Friday 24 September 2021

 NEW RELEASES

The Tiny Woman's Coat by Joy Cowley and Giselle Clarkson         $25
The tiny woman makes a coat of leaves with the help of friends in this vibrant, rhyming tale. The trees, geese, porcupine, horse, and plants all share something so the tiny woman can snip, snip, snip and stitch, stitch, stitch a coat to keep herself warm. An instant favourite. 
More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman          $37
On a kibbutz in Israel in 2008, Gili, along with the entire community, is celebrating the 90th birthday of her grandmother Vera, the adored matriarch of a sprawling and tight-knit family. Onto the scene enters Nina—the iron-willed daughter who rejected Vera's care; and the absent mother who abandoned Gili when she was still a baby. Nina's return to the family after years of silence precipitates a crisis in which mother, daughter and grandmother are forced to confront the past head-on. The three women embark on an epic journey to the desolate island of Goli Otok, formerly part of Yugoslavia. It was here, five decades earlier, that Vera was held and tortured as a political prisoner. And it is here that the three women will finally come to terms with the terrible moral dilemma that Vera faced, that permanently altered the course of their lives.
"This novel is about the way that the personal can never be wholly separated from the political, about the lingering wounds of history, about how violence seeps into all the dark corners of a life. This is another extraordinary novel from Grossman, a book as beautiful and sad as anything you’ll read this year." —Guardian
The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alameddine             $38
Mina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of thirty years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful, among the abundance of Western volunteers who pose for selfies with beached dinghies and the camp's children. Soon, a boat crosses bringing Sumaiya, a fiercely resolute Syrian matriarch with terminal liver cancer. Determined to protect her children and husband at all costs, Sumaiya refuses to alert her family to her diagnosis. Bonded together by Sumaiya's secret, a deep connection sparks between the two women, and as Mina prepares a course of treatment with the limited resources on hand, she confronts the circumstances of the migrants' displacement, as well as her own constraints in helping them.
Dulcinea in the Forbidden Forest by Ole Könnecke            $25
Dulcinea has been forbidden since she was small to enter the dangerous magic forest where the witch has her castle. But her father hasn't come home from collecting blueberries for her birthday pancakes. Did the witch cast a spell on him? Dulcinea must brave the dark forest and sneak into the witch's castle to steal the spell book and free him. Her father would hardly have named her after the brave Dulcinea if she couldn't break a witch's spell to celebrate her birthday with him, after all. 
Seahorses Are Sold Out by Constanze Spengler and Katja Gehrmann         $30
Mika's father works from home and he's very busy. He can never find time for the swimming trip he promised. So Dad allows Mika to choose a pet from the store while he finishes the project—something quiet like a mouse. And so begins a wonderfully turbulent story in which Mika brings home one animal after another. The mouse gets lost so they need a dog to find it. The dog is followed by a seal, then a penguin. How many animals can come to stay before Dad notices?
The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa        $20
Bookish high school student Rintaro Natsuki is about to close the secondhand bookshop he inherited from his beloved grandfather. Then, a talking cat named Tiger appears with an unusual request. The cat needs Rintaro’s help to save books that have been imprisoned, destroyed and unloved. Their mission sends this odd couple on an amazing journey, where they enter different labyrinths to set books free. Through their travels, Tiger and Rintaro meet a man who locks up his books, an unwitting book torturer who cuts the pages of books into snippets to help people speed read, and a publisher who only wants to sell books like disposable products. Then, finally, there is a mission that Rintaro must complete alone...
Life Is Simple: How Occam's razor set science free and unlocked the universe by Johnjoe McFadden           $38
The medieval friar William of Occam first articulated the principle that the best answer to any problem is the simplest. This theory, known as Occam's razor, cut through the thickets of medieval metaphysics to clear a path for modern science. We follow the razor in the hands of the giants of science, from Copernicus, to Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Rubin and Higgs. Its success suggests that we live in the simplest possible habitable universe and supports the revolutionary theory that our cosmos has evolved. 

Marae—TeTatau Pounamu: A journey around New Zealand's meeting houses by Muru Walters, Sam Walters and Robin Walters      $65
A new edition of this superb book. The authors spent three years visiting some of this country's major wharenui as well as many of the more humble ones — houses that serve smaller hapu and iwi. They are intensively photographed, with detailed shots of their carvings, kowhaiwhai panels, tukutuku panels, and events.


Once Upon a Time There Was and Will Be So Much More by Johanna Schaible         $38
Hundreds of millions of years ago, land took shape. Millions of years ago, dinosaurs lived on Earth. Thousands of years ago, people built towering pyramids. Ten years ago, the landscape looked different. A month ago, it was still winter. A minute ago, the light was turned off. Now! Make a wish! What will you be doing in a week? How will you celebrate your birthday next year? What will you discover when you are older? What will hold you in awe forever? An inventively constructed picture book about time. 
In Love With Hell: Drink in the lives and work of eleven writers by William Palmer         $38
Palmer is interested in is the effect that heavy drinking had on writers, how they lived with it and were sometimes destroyed by it, and how they described the whole private and social world of the drinker in their work. Patrick Hamilton, Jean Rhys, Charles Jackson, Malcolm Lowry, Dylan Thomas, John Cheever, Flann O'Brien, Anthony Burgess, Kingsley Amis, Richard Yates, Elizabeth Bishop. 
How We Got Happy by J. Macfarlane and E. Nabbs          $45
The stories of twenty young New Zealanders who have faced depression and learned what helps them to stay well. Full of useful insights.

Emily Noble's Disgrace by May Paulson-Ellis        $38
When trauma cleaner Essie Pound makes a gruesome discovery in the derelict Edinburgh boarding house she is sent to clean, it brings her into contact with a young policewoman, Emily Noble, who has her own reasons to solve the case. As the two women embark on a journey into the heart of a forgotten family, the investigation prompts fragmented memories of their own traumatic histories — something Emily has spent a lifetime attempting to bury, and Essie a lifetime trying to lay bare.
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Soviet Visuals by Varia Bortsova          $27
Welcome to the USSR. Marvel at the wonders of the space race. Delight in the many fine delicacies of food and drink. Revel in the fine opportunities for work and play. SOVIET VISUALS invites you back in time into the strangely captivating world of the Soviet Union, through a unique collection of photography, architecture, propaganda art, advertising, design, and culture from behind the Iron Curtain. 

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