Ishiguro's first novel since Never Let Me Go is set in a post-Roman Britain where the forces of myth constantly assail the edges of the familiar and the faculty of memory is contended and uncertain. This is a very interesting and rather unusual book - one of the publishing highlights of the year.
"This amazing novel will take you on a journey as reader that will leave you wondering and contemplating the metaphorical cleverness of this author to talk about aging, loyalty, betrayal, peace and war in such an unusual setting. Ishiguro pulls off a masterpiece that a lesser author would have struggled with." - Stella
>> Neil Gaiman on this book.
>> Ishiguro blames his wife.
Grief-stricken over a miscarriage and the re-opening of the wound of her own adoption, the author set out to walk various rivers upstream. As she moved from mouth to source, she found consolation in the natural world and a healing of her own wounds. If you loved H is for Hawk or Nature Cure, you will be keen to read this book.
"A beautiful, strange, intoxicating and utterly unique story." - Phillip Pullman
"Norbury’s writing achieves a lovely unobtrusive merging of emotion and description, so that the landscape reveals her feelings and in doing so shares her burden." - Guardian
A lion tires of life on the savannah and decides to go to Paris. He is disappointed when no-one pays him any attention, even when he roars on the Metro.
This large-format book is one of the most irresistibly beautiful picture books we have seen this year.
"Two poets on a headland, mid-survey / might pause suddenly and say / will this be your whale, or mine?"
Between 2011 and 2014, poet and artist Gregory O'Brien found himself following the migratory routes of whales and seabirds across vast tracts of the South Pacific Ocean, resulting in work that O'Brien describes as "acts of devotion - a homage to a series of remarkable locations and to the natural histories of those places".
"This excellent book is a sort of fictional encyclopedia of pretty much everything you don't understand about the world but were unable quite to pinpoint or to find words for your confusion. The book will certainly not help you to understand anything any better, but it will make your confusion immaculate and add to it dimensions of awe and beauty that you had hitherto not suspected. This new edition pairs Marcus's text with Morgan's equally obtuse and intriguing illustrations. Highly recommended." - Thomas
"The Senate Intelligence Committee's report is a landmark in accountability. It is one of the most shocking documents ever produced by any modern democracy about its own abuses of its own highest principles." - The Guardian
"I think that William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." - Norman Mailer
>> William Burroughs shoots William Shakespeare.
Showcases the anatomy and diversity of all 82 orders of fishes and more than 150 of the most commonly encountered families.
Where were you in 1386? When the year began, Geoffrey Chaucer was a middle-aged bureaucrat and sometime poet, living in London and enjoying the perks that came with his close connections to its booming wool trade. When it ended, he was jobless, homeless, out of favour with his friends and living in exile. No wonder he started producing the great foundational text of English literature.
No mention of Page & Blackmore yet.
"An astonishing piece of work. Christie combines lyrical prose and true-to-life characters (and skateboarding) to craft a remarkable tale of mothers and sons, and what it means to grow up." - Philipp Meyer, author of The Son
Accompany a girl and her grandfather on a walk around Paris, the most beautiful city in the world. No lions.
"Just beautiful. I love this book!" - Sarah
A curious dog is caught by a gust of wind and rides an umbrella around the world in this charming wordless book. Guess where he ends up!
The secret history of the human heart (the organ), from the first explorers to the latest discoveries.
From the establishment of the first mission in 1814, the physical body itself became the most contentious site of cultural engagement. Maori and missionaries struggled over issues of hygiene, tattooing, clothing, and sexual morality, and missionaries found it was difficult to maintain their own practices because of their dependence on Maori chiefly patrons as well as material constraints and social conflicts.
Every piece of clothing tells a story. In this interesting book, a large number of people, many prominent, all with narrative talent, tell the stories behind an item they have worn or someone close to them has worn. If you loved Women in Clothes, this book is for you.
>> Sonic Youth: 'Kool'.
In Winstone's imagination, the Kid and his partner ride through the Wild West on the trail of their quarry. In Winstone's actual life, he's had to abandon his 'partner' and is hiding out in the tough landscape of Central Otago. What has this boy run from, and how will the resilient and engaging twelve-year-old survive?
In a world where everyone is born as a twin, the Alpha twins are elite and the Omega twins are cast out. But there is a strange interdependence between them, and things are not always as they seem...
"This is the first in a trilogy which will appeal to fans of The Hunger Games and Wool. There was a five-publisher fight for this one and the film rights have already been sold! And that's not surprising as the premise is great and I'm keen to get the next installment!" - Stella
Could any of us live in a world without risk, and would it be desirable to do so? Through a series of nine pen portraits, Polly Morland takes us on a journey through the world of risk, looking not at the extremes or exceptions, but at the routine risks we accept and embrace as part of our everyday lives, often unconsciously.
"Don't let the lucid, lyrical grace of the prose fool you - this is a blistering, enthralling, barek-nuckle ride of a novel. Its revelations about the "New India" are explosive." - Neel Mukherjee, author of The Lives of Others
"The best novel from and about India that I have read in a long time." - Pankaj Mishra
To escape the cannibalistic impulses of some pirates, a boy is made invisible and given wings by a mysterious stranger. What is the price he must pay? As well as being a great magical adventure in its own right, this book provides the deep history of the Loblolly Boy.
What kind of multicultural framework best suits New Zealand's rapidly expanding ethnic diversity? Can the Treaty of Waitangi - initially set up to accommodate British settlers and to recognise the tangata whenua - serve as the basis for New Zealand's immigration policy in the new millennium? Could all citizens embrace multiculturalism?
It's a glorious summer and Erin and Martha are both stuck at Oak Hill Home for the Elderly. Misunderstood and feeling ignored, they are equally frustrated by the situation. But as Erin learns to listen to Martha, she discovers some very important lessons about making her own voice heard.
In 2011 and all universities in North Korea were shut down for an entire year, except for the all-male Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. Suki Kim got a job there, teaching English.
"This superb work of investigative journalism is distinguished by its grave beauty and aching tenderness." - Kiran Desai
A blue crayon labelled 'red' suffers an identity crisis. He just can't be red no matter how hard he tries.
Meet the boy with grey hair who spends his days on a cargo ship peeling potatoes, a strange man who keeps a ferris wheel in his backyard, and a whale that lives in a man-made lake on the top of a faraway hill. Six short, strange tales with intriguing illustrations.
This book urns maritime history upside down, exploring the world of seafaring adventure, not from the perspective of admirals, merchants, and other builders of empire, but rather from the point-of-view of common people whose labors made that world possible: sailors, slaves, indentured servants, pirates, and other outlaws, whose formative experiences at sea are brought together for the first time. This book shows that important historical processes transpired on the vast, nationless commons called the sea: the rise of capitalism, the formation of race and class, and the creation, from below, of oppositional cultures that promised more just and democratic ways of life.
Pick your way around the world.
Analyses the problems facing today's organizations, criticizes corporate misbehaviour where he finds it, praises those companies who seem to be building and sustaining brands successfully in our brave new world, and predicts the future of branding. Olins has been lauded by The Financial Times as the world's leading practitioner of branding and identity.
Helpful (the neuroscientist survives, the parents survive, the teenagers survive (and become lovely adults (and leave home))).
Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its human hosts have been together for a very long time, and the history of the disease is not merely a medical but a cultural one.
Almond is a maestro of the difficult art of nocturnal nature photography.
Loyalty, betrayal, murder.... and merlot. There is no safe place from the Mob for Vinnie Whitney-Ross, not even on an idyllic New Zealand vineyard.
From the author of the runaway success The Keeper of Secrets.
