A border town on the steppe. A small group of emaciated and feral refugees appears out of nowhere, spreading fear and panic in the town. When police commissioner Pontus Beg orders their arrest, evidence of a murder is found in their luggage. As he begins to unravel the history of their hellish journey, it becomes increasingly intertwined with the search for his own origins that he has embarked upon.
"The pricelessness of our common humanity is one of numerous heavyweight ideas Wieringa balances carefully on his novel’s laden back. The novel treads restlessly between genres and raises difficult questions." - Guardian
A thoughtful selection of four decades of luminescent poetry from this beloved poet.
"There is a kind of luminous spirituality about O'Sullivan's poetry, that long after you have read the poems, continues to reside in the objects or situations the poems describe." - Anna Jackson
Do the mental health service and societal responses to madness do more harm than good?
"Well written, insightful, illuminating, thought provoking and a gripping good read. It should be essential reading for anyone contemplating working in mental health care and those already there could benefit enormously - some might have their thinking and practice constructively challenged. For anyone experiencing mental distress or on the receiving end of mental health care, it's a source of inspiration." - Judi Clements, Chief Executive, Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand
As Sammy's favourite New Zealand birds are squashed into the pages of his book, their quirky personalities and colourful plumages are hidden from the world. They perch in awkward positions on the pages, far from their beautiful natural habitats and unable to live in the wild. That is, until Sammy decides to share them with his class and they are set free.
No birds were harmed in the making of this funny book.
The Telegraph has been collating our grastronomic fascinations and charting the rising and setting of the culinary stars since Escoffier appeared at the Savoy in 1889. This book is a wonderful smorgasbord of articles covering everything from an 'up-and-coming' Richard Stein to A.S. Byatt in her kitchen.
Project Freerange explores and riffs on topics such as the city, design, politics and pirates. >>Visit their site.
Volume 7: The Commons The concept of the commons has particular relevance in light of the multiple crises we face for the environmental, financial and social future of our planet. This volume researches intellectual property rights, our food system and the re-claiming of cultural space through digital mapping.
Volume 8: Humanimal 3.0 "The 21st century body no longer ends at the skin." - Elaine Graham. This volume was created by a collection of individuals in manifold interfaces with their machines and explores how concepts of 'humanity', ethics and evolution are disrupted by new waves of technology.
Volume 9: The Wet Issue "Sensuous and fluid yet powerful, raging and unforgiving - from Styx to bottled water, from great lake to babbling brook, from poetic vessel to trade route, water exists in a myriad of states and is characterised by its many forms and expressions, its imaginative potential and raw impact upon life on earth."
From Afghanistan to Iraq to Darfur to Libya, Addario finds in photography not only the artistic medium to convey people's stories, but the power to change political policy by showing its consequences.
Is your writing flabby or fit? This book will help you energise your writing and strip unnecessary padding from your prose.
>> Take the on-line prose fitness test!
"Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel, set on a Montana ranch some time in the 1920s, is a great, and greatly neglected, work of art, because it contains one of the most complex and fully realized, if utterly loathsome, characters I have ever encountered in a work of fiction. The Power of the Dog is an unforgettable book precisely because Phil Burbank is an unforgettably complex character." - Bookslut
When a boy with an unstable upbringing and a mute sibling meets a girl whose life is normal in every way, what will happen?
"This thrills-and-spills account of love conquering all pits order against chaos. This is a story that demands and repays irrational faith in destiny." - Guardian
This book documents 183 temporary and transitional projects that have occurred in Christchurch since September 2010, when the city lost 80% of its central city buildings and over 4000 residential houses, and the hopes, frustrations, and dreams that all this entails. The book profiles many types of projects including: acts of protest, improvised community constructions, artworks both legal and improvised, bars, cafes, temporary stadiums and shopping centres. "Don’t be put off by probably the plainest cover I have ever seen on a book, delve inside and you’ll be captivated. This is a significant, inspiring piece of publishing, something to treasure especially by all whom have been affected by the Christchurch earthquakes, but also to the wider NZ community. I shall value my copy." – Graham Beattie
"Nicolson has written a beautiful study: full of insight, generosity and unaffected passion. The writing is exhilarating. This is a book about what Homer means to him and, in some profound way, about what life means to him. There is a wonderful sense of a community of readers of Homer handing on their insights through two millennia – of the dead talking to the living, of the taking up of a conversation that has never quieted." - Guardian
New and traditional Mexican food - delicious and approachable - from the acclaimed Miramar restaurant (Putnam came to New Zealand to work on the Lord of the Rings films but had to open a restaurant so he could eat the food he grew up with).
Poems written during her Ursula Bethell residency in creative writing at the University of Canterbury in 2014.
The letters of two brothers, accompanied by photographs and artefacts, give a poignant account of New Zealand soldiers' experience in World War One.
Apparently, "behind every great sea story there is a real-life adventure that inspired it". This book moves against the current to find the stories that preceded fiction.
Focusing on a problem is exactly the wrong way to find an answer. Putting problems at the centre of our thoughts shuts down our creative abilities, depletes stamina, and feeds insecurities. Jaws built its famous menace precisely because the shark hardly ever appears in shot.
Collected works of a New Zealand pioneer of gay literature (1903-1963).
New Zealand's first professional basketballer writes beautifully not just about the mechanisms of the sport (on an off the court) but also with insight about the social, monetary and personal forces that form or deform our individual trajectories.
Saker is also an authority on wine.
"Our loveliest writer on the sport." - Otago Daily Times
>> Interview!
What brought Virginia Woolf to the riverbank? This novel seeks to recreate the interiority of that most interior of authors.
After learning she has a terminal illness, Katherine abandons her successful advertising firm and seeks refuge in the solitude of a cabin in the wilderness. But as she hikes up to the isolated cabin, Katherine senses she is being watched. Her sudden arrival at the supposedly abandoned cabin has unsettled its previous inhabitant, Danny, a damaged young Vietnam veteran tormented by the demons of his past.
"I love, love, love this fearless and unflinching story. Altogether spectacular." - Lee Child
From her lost childhood to the shores of cancer diagnosis and beyond.
"Exceptional. If there has been a more honest, calm, and profoundly moving memoir written in the last few years, then I've missed it."—Times Literary Supplement
"Three qualities make Vesna Goldsworthy's memoir stand apart - her honesty, he skill as a writer and the fascinating circumstances of her life. Her ability to find unexpected, subtle connections in the pattern of her own life elevates this absorbing memoir into something extraordinary." - Guardian
"Funny, painful, and brilliant. Fantastically well written. I hope that it will soon take its place among the Lolitas of Tehran and the Booksellers of Kabul." - Observer
A novel about a former All Black drawn into the illegal world of match-fixing (currently a highly controversial issue in international sport).
>> New Zealand Rugby has employed an Integrity Manager.
Mika and Ellie have the ability to hear thoughts. Their mission: listening in on the mind of evil Mal Gorman, who's determined to use an age-resisting serum to stay forever young. Forced to play along with his plans, the telepathic twins may be the only people able to release his brainwashed army of children.
