Purity by Jonathan Franzen $36.99
"This is a novel of secrets, manipulations and lies. Like Franzen’s previous two novels, it dramatizes the uneasy and damaging relationships between parents and their offspring in white America, the strains within friendships, and the ways time and familiarity and human failings work at corroding a marriage. It also connects the private and domestic world with pressing public matters." - New York Times
"Dazzling, hilarious and problematic." - Guardian
>> "To whom would you most like to say sorry and why?"
>>> Actually, you really want the hardback ($42.99).
This is the second book in this exciting YA/crossover series about genetically engineered individuals with superhuman abilities. This nail-biting series by a Nelson author began with the astounding Spark, but book two is even better! 'It's hard to remember hating anything as much as I hate Affinity; a bone-deep loathing for the faceless unknown and the concrete walls of my own DNA.' Evie is a Shield: designed to kill in order to protect, and the Affinity Project have finally come for her. But Evie isn't ready for the sinister organisation to take control of her life, her body, her mind. She isn't ready to follow their rules about who may live and who must die - not when it condemns the innocent. She has one option: risk losing everything and everyone - including Jamie - and run.
>> Come to the Nelson launch of Stray! 7:30, Tuesday 8th August in the shop. RSVP. More about the event here.
What if you weren't the Chosen One? The one who's supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you were like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Sometimes there are problems bigger than this week's end of the world and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend might just be the god of mountain lions...
300 stunning maps from all periods and from all around the world, exploring and revealing what maps tell us about history and ourselves. Selected by an international panel of cartographers, academics, map dealers and collectors, the maps represent over 5,000 years of cartographic innovation drawing on a range of cultures and traditions. Comprehensive in scope, this book features all types of map from navigation and surveys to astronomical maps, satellite and digital maps, as well as works of art inspired by cartography. A wonderful and wonder-filled book.
"Full of small-town secrets and whispers, Bill Clegg has woven a richly textured tale of loss and healing. This is a deeply optimistic book about the power of human sympathy to pull us from the wreckage of our fate." - Anne Enright
"The force, range, and scope of Bill Clegg's Did You Ever Have a Family grab you with its opening line, and don't let go until its final one. I can't recall another novel that so effortlessly weds a nuanced, lyrical voice to an unflinching vision of just how badly things can go for people. I read it deep into the night, all the way through, telling myself it was getting late, I could finish the book in the morning. I finished it that night, however, slept a few hours, and then, in the morning, started reading it again." - Michael Cunningham
This book has been long-listed for the 2015 Man Booker Prize
The Treaty of Waitangi struck a bargain between two parties: the Crown and Maori. Its promises of security, however, were followed from 1845 to 1872 by a series of volatile and bloody conflicts commonly known as the New Zealand Wars. Many people today believe that these wars were fought solely between the Crown and Maori, when the reality is that Maori aligned with both sides - resulting in three participants with differing viewpoints.
"In elegant, stylish and often witty prose, he probes the near-legendary, almost primeval lagoon which inspired the ancient Greek's Historia animalium and animates it anew with his own incisive observations. The Lagoon is a heroic, beautiful work in its own right, an enquiring odyssey into unknown nature, and the known world which science has created out of it." - Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan and The Sea Inside.
Boyd's protagonist, Amory Clay, is a photographer who explores what life has to offer and reveal to her in Berlin between the wars. This novel - complete with 'documentary' photographs - sets her personal life and the great events of twentieth century Europe in affecting counterpoint.
"An utterly compelling read and Boyd's best novel since Restless." - Independent
An intriguingly braided novel with multiple narrative strands which part and meet at the reader's choice. Henry Lytten - a spy turned academic and writer - sits at his desk in Oxford in 1962, dreaming of other worlds. He embarks on the story of Jay, an eleven-year-old boy who has grown up within the embrace of his family in a rural, peaceful world - a kind of Arcadia. But when a supernatural vision causes Jay to question the rules of his world, he is launched on a life-changing journey. Lytten also imagines a different society, highly regulated and dominated by technology, which is trying to master the science of time travel. Meanwhile - in the real world - one of Lytten's former intelligence colleagues tracks him down for one last assignment.
>> Ian Pears explains the structure - there's even an app to guide you (if you feel you need one).
Excellent.
The author and photographer (remember the excellent Historic Houses?) travelled the length of New Zealand visiting over 60 historic, unique, quirky, architecturally significant, weather-beaten, downtown, and back-of-beyond churches. Along the way they encountered architects, ministers, missionaries and personalities with a story to tell. They also discovered the tragic links, battles fought, injustices and even murders the churches bore witness to over the decades.
Drawing on Michael Morpurgo's own childhood experience of first seeing his real father on television, 'My Father Is a Polar Bear' tells the story of two young brothers rediscovering their birth father in the most unlikely of places - and in an entirely unexpected guise!
The Story of the Lost Child is the long-awaited fourth volume in the Neapolitan Novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay). The quartet traces the friendship between Elena and Lila, from their childhood in a poor neighbourhood in Naples, to their thirties, when both women are mothers but each has chosen a different path. Their lives are still inextricably linked, for better or worse, especially when it comes to the drama of a lost child.
"These books offer a dissection of Italian society that is almost Tolstoyan in its sweep and ambition. They are, into the bargain, extraordinarily gripping entertainment; the plot in this latest instalment twists and turns, like a Naples alleyway, towards a sequel-enabling conclusion. Novel by novel, Ferrante's series is building into one of the great achievements of modern literature." - Independent
The very enjoyable sequel to the very enjoyable The Day the Crayons Quit. What's been happening to those crayons?
A woman named Naomi arrives at her sister's house, intending, it seems, to say goodbye. She is abandoning her city life for a remote Scottish retreat, which she will share with a man called Bernat, whom she considers some kind of visionary. In a sequence of stories filtered through multiple re-tellings, she illuminates the character of this elusive individual. One story seems of special significance: about Afonso, an Amazon boatman, who could be the last speaker of his mother tongue, a language of apparently unique simplicity and precision. Bernat and Naomi are not, however, the only storytellers here. Naomi's sister, Kate, is herself working on a novel that begins as a ghost story, but ends up as something rather different: The river is the river.
"A quietly brilliant writer, almost eccentric in his craftsmanship." - Sunday Times
" As good as anything by the dozen or so big brand names of contemporary Eng Lit." - Ian Sansom, Guardian
0 of the most renowned landscape architects explore the work of the 30 of the world’s top emerging architects with more than 500 illustrations. This book captures the essence of how the world is designed around us. A global and influential group of landscape architects will divulge fascinating details about their work — including their inspirations and design processes – as well as debate the key issues for landscape architects today and in the future.
You will quickly love this book (author a.k.a. Hello Sandwich).
Fascinating facts and quirky illustrations introduce children to our fellow citizens of the Animal Kingdom. Very appealing!
In an African city in recession, which could be Kinshasa or Lubumbashi, land tourists of all languages and nationalities. They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealths of the country. They work during the day in mining concession and, as soon as night falls, they go out to get drunk, dance, eat and abandon themselves in Tram 83, the only night-club of the city, the den of all the outlaws: ex children-soldiers, prostitutes, blank students, unmarried mothers, sorcerers' apprentices...
Heatherwick's sheer inventiveness in the use of materials and the rethinking of forms has kept him at the international forefront of architecture and design. How does he do the things he does?
In 1962, the eminent statesman Dean Acheson enunciated a principle that has dominated global politics ever since: that no legal issue arises when the United States responds to a challenge to its 'power, position, and prestige'. In short, whatever the world may think, U.S. actions are legitimate because they say so. Spanning the impact of Edward Snowden's whistleblowing and Palestinian-Israeli relations to deeper reflections on political philosophy and the importance of a commons to democracy, Because We Say So takes American imperialism head on.
What can the laureate of American lowlife teach us about the writing life?
You can make your cake and eat it too. Whether you're simply a taste-chaser or your diet is gluten-free, dairy-free or vegan, these recipes are adaptable to suit your dietary requirements, and they utilise as many unrefined ingredients as possible. Many of the recipes are inspired by the New Zealand caker's French heritage.
"I see cakes as an edible expression of love." - Jordan Rondel
The inside story of how the game of Monopoly came into existence, the heavy embellishment of its provenance by Parker Brothers and multiple media outlets, the lost female originator of the game, and one man's lifelong obsession to tell the true story about the game's questionable origins.
A mind-trip across time and place, Riddledom uncovers riddle relics from over 50 cultures, delving into language and deception, sampling Pompeii walls and Twitter feeds.
From a newlywed caught in an inscrutable marriage, to private eyes working a baffling case in South Florida, to a teenager who assists her magician mother and steals from the audience, the characters in these bewitching stories are at once vulnerable and dangerous, bighearted and ruthless, and they will do what it takes to survive.
Meet Penguin Blue! It's a windy day, and he has a brand new kite - but where's he going on this maiden flight?
“The test of a good picture book is not how good it is on first reading, but how enjoyable it is on its 50th. Blown Away more than delivers – its whimsical, madcap plot engages immediately and its rhythmic text drives the story along while the illustrations charm and thrill on every page. It is truly wonderful, and a very worthy winner.” - Melissa Cox on awarding this book the 2015 Waterstones Children's Book Prize
Limpet, Steffan and Jared. Three best friends crammed into a clapped-out rust bucket of a car on a whirlwind road trip to forget their troubles and see out the end of the summer. But no matter how far they drive, they can't escape the hidden secrets and slow-burning romance that could upset the balance of their friendship - perhaps forever.
In 48 AD, a fire set by the troops of Julius Caesar destroyed much of the Great Library of Alexandria. It was the first of several disasters that resulted in the destruction of the accumulated knowledge of the ancient world. But what if the fire had been stopped? What would the Library have become? Fast forward: the Great Library is now a separate country, protected by its own standing army. It has grown into a vast power, with unquestioned and unrivalled supremacy. Jess Brightwell, seventeen and very smart, with a gift for mechanical engineering, has been sent into the Great Library as a spy for his criminal family. Magical spells and riots abound in this epic new YA series.
"Sitting not far below my feet, there was a thermonuclear warhead about twenty times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, all set and ready to go. The only sound was the sound of the wind." Originally published in the New Yorker and now expanded, this terrifying true account of the 2012 break-in at a high-security weapons complex in Tennessee is a masterly work of reportage.
LOST. When six-year-old Laurel Logan was abducted, the only witness was her younger sister. Faith's childhood was dominated by Laurel's disappearance - from her parents' broken marriage and the constant media attention to dealing with so-called friends who only ever wanted to talk about her sister. FOUND. Thirteen years later, a young woman is found in the garden of the Logans' old house, disorientated and clutching the teddy bear Laurel was last seen with. Laurel is home at last, safe and sound. Faith always dreamed of getting her sister back, without ever truly believing it would happen. But a disturbing series of events leaves Faith increasingly isolated and paranoid, and before long she begins to wonder if everything that's lost can be found again...
Life has been pretty average for Cody Harrington lately. First, there's his job at the bike shop where he's being blamed for not locking the door and causing a burglary. Then there's his wild brother Zane who's promised his parents he's back on the rails, but is he? As for girls, they only exist in his fantasies, and if only he could get through the week without being egged by a carload of rugby heads. The only time that Cody feels truly free is when he's flying down bush-lined tracks and hitting stunts on his bike. But then he falls in love - with a bike and a girl. Does he have it in him to win either of them or are they out of reach?
How silence can say more than noise, or a person's absence can occupy even more space than their presence did? Suzy is 12 when her best friend, Franny, drowns one summer at the beach. It takes two days for the news to reach Suzy, and it's not something that she can accept.
After helping find a harbour suitable for Governor Hobson's first capital, on 18 September 1840, Sarah was the only woman ashore for the flag-raising ceremony and regatta celebrating the birth of Auckland. Her surviving journals and letters cover long voyages under sail, including several around Cape Horn, as well as Auckland's birth, and the personalities and politics of its early capital years.
New Zealand's first full surgical gender reassignment.
>> No relation.
A delicious survey of the cuisine of the Asian diaspora, and how it has been influenced by contact with host cuisines and through the conflation of different Asian heritages.
It's the eve of the 22nd century and the beginning of the end. Humanity splinters into strange new forms with every heartbeat: hive-minds coalesce, rapture-stricken, speaking in tongues; soldiers forgo consciousness for combat efficiency; a nightmare human subspecies has been genetically resurrected; half the population has retreated into the ersatz security of a virtual environment called Heaven. And it's all under surveillance by an alien presence that refuses to reveal itself. Daniel Bruks has turned his back on it all, taking refuge in the Oregon desert. As an unaugmented, baseline human he's an irrelevance, a living fossil for whom extinction beckons. But he's about to find himself an unwilling pilgrim on a voyage to the heart of the solar system that will bring the fractured remnants of mankind to the biggest evolutionary breakpoint since the origin of thought.
Let your fingers do the walking (and the air travel). Poke your fingers through the holes so they can pop up in the tourist hot-spots of the world! (Fun).
What was the relationship between the three listed Larkinian elements, and how have they combined to obscure or reveal the man himself?
>> Let him speak for himself (and be none the wiser).
A novel that reimagines life at Wuthering Heights through the eyes of the Earnshaws' servant, Nelly Dean.
Useful, and a lot cheaper than calling someone in.
· adieu, without further - Conflation of bidding adieu (saying goodbye) with ado (complicated doings, ceremony) to mean "without saying anything more."
· feeble position - An unborn child in a fetal position seems weak and helpless, which explains the confusion here. The two words also share some sexist cultural and literary associations. Feeble (weak) originates from a Latin word for something to be wept over; fetal (relating to a fetus) originates from the same preliterate Indo-European word that gives us female.
· hone in on - Confuses expressions such as finely honed with home in on or zero in on (focus on, locate) and sometimes with horn in on (intrude upon). Homing, as pigeons perform it, often involves flying in narrowing circles until the target is reached. Hone means to sharpen; the malapropism conveys the sense of a carefully sharpened instrument and sometimes cutting in.
Reggie and Ronnie Kray ruled London's gangland during the 60s with a ruthlessness and viciousness that shocks even now. Building an empire of organised crime that has never been matched, the brothers swindled, extorted and terrorised - while enjoying a glittering celebrity status at the heart of the swinging 60s scene, until their downfall and imprisonment for life.
>> Now a film!
>> Not to be confused with the Piranha brothers.
