While psychologists write bestsellers about humans’ smarter side—language, cognition, consciousness—and self-help gurus harangue us to be attentive and mindful, we all know that much of the time our minds are just goofing off. So what does the brain do when you’re not looking?
Rooted in neuroscience, psychology and evolutionary biology but written with Corballis’s signature wit and wisdom, The Wandering Mind takes us into the world of the ‘default-mode network’ to tackle the big questions. From the author of Pieces of Mind. >> Corballis speaks here.
We are pleased to announce that Corballis will be appearing at the Page & Blackmore Readers & Writers festival in October!
An account of four years spent in Paris in the 1970s, hoping and trying to be a 'writer'.
"Enrique Vila-Matas has pioneered one of contemporary literature’s most interesting responses to the great Modernist writers. Taking the Modernists as towering giants that will never be equalled, Vila-Matas works to inscribe himself—at times literally—in the margins of their works. His tools are irony, parody, paradox, and futility, and his goal is to mix fact, fiction, and autobiography in order to depict not reality but truth." - Paris Review
>> Interview here.
An early novel by the Nobel Prize-winner, lost for decades in the offices of his Lisbon publisher and only brought to light after his death. Skylight demonstrates Saramago's dual concerns for the differing experiences of ordinary people and for sentences that capture the texture of those experiences (actually these might be just one concern).
"Sad, lost men looking for maps in the starry Essex sky, small-town strippers, absent mothers, angry brothers, planets photographed on smart phones, cider and a lot of rare steak - Rourke is on his way to becoming the J. G. Ballard of Southend-on-Sea." - Deborah Levy
"As poignant and unsettling as a beam of light hitting the night sky from across the far-off wastes." - Eimear McBride
For some it was sharp clothes, music and dancing; for others it was pills, thrills and violence. The original Mod generation tell it exactly how it was, in their own words.
"This is the book you need to know about the real Mod scene - and the nearest you can get to a Mod Bible." - Steve Ellis (60s Mod)
At once present in the world and totally isolated from it, the life model's perspective is similar to the poet's.
"These poems have a lively assertiveness, a voice that is not afraid to declare itself and its feelings." -Dominion Post
"The poems are very assured and a joy to read." - James Brown
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman $38.00
Irrepressible curmudgeon Ove decides to end it all after the death of his wife, but his neighbours keep interrupting...
If you enjoyed The Lonely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window, this one's for you!
Irrepressible curmudgeon Ove decides to end it all after the death of his wife, but his neighbours keep interrupting...
If you enjoyed The Lonely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window, this one's for you!
An unsparingly funny novel set in the fast-paced and treacherous world of a restaurant kitchen.
"A brutally funny look at the world of professional cooking." - Gary Shteyngart
"Oven-fresh and inventive, peopled with technicolour characters, and savagely funny." - A.D. Miller
Middle Eastern food is made for sharing, and Cairo Kitchen is filled with standout recipes, perfect for any gathering.
A multi-stranded and well-illustrated survey, from the ancient world to the digital age.
"Seventies radicalism comes vividly to life in this compelling university novel. Straight-talking but far from straightforward in its observations, Upstairs at the Party’s portrait of an era is convincing, its subtle cynicism regarding the pitfalls of freedom something to mull over." - Telegraph
"My mother thought I was working for the Ministry of Ag. and Fish." So begins Noreen Riols' compelling memoir of her time as a member of Churchill's 'secret army', the Special Operations Executive.
Headwinds is the story of a man living 'on the lower cheek of the world where the tears fall and turn to ice' who is simultaneously muser and maverick.
Pope and other Nelson poets whose work appears in the new Essential New Zealand Poems will be reading in the Free House Yurt on 31 July, from 6pm. Click here for details
Morris Duckworth has a dark past. Having married and murdered his way into a wealthy Italian family he has long left aside the paperweight and the pillow to become a respected member of Veronese business life. But it's not enough. Never satisfied with being anything short of the best, he comes up with a plan to put on the most exciting art exhibition of the decade, based on a subject close to his heart: killing.
From the Italy-based author of Europa, Italian Ways, Destiny, Teach Us to Sit Still, &c.
A fascinating study, and a sort of prequel to the author's Abortion Then and Now and Alison McCullough's Fighting to Choose.
11-year-old Solomon loves to run. When his grandfather takes him to Addis Ababa, Solomon hopes to watch his athletic heroes, but his grandfather has other ideas. Solomon finds he has to put his running skills to a use he hadn't envisaged.
The career of John Davis was inextricably and paradoxically intertwined with that of Chin Peng, the leader of the Malayan Communist Party and the man who was to become Britain's chief enemy in the long Communist struggle for the soul of Malaya. When the Japanese invaded Malaya during World War Two, John Davis escaped to Ceylon, sailing 1,700 miles in a Malay fishing boat, before planning the infiltration of Chinese intelligence agents and British officers back into the Malayan peninsula. With the support of Chin Peng and the cooperation of the Malayan Peoples Anti-Japanese Army, Davis led SOE Force 136 into Japanese-occupied Malaya.
A USB stick activates a security leak that threatens to expose not just the Swedish government but a vast international web of covert operations.
"A brilliantly well-written political thriller in a perfectly depicted Foreign Office environment that keeps the reader on the rack from the first page." - Mats Staffansson, Swedish Ambassador
"Ghost Hawk is the work of a writer with great imaginative power and long-practised narrative skill. I was swept up in the story, shocked, moved, and enthralled - and completely convinced by the historical background. I haven't read anything better for a long time." - Philip Pullman
>> Trailer here
A though-provoking YA novel bout a boy raised in a dysfunctional family who begins to fear that the potential for abuse may be 'in his blood'.
"Reading Anne Fine's work is always a challenge as well as a delight. She's like a difficult relative who appears at family events and tells everyone a few home truths, yet gets away with it because she has such a wickedly witty turn of phrase." - Guardian
We are moving from the Holocene to the anthropocene ('the age of man'), where humans shape the planet's characteristics more than any natural force. How are we acting and reacting towards our habitat?Why are Peruvians painting their mountains white?
Miss Kirby is a problem teacher - she won't even let Bobby throw paper planes in class time! One day Bobby meets Miss Kirby out of school...
A collection of fantasy stories based in the collections of Te Papa.
