To have new ideas it is often necessary to get rid of some old ones. 175 of the world's most influential scientists, economists, artists, and philosophers tell us what idea they think are ready for retirement. Includes Steven Pinker, Ian McEwan, Richard Dawkins, Sherry Turkle, Jared Diamond, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Richard Thaler, Nicholas Carr and Rebecca Newberger Goldstein.
>> Is Brockman's salon Edge.org "the world's smartest website" (The Guardian)?
A tough, sensitive and beautifully spare story of lives worn to the bone by rough land and rough treatment, from the New Zealand author of the excellent Traitor.
Throughout its history, London has been two places: the daytime city of business and work the night-time palace of dark desires, crime, and vagrancy. This place has attracted writers, lawyers, poets, and politicians who have all attempted to chart and control the nocturnal flows of the capital. This fascinating book surveys London's night walkers, from Shakespeare to the ecstatic strolls of William Blake and the delirious wanderings of De Quincey, as well as the master nightwalker, Charles Dickens.
A psychologically traumatised serviceman, returned from Iraq, meets an Uighur-Han Chinese illegal immigrant. Together they attempt to grasp the possibility of a new beginning for their lives.
"The book has the boundless, epic exhilaration you expect to find only in a writer as mighty as, say, Walt Whitman. It is a love story, a war story, a tale of New York City in which familiar streets become exotic, mysterious, portentous, foul, magnificent. Some of it reads like poetry. All of it moves with a breathless momentum. Atticus Lish has written a transcendent novel." - New York Review of Books
"Lish’s tough lyricism ultimately works to dissolve the barrier between book and reader." - Guardian
Oh no! The wolf is coming! He’s a bit scary. Maybe he wants to eat us! But here’s an idea: if we hold the book on a lean, maybe the wolf will slip and fall. And if he holds onto a branch, maybe we can shake the book so he drops off. Or maybe it’s enough to turn the page to make him disappear. Let’s try!
A time of upheaval stands between young and old in New Zealand. Andrew Dean explores the lives of the generation of young people brought up in the shadow of the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, those whom he calls "the children of the Mother of All Budgets". Drawing together memoir, history, and interviews, he explores the experiences of ‘discomfort’ and ‘disconnection’ in modern New Zealand.
What's the worst thing that can happen to a man who has not one, not two, but three secret families on the go?
"One of the best writers working in the world today. That's not opinion. That's fact." - Christos Tsiolkas
"It looks impossible to get out,'"he says. And also: "But we'll get out". Two brothers, Big and Small, are trapped at the bottom of a well. They have no food and little chance of rescue. Only the tempting spectre of insanity offers a way out. As Small's wits fail, Big formulates a desperate plan.
"A brutal, Beckett-like tale. Its end is cathartic, hopeful and violent. It is utopian, and reminds us that language is the only thing that can save us: because language is everything." - La Vanguardia
French cakes, pastries, tarts and breads to make at home, with no compromise to authenticity or delectability.
1975. The cusp of Argentina’s Dirty War. The magnate, Fausto Tamerlán, has been kidnapped by guerrillas, who as part of their ransom demands have stipulated the placement of a bust of Eva Perón in all 92 offices of Argentina’s leading construction company, Tamerlán & Sons. Tamerlán’s head of procurement, Ernesto Marroné, is the man tasked with the job, but he soon finds out that his is a mission for executives of a heroic disposition. His subsequent picaresque journey plunges him into a world of occupied factories, the slums of Buenos Aires and the utopian Evita City. Equipped with his trusty copy of Don Quixote: The executive-errant, Marroné is a modern knight who finds himself forced to penetrate the ultimate Argentinian mystery: Eva Perón.
The winner of the 2015 Australian/Vogel's Literary Award is a vivid and compelling collection of stories about people who find their lives unravelling and discover that no matter how many thousands of kilometres they put between themselves and their transgressions, sometimes there's nowhere else to run...
Writers' festivals can be hotbeds of literary and romantic intrigue. Rookie director Rae McKay, recently returned to New Zealand from New York, fears she has bitten off more than she can chew. Pressure comes not only from local and international writers but also from the prestigious Opus Book Award, which this year is being hosted by the festival. Add to that high-level diplomatic fallout surrounding a dissident Chinese writer and Rae's slowly disintegrating private life and the result is a witty novel that explores the contemporary phenomenon of the public face of the writer. If you loved The Writing Class, you'll want to read this!
For twelve generations, the inhabitants of a remote island in Newfoundland have lived and died together. Now, in the second decade of the 21st century, they are facing resettlement. They have each been offered a generous compensation package to leave the island for good. There's just one proviso: everyone must go. Gradually, all of the residents surrender to the inevitable. All of the residents, that is, but one: Moses Sweetland.
Prepare your tastebuds for quick, healthy, delicious food! 120 recipes from the author of the hugely popular (and rather excellent) Revive Café Cookbooks).
Mary Norris has spent more than three decades guarding The New Yorker's grand traditions of grammar and usage. Now she brings her vast experience and sharpened pencil to help the rest of us. This book features Norris's hilarious exhortations about exclamation marks and emoticons, splice commas and swear words; her memorable exchanges with writers such as Pauline Kael, Philip Roth, and George Saunders; and her loving meditations on the most important tools of the trade.
The 1950 seem an amalgam of domestic idyll and gender stereotype. Before the Pill, divorce spelled scandal and two-piece swimsuits caused mass alarm. What was it really like for women who lived in the '50s?
"Virginia Nicholson gets us closer than we have ever been before to the complicated day-to-day reality of women's lives during that still controversial decade, the 1950s." - David Kynaston
"Ewan Clayton has written a rich and highly accessible history of why we write as we do, and his timing is superb. To think we may lose all this is heartbreaking." - Simon Garfield (author of Just My Type)
"Whether his topic is Roman inscriptions, the bookkeeping traditions of the East India Company, the first admission of handwriting as evidence in a court of law, the pitfalls of the paperless office, or the experience of copying sacred texts, Clayton writes with ingenuous charm and contagious enthusiasm, often illustrating his points with "calligraphic studies" of his own." - The Paris Review
Disease is the true serial killer of human history: the horrors of bubonic plague, cholera, syphilis, smallpox, tuberculosis and the like have claimed more lives and caused more misery than the depredations of warfare, famine and natural disasters combined.
Josef Breuer - celebrated psychoanalyst - is about to encounter his strangest case yet. Found by the lunatic asylum, thin, head shaved, she claims to have no name, no feelings - to be, in fact, not even human. Intrigued, Breuer determines to fathom the roots of her disturbance...
"A powerful, terrifying story. It is impossible not to find yourself racing through the pages. Heart-breaking and heart-racing." - The Times
The day Mum didn't get dressed and went on strike, Dad called her a 'Wild Thing' and Mum said 'Cook your own dinner' and stomped off upstairs to have a bath...
A harrowing but spirited account by a young law student who spent time in a labour camp and underground before using faked identity papers to travel and, eventually, to hide in full sight from the Nazis.
"Iain Lonie’s poems see clearly but never shrug their shoulders. This book is going to be essential."— Bill Manhire
"I, for one, cannot sidestep a certain shame at not realising until now how fine and important a writer Lonie was. He brought to his poetry the precision and clarity and intellectual force of a gifted classical scholar. He was patiently indifferent to passing fashions, with his own more enduring touchstones. And in a remarkable fidelity to the tides of his productive but troubled life, he wrote a body of poems on love and grief and the searing currents of remembrance that, in New Zealand writing, stands alone." – Vincent O’Sullivan
"Sixty years ago the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre wrote 'hell is other people'. Now, new evidence shows us that he was utterly wrong. Beginning from the first moments of life and at every age and stage, close contact with other people - and especially with women - affects how we think, whom we trust, and where we invest our money. Our social ties powerfully influence our sense of life satisfaction, our cognitive skills, and how resistant we are to infections and chronic disease."
What are the stories behind and around the most famous art forgeries?
One of New Zealand's leading antique dealers tells the sumptuously illustrated story of her shop and of the history filtered through it.
After being kept completely isolated from the world for a decade in a forest hut by her survivalist father, a young woman returns to her family home. What happened in the forest? Why has she now returned? What is going on inside her head?
If you enjoyed Emma Donoghue's Room, you will want to read this.
Aldo has been so relentlessly unlucky - in business, in love, in life - that the universe seems to have taken against him personally. Even Liam, his best friend, describes him as "a well-known parasite and failure". There's hope, but not for Aldo. Liam hasn't been doing much better himself: a failed writer with a rocky marriage and a dangerous job he never wanted. But something good may come out of Aldo's lowest point. Liam may finally have found his inspiration. Together, maybe they can turn bad luck into an art-form.
Tolz was short-listed for the Booker for A Fraction of the Whole.
When the men leave for work, the American suburbs in the early 1970s become the domain of women. The women are isolated but keep their loneliness and frustrations hidden behind a veneer of suburban respectability. When a divorcee and her daughter move into the estate this veneer begins to crack. The women learn how to socialise, how to drink martinis, how to care less about their wifely and maternal duties.
"Dwyer Hickey writes with quiet power about the devastation of lives circumscribed by habit, fear and ignorance." - Independent
"I have so carefully mapped the corners of my mind that I am forever waking in a lost country."
At last - a truly excellent French cookbook for children. Retire to the other room and wait to be served.
For almost a decade Rachel Caine has turned her back on home, kept distant by family disputes and her work monitoring wolves on an Idaho reservation. But now, summoned by the eccentric Earl of Annerdale and his controversial scheme to reintroduce the Grey Wolf to the English countryside, she is back in the peat and wet light of the Lake District. The earl's project harks back to an ancient idyll of untamed British wilderness - though Rachel must contend with modern-day concessions to health and safety, public outrage and political gain - and the return of the Grey after hundreds of years coincides with her own regeneration: impending motherhood, and reconciliation with her estranged family. The Wolf Border investigates the fundamental nature of wilderness and wildness, both animal and human.
"Terrific. What makes Mabey's appreciation of Lark Rise to Candleford's shape-shifting so compelling is that he never makes the mistake of thinking that the original was summoned up by some act of the collective unconscious. Instead, he reminds us of Thompson's awkward and patient achievement, as the sole creator of a bona fide work of art." - Guardian
"I have been a restaurant critic for over a decade, written reviews of well over 700 establishments, and if there is one thing I have learnt it is that people like reviews of bad restaurants. They adore them, feast upon them like starving vultures who have spotted fly-blown carrion out in the bush. They claim otherwise, of course. Readers like to present themselves as private arbiters of taste; as people interested in the good stuff. I'm sure they are. I'm sure they really do care whether the steak was served au point as requested or whether the souffle had achieved a certain ineffable lightness. And yet, when I compare dinner to bodily fluids, the room to an S & M chamber in Neasden (only without the glamour or class), and the bill to an act of grand larceny, why, then the baying crowd is truly happy."
Four young people find themselves trapped in a gigantic shopping centre. They have everything they need - except for a way out.
Famous bestselling author, loving husband, generous friend - Henry Hayden is a pleasant person to have around. Or so it seems. When his mistress, who is also his editor, becomes pregnant, his carefully constructed life threatens to fall apart. Henry works out an ingenious plan. Craftily and cold-bloodedly, he intertwines lies and truths and all the shades of grey in-between.
"One thing must be made absolutely clear: The Truth and Other Lies is, until further notice, this year's best achievement on the German crime book scene." - Die Welt
A lost classic lays bare the darkest moment of France's post-war history. First published in Paris in 1957, as France's engagement in Algeria became ever more bloody, On Leave received a handful of reviews and soon disappeared from view. Through David Bellos' translation, this lost classic has been rediscovered. Spare, forceful and moving, the novel describes a week in the lives of a sergeant, a corporal and a private, home on leave in Paris.
"A novel with a solar-plexus punch, written from the dark heart of conflict." - Boyd Tonkin, Independent
Aged 24, Matt Haig's world caved in. He could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over a depression that almost destroyed him, and learned to live fully again. He went on to write The Humans.
"Matt Haig is astounding." - Stephen Fry
>> Here are 5 reasons. Convinced?
A lavish, wonderful survey of one of the most daring and influential fashion designers of the turn of the 21st century.
>> 'Sarabande', 1997.
>> Just listen.
Before becoming a notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's film industry. He directed every film made in the country but knew they were lacking something. Then he hit on the perfect solution: order the kidnapping of South Korea's most famous actress and her ex-husband, the country's most acclaimed director.
The author's intimacy with the dead upon becoming an undertaker gave rise to new perspectives on what happens to our bodies after we die. Why do people behave towards death in the way they do?
"Compassionate, unblinking and very very funny." - Meg Rosoff
A picture history of the American and European truck invasion into the predominantly British truck fleet of TNL, covering the era from 1971 through to 1984.
Deep in the sea there lives a school of little fish. Their watery world is full of wonders, but there is also danger, and the little fish are afraid to come out of hiding. until Swimmy comes along. Swimmy shows his friends that, with ingenuity and team work, they can beat any bully.
Leo Lionni's picture books are always sensitive and beautiful.
As Europe's borderlands emerged from Soviet rule, Anne Applebaum travelled from the Baltic to the Black Sea, through Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and the Carpathian mountains.
"In this superb book, in which one senses the spirit of Franz Kafka and Bruno Schulz, the dramatic world of the Eastern borderlands comes to life." - Ryszard Kapuscinski
A handy handbook, surveying the range and scope of 20th century photography.
A soldier returns from Iraq to her beloved younger brother and father. Something, however, is not quite right...
"A tense and stunning novel. Exactly what a war novel should be: a tale of refreshing honesty about the harm war does to us all." - Guardian
Ellie the elephant loves to have fun in the bath but she's not the only one...her fun is interrupted when a crocodile decides to join in followed by a flamingo, then a mouse and even a tiger! Poor Ellie's bath is ruined. What can she do? Suck all the water into her trunk of course! Ellie waits until the uninvited animals have left before squirting the water back. Finally Ellie can enjoy her bath in peace!
A thoughtful memoir by the most prolific and popular of contemporary composers.
"Big-hearted and open-minded, this irresistible memoir helps to show how Glass has channelled and transformed the sounds of our time." - Independent
What is the story behind the bombs that exploded near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon? The excellent Masha Gessen traces the fuse back through Dagestan to Kyrgyzstan and to Chechnya, telling a fascinating story of political and personal alienation.
Grayling believes philosophy should make itself useful and address current affairs. Here he trains his blow-torch mind on a variety of modern perplexities. He is upbeat about our prospects.
When Alice Salmon died last year, the ripples were felt in the news, on the internet, and in the hearts of those who knew her best. But the person who knows her most intimately isn't family or a friend. Dr Jeremy Cook is an academic whose life has become about piecing together Alice's existence in all its flawed and truthful reality. For Cooke, faithfully recreating Alice's life - through her diaries, emails and anything using her voice - is all-consuming. He does not know how deep his search will take him, or the shocking nature of what he will uncover . . . Creepy.
At a time when China continues to transform at the speed of light, the generations of precious 'one and onlies' are burdened with expectation, yet have often been brought up without any sense of responsibility. What has been the wider, on-going result of government-initiated population control?
From the author of The Good Women of China.
Who can you rely on to deliver a priceless diamond to an undeserving heiress? Anyone but Ivy Pocket, the unbearable 12-year-old maid!
Our economics focuses on self-interest and excludes all other motivations. It disregards the unpaid work of mothering, caring, cleaning, and cooking. It insists that if women are paid less, that's because their labour is worth less. But while Adam Smith was writing his economic theory, his mother cooked him dinner every night, not out of self-interest but out of love.
In the hot, rainy summer of 1955, Cambodia is in upheaval. The first democratic elections, just weeks away, will determine not only the future of a country, but the happiness of three people. Sar is a quiet, serious schoolteacher, officially campaigning for the opposition, who is secretly working for an armed Communist takeover. Many years later, he will become known to the world as Pol Pot. Somaly - young, fragile, beautiful - refuses to be tied down. She is the woman Sar loves, the woman for whom he is willing to sacrifice his most dearly held beliefs.
Old Readers are supposed to live for ever, magically inhabiting the spaces between stories. They're not supposed to die. But they can be murdered. When an ancient Reader is killed, seemingly by his own apprentice, the hierarchy of the magical world tumbles and its spider web of alliances begin to unravel.
The gripping sequel to The Forbidden Library.
"Wexler is an able builder of magical worlds and creatures, with labyrinths, an enchanted library, and a feisty, swashbuckling heroine at the centre. A story rich in action and allegory." - Kirkus Reviews
Forced to flee his native Bangladesh, eight year-old chess prodigy Fahim arrived in Paris with his father. Refused asylum, as illegal immigrants they spiralled downwards into homelessness and desperation. By a stroke of luck, Fahim was introduced to one of France's top chess coaches, Xavier Parmentier. This is his story.
The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild $36.99
A tender satire of the London art world (and a love story too).
“Every page is a joy. It's funny, sad, profound. The writing dances. It has panache. It's beautifully structured. It wears its scholarship with a balletic lightness and grace that shadows the Rococo painting at its heart. Its many and varied characters are an exquisite joy. Her range and emotional grasp is wonderful. What more can I say? It's my Book of the Year already.” – Barbara Trapido
A useful facsimile of a contemporary account, complete with excellent maps.
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