NEW RELEASES
Keenan's madcap and brutal novel hinges on the comradery between the members of a Provisional IRA cell in Belfast in the 1970s, whose madcap and brutal activities include kidnap, violence, arguing about the relative merits of Perry Como and Frank Sinatra, and running a comics shop. Interesting to read in comparison with Anna Burns's Milkman, also set in Catholic Belfast in the 1970s.
>> Probably an interview with Keenan.
"These stories are extremely good. I could reference masters of the particular as far-flung as Thomas Bernhard or Lucia Berlin, but the resonance of Maryse Meijer's ultraprecise prose is unique." - Dennis Cooper
A handsome edition collecting poems from 1960 to the present.
"Fleur Adcock has written some of the best poems in world literature." - The Spinoff
Frank feels so left out that he goes home and cries into a saucepan. If he makes jam of his tears will everyone come to tea? From the author/illustrator of the also-wonderful My Dog Mouse.
"The completion of the poem has not led me to any sense of resolution. It has led to something less measurable, perhaps more valuable-greater clarity, particularly of the depth of injustice Maori have endured in Taranaki. At the same time it has strengthened my attachment and my gratitude to my great and great-great grandparents, whom I know as essentially good people. And it has led me back to Parihaka: to profound respect for Te Whiti and Tohu, the art of leadership, the art of passive resistance, and their refusal of human war." - Dinah Hawken
Ten new stories, one inspired by each of the songs on Joy Division's most intense and affecting album. Sophie Mackintosh, David Gaffney, Jessie Greengrass, Toby Litt, Eley Williams, Nicholas Royle, Jen Ashworth, Zoe McLean, Zoe Lambert, Louise Marr and Anne Billson.
"United by some unleashed kinetic force from long ago, these collected stories are achingly modern and fully embrace contemporary anxieties and preoccupations. They confront us with intense feelings and show us places we may not always wish to be, but – just like Joy Division themselves – they have the collective power to stay firmly rooted in our minds." - The Guardian
>> 'I Remember Nothing.'
>> Sophie Mackintosh on writing her story for the book.
Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. To research her books, such as the remarkable The Soul of an Octopus, Montgomery has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet's rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy's life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets. Beautifully, quirkily illustrated.
In a culture that tacitly coerces us into blind activity, the art of doing nothing is disappearing. Inactivity can induce lethargy and indifference, but is also a condition of imaginative freedom and creativity. Cohen explores the paradoxical pleasures of inactivity, and considers four faces of inertia - the burnout, the slob, the daydreamer and the slacker. Could apathy help us to live more fulfilling lives?
A subtle and perceptive graphic memoir of a young artist struggling against what is expected of her - as an artist, as a woman, and as a human generally.
"Passing for Human is one of the most extraordinary memoirs I've ever read. It's a story about becoming a person, about creativity, about love, all told with originality and grace. An amazing, amazing book." - Roz Chast
>> Finck in Vogue.
It's the 1950s, and Lorrie is unimpressed when her family moves to the remote Scottish island where her grandad runs a whisky distillery. She befriends Sylvie, the shy girl next door. Yet fun-loving Lorrie isn't sure Sylvie's is the friendship she wants to win. As the adults around them struggle to keep their lives on an even keel, the two young women are drawn into a series of events that leave the small town wondering who exactly Sylvie is and what strange gift she is hiding.
"A breath of fresh air." - The Irish Times
>> Read an excerpt.
>> "I ate a Kit Kat the wrong way once."
>> Read Thomas's review of Don't Try This At Home.
A Korean-American boy tries to deal with the legacy of abuse in Chee's stunning 2001 debut novel, which begins in Maine when young Aphias Zee joins a boys choir.
"Every word makes me ache. Written with exquisite empathy and grace." - Roxane Gay
"Singularly beautiful and psychologically harrowing. One of the best American novels of this century." - Boston Globe
The author of The Queen of the Night delivers a series of superb essays investigating his development as a person and as a writer and activist, intimating how we form our identities both in life and in art. New edition.
"Alexander Chee is the very best kind of essayist, a boon companion in good times and bad, whose confiding voice you'd follow anywhere, just for the wonderful feeling of being understood like never before." - Charles D'Ambrosio
"Masterful." - Roxanne Gay
"Wonderful." - Rebecca Solnit
"An unforgettably challenging book about power and powerlessness, men and women, masters and servants, small countries and big countries, Alasdair Gray’s exploration of the politics of pornography has lost none of its power to shock. 1982, Janine is a searing portrait of male need and inadequacy, as explored via the lonely sexual fantasies of Jock McLeish, failed husband, lover and business man." - Will Self (in the introduction to this new edition)
"This is one of the most underrated, most stupidly unread novels in the world." - LitReactor
>> "My best novel."
In July 1975, George Szirtes' mother, Magda, died in an ambulance on her way to hospital after attempting to take her own life. She was fifty-one years old. This memoir is an attempt to make sense of what came before, to re-construct who Magda Szirtes really was. The book moves from her death, spooling backwards through her years as a mother, through sickness and exile in England, the family's flight from Hungary in 1956, her time in two concentration camps, her girlhood as an ambitious photographer, and her vanished family in Transylvania.
Goliath of Gath isn't much of a fighter. He would pick admin work over patrolling in a heartbeat, to say nothing of his distaste for engaging in combat. Nonetheless, at the behest of the king, he finds himself issuing a twice-daily challenge to the Israelites: Choose a man. Let him come to me that we may fight. Astounding graphic novel.
Mitteleuropa in this period of change still retained the deep impressions of the periods of change that had gone before.
I Am So Clever by Mario Ramos $20
Who is cleverer, the Wolf or Little Red Riding Hood?
A short story published to mark Murakami's 70th birthday.
Highlighting different moments of crisis and how these are reflected and preserved through fifty crucial artworks, from Francisco de Goya's 'The Disasters of War' (1810-1820) to David Hammons's 'In the Hood' (1993), Social Forms asks how to make art in the age of Brexit, Trump, and the refugee and climate crises.
Text Me When You Get Home: The evolution and triumph of modern female friendship by Kayleen Schaeffer $30
Since its inception in 1660, the Royal Society has pioneered scientific discovery and exploration. Includes contributions from Richard Dawkins, Margaret Atwood, David Attenborough, Martin Rees and Richard Fortey.
What relevance are the journalistic ideals of truth and objectivity in a world increasingly unhinged by changes in the way that people access information (or "information")? Abramson takes us behind the scenes at four media titans during the most volatile years in news history. Two are maverick upstarts: BuzzFeed, the brain-child of virtuoso clickbait scientist Jonah Perretti, and VICE, led by the booze-fuelled anarcho-hipster Shane Smith. The two others are among the world's most venerable news institutions: The New York Times, owned and run for generations by the Sulzberger dynasty, and The Washington Post, also family-owned but soon to be bought by the world's richest merchant of all, Jeff Bezos.
Robotics and virtual work practices will mean a drastic shift in employment structures and wealth distribution. Who will control the changes, and to who will benefit from these changes?
A carnivalesque travelogue that features the passengers of the Lynceus, a vessel shipwrecked by a hurricane in the fictional land of Ponukele on a journey from Marseilles to Buenos Aires. To entertain themselves while waiting for a release ransom to be paid to the local drag-clad Emperor Talou, the crew of serendipitously skilled performers (including a historian, a ballerina, a fencing champion, a pyrotechnic, and an ichthyologist, among others), known collectively as the 'Incomparables', stage a gala. Readers should be prepared for an Africa unlike any they would likely visit in reality. First published in 1910. Unusual.
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