A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gale $34.99"Amazing - so interesting, so wonderfully written, tragic and divine. It tells the story of Englishman Harry Cane, whose conventional life is shaken to the bone by an illicit affair, a situation that sends him on a perilous journey to frontier Canada. This is the best Gale I've read and I was very impressed by his earlier Notes from an Exhibition." - Stella
>> The story is based on Gale's own family history.
Women on a group of islands off the Virginia coast struggle against domestic violence, savage wilderness, and the corrosive effects of poverty and addiction to secure a sense of well-being for themselves and for those they love. For fans of David Mitchell and Jennifer Egan.
"This southern-gothic delight is testament to an exuberant talent and an original, fearless sensibility. It’s also enormous fun to read." - Guardian
"A vivid exploration of the struggle for autonomy and the many meanings of what we call home." - Eimear McBride, author of A Girl is a Half-formed Thing
This short novel is not simply about the border between Mexico and the United States and about those who cross it, it is about all borders and all crossings, and about the translations, of language and of minds, made by those who cross a border which cannot be crossed back. Beautifully written, subtle, and vast in its scope.
David Smith is giving his life for his art - literally. Thanks to a deal with Death, the young sculptor gets his childhood wish: to sculpt anything he can imagine with his bare hands. But now that he only has 200 days to live, deciding what to create is harder than he thought, and discovering the love of his life at the eleventh hour isn't making it any easier.
"The best graphic novel I've read in years." - Neil Gaiman
Inspired by his father's chance remark in an Seattle museum, the author sets out to trace his family's diaspora back through China's turbulent recent history to a time when his great-grandfather buried the family's valuables and fled their home town as the Japanese advanced in 1938.
"This is a wonderfully interesting read. Highly recommended." - Peter
In his fourth collection David Beach tackles a subject inescapable for any New Zealander writing sonnets, a subject inescapable for any writer of sonnets at all, and a subject which is just inescapable.
"What if the man who invented chemical weapons was also a grandfather, and what if his great-grandchildren grew up to be three hilarious, introverted, deeply-haunted sisters? And what if those sisters co-wrote a fascinating, funny, and deeply sad 350-page suicide note? Then you'd have A Reunion of Ghosts." - Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See)
A woman with a famous face is disfigured in a car accident and must overcome feelings of alienation to reach a new understanding of herself. Stamm uses his characteristic spare prose to probe the relationship between character and author.
In 1966 John Berger spent three months in the Forest of Dean shadowing an English country GP, John Sassall.
"A masterpiece of witness: a moving meditation on humanity, society and the value of healing. It’s a collaborative work that blends John Berger’s text with Jean Mohr’s photographs in a series of superb analytical, sociological and philosophical reflections on the doctor’s role, the roots of cultural and intellectual deprivation and the motivations that drive medical practice." - Guardian
"A genuine tour de force. The intimate portrait of one man and his microscopic world reveals the faults and strains of a whole society." - Observer
The only known novel by German social worker and journalist Ernst Haffner, of whom nearly all traces were lost during the course of World War II. Told in stark, unsparing detail, Haffner's story delves into the illicit underworld of Berlin on the eve of Hitler's rise to power, describing how a group of boys move from one petty crime to the next, spending their nights in underground bars and makeshift hostels, struggling together to survive the harsh realities of gang life, and finding in one another the legitimacy denied them by society.
A novel about love and betrayal, and about a rising generation that can no longer tell the difference between reality and desire.
"A marvellous story set in contemporary Peru. I can understand well why this author is a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature." - Peter
Turn your mind back to when you first flew. When you first left the Earth, and travelled high and fast above its turning arc. When you looked down on a new world, captured simply and perfectly through a window fringed with ice. When you descended towards a city, and arrived from the sky as ordinarily as morning. In Skyfaring, airline pilot and flight romantic Mark Vanhoenacker shares his irrepressible love of flying, on a journey from day to night, from new ways of map-making and the poetry of physics to the names of winds and the nature of clouds.
A feisty heroine, hazards of immense and magical proportions, utterly absorbing and exciting plots - you will be blown away by the 'French Harry Potter'.
"Fantastic!" - Guardian
If you haven't read Oksa Pollock yet, start with The Last Hope, and then The Forest of Lost Souls before reading this. Perfect for the school holidays.
An excellent guide to genuine French cuisine, for cooks of all levels.
A thoughtful and inspiring guide to a whole range of under-utilised flavours, from dandelion to radicchio and beyond.
SS Obersturmfuhrer Paul Meissner arrives in Auschwitz from the Russian front. To improve flagging camp morale, he sets up a chess club (which thrives, as the officers and enlisted men are allowed to gamble on the results). When Meissner learns from a chance remark that chess is also played by the prisoners, he hears of a Jewish watchmaker who is 'unbeatable'. Meissner sets out to discover the truth behind this rumour. Can two men build a friendship across the horrendous divide?
>> Meeting on the chessboard.
>> This chess set was made by prisoners in the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp from the most precious substance available: bread.
Despite its convincing appearance, the apple might not in fact be an apple. What else could it be? Is it a star fro outer space. This nutty children's (and adults'!) book teams untrammelled imagination with philosophical enquiry.
Beyond the affluent centre of Paris and other French cities, in the deprived banlieues, a war is going on. This is the French Intifada, a guerrilla war between the French state and the former subjects of its Empire, for whom the mantra of 'liberty, equality, fraternity' conceals a bitter history of domination, oppression, and brutality. This war began in the early 1800s, with Napoleon's lust for martial adventure, strategic power and imperial pre-eminence, and led to the armed colonization of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, and decades of bloody conflict.
"Peter Singer may be the most controversial philosopher alive; he is certainly among the most influential." - New Yorker
Since ending his Prime Ministership, Tony Blair has achieved and sustained what can only be termed a billionaire lifestyle. How? Could power brokering, endorsing dictators, esoteric tax avoidance schemes and cynical property accumulation have anything to do with it?
"Will delight Blair's enemies." - Guardian
Englishman Atticus Craftsman never travels without a supply of Earl Grey and a favourite book. So when he is sent to shut down a failing literary magazine in Madrid, he packs both. A short Spanish jaunt later, he'll be back in Kent, cup of tea and smoked-salmon sandwich in hand. But the five women who run the magazine have other ideas. They'll do anything to keep the jobs they love and their cosy office together. Even if it involves hoodwinking Atticus with flashing eyes, the ghosts of literature past and a winding journey into the heart of Andalucia...
Sixteen-face John, an Inuit shaman (or ex-shaman; he has long neglected his shamanising for television and ‘coca-cola’) has to put aside his sixteen buffering faces and encounter his deepest fears (even Yiwok the World-Swallower) as he searches for the lost ‘World Songs’ that will make the world fascinating enough to entice his daughter to be born. An exquisite and resonant book, now in paperback.
Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical. But when an email falls into the wrong hands, his secret is at risk of being thrust into the spotlight.
"I love you, Simon. I love you! And I love this fresh, funny, live-out-loud book." - Jennifer Niven, author of All the Bright Places
After the crucifixion, Jesus' brother James and his right-hand man Peter remained devout Jews, vigorously opposed to Roman occupation. But a rival faction emerged, led by the charismatic itinerant Paul of Tarsus. While the Judeans were being massacred in their millions, Paul's followers desperately tried to prove that their Messiah was peaceful: and in doing so they began telling stories which would transform a small sect of Judaism into a world religion. Over time, those stories turned to stone - while other truths vanished, crushed beneath the heel of orthodoxy, altered by the passing of years. So who was Jesus - the warrior or the pacifist?
When a young troll named Hawthorn is stolen from Fairyland by the Golden Wind, he becomes a changeling - a human boy - in the strange city of Chicago, a place no less bizarre and magical than Fairyland when seen through trollish eyes. Left with a human family, Hawthorn struggles with his troll nature and his changeling fate. But when he turns twelve, he stumbles upon a way back home, to a Fairyland much changed from the one he remembers.
The fourth in Valente's wonderful 'Fairyland' series!
When occupational therapist Beverley Forrester's husband died suddenly she was left to run a farm she had barely worked. She set to, and learnt to farm it. She got serious about her wool, set up shop in the UK and started her own fashion label. At Black Hills in the Hurunui, she restored the farm's historic limestone buildings.
Sunshine's always had a quirky affiliation with the past, but this time, history is getting much too close for comfort. If there is something, or someone, haunting her house, what do they want?
>> "I never thought I'd be moving into a haunted house at 16."
Scary!
Elliott is a boy who likes to find things and, one day, he stumbles across a machine. At first, he can't work out what the machine is for - it doesn't beep or buzz like all his other machines and it doesn't have an ON/OFF button. Then, quite by accident, Elliott makes the machine work. The machine makes letters!
>> Watch children react to typewriters (highly recommended).
>> Can you identify these typewriting writers?
According to Alibhai-Brown, the veil throws up a number of concerns, from questions of health and freedom of choice to issues of gender and personal identity. She argues that veiling conceals abuse, propagates eating disorders and restricts access to sunlight and exercise. It is imposed on babies and young girls, allows women to be shamed for not covering up, and has become associated with extremist factions. It demonises men, oppresses feminism and presents obstacles to performance and success. It even encourages racism, distorts Muslim values and strips women of autonomy and individuality. What do you think?
We are sometimes so busy parenting we forget how to be a person.
>> She talks.
A richer, deeper, more intimate portrait of this great writer than we've encountered in English before.
A rare record of the subcontinent's narrow-gauge hill railways.
Reed oscillates between losing patience with his interviewers (he was famous for walking out on them) and sharing profound observations on the human experience, especially as he reflects on poetry and novels, the joy of live performances, and the power of sound.
Birds speak, keys appear from nowhere, boxes spill secrets and the dead talk - this is a magical novel - both a love story and a slowly unfurling mystery.
Shortly before the Korean War ended, Kim Il Sung congratulated No Kum Sok, the country's youngest jet fighter pilot, on his flying skill and courage, but just a few months later, No Kum Sok stole a Soviet-made MiG-15 and escaped to a US airfield in South Korea.
The autobiography of the blind son of a poor Chinese farmer who taught himself law and became a civil rights activist (and who now lives in exile).
The nasty, truly awful (and funny) sequel to the nasty, truly awful (and funny) 'dark-side-of-Oz' Dorothy Must Die.
In her bedroom wall, Sylvie spots a door... and beyond that door she finds a passage... and beyond the passage she discovers... the zoo!
This wonderful book, now in paperback, will become an immediate favourite.
Human Body (Infographics) by Simon Rogers and Peter Grundy $29.99
Be astonished! Be amused! Be informed! It's your body, after all.
DON'T BE CAUGHT WITHOUT A BOOK THIS EASTER.
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