Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett       $24.99
A woman ceases to attempt to make an impression on the world, withdraws to the western coast of Ireland and minutely observes the impressions the world makes upon her. Always hinting at experience just beyond the reach of language, Bennett's remarkable book reveals the latent awareness-sharpening capacities of fiction.
"These stories are intelligent and funny, innovative and provocative, and it’s impossible to read them without thinking that here is a writer who has only just begun to show what she can do." — Eimear McBride (author of A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing)
"Wielding a wry but implacable logic, Claire-Louse Bennett dives under the surface of “ordinary” experiences and things to reveal their supreme and giddy illogic. Like Gail Scott and Lydia Davis before her, she writes an impeccable affect-less prose that almost magically arrives at something extraordinary." — Chris Kraus (author of I Love Dick)
"As brilliant a debut and as distinct a voice as we’ve heard in years—this is a real writer with the real goods." — Kevin Barry (author of Beatlebone)
"A touch of William Gaddis. A touch of Lydia Davis. A touch of Samuel Beckett. A touch of Edna O’Brien. And yet Claire-Louise Bennett’s Pond feels entirely unique. Quiet and luxurious all at once, this will be one of the most sensational debuts of the year." — Colum McCann (author of Let the Great World Spin) 
"Straight on the top of my reading pile." - Thomas
>> Who will sit on the ottoman?

The Noise of Time by Julian Barnes        $35.00
In May 1937 a man in his early thirties waits by the lift of a Leningrad apartment block. He waits all through the night, expecting to be taken away to the Big House. Any celebrity he has known in the previous decade is no use to him now. And few who are taken to the Big House ever return. The incomparable Barnes's first novel since his Man Booker-winning The Sense of an Ending uses the figure of Dimitri Shostakovich in hugely sympathetic exploration of the withering effect of the clash between conscience and repression. 
"Barnes has given us a novel that is powerfully affecting, a condensed masterpiece that traces the lifelong battle of one man’s conscience, one man’s art, with the insupportable exigencies of totalitarianism." - Guardian

Human Acts by Han Kang         $33.00
Gwangju, South Korea, 1980. In the wake of a viciously suppressed student uprising, a boy searches for his friend's corpse, a consciousness searches for its abandoned body, and a brutalised country searches for a voice. In a sequence of interconnected chapters the victims and the bereaved encounter censorship, denial, forgiveness and the echoing agony of the original trauma.
"Human Acts is a stunning piece of work. The language is poetic, immediate, and brutal. Han Kang has again proved herself to be a deft artist of storytelling and imagery." - Jess Richards

Shylock is My Name by Howard Jacobson        $37.00
Who better than the razor-sharp satirist and chronicler of modern Jewish life to write this modern version of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice?
"Supremely stylish, probing and unsettling." - Independent

The Interpreter by Diego Marani        $37.00
Gunther Stauber, head of Translation and Interpreting at a major international organisation in Geneva, seems to be suffering from a mysterious illness when his translations become unintelligible and resemble no known language. He insists he is not ill and that he is on the verge of discovering the primordial language once spoken by all living creatures. His boss, the novel's narrator, Felix Bellamy, decides Gunther has to go. In turn, Felix starts speaking the same gibberish as the missing interpreter. And then his wife disappears, perhaps in search of Gunther. He seeks help in a sanatorium in Munich where he is prescribed an intensive course in Romanian and forbidden from speaking French. He realises that he must talk to his missing colleague to understand what has happened to him and to have any hope of a cure. As he undergoes profound changes - speaking the language of dolphins, of whistles and squeaks - he is forced to confront the deep mysteries of life.

The Lives of Coat Hangers by Sudesh Mishra         $25.00
Sudesh Mishra is a philosophical poet, one preoccupied not only with how meaning is made, but with how meaning is manifested in the modern world. His poetry is concerned with the truths revealed by humble, humdrum objects.

We Go to the Gallery by Miriam Elia       $29.99
You will want this. As much a super-sharp spoof on modern art as it is a spoof on the book in the Ladybird reading scheme, this book was legally suppressed by the Ladybird copyright holders (at least until they had their own set of Ladybird spoofs ready to release (>>read more about this here)).
>> Fight of the Ladybirds.

The Bedside Guardian, 2015 edited by Malik Meer        $39.99
It was the year of an unexpected general election result and a dramatic Labour leadership contest; 'Je suis Charlie' and #BlackLivesMatter; a year in which FIFA spectacularly imploded on the world stage and a transgender woman appeared on the front of Vanity Fair. It was a year of journeys: British schoolgirls running away to Syria and desperate refugees fleeing into Europe. It was a year when the Guardian worked to put the environment back at the top of the agenda, while the threat of Isis and the issues of mass migration continued to dominate the headlines.

Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit         $21.00
Krakow, 1939, is no place to grow up. There are a million marching soldiers and a thousand barking dogs. And Anna Lania is just seven years old when the Germans take her father and suddenly, she's alone. Then she meets the Swallow Man. He is a mystery, strange and tall. And like Anna's missing father, he has a gift for languages: Polish, Russian, German, Yiddish, even Bird. When he summons a bright, beautiful swallow down to his hand to stop her from crying, Anna is entranced. Over the course of their travels together, Anna and the Swallow Man will dodge bombs, tame soldiers, and even, despite their better judgement, make a friend. But in a world gone mad, everything can prove dangerous.

The Taste of Home: In search of the secrets of flavour by Diane Fresquez        $29.99
Do men and women experience taste and smell differently? What do apple trees have in common with humans? And what happens when you eat a meal completely in the dark? Moved by a death in the family to recreate the dishes her mother prepared in her childhood home, former Wall Street Journal reporter Diane Fresquez embarked on a year-long journey to investigate the links between taste, memory and the molecular building blocks of what we eat, seeking out scientists and entrepreneurs who are trying to reveal the secrets of flavour.

Cure: A journey into the science of mind over body by Jo Marchant         $39.99
A rigorous, sceptical, deeply reported look at the new science behind the mind's extraordinary ability to heal the body. Have you ever felt a surge of adrenaline after narrowly avoiding an accident? Salivated at the sight (or thought) of a sour lemon? If so, then you've experienced how dramatically the workings of your mind can affect your body. Yet while we accept that stress or anxiety can damage our health, the idea of 'healing thoughts' was long ago hijacked by New Age gurus and spiritual healers. Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease, even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers. Is the role of the mind in the body's illness or health an aid or an impediment to healing?
>>Interview here.

The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel        $37.00
The much-anticipated new novel from the author of Life of Pi. Tomás discovers an ancient journal and sets out from Lisbon in one of the very first motor cars in Portugal in search of the strange treasure the journal describes. Thirty-five years later, a pathologist devoted to the novels of Agatha Christie, whose wife has possibly been murdered, finds himself drawn into Tomás’s quest. Fifty years later, Senator Peter Tovy of Ottawa, grieving the death of his own beloved wife, rescues a chimpanzee from an Oklahoma research facility and takes it to live with him in his ancestral village in northern Portugal, where the strands of all three stories miraculously mesh together.

Running Girl by Simon Mason         $21.00
Meet Garvie Smith - charming, brilliant and completely bone idle. If anything can get his attention, it might just be a murder. What sort of girl was gorgeous Chloe Dow? Not the sort to disappear without a trace. What sort of policeman is workaholic Detective Inspector Raminder Singh? Not the sort to rush his first murder investigation. What sort of boy is Garvie Smith? Don't ask. At least, don't ask his mother. When Chloe's body is pulled from Pike Pond, the hunt is on for her killer and DI Singh has a chance to prove his worth. He doesn't need any 'assistance' from notorious slacker Garvie Smith, the boy with the highest IQ ever recorded at Marsh Academy, and the lowest ever grades. Or does he?
"There's never been a school-age sleuth quite like the excellent Garvie Smith." - Guardian

In a Land of Paper Gods by Rebecca Mackenzie        $37.99
Jiangxi Province, China, 1941. Atop the fabled mountain of Lushan, celebrated for its temples, capricious mists and plunging ravines, perches a boarding school for the children of British missionaries. As her parents pursue their calling to bring the gospel to China's most remote provinces, ten-year-old Henrietta S. Robertson discovers that she has been singled out for a divine calling of her own...

Te Matau a Maui: Fishhooks, fishing and fisheries in New Zealand by Chris Paulin        $49.99
 Discusses the form and function of the traditional Maori fishhook, customary fishing, and development of commercial fishing in New Zealand since European settlement (including the adoption of the rotating hook design as a re-discovery of the innovative and highly effective Maori hook design by present day commercial long-line fisheries), and changes in Maori lifestyle associated with the increasing availability of European agricultural cultivars and domestic animals in the nineteenth century, and urbanisation in the twentieth century that led to a decline in Maori fishing activity and the loss of indigenous knowledge.

R.I.P. by Nigel Williams           $24.99
Retired bank manager George Pearmain is, apparently, dead. According to the behaviour of everyone around him, it would seem that he is no more. Not only that, but his mother has also passed away too - and on the eve of her 99th year, poor dear. Not only that, it could be that they were both murdered. He feels fine otherwise. As George's family gather for the birthday-celebration-that-never-was, he hovers around the house, watching and listening, entirely unseen. As a result, he makes all sorts of discoveries about himself, his wife Esmeralda and his supposedly happy family.

The New Life by Orhan Pamuk          $24.99
"I read a book one day, and my whole life was changed." So begins  Pamuk's road novel (reissued at last!) about a young student who yearns for the life promised by a dangerously magical book. He falls in love, abandons his studies, turns his back on home and family, and embarks on restless bus trips through the provinces, in pursuit of an elusive vision. In coffee houses with black-and-white TV sets, on buses where passengers ride watching B-movies on flickering screens, in wrecks along the highway, in paranoid fictions with spies as punctual as watches, Pamuk's fiction comes alive.
"Like Borges crossed with The Usual Suspects. You could become obsessed with this book." - Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
>> "Pay attention to people's lives".

Scotland: A history from the earliest times by Alistair Moffat         $69.99
...And to the most recent times.
"The great thing about Moffat's account is that, for all its emphasis on uncertainty, it rattles along with complete narrative certainty, to the extent that great events consistently take even a historically literate reader unawares." - Scottish Review of Books

Planetes Omnibus, Volume 1 by Makoto Yukimura        $39.99
By the celebrated Japanese Manga artist. It's the 2070s, and mankind has conquered space, making interplanetary travel possible and igniting the imaginations of the world. It's also vastly increased the amount of dangerous space debris, and someone has to clean it up. Hachimaki, Yuri and Fee are a crew on that beat, each with their own goals, tendencies and personal problems. Just trying to do their jobs in an age of space-age environmental concerns and new vistas of exploration, the crew become unwitting heroes when the only place Fee can still smoke is threatened by terrorists.
>> Episode 1.

Jonathan Unleashed by Meg Rosoff          $32.99
Jonathan Trefoil's boss is unhinged, his relationship baffling and his apartment just the wrong side of legal. His girlfriend wants to marry someone just like him - only richer and more organised with a different sense of humour. On the plus side, his two flatmates are determined to fix his life - or possibly to destroy it altogether. It's difficult to be certain as they only speak dog. Poor Jonathan. He doesn't remember life being this confusing back in the good old days before everyone expected him to act like a person. But one thing he knows for sure: if he can make it in New York City, he can make it anywhere. Will he get out of advertising, meet the girl of his dreams and figure out the gender of his secret crush? Given how it's going so far, probably not. The first adult novel from the author of How I Live Now.

Paulina and Fran by Rachel B. Glaser       $33.00
Sharp-tongued, fearsome Paulina meets lovely, listless Fran one night at a house-party held near their privileged New England art school. Together they drift through their classes, critique their fellow students, lavish attention on their curls and nurture their shared dreams of genius. But when their burgeoning friendship tips from intensity into enmity our two heroines find themselves cast out from the halcyon days of art school, divided from one another and set adrift in the increasingly disappointing world of adulthood.
"Glaser’s incisiveness is best on the intense ridiculousness of being young: the obsession with working out who we are, protectiveness over the persona we’ve created, and jealousy towards anyone who seems to be trying within the same framework and doing it better." - Independent

The Art of Being Normal by Lisa Williamson      $18.00
David is funny and quirky and has always felt different from other people - but he also has a huge secret that only his two best friends know. Ever since he can remember, he has felt like a girl trapped in the body of a boy.
"A life-changing and life-saving book." - Philip Pullman

Bad News: Last journalists in a dictatorship by Anjan Sundaram       $33.00
The incredible story of the rise of dictatorship and the fall of open speech, as told by the last free journalists to remain in Rwanda.

100 Documents that Changed the World: From Magna Carta to WikiLeaks by Scott Christiansen       $39.99
Most momentous events have had an accompanying document. It must have been hard/easy to choose one hundred.

Stories Men Tell: New Zealand men talk about their lives edited by John Keir      $39.99
Extraordinary stories and ordinary stories. For 50 years the Atrium Club has operated as a gym for men only. But the Atrium is like no other gym. It's a club - unashamedly a safe haven for an unlikely mix of gentlemen; a place for mind and body where the relationships and the camaraderie are as important as the exercise. The members include rich-listers as well as those down on their luck; knights of the realm; sports stars; leaders in the fields of business, industry, medicine, law, academia, military and the media.

Fever at Dawn by Peter Gardos        $37.00
In July 1945, Miklós, a Hungarian survivor of Belsen, arrives in a refugee camp in Sweden. He is skin and bone, and has no teeth. The doctor says he has only months to live. But Miklós has other plans. He acquires a list of 117 young Hungarian women who are also in refugee camps in Sweden, and he writes a letter to each of them—obsessively, in his beautiful hand, sitting in the shade of a tree in the hospital garden. One of those young women, he is sure, will become his wife. In a camp hundreds of kilometres away, Lili reads his letter. Idly, she decides to write back. Letter by letter, the pair fall in love. In December 1945 they find a way to meet. Based on a true story, luckily.

The Green Bicycle by Haifaa al Mansour          $19.99
Dreamer. Rebel. Hero. Wadjda has one simple wish - to race her friend Abdullah on her very own bicycle. But in Saudi Arabia, it is considered improper for girls to ride bikes and her parents forbid her from having one. Sick of playing by the rules, Wadjda schemes different ways to make money and buy the bike herself.

Lenny & Lucy by Philip C. Stead and Erin E. Stead       $27.99
'This house is not as good as our old house,' said Peter. 'I want to go back.' But no one heard except for Harold, the dog. Neither of them slept that night, in their room overlooking the unfamiliar woods...
>> Lenny will guard the bridge.

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken          $24.99
Etta Spencer is a violin prodigy. When tragedy strikes and a mysterious power tied closely to her musical abilities manifests, Etta is pulled back through time to 1776 in the midst of a fierce sea battle. Her capture was orchestrated by the Ironwoods, the most powerful family in the Colonies. Nicholas Carter, handsome, young, prize master of a privateering ship, has been charged with retrieving and delivering her to the family - unharmed. Etta learns her fate is entwined with an object of untold value from her past. Ironwood is desperate to secure his future, but Etta must find it first in order to return home. Embarking on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind from a mysterious traveller, the true nature of the object and Ironwood's dangerous game, could mean the end for Nicholas and Etta.

Fly Away Home by Marina Warner      $21.99
A new collection of Marina Warner’s short stories. Like her novels, Marina Warner's stories conjure up mysteries and wonders in a physical world, treading a delicate, magical line between the natural and the supernatural, between openness and fear.

My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier          $22.99
Che Taylor has four items on his list: 1. He wants to spar, not just train in the boxing gym. 2. He wants a girlfriend. 3. He wants to go home. 4. He wants to keep Rosa under control. Che's little sister Rosa is smart, talented, pretty, and so good at deception that Che's convinced she must be a psychopath. She hasn't hurt anyone yet, but he's certain it's just a matter of time.

Landskipping: Painters, ploughmen and places by Anna Pavord         $45.00
 In the eighteenth century, artists first started to paint English scenery, and the Lakes, as well as Snowdon, began to attract a new kind of visitor, the landscape tourist. Early travel guides sought to capture the beauty and inspiration of waterfall, lake and fell. Sublime! Picturesque! they said, as they laid down rules for correctly appreciating a view. While painters painted and writers wrote, an entirely different band of men, the agricultural improvers, also travelled the land, and published a series of remarkable commentaries on the state of agricultural England. They looked at the land in terms of its usefulness as well as its beauty, and, using their reports, Anna Pavord explores the many different ways that land was managed and farmed, showing that what is universal is a place's capacity to frame and define our experience.

Quicksand: What it means to be a human being by Henning Mankell      $38.00
Mankell's books are underpinned by his strong ethical passion for justice and his sympathy for those in whom social ills make themselves known.
>> Is the no hope?

Cook. Nourish. Glow. by Amelia Freer      $48.00
 100 delicious and easy-to-prepare recipes, Amelia equips you with the skills and knowledge to improve your health while empowering you to cook with confidence. A nutritional therapist, she promotes a gluten-, refined sugar- and dairy-free lifestyle in favour of endless fad diets. Chapters feature step-by-step visuals designed for the novice chef; how to use and prepare staple pantry ingredients; eating clean on the go; a 'naughty' chapter - because living healthily is about consistency, not perfection - and a chapter full of dishes designed to combat gut-related issues. Recipes include: Fine Omelette Layered with Tomato and Saffron, Tapenade and Mixed Herbs, Sweet Potato Cakes with Grilled Tiger Prawns and Saffron Sauce, Fig and Raspberry Panna Cotta, Eggs and Leeks with Tabasco and Tarragon Dressing. That will make you luminescent.

One Breath: Death, freediving, and the quest to shatter human limits by Adam Skolnick         $37.00
Is freediving a sport or an existential rebellion?
>> Skolnick uses the achievements and death of Nicholas Mevoli as a window into this exploration of human limits.

River of Ink by Paul M.M. Cooper        $32.99
A poet is used by a tyrant to pacify the people of the ancient Kingdom of Lanka and comes to question how his conscience and his art could best be used.
 "It isn't easy to write about the past with both a hesitant watchfulness and a calm assurance, to make it vivid and strange and yet also, in a fundamental way, ours, but that's exactly what Paul Cooper has achieved - with considerable aplomb - in River of Ink." - Amit Chaudhuri

No Place Like Home by Ronojoy Ghosh         $29.99
The city is no place for a polar bear like George. Being homesick is making George a terrible grump. Not knowing where home is makes it even worse. So George sets off on a search. He isn't sure what home looks like, but he'll know it when he finds it.
>> Some pictures here.

The Naked Shore of the North Sea by Tom Blass       $45.00
The North Sea has battered and bewildered, produced and provided, damaged and destroyed in equal measure. Its inclement weather and perilous tides have made it a playground and a proving ground, a nursery and a grave, an object of veneration and a mighty adversary. A sea like no other, it has shaped our modern world and yet remained the same ancient beast known to the earliest inhabitants of its shores.
"Tom Blass's The Naked Shore is a wonderfully bracing journey around the North Sea. His gaze misses nothing, and his robust prose glitters with story and lore and surprise." - Philip Marsden, author of Rising Ground

The Conversation: A revolutionary plan for end-of-life care by Angelo Volandes        $29.99
"A well-lived life deserves a good ending." This book sets encourages us to have the conversation that avoids having our lives extended beyond our wishes and at any cost.

Yellow by Megan Jenkinson       $24.00
If fourteen-year-old Kirra is having a mid-life crisis now, then it doesn't bode well for her life expectancy. Her so-called friends bully her, whatever semblance of a mother she had has been drowned at the bottom of a gin bottle ever since her dad left them for another woman, and a teenage ghost is speaking to her through a broken phone booth. Kirra and the ghost make a pact. She'll prove who murdered him almost twenty years ago if he makes her popular, gets her parents back together, and promises not to haunt her.

The Long Room by Francesca Kay      $32.99
What happens to a man who has his ear pressed to the lives of others but not much life of his own? When Stephen Donaldson joins the Institute, he anticipates excitement, romance and new status. Instead he gets the tape-recorded conversations of ancient communists and ineffectual revolutionaries, until the day he is assigned a new case: the ultra-secret Phoenix. Is Phoenix really working for a foreign power? Stephen hardly cares; it is the voice of the target's wife that mesmerises him.

The Prophets of the Eternal Fjord by Kim Leine     $32.99
Morten Falck is a newly ordained priest sailing to Greenland in 1787 to convert the Inuit to the Danish church. A rugged outpost battered by harsh winters, Sukkertoppen is overshadowed by the threat of dissent; natives from neighboring villages have united to reject Danish rule and establish their own settlement atop Eternal Fjord. As Falck becomes involved with those in his care-his ambitious catechist, a lonely trader's wife, and a fatalistic widow he comes to love-his faith and reputation are dangerously called into question.

Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs: The astounding interconnectedness of the universe by Lisa Randall          $39.99
 "A bold intellectual synthesis from one of the world's leading theoretical physicists, blending cosmology, astronomy, particle physics and the history of life on Earth to suggest the existence of an entirely new force of nature. This book certainly ventures into the unknown, but that's where great physicists like to be." - Professor Brian Cox
"Only Lisa Randall can take us on such a thrilling scientific journey-from dinosaurs to DNA to comets to dark matter and to the past and future of our species. Randall's research is so thorough, the story so powerful, and her storytelling so compelling that I could not put this book down." - Siddhartha Mukherjee, author of The Emperor of All Maladies
>> Excellent rare live performance by Dark Matter here. (Not so sure about the dinosaurs, though.)

Politics and the Media edited by Geoff Kemp et al         $49.99
It often seems that politics is increasingly powered by spin and decreasingly by substance. Does our government reflect or manipulate public opinion? This new edition includes extensive consideration of the 'Dirty Politics' revelations and responses.

Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz          $37.00
"Orphan X is the most exciting new series character since Jack Reacher. A page-turning masterpiece of suspense." - Jonathan Kellerman
"Outstanding in every way." - Lee Child

Beekle, The unimaginary friend by Dan Santat          $19.99
An imaginary friend waits his turn to be chosen by a real child, but when he is overlooked time and again, he sets off on an incredible journey to the bustling city, where he finally meets his perfect match and - at long last - is given his special name.
>> You could watch this trailer.

Hello Ruby: Adventures in coding by Linda Liukas          $22.00
"Code is the twenty-first century literacy, and the need for people to speak the ABCs of programming is imminent. Our world is increasingly run by software, and we need more diversity in the people who are building it." - Linda Liukas

Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the seductive lure of human rubble by Marilyn Johnson           $33.00
"As she did in her previous books about librarians and obituary writers, Johnson finds that the line between inspirationally nutty and actually crazy is measured in the joy of the work." - Entertainment Weekly
 "An engrossing examination of how archaeologists re-create much of human history, piece by painstaking piece." - Kirkus Reviews
>> Is there such a thing as an non-seductive lure?

The Big Fish by Pamela Allen        $29.99
Once upon a time
a little old man, a little old woman,
a small boy and a small girl
went to spend the day by the river.
The little old man wanted to catch a big fish
and soon there was a tug-tug-tug on his line . . .

A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin         $45.00
Berlin's stories have a wide emotional range, matching a depth of perception with a lightness of touch that enables her to convey difficult lives in a way that is a pleasure to read.
"There’s a radical kind of transparency to careworn, haunted, messily alluring and yet casually droll stories. Her sentences, when she wants them to be, are toast instead of mere warm bread. In A Manual for Cleaning Women we witness the emergence of an important American writer, one who was mostly overlooked in her time. Ms. Berlin’s stories make you marvel at the contingencies of our existence. She is the real deal." - The New York Times

The Pencil by Paula Bossio       $12.99
A little girl finds the end of a line and her adventure begins. She follows it through the pages as it becomes a slide, a hoop, a bubble, and then something that threatens to spoil the fun...

Unforbidden Pleasures by Adam Phillips       $39.99
Unforbidden pleasures, Phillips argues, are always the ones we tend not to think about, yet when you look into it, it is probable that we get as much pleasure, if not more, from them. And we may have underestimated just how restricted our restrictiveness, in thrall to the forbidden and its rules, may make us.
"Phillips is one of the finest prose stylists in the language, an Emerson for our time." - John Banville
"Every mind-blowing book from Adam Phillips suspends all the certainties we are most attached to and somehow makes this feel exhilarating." - Deborah Levy
"Brilliantly amusing and often profoundly unsettling. Phillips is the Martin Amis of British psychoanalysis." - The Times

Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa        $37.99
1999. Victor, homeless after a family tragedy, finds himself pounding the streets of Seattle with little meaning or purpose. He is the estranged son of the police chief of the city, and today his father is in charge of one of the largest protests in the history of Western democracy. But in a matter of hours reality will become a nightmare.
"In the contemporary tradition of Aleksandar Hemon and Philipp Meyer, with echoes of Michael Ondaatje and Arundhati Roy, Yapa strides forward with a literary molotov cocktail to light up the dark." - Colum McCann
>> How to live cheaply and finish your novel.
>> On losing the first draft of his novel.

Life from Elsewhere: Journeys through world literature with an introduction by Amit Chaudhuri    $19.99
Ten writers from around the world explore the themes of movement, freedom and narrative.

Mr Splitfoot by Samantha Hunt       $34.99
Nat and Ruth are young orphans, living in a crowded foster home run by an eccentric religious fanatic. When a traveling con-man comes knocking, they see their chance to escape and join him on the road, proclaiming they can channel the dead - for a price, of course.  Decades later, in a different time and place, Cora is too clever for her office job, too scared of her lover to cope with her unplanned pregnancy, and she too is looking for a way out. So when her mute Aunt Ruth pays her an unexpected visit, apparently on a mysterious mission, she decides to join her. Together the two women set out on foot, on a strange and unforgettable odyssey across the state of New York.

In Search of the Perfect Loaf: A home baker's odyssey by Samuel Fromartz         $37.00
"Terrific. Fromartz is much more than an obsessive cook. He s also a fine reporter and writer. And Perfect Loaf is much more than a book about baking bread .What Fromartz is really writing about is how a deeper understanding of something leads to a deeper appreciation of it. He is showing us the world through a slice of bread."  - Los Angeles Times

A Wild Swan, And other tales by Michael Cunningham, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu        $29.99
"Cunnigham questions the traditional happy endings of fairy tales, and there are no grand conclusions or magical cure-alls to be seen in his new collection of stories. His interpretations of the much-loved stories vary from prequels and sequels to mere retellings, and his versions are subtle and satisfying, the tone understated and sharp. The complex relationships between husbands and wives, mothers and sons, brothers and sisters are explored rigorously. There are also smart twists in the tales, clever diversions which provide new talking-points in the ancient conversations, but they seem completely natural. Somehow, his new features feel as if they have always belonged, to the extent that, on reflection, it is difficult to remember where the old ends and the new begins." - Independent  

Dr Mutter's Marvels: A true tale of intrigue and innovation at the dawn of modern medicine by Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz      $37.00
Imagine undergoing an operation without anesthesia, performed by a surgeon who refuses to sterilize his tools or even wash his hands. This was the world of medicine when Thomas Dent Mütter began his trailblazing career as a plastic surgeon in Philadelphia during the mid-nineteenth century. Mütter was a medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anaesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time. He wore pink silk suits to perform surgery, added an umlaut to his last name just because he could, and amassed an immense collection of medical oddities that would later form the basis of Philadelphia's renowned Mütter Museum.

Alive, Alive Oh! And other things that matter by Diana Athill        $33.00
One of publishing's most distinguished editors looks back over her life and tells us how becoming old (she is approaching 100) has resolved her perspective.

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black             $19.99
Near the little town of Fairfold, in the darkest part of the forest, lies a glass casket. Inside the casket lies a sleeping faerie prince that none can rouse. He's the most fascinating thing Hazel and her brother Ben have ever seen. They dream of waking him - but what happens when dreams come true? In the darkest part of the forest, you must be careful what you wish for.

No Mortal Thing by Gerald Seymour       $34.99
Jago is a kid from a rough part of London who has worked hard to get a job in a bank and is now on a fast-track secondment to the Berlin office. Marcantonio is one of the new generation in the 'Ndrangheta crime families from Calabria, Southern Italy. He is in Germany to learn how to channel their illicit millions towards legitimate businesses all over Europe. When Jago witnesses Marcantonio commit a vicious assault and the police seem uninterested, the Englisman refuses to let the matter drop.
"The best thriller writer in the world." - Sunday Telegraph.

The Hunt for Vulcan: How Albert Einstein destroyed a planet and deciphered the universe by Thomas Levenson        $34.99
In 1859, the brilliant scientist Urbain LeVerrier discovered that the planet Mercury has a wobble, that its orbit shifts over time. His explanation was that there had to be an unseen planet circling even closer to the sun. He called the planet Vulcan. Supported by the theories of Sir Isaac Newton, the finest astronomers of their generation began to seek out Vulcan and at least a dozen reports of discovery were filed. There was only one problem. Vulcan does not exist - and was never there. The real explanation was only revealed when a young Albert Einstein came up with a theory of gravity that also happened to prove that Mercury's orbit could indeed be explained - not by Newton's theories but by Einstein's own theory of general relativity.

The Astonishing Return of Norah Wells by Virginia Macgregor        $34.99
One ordinary morning, Norah walked out of her house on Willoughby Street and never looked back. Six years later, she returns to the home she walked away from only to find another woman in her place. Fay held Norah's family together after she disappeared, she shares a bed with Norah's husband and Norah's youngest daughter calls Fay 'Mummy'. Now that Norah has returned, everyone has questions

The Great Wall in 50 Objects by William Lindesay       $39.99
 Abraham Ortelius' pioneering world atlas, the unexpected origins of 'wolf smoke', the proliferation of the blunderbuss in the fifteenth century Great Wall theatre of war, even Kafka's experimental short story 'The Great Wall of China' are some of the unique objects that were shaped by China's most famous national landmark. Lindesay presents objects from all over the world, and from the second century BCE to the late twentieth century to tell the story of a human construction that can be seen from the moon.

Realm Divided: A year in the life of Plantagenet England by Dan Jones      $49.99
England in 1215. This was not just the year of Magna Carta and King John's war with his barons, but a year of crusading and church reform, of foreign wars and dramatic sieges, of trade and treachery; a year in which London would be stormed by angry barons; England would be invaded by a French army; and a supposedly impregnable castle would be brought down with burning pig fat.

Coffin Road by Peter May     $34.99
A man is washed up on a deserted beach on the Hebridean Isle of Harris, barely alive and borderline hypothermic. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. The only clue to his identity is a map tracing a track called the Coffin Road. He does not know where it will lead him, but filled with dread, fear and uncertainty he knows he must follow it.

The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck: How to stop spending time you don't have doing things you don't want to do with people you don't like by Sarah Knight      $34.99
Who is going to fail the 'gives joy' test next?

 

This is the 100th issue of Touchdown. I have enjoyed letting you know about the interesting new books that keep arriving at Page & Blackmore. Many thanks for your support and kind comments. Best wishes for 2016. {Thomas}

I Love Dick by Chris Kraus         $32.99
"First published in 1997, long before Knausgaard and Heti, this novel was a well-placed detonation beneath the wall dividing memoir and fiction. Ostensibly an account of Kraus’s all-consuming middle-aged crush on a man she has met only briefly and who has seemingly done nothing to encourage her obsession, the first half of the book consists of a hilarious compilation of letters addressed to ‘Dick’ by Kraus and her husband, with whom she plays a hugely ironic game of cultural and psycho-social toe-to-toe positioning. Kraus pursues her ‘crush’ through a maze of received social constructs and gender-role expectations with a snide irony that both deepens and ridicules the pathos of her rather abject attempts to ‘possess’ ‘Dick’. In any quest for authenticity, each manifestation of the personal is a struggle with the demands of form." - Thomas (read my full review here)
"This is the most important book written about men and women written in the last century. This book will only become more relevant." - Guardian

Girl Waits With Gun by Amy Stewart       $37.00
Constance Kopp doesn't quite fit the mold. She towers over most men, has no interest in marriage or domestic affairs, and has been isolated from the world since a family secret sent her and her sisters into hiding fifteen years ago. One day a belligerent and powerful silk factory owner runs down their buggy, and a dispute over damages turns into a war of bricks, bullets, and threats as he unleashes his gang on their family farm. When the sheriff enlists her help in convicting the men, Constance is forced to confront her past and defend her family - and she does it in a way that few women of 1914 would have dared.

The Art of the Publisher by Roberto Calasso     $15.99
"All the books published by a certain publisher could be seen as links in a single chain." As well as writing some rather interesting and unusual books, Roberto Calasso has been the publisher at Italy's Adelphi Edizoni for several decades. This book is a very thoughtful consideration of the role and possibilities of publishing in the formation and culture and society.
>> 'The Art of Publishing in the Age of Immediacy'.

The Whale by Etha &Vita Murrow       $32.99
There is a legend that a Great Spotted Whale lives in the ocean; local fisherman still talk of it, although the first sighting 50 years ago was never corroborated. Now, two young whale watchers each set out to find the whale, one armed with sound recording equipment, the other a camera. Mid-ocean their boats collide, so they pool their resources and set off together to capture incontrovertible proof that the mythical Great Spotted Whale exists.

No Baggage: A tale of love and wandering by Clara Bensen         $34.99
When Clara Bensen arranged to meet Jeff Wilson on the steps of the Texas State Capitol, after just a few e-mail exchanges on OK Cupid, it felt like something big was going to happen. Jeff is a wildly energetic university professor with a freewheeling spirit. Clara is a sensitive, reclusive writer recovering from a quarter-life existential breakdown. Within a few days of knowing one another, they decide to embark on a crazyexperiment: a 21-day minimalist travel adventure, from Istanbul to London, with zero luggage, zeroreservations, and zero plans. They want to test a simple question: what happens when you welcome the unknown instead of attempting to control it? Find out by reading this book.

The Museum of Intangible Things by Wendy Wunder       $22.00
Hannah and Zoe haven't had much in their lives, but they've always had each other. So when Zoe tells Hannah she needs to get out of their down-and-out New Jersey town, they pile into Hannah's beat-up old Le Mans and head west, putting everything - their deadbeat parents, their disappointing love lives, their inevitable enrolment at community college - behind them. As they chase storms and make new friends, Zoe begins teaching Hannah all about life's intangible things, concepts sadly missing from her existence - things like audacity, insouciance, karma, and even happiness...
"A crisp, beautifully crafted story of adventure, love, and the limits of friendship." - Booklist

Scandinavian Home: A comprehensive guide to Mid-Century Modern Scandinavian designers by Elizabeth Wilhide        $55.00
What characterises Scandinavian Modern is its approachability; the use of natural materials and organic forms combined with clean lines and attention to basic practicality and comfort.

The Importance of Elsewhere: Philip Larkin's photographs by Richard Bradford       $55.00
The most widely read British poet of the twentieth century, Philip Larkin was also a keen amateur photographer and through his life he made images of the people, places and things that meant most to him. The book shows how Larkin, as an individual, as a writer and indeed as a photographer, developed an acute sensitivity to all aspects of the world around him, from his love of open uninhabited landscapes and empty churches to his mixed feelings about crowds. There are also fascinating portraits of those people who were closest to Larkin, including his lovers, his mother and his literary peers.

Red Rosa: A graphic biography of Rosa Luxemburg by Kate Evans       $35.00
Philosopher, economist, publisher, writer, organizer, political leader, martyr. A lively, rounded, colourful biography of one of the most impassioned revolutionaries. The story follows Luxemburg from her family life in Jewish Poland, where she became the leader of a general strike at age fifteen and was exiled from her homeland at eighteen, to her immersion into the then largest radical party in the world, the German Social Democratic Party, to her founding of the German Communist Party and leadership of the German revolution of 1919.
"Utterly brilliant. Kate Evans is one of the most original talents in comics I've seen in a long time." - Guardian

The World of Mamoko in the Time of Dragons ('Mamoko' #3) by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski       $26.99
In medieval Mamoko, the king has been kidnapped by a dragon, a fair maiden needs help and Robin Hood's arrow has gone astray. Will everything be put right in time for the royal banquet? Readers are prompted to follow the adventures of Mamoko's quirky cast of characters, telling aloud their discoveries as they use their eyes and uncover the kaleidoscope of stories packed into every page.

The Clasp by Sloane Crosley     $35.00
Reunited for the extravagant wedding of a college friend, Kezia, the second-in-command to an insane jewellery designer; Nathaniel, the former literary cool kid now selling his wares in Hollywood; and Victor, who has just been fired from a middling search engine, soon slip back into their old roles: Victor loves Kezia. Kezia loves Nathaniel. Nathaniel loves Nathaniel. In the midst of all this semi-merriment, Victor has a bizarre encounter with the mother of the groom that triggers an obsession over a legendary necklace.
"Perfectly, relentlessly funny" - David Sedaris
"A 21st century Dorothy Parker" - Jonathan Ames
"Enormously hilarious. This is one of those rare, deeply literary books that also features - a plot!" - Gary Shteyngart

Last Futures: Nature, technology and the end of architecture by Douglas Murphy        $45.00
In the late 1960s the world was faced with impending disaster: the height of the Cold War, the end of oil, and the decline of great cities throughout the world. Out of this crisis came a new generation that hoped to build a better future, influenced by visions of geodesic domes, walking cities, and a meaningful connection with nature. In this brilliant work of cultural history, architect Douglas Murphy traces the lost archeology of the present-day through the works of thinkers and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, the ecological pioneer Stewart Brand, the Archigram architects who envisioned the Plug-In City in the '60s, as well as co-operatives in Vienna, communes in the Californian desert, and protesters on the streets of Paris.

Thicker Than Water by Brigid Kemmerer       $18.99
Thomas is the new kid in town. So who will believe he's not a murderer? Part YA paranormal romance, part crime thriller.

The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands        $19.99
London, 1665. Fourteen-year-old Christopher Rowe is apprenticed to master apothecary Benedict Blackthorn. In Blackthorn's shop, Christopher learns the delicate secrets of transforming simple ingredients into powerful medicines, potions and weapons. His master instils him with confidence and independence that prove increasingly vital as Christopher learns of a mysterious cult preying on the most learned men in London. The murders are growing closer and closer to home and soon Christopher is torn from the shop with only a page of cryptic clues from his master and the unambiguous warning: 'Tell no one'. Helped by his best friend, Tom, Christopher must decipher his master's clues, following a trail of deceit towards an unearthly secret with the power to tear the world apart.

Professor Stewart's Casebook of Mathematical Mysteries by Ian Stewart       $24.99
A miscellany of over 150 mathematical curios and conundrums, packed with Stewart's trademark humour and numerous illustrations.In addition to the fascinating formulae and thrilling theorems familiar to Professor Stewart's fans, the Casebook follows the adventures of the not-so-great detective Hemlock Soames and his sidekick Dr John Watsup...

Beside Myself by Ann Morgan        $32.99
Helen and Ellie are identical twins - like two peas in a pod, everyone says. The girls know this isn't true, though: Helen is the leader and Ellie the follower. Until they decide to swap places: just for fun, and just for one day. But Ellie refuses to swap back...And so begins a nightmare from which Helen cannot wake up.
“The novel is a deep, troubling, painful exploration of identity, genetics, and mental illness, but along the journey, the main character (Helen/Ellie/Smudge) becomes truly fascinating … Ambitious and gritty; a modern take on the age-old question of fate versus free will” –  Kirkus

The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta       $21.00
Thomas Mackee wants oblivion. Wants to forget fathers who leave, and parents splitting up, and friends he used to care about, and a string of one night stands, and favourite uncles being blown to smithereens on their way to work on the other side of the world. When his flatmates turn him out of the house, Tom moves in with his single, pregnant aunt, Georgie. And starts working at The Union pub with his former friends, Francesca and Justine. And winds up living with his grieving alcoholic father again. And in a year where everything's broken, Tom realises that his family and friends need him to help put the pieces back together as much as he needs them."It's a story so full of heart - sorrowful, but warm and funny - it won't be easy to forget." - The Sydney Morning Herald

Politics in a Time of Crisis: Podemos and the future of European democracy by Pablo Iglesias           $35.00
Iglesias and his Podemos party have radically shaking up Spain's political establishment. Iglesias is an outspoken critic of political elites in Spain and Europe, and their austerity-led response to the recent financial crisis. Does this party show a new way forward?"There are few precedents for such an explosive political ascent in modern western Europe. Podemos has thrived because it has shredded the old left rulebook." -  Owen Jones 

Social Class in the 21st Century by Mike Savage        $26.00
Proposes a new British class system composed of seven classes that reflect the unequal distribution of three kinds of capital: economic (inequalities in income and wealth); social (the different kinds of people we know) and cultural (the ways in which our leisure and cultural preferences are exclusive).

Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon         $32.99
Destructive habits have cost Alex a marriage and a journalism career. All she has left is her routine: a morning run until her body aches, then a few hours of forgettable work before the past grabs hold and drags her down. Then she discovers Amy, seemingly in a coma since a brutal assault fifteen years ago. Unbeknownst to her doctors, Amy remains locked inside her body, conscious but paralysed, reliving the past. Alex begins to develop an obsession with Amy and her story.

Peace Talks by Andrew Motion         $36.99
Poems bearing witness to the futility of war and the suffering of those left behind. 

The Illustrated Herdwick Shepherd by James Rebanks      $48.00
"I am the luckiest man alive, because I get to live and work in the most beautiful place on earth: Matterdale in the English Lake District. When I was a child we didn't really go anywhere, except a week in the Isle of Man when I was about ten years old, and I never left Britain until I was twenty. Even now, years later, the best bit of any travelling is coming home. "Bringing us into the world of shepherd's baking competitions, sheep shows and moments out on the fell watching the sheep run away home, James Rebanks interweaves thoughts and reflections on the art of shepherding with his photographs of the valley, people and animals that make up the daily life of the fells. From the author of The Shepherd's Life.

Am I Cold by Martin Kongstad           $32.99
Is there any room for (errhm) love among the orgies and excesses of pre-Crash Copenhagen? This freewheeling satire was described by Elle as "this autumn's funniest and most provocative book about relationships".
"A spiky, witty satire that's highly engaging." - Independent

The Sea Detective by Mark Douglas-Home       $37.00
Cal McGill is an Edinburgh-based oceanographer, environmentalist and one-of-a-kind investigator. Using his knowledge of the waves - ocean currents, prevailing winds, shipping records - McGill can track where objects came from, or where they've gone. It's a skill that can help solve mysteries ranging from disappearances to murder. Two severed feet wash up on two different islands off the coast of Scotland. Forensics shows that the feet belong to the same body. As Cal McGill investigates, he unravels a web of corruption, exploitation and human trafficking, which threatens many lives across the globe - including his own ...

Beast: Blood, struggle and dreams at the heart of Mixed Martial Arts by Doug Merlino         $33.00
What is it that gives these men the drive and discipline to regularly beat each other to a pulp in the name of sport? What does this highly ritualised combat reveal about the society in which it takes place?