Beatlebone by Kevin Barry $32.99
1978. Fleeing the demands of public life, and a third request to appear on The Muppet Show, John Lennon heads to the west coast of Ireland in search of answers to life's most pressing questions.
This novel has just been awarded the Goldsmiths Prize for Fiction: "Beatlebone is a novel that takes its reader to the edge – of the Western world, of sanity, of fame, of words. But it also takes us to the very edge of the novel form, where it meets its notorious doppelgänger, autobiography. Its compulsive narrative of one of the last century’s great musicians and pop icons gradually, and without a hint of contrivance, becomes a startling and original meditation on the uncanny relationship of a writer to his character. Intricately weaving and blurring fiction and life, Beatlebone embodies beautifully this prize’s spirit of creative risk." - Judges' report.
>> "John is so many miles from love".
Mabey is the perfect nature writer, always resisting easy thoughts and seeking deeper understanding. In exquisite prose, he overthrows our habit of seeing plants as a ‘biological serving class’ and shows them to be ‘alternative solutions to living’, rampant in literature and art, and in our minds.
The unruly undergraduates at Cambridge have a nickname for their new lecturer: Wittgenstein Jr. He s a melancholic, tormented genius who seems determined to make them grasp the very essence of philosophical thought. But Peters a working-class student surprised to find himself among the elite soon discovers that there s no place for logic in Cambridge.
"Iyer is a deeply elegiac satirist. He manages to both send up intellectual life and movingly lament its erosion." - New York Times
"Iyer has again managed to write a book that's funny, unexpected,and profound, and his prose is suffused with a calm beauty." - Emily St. John Mandel
"After the tenderly-savagely funny Spurious (&c), I am looking forward to reading this." - Thomas
For the first time in his long life, Nobel-laureate Kogito Choko is suffering from writer's block. The book that he wishes to write would examine the turbulent relationship he had with his father, and the guilt he feels about being absent the night his father drowned in a storm-swollen river; but how to write about a man he never really knew? When his estranged sister unexpectedly calls, she offers Choko a remedy - she has in her possession an old and mysterious red trunk, the contents of which promise to unlock the many secrets of the man who disappeared from their lives decades before. Another elegantly written patient self-excoriation from this fine writer.
The most recent NBR Rich List has revealed the biggest proportional increase in wealth since the list first appeared in 1986. But what do these figures mean, and what else do we know about New Zealand's fortunes? Following his groundbreaking work on income inequality, Max Rashbrooke examines how wealth shapes New Zealand experience. Drawing on previously unpublished data, this award-winning writer explores what constitutes wealth in New Zealand - where, how and why it is held. In doing so, he addresses how wealth has come to be so unevenly distributed, and why this imbalance is something we can no longer ignore.
This year's crop includes Elizabeth Knox on death and disputation, Steve Braunias on the threat of fire, Tina Makereti on museumology and memory, Nicky Hager on dirty politics, Joe Nunweek on school suspensions, Ali Ikram on Keri Hulme; Kate Camp, Megan Dunn and Naomi Arnold.
"'This is not an ordinary tree I am making. This,' he said, 'this is the Tree of Knowledge.'" In the half-Hasidic, half-hipster Montreal neighborhood of Mile End, a fascination with Jewish mysticism threatens to pull a family apart.
“Rarely does one encounter a novel as full of charm and heart. And perhaps even more rarely does one encounter a novel that takes up enormous questions — about the very nature of existence — with both profound intelligence and galloping humour." - Joanna Rakoff
Between New Zealand and Antarctica lies some of the wildest ocean on the planet, feared by sailors and explorers. On the scattering of islands, humans have dwelt only temporarily and often unintentionally. Vance, after a decade in these seas, tells the stories of these hardy souls.
An absolutely luscious and wonderful book of photographs of heirloom vegetables, with enlightening text. This would make a wonderful gift, but you will keep it for yourself.
An inspiring journey to meet activist architects, politicians and radical communities who are starting to think about inhabited environments in radically new ways.
It's another hospital trip for Sylvie, as part of the support crew for her crazy sister, Calamity Cate. An overdose, this time. As usual, it seems like the family is so caught up in Cate's drama that Sylvie goes unnoticed. Invisible. Always coming second. Not any more. Sylvie makes herself noticed, but to the wrong people, and with painful consequences. NZ YA fiction that tackles some difficult issues.
Arguably New Zealand's most viewed but largely unrecognised artist, Marcus King's tourism posters and paintings capture a certain feel and light that speak strongly of New Zealand from the 1920s-1970s.
"The Invention of Science is neither a light nor a quick read, but it’s a fantastic revisionist history, an intellectual feat and a marvellous attack on those academics who believe that “retrospective history” — written with the outcome in mind — is wrong. It’s utterly refreshing to read a grand, whooping narrative that is also exhaustively researched. It will, I am certain, become a landmark in the discipline of the history of science." - Andrea Wulf
In an old pohutukawa tree between the forest and the sea live two tiny Pohutukawa Babies, Hutu and Kawa. With the help of Grandpa Kiwi, Hutu and Kawa build a canoe and set off up the river to explore the forest. On their way they make many new friends - and encounter the fearsome Bush Hawk. A charming reprint of the 1950s classic.
During the breakdown of an unhappy marriage, writer Joanna Walsh got a job as a hotel reviewer, and began to gravitate towards places designed as alternatives to home. Luxury, sex, power, anonymity, privacy...hotels are where our desires go on holiday, but also places where our desires are shaped by the hard realities of the marketplace. Part memoir and part meditation, this book visits a series of rooms, suites, hallways, and lobbies-the spaces and things that make up these modern sites of gathering and alienation, hotels.
"The landscape of small-mindedness and emotional cruelty is one Harrower has mapped throughout her career: it is her great theme, her obsession even.she shows us the choices even weakened people can make: struggle or go under, get better, or become bitter." - Sydney Morning Herald
"Lyrical, insightful and finely tuned." Otago Daily Times
Tony Michael Martin is a retired surgeon of the head and neck with a philosopher's interest in the part of the body he once explored with science and scalpel. Starting at a London railway station, he takes the reader into the farthest reaches of our consciousness.
A very amusing (and painfully accurate) parody of The Tiger Who Came to Tea. The teenager uses up all the hot water. Typical. If you've ever had to live with a teenage, you will need this book.
"The first thing that comes to mind about Antarctica is not likely the food. But if you are going there, it is the second." Devine, a humanitarian who piloted a three-month mission to pick up three decades worth of rubbish at Bellingshausen, and Trusler, a visual artist and cook, use journal entries, letters, provision lists, recipes, and menus to document their journey. Includes 42 recipes with Russian, Chinese, and South American influences, such as Honey Oatmeal Bread, Cheese Fondue, Great Wall Dumplings, Roasted Pepper Goulash with Smoked Paprika, Roast Leg of Pork, and Frozen Chocolate Cream.
Trans explores the physical, psychological and cultural impact of transitioning from male to female. In July 2010, aged thirty- one years old, Juliet Jacques underwent sex reassignment surgery and for the first time her body matched the person she felt she had been since childhood.
>> Jacques responds to the accusation that transgendering reinforces gender stereotypes.
When Ann Walmsley was asked to take part in a book club in a men's prison, she was initially anxious: after a violent mugging a few years before, could she really cope being surrounded by violent criminals? Luckily, curiosity got the better of her, and she signed up for eighteen months of meetings with heavily tattooed inmates, talking about books ranging from The Grapes of Wrath to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. But this wasn't your typical book club - there was no wine and cheese, plush furniture or superficial chat about recent holidays. Classic works of fiction and non-fiction became springboards for frank discussions about loss, anger, redemption and loneliness, and for the men a prized oasis in which to regain a sense of humanity.
Iris (or balletgirl-42 as she's known on the internet dating circuit) is a zookeeper looking for love when she is diagnosed with breast cancer. Overnight, her life becomes populated with a carnival of daunting hospital characters. Despite the attempts of her friends - Maud, Granma Suggs, Larry the Monkey and a group of singing penguins - to comfort her, Iris's fears begin to encircle her until all she has to cling to is the attention of a lighthouse keeper called sailor_buoy_39. A poignant, gritty graphic novel.
What sets scientists apart? Curiosity (primarily).
"Waiting / for the ringing of the bells announcing daybreak, / I put down my brush."
|
Seventeen-year-old Katie has a secret she can’t reveal, and her mother is too controlling. When Katie’s grandmother comes to live with them, their ordered life is broken open and unsuspected secrets are revealed. As Katie’s grandmother loses her mental grip, how will the three learn to live? Heartbreakingly well written and thoughtful. |
Michael Peppiatt met Francis Bacon in June 1963 in Soho's French House to request an interview for a student magazine he was editing. Bacon invited him to lunch, and over oysters and Chablis they began a friendship and a no-holds-barred conversation that would continue until Bacon's death thirty years later. Fascinated by the artist's brilliance and charisma, Peppiatt accompanied him on his nightly round of prodigious drinking from grand hotel to louche club and casino, seeing all aspects of Bacon's 'gilded gutter life' and meeting everybody around him, from Lucian Freud and Sonia Orwell to East End thugs.
By the age of 11, Taylor Wilson had mastered the science of rocket propulsion. At 13, his grandmother's cancer diagnosis drove him to investigate medical uses for radioactive isotopes. And at 14, Wilson became the youngest person in history to achieve nuclear fusion. How could someone so young achieve so much, and what can Wilson's story teach parents and teachers about how to support high-achieving children?
Intensive dairy farming has degraded our freshwater rivers, streams and lakes to such a degree that we face an environmental crisis. This perilous situation has arisen primarily through governmental policy that prioritises short-term economic growth over long-term environmental sustainability.
Like every other superhero, Wonder Woman has a secret identity. Unlike every other superhero, she also has a secret history. Drawing from an astonishing trove of documents, including never-before-seen private papers, Harvard historian and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore reveals the fascinating family story that sparked the invention of the most popular female superhero of all time, and traces of antecedents and resonances in contemporary culture and feminist thought.
10% of European Jewish children survived the Holocaust, often in ways that re-railed their life stories in significant ways. Rosen traces the stories of three women whose survival as hidden children brought them eventually to New York and careers helping others.
The efforts of many thousands of men and women, who left their lands and families in Western Europe, and marched off to a highly uncertain future in the Holy Land and elsewhere have never been sufficiently understood. Their actions raise a host of compelling questions about the nature of medieval society. How to Plan a Crusade is fascinating on diplomacy, communications, propaganda, the use of mass media, medical care, equipment, voyages, money, weapons, credit, wills, ransoms, animals, and the power of prayer.
Kafka's letter to his father is at once an exploration of his relationship to his father, his need to write, and the source of his fear one that his father prompts in him but that is beyond the scope of Kafka's memory and power of reasoning. There is no greater text about authority, the disfiguring effects of shame, and, in particular, Kafka's lifelong need to have his father's unobtainable approval. In both the original German and in English.
>> Also just in: Aphorisms, containing both the 'Zurau Aphorisms' of 1917-1918 and a second series that were found in his 1920 diaries.
A graphic memoir of the author's childhood in rural France, Gaddafi's Libya, and Assad's Syria.
Gifford conjures famous writers in imaginary vulnerable moments in their lives. In prose that is funny, grotesque - and a touch brutal, Gifford shows these writers at their most human, which is to say at their worst: they are liars, frauds, lousy lovers and drunks. For a writer, is there a borderline between success and failure?
Another mouthwatering cookbook from the same New Zealand chef.
Eight strange, mischievous, witty stories.
In a dead-end town like Barwen a girl has only got to be a little different to feel like a freak. And Clancy, a typical sixteen-year-old misfit with a moderately dysfunctional family, a genuine interest in Nature Club and a major crush on the local hot girl, is packing a capital F.
We're all conspiracy theorists. Some of us just hide it better than others.
>> Hope for a better future for the mokopuna.
Mrs Petitfour loves baking and making and dancing with her cats, but most of all she loves to fly. All she has to do is pick up a favourite tablecloth (preferably the one with the paisley print), catch the breeze and she swooshes off on an adventure - with her many cats (Minky, Misty, Taffy, Purrsia, Pirate, Mustard, Moutarde, Hemdala, Earring, Grigorovich, Clasby, Captain Captain, Captain Catkin, Captain Clothespin, Your Shyness and Sizzles) dangling paw-to-tail behind her. A charming children's book from the author of Fugitive Pieces.
Your chosen craft can make a difference to your home.
Soldiers, sailors, pilots, POWs of both the Germans and the Japanese. Includes experiences building the Thai-Burma Railway.
