A panoramic, deeply affecting story of an iconic novelist and the heartbreaking truths that fiction can hide.
"The book you've been waiting for without knowing you were waiting. Big, brilliant and terrifically funny" - Jess Walter, author of Beautiful Ruins.
"The book has the rare quality of being funny without being silly, serious without being solemn, and powerfully moving without being either sentimental or coercive" - James Lasdun Guardian
"A lively reading of George Eliot’s novel, an intimate portrait of Eliot herself, and a book about the consolations of getting older." - Paris Review
"A fascinating exploration of the relationship between reader and subject, a book about the primal pleasure of reading that is in itself a huge pleasure to read." - Australian
Book trailer here.
And do you have a copy of Middlemarch itself?
When Shah Naser ascends the Persian 'Sun throne' in 1848, he inherits a medieval kingdom beset by pressures to reform, industrialise and open up to the West. How will he respond? With bloody battles, intrigue and extraordinary characters, this historical novel brings a pivotal period vividly to life.
In the City: Drawings by Nigel Peake $39.99
Peake's hand-drawn observations capture colours, grids, surfaces, paths, rooftops, and details large and small. Through each drawing a small part of the story of the city is told, in all its beautiful and intricate forms, structures and patterns. This lovely book will help you see the city around you afresh.
Have a flick through here.
"If I were a book, I wouldn't want people to only pretend to have read me."
"If I were a book, I'd keep all the secrets confided to me by my readers."
Artwork and prose combine in a tender tribute to a reader's best companion.
Have a look at the Norwegian edition being unwrapped!
Shelve this alongside A Book is a Book.
Area X has been reclaimed by nature after being isolated from the rest of the planet for decades. The first eleven exploratory expeditions have met with bizarre fates. How will the twelfth fare?
If Margaret Atwood and J.J. Abrams collaborated on a science fiction novel, it might look something like this. Book one of the 'Southern Reach' trilogy (all to be published this year).
"In much of Jeff VanderMeer’s work, a kind of radiance lies beating beneath the surface of the words. Here it shines through with warm blazing incandescence." —Peter Straub (author of Lost Boy, Lost Girl)
When a crack between worlds opens, Madeleine, the girl-in-the-world, starts to receive letters from Elliot in the Kingdom of Cello, where reality is rather different and bells warn of attacks from dangerous Colours. Can Madeleine and Elliot help each other unravel the mysteries in their respective worlds? An original and intelligent young adult novel.
"Perfectly strange, and absolutley comical and heartfelt" - Marcus Zusak
And, if you like this, Cracks in the Kingdom, the second book in the series has just arrived!
To become pro-aging in our anti-aging society is to accept aging as inevitable and important. This handy little handbook, drawing on science, history and personal experience, makes the case for a fully engaged life.
Also just in from 'The School of Life' series:
How to Be Alone by Sara Maitland
How to Connect With Nature by Tristan Gooley
How to Deal With Adversity by Christopher Hamilton
An ecological sci-fi thriller from a (NZ-based) master of the genre. Something has gone wrong on the planet of Paradise, the flora is in chaos, and it is decided to evacuate all settlers. Nothing is that simple. A team of researchers and another of demolition workers set off across the planet and encounter the near-mythical Dendron, the vicious Reapers and the deadly Tattersall Weeds.
A tour de force set in Cuba on the cusp of Castro's revolution, a time of colonial privilege, tropical rot, excess and rebellion. From the author of The Flamethrowers.
"A stunner of a novel... A fluid, eye-opening symphony of a book" - Seattle Times
A young girl's disappearance rocks a community and a family, in this stirring examination of grief, faith, justice and the atrocities of war, from literary legend Joyce Carol Oates.
"A profound and poignant vision of American guilt." - John Burnside Guardian
Detective Sime Mackenzie travels to a remote island in Canada's atlantic coast to investigate a murder with links right back to the Hebridean clearances.
From the author of the award-winning 'Lewis' trilogy.
A lavishly illustrated retrospective of the much-loved author and illustrator, covering her Jewish Berlin childhood, her life as a refugee in London, her art school years, her time at the BBC, and the creation of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and all those other childhood classics. A fascinating insight into the woman behind the books.
Watch a brief interview with the 90-year-old Kerr here.
In the depths of winter in the land of Belarus, where ancient forests straddle modern country borders, an orphaned boy and his grandfather go to scatter his mother's ashes in the woodlands...
"Matches the rigour of McCarthy's The Road but as if the Brothers Grimm had hijacked it" - James Long
From the author of Little Exiles.
Join the forgetful Augustus Crabtree as he organises and catalogues all the stuff he has collected (or accumulated): all the yellow things together, all the tools and utensils, all the socks and mittens, all the things that begin with S, all the small yapping dogs. You will enjoy this!
From the intensely serious to the wildly silly, Dead Interviews grants writers the opportunity to indulge in a little literary wrist-wrestling with deceased icons. Rick Moody on Jimi Hendrix, Cynthia Ozick on Henry James, Douglas Coupland on Andy Warhol, Sam Leith on John Berryman, Geoff Dyer on Friedrich Nietzsche, A.M. Homes on Richard Nixon, David Mitchell on Samuel Johnson and James Boswell, John Burnside on Rachel Carson, ZZ Packer on Monsieur de Saint-George, Michel Faber on Marcel Duchamp, Rebecca Miller on the Marquis de Sade, Ian Rankin on Arthur Conan Doyle and Joyce Carol Oates on Robert Frost.
An approachable biography of the tornado who cut a swathe through western philosophy and cultural theory.
"Lucid, intelligent and richly informative" - The Times Literary Supplement
A well-illustrated motoring history.
Trail Magic: Going walkabout for 2184 miles on the Appalachian Trail by Trevelyan Quest Edwards $25.00
An enjoyable account of how the author wore out two pairs of boots in the stunning and very interesting mountainous region of the eastern USA.
How They Met by David Levithan $26.00
Eighteen stories, all about love, and about all kinds of love. From the aching for the one you pine for, to standing up and speaking up for the one you love, to pure joy and happiness, these love stories run the gamut of that emotion that at some point has turned every one of us inside out and upside down. Levithan is an writer of outstanding YA fiction.
Inside a Pearl, My years in Paris by Edmund White $39.99
White moved to Paris at the age of 43 in 1983 and immediately set about immersing himself in the cultural depths (and shallows) of his adopted city. This book, continuing the autobiographical series that began with A Boy's Own Story, is notable for its portrayal of his long, close friendship with Marie-Claude de Brunhoff, the elderly woman who inducted him into all things French.
