NEW RELEASES
No-one's sanity is safe from the pen (or, plausibly, keyboard) of novelist Nell Zink. This novel tackles the 90s music scene, hipsterdom, climate change and political misadventures on the minimal and maximal scale. It is hugely funny, audacious, sharp and indelible (as you would expect).
"Doxology is superb. In terms of its author’s ability to throw dart after dart after dart into the center of your media-warped mind and soul, it’s the novel of the summer and possibly the year. It’s a ragged chunk of ecstatic cerebral-satirical intellection. It’s bliss." —The New York Times
>>"I am afraid I have to tell you, Nell, you have no subconscious mind."
>>"Post-sensitive is not a bad description of Zink’s Weltanschauung."
>>“He started playing ukulele soon after his mother died.”
On the surface, Vivian Maier lived a quiet life as a loving, firm and feisty nanny for wealthy families in Chicago and New York. But throughout four decades, she took more than 150,000 photos, mainly with Rolleiflex cameras. The pictures were only discovered in an auction shortly before she died, impoverished and feasibly very lonely. In a time when self-obsession and representation are at an all-time high, Vivian Maier holds a particular fascination. Who was this eccentric person? Hesselholdt's novel seeks to penetrate the enigma.
>>Read an excerpt.
>>Finding Vivian Maier.
>>Read Thomas's review of Hesselholdt's Companions.
Levy's new novel is both subtle and audacious, exposing power play on both personal and epochal levels in the story of a man hit twice by cars on the same crossing but in different decades, causing his life to turn under itself like a Möbius strip.
"Brilliant." —Sam Byers, Guardian
>>Levy talks about the book.
>>Other books by Deborah Levy.
>>In her writing shed.
In the age of Trump, fake news and clickbait headlines, it is easy to despair about the future of journalism. The New Zealand and global media are in upheaval: the old economic models for print journalism are failing, public funding has been neglected for decades, and many major news organisations are shedding journalists.
A remarkable collaboration between an outstanding illustrator and an outstanding writer. When Self saw Blake's slightly macabre illustrations of people making their ways across moonlit landscapes in eccentric vehicles, he went home and wrote a set of similarly baroquely strange and moon-saturated texts. This astounding book contains both.
Hotel Middlemore, aka Middlemore Hospital, "is the smallest country on earth / tinier than the Vatican / yet more secure / you couldn't escape in a laundry basket / or by disguising yourself as a psychiatrist". "Everyone who is here deserves to be / no possibility of a mistake / doctors do not err / a privilege to know I am a participant / in an enterprise which cannot commit a blunder". Michael Morrissey's 12th book of poetry casts a wry but compassionate eye on life in a New Zealand psychiatric ward: "I'm in the best hotel in the world / grandest view / hot and cold running / but it's a psychiatric ward / everyone mad except me / and I too am mad / as a butchered snake / ram-raided by delusion / I have bipolar disorder which comes / and goes / of its own free will." From Hotel Middlemore Michael Morrissey, "God's blue astronaut / lonely but unafraid", takes us on a journey from a psychiatric ward to "beyond infinity / and back again".
Many of the poems written after 1962's Collected Poems, and those excluded from that collection, have not been published before.
"As all good writing has to, his writing came from his life. Each poem belonged to the life, like dark threads pulled away from the frayed sleeve of an old coat. I call that quality authenticity." —James K. Baxter, Landfall 99
Disturbed by the rising anti-Semitism Wolfskehl had left Germany for Switzerland and Italy in 1933. When Italy began to adopt anti-Jewish legislation he fled Europe for distant New Zealand which he had heard was an ‘island of racial equality’. For ten years he found asylum here and the peace to go on writing. Though almost blind, the open-minded and curious German-Jewish poet soon became engaged in the social and cultural life of the country, befriending and influencing many of the leading younger writers, such as R. A. K. Mason, Frank Sargeson, A.R.D. Fairburn and Denis Glover.
>>Writings by Wolfskehl.
The second volume of memoir from Ihimaera, following Maori Boy and telling of his experiences as a young writer making his way in a pakeha world, trying to find a place and a voice, exploring his identity and sexuality, and trying to put a secret in his past behind him.
Did you know that mathematics can be beautiful and that it is used in nature every single day? Have you ever wondered how prime numbers can protect us, or why bees use hexagons in their hives?
A collection of very personal essays exploring childhood, marriage, life as an All Black wife, and a poignant and strikingly honest reflection on the death of her first born, Toby.
"Lind Burgess can make you laugh and break your heart, often in the same sentence. Clear-eyed and wise, these essays are the stories we share to survive." —Diana Wichtel
>>Burgess talks with Lynn Freeman.
Equips your whanau with the first words you need to speak te reo at home together.
Simple, practical and engaging. From the author of the spectacularly popular and useful Maori Made Easy and Maori at Home.
A good introduction to what to expect on a visit to a marae, in te reo Maori, English and Mandarin.
Europe and its relationship with the rest of the world have always been defined by cumulative effects of migrations within and beyond its edges, and migrants have always stood at the heart of the European experience. This book explores the experiences of those seeking a safer or better life, and the effects of their migration upon both the societies they leave and those into which they are welcomed (or not).
"Gatrell’s eye for detail and sensitivity make this a compelling account that challenges the 'us'-and-'them' framing into which much discussion of migration is forced. Its great strength is that it treats the emotional and cultural aspects of the subject with as much respect as the historical facts and figures." —Guardian
Exploring the terrain between activism and apathy, Sylvia Nissen considers what it means to be a political actor from the perspective of students today. Drawing on in-depth interviews with New Zealand tertiary students, she traces their 'desires' for different types of politics, the 'demands' they experience at university, and the 'doubts' that underscore their political engagement.
Ever since Crusoe was cast away (and probably well before that), distant islands have been scattered across our collective imagination. In this wonderful book, Lewis-Jones, who brought us the wonderful The Writer's Map, allows eighty of the world's leading illustrators to draw a map of an island that really ought (or perhaps ought not) to exist. Includes islands by Christ Riddell, Edward Carey, Aina Bestard, Coralie Bickford-Smith, Tom Gauld, Isabel Greenberg, William Grill, Daniel Reeve (NZ), Herve Tullet, and Takayo Akiyama.
Once upon a time there were a frog and a toad who were very good friends. Frog was always enthusiastic — Toad wasn't so sure. All four deeply loved 'Frog and Toad' books now appear in one lovely hardback volume.
Lindisfarne, famous for its monastery, home to Saints Aidan and Cuthbert and the place where the celebrated Lindisfarne Gospels were written, is an island rich in history: the Romans knew it as Insula Medicata, it reached the height of its fame in the dark ages, and survived Viking raids before being abandoned after Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. Moffat walks cross-country and through history.
>>Things we know: Derek Jarman's The Tempest was filmed on Lindisfarne.
Rutt travels to the remotest edges of the British Isles in search of the seabirds that make their homes there. In the face of a looming environmental crisis, his investigation is both personal and passionate.
Demonstrates the cultural enrichment that results from an influx of refugees.
A beautifully illustrated introduction to the lives of insects.
A clear guide to the successful making of sourdough leavened pastries and sweet doughs as well as more traditional breads.
From the author of Fresh India.
Melinda is an outcast at Merryweather High. Something happened over the summer - something bad - and now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen. So what's the point in speaking at all? Through her work on an art project, Melinda is finally able to face what really happened that night. But before she can make peace with the ghosts of the past, she has to confront the reality of the present - and stop someone who still wishes to do her harm. Only words can save her. She can't stay silent. Not any more.
An excellent graphic novel version of Laurie Halse Anderson's classic empowerment story.
A year spent keeping bees is a year spent learning about yourself and your place in the world.
''Finely written and insightful'' —Guardian
''A mesmeric, lovely, quietly powerful book. A gentle but compelling account of the redemption that comes from relationship and attention.'' —Charles Foster, author of Being a Beast
''A profound, funny and sometimes deeply moving book that describes a year of inner city bee keeping, while dancing between the history of bees and us and what it means to be human in our modern world.'' —Julia Blackburn, author of Threads: The Delicate Life of John Craske
When information is a weapon, everyone is at war. We live in a world of influence operations run amok, a world of dark ads, psy-ops, hacks, bots, soft facts, ISIS, Putin, trolls, Trump. We've lost not only our sense of peace and democracy — but our sense of what those words even mean.
An endlessly enjoyable large hardback collection of Cowley's best poems and stories. Absolutely both giveable and haveable.
PRE-PUBLICATION ORDERS are being accepted now for these books (use the 'click and collect' button on our website to reserve your copies):
Available Tuesday 10 September.
>>Read an extract.
Released Thursday 12 September.
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