What is the special power of books? How do the books we read make us who we are? The stories in Ali Smith’s new collection all concern books – how they travel with us, shock us, change us, challenge us, banish time while making us older, wiser and ageless all at once; how they remind us to pay attention to the world.
What if, in a parallel universe, you made a different choice of lover? What if you've spent your whole life with entirely the wrong idea about your own sister? What do you do if you're trapped in a phone box by a woman who might be a victim, but could have accomplices nearby? What if we're wrong that ghosts come from the past, they come from somewhere else? What if we're only dreaming the life we think we're living? And can your life be changed by a message written by starlings on the sky? Baines's stories whip the ground away from beneath your feet (I'm sure you like that sort of thing).
"Switching among styles with a dancing virtuosity, Stanisic knits a dozen characters into a multi-stranded tissue of gossip, myth and memory, layering tales from past and present into a late-summer night's dream. Stanisic makes a dream team with Anthea Bell, who translates with a pitch-perfect ear for every twist and frisk of his German. Although the novel's recursive, portmanteau form may lack urgency, its sheer versatility of voice and multiplicity of viewpoint mean that this vigil never drags. As an ensemble piece, with its true hero a place, Before the Feast may remind British readers of Graham Swift's Waterland or Adam Thorpe's Ulverton. Its sheer versatility of voice and multiplicity of viewpoint mean that this vigil never drags." - Boyd Tonkin, Independent
A man climbs into Ferdinand Sponer's cab, gives the name of a hotel, and before he reaches it has been murdered: shot through the throat. And though Sponer has so far committed no crime, he is drawn into the late Jack Mortimer's life, and might not be able to escape its tangles and intrigues before it is too late...
"The cast of this brilliant thriller are pure Raymond Chandler, but the Viennese setting gives it an extra, stylish twist. It's excellently written and fearsomely gripping." - The Times
The latest discoveries enable neurology to enter the preserves of psychology and philosophy. Eagleman’s descriptions of the behaviour of neurones tell us much about how we generate our idea of reality, our feelings and thoughts, our ideas about ourselves and our capacities. Accessible and profound.
"The crow crossed the sky, slow-beating her wings. Beat, beat, beat. It was night, not yet morning, and her feathers were so black that she coasted the air invisible above the city wall." Thus begins Ali Smith's masterful retelling of Sophocles' tragedy about a young Theban princess who decides to bury her dishonoured brother Polynices against King Creon's express orders - with heart-breaking consequences. Vividly told and illustrated, Smith's Antigone is the perfect introduction to the Greek tragedy for young (and not-so-young) readers.
"A stylish, imaginative reworking, beautifully illustrated." - Guardian
A strongly multicultural issue, reflecting the diversity and energy of contemporary New Zealand writing, with contributions by, among others, writers of Mexican, Samoan, Rotuman, Chinese, Irish and Indian backgrounds.
Housing affordability. Unhealthy homes. Wealth inequality. Environmental sustainability. Social mobility. The state of New Zealand housing is central to major issues confronting this country. Howden-Chapman reveals how New Zealand has lost its way on housing. Once a world leader in housing policy, we have neglected our heritage to the point that we are now faced with some of the worst housing in the developed world.
A fold-out graphic guide that provides a reference to evolution and life forms. The very attractive book starts with the first single-cell organisms and ends with modern life forms. A wonderful companion to Animalium (but also wonderful by itself!).
"Fascinating, intelligent and even-handed history of a century of the British in India through the eyes of one Scottish family, Mount's own." - Listener 'Top 100 Books'
“I always give less than what I have. That’s my style of loving: a bit reluctant, reserving my maximum effort for only the biggest occasions.” Forty-nine, with a kind face, no serious ailments (apart from varicose veins on his ankles), a good salary and three moody children, widowed accountant Martin Santome is about to retire. He assumes he'll take up gardening, or the guitar, or whatever retired people do. What he least expects is to fall passionately in love with his shy young employee Laura Avellaneda. As they embark upon an affair, happy and irresponsible, Martin begins to feel the weight of his quiet existence lift - until, out of nowhere, their joy is cut short.
In January 1928 Stalin, the ruler of the largest country in the world, boarded a train bound for Siberia where he would embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He was about to begin uprooting and collectivisation of agriculture and industry across the entire Soviet Union. Millions would die, and many more would suffer. Where did such power come from? The first of three volumes, the product of a decade of research, this landmark book offers the most convincing explanation yet of Stalin's power.
Joy Williams has been celebrated as a master of the short story for four decades, her renown passing as a given from one generation to the next even in the shifting landscape of contemporary writing. And at long last the scope of her achievement is put on display: thirty-three stories drawn from three much-lauded collections, and another thirteen appearing here for the first time in book form, showcasing her crisp, elegant prose, her dark wit, and her uncanny ability to illuminate our world through characters and situations that feel at once peculiar and foreign and disturbingly familiar.
Butch Cassidy and Sundance make way! Here come Buck Miller and Billy Joe Speed, the fastest men in the West - but not with their guns. With their coach and mentor, the Honorable Professor Moriarty, they con their way from Kansas City to Mexico in 1870s America. They don't play by the rules and sometimes only their vaunted speed gets them out of town ahead of the lynch mob.
March 2013. Two months before parliament is to vote on legalising gay marriage, a spate of vicious attacks on gay men erupts in Dunedin. Then a twister rips through, uncovering the body of schoolgirl, Tracey Wenlock. Former Londoner, Detective Senior Sergeant Leo Judd, is to lead the investigation, the first such enquiry since his own daughter, Beth, went missing nine years earlier. As Judd carefully uncovers the truth surrounding Tracey Wenlock's death, the trauma associated with his own daughter's disappearance resurfaces. Shortly afterwards, Judd's wife, Kate, confesses to him the truth about the day their daughter vanished, and Judd is finally able to confront the man responsible for their daughter's dissapearance.
From deciding which species should be restored, to sequencing their genomes, to anticipating how revived populations might be overseen in the wild, Shapiro vividly explores the cutting-edge science that is being used to resurrect the past.
Why is a young woman so unnerved by the presence of a visitors book in her boyfriend's inner-city home? And whose spidery handwriting is it that fills the pages? Who is the strangely courteous boy still lingering at a child's tenth birthday party when all the parents have gathered their children and left? And why does the presence of a perfectly ordinary woman in a post office queue leave another customer pallid and sweating with fear?
"Harman’s sane, unshowy retelling is exactly right for the bicentenary next April. It never insults the reader’s intelligence by pretending that it has new, startling truths to impart. Instead it gathers up the best of what has been written before and deals tactfully and decisively with the sillier aspects of Brontë mythology. The result is a classic biographical narrative, shipshape and serviceable for the next 200 years." - Guardian
Little is known about the French Tasmanian colony of la Ville de Baudin. Less still about its most mysterious colonist, Henri Maurice Claudet. This graphic novel sets this to rights.
The Nelson-owned motor vessel Puriri was the only ship destroyed in enemy action in New Zealand territorial waters during World War II.
"I paint for myself. That's the only way. For when you paint to please it's not the honest thing & inhibits the chances of discovery, because there's no point in writing or painting unless you make your own discoveries." Olivia Spencer Bower wrote those words near the end of an almost six-decade career. Outwardly sociable, hospitable and colourful, the friend of artists from Rita Angus to Colin McCahon, she remained a private, thoughtful person. Her conviction that artists should have the freedom and opportunity to make their own discoveries led to the establishment of her art award. Well illustrated.
In April 1925, Jean Lucey Pratt started a journal that she would keep for the rest of her life, producing over a million words in 45 exercise books. For sixty years, no one had an inkling of her diaries' existence, and they have remained unpublished until now. Jean wrote about anything that amused, inspired or troubled her, laying bare her life with aching honesty, infectious humour, indelicate gossip and heartrending hopefulness. She recorded her yearnings and disappointments in love. She documented the loss of a tennis match, her unpredictable driving, catty friends, devoted cats and difficult guests.
"Extraordinary. Timeless, funny and utterly absorbing." - Hilary Mantel
A small boy hiding in a cupboard witnesses something no child should ever see. He tries not to look but he still hears it. And when he comes out, there's no mistaking. His mum and dad have been killed. And though he's only small, he swears that he'll get revenge one day. Years later, Trey goes to a strange camp that is meant to save troubled teenagers. It's packed with crazies, god-botherers, devoted felons and broken kids. Trey's been in and out of trouble ever since the day the bad thing happened, but he's not here for saving: this is where he'll find the man who did it. Revenge and healing, salvation and hell are a boiling, dangerous mix, and Trey finds himself drawn to a girl, a dream and the offer of friendship in the dark ...
Palestine, 1920s. Working as an agent for one of the richest men in the world, Polish-Jewish immigrant Lev Sela finds himself swept into a relationship with Celia Kahn, a mesmerising Scottish pioneer, after stumbling upon a strategic area of land that doesn't exist on any map.
The final posthumous collection of essays from this outstanding thinker. Whether the subject is the scholarly poverty of the new social history, the willful blindness of French collective memory about what happened to the country's Jews during World War II, or the moral challenge to Israel of the so-called Palestinian problem, the majesty of Tony Judt's work lies in his combination of unsparing honesty, intellectual acuity, and ethical clarity.
Noam Chomsky exposes the real nature of state power, holding the arguments of empire up to critical examination and shattering the myths of those who protect the power and privilege of the few against the interests and needs to the many.
Cotton has created vast empires, powered the industrial revolution, generated huge wealth - and unimaginable suffering.
"A major work of scholarship that will not be soon surpassed as the definitive account of the product that was, as Beckert puts it, the Industrial Revolution's 'launching pad'. - The New York Times
Compelling or tiresome? Angelini's supposedly autobiographical stories of sex, drugs and general hedonism in post-industrial Detroit have been compared with Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson.
