Starlight Peninsula by Charlotte Grimshaw $38.00
Thrown into the turmoil of a sudden marriage break-up, Eloise begins to perceive that a layer of the world has been hidden from her. Seeking answers, she revisits a traumatic episode from her past, and in doing so encounters an odd-eyed policewoman, a charismatic obstetrician, a German psychotherapist, and a flamboyant internet pirate wanted by the United States Government. Each of these characters will reveal something about the life of Eloise Hay, answering questions that she hasn't, until now, had the courage to ask.
Another sharper-than-a-scalpel novel from the author of The Night Book and Soon.
Where are we? How did we get here? Where do we go now? A provocative and insightful exploration of rebuilding our homes, communities and cities after their devastation. From nineteenth-century attempts to create Utopias to America's rustbelt, from Darwin's study of worms to China's phantom cities, this work ranges widely through history and around the world. It examines the evolution of cities and of Christchurch in particular, looking at its swampy origins and its present reconstruction following the recent destructive earthquakes. And it takes us to L'Aquila in Italy to observe another city shaken by destructive tremors.
When two well-heeled sisters purchased the sprawling Kereru Station in the aftermath of World War 2, old school farmers must have shook their heads in bemused dismay. The property was in serious decline. Fences had collapsed, paddocks were reverting to rabbit-infested scrub and the once handsome homestead was being used to store hay and house calves. Gwen Malden and Ruth Nelson were eccentric, artistic women but they were also savvy and they set out to revitalise the station, which had been established in 1857 by James Nelson Williams. earliest sheep runs. Great stories and photographs!
Against the backdrop of the Great War, Rosie must choose between her sense of duty and her will to live her life to the full, and between two men who have loved her since they were childhood friends together. From the author of Captain Corelli's Violin.
Casting light on the most serious of problems and at the same time saying not one serious sentence; being fascinated by the reality of the contemporary world and at the same time completely avoiding realism, The Festival of Insignificance is Kundera's first novel for 15 years.
"Enchanting: it explores all aspects of a declining civilisation without taking any of them too seriously. In this novel of Flaubertian seduction, insignificance is the very essence of life." - La Repubblica
From the acclaimed author of Silence Once Begun comes a beguiling new novel about a man starting over at the most basic level, and the strange woman who insinuates herself into his life and memory. A man and a woman have moved into a small house in a small village. The woman is an 'examiner', the man, her 'claimant'. The examiner is both doctor and guide, charged with teaching the claimant a series of simple functions: this is a chair, this is a fork, this is how you meet people. She makes notes in her journal about his progress. He is showing improvement, but his dreams are troubling. One day, the examiner brings him to a party, and here he meets Hilda, a charismatic but volatile woman whose surprising assertions throw everything the claimant has learned into question.
On 16 December, 1944, Hitler launched his 'last gamble' in the snow-covered forests and gorges of the Ardennes. He believed he could split the Allies by driving all the way to Antwerp, then force the Canadians and the British out of the war. Although his generals were doubtful of success, younger officers and NCOs were desperate to believe that their homes and families could be saved from the Red Army approaching from the east.There could be no better guide than Antony Beevor - immaculately researched, endlessly readable - to these pivotal events.
"Wonderfully compelling." - The Guardian
Parisian chef Stephane Reynaud writes sensitive and distinctive recipes that stretch from simple home cooking to fanciful dishes. In Ripailles - French for 'Feasts' - he presents the best of the French kitchen and delves into the very roots of French cuisine. Nicely presented.
In September 1870, a train leaves Manchester bound for London. On board is Lizzie Burns, a poor worker from the Irish slums, who is embarking on the journey that will change her forever. Sitting in the first-class carriage beside her lover, the wealthy mill-owner Frederick Engels, the vision of a life of peace and comfort takes shape before her eyes: finally, at nearly fifty, she is to be the lady of a house and the wife to a man. While Frederick and his friend Karl Marx try to spur revolution among the working classes, Lizzie is compelled to undertake a revolution of another kind: of the heart and the soul.
Bill is having a bad day. Mr Huff is following him around and making everything seem difficult. Bill tries to get rid of him, but Mr Huff just gets bigger and bigger! Then they both stop, and a surprising thing happens.
Before there was Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, there was Dunedin-born Fergus Hume's The Mystery of a Hansom Cab - the biggest- and fastest-selling detective novel of the 1800s.
Mark is a Day Boy. In a post-traumatic future the Masters - formerly human, now practically immortal - rule a world that bends to their will and a human population upon which they feed. Invincible by night, all but helpless by day, each relies on his Day Boy to serve and protect him. Mark has been lucky in his Master: Dain has treated him well. But as he grows to manhood and his time as a Day Boy draws to a close, there are choices to be made. Will Mark undergo the Change and become, himself, a Master - or throw in his lot with his fellow humans?
From the author of When God was a Rabbit. Cornwall, 1947. Marvellous Ways is a ninety-year-old woman who's lived alone in a remote creek for nearly all her life. Recently she's taken to spending her days sitting on a mooring stone by the river with a telescope. She's waiting for something - she's not sure what, but she'll know it when she sees it. Drake is a young soldier left reeling by the war. He's agreed to fulfil a dying man's last wish and hand-deliver a letter to the man's father in Cornwall. But Drake's journey doesn't go to plan, and sees him literally wash up in Marvellous' creek, broken in body and spirit. When Marvellous comes to his aid, an unlikely friendship grows between the two.
"Those who drink the water shall thirst for blood. They shall be as wild beasts." The amazing conclusion to the 'Cursed Kingdoms' trilogy, by sometime Page & Blackmore staff member, Emily Gee!
In this gripping book, Saviano maps the international cocaine trade. He investigates the evolution of cocaine trafficking, from Mexican drug cartels to money laundering through Wall Street. Tracking cocaine's physical journey - from South America to the beaches of Miami and the streets of New York, and on to Africa and throughout Europe and even further to China and India - Saviano follows the human trail of users, victims and traffickers. First-hand accounts show how the global sale and consumption of cocaine has radically altered economies over recent decades, and has impacted societies globally.
Pure, Raw, Stripped, Bare, Undressed, Clean. The food (nicely presented). The book (nicely presented). Beetroot quinoa granola, Raw spring rolls with peanut dipping sauce, Super green cauliflower couscous and Soba noodles with mango and sesame. Change your mindset and eat less-processed, cleaner and simpler foods that restore and nourish your body back to its naked, pure state.
He lived his life like clockwork. Until he met the watchmaker. An enjoyable historical fantasy set in London, 1883.
"Pulley's electrifying debut is a triumph of speculative fiction. It captures the frenetic energy of a world undergoing extraordinary changes: London in the time of new electrical devices, Gilbert and Sullivan's theatre, and the terror of Irish nationalist bombings. Pulley expertly employs the tools of mystery and fantasy to examine the social pressures faced by the marginalised." - Publishers' Weekly
One of the most influential artistic quarters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was London's Tite Street. For Oscar Wilde, the street was full of 'wonderful possibilities', while for James Abbott McNeill Whistler it was 'the birthplace of art'. Modern masterpieces in art and literature flowed from the studios and houses of Tite Street, but this bohemian enclave had a dark side as well. Here Whistler was bankrupted, Frank Miles was sent to an asylum, Wilde was imprisoned, and Peter Warlock was gassed to death.
Can you find the elephant among the trees? Between the buildings? One every page? (We can).
Leunig is on top form with another collection of his cartoons charting the sublimely misaligned corners of existence (isn't that all of it?). Leunig has an unparalleled ability to shine whimsy into our shared loneliness.
On a hot summer's day in June 1969, everyone is gathered to welcome Queen Juliana. The young boys and girls wave their flags enthusiastically. But just as the monarch is getting into her car to leave, little Hanne Kaan and her mother arrive late - the Queen strokes the little girl's cheek and regally offers Anna Kaan her hand. It would have been an unforgettable day of celebration if only the baker hadn't been running late with his deliveries and knocked down Hanne, playing on the roadside, with his brand-new VW van. Years later, Jan Kaan arrives on a hot day in June in order to tidy his sister's grave, and is overcome again with grief and silent fury. Isn't it finally time to get to the bottom of things? Should the permit for the grave be extended? And why won't anyone explain to his little niece Dieke why grandma has been lying up in the hayloft for a day and a half, nursing a bottle of Advocaat and refusing to see anyone? Bakker won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize for The Detour.
From the streets of the world to your kitchen table - tacos, burgers, curries, souvlaki, gozleme, noodles and dumplings, ceviche, pizza, &c, &c, &c.
At Black Rabbit Hall nothing much ever happens - time seems to move more and more slowly at this idyllic holiday home in Cornwall - until the worst thing happens and for the Alton children time feels like it's stopped altogether. As they run wild, lost in grief and confusion, an outsider, Caroline Shawcross, and her dark, angry son Lucian enter their lives, changing them forever. In the present day, Lorna Smith is searching for her perfect wedding venue and is inexplicably drawn to the now crumbling Black Rabbit Hall, unaware that her own history is locked up in those derelict walls ...
A cookbook by the author of Blood, Bones and Butter. Hamilton opened Prune on New York's Lower East Side fifteen years ago to great acclaim and lines down the block.
>> In the kitchen at Prune.
"Nobody in the world knows our secret...that I've ruined Bev's life, and she's ruined mine."
An enjoyable caper along the unexpected twists that later life can bring, from the author of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Tulip Fever.
New seeds, chemicals and irrigation, coupled with free trade, drove the greatest global population boom in history - but left ecological devastation and an unsustainable agro-economic status quo in their wake. Now, with a greater number of mouths to feed than ever before, tightening global food supplies have spurred riots and reform around the world.
Anni Tidechild lives on Pel Narine, one of the floating islands of Salila. An orphan, Anni is under control of the ruler, Wavelord Filip Able. Struggling with her family's past and lost within her own life, Anni's world is on the brink of change. Because someone or something is calling to her. When she meets Duck Knifetooth, son of the famed Wavemaster Adamson Knifetooth, the new friends are catapulted into danger. Pirates, the last giant, a magic ship and cretaures of the deep. But always in the back of her mind is the question: Who is friend and who is foe?
Largely written during his years as a copywriter at a Detroit advertising agency, these stories find Leonard exploring far-flung locations, from the bars of small-town New Mexico to a military base in Kuala Lumpur. They also introduce us to unforgettable Leonard characters, some of whom - like ageing lawman Charlie Martz and weary former matador Eladio Montoya - star in his other works but were born in these pages.
Being told the folk tale, a child asks the questions we somehow never thought to ask, and ends up subverting the story!
- So this wolf can talk?
- Yes.
- And Little Red Riding Hood didn't think that was weird?
- No. Like I said, this was in the olden days.
This book is a finalist in the 2015 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.
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