Should you finish every book you start? How has your family influenced the way you read? What is literary style? How is the Nobel Prize like the World Cup? Why do you hate the book your friend likes? Is writing really just like any other job? What happens to your brain when you read a good book? What makes Tim Parks always thoughtful and a pleasure to read?
Rebecca Solnit's essay 'Men Explain Things to Me' has become a touchstone of the feminist movement, inspired the term 'mansplaining', and established Solnit as one of the leading feminist thinkers of our time - one who has inspired everyone from radical activists to Beyonce Knowles. Collected here in print for the first time is the 2008 essay itself, along with the best of Solnit's feminist writings.
After the earthquake of 22 February 2011, photographer David Cook returned to his former hometown and found the central city irreparably damaged. He was inspired to unearth his archive of 6000 photographs of the city he'd shot as a young man in his twenties, rebuilding through images the city as he remembered it.
"These are excellent. This is the Christchurch of the early 1980s as I remember it. I haven't found myself in the background of any of the photographs yet, though." - Thomas
A wide-ranging and enjoyable history of decapitation.
"Larson is a riveting storyteller, and tells a gripping, very human account of an inhumane act." - Guardian
A charming book of idiosyncratic paintings and descriptions of 50 owl species.
A collection of the wittiest, wisest, most bonkers of the Guardian readers' comments on every subject from food (mostly quinoa), ethics (mostly guilt), politics (mostly angry), travel (mostly skiing), sport (mostly banter), sex and drugs (mostly awkward), culture (mostly harmless) and blocked comments and abuse (mostly baffling).
A baby clown is separated from his family when he accidentally bounces off their circus train and lands in a lonely farmer's vast, empty field. The farmer reluctantly rescues the little clown, and over the course of one day together, the two of them make some surprising discoveries about themselves, and about life.
A 1957 classic with huge appeal, re-issued for discerning retro-knitters.
We have an idea of the texture of life in Paris or Rome, but what is the texture of life like in Tehran? How do you get a driving license? Or secure an account with a discreet and reputable liquor dealer? And how on earth do you explain to an official that your son was indeed born just a month after your marriage?
"Fascinating." - Independent
"A sympathetic and nuanced picture of a complex society too often misinterpreted by the outside world." - Telegraph
Dangerous. The book everyone in Silicon Valley is talking about, apparently.
"A complex and powerfully emotive collection that tackles psychological derangement with elegance and grace." - Guardian
"The most underrated quality in fiction nowadays is intelligence; the most overrated, imagination. Donald Antrim possesses both." - The New York Times
As people from poorer countries move to richer countries, what effects does this migration have on the social and economic texture of both?
"Exodus is an important book and one I have been waiting to read for many years. It is a work that is humane and hard-headed about one of the greatest issues of our times." - Sunday Times
Combining linguistics and cultural history, Gaston Dorren takes us on an intriguing tour of the continent, from Proto-Indo-European (the common ancestor of most European languages) to the rise and rise of English, via the complexities of Welsh plurals and Czech pronunciation. Along the way we learn why Esperanto will never catch on, how the language of William the Conqueror lives on in the Channel Islands and why Finnish is the easiest European language.
Just in this afternoon! The recording of a very memorable performance at Nelson's Free House Yurt. Palasti's mesmerising poems are perfectly complemented by two sensitive and accomplished musicians.
The story of a brother and a sister caught in the tide of the Cold War in East Berlin.
"Like an expert geologist, Franck is digging deep into her family's extraordinary history creating things of beauty from its dark recesses. Diamond-hard and full of glittering prose, Back to Back is a powerful and moving book." - Sunday Telegraph
Winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Award, 2014.
Biography of the woman who was the Queen of Fashion during the 1920s and 1930s.
Screenplay from the taut 1976 Emmy award-winning film, now available in printed form.
"A beautifully argued case for the unexpected pleasures of 'sitting still as a way of falling in love with the world and everything in it,' revealed through one man’s sincere record of learning to 'take care of his loved ones, do his job, and hold on to some direction in a madly accelerating world.'” - Brain Pickings
The year is 1896, and young Will is his father’s constant companion as the family struggles to make a living on a stubborn pioneer farm. Then fate strikes an unkind blow, and life changes in ways that the Tyrrell family could not have imagined.
Local author Suzanne Clark's novel draws on her family history.
A lullaby inspired by nature and the bond between parent and child.
>> Meet the paper cut artist.
Who's who, where's where and what's what in the arts in Nelson.
