Wind / Pinball: Two early novels by Haruki Murakami          $39.99
"If you're the sort of guy who raids the refrigerators of silent kitchens at three o'clock in the morning, you can only write accordingly. That's who I am."
Murakami's first two novels, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball have, until now, never been available in English outside Japan. 
 "Which other author can remind you simultaneously of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and J.K. Rowling, not merely within the same chapter but on the same page?" - Independent

Generation by Paula McGrath       $38.00
"If you read this book expecting any of the things often associated with Irish writing, you’re in for a shock. What the characters nearly all have in common is a burning sense of disappointment and rage. If this sounds miserable to read, it isn’t. The voices are beautifully woven together, and the prose has a weight and resonance way beyond the book’s slender length. The general sense is of stark clarity and poetic compression. Think Raymond Carver, not James Joyce." - Sunday Tinmes
"Ambitious and sensitive." - Irish Independent 

Landscapes of Communism: A history through buildings by Owen Hatherley         $55.00
 During the twentieth century, Communism took power in Eastern Europe and remade the city in its own image. Ransacking the urban planning of Haussmann's Paris, and imperial Vienna, Berlin and St Petersburg, Communism set out to transform everyday life, its sweeping boulevards, epic high-rise and vast housing estates an emphatic declaration of a non-capitalist idea. Now, the regimes that built them are long gone, but from Warsaw to Berlin, Moscow to post-Revolution Kiev, the buildings, their most obvious legacy, remain.
"In the craven world of architectural criticism Hatherley is that rarest of things: a brave, incisive, elegant and erudite writer, whose books dissect the contemporary built environment to reveal the political fantasies and social realities it embodies." - Will Self

 Generation Kitchen by Richard Reeve       $27.00
Much sought after by oil companies, generation kitchens are sites where geological forces have combined to create conditions for oil production. Richard Reeve's brooding and observant poetry meditates on the intrigues of fossil fuel companies and ecological despoliation, but also on personal rites of passage on relationships, deaths, the turn of the seasons. But, beyond the geopolitical framework, beyond the anthropocene moment, the landscape endures.

An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to one who saw it by Jessie Greengrass         $38.00
"The stories in this impressive and unusual debut collection chronicle the lives of the lonely and the estranged. That a tone of philosophical melancholy hangs over Greengrass’s writing is partly due to her restrained and formal style, but partly her subject matter, too, and the way in which her protagonists are often looking back to make sense of their pasts or living in the subjunctive, in parallel worlds of wishes and dreams. This is a highly original collection from a distinctive new voice in fiction." - Independent

 An Astronaut's Life by Sonja Dechian        $37.00
Wry stories speaking to our deepest yearning for connection and the inevitability of our isolation.
"Dechian’s prose is scrupulously clear, privileging precision in her language over poetics. Many of her characters are disaffected and unwilling to confront the cruel realities of their lives. The situations she writes about are strenuously unusual and this strangeness results in an oddly affecting humour. An Astronaut’s Life announces the arrival of a deeply original voice. Story by story we learn the rules for navigating Dechian’s fictional landscapes and are drawn deeper into the curious mysteries of her stories." - The Australian
>> "What role do you think fiction plays in responding to the modern world?"

 From Eternity to Here: The quest for the ultimate theory of time by Sean Carroll          $23.00
You can't unscramble an egg and you can't remember the future. But what if time doesn't (or didn't!) always go in the same direction? Carroll's paradigm-shifting research suggests that other universes experience time running in the opposite direction to our own. Exploring subjects from entropy and quantum mechanics to time travel and the meaning of life, Carroll presents a dazzling new view of how we came to exist. What happened before the big bang?
From the author of the Royal Society Winton Prize-winning The Particle at the End of the Universe. 
>> Have a look at the short list for this year's Royal Society Winton Prize.

 A Hanging at Cinder Bottom by Glenn Taylor      $33.00
From the author of The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart and set in the boom years of the West Virginia coalmining industry, this is an epic story of personal ambition, exile and return, and a grand heist. Keystone, West Virginia, 1910. In the hot August rain the townspeople gather to witness the first public hanging in over a decade. At the gallows are none other than poker player, Abe Baach, and his lover, the madam of the town's brothel, one Goldie Toothman. Abe split town seven years prior and has been playing cards up and down the coast ever since. But when he returns to Keystone to reunite with Goldie and to set the past right, he finds a brother dead and his father's saloon in shambles - and suspects the same men might be responsible for both. Only then, in facing his family's past, does the real swindle begin.
"A galloping, defiant epic, a virtuoso performance, vigorous and sincere, located squarely in the tradition of Twain, Faulkner and McCullers." - Guardian

 Ten Cities that Made an Empire by Tristram Hunt       $29.99
"A grand history of the British empire, this is a book about ideas, for all that it is rich in architectural description, economic fact and colourful anecdote. It is well-written, cleverly constructed and beautifully balanced." - Spectator  
"Ingenious and timely. Hunt skilfully constructs his itinerary to provide a lively and cliche-busting survey of imperial history. He uses the urban lens to terrific effect." - Maya Jasanoff, Guardian  
"An original and inventive approach to tackling empire. This is a book which is experienced through the life on the streets, in the buildings and across the physical layout of large urban centres, where jostled men and women of different races and creeds. It is a work of great ambition. Impressive." - Kwasi Kwarteng, Standpoint
Now in paperback!

 Latest Readings by Clive James        $39.99
Suffering from terminal leukemia, this is James's valediction to his lifelong engagement with the written word.

 Paris: Photographs by Serge Ramelli           $140.00
Come and have a look at this book!

Shadows of the Master ('Star of Deltora' #1) by Emily Rodda       $12.00
A new series from the author of 'Deltora Quest'! Britta has always wanted to be a trader like her father, sailing the nine seas and bringing precious cargo home to Del harbour. Her dreams seemed safe until her fathers quest to find the fabled Staff of Tier ended in blood and horror. Now his shamed family is in hiding, and his ship, the Star of Deltora, belongs to the powerful Rosalyn fleet. But Britta's ambition burns as fiercely as ever.When she suddenly gets the chance to win back her future she knows she has to take it whatever the cost. She has no idea that shadows from a distant, haunted isle are watching her every move.

 I'm Travelling Alone by Samuel Bjork          $38.00
 "One is tempted to call it a textbook on the modern crime novel. This is how it should be done." - Folkebladet (Denmark)

 Scout Atticus and Book: A celebration of To Kill a Mockingbird by Mary McDonagh Murphy         $27.00
 Examines the impact of To Kill a Mockingbird on individual lives and on a society. 

 Circus Mirandus by Cassie Beasley       $18.00
 Micah's beloved grandfather is gravely sick, but all is not lost. Years ago, his grandfather visited a mysterious circus where he was promised a miracle by a man who could bend light. But who is this stranger, will he keep his promise, and does the magical Circus Mirandus really exist?

We've just received a shipment of exciting books on all manner of art techniques, at greatly reduced prices (and for a limited time only)! Come into the shop and have a look!

You Don't Have to Live Like This by Benjamin Markovitz         $32.99
Another insightful novel by this fine writer, an exploration of life and possibility on the urban frontier in post-collapse Detroit. What happens when financial colonials start buying up whole neighbourhoods to build a new America? How do the native Detroiters respond?

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal            $34.99
Who is Eva Thorvald? To her single father, a chef, she's a pint-sized recipe tester and the love of his life. To the chilli chowdown contestants of Cook County, Illinois, she's a fire-eating demon. To the fashionable foodie goddess of supper clubs, she's a wanton threat. She's an enigma, a secret ingredient that no one can put their finger on. Eva will surprise everyone. 
"Delicious!" - Kirkus

Footpath Flowers by Jon Arno Lawson and Sydney Smith       $27.99
A little girl picks wild flowers on her walk, Who will she give each one to? This is a charming book!

Butterflies in November by Audur Ava Olafsdottir         $24.00
It's been a tough day. She's been dumped. Twice. She's accidentally killed a goose. And now she's suddenly responsible for her best friend's deaf-mute son. But when a shared lottery ticket turns the oddly matched pair into the richest people in Iceland, she and the boy find themselves on a road trip across the country. With cucumber hotels, dead sheep, and any number of her exes on their tail, Butterflies in November is a blackly comic and uniquely moving tale of motherhood, friendship and the power of words.
"Evocative and humorous." - Observer
"Playfully self-conscious, reflecting on the relationships between reading and experience." - Guardian

The Pale North by Hamish Clayton        $30.00
1998, Wellington. A series of catastrophic earthquakes has left the city destroyed. Returning to the ruin from London, a New Zealand writer explores the devastation, compelled to find out for himself what has become of the city he left years ago. As he drifts through the desolate streets, home now to the shell-shocked and dispossessed, he finds among the survivors a woman and a child. And although they are haunted, hostile and broken, the strangers feel eerily familiar to him: as if they promise the answers to the mysteries he once swore to leave behind.
A compelling new novel from the author of Wulf. Is Clayton New Zealand's answer to Barnes and Sebald?

The Hunt for the Golden Mole: All creatures large and small, and why they matter by Richard Girling       $24.00
The Somali golden mole is so rare that a sighting has never been recorded. It was first described in 1964, but the sole evidence for its existence is a tiny fragment of jawbone found in an owl pellet. Intrigued by this elusive creature, and what it can tell us about extinction and survival ore generally, Richard Girling embarks on a hunt to find the animal and its discoverer - an Italian professor who he thinks might still be alive...
"The Hunt for the Golden Mole is a wonderful book. It is an understated but passionate advocacy for the biodiversity of the planet which combines lightly worn scholarship with a compelling argument. Overall it is a tour de force." - Jonathan Dimbleby

Terrain: Journeys through a deep landscape by Geoff Chapple        $40.00
New Zealand's many distinctive landforms are packed into a small space. Geoff Chapple, author of Te Araroa: The New Zealand trail, set out on a year-long journey to find out why, and to seek out the shifting forces that shape them. For company, he chose to walk with geologists and the artisans who work the rock. The journey took him back through geology's global history and onward from end to end of New Zealand. How much do you know about the rock upon which you walk (or fall)?

In the Beginning was the Sea by Tomas Gonzalez          $24.99
young intellectuals J. and Elena abandon the parties, the drinking and the money of the city, and start a new life on a remote tropical coast. Among mango trees, hot sands and everlasting sunshine, they plan to live the Good Life, self-sufficient and close to nature. But with each day come small defeats and imperceptible dramas. Gradually paradise turns into hell, as brutal weather, mounting debts, the couple's brittle relationship, and the sea itself threaten to destroy them. Based on a true story, In the Beginning Was the Sea is a dramatic and searingly ironic account of the disastrous encounter of the imagined life with reality - a satire of hippyism, ecological fantasies, and of the very idea that man can control fate.
Short-listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2015.
"By turns beautiful, hubristic and tragic." - Independent

The Map Thief by Michael Blanding        $30.00
Once considered a respectable rare-map dealer, E. Forbes Smiley made millions and was highly esteemed for his knowledge - until he was arrested for slipping maps out of books in the Yale University library. 

Never, Always, Sometimes by Adi Alsaid           $19.99
Never date your best friend. Always be original. Sometimes rules are meant to be broken. Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliche high school kids. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they'd never, ever do in high school. Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember. Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. When she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the cliches, they've actually been missing out on high school - and maybe even on love. 
For fans of John Green!

Strange Animals by Chad Kultgen        $26.99
A novel of the collision between human freedoms and religious values, and the personal and ethical crises consequent to a PhD student's unwanted pregnancy. From the author of Men, Women and Children

The World Without Us by Mireille Juchau          $36.99
It has been six months since Tess Muller stopped speaking. Her silence is baffling to her parents, her teachers and her younger sister Meg, but the more urgent mystery for both girls is where their mother, Evangeline, goes each day, pushing an empty pram and returning home wet, muddy and dishevelled.

The Perfect Theory: A century of geniuses and the battle over General Relativity by Pedro G. Ferreira       $29.99
Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity is an outstanding intellectual achievement in modern physics. Anything that involves gravity, the force that powers everything on the largest, hottest or densest of scales, can be explained by it. From the moment Einstein first proposed the theory in 1915, it was received with enthusiasm yet also with tremendous resistance, and for the following ninety years was the source of a series of feuds, vendettas, ideological battles and persecutions.

 The Water Boo; The extraordinary story of our most ordinary substance by Alok Jha        $39.99
Water has shaped our planet and occurs throughout the universe. Jha is an excellent guide to the wonders we too easily consider banal. 
>> Jha on the strangest chemical in the universe.

The Beauty is in the Walking by James Moloney       $19.99
Everyone thinks they know what Jacob O'Leary can and can't do - and they're not shy about telling him either. But no one - not even Jacob - knows what he's truly capable of. And he's desperate for the chance to work it out for himself. When a shocking and mystifying crime sends his small country town reeling, and fingers start pointing at the newcomer, Jacob grabs the chance to get out in front of the pack and keep mob rule at bay. He's convinced that the police have accused the wrong man, and that the real villain is still out there.

Jakob's Colours by Lindsay Hawdon       $37.99
"A deeply involving novel of the Romany Holocaust (Porajmos)." - Guardian

The Biology of Desire: Why addiction is not a disease by Marc Lewis        $37.00
The psychiatric establishment in the Western world has unanimously branded addiction a brain disease. And the idea that an addict has an incurable illness, as opposed to a contemptible moral weakness, has served an historically important role in changing how addiction is understood, researched, and treated throughout the world. But as developmental neuroscientist and recovered addict Marc Lewis argues addiction is not in fact a disease. Addiction, whether to drugs, alcohol, gambling, food, sex, or cigarettes, is rather a developmental learning process resulting from the normal functioning of the human brain. Provocative; interesting.

Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss        $32.99
Only weeks into their marriage a young couple embark on a six-month period of separation. Tom Cavendish goes to Japan to build lighthouses and his wife Ally, Doctor Moberley-Cavendish, stays and works at the Truro asylum. As Ally plunges into the institutional politics of mental health, Tom navigates the social and professional nuances of late 19th century Japan. Sarah Moss builds a novel in two parts from Falmouth to Tokyo, two maps of absence; from Manchester to Kyoto, two distinct but conjoined portraits of loneliness and determination. This is a continuation of her excellent Bodies of Light.

Black Hole: How an idea abandoned by Newtonians, hated by Einstein and gambled on by Hawking became loved by Marcia Bartusiak        $46.00
"Bartusiak's new book is thoroughly researched, beautifully written, and full of insights about the nature of the scientific enterprise. Aficionados of black holes will love this book." - Alan Lightman, author of The Accidental Universe

Crooked Rib by Judy Crobalis          $38.00
 A novel based on the true story of Sir George Grey's disastrous and scandalous marriage. Trapped in an increasingly loveless union, Sir George and his wife, Eliza Lucy, each sought affection elsewhere. Lady Grey's indiscretion caused her to be cast off by her husband and vilified throughout colonial and domestic Victorian high society.

 Shadow Sister ('Dragon Keeper' #5) by Carole Wilkinson        $21.99
Tao is learning to be a dragonkeeper. With no one to teach him it is not easy. He must keep Kai safe but there is danger at every turn - they are pursued by a gang of murderous nomads, tricked by unseen spirits, attacked by a giant seven-headed snake and disoriented in the realms of the dead. Most terrifying of all is the ghost who can turn blood into ice. Tao knows he must prove he is truly worthy of the name Dragonkeeper. But the road west is never straight and nothing for Tao and Kai is what it seems. 
"I have just finished this. It is interesting and fast-paced. I think you should read it." - Cosmo (12) 
This is a wonderful series: start with this one.

New Asia Now (Griffith Review 49)       $35.00
The Asian century is in full swing, generating unprecedented economic and social power. New Asia Now features young writers from the countries at the centre of this transformation. This collection takes a journey through the region's diversity with a new generation of writers, who will shape the way we understand the complexities of culture, politics and modernisation. All born after 1970, they explore issues of identity and belonging in the world that is unfolding. Includes Murong Xuecan (China), Joshua Ip (Singapore), Annie Zaidi (India), Miguel Syjuco (Phillipines), Sheng Keyi (China), Maggie Tioljkan (Indonesia).

 Johnny EnZed: The New Zealand soldier in the First World War, 1949-1918 by Glyn Harper      $55.00
 Over 100,000 men and women would embarked for overseas service and almost 60,000 of them became casualties.

After Eli by Rebecca Rupp          $18.99
When Daniel's brother Eli is killed at war, Daniel considers the history of unusual fatalities to determine what makes a death -- or a life -- matter. Some people die heroically, others accidentally. In an attempt to understand, Danny creates a Book of the Dead -- an old binder that he fills with details about dead people, how they died, and, most important, for what purpose. Time passes, and eventually Daniel is prompted to look up from his notebook of death and questions to make new friends and be swept into their imaginings.

Salt Creek by Lucy Treloar        $34.99
The Coorong in the 1850s is a remote, beautiful and inhospitable coastal region in the new province of South Australia which has been opened to graziers willing to chance their luck. Among them are Stanton Finch and his family, including sixteen-year-old Hester Finch. Once wealthy political activists, the Finch family has fallen on hard times. Cut adrift from the polite society they were raised to be part of, Hester and her siblings make connections where they can: with the travellers passing along the nearby stock route - among them a young artist, Charles - and the Ngarrindjeri people they have dispossessed. Hester witnesses the destruction of their subtle culture and begins to wonder what civilization is.

The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler           $33.00
Simon Watson lives alone on the Long Island Sound in his family home, a house perched on the edge of a cliff that is slowly crumbling into the sea. His parents are long dead, his mother having drowned in the water his house overlooks. His younger sister, Enola, works for a travelling carnival and seldom calls. On a day, Simon receives a mysterious book from an antiquarian bookseller; it has been sent to him because it is inscribed with the name Verona Bonn, Simon's grandmother. The book tells the story of two doomed lovers who were part of a travelling circus more than two hundred years ago. He is fascinated, yet as he reads Simon becomes increasingly unnerved. Why do so many women in his family drown on 24th July?

One Hundred Days of Happiness by Fausto Brizzi         $34.99
What would you do if you knew you only had 100 days left to live? For Lucio Battistini, it's a chance to spend the rest of his life the way he always should have - by making every moment count.

 When the Moon is Low by Nadia Hashimi      $34.99
"Hashimi has written, first and foremost, a tender and beautiful family story. Her always engaging multigenerational tale is a portrait of Afghanistan in all of its perplexing, enigmatic glory, and a mirror into the still ongoing struggles of Afghan women." - Khaled Hosseini (author of And the Mountains Echoed and The Kite Runner

Fish is Fish by Leo Lionni       $19.99
The pond is home to a tadpole and a minnow, two underwater friends. But when the tadpole grows into a frog and hops onto the land, a new world unfolds before his eyes. When he returns to the pond, he tells his friend fantastic tales of the things he's seen: birds and cows and mysterious things called people! Fish longs to be a frog so that he can see this wonderful world too, and decides that he will follow in his friend's footsteps, come what may...
We love Leo Lionni's gentle, quirky books!

A Literary Tour of Italy by Tim Parks         $39.99
From Boccaccio and Machiavelli through to Eco and Saviano, from the Stil Novo to the Divisionismo, across centuries of history and intellectual movements, these essays will give English readers, and lovers of the Bel Paese and its culture, the lay of the literary land of Italy.

The Big Book of Home Brew: A Kiwi guide by Michael Donaldson         $40.00
"The very best beers I've ever tried in my life are home brews, for sure. There's nothing quite like it." - Stu McKinley, Yeastie Boys
New Zealand is a nation of proud and prolific beer drinkers. Here is the one-stop manual to brewing your own.

Chilled: How refrigeration changed the world and might do so again by Tom Jackson            $36.99
What has been the historical effect of the intense absence of heat?
>> A bit about the importance of refrigeration to New Zealand's economic history.

Talk Under Water by Kathryn Lomer           $24.00
Will and Summer meet online and strike up a friendship based on coincidence.  Summer isn't telling the whole truth about herself, but figures it doesn't matter if they never see each other in person. When the two finally meet Summer can no longer hide her secret - she is deaf. Can Summer and Will find a way to be friends in person even though they speak a completely different language?

R&R by Mark Dapin          $38.00
 John 'Nashville' Grant is an American military policeman in the R&R town of Vung Tau, tucked safely behind the front lines of the Vietnam War. Nashville knows how everything works: the army, the enemy, bars, secrets, men and women. He's keeping the peace by keeping his head down and making the most of it. His new partner is a tall man from a small town: Shorty, from Bendigo, Australia. Shorty knows nothing about anything, and he wishes people would stop mistaking that for stupidity.
"Dapin is funny, poignant, vibrantly witty." - Canberra Times

Remainder by Tom McCarthy           $24.00
Traumatised by an accident which involves "something falling from the sky" and leaves him eight and a half million pounds richer but hopelessly estranged from the world around him, Remainder's protagonist spends his time and money obsessively reconstructing and re-enacting vaguely remembered scenes and situations from his past. Why this attempt to recreate authenticity through artifice? Remainder claimed McCarthy his own edge of the literary scene ten years ago. He has just been long-listed for the Man Booker for Satin Island.
"Full of interesting ideas about the relationship between memory and actuality, while relentlessly undermining both." - Thomas

The Orpheus Clock: The search for my family's art treasures stolen by the Nazis by Simon Goodman          $40.00
Simon Goodman's grandparents came from German-Jewish banking dynasties and died in concentration camps. Originally he knew little about them - his father never spoke of their history or heritage. But when Goodman received his late father's old papers, a remarkable story began to emerge. From a Bohemian hamlet, the Gutmanns had risen to become one of Germany's most powerful banking families. They had also built a magnificent art collection. When Hitler took power in January 1933, the Gutmanns became prime targets, and eventually everything they had worked to build was taken from them: their art, their wealth, their standing, and their lives.

Naked Cakes: Simply beautiful handmade creations by Lyndel Miller        $55.00
Beautiful, rustic and organic in form, naked cakes are always tiered, with filling and frosting between layers but never on the outside - thus 'naked'. It's what's inside that makes all the difference!

Face to Face: Conversations with remarkable New Zealanders by Paul Moon, photographs by Jane Ussher          $50.00
Richard Hadlee, Patricia Grace, Robert Jones, Hone Harawira, Fiona Pardington, Peter Gluckman, Michael Houstoun, Miles Warren, Alison Holst, Lloyd Geering, Tim Finn, Mai Chen.

The Silver Age of DC Comics, 1956-1970 by Paul Levitz     $99.99
A superbook. 
The Golden Age... 1935-1956 is also available.

Mountain Rescue: Epic tales of search and rescue in high-country New Zealand by Phillip Melchior        $50.00
There is deadly danger in the spine of our nation! The mountain rescue is the most New Zealand of emergencies.