New books to hit the spot


TOUCHDOWN is a weekly selection of outstanding new titles: books either anticipated or surprising, just out of the carton! Follow the links for more information, to purchase these books or to have them put aside for you.

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8 August 2014


http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/801308-TheEmperorWaltz-9780007459575
The Emperor Waltz by Philip Hensher        $45.00
Hensher's most ambitious novel yet has just been longlisted for the Booker. Three narrative legs (a woman in a third-century desert settlement on the fringes of the Roman empire, an artist studying at the Bauhaus in the 1920s, and a young man attempting to establish a gay bookshop in 1970s London) move together as a compelling whole. 
"A performance of extraordinary flair and majesty from a writer who seems capable of anything." - Guardian
"Daring, funny, ingeniously observed and humming with revolutionary ideas." - Daily Mail 
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/822056-YoungSkins-9780224101677
Young Skins by Colin Barrett      $39.99
A stunning set of stories set in a small town in rural Ireland where the young live hard and wear the scars.
"Colin Barrett's sentences are lyrical and tough and smart, but there is something more here that makes him a really good writer. What seems to be about sorrow and foreboding turns into an adventure, instead, in the tender art of the unexpected." - Anne Enright
"Incredible. Human violence, beauty, brilliance of language - this book reminds you of the massive things you can do in short fiction." - Evie Wyld 

"Exciting and stylistically adventurous." -- Colm Toibin Irish Times
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/804154-TheIcebergAMemoir-9781782393504
The Iceberg: A memoir by Marion Coutts      $39.99
A profound and beautiful account of three lives operating in the shadow of catastrophe: the death following a brain tumour of Coutts' husband, the art critic Tom Lubbock.
 "Startlingly beautiful and inspiring. The Iceberg is a book about death, certainly, but it’s also about survival. The miracle here is not only in Coutts coming through such an ordeal, but in finding the wherewithal to observe it, unpick its complex psychology, and commit it to paper. This is human trauma, profoundly and beautifully told." - Independent
"Intimate and unflinching - this is a stunning record." - Guardian
>> Read an extract.
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/816769-TheUnknownUnknownBookshopsandtheDelightofNotGettingWhatYouWanted-9781848317840
The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the delight of not getting what you wanted by Mark Forsyth      $3.00
Or, rather, getting what you didn't know you wanted.
A delightful digressive essay written to celebrate the importance of independent bookshops. From the author of The Etymologicon and The Elements of Eloquence.
Pick one up from the counter when you next come in!
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/805332-AfterMeComestheFlood-9781846689451
 After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry      $35.00
"An atmospheric novel about a man given shelter by strangers. What makes this novel truly remarkable is its unique vision, its skilful and sophisticated characterisations, and the creation, without unseemly effects, of an atmosphere that will haunt readers long after the final page." - John Burnside, Guardian
"A marvellous novel in which Kafka meets Miss Marple." - Telegraph
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/811949-wahamouth-9780864739704
Waha / Mouth by Hinemoana Baker      $25.00
Her third collection of poems.
"I’d like to think that opening this book to read is like standing at the mouth of a cave, or a river, or a grave, with a candle in your hand." – Hinemoana Baker
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/805514-MeninThisTown-LondonTokyoSydneyMilanNewYork-9781742707815
 Men in this Town: London, Tokyo, Sydney, Milan, New York by
Giuseppe Santamaria      $39.99
A striking photographic collection showcasing the street styles of the modern man.
>> Blog here.
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/801077-MatthewsDream-9781783440566
Matthew's Dream by Leo Leonni       $19.99
Matthew the mouse lives in a dreary corner of a dusty attic. But a trip to the museum helps him to see his surroundings in a new light. With brush in paw, Matthew sets out to paint "the shapes and colours of joy". A delightful book by a master illustrator.  
>>Here's someone to read you the story.
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/799309-MyLifeasaForeignCountry-9780224097437
 My Life as a Foreign Country by Brian Turner      $45.00
A former army sergeant captures US conflict down the generations in a gripping memoir of hallucinatory intensity.
"Brilliant and beautiful. It surely ranks with the best war memoirs I've ever encountered - a human, heartbreaking and expertly crafted work of literature." - Tim O'Brien (author of The Things They Carried)



http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/812623-Chineasy100Postcards-9780500952030
Chineasy: 100 postcards by Shaolan Hsueh    $29.99
Shaolan's stunningly designed book Chineasy is a natty, fascinating guide to reading Chinese characters based on their basic components. Now there are postcards!
>> Have a look at the Chineasy website.
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/801049-BreakfastwiththeBorgias-9780099586234
Breakfast With the Borgias by D.B.C. Pierre     $29.99
An insidious web of secrets and lies is cast across the pages of this Hammer thriller from the author of Vernon God Little
"Hell is other people." - Jean-Paul Sartre
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/801352-PlanD-9780099578352
 Plan D by Simon Urban    $29.99
What if the Berlin Wall never fell? 
"A superb alt-timeline thriller that recalls Robert Harris's Fatherland." - Financial Times


http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/799628-AstonishedDiceCollectedShortStories-9780864739216
Astonished Dice: Collected Short Stories by Geoff Cochrane      $30.00
Cochrane has long been a dissenting and original voice in New Zealand poetry and fiction. This volume collects works originally published in very limited editions, his early novella 'Quest Clinic' and more recent stories. 
>>Here he is at home.
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/804406-GrantaAmericanWild128-9781905881819
 Granta 128: American Wild      $29.99
When every inch of land has been conquered, when every place has been mapped, what is left to explore? This issue of Granta goes into the American wild, metaphorical and real. Vital writing from Andrew Motion, Martin Amis, Thomas McGuane, Melinda Moustakis, Adam Nicolson, Mona Simpson, Claire Vaye Watkins, Callan Wink and others.
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/801063-TheGirlsfromCoronaDelMar-9780091954208
 The Girls from Corona Del Mar by Rufi Thorpe     $35.00
"A knockout of a debut novel. Thorpe's worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes ­every episode with smart, almost cosmic insights, tough talk, elegiac moments of love, dumb wonder, and, of course, further tragic events." - Elle
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/799455-AgentStormMyLifeInsideAl-Qaeda-9780241003787
Agent Storm: My life inside Al Qaeda by Morten Storm      $37.00
Unique insights from the Danish biker-turned-Islamist-militant-turned-spy.
>>Here's an interview.

a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes ­every episode with smart, almost cosmic insights, tough talk, elegiac moments of love, dumb wonder, and, of course, further tragic events - See more at: http://www.randomhouse.co.nz/books/rufi-thorpe/the-girls-from-corona-del-mar-9780091954208.aspx#sthash.PMlHLJmt.dpuf
a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes ­every episode with smart, almost cosmic insights, tough talk, elegiac moments of love, dumb wonder, and, of course, further tragic events." - Elle - See more at: http://www.randomhouse.co.nz/books/rufi-thorpe/the-girls-from-corona-del-mar-9780091954208.aspx#sthash.PMlHLJmt.dpuf
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/805431-UnspeakableThingsSexLiesandMutiny-9781408824740
 Unspeakable Things: Sex, lies and revolution by Laurie Penny     $37.00
"This is not a fairytale. This is a story about how sex and money and power police our dreams." This book is both a radical critique and a call to arms. 
"Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride. Laurie Penny's "dissection of modern feminism" is a rollercoaster of a book, taking in poverty and prejudice, rioting and mutiny, slut-shaming and cybersexism." - Guardian
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/781726-RobotUprisings-9781471134371
 Robot Uprisings edited by Daniel H. Wilson and John Joseph Adams     $26.00
What happens if (when?) our technology rises against us and threatens to usurp our dominance? Have we made our machines too like us?
These stories explore the worst possibilities.
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/763390-FallingUpwardsHowWeTooktotheAir-9780007476510
 Falling Upwards: How we took to the air by Richard Holmes    $29.99
"Nominally a history of the hot air balloon, Falling Upwards is really a history of hope and fantasy - and the quixotic characters who disobeyed that most fundamental laws of physics and gave humans flight." - New Republic
"A wonderful book, beautifully written." - Jan

Now in paperback!
9781877578847
 Maurice Gee, A Literary Companion, Volume 1: Fiction for young readers edited by Elizabeth Hale       $35.00
Exciting stories, serious issues, great writing!


If you haven't seen this see this now.


http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/806158-TheFirstRuleofSwimmingANovel-9780316217361
The First Rule of Swimming by Courtney Angela Brkic       $29.99
The violent history of postwar Croatia, from 1945 until the turn of the millennium, created three generations of dislocated people. 
This novel “examines lives bruised and twisted by history, like weather-beaten trees that nevertheless manage to produce the sweetest fruit." - New York Times
http://www.pageandblackmore.co.nz/products/802446-ClosedDoors-9780099559160
Closed Doors by Lisa O'Donnell       $27.00
The dissonance between what a child narrator knows and what adult readers can make out is fully exploited here to great effect, and is reminiscent of Emma Donoghue’s Room … [A] compulsive read, grounded in a realism which, depicted through a child’s eyes – with that hint of a child’s surreal perception – gathers together violence, humour and love in a most believable way." - Scotland on Sunday - See more at: http://www.randomhouse.co.nz/books/lisa-odonnell/closed-doors-9780099559160.aspx#sthash.78NWiZHR.dpuf
"The dissonance between what a child narrator knows and what adult readers can make out is fully exploited here to great effect, and is reminiscent of Emma Donoghue’s Room . A compulsive read, grounded in a realism which, depicted through a child’s eyes – with that hint of a child’s surreal perception – gathers together violence, humour and love in a most believable way." - Scotland on Sunday
The author won the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize for The Death of Bees.