Tangata Whenua: An illustrated history by Atholl
Anderson, Judith Binney & Aroha Harris
$99.99
This
long-anticipated, much-needed and attractive book achieves the near impossible: a record of
the sweep and diversity of Maori history, from the first migrations, through
the classical and contact periods, to modern reassertion and transformation. 
The sumptuous production of this beautiful book matches Simon Wright’s constant search for perfection in his multi-award-winning NZ restaurant. Here is a selection of his finest and most inspiring recipes, epitomising his modern approach to classic French food.
Dirty, shocking, weird, sick, toxic, unbelievable, profound, stupid, harrowing, insane in the brain – the 2014 election campaign had it all. It got stranger with every day, and Steve Braunias made it his mission to record the entire black farce in a series of breathless and bizarre campaign diaries. He visited Kim Dotcom’s creepy mansion. He stole a dinghy to track down the lost tribe of the Act Party. He fell on hard times, and asked Whale Oil for a job. And he hung out with John Key on the back seat of the Prime Minister’s campaign bus.
“A modern classic of political satire…I laughed until
I passed out” – Jumbo Trudgeon, parliamentary press gallery
From the author of the equally perceptive and witty Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.
A remarkably vivid evocation of life in the gold fields in the words of West Coast pioneers. First published in 1914 and long unavailable, this new edition has been thoughtfully expanded and illustrated. Contains a hundred novels.
Gaiman is the perfect person to retell the Grimms' darkest and most enduring tale, and Mattotti's great black inky forest is perfect too.
Young’s song-writing is but one expression of his off-the-wall originality. Here he spreads the story of his long music career over the framework of the succession of all the cars he has owned, demonstrating how memories are attached to objects and making a stand for environmental politics.
>> Time (eventually) for a song!
For a century and a half, the country has been hung together on iron sinews, and rail transport has been vital to the economy. This is a lavish tribute to the engines that rode the rails, to feats of construction (e.g. the Rimutaka Incline) and to the people who plied the lines. .
'I don't want to know your reasons. I don't care. Think of me as a bullet. Just point.' Spademan used to be a garbage man. That was before the dirty bomb hit Times Square, before his wife was killed, before New York became a burnt-out shell. Now the wealthy spend their days tapped into virtual reality; the rest have to fend for themselves in the streets. Now there's nothing but garbage.
"As fierce and sharp as a paper cut." - Lauren Beukes
Illegitimate children, mental illness, adultery, adoption, homosexuality, institutionalisation. Pervasive elements of human existence have been regarded as shameful, and hidden from society and suppressed from family histories. This lucid, humane and well-written book delves beneath the surfaces of family life.
"Remarkable and touching." - Sunday Times
This book is as full of verve, colour and exciting flavours as Mexico itself. 9000 years of culinary history has been condensed into 700 recipes, all of which can be achieved at home. With guides to ingredients and techniques, and menus from leading chefs, this is the definitive book on a vital cuisine.
The 1897 Druce-Portland case was one of the strangest in legal history. Anna Maria Druce claimed her father-in-law was none other than the Duke of Portland and had faked his own death. Unbelievable!
A darkly reimagined fairy tale. On the eve of her wedding, a young queen sets out to rescue a princess from an enchantment. She casts aside her fine clothes, takes her chain mail and her sword and follows her brave dwarf retainers into the tunnels under the mountain, towards the sleeping kingdom…
Bilodo lives a solitary daily life, routinely completing his postal rounds every day and returning to his empty Montreal apartment. But he has found a way to break the cycle—Bilodo has taken to stealing people's mail, steaming open the envelopes, and reading the letters inside. And so it is he comes across Ségolène's letters. She is corresponding with Gaston, a master poet, and their letters are each composed of only three lines. They are writing each other haikus. The simplicity and elegance of their poems move Bilado and he begins to fall in love.
"There is a charming playfulness to Thériault's prose in this well-executed story of love found through letters and deception." - Guardian
"Nick Hornby’s funny, winningly perceptive novel about a Sixties sitcom is a pleasure to read." - The Telegraph
The heroic defeat of the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli marked a coming-of-age for the national sensibilities of New Zealand and Australia. Fitzsimons vibrantly recreates the disaster as experienced by its participants.
"Under his gaze, the land starts to fill with tribes and clans wandering this way and that, leaving traces that can still be seen today. Pryor feels the land rather than simply knowing it." - Guardian
"Pryor is that rare combination of a first-rate working archaeologist and a good writer, with the priceless ability of being able to explain complex ideas clearly. This is popular archaeology at its best." - The Times
The Queen, Her Lover and the Most Notorious Spy in History by Roland Perry $39.99
Just
what was the extent and nature of Princess (later Queen) Victoria’s
relationship with Lord Elphinstone? Why was Anthony Blunt detailed to retrieve
sensitive letters of hers from Germany in 1945? And how did copies end up in
Soviet hands? Gripping. 
| Ellah Wakatama Allfrey $37.00 Discover the best new writing from Africa, by 39 writers under 40 - with an introduction by Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka. |
This is the story of how paper, a simple Chinese invention, has wrapped itself around our world, with history's most momentous ideas etched upon its surface.
Paper created a world in which free thinking could flourish, and brought disciplines from science to music into a new age: the paper age. Paper still surrounds us in our everyday lives - on our desks, wrapping our food, in our wallets. It has become universal, and also supremely disposable. But is the age of paper coming to an end?
These homes have a look that's rough around the edges and sees the beauty in wear and imperfection but is at the same time creative, modern and brave. We think we'd feel very at home!
100 bleakly funny strips from the creator of the wonderful The Gigantic Beard that was Evil. Recommended.
Margot Asquith was perhaps the most daring and unconventional Prime Minister's wife in British history. Known for her wit, style and habit of speaking her mind, she transformed 10 Downing Street into a glittering social and intellectual salon. Yet her last five years at Number 10 were a period of intense emotional and political turmoil in her private and public life.
Another wonderfully readable history from the author of The Fishing Fleet.
Who first thought of atoms? How much can you learn about archaeology from an oil lamp? Who came up with the theory of the 'wandering womb'? What was a Roman dinner party like? Which tragedian was killed when a tortoise fell on his head?
Anecdotes, essays, profiles, boughs and twiglets concerning various types of trees, their biology, customary lore and capacity to induce wonder.
The author argues that as we rely more and more for machines to help us think, our thinking itself is becoming richer and more complex. We're able to learn more, retain it longer, to write in curious new forms, and even to think entirely new types of thoughts.
The third sinister story in the Grimm series delves even further into the dark heart of the fairy tales you thought you knew and loved. A brother and sister must venture through kingdoms and forests haunted by demons and ogres, all the while seeking their way home. And they must face the most frightening monster of all: death.
If you haven't come across this series, read A Tale Dark and Grimm, then In a Glass Grimmly, and then this. Lots of nasty fun!
"Gidwitz manages to balance the grisly violence of the original Grimms' fairy tales with a wonderful sense of humour and narrative voice. Check it out!" - Rick Riordan
Divergent meets Memoirs of a Geisha in this dark YA thriller set within the walls of a lawless slum city where Jin Ling searches for her lost sister and Dai struggles to complete an impossible mission.
Jim and Natty are shipwrecked on the coast of Texas, blown off course on their way home from Treasure Island. But they have stolen something they should have left well alone, something that will haunt them until what was taken has been returned. On their journey they encounter Native American tribes, a wandering group of European Circus performers, deracinated warriors, eccentric pioneers, landscapes of serenity and savagery, until, at last, they reach the Mississippi. The New World is an adventure story, a race across America, a Western, a travelogue, a love story and a lament for an indigenous culture in the years before its destruction.
The Most of Nora Ephron by Nora Ephron $39.99
Ephron at her funniest and most acute, writing on journalism, feminism, and being a woman; on the importance of food (with favourite recipes), and on the bittersweet reality of growing old.
The Mistress's Daughter: A memoir by A.M. Homes $29.99
On the day that Homes was born in 1961, she was given up for adoption. Her birth parents were a 22-year-old woman and an older married man with whom she was having an affair. Thirty years later, out of the blue, Homes was contacted by a lawyer on behalf of her birth mother, and they began to correspond; her biological father contacted her soon after. These two individuals and their effect on the adult Homes are strange and unexpected, and the story spirals into something raw and hilarious, heartbreaking and absurd.
"A compelling, devastating and furiously good book." - Zadie Smith
Set within a civilization that lives deep beneath the sea, twin sisters, Rio and Bay, are about to make the most important decision of their lives. Will they choose to stay Below, sacrificing their soul but living in happiness, or to go Above, keeping their soul but living in weakness and misery. No one could have predicted their choice.
Full of brain-storming ideas, story-writing know-how and tips on getting started, this is great for struggling young authors and for those who don't struggle, too.
A vivid portrait of the formative years Gandhi spent in England and South Africa, where he developed the techniques that would undermine and ultimately provide liberation from the British Empire.
A thoughtful poetry collection from this former Nelson resident.
"A sensitively connected sequence... held me from beginning to end with its tender, understated sophistication." - Selina Tusitala Marsh.
The fifth in the hugely enjoyable supernatural London detective series that started with Rivers of London. If you haven't read these yet, you will be pleased to being doing so in the coming months.
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