Bookshelf by Lydia Pyne $23.00
What does a bookshelf mean? Bookshelves are holders not just of books but of so many other things: values, vibes, and verbs that can be contained and displayed in the buildings and rooms of contemporary human existence. With a shrewd eye toward this particular moment in the history of books, Pyne takes the reader on a tour of the bookshelf that leads critically to this juncture: amid rumors of the death of book culture, why is the life of the bookshelf in full bloom?
Martin John by Anakana Schofield $24.99
"Martin John must put a stop to it. They have an agreement, he and Mam. Get out to Aunty Noanie on Wednesday. Stop talking rubbish. Don't go near the buses and don't go down on the Tube. Keep yourself on the outside. Get a job at night. Get a job at night or else I'll come for ya. But Martin John can't stop. Meddlers are interrupting him and Martin John doesn't like Meddlers. If he's interrupted he can't complete his circuits; if he can't complete his circuits, bad things may happen. That's a fact."
"Deploying some serious literary gumption, Schofield’s frequently hilarious, and distinctly modernist, linguistic games are always gainfully employed in the uneasy, indelicate task of placing her reader nose to nose with the humanity of a sex offender. Addictively reflexive, and potentially lethal." - Eimear McBride, New York Times
At the Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell $49.99
Paris, near the turn of 1933. Three young friends meet over apricot cocktails at the Bec-de-Gaz bar on the rue Montparnasse. They are Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and their friend Raymond Aron, who opens their eyes to a radical new way of thinking. Pointing to his drink, he says, "You can make philosophy out of this cocktail!" From this moment of inspiration, Sartre will create his own extraordinary philosophy of real, experienced life - of love and desire, of freedom and being, of cafes and waiters, of friendships and revolutionary fervour. It is a philosophy that will enthral Paris and sweep through the world, leaving its mark on post-war liberation movements, from the student uprisings of 1968 to civil rights pioneers. At the Existentialist Café tells the story of modern existentialism as one of passionate encounters between people, minds and ideas.
Adrift: A secret life of London's waterways by Helen Babbs $45.00
From Walthamstow Marsh in the east to Uxbridge in the west, Helen Babbs journeys along London's waterways on a canal boat called Pike, putting down roots for two weeks at a time before moving on. Taking in the River Lea and the Lee Navigation, the Regent's Canal and the Grand Union, she explores the London landscape in all its guises: marshland, wasteland, city centre and suburb. Adrift charts a year of Babbs's life on Pike, exploring the changes wreaked by the seasons as well as by developers, and recounting the practical trials of living aboard. It is a story of mapping and discovery, of escape and opting out, but also of making connections and finding home.
From Walthamstow Marsh in the east to Uxbridge in the west, Helen Babbs journeys along London's waterways on a canal boat called Pike, putting down roots for two weeks at a time before moving on. Taking in the River Lea and the Lee Navigation, the Regent's Canal and the Grand Union, she explores the London landscape in all its guises: marshland, wasteland, city centre and suburb. Adrift charts a year of Babbs's life on Pike, exploring the changes wreaked by the seasons as well as by developers, and recounting the practical trials of living aboard. It is a story of mapping and discovery, of escape and opting out, but also of making connections and finding home.
Between a Wolf and a Dog by Georgia Blain $37.00
Ester is a family therapist with an appointment book that catalogues the anxieties of the middle class: loneliness, relationships, death. She spends her days helping others find happiness, but her own family relationships are tense and frayed. Estranged from both her sister, April, and her ex-husband, Lawrence, Ester wants to fall in love again. Meanwhile, April is struggling through her own directionless life; Lawrence's reckless past decisions are catching up with him; and Ester and April's mother, Hilary, is about to make a choice that will profoundly affect then all.
"What a marvellously clear eye Georgia Blain has for the ways in which we love and harm one another. A remarkable book." - Michelle de Kretser
Quite a Good Time to Be Born: A memoir, 1935-1975 by David Lodge $29.99
"What one takes away from this half-memoir is the self-portrait of an extraordinarily good, wrongly modest man; a distinguished scholar, and one of the finest of current novelists." - Spectator
"As a piece of reportage from the third quarter of the English 20th century this is a sociologist's paradise." - Guardian
Anya's War by Andrea Alban $19.99
Anya Rosen and her family have left their home in Odessa for Shanghai, believing that China will be a safe haven from Hitler's forces. At first, Anya's life in the Jewish Quarter of Shanghai is privileged and relatively carefree: she has crushes on boys, fights with her mother, and longs to defy expectations just like her here, Amelia Earhart. Then Anya finds a baby - a newborn abandoned on the street. Amelia Earhart goes missing. And it becomes dangerously clear that no place is safe, not for Jewish families like the Rosens, not for Shanghai's poor, not for adventurous women pilots.
>> Set in a little-known chapter of Holocaust history.
Neverhome by Laird Hunt $26.00
"I was strong and he was not so it was me went to war to defend the Republic. I stepped across the border out of Indiana into Ohio. Twenty dollars, two salt-pork sandwiches, and I took jerky, biscuits, six old apples, fresh underthings and a blanket too. There was a conflagration to come; I wanted to lend it my spark." Meet Gallant Ash: hero, folk legend, master of war (and woman).
"A beguiling and evocative story about love and loss, duty and deceit. Neverhome took me on a journey so thoroughly engrossing that there were times the pages seemed to turn themselves." - Kevin Powers (The Yellow Birds)
"A brilliant and breathtaking blaze of a novel." - Guardian
The Making of Zombie Wars by Aleksandar Hemon $24.99
Josh Levin is an aspiring screenwriter teaching ESL classes in Chicago. His laptop is full of ideas, but the only one to really take root is Zombie Wars. When Josh comes home to discover his landlord, an unhinged army vet, rifling through his dirty laundry, he decides to move in with his girlfriend, Kimmy. It's domestic bliss for a moment, but Josh becomes entangled with a student, a Bosnian woman named Ana, whose husband is jealous and violent. Disaster ensues, and Josh's choices move from silly to profoundly absurd...
"A raucous, hilarious book. Deadly funny." - Chicago Magazine
"Hemon is remarkable for his playful, loving and endlessly generative relationship with language." - Guardian
The Wander Society by Keri Smith $38.00
You are electing to join a secret underground movement. Membership will require you to conduct research on your immediate environment and complete a variety of assignments designed to creatively disrupt your everyday life. That is all you need to know for now. All else will be revealed in time. Society wants us to live a planned existence. The path of the wanderer is not this! The path of the wanderer is an experiment with the unknown. To be idle, to play, to daydream. The Wander Society offers us a way to experience the joys and possibilities of unplanned time.
A Sky Full of Birds: In search of murders, murmurations and Britain's great bird gatherings by Matt Merritt $39.99
Poet and nature writer Matt Merritt shares his passion for birdwatching by taking us to some of the great avian gatherings that occur around the British isles - from ravens in Anglesey and raptors on the Wirral, to Kent nightingales and Scottish capercallies.
Trading Futures by Jim Powell $37.99
Matthew Oxenhay is sixty, a stranger to his wife, an embarrassment to his children, and failed former contender for the top job at his City firm. Seizing on his birthday party as an opportunity to deliver some rather crushing home truths to his assembled loved ones, it seems as though Matthew might have hit rock bottom. The truth, however, is that he has some way to go yet...
Shackleton's Journey: Activity book by William Grill $27.99
If you haven't got a copy of Shackleton's Journey yet, get yourself (or someone else) a copy now. If you already have a copy you will love these creative and informative activities!
"What one takes away from this half-memoir is the self-portrait of an extraordinarily good, wrongly modest man; a distinguished scholar, and one of the finest of current novelists." - Spectator
"As a piece of reportage from the third quarter of the English 20th century this is a sociologist's paradise." - Guardian
Anya Rosen and her family have left their home in Odessa for Shanghai, believing that China will be a safe haven from Hitler's forces. At first, Anya's life in the Jewish Quarter of Shanghai is privileged and relatively carefree: she has crushes on boys, fights with her mother, and longs to defy expectations just like her here, Amelia Earhart. Then Anya finds a baby - a newborn abandoned on the street. Amelia Earhart goes missing. And it becomes dangerously clear that no place is safe, not for Jewish families like the Rosens, not for Shanghai's poor, not for adventurous women pilots.
>> Set in a little-known chapter of Holocaust history.
"I was strong and he was not so it was me went to war to defend the Republic. I stepped across the border out of Indiana into Ohio. Twenty dollars, two salt-pork sandwiches, and I took jerky, biscuits, six old apples, fresh underthings and a blanket too. There was a conflagration to come; I wanted to lend it my spark." Meet Gallant Ash: hero, folk legend, master of war (and woman).
"A beguiling and evocative story about love and loss, duty and deceit. Neverhome took me on a journey so thoroughly engrossing that there were times the pages seemed to turn themselves." - Kevin Powers (The Yellow Birds)
"A brilliant and breathtaking blaze of a novel." - Guardian
Josh Levin is an aspiring screenwriter teaching ESL classes in Chicago. His laptop is full of ideas, but the only one to really take root is Zombie Wars. When Josh comes home to discover his landlord, an unhinged army vet, rifling through his dirty laundry, he decides to move in with his girlfriend, Kimmy. It's domestic bliss for a moment, but Josh becomes entangled with a student, a Bosnian woman named Ana, whose husband is jealous and violent. Disaster ensues, and Josh's choices move from silly to profoundly absurd...
"A raucous, hilarious book. Deadly funny." - Chicago Magazine
"Hemon is remarkable for his playful, loving and endlessly generative relationship with language." - Guardian
You are electing to join a secret underground movement. Membership will require you to conduct research on your immediate environment and complete a variety of assignments designed to creatively disrupt your everyday life. That is all you need to know for now. All else will be revealed in time. Society wants us to live a planned existence. The path of the wanderer is not this! The path of the wanderer is an experiment with the unknown. To be idle, to play, to daydream. The Wander Society offers us a way to experience the joys and possibilities of unplanned time.
Poet and nature writer Matt Merritt shares his passion for birdwatching by taking us to some of the great avian gatherings that occur around the British isles - from ravens in Anglesey and raptors on the Wirral, to Kent nightingales and Scottish capercallies.
Matthew Oxenhay is sixty, a stranger to his wife, an embarrassment to his children, and failed former contender for the top job at his City firm. Seizing on his birthday party as an opportunity to deliver some rather crushing home truths to his assembled loved ones, it seems as though Matthew might have hit rock bottom. The truth, however, is that he has some way to go yet...
If you haven't got a copy of Shackleton's Journey yet, get yourself (or someone else) a copy now. If you already have a copy you will love these creative and informative activities!
Hood by Alison Kenney $23.00
We all wear hoods: the Grim Reaper, Red Riding Hood, torturers, executioners and the executed, athletes, laborers, anarchists, rappers, babies in onesies, and anyone who's ever grabbed a hoodie on a chilly day. Alison Kinney's Hood explores the material and symbolic vibrancy of this everyday garment and political semaphore, which often protects the powerful at the expense of the powerless-with deadly results. Kinney considers medieval clerics and the Klan, anti-hoodie campaigns and the Hooded Man of Abu Ghraib, the Inquisition and the murder of Trayvon Martin, uncovering both the hooded perpetrators of violence and the hooded victims in their sights.
Continental Shift: An investigative journey into Africa's 21st century by Kevin Bloom and Richard Poplak $39.99
Africa is failing. Africa is succeeding. Africa is betraying its citizens. Africa is a place of starvation, corruption, disease. African economies are soaring faster than any on earth. Africa is squandering its bountiful resources. Africa is a roadmap for global development. Africa is turbulent. Africa is stabilising. Africa is doomed. Africa is the future. All of these pronouncements prove equally true and false, as South African journalists Richard Poplak and Kevin Bloom discover on their 9-year roadtrip through the paradoxical continent they call home.
Africa is failing. Africa is succeeding. Africa is betraying its citizens. Africa is a place of starvation, corruption, disease. African economies are soaring faster than any on earth. Africa is squandering its bountiful resources. Africa is a roadmap for global development. Africa is turbulent. Africa is stabilising. Africa is doomed. Africa is the future. All of these pronouncements prove equally true and false, as South African journalists Richard Poplak and Kevin Bloom discover on their 9-year roadtrip through the paradoxical continent they call home.
Shipping Container by Craig Martin $23.00
The shipping container is all around: whizzing by on the highway, trundling past on rails, unloading behind a big box store even as you shop there, clanking on the docks just out of sight. 90% of the goods and materials that move around the globe do so in shipping containers. It is a ubiquitous object, even if most of us have no direct contact with it. But what is this thing? Where has it been, and where is it going? This book illuminates the "development of containerization", including design history, standardization, aesthetics, and a speculative discussion of the future of shipping containers.
What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell $27.99
An American teaching in an American high school in Bulgaria, who is estranged from his father, who longs for a stable life with a steady boyfriend. Instead, he becomes obsessed with Mitko, a sex worker he meets cruising in a toilet.
"The great gay novel of our times." - New Republic
>> Interview with the author.
An American teaching in an American high school in Bulgaria, who is estranged from his father, who longs for a stable life with a steady boyfriend. Instead, he becomes obsessed with Mitko, a sex worker he meets cruising in a toilet.
"The great gay novel of our times." - New Republic
>> Interview with the author.
Cigarette Lighter by Jack Pendaris $23.00
Smokers, survivalists, teenagers, collectors... The cigarette lighter is a charged, complex, yet often entirely disposable object that moves across these various groups of people, acquiring and emitting different meanings while always supplying its primary function, that of ignition. While the lighter may seem at first a niche object-only for old fashioned cigarette smokers-in this book Jack Pendarvis explodes the lighter as something with deep history, as something with quirky episodes in cultural contexts, and as something that dances with wide ranging taboos and traditions. Pendarvis shows how the lighter tarries with the cheapest ends of consumer culture as much as it displays more profound dramas of human survival, technological advances, and aesthetics.
Rosetta by Alexandra Joel $39.99
The story of a scandalous Australian woman who enchanted British society. Headstrong and beautiful, in 1905 Rosetta escaped her safe Melbourne life, deserting her respectable husband and five-year-old daughter to run away with Zeno the Magnificent, a half-Chinese fortune teller and seducer of souls. The pair reinvented themselves in London, where they beguiled European society and risked everything for a life of glamour and desire. Rosetta said she was American; Zeno claimed to be a brilliant Japanese professor. Together they attracted the patronage of famous writers, inventors and scientists, lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses.
Ladivine by Marie Ndiaye $34.99
Clarisse Riviere's life is shaped by a refusal to admit to her husband Richard and to her daughter Ladivine that her mother is a poor black housekeeper. Instead, weighed down by guilt, she pretends to be an orphan, visiting her mother in secret and telling no-one of her real identity as Malinka, daughter of Ladivine Sylla. In time, her lies turn against her. Richard leaves Clarisse, frustrated by the unbridgeable, indecipherable gulf between them. Clarisse is devastated, but finds solace in a new man, Freddy Moliger, who is let into the secret about her mother, and is even introduced to her. But Ladivine, her daughter, who is now married herself, cannot shake a bad feeling about her mother's new lover, convinced that he can bring only chaos and pain into her life.
Shift by Em Bailey $24.99
Olive Corbett is definitely not crazy. Not anymore. These days she takes her meds like a good girl, hangs out with her best friend Ami, and stays the hell away from the toxic girls she used to be friends with. She doesn't need a boyfriend. Especially not a lifesaver-type with a nice smile. And she doesn't need the drama of that creepy new girl Miranda, who has somehow latched on to Olive's ex-best friend. Yet from a distance, Olive can see there's something sinister about the new friendship. Something almost ...parasitic. Maybe the wild rumours are true. Maybe Miranda is a killer. But who would believe Olive? She does have a habit of letting her imagination run away with her...
Ka Ngaro te Reo: Maori language under siege in the nineteenth century by Paul Moon $39.99
In 1800, te reo Maori was the only language spoken in New Zealand. By 1899, it was on the verge of disappearing altogether. Paul Moon traces the spiralling decline of the language during an era of prolonged colonisation that saw political, economic, cultural and linguistic power shifting steadily into the hands of the European core.
Light: A radiant history by Bruce Watson $39.99
Light begins at Stonehenge, where crowds cheer a solstice sunrise. After sampling myths explaining First Light, the story moves on to early philosophers' queries, then through the centuries, from Buddhist temples to Biblical scripture, when light was the soul of the divine. Battling darkness and despair, Gothic architects crafted radiant cathedrals while Dante dreamed a "heaven of pure light." Later, following Leonardo's advice, Renaissance artists learned to capture light on canvas. During the Scientific Revolution, Galileo gathered light in his telescope, Descartes measured the rainbow, and Newton used prisms to solidify the science of optics. But even after Newton, light was an enigma. Particle or wave? Did it flow through an invisible "ether"? Through the age of Edison and into the age of lasers, Light reveals how light sparked new wonders - relativity, quantum electrodynamics, fiber optics, lasers and more.
"For the rest of my life I will reflect on what light is." - Albert Einstein
A Little Lumpen Novelita by Roberto Bolano $19.99
"Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime." Another book from the posthumously prodigious Bolano!
"A Little Lumpen Novelita, while short, is among Bolano's most intoxicating works. Obsessive and ambiguous, its open-ended nature is reflective not only of the protagonist but of the author himself. And it further cements him as a master of the form, of any form." - NPR
Vintage Tattoo Flash: 100 years of traditional tattoos from the collection of Jonathan Shaw $119.99
Tattoo flash is the designs on paper that the tattooist works from. This is not a collection of old skins.
Demigods and Magicians: Three stories from the world of Percy Jackson and the Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan $24.00
Join Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase and Carter and Sadie Kane as they do battle with an ancient Egyptian magician determined to become a god. Against impossible odds, the four demigods and magicians team up to prevent the apocalypse. This book contains the short stories 'The Son of Sobek', 'The Staff of Serapis' and 'The Crown of Ptolemy', together in one volume for the first time. And, read an exciting extract from The Sword of Summer, the first book in Rick Riordan's latest series, 'Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard'.
The story of a scandalous Australian woman who enchanted British society. Headstrong and beautiful, in 1905 Rosetta escaped her safe Melbourne life, deserting her respectable husband and five-year-old daughter to run away with Zeno the Magnificent, a half-Chinese fortune teller and seducer of souls. The pair reinvented themselves in London, where they beguiled European society and risked everything for a life of glamour and desire. Rosetta said she was American; Zeno claimed to be a brilliant Japanese professor. Together they attracted the patronage of famous writers, inventors and scientists, lords and ladies, dukes and duchesses.
Clarisse Riviere's life is shaped by a refusal to admit to her husband Richard and to her daughter Ladivine that her mother is a poor black housekeeper. Instead, weighed down by guilt, she pretends to be an orphan, visiting her mother in secret and telling no-one of her real identity as Malinka, daughter of Ladivine Sylla. In time, her lies turn against her. Richard leaves Clarisse, frustrated by the unbridgeable, indecipherable gulf between them. Clarisse is devastated, but finds solace in a new man, Freddy Moliger, who is let into the secret about her mother, and is even introduced to her. But Ladivine, her daughter, who is now married herself, cannot shake a bad feeling about her mother's new lover, convinced that he can bring only chaos and pain into her life.
Olive Corbett is definitely not crazy. Not anymore. These days she takes her meds like a good girl, hangs out with her best friend Ami, and stays the hell away from the toxic girls she used to be friends with. She doesn't need a boyfriend. Especially not a lifesaver-type with a nice smile. And she doesn't need the drama of that creepy new girl Miranda, who has somehow latched on to Olive's ex-best friend. Yet from a distance, Olive can see there's something sinister about the new friendship. Something almost ...parasitic. Maybe the wild rumours are true. Maybe Miranda is a killer. But who would believe Olive? She does have a habit of letting her imagination run away with her...
In 1800, te reo Maori was the only language spoken in New Zealand. By 1899, it was on the verge of disappearing altogether. Paul Moon traces the spiralling decline of the language during an era of prolonged colonisation that saw political, economic, cultural and linguistic power shifting steadily into the hands of the European core.
Light begins at Stonehenge, where crowds cheer a solstice sunrise. After sampling myths explaining First Light, the story moves on to early philosophers' queries, then through the centuries, from Buddhist temples to Biblical scripture, when light was the soul of the divine. Battling darkness and despair, Gothic architects crafted radiant cathedrals while Dante dreamed a "heaven of pure light." Later, following Leonardo's advice, Renaissance artists learned to capture light on canvas. During the Scientific Revolution, Galileo gathered light in his telescope, Descartes measured the rainbow, and Newton used prisms to solidify the science of optics. But even after Newton, light was an enigma. Particle or wave? Did it flow through an invisible "ether"? Through the age of Edison and into the age of lasers, Light reveals how light sparked new wonders - relativity, quantum electrodynamics, fiber optics, lasers and more.
"For the rest of my life I will reflect on what light is." - Albert Einstein
"Now I am a mother and a married woman, but not long ago I led a life of crime." Another book from the posthumously prodigious Bolano!
"A Little Lumpen Novelita, while short, is among Bolano's most intoxicating works. Obsessive and ambiguous, its open-ended nature is reflective not only of the protagonist but of the author himself. And it further cements him as a master of the form, of any form." - NPR
Tattoo flash is the designs on paper that the tattooist works from. This is not a collection of old skins.
Join Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase and Carter and Sadie Kane as they do battle with an ancient Egyptian magician determined to become a god. Against impossible odds, the four demigods and magicians team up to prevent the apocalypse. This book contains the short stories 'The Son of Sobek', 'The Staff of Serapis' and 'The Crown of Ptolemy', together in one volume for the first time. And, read an exciting extract from The Sword of Summer, the first book in Rick Riordan's latest series, 'Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard'.
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