home. The repercussions are complex and terrible: the family is killed and the house burned to the ground; only the twelve-year-old son, Anton, survives. Following Anton as he reckons with this trauma through his life, The Assault is a powerful excavation of resistance and the collateral damage wrought on innocent people in times of war. [Paperback]
”Harry Mulisch belongs to the first rank of Dutch novelists of his generation.” —J. M. Coetzee

 

Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler $30
The groundbreaking thinker whose book Gender Trouble redefined how we think about gender and sexuality, confronts the attacks on ‘gender’ that have become central to right-wing movements today. Global networks have formed ‘anti-gender ideology movements’ that are dedicated to circulating a fantasy that gender is a dangerous, perhaps diabolical, threat to families, local cultures, civilization — and even ‘man’ himself. Inflamed by the rhetoric of public figures, this movement has sought to nullify reproductive justice, undermine protections against sexual and gender violence and strip trans and queer people of their rights to pursue a life without fear of violence. The aim of Who's Afraid of Gender? is not to offer a new theory of gender but to examine how ‘gender’ has become a phantasm for emerging authoritarian regimes, fascist formations, and transexclusionary feminists. In their new book, Butler illuminates the ways that this phantasm of ‘gender’ collects and displaces anxieties and fears of destruction. Operating in tandem with deceptive accounts of ‘critical race theory’ and xenophobic panics about migration, the anti-gender movement demonises struggles for equality, fuels aggressive nationalism and leaves millions of people vulnerable to subjugation. [Now in paperback]

 
VOLUME BooksNew releases
LIKE: AN EXPERIMENT IN INTERPRETATION — A project recalled by Stella

What happens when objects meet words and words meet objects? Back in 2008 I curated a jewellery project called LIKE. LIKE was an experiment in interpretation: a translation from object to description and back to object. I made a small object, sent it to a poet, and the poem about this three-dimensional form became the basis for nine jewellers to create their own interpretation of the original. Could the artists remake this object using only the poetic description? When the original is hidden and analysis of language is required, what will happen? How did their own making habits assist or hinder the process of creating an object where the only guidelines were a handful of words — a description that was sometimes clear, but often oblique. If the writer had been given the task of writing an instruction manual, a step-by-step guide, the resultant objects would have more alike. But this wasn’t the goal. It was a translation project, an exploration of language and communication. An exploration of both the visual and verbal. Words describe. Visual language — colour, form, scale, texture — also ‘talks’. The poet, Bill Manhire, studied the object, tried to get its measure, and described its appearance as well as its demeanour. There were clues in the poem and at times clarity of description. Yet a problem remained. The object was an alien, difficult to assimilate or easily align with something known. It was something almost familiar, but ultimately foreign. In the language of poetry it became a new thing. For the curator, the words were unexpected. The floor was open. The translation began. For what happens when we are asked to decipher what we see or what we experience? Each telling will be different. Are we more attuned today to our surroundings compared to yesterday? If we glance, what do we miss? If we study with heated concentration do we create a story that does not exist? Are our senses reliable and is our language sufficient? For LIKE, the jewellers needed to read and decipher the words of Manhire; they needed to know how to read this poem pulling from it the ‘clues’ that would be the keys to making. It wasn’t intended to trick or obfuscate, but it did prove challenging. Translation was necessary. It was surprising how various the resultant objects were, yet all expressed elements of the original. They were a family of objects related to each other. The process of translation, although flawed and sometimes deliberately sabotaged, was an experiment in interpretation that captured the essence of the original and held within its translated parts some aspects of the makers/interpreters. (The exhibition catalogue includes all 10 objects, responses from the jewellers about the process, an introduction by Augusta Szark and essay by Louise Garrett, and Bill Manhire’s poem.)     

VOLUME BooksReview by Stella
FIFTY SOUNDS by Polly Barton — reviewed by Thomas

The Japanese language differs from English in having a delineated category of mimetic words which are recognisable as such due to their pattern and use. Polly Barton uses a sequence of fifty of these onomatopoeia, from giro’ to uho-uho, to structure a memoir of her developing relationship with Japanese and with Japan, from going to teach language on a small Japanese Island when she was twenty-one to her eventual career as a Japanese literary translator and now writer. Because language is inextricable from every other aspect of a person’s life in any society, the book, as well as exploring the philosophy of language, so to call it, in a thoughtful, straight-forward and practical way, covers all the other aspects of Barton’s life in this period as well, including her uncertainties, errors, embarrassments, affairs, failings, awkwardnesses, and misfortunes, with unflinching honesty and companionable insight. After all, all stories are stories of language before they are of anything else. Barton found that, as she learned to structure her thoughts in Japanese instead of English, she was undergoing a change of personality as well. “It was as if what had been watching me all the time was my language: I had clung to it as the thing that shaped me, but now I was finding that a looser relationship with the language, perhaps having a looser shape altogether, was strangely healing.” She notes that a survey of bilingual people found that over two thirds attested to feeling like a ‘different person’ when speaking different languages. Language is a social phenomenon more than it is a verbal one, language is “inextricably entwined with behavioural practices and social roles,” and we often forget that the ever-present underlying nonverbal control of exchange is more basic to language than its verbal features. “Language is performative and communal. It is a means of ‘passing’ more than it is a means of expression,” writes Barton “Understanding is not an internal switch flicked that nobody else can see: if you don’t act upon an instruction, if you don’t behave in the required way, you are not understanding. To comprehend within a particular culture means to act upon that culture’s rules for understanding. To mean something by what one says is to be participating in a community-wide game governed by rules.” As she gains proficiency in Japanese, Barton begins to feel a slippage, so to call it, in the idea of herself. “Maybe this original ‘me’ which figured in my thinking was more nebulous, more tied to English than I realised,” she writes. “For the moment, I was saved from total assimilation by the inaccuracy of my mirroring, which was why I was able to feel more or less myself. But if I continued to get better, I reasoned, there might come a time when there was no longer room for the me I recognised.” Language is learned by, and operates through, copying, and has the cultural function of inducing conformity in its members. “Although chameleonship is outwardly derided and disdained, it is implicitly not only accepted but actually demanded.” As Barton shows, language is both a tool and a threat, but more, really, the medium in which we must negotiate the parameters of our individual and collective identities. The immersion in another language can provide insights into both the complexity and the fluidity of those identities. 

VOLUME BooksReview by Thomas
Book of the Week: UNDER THE EYE OF THE BIG BIRD by Hiromi Kawakami (translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda)

“Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird tells the story of humanity’s evolution on an epic scale that spans as far into the future as the human imagination could possibly allow. In each of its chapters, separated by eons but gracefully unified under the crystalline clarity of Asa Yoneda’s seemingly timeless translation, a variegated cast of posthuman characters each interrogate what it means to be not an individual or a nation but an entire species, that unit of being we currently and urgently struggle so much to grasp, much to the cost to the planet we live on and our own survival.” —International Booker Prize judges’ citation.
In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in small groups across the planet under the observation and care of AI ‘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.

VOLUME BooksBook of the week
NEW RELEASES (19.6.25)

Build your reading pile with some new books! Click through to our website to secure your copies. Your books can be sent by overnight courier or ready to collect from our door.

Fair: The life-art of translation by Jen Calleja $42
A satirical, refreshing and brilliantly playful book about learning the art of translation, being a book-worker in the publishing industry, growing up, family, and class. Loosely set in an imagined book fair/art fair/fun fair, in which every stall or ride imitates a real-world scenario or dilemma which must be observed and negotiated, the book moves between personal memories and larger questions about the role of the literary translator in publishing, about fairness and hard work, about the ways we define success, and what it means — and whether it is possible — to make a living as an artist. Fair is also interested in questions of upbringing, background, support, how different people function in the workplace, and the ways in which people are excluded or made invisible in different cultural and creative industries. It connects literary translation to its siblings in other creative arts to show how creative and subjective a practice it is while upholding the ethics and politics at play when we translate someone else’s work. Blurring the lines between memoir, autofiction, satire and polemic, Fair is a singularly inventive and illuminating book. [Paperback]
”With the singular brilliance, generosity and commitment to formal innovation that characterise her expansive body of work, Jen Calleja has gifted us a wholly indispensable fairground tour. Essential reading for anyone interested in translation, translations and the working conditions of those who write them.” —Kate Briggs
”Fair is both a unique exploration into the role of the translator and a profound meditation on language, nationality, and class. It’s also very funny. Reading it reminded me that a wealth of creativity lies within us all regardless of upbringing or (lack of) societal expectations. Truly inspiring work.” —Susan Finlay
”It is no mean feat to build a fair as inventive, as informative, as inclusive to everyone along the translation experience spectrum, and yes, I’ll say it, as goddamn FUN as this one, but Jen Calleja has gone and done it. Cue the cockroach confetti, cue the very-not-invisible fireworks, and roll up for the multilingual rollercoaster ride of the year!” —Polly Barton
”Jen Calleja has turned the odd life of a literary translator into a startlingly real work of art, as exquisitely and playfully constructed as a novel by Georges Perec. I feel like I’ve just been to an actual fair!” – Anton Hur
”There is no profession in the cultural sphere that is more underappreciated than that of the literary translator. Calleja, more than anyone I know, is working to change that.” —Gregor Hens

 

Joss: A history by Grace Yee $33
In the White Hills Cemetery in Bendigo the remains of more than a thousand 'chinamen' lie interred, many in unmarked graves. Most were from the Canton region in south China. Joss: A History is inspired by the lived experiences of these early settlers, and their compatriots and descendants across Victoria and NSW, and Aotearoa New Zealand. It is a hybrid work of poetry and history. The poems and archival extracts respond to longstanding colonialist prejudices that have exoticised and diminished Chinese communities in white settler nations around the Pacific Rim since the gold rushes of the nineteenth century. Refracted through a twenty-first century lens, Joss pays tribute to the poet's ancestors, illuminating how they survived and thrived amid 'life's implacably white horizons'. It is grounded in the conviction that the past is not past, that historical events reverberate insistently in the present. [Paperback]

 

To Rest Our Minds and Bodies by Harriet Armstrong $40
In her final year of a degree in psychology, and struggling to relate to the world around her and find her place within it, a young woman drifts from lectures on gifts, vision, the history of global warming, and study groups discussing babies manipulating objects. Yet nothing seems to bring her closer to the great insight she's been promised - except, perhaps, for her budding interest in a fellow student named Luke, a postgraduate in computer sciences, with whom a series of seemingly mundane encounters provides her with a hint of what she might be looking for — a hidden meaning to all that surrounds her. But a chasm between them that grows and shrinks unexpectedly calls into question whether he might be as incomprehensible as the world around her. She yearns, and continues to endeavour to shape her experiences and environment — a Louise Bourgeois exhibition, the underwhelming men she meets on Tinder, a Mitski song, the dreams she has of Luke's ex-girlfriend — she narrates all as she grapples with questions of embodiment and subjectivity. Set in an unnamed campus in the early 2020s, To Rest Our Minds and Bodies queries the nature of one's experience, mapping the disintegration of a young woman's sense of self and her struggle to keep a grip on reality. From a voice as unique as it is relatable, and in prose that is keenly observant, delightfully wry, and utterly despairing, the anonymous narrator of this unconventional coming-of-age novel is as brave as she is unforgettable. [Paperback with French flaps]
”'The book gradually flowers into something extraordinary: a feminist statement of mental unravelling, which is also a plea for the life of the mind. This is marvellously realised as the novel unfolds into a study of interiority and narrative, both an embrace of and a resistance against nihilism. Armstrong has created a form away from such debasing tropes and genres as ‘sad girl’ lit. Armstrong’s work seems both new and utterly timeless.” —The Observer
”To Rest Our Minds and Bodies is the rarest debut: a heart-wrenching literary work that for once tells the real truth about being young, ravenous, desperate, too big for the container of the body. This novel is written in gold — every line is marvellous and perfect.” —Luke B. Goebel
”Armstrong's prose has that meticulous and urgent quality reminiscent of Beckett and Duras, achieving the same uncanny shared consciousness that keeps you hooked from the first sentence. This is — in its absolute specificity of detail, era, and embodiment — a timeless story of love, yearning and despair. It's rare to read a novel so smart and self-aware which is also so powerfully vulnerable and candid. It charts some deep and dark territories we all know but barely acknowledge. It cuts through the platitudes of love and life in a way most writers wouldn't dare. In fact I don't think I've ever felt for a character so deeply as the narrator of To Rest Our Minds and Bodies because I don't think I've ever encountered a character so radically and vividly honest.” —Luke Kennard

 

A Guide to Rocks | He Taonga te Toka by Josh Morgan and Sasha Cotter (te reo Māori translation by Kawata Teepa) $20 | $20
Lately, things have been getting Charlie down. It’s like he’s got a big rock that just won’t go away. He talks to Dad about it, and Dad brings out a dusty old book with a lot of tough rules. The first rule is you don’t talk about rocks (feelings). But the rules make things worse — Charlie’s ‘rock’ gets bigger, and everything feels dark and scary. They need some new rules — fast. [Paperback]

 

Ugliness by Moshtari Hilal (translated from German by Elisabeth Lauffer) $40
How do power and beauty join forces to determine who is considered ugly? What role does that ugliness play in fomenting hatred? Moshtari Hilal, an Afghan-born author and artist who lives in Germany, has written a touching, intimate, and highly political book. Dense body hair, crooked teeth, and big noses: Hilal uses a broad cultural lens to question norms of appearance — ostensibly her own, but in fact everyone's. She writes about beauty salons in Kabul as a backdrop to the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Darwin's theory of evolution, Kim Kardashian, and a utopian place in the shadow of her nose. With a profound mix of essay, poetry, her own drawings, and cultural and social history of the body, Hilal explores notions of repulsion and attraction, taking the reader into the most personal of realms to put self-image to the test. Why are we afraid of ugliness? [Paperback]
"A thoughtful, provocative, playful, and truly original exploration of bodily aesthetics and the factors that define them. A wondrous and important book." —Melissa Febos
"Moshtari Hilal's brilliant (and perfectly illustrated) Ugliness has finally appeared in English. Her rumination on what makes us think that we are ugly, that we don't fit in, that all stare at us or indeed avoid looking at us, provides personal and historical insights into our fantasies about ourselves." —Sander Gilman
"Hilal has managed to distort beauty and to beautify ugliness with her probing narrative and astute gaze. This is a profound, political, engrossing work." —Aysegul Savas

 

Speaking in Tongues by J.M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos $35
Language, historically speaking, has always been slippery. Two dictionaries provide two different maps of the universe- which one is true, or are both false? Speaking in Tongues — taking the form of a dialogue between Nobel-Laureate novelist J. M. Coetzee and eminent translator Mariana Dimópulos — explores questions that have constantly plagued writers and translators, now more than ever. Among them — How can a translator liberate meanings imprisoned in the language of a text? Why is the masculine form dominant in gendered languages while the feminine is treated as a deviation? How should we counter the spread of monolingualism? Should a translator censor racist or misogynistic language? Does mathematics tell the truth about everything? In the tradition of Walter Benjamin's seminal essay 'The Task of the Translator', Speaking in Tongues emerges as an engaging and accessible work of philosophy, shining a light on some of the most important linguistic and philological issues of our time. [Hardback]

 

The Invention of Amsterdam: A history of Europe’s greatest city in ten walks by Ben Coates $37
When Ben Coates injures his leg and needs to rebuild his strength by walking, he finds himself presented with an exciting opportunity — to rediscover the city he has been working in for over a decade, at a slower pace. He devised ten walks, each demonstrating a different chapter of Amsterdam's history, from its humble beginnings in the early 1200s as a small fishing community through two Golden Ages, fuelled by the growth of the Dutch colonial empire, two world wars, and countless reinventions.  Join Coates as he meanders past beautiful townhouses and glittering canals, dances at Pride celebrations, witnesses the King's apology at Keti Koti, attends a WW2 memorial, gets high at a coffee shop, walks through the red-light district, and gazes in awe at Rembrandt paintings, all the while illuminating modern Amsterdam by explaining its past. Blending travelogue and quirky history, The Invention of Amsterdam is an entertaining and sharply observed portrait of a fascinating and complicated city. [Paperback]

 

Strange Beach by Oluwaseun Olayiwola $30
A poetry collection wrangling the various selves we hold and perform — across oceans and within relationships — told through a queer, Nigerian-American lens. Intimate and erotic, ecological and philosophical, the poems in Strange Beach illuminate the body as a porous landscape across which existential dramas, filial fractures, and sexual reckonings occur. The collection ventures across the same 'Atlantic Ocean' as Claudia Rankine's 'Citizen', which is the same 'Atlantic Ocean' in Lowell's 'Life Studies', to reveal a queer consciousness deeply steeped in poetic traditions of nuanced confession and moving abstraction. Strange Beach is geological in its accumulation of images, emotions and landscapes that stack, revolve and eschew. The resulting work transmutes messages to the mind of the reader with a feeling of cosmic intuitiveness, as emotion and intellect grapple and become forged. “No one can follow you here / not having to become something else,” observes one speaker in this collection that reimagines how we love, grow, travel, and most of all, change. [Paperback with French flaps]
”What do we mean when we read a book and feel that we trust the writer? What I mean when I say that I trust Oluwaseun Olayiwola is that the poems in Strange Beach are as sure in their storytelling as centuries-old myths. These poems explain the world to me, rebuild it in front of my eyes with polysensory images that don't stop moving. And so I stand in the middle of Olayiwola's violent universe — where the sun's arms are broken, where the corpses of sunflowers litter the fields, where 'snow is a skin. Inside it, / violence...' — and watch this incredible journey of survival. This world is like an ocean, erasing Olayiwola's name from the sand with each approach; these poems are Olayiwola's finger, rewriting his name again and again whenever the tide recedes.” —Taylor Byas

 

Saxophone (‘Object Lessons’ series) by Mollie Hawkins $23
The saxophone is a contradictory instrument that has rooted itself in the soil of pop culture. It's the ‘devil's horn’, it's the voice of jazz an extension of the player's soul it is a character trait of U.S. Presidents, YouTube sensations, and cartoon characters. It has both enhanced and ruined songs, it is sensuous yet abrasive, and it is the only instrument widely excluded from symphonies and orchestras, never quite being taken seriously. As an object that is symbolic of living on the margins of society, the saxophone has never been kind to its players. Blending research, cultural criticism, and personal narrative about her saxophonist father, who lived on the margins until his unexpected death, Mollie Hawkins explores more than just the history of this expressive instrument. She illuminates the dark paths that our passions can lead us down. Saxophone turns the lens around to ask us all — what does it mean to devote your life to such an object even if it kills you? Can music hold such power over us? [Paperback with French flaps]

 

Sunny Days, Taco Nights by Enrique Olvera and Alondo Ruvalcaba $70
Enrique Olvera is known for the sophisticated Mexican cuisine he serves at his globally renowned restaurants, including the iconic Pujol, in Mexico City. However, his true passion is the everyday taco, which he regards as the most democratic of foods. In Sunny Days, Taco Nights, Olvera presents an in-depth exploration of the taco s history and many different styles, ingredients, and accompaniments, and much more. Equal parts culinary history and cookbook, the book features 100 recipes designed for home cooks, arranged into two main chapters: Classics, which features street tacos; and Originals, which explores Olvera s contemporary reinventions of well-known originals. Classic recipes include Fish Tacos from northwest Mexico; Chicharron Tacos from Monterrey; Chorizo Tacos with spinach; and Steak Tacos common at street vendor tricycles in Mexico City. Contemporary reinventions include Brussels Sprouts Tacos with spicy peanut butter; Ceviche Tacos; Pork Belly Tacos with smoked beans; and Eggs & Green Bean Tacos inspired by Olvera s childhood breakfasts. Visually stunning, with vivid food photography and a palette inspired by native corn in Mexico, Sunny Days, Taco Nights is the definitive book on one of the world s most beloved foods. [Flexibound]

 

The River Is Waiting by Wally Lamb $40
Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness. As he counts down the weeks, months, and years of his incarceration, he develops elemental kinships with a tenderhearted cellmate, a troubled teen desperate for a role model, and a prison librarian who sees and nurtures his light. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves? [Paperback]
”Bravo, Wally Lamb. Not that you needed another masterpiece to demonstrate your unerring eye, ear, and signature heart, but may I say The River is Waiting might crown them all." —Elinor Lipman

 

The Devils by Joe Abercrombie $38
Europe stares into the abyss. Plague and famine stalk the land, monsters lurk in every shadow and greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions. Only one thing is certain: the elves will come again, and they will eat everyone. Sometimes, only the darkest paths lead towards the light. Paths on which the righteous will not dare to tread . . . And so, buried beneath the sacred splendour of the Celestial Palace, is the secret Chapel of the Holy Expediency. For its congregation of convicted monsters there are no sins that have not been committed, no lines that will not be crossed, and no mission that cannot be turned into a disastrous bloodbath. Now the hapless Brother Diaz must somehow bind the worst of the worst to a higher cause: to put a thief on the throne of Troy, and unite the sundered church against the coming apocalypse. When you're headed through hell, you need the devils on your side. [Paperback]
”The Devils is Joe Abercrombie at his best: exciting, witty, vicious. History buffs (like me!) will love the fantasy-historical setting overflowing with brilliant little details.” —Django Wexler"
”Joe Abercrombie is, to me, the undisputed master of creating deep, distinct characters that leap off the page, and never more so than in The Devils. This book is hilarious, profound, tragic, and so thrillingly paced one scarcely has time to breathe between one calamitous adventure and the next. I loved every page, and can't wait to see where the story goes from here. Straight to hell, I hopefully suspect!” —Nicholas Eames

 
VOLUME BooksNew releases
THE BOOK OF GUILT by Catherine Chidgey — Review by Stella

Catherine Chidgey has the ability to pull you into a wonderland before you even have a chance to blink. In The Book of Guilt you will be transported through the words and memories of Vincent to a place that feels familiar, but isn’t: to the story of three brothers who live in a grand old house with three mothers but have no sure footing at all as they travel down the staircase, touching the oak griffin on the newel post each morning for luck. But what are they wishing for? And what lucky event do they seek? It is Margate they dream of. Lawrence, William and Vincent are identical triplets. They live in a Sycamore Home. They are ‘Sycamore Boys’ — different from the children in the village. They must be protected from the illness which racks their bodies. In spite of the care of Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night, the boys are often unwell, and need to take medicine or have regular injections. When they are not forced to lie in their sickbeds they recite and learn from the encyclopaedic Book of Knowledge and debate philosophical conundrums in their Ethical Hour. Yet something is afoot at the home and beyond. As other boys leave for Margate, cured and well, the triplets’ frustrations grow and questions surface. When Vincent unwittingly hears he is a hero and pieces together the reasons why, the facade begins to peel away. As we venture forth through the clever three-part structure — ‘The Book of Dreams’, ‘The Book of Knowledge’, and ‘The Book of Guilt’ — we are confronted with questions about human value, authoritarian states, the willingness of a population to conform, the suspicion of the ‘other’, and the seething violence inherent in a repressed society. There are echoes of Mengele’s experiments and the science of eugenics in this alternative 1970s Britain. What seems innocent is yet another layer of wallpaper keeping the real world at bay. In this world there are other children who have questions, who are held in suspension — in a lie. Nancy, perfect in her frock and newly pierced ears, is the darling daughter of caring, over-protective parents. She’s also the girl who appears in the dreams of the triplets — to Lawrence in sweet innocence, to William as a nightmare, and to Vincent as a warning. (And Nancy has the best line — “Nothing would harm her. She was made from teeth, and she would devour the world.”) Something evil is coming. Vincent knows he must stop it, but can he? When everything you thought was true is a lie, and those you trusted are not what they seemed, you only have instinct — and that may not help at all. The Book of Guilt is captivating, full of intriguing ideas, and wonderful characters. It’s fine storytelling, and like Nancy’s teeth it will hold you even when you would rather look away. Another standout novel from Catherine Chidgey.

VOLUME BooksReview by Stella
AN ATTEMPT AT EXHAUSTING A PLACE IN PARIS by Georges Perec — reviewed by Thomas

You’re soaking in it, he thought, not for the first time. Could he quote David Hume, he wondered, and say, All there is is detail and anything else is conjecture, no, he could not quote Hume, at least not accurately, with that particular sequence of words, though of course he could not be certain that Hume did not say or think such a thing. The thought stands though, he thought, or the words that seemed at least to him to convey the thought, not that anyone reading the words would be in a position to judge the distance, if any distance is possible, between the thought and the words he wrote, but this is a whole other story and already he had come unfortunately quite far from that about which he purposed to write, he carefully wrote. All there is is detail, actually, he qualified deliberately, and we use these details to construct the sad narratives of our lives, or happy narratives, why not, though it would be more accurate to say that the narratives choose the details and not the other way round, neurology will back me up on this, he thought, no footnotes forthcoming, the narratives choose the details and not the other way round, he wrote, living and reading are not so different after all, the damage or whatever to the brain is the same whatever other harms may be avoided. Reality is produced by our failure to reach the actual, he wrote, but who he wondered could he pin this quote on. Anybody’s guess. A novel is more or less full of details, if there’s such a thing as more than full, in fact literature is all detail of one sort or another, supposedly all relevant and chosen by the authority, the reader has no business to think that there’s anything more, but also, he thought, no business to think that there isn’t anything more, in any case in the world of detail that we’re soaking in we assume there is more than those morsels of which we are aware, though in fact there may not be and no experiment can relieve us of this possibility, how claustrophobic, but let us assume for the sake of argument, if you want an argument, or for the sake of the opposite of claustrophobia, whatever that is, agoraphobia perhaps, the terrifying infinitude of possibility from which we protect ourselves with stories, to not be overwhelmed, that if we could let down our stories just for a moment we could expose ourselves to other details, unstoried or unstoried-as-yet, which could support quite other stories and all that attaches to those, or whatever. For three days in October in 1974 Georges Perec challenged himself to *merely observe* whatever passed before him in Saint-Sulpice, recording his observations as fast as he could write, except for when he was ordering coffee or Vichy water or Bourgueil. Observing without presupposing a story gives an equivalence to all details, the oridinary and what Perec calls the infraordinary are full participants in a thoroughly democratic ontology, every detail shines with significance even if it signifies nothing beyond its own existence. Almost it is as hard a discipline to stop a story suggesting itself as it is to suspend the stories we bring, although, I suppose, he thought, any story that suggests itself is in fact a story I have somehow brought with me even if I was unaware that I had it on board, which is interesting, he thought, in itself. No conjectures! Of course Perec cannot write fast enough, time, whatever that is, moves on or whatever it is that it does, the moment is torn away before he can catch much of it, the limits of his capacities affect his ability to observe, he is overwhelmed by his task but not destroyed so not in fact overwhelmed, so many details are suppressed by practicality, there must be some story taking place, the story of the observing I, of the capacities and the limitations that make up Georges Perec perhaps. Why these details and not other details given that we generally assume there to be a limitless amount of details *out there*, are we to conclude that every attempt at objectivity is autobiography, someone’s story, by necessity, at best. Subjectivity is a product of time, he thought, or produces time, whatever that is, the progression of our attention through a certain set of details, the constraining force that suppresses all but the supporting details, the readable details or at least the ones that we read, in either literature or life, the subjectivity that burdens us with personhood and other what we could call spectres of the temporal. He couldn’t get all the infraordinary down, he wrote, referring to Perec, Perec made an attempt at exhausting a place in Paris but his attempt was doomed to fail, just as it was revealing possibilities which made it a success it failed, due to time, due to the particular set of limitations that passes in this instance for Perec, he couldn’t get more of the infraordinary down without stopping time, without removing himself or at least seeming to, without taking a place, a small place, perhaps of necessity a fictional place but I’m not sure of this, without taking a place and truly exhausting it, stopping time, recording every infraordinary detail and watching them vibrate with the potential for unrealised story, without in other words sitting down and writing, soon after writing this book, his masterwork of detail, Life, A User’s Manual, he wrote.

VOLUME BooksReview by Thomas
WHISK! — Cookbooks at VOLUME — How to Heat your Kitchen

Feeling the chill? Stuck inside?
Get baking and warm your kitchen. A new baking cookbook can open doors to new flavours and expert techniques. Be inspired and keep your tins full with biscuits ready for a quiet cup of tea or aromatic coffee, cake to cheer up a dull day, a lush dessert to complement a winter meal, or a pastry to wow.
And there are bonuses! Endear yourself to your housemates, keep your kids occupied with a fun activity inside, learn a new technique, or add something new to your baking repertoire! Here are a few baking books from our shelves to warm your winter heart and home.

Brush up your technical skills with The Elements of Baking. Learn how to alter recipes for gluten-free, eggless, and dairy free options. And there are recipes too!
"The Elements of Baking practically and beautifully shares a wonderful message — baking is truly for everyone." — Erin Jeanne McDowell, author of The Book on Pie and host of Happy Baking

Love a biscuit any time of the day? Early morning or late-night snack, there’s something for everyone —you’ll never run out of choices with Crumbs. Here you will find recipes from all over the world, and variety galore.

Bring the sunshine in with Taboon. Celebrating the delights of the Lebanese bakery, Hisham Assaad shares authentic recipes, both savory and sweet, and the “oven as the beating heart of every community”.

With Paris on our minds in Volume Focus this week, how could we ignore the French pâtisserie. In Sweet France, Francois Blanc, journalist at Fou de Patisserie magazine, seeks out the one hundred best contemporary French sweets. The recipes are designed for the home baker. Expert advice along with detailed instructions will take your baking to the next level. So make yourself a pastry, settle down with a Parisian-focused book and your favourite sweet drink. Bon appétit!

 
VOLUME BooksWHISK
Book of the Week: THE SAFEKEEP by Yael van der Wouden

“This unsettling, tightly-plotted debut novel explores repressed desire and historical amnesia against the backdrop of the Netherlands post-WWII. The Safekeep is at once a highly-charged, claustrophobic drama played out between two deeply flawed characters, and a bold, insightful exploration of the emotional aftermath of trauma and complicity.” —Judges’ citation on awarding The Safekeep the 2025 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
”Set in the early 1960s in the Netherlands in an isolated house, The Safekeep draws us into a world as carefully calibrated as a Dutch still-life. Every piece of crockery or silverware is accounted for here. Isa is the protagonist – a withdrawn figure who is safeguarding this inheritance. When her brother brings his new girlfriend Eva into this household the energy field changes as we sense boundaries of possession being crossed, other histories coming into the light. We loved this debut novel for its remarkable inhabitation of obsession. It navigates an emotional landscape of loss and return in an unforgettable way.” —Booker judges’ citation on short-listing the book for the 2024 Booker Prize.

VOLUME BooksBook of the week
NEW RELEASES (12.6.25)

New books for a new season! Click through to secure your copies. We can have your books delivered by overnight courier or ready to collect from our door.

Terrier, Worrier: A poem in five parts by Anna Jackson $25
"If sometimes I think of thoughts as being behind the eyes, sometimes I think of them more as floating, in a kind of cloud around the outside of my head." Part autobiography of thought, part philosophical tract, part poetics, a book about chickens and family and seasons, Terrier, Worrier is a literary sequence to be relished as language and as thought. [Paperback with French flaps]
”Terrier, Worrier is a remarkable and playful book on language, anxiety, poetry and the strangeness of being a person. I loved its short length especially, as well as its fragmentary form falling somewhere between a diary and a collection of poetic essays. I wish more of my favourite poets wrote these kinds of books.” —Nina Mingya Powles
”Terrier, Worrier is extraordinary, in both concept and form. It joins the conversations of great writers and thinkers, past and present, who analyse how we function aesthetically in our little lives.” —Anne Kennedy

 

Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane $65
Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada — imperiled by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane's house, which flows through his own years and days. Powered by Macfarlane's dazzling prose and lit throughout by other voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers — and always has. [Hardback]
”Macfarlane is a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler." —Holly Morris, New York Times
”A rich and visionary work of immense beauty. Macfarlane is a memory keeper. What is broken in our societies, he mends with words. Rarely does a book hold such power, passion, and poetry in its exploration of nature. Read this to feel inspired, moved, and ultimately, alive.” —Elif Shafak
”This book is a beautiful, wild exploration of an ancient idea: that rivers are living participants in a living world. Robert Macfarlane's astonishing telling of the lives of three rivers reveals how these vital flow forms have the power not only to shape and reshape the planet, but also our thoughts, feelings, and worldviews. Is a River Alive? is a breathtaking work that speaks powerfully to this moment of crisis and transformation.” —Merlin Sheldrake
”This book is itself a river of poetic prose, an invitation to get onboard and float through the rapids of encounters with places and people, the eddies of ideas, to navigate the resurgence of Indigenous worldviews through three extraordinary journeys recounted with a vividness that lifts readers out of themselves and into these waterscapes. Read it for pleasure, read it for illumination, read it for confirmation that our world is changing in wonderful as well as terrible ways.” —Rebecca Solnit

 

Ripeness by Sarah Moss $38
It is the 60s and, just out of school, Edith finds herself travelling to rural Italy. She has been sent by her mother with strict instructions: to see her sister, ballet dancer Lydia, through the final weeks of her pregnancy, help at the birth, and then make a phone call which will seal this baby's fate, and his mother's. Decades later, happily divorced and newly energised, Edith is living a life of contentment and comfort in Ireland. When her best friend Maebh receives a call from an American man claiming to be her brother, Maebh must decide if she will meet him, and she asks Edith for help. Ripeness is a novel about familial love and the communities we create, about migration and new beginnings, and about what it is to have somewhere to belong. [Paperback]
”Sex and childbirth, emigrant and exile, the present and the past: Sarah Moss's ambidextrous talent is evident on every page of this elegant novel. It is intelligent, but never disembodied; evocative, but never sentimental; honest, but never cruel. Ripeness is a book of tart and lasting pleasures.” —Eleanor Catton
”This book felt to me like I was reading the achievement of a lifetime, written by one of the best writers alive. Moving, unexpected, masterful, it is a story of stories, of belonging, of exits and entrances, and everything in between. Moss's understanding of who her characters are is also her understanding of all of us. A beautiful, powerful read that echoed for me long after.” —Jessie Burton

 

Short | Poto: The big book of small stories | Iti te kupu, nui te kōrero edited by Michelle Elvey and Kiri Piahana-Wong $37
Short short stories, sometimes known as flash fiction or microfictions, are one of the trickiest forms to write. Create a resonant world in fewer than 300 words? Not so easy! In this collection of 100 stories, a range of New Zealand writers, both well known and emerging, deliver emotionally charged stories that punch well above their weight and length. And there's more! Each of the stories has either been translated into te reo Māori from English or translated into English from te reo Māori by some of this country's most experienced translators, making this book a valuable contributor to our literary landscape that rewards repeated readings. [Paperback]

 

1985: A novel by Dominic Hoey $38
It's 1985 and Obi is on the cusp of teenagehood, after a childhood marked by poverty, dysfunctional family dynamics, (dis)organised crime and street violence. His father is delusional, his mother is dying, the Rainbow Warrior is bombed, and it's time for Obi to grow up and get out of the arcade. When he and his best mate Al discover a map leading to unknown riches, Obi wonders if this windfall could be the thing that turns his family's fortunes around. Instead, he's thrown into a quest very different from the games he loves. A novel about life in a multi-cultural, counter-cultural part of Auckland pre-gentrification. 1985 is an adventure story with a local flavour, a coming-of-age story for the underdogs, the disenfranchised, and the dreamers. [Paperback]

 

A Different Kind of Power: A memoir by Jacinda Ardern $60
What if we could redefine leadership? What if kindness came first? Jacinda Ardern grew up the daughter of a police officer in small-town New Zealand, but as the 40th Prime Minister of her country, she commanded global respect for her empathetic leadership that put people first. This is the remarkable story of how a Mormon girl plagued by self-doubt made political history and changed our assumptions of what a global leader can be. When Jacinda Ardern became Prime Minister at age thirty-seven, the world took notice. But it was her compassionate yet powerful response to the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks, resulting in swift and sweeping gun control laws, that demonstrated her remarkable leadership. She guided her country through unprecedented challenges—a volcanic eruption, a major biosecurity incursion, and a global pandemic—while advancing visionary new polices to address climate change, reduce child poverty, and secure historic international trade deals. She did all this while juggling first-time motherhood in the public eye. Ardern exemplifies a new kind of leadership—proving that leaders can be caring, empathetic, and effective. She has become a global icon, and now she is ready to share her story, from the struggles to the surprises, including for the first time the full details of her decision to step down during her sixth year as Prime Minister. [Hardback]

 

Killing Time by Alan Bennett $25
”We have a choir and on special occasions a glass of dry sherry. It's less of a home and more of a club and very much a community.” Presided over by the lofty Mrs McBryde, Hill Topp House is a superior council home for the elderly. Among the unforgettable cast of staff and residents there's Mr Peckover the deluded archaeologist, Phyllis the knitter, Mr Cresswell the ex-cruise ship hairdresser, the enterprising Mrs Foss and Mr Jimson the chiropodist. Covid is the cause of fatalities and the source of darkly comic confusion, but it's also the key to liberation. As staff are hospitalised, protocol breaks down. Miss Rathbone reveals a lifelong secret, and the surviving residents seize their moment, arthritis allowing, to scamper freely in the warmth of the summer sun. “'Violet? She'll be having a little lie-down,' said Mrs McBryde. 'She likes to give her pacemaker a rest. I'll rout her out.'“ [Hardback]
”A mini-masterpiece.” —The Times
”Full of wit and style.” —Observer
”A geriatric Lord of the Flies.” —Spectator

 

How to Kill a Witch: A guide for the patriarchy (The witches of Scotland) by Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi $40
As a woman, if you lived in Scotland in the 1500s, there was a very good chance that you, or someone you knew, would be tried as a witch. Witch hunts ripped through the country for over 150 years, with at least 4,000 accused, and with many women's fates sealed by a grizzly execution of strangulation, followed by burning. Inspired to correct this historic injustice, campaigners and writers Claire Mitchell and Zoe Venditozzi, have delved deeply into just why the trials exploded in Scotland to such a degree. In order to understand why it happened, they have broken down the entire horrifying process, step-by-step, from identification of individuals, to their accusation, 'pricking', torture, confessions, execution and beyond. With characteristically sharp wit and a sense of outrage, they attempt to inhabit the minds of the persecutors, often men, revealing the inner workings of exactly why the Patriarchy went to such extraordinary lengths to silence women, and how this legally sanctioned victimisation proliferated in Scotland and around the world. With testimony from a small army of experts, pen portraits of the women accused, trial transcripts, witness accounts and the documents that set the legal grounds for the hunts, How to Kill A Witch builds to form a rich patchwork of tragic stories, helping us comprehend the underlying reasons for this terrible injustice, and raises the serious question — could it ever happen again? [Paperback]

 

Pathemata, Or, The story of my mouth by Maggie Nelson $35
As the narrator contends with chronic pain, and with a pandemic raging in the background, she sets out to examine the literal and symbolic role of the mouth in the life of a writer.  Merging dreams and dailies, Pathemata recounts the narrator's tragicomic search to alleviate her suffering, a search that eventually becomes a reckoning with various forms of loss — the loss of intimacy, the loss of her father and the loss of a pivotal friend and mentor. In exacting, distilled prose, her account blurs the lines between embodied, unconscious and everyday life.  With characteristic precision, humour and compassion, Nelson explores the limits of language to describe experience, while also offering a portrait of an unnerving time in our shared history. An experiment in interiority by the author of Bluets and The Argonauts, Pathemata is a personal and poetic reckoning with pain and loss, both physical and emotional, as well as a meditation on love, affliction and resilience. [Hardback]
”Among the sharpest and most supple thinkers of her generation” —Olivia Laing
”One of the most unique voices in non-fiction: enquiring, political, lyrically dazzling, empathetic.” —Sinead Gleeson
”Always brilliant.” —Geoff Dyer
”Her words come as though from a great distance and strike incredibly close.” —Anne Enright
”Maggie Nelson shows us what it means to be real, offering a way of thinking that is as challenging as it is liberating.” —Eula Biss

 

The Image of Her by Simone de Beauvoir (translated from French by Lauren Elkin) $38
Laurence lives what appears to be an ideal existence. Her life features all the trappings of 1960s Parisian bourgeoisie- money, a handsome husband, two daughters and a lover. She also has a successful career as an advertising copywriter, though her mind unbidden writes copy whilst she's at home, and dreams of domesticity in the office. But Laurence is a woman whose happiness was relegated long ago by the expectation of perfection. Relentlessly torn by the competing needs of her family, it is only when her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine, starts to vocalise her despair about the unfairness of the world that Laurence resists. [Hardback]

 

The Passengers on the Hankyu Line by Hiro Arikawa (translated from Japanese by Hiro Arikawa (translated from Japanese by Allison Markin Powell) $38
Famously scenic, the Hankyu commuter train trundles daily through changing landscape unaware of the heartaches of the passengers it carries. On the outward journey we are introduced to the emotional dilemmas of five characters as we puzzle out how they will unravel; on the return journey six months later, we watch them resolve: a man meets the woman who always happens to borrow a library book just before he can take it out himself — a woman in a white bridal dress boards looking inexplicably sad — a university student leaves his hometown for the first time — a girl prepares to leave her abusive boyfriend — a widow discusses adopting the Dachshund she has always wanted with her granddaughter. As the season and the landscapes change, passengers jostle and connect, holding and releasing their dreams and desires, as this famous little train carries them ever forward towards the person each intends to become. From the author of The Travelling Cat Chronicles. [Hardback]

 

Lawn (‘Object Lessons’ series) by Giovanni Aloi $23
A quintessential feature in Western gardens and landscaping, the lawn is now at the center of a climate change controversy. The large carbon footprint maintenance, its unquenchable thirst for fertilisers, weed-killers, and water, and the notorious unfriendliness towards all forms of wildlife have recently attracted criticism and even spurred an anti-lawn movement. Lawn untangles the colonial-capitalist threads that keep our passion for mown grass alive despite mounting evidence that we'd be better off without it. The lawn is aesthetically and ideologically versatile. From museums and hospitals to corporate headquarters and university campuses, it has become the verdant lingua franca of institutions of all kinds. Its formal homogeneity and neatness imply reliability, constancy, and solicit our trust. But beneath the lawn lies a stratification of intricate ideological and ecological issues that over time have come to define our conception of nature. [Paperback with French flaps]

 

Against the Odds: New Zealand’s first women doctors by Cynthia Farquhar and Michaela Selway $55
In 2025, the year in which the Otago medical school celebrates 150 years, 50% of graduates are women. Back in 1891 when Emily Seideberg, who would go on to become the school's first woman graduate, applied for entrance it was not at all clear that it would be granted. There was active hostility in many quarters to the very idea that women could be doctors. This book traces the paths of the women who, between the 1880s and 1967 (when the Auckland medical school opened), battled indifference and chauvinism and, later, many of the other challenges that faced women in the professions, to become New Zealand's first women doctors. Their stories are often remarkable and the contribution to research, medical breakthroughs and improved patient care is to be honoured. [Paperback]

 

Peter Cleverley: Between Transience and Eternity by Alistair Fox $60
This heavily illustrated book traces Peter Cleverley's formation and evolution as an artist, identifying the influences that aroused in him a sense of the transience of human life and the paradoxical complexity of the human condition. The portrait that results shows how Cleverley's sense of the human condition has driven him to convey it symbolically in a way that simultaneously captures not only the fragility of human life, but also its joys. His art communicates an appreciation of the beauty of this world and the gift of being alive, together with the value of art as a means of transcending mutability. [Hardback]

 

NHOJ: A memoir that started backwards by John Lazenby $50
With an eye for peculiar detail and meticulous research, John Lazenby takes us on an evocative visit to the Britain of the 1960s, when, aged nine, he saw the Beatles play live in London before he could even hope to read, or write down, the lyrics from their iconic songbook. Along the way, we meet the warm and eccentric family who never gave up on him — and the array of severe teachers and tutors who did. We are reminded that it takes only one person to change a life for the better and, having been sent away to boarding school at the age of seven, John's young life pivoted on the miracle discovery of that person, a teacher who finally understood the boy that no one else could teach. NHOJ: A Memoir That Started Backwards is the story of his progress from seven-year-old who could write only one word — his own name, spelt backwards — to journalist and author who built a career around the very words that had initially been so elusive. [Hardback]

 

The Three Robbers by Tomi Ungerer $35

An old favourite (first published in 1962), ready for a new generation. The book tells the story of three fierce black-clad robbers who terrorise the countryside, scaring everyone they meet. One robber stops carriage horses with his pepper spray, the second destroys the wheels of the carriage with his axe, and the third robs the passengers by holding them up with his blunderbuss. One day the robbers stop a carriage only to find a small orphan girl called Tiffany inside. On her way to live with a strange aunt, Tiffany is delighted to meet the robbers, who take her back to their cave instead of their usual haul of money, gold and jewels. The next day, Tiffany sees the treasures the robbers have amassed and asks what they plan to do with their riches.The men are baffled, as they had never thought about spending their money. So they decide to buy a castle and welcome all the lost, unhappy and abandoned children they can find. The robbers dress them in tall hats and long capes, just like the ones they wear themselves, only in red instead of black. Years later, when they are grown up, the children build a village near the castle, full of people wearing red hats and red capes. They also build three tall towers, in honour of the three robbers. [Hardback]

 

Mānawatia a Matariki $5
This beautifully designed booklet contains karakia for each of the nine stars of Matariki to celebrate and educate readers about the traditions and cultural importance of Matariki.

 
VOLUME BooksNew releases