An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine $37.00Aaliya lives alone with her books—books she has collected over a lifetime, books she translates into Arabic with no likelihood that they will ever be read. Suddenly a disaster threatens all she holds dear...
"An utterly unique love poem to the book and to the tenacity of the feminine spirit ... a book worthy of sitting on a shelf next to the great works whose beauty and power whose beauty and power his novel celebrates." - Los Angeles Times
"Read it once, read it twice, read other books for a decade or so, and then pick it up and read it anew. This one’s a keeper." - Independent
More praise here. We can't wait to read this!
It is assumed that the world has been explored and charted; that there is nowhere new to go. But perhaps it is the everyday places around us - the cities we live in - that need to be rediscovered. What does it feel like to find the city's edge, to explore its forgotten tunnels and scale high above the metropolis upon unfinished skyscrapers? Explore Everything reclaims the city, recasting it as a place for endless adventures.
Look at Garrett's place-hacking blog here and be inspired.
They certainly do! Every conceivable piece of equipment, from a chainsaw to a DVD player to a bicycle, has been separated into its components and photographed. Hours of fascinating browsing.
"At once memoir, confession, travel book and thriller ... so vivid and intense you will dread to see it end...The book is a testimony of passion and courage in deadly storms and scarier calms, of a man wrestling with his ghosts and gifts in the very shadow of paradise." - Robert Morgan.
Everything Vann writes carries tectonic force.
A fascinating account of Blake's more recent illustrative ventures: books, galleries, schools, books, hospitals, more books, public spaces, walls, more schools, yet more books... Wonderfully illustrated throughout.
Are we (mis)guiding the planet into the greatest mass extinction since an asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs? With half the world's species likely to disappear by 2050, which evolutionary pathways will remain open and which will be closed? Fascinating, well-written, urgent.
"As lean and muscular a noir thriller as I have read in a long while: swift, structured around a series of expertly timed twists and shocks, very hard to put down." - Adam Roberts, Guardian
"As fierce and sharp as a paper-cut" - Lauren Beukes
An illustrated reference to over 2000 collective nouns, with stunning artwork from Woop Studios. Packed full of fascinating titbits about the very unusual English language, and a delight to look at. You will want to keep this book and you will also want to give it to someone.
Lawrence meets Elodie at a railway station. Neither knows how much their lives will be changed by the encounter. This is a book about being young in the wide world.
A surprising and compelling love story from a rising New Zealand author. .
Hear Sebastian Hampson speak here.
A young girl's midnight seance awakens a long-slumbering malevolent spirit . . . A band of runaway orphans ally with an underground collective of saboteurs and plan a daring rescue of their friends, imprisoned in the belly of an industrial wasteland . . . Two old friends draw closer to their goal of bringing together a pair of exiled toymakers in order to reanimate a mechanical boy prince . . . This is the long-awaited third book of the excellent 'Wildwood Chronicles'.
"Steampunk crime for kids! Jack Mason is saved from an orphanage by a brilliant and eccentric detective who thinks Jack's skills as an acrobat (he was brought up in a circus until his parents died in an accident) might come in handy. Good fun and heaps of action as Jack and Ignatius Doyle set out to save the world from the evil Professor M." - Susi
The first full indigenous translation, using the cadences and expression of New Zealand speech. A landmark production, an epic achievement, and a good translation too.
Read about the Wellington-resident translator (and illustrator) here.
Cambridge linguist Edvard Tossentern, presumed dead, reappears after a balloon crash. When he staggers in from a remote swamp, gravely ill and swollen beyond recognition, his colleagues at the research station are overjoyed. But Edvard's discovery about a rare giant bird throws them all into the path of an international crime ring.
On an impulse, Trudi-Ann Tierney, Australian producer and former actress, goes to Kabul to manage a bar. She quickly falls into the local TV industry, where she becomes responsible for producing a highly popular soapie. Trudi's staff are hugely inexperienced....
This book offers a unique insight into Afghanistan.
Terms and Conditions by Robert Glancy $29.99
A contract lawyer with a traumatic brain injury tries to decide whether to piece together the shattered fragments of his old life or simply start a new one from scratch. One thing is certain: he is determined to teach all the scoundrels in his life to read the fine print...
A funny and poignant novel (think of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen meets The Truman Show) from a New Zealand-resident author.
"A deliciously cynical story" - Independent on Sunday
A hilarious look at the aging baby boomer generation.
"O'Rourke's best book ever, which is saying a lot" - Christopher Buckley
When Zelie Taylor pulls a lost necklace out of the icy waters of the lake, she has no idea what the consequences will be. At first the pendant is just freezing cold - unnaturally so - but then she hears a voice inside her head and Zelie thinks she must be going mad. She's not. Seventeen-year-old Tamas' soul has been trapped in the silver necklace since 1918. Gripping YA fiction from a New Zealand author.
In this ground-breaking and entertaining exploration of athletic success, award-winning writer David Epstein gets to the heart of the great nature vs. nurture debate, and explodes myths about how and why humans excel (including Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule).
"A wonderful book" - Malcolm Gladwell
A moving and funny memoir by musician, DJ and writer Ben Watt, chronicling his parents' lives, their marriage and their decline into old age.
"Astonishingly assured ... by turns terrifying, mordantly funny and intensely moving." - Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph
The author ran away to Paris. To fund her new life, she started a personalised illustrated letter subscription service (for people who wished that they had done the same).
More stock of this riveting book has finally arrived in the Southern hemisphere! Learn how the search for the postulated Higgs particle used the Standard Model to form new concepts such as 'dark matter'. Winner of the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books 2013, and highly recommended by everyone.
A major contribution to New Zealand colonial history and to the wider history of the thistledown diaspora.
kist (n): Sc. A chest for storing clothes and linen.
As chief land purchase commissioner, Donald Maclean played a pivotal role in the nineteenth century alienation of Maori land. He also established a large sheep and cattle station in Hawke's Bay that is now iconic. This book is an interesting piece of New Zealand social and farming history.
How have technological and social changes transformed the way we live in, arrange and think about our houses? What are the unfamiliar cultural histories inherent in our most intimate surroundings?
On a Bangalore night in April 2008, cricket and India changed forever. It was the first night of the Indian Premier League - cricket, but not as we knew it. It involved big money, glitz, prancing girls and Bollywood stars. It was not so much sport as tamasha: a great entertainment. The Great Tamasha examines how a game and a country, both regarded as synonymous with infinite patience, managed to produce such an event.
"Gripping and illuminating" - Diana Athill
"Exuberant, cruel, surprising, a triumphant evocation of a period and a people" - New York Times Book Review
Have you read The Secret River?
"Ogden brilliantly illustrates the role of the clinician as detective, combining the expertise of a neuroscientist, the insight of a psychologist, and the eye of a novelist. The book is wonderfully accessible to anyone interested in how the brain works." - Michael Corballis, author of Pieces of Mind
"In the spirit of Oliver Sacks ... a remarkable journey into the inner workings of the human brain. Ogden's fascinating tales examine how we think, feel, and communicate with the world." - Danielle Ofri
Lost Luggage by Jordi Punti $35.00
Four young men with different mothers and of different nations try to solve the mystery of their mutual father. Why did he abandon them? What was his dark secret? Why did he disappear?
Lost Luggage by Jordi Punti $35.00
Four young men with different mothers and of different nations try to solve the mystery of their mutual father. Why did he abandon them? What was his dark secret? Why did he disappear?
The Defections by Hannah Michell $38.00
"One of the most compelling, haunting and thrilling debuts I have ever
read. It is a book of betrayals and borders, real and imagined, and of
deceptions and desires which beautifully and dramatically evokes the
spectres of Korea's past and the divisions of its present in ways
reminiscent of The Quiet American or McEwan's The Innocent." - David Peace.
What things do thinking Americans think about, and what do they think about those things? Diverse and interesting.
"There is some brilliant writing in it." - Marie
Not
only the story of a leader in the ethical coffee movement, but also a
blueprint for a sustainable trade framework that benefits small local
producers and reduces dependency on aid hand-outs. Acute and inspiring.
Beautiful Old Dogs: A loving tribute to our senior best friends by David Tabatsky and Garry Gross $25.00
