Fever of Animals by Miles Allinson $37.00
With the inheritance he received upon his father's death, Miles has come to Europe on the trail of the Romanian surrealist, who disappeared into a forest in 1967. But in trying to unravel the mystery of Bafdescu's secret life, Miles must also reckon with his own. Faced with a language and a landscape that remain stubbornly out of reach, and condemned to wait for someone who may never arrive, Miles is haunted by thoughts of his ex-girlfriend, Alice, and the trip they took to Venice that ended their relationship.
"Miles Allinson is unashamedly a serious writer, in the mould of dark luminaries like Roberto Bolaño, Thomas Bernhard, Robert Walser, and perhaps W.G. Sebald." - Samuel Cooney
Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, he is a compulsive liar and a melancholy weakling. When Lucy accepts employment assisting the majordomo of the remote, forbidding castle of the Baron Von Aux he meets thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and a puppy. He also meets Klara, a delicate beauty who is, unfortunately, already involved with an exceptionally handsome partisan soldier. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of human behaviour is laid bare for our hero to observe. An ink-black comedy from the author of The Sisters Brothers.
Full coverage of the Wallace Trust's unparalleled collection of Toss Woollaston's works, including the sequence of over 80 studies of ‘Erua’, the Greymouth schoolboy Woollaston employed as a model in the early 1960s. First-rate production values make this a lovely book.
Four years after Rebecca fled the religious community The Children of the Faith, twelve-year-old Magdalene bears the brunt of trying to protect and nurture her rebellious younger sister. Zillah isn't at all interested in behaving as befits a daughter of a Faith family, but Magdalene knows only too well the cost of rebellion. Life becomes increasingly difficult for the two girls as the Elders tighten the Rules the children must obey. Magdalene knows it is useless to appeal to their father for help and protection. He believes fully in the integrity of the Elders. His children must obey for if they do not, they will be denied salvation. But what can two children do when their lives become unbearable? This concludes the trilogy that began with I Am Not Esther and I Am Rebecca.
Nomi, a young girl, is taken from her family and finds herself in an ashram, overseen by a charismatic guru. But Guruji's charm masks a predatory menace, and the young girl faces danger beyond her understanding. Twenty years later, Nomi returns to Jarmuli with a documentary film crew. All has changed in a town that she no longer knows, as tourists and market traders bustle, banter and chase their dreams amidst the temples of her youth. Seeking the truth about what happened to her and her family, Nomi finds herself chasing shadows in a town that has reinvented itself. But when she returns to the ashram that haunts her dreams, she discovers some scars cannot be washed away.
Long-listed for the 2015 Man Booker Prize.
The Baxters do not know their place. On the first of June every year sharemilkers load their trucks with their families, pets and possessions and crawl along the highways towards new farms, new lives. They're inching towards that ultimate dream -- buying their own land. Fenward's always been lucky with its sharemilkers; grateful, grafting folk who understand what's expected of them. Until now, when grief-stricken Ian Baxter and his precocious daughter Gabrielle arrive. Nickie Walker is enchanted by the glamour and worldliness of Gabrielle. Nickie's mother, however, finds herself in the crossfire of a moral battle too terrifying to confront. Each has a story to share. This is a coming-of-age story for two young girls who hold a mirror up to the place and people they love. It's a coming-of-age story, too, for a community forced to stare back at the image of a toxic soul. The question is: who will blink first?
Ettie Rout flouted official directives and fought to protect World War One soldiers from venereal disease. In Paris, she ran a sexual welfare service for the ANZACs - collecting them from the station, guiding them to Madame Yvonne's brothel, which she regularly inspected, looking after the sick and running a counselling service. Her prophylactic kit was eventually - and controversially - adopted by both the New Zealand and Australian governments. Armed with a wicked sense of humour, an intolerance of hypocrisy and boundless energy, Ettie Rout championed socialism and sexual freedom.
Oliver Orme used to be a painter, well known and well rewarded, but the muse has deserted him. He is also, as he confesses, a thief; he does not steal for gain, but for the thrill of possession, the need to capture and fix the world around him. His worst theft is Polly, the wife of his friend Marcus, with whom he has had an affair. When the affair is discovered, Oliver hides himself away in his childhood home and from here he tells the story of a year, from one autumn to the next. The Blue Guitar reveals a life haunted by the desire to possess and always aware of the frailty of the human heart.
"This is not merely a fine novel. It is a remarkable work of literary art: subtle, resonant, whimsical and deeply touching by turns, the work of a great prose stylist with a masterly command of cultural history." - Sydney Morning Herald
Paul Tarrant, Elinor Brooke and Kit Neville (from Life Class and Toby's Room) first met in 1914 at the Slade School of Art, before their generation lost hope, faith and much else besides on the battlefields of Ypres and the Somme. Now it is 1940, they are middle-aged, and another war has begun. London is a haunted city. As the bombs fall and Elinor and the others struggle to survive, old temptations and obsessions return, and all of them are forced to make choices about what they really want.
Relying on unprecedented access to Lane family sources, including Richard's diaries and other papers, Penguin and the Lane Brothers sheds new light on the relationship between Allen, Richard and John, so crucial as a driver of Penguin's spirit and success. It restores the younger Lane brothers to their rightful place in the fascinating story of this unlikely publishing triumph.
"I have no idea why everyone thinks nature is so benign and glorious and wonderful. All nature is trying to do is kill us as efficiently as possible." Great Aunt Oleander is dead. To each of her nearest and dearest she has left a seed pod. The seed pods might be deadly, but then again they might also contain the secret of enlightenment. Not that anyone has much time for enlightenment. Fleur, left behind at the crumbling Namaste House, must step into Oleander's role as guru to lost and lonely celebrities. Bryony wants to lose the weight she put on after her botanist parents disappeared, but can't stop drinking. And Charlie struggles to make sense of his life after losing the one woman he could truly love.
The first book translated into English of Indonesia's rising literary star combines history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humour, and romance. The beautiful prostitute Dewi Ayu and her four daughters are beset by incest, murder, bestiality, rape, insanity, monstrosity, and the often vengeful undead. Kurniawan's gleefully grotesque hyperbole functions as a scathing critique of his young nation's troubled past: the rapacious offhand greed of colonialism; the chaotic struggle for independence; the 1965 mass murders of perhaps a million 'Communists', followed by three decades of Suharto's despotic rule.
"Huge ambition, abundantly realized.” – Kirkus Reviews
“Very striking.” – Tariq Ali
What remains when a city vanishes? Remembering Christchurch captures the heritage of memory that survives the devastation of the Canterbury earthquakes. Citizens reconstruct Christchurch - from familiar streets, shops and churches to pubs, tearooms and dance halls; from movie theatres and pie carts in the Square to milkshakes at the Dainty Inn on High Street. What are your memories of Christchurch?
She is sailing. She is alone. Ahead of her is the world's curve and beyond that, everything else. The known, the imagined, the imagined known. Who else has entered Tim's life the way Maud did? This girl who fell past him, lay seemingly dead on the ground, then stood and walked. That was where it all began. He wants her - wants to rescue her, to reach her. Yet there is nothing to suggest Maud has any need of him, that she is not already complete. A woman with a talent for survival, who works long hours and loves to sail - preferably on her own. A woman who, when a crisis comes, will turn to the sea for refuge, embarking on a voyage that will test her to the utmost, that will change everything.
If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr and Mrs Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest. It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is. I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn't stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget.
"The Loney is a stunning novel - about faith, the uncanny, strange rituals, and the oddity of human experience. Beautifully written, it's immensely entertaining, but also deep and wide. A moving evocation of desolate wilderness and a marvel of complex characterization, The Loney is one of my favorite reads of the past couple of years." - Jeff VanderMeer
"Modern classics in this genre are rare, and instant ones even rarer; The Loney, however, looks as though it may be both." - Sunday Telegraph
If The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy were a real handbook, this would be it. It explains Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity and String Theory using storytelling instead of graphs and equations. It transports us to the surface of our dying Sun, flies us to distant galaxies and puts us into the deathly grip of a Black Hole, and clearly explains the mysteries of astrophysics.
An authoritative and wide-ranging visual essay on the aesthetics of Japan, now in a beautiful paperback edition. You will love this.
John Lock has come to India to meet his destiny: a destiny dressed in a white karate suit and sporting an impressive moustache. He has fled the quiet desperation of his life in England: decades wasted in a meaningless job, a marriage foundering in the wake of loss and a terrible secret he cannot bear to share with his wife. He has come to offer his help to a man who has learned to conquer pain, a world record breaker who specialises in feats of extreme endurance and ill-advised masochism. Bibhuti Nayak's next record attempt - to have fifty baseball bats broken over his body - will set the seal on a career that has seen him rise from poverty to become a minor celebrity in a nation where standing out from the crowd requires tenacity, courage and perhaps a touch of madness. In answering Bibhuti's call for assistance, John hopes to rewrite a brave end to a life poorly lived.
"My name is Jax. That is the name granted to me by my human masters. I am a slave. But I shall be free." For 250 years the Dutch have ruled the planet with the help of their sentient clockwork slaves. What happens when the Clakkers start to think for themselves?
"A major new talent." - George R.R. Martin
Located in the north of Italy, Lombardy boasts a diverse landscape, from snow-covered Italian Alps and lakes, to the plains of the River Po, from where risotto rice hails. This geographic diversity is reflected in the food - cave-aged cheeses and cured meats, polenta, tender meat cooked over a wood-fired spit and, of course, risotto. Lombardy is home to some of Italy's most famous dishes, including osso bucco, bollito misto with salsa verde and mustard fruits and panettone.
An irresistible wonderful survey of ceramics from all times and all places, by the author of The Hare With the Amber Eyes. Now in paperback - no excuse is necessary!
Nature has many gifts for us, but perhaps the greatest of them all is joy; the intense delight we can take in the natural world, in its beauty, in the wonder it can offer us, in the peace it can provide - feelings stemming ultimately from our own unbreakable links to nature, which mean that we cannot be fully human if we are separate from it. In The Moth Snowstorm Michael McCarthy, one of Britain's leading writers on the environment, proposes this joy as a defence of a natural world which is ever more threatened.
"A great, rhapsodic, urgent book full of joy, grief, rage and love." - Helen Macdonald
This charming story about a doll who is found in a shop freezer by a thoughtful girl is one of a number of classic Puffins recently reissued. Come and have a look at them!
200 tips that will change your relationship to your phone, computer, tablet and camera. This is the 'must-have' handbook.
A very personable account of life in the wilds of 'bush Alaska', from a New Zealander who married and moved there (and ended up liking it a lot more than she thought she would). The sequel to Walking on Ice.
Swinging from her own hopes and disappointments, both domestic and romantic, to the challenges that beset their tiny whaling operation, Mary's tale is entirely relatable despite the hundred-odd years that separate her world from ours. Chronicling her family's struggle to survive the season and her own attempts to navigate an all-consuming crush on an itinerant whaleman with a murky past, Rush Oh! is also a celebration of an extraordinary episode in Australian history when a family of whalers formed a fond, unique allegiance with a pod of Killer whales - and in particular, a Killer whale named Tom.
Catastrophe is not inevitable, but time is fast running out. In the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Change Summit to be held in Paris in December, Atmosphere of Hope provides both a snapshot of the trouble we are in and an up-to-the-minute analysis of some of the new possibilities for mitigating climate change that are emerging now. From atmospheric carbon capture through extensive seaweed farming, CO2 snow production in Antarctica and the manufacture of carbon-rich biochar to reflecting the sun's rays by releasing sulphur into the atmosphere and painting landscapes and cities white, Flannery outlines an array of innovative technologies that give cause for hope.
How far would you go for your children? Would you lie for them? Flee with them? Let someone else mother them if you thought they would do a better job? As a single parent, Letty does everything for her two children - apart from raise them. Being a mother terrifies her more than she can admit, and so she's always let her mother take that role. When Maria Elena ups and leaves, however, Letty has to confront her fears and become the parent she doesn't think she can be.
Daphne Selfe has been photographed by Mario Testino, Nick Knight and David Bailey. She has modelled for Dolce and Gabbana, Red or Dead and high-street chains such as TK Maxx, and regularly appears in newspaper fashion pages and glossy magazines. She is one of Britain's most in-demand supermodels and has worked non-stop for almost twenty years. But what makes her really rather extraordinary is that she is now in her late eighties. Daphne grew up in an age when dresses were lovingly run up for you by your mother, when needlework for even the most basic outfit was an art form, and when a new Simplicity Pattern was almost more exciting than a new dance tune. Perhaps as a result, she has had a lifelong love affair with clothes and fashion.
Travelling through North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. Theroux writes of the landscapes he discovers - the deserts, the mountains, the Mississippi - and the lives of the people he meets.
The Rivered Earth contains four libretti written by Vikram Seth to be set to music by Alec Roth - together with an account of the pleasures and pains of working with a composer. Entitled 'Songs in Time of War', 'Shared Ground', 'The Traveller' and 'Seven Elements', they take us all over the world - from Chinese and Indian poetry to the beauty and quietness of the Salisbury house where the poet George Herbert lived and died.
Outsiders sometimes see things other don't . . . and that can be dangerous. A pair of emerald green and gold parrots have been disturbing the peace of Katherine Tennison's London garden for some time when a further disruption arrives at her door, in the form of dazzlingly beautiful Italian siblings Antonella and Matteo Fullardi. Children of Katherine's old school friend Ann, who married an Italian leather-goods heir, the pair are now all grown up. Very rich, and very troubled, they prove a catalyst for a whole series of events which reveal the Tennisons' quiet family life to be less perfect than it initially seems . . .
Useful.
Old favourites taken to a whole new level!
When World War One ended, the West was broken. Religious faith, patriotism, and the belief in human progress had all been called into question by the mass carnage experienced by both sides. Shell-shocked and traumatized, the West faced a world it no longer recognized: the old order had collapsed. The world hurtled forward on gears and crankshafts, and terrifying new ideologies arose from the wreckage of past belief. In the aftermath of war, citizens of the West directed their energies inwards, launching into hedonistic, aesthetic, and intellectual adventures of self-discovery. It was a period of both bitter disillusionment and visionary progress. Artists, scientists, and philosophers grappled with the question of how to live and what to believe in a broken age. Morbid symptoms emerged simultaneously: progress and innovation were everywhere met with increasing racism and xenophobia; fertile ground for the roots of a new World War.
An interesting, informative and well-presented book showing us what works in the work of a wide variety of great gardeners and how to apply this knowledge to our own gardens.
What is autism: a devastating developmental condition, a lifelong disability, or a naturally occurring form of cognitive difference akin to certain forms of genius? In truth, it is all of these things and more - and the future of our society depends on our understanding it.
"'Neurotribes is a sweeping and penetrating history, presented with a rare sympathy and sensitivity. It will change how you think of autism." - Oliver Sacks
Seventeen-year-old Tessa, dubbed a 'Black-Eyed Susan' by the media, became famous for being the only victim to survive the vicious attack of a serial killer. Her testimony helped to put a dangerous criminal behind bars - or so she thought. Now, decades later the black-eyed susans planted outside Tessa's bedroom window seem to be a message from a killer who should be safely in prison. Haunted by fragmented memories of the night she was attacked and terrified for her own teenage daughter's safety, can Tessa uncover the truth about the killer before it's too late?
Van Uoc doesn't believe in fairies, zombies, vampires, Father Christmas - or magic wishes. She believes in keeping a low profile: real life will start when school finishes. But when she attracts the attention of Billy Gardiner, she finds herself in an unwelcome spotlight. Not even Jane Eyre can help her now.
In January 2010, Aubert de Villaine, the famed proprietor of the DRC, received an anonymous note threatening the destruction of his priceless vines by poison-a crime that in the world of high-end wine is akin to murder-unless he paid a one million euro ransom. Villaine believed it to be a sick joke, but that proved a fatal miscalculation; the crime was committed and shocked this fabled region of France. The sinister story that Potter uncovered would lead to a sting operation by top Paris detectives, the primary suspect's suicide, and a dramatic trial. This botanical crime threatened to destroy the fiercely traditional culture surrounding the world's greatest wine.
Stop pouring wine into your pocket - here's the latest edition of the world's best-selling wine guide.
The girl with the dragon tattoo is back: Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist return in a continuation of Stieg Larsson's 'Millennium' series, now written by Swedish novelist and journalist David Lagercrantz.
>> An extract.
Vivian was raised with one purpose in life: to exact revenge on behalf of her mother. Manipulative and cruel, Mother has deprived Vivian not only of a childhood, but of an original identity. With an endless arsenal of enticing personalities at her disposal, Vivian is a veritable weapon of deception. When it's time to strike, Vivian enrols in a gothic boarding school on the romantic English moors, where she will zero in on her target: sweet and innocent Ben, the son of the man who broke Mother's heart twenty years ago.
In Ghosts, a group of immigrant workers and their families are squatting on the haunted construction site of a luxury condominium building. One teenage girl's interest in the ghosts on the site becomes so intense that her mother realizes her life is in the balance. An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter tells of a point in the life of German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas, when he visits Latin America to paint its spectacular landscapes. And in The Literary Conference, a young translator called Cesar Aira travels to a literary conference, intent on world domination.
"Beauty and dark truth flow though his work." - Patti Smith
For 25 years Greg Fleet has been a widely known comedian. For the same period, he's had a drug habit that has delivered him comedy and tragedy in equal parts. This is his account of the life-or-death battle for his soul.
Jack Reacher has no place to go, and all the time in the world to get there, so a remote railroad stop with the curious name of Mother's Rest seems perfect for an aimless one-day stopover. He expects to find a lonely tombstone in a sea of nearly-ripe wheat...but instead there is a woman waiting for a missing private investigator, a cryptic note about two hundred deaths, and a small town full of silent, watchful people. Reacher's one-day stopover turns into an open-ended stay...
"Thrilling, and back to Lee Child's best." - Lucy
Do you remember this song by the Otara Millionaires Club? A milestone in Pasifika resurgence.
J. M. Coetzee - winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, twice winner of the Man Booker Prize - is one of the world's most celebrated and intriguing authors. Yet the heart of his fiction remains elusive.
An exploration of evolution and gene mutation, as well as a compelling social and cultural study of how prejudice and fascination have combined to give red haired people a peculiar cachet.
KidGlovz is a musical genius. His gift is so precious that he's kept under lock and key. But when a young thief helps him escape, Kid must embark on a perilous journey through which he will discover the terrifying nature of his talent. A spellbinding graphic fable.
The real revolution in the arts first took place not, as is commonly supposed, in the 1920s to the accompaniment of the Charleston, black jazz and mint juleps, but more quietly and intimately, in the shadow of the windmills - artificial and real - and in the cafes and cabarets of Montmartre during the first decade of the century. The cross-fertilization of painting, writing, music and dance produced a panorama of activity characterized by the early works of Picasso, Braque, Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck and Modigliani, the appearance of the Ballet Russe and the salons of Gertrude Stein.
"Brilliant." - Guardian
Choke on your chips - this is the reality of the hospitality industry!
The witch Tiffany Aching brings the stupendously unstupid 'Discworld' series to a close!
