'I've gone. I've never seen the water, so I've gone there. I will try to remember to come back.' Etta's greatest unfulfilled wish, living in the rolling farmland of Saskatchewan, is to see the sea. And so, at the age of eighty-two, she gets up early one morning, takes a rifle, some chocolate and her best boots, and begins walking the 2,000 miles to the water. But Etta is starting to forget things. Her husband, Otto, remembers everything, and he loves her. Their neighbour Russell remembers too, but differently - and he still loves Etta as much as he did over fifty years ago, before she married Otto.
"The book succeeds brilliantly as a meditation on friendship and marriage, on bonds forged over decades." - Guardian
"Incredibly moving, beautifully funny, luminous with wisdom. It is a book that restores one's faith even as it deepens the mystery." - Chris Cleave
>> Here is the author on a swing.
The definitive Peruvian cookbook, featuring 500 traditional home cooking recipes from the country’s most acclaimed and popular chef, Gastón Acurio. One of the world’s most innovative and flavorful cuisines, Peruvian food has been heralded by chefs and media around the world as the "next big thing."
"Gaston Acurio is Peru's answer to Jamie Oliver and Anthony Bourdain." - Wall Street Journal
What is the role of the writer? Prophet? High Priest of Art? Court Jester? Or witness to the real world? Looking back on her own childhood and the development of her writing career, Margaret Atwood examines the metaphors which writers of fiction and poetry have used to explain - or excuse - their activities, looking at what costumes they have seen fit to assume, what roles they have chosen to play. This insightful book was first published in 2002 as Negotiating With the Dead.
An important, far-reaching and provocative survey of town planning (and the lack of it), looking at the impact of urban design on populations and the environment. There are alternatives to accepting soaring house prices, congested traffic, a bland and illegible urban landscape, growing gaps between different peoples, and hopelessly complicated urban planning regulations!
In the days of the Raj, a young lieutenant and an eccentric scholar set off from Calcutta to solve the disappearance of a novelist and India expert and get a bit too close to the Thuggee cult. Well written and thoroughly researched.
"The best unputdownable novel I've read this year so far." - Jan
"A witty and entrancing historical thriller." - Guardian
>> Interview.
Some of these stories, dating from at least 1000 years ago, found their way into the Arabian Nights, but each is unique and wonderful.
"Endlessly diverting and inventive, giving a unique insight into a now-lost elegant, courtly and tolerant Arab world." - William Dalrymple, Sunday Times
"Offers a gateway to a different world of language and ideas, florid, wildly descriptive and are a powerful reminder of the human need for story. Irresistible." - Independent
"An astonishment. A profound oddity." - Scotland on Sunday
A monumental 'anti-sartorial' survey clothing from the streets of the world (Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Shanghai), nullifying the usual distinction between individual and mass choice. Interesting!
60 New Zealand grandmothers, born all over the world, share the recipes that make their tables the centre of their families' lives. This book demonstrates the rich diversity of backgrounds and cuisines that comprise New Zealand's culinary texture. The recipes are very approachable, and the grans' biographies are both interesting and heart-warming.
>> Grans in the kitchen.
Kosher sushi, kebabs, a second-hand bookshop, a bar: the peace of a cosmopolitan neighbourhood in Paris's19th arrondissement in Paris is shattered when Ahmed Taroudant's daydreams are interrupted by the blood dripping from his upstairs neighbour's brutally mutilated corpse. The violent murder of Laura Vignole, and the pork joint placed next to her, set imaginations ablaze across the neighborhood, and Ahmed finds himself the prime suspect. However, detectives Rachel Kupferstein and Jean Hamelot are not short of leads...
"Intelligent and gripping." - Tariq Ali
"Brilliant." - The Guardian
"'Exciting, informative, stimulating, and a little frightening." - The Times
This stunningly beautiful colouring book takes you on a inky quest through an enchanted forest to discover what lies in the castle at its heart. As well as drawings to complete, colour and embellish, there are hidden objects to be found along the way including wild flowers, animals and birds, gems, lanterns, keys and treasure chests. Beginning at the entrance to the forest, the journey progresses through woodland, rocky caves and tree-lined mazes, over streams and a waterfall, across the trees tops, to finally reach the castle.
Nearing sixty and needing to plan for his and his children's future, Kureishi followed his accountant's advice and invested in a property scheme - only to find out that the accountant was a fraudster and his entire life savings had vanished. In this thought-provoking account of his conman, Kureishi uses this theft as a way of exploring some of the contradictions and dilemmas of our lives: the true value of money; the role of deception in art; how you can love and hate simultaneously; why the financial world seems to revolve around deceit; and what we might recover from those who have stolen from us.
"A searing, allegorical view of Chinese society during some of the darkest moments of the Mao era. Yan cements his reputation as one of China's most mportant - and certainly most fearless - living writers." - Kirkus Reviews
In the past decade, street art has transformed from a practice carried out by anonymous creators, seen by some as vandalism, into a commercial enterprise and a respectable part of the international art market. A new generation of artists is creating uncommissioned, site-specific works employing a range of art and craft techniques, including weaving, crocheting, sculpting, painting, gardening, light installation, and more. But has the market defused the subversive power of street craft?
A wonderfully comprehensive and sympathetic account of Gypsy culture and history.
A rigorous polemic against the increasing use of robot warfare around the world. Drawing on philosophical debate, moral lessons from Greek mythology and transcripts of conversations between drone operators, Drone Theory re-evaluates the socio-political impact of drone warfare on the world - and its people.
Fascinating, incisive reportage from a land "where gangsters become artists, gold‑diggers quote Pushkin and Hell's Angels hallucinate themselves as saints".
>> The author speaks and reads and occasionally scratches his head.
An ebola-like pandemic is the catalyst for a meditation on memory and our ability to hide the truth from ourselves.
"The best young writer in America." - Salon
"The novel lingers and aches in the memory." - Guardian
Comprised of short paragraphs, observations, quotes and quips - poignant, skittish, acute or throwaway - this book contains a familiar domestic narrative, albeit one related at such speed (first uphill then down with the accelerator fully depressed) that it hardly adheres to the corners. The narrator, a writer and would-be ‘art monster’, unforeseeably marries and has a child (as tends frequently to happen to would-be art monsters), providing a husband and daughter to vie with writing for priority in her life... This excellent book was short-listed for the 2015 Folio Prize.
We still have a couple of copies of the beautiful hardback edition.
What's it like to be a writer-in-residence aboard an aircraft carrier? What is it like to be a sloppily individualistic Englishman pitched into the deeply American world of the US Navy? Dyer records the daily life on board the USS George H.W. Bush, revealing it to be a prism for understanding a society where discipline and conformity, dedication and optimism, become forms of self-expression.
An enjoyable and quietly witty guide to the work words do in teams, from the wonderful Tohby Riddle.
The Women of Letters literary salon has a well-known passion for correspondence. Here they have collected letters from literati and celebrities written all over the world.
Edinburgh, 1888. A violinist is murdered in his home. The dead virtuoso's maid swears she heard three musicians playing in the night. But with only one body in the locked practice room - and no way in or out - the case makes no sense. Fearing a national panic over another Ripper, Scotland Yard sends Inspector Ian Frey to investigate under the cover of a fake department specializing in the occult. However, Frey's new boss, Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray, actually believes in such supernatural nonsense...
A housewife with agency issues is mangled by a series of affairs in this modern-day Madame Bovary.
>> This video of the US jacket design process is rather good.
What makes Greek and Roman literature great? How has classical literature influenced Western culture? What did Greek and Roman authors learn from each other? You will want to read a lot more Classical literature once you have read this book.
Draws on the collections of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, including photographs taken by New Zealand soldiers, to give depth and poignancy to a dark period of our history.
An illustrated glimpse into the life of an artist whose fabric designs grace home furnishings the world over. Try not to drool onto the book.
The discovery of individuality, human freedom and potential in the early centuries CE displaced the family, the caste and the tribe as the core elements of social organisation and moral thinking.
"Magisterial, timeless, beautifully written. Siedentop has achieved something quite extraordinary. He has explained us to ourselves." - Spectator
Ha! There so are many places a snail can hide!
When a successful lawyer, bon vivant, and loving husband and father has a heart attack and drowns in the local swimming pool, the dark secrets of his life start floating to the surface.
The best garden designs of the last ten years from more than fifty top garden designers. It offers design solutions for every situation, every area, all tastes and budgets, and any size of garden.
A small group of Umbrian women - sometimes with their men and, as often, without them - gather in an old stone house in the hills above Orvieto to cook, to sit down to a beautiful supper, to drink their beloved local wines. And to talk. During the gathering, the preparation, the cooking and the eating, they recount the memories and experiences of their gastronomic lives and, as much, of their more personal histories. De Blasi recounts four wonderful years of this.
Fifty sweet recipes bearing Zumbo's trademark idiosyncratic stamp.
The author suddenly developed an extreme sensitivity to light. Consequently her life became very different in many (sometimes quite unexpected) ways. How did she cope?
"Wide-ranging, fun and informative. As an ice-breaker at parties, it is unmatched." - Sunday Times
Racing towards Liverpool a hundred years ago, the Lusitania was hunted by Unterseeboot-20. This is a vivid recreation of the fateful day they met.
Having grown up in the Australian outback, Miller suddenly finds herself in Paris for a year. Luckily, she falls in with Montaigne, Rousseau and de Beauvoir, who are both helpful guides and thoughtful companions.
Rabbit is bored. Wolf has the perfect solution. 'Why not write a story?' he says. Wolf teaches Rabbit how to construct a story, but Wolf is hungry and they disagree how the story should end...
Learn how to make restaurant favourites such as stir-fried crispy pork belly with basil, roasted red duck curry with eggplant, tomato and pineapple and crispy prawn and lemongrass salad, as well as traditional classics like pad Thai, fishcakes and a massaman beef curry.
“Touch is not optional for human development. From consumer choice to sexual intercourse, from tool use to chronic pain to the process of healing, the genes, cells and neural circuits involved in the sense of touch have been crucial to creating our unique human experience.” - David Linden
"Engrossing." - Guardian
When his pet human goes to school, Monster thinks she is trapped there against her will, and he sets out to rescue her!
"A delight." - Independent
The title is not an oxymoron! Your shed, no matter what you use it for, is ripe for an aesthetic all of its own.
If you liked Gill Heriz's A Woman's Shed, you will want to clutch this book.
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