Friday 1 November 2019
NEW RELEASES
Deeplight by Frances Hardinge $25
The gods are dead. Decades ago, they turned on one another and tore each other apart. Nobody knows why. But are they really gone forever? When 15-year-old Hark finds the still-beating heart of a terrifying deity, he risks everything to keep it out of the hands of smugglers, military scientists, and a secret fanatical cult so that he can use it to save the life of his best friend, Jelt. But with the heart, Jelt gradually and eerily transforms. How long should Hark stay loyal to his friend when he's becoming a monster — and what is Hark willing to sacrifice to save him? Another jaw-dropping novel from the author of The Lie Tree and A Skinful of Shadows.
Southern Nights by Naomi Arnold $65
Aotearoa New Zealand was founded on stargazing. It was celestial navigation that brought the first people here, and it was tatai arorangi, Maori astronomy, that helped people survive once they arrived. There is no better place on Earth to view the brilliance of other worlds. Covering eclipses, aurorae, comets and constellations, backyard observatories, traditional stargazers and world-class astrophotographers, this is the unique story of Te Whanau Marama, our family of light - the night sky that glows above us all.
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa $35
Hat, ribbon, bird, rose. To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning. It can be burned in the garden, thrown in the river or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed. When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of being taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn't forget, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next?
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner $33
An insightful and well written novel about the impossibility of raising a son well in an age of toxic masculinity, from the author of pleasingly inventive Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04.
"A novel of exhilarating intellectual inquiry, penetrating social insight and deep psychological sensitivity. The future of the novel is here." —Sally Rooney
"The Topeka School is what happens when one of the most discerning, ambitious, innovative, and timely writers of our day writes his most discerning, ambitious, innovative and timely novel to date. It's a complete pleasure to read Lerner experimenting with other minds and times, to watch his already profound talent blooming into new subjects, landscapes, and capacities. This book is a prehistory of a deeply disturbing national moment, but it's written with the kind of intelligence, insight, and searching that makes one feel well-accompanied and, in the final hour, deeply inspired." —Maggie Nelson
"In Ben Lerner's riveting third novel, Midwestern America in the late nineties becomes a powerful allegory of our troubled present. The Topeka School deftly explores how language not only reflects but is at the very center of our country's most insidious crises. In prose both richly textured and many-voiced, we track the inner lives of one white family's interconnected strengths and silences. What's revealed is part tableau of our collective lust for belonging, part diagnosis of our ongoing national violence. This is Lerner's most essential and provocative creation yet." —Claudia Rankine
>>"I think novels are good at showing how each of us is made up of an array of contradictory discourses."
Letters from Tove by Tove Jansson, edited by Boel Westin and Helen Svensson $45
Offers an almost seamless commentary on Tove Jansson's life as it unfolded within Helsinki's bohemian circles and her island home. Spanning fifty years between her art studies and the height of Moomin fame, the letters deal with the bleakness of war, the hopes for love that were dashed and renewed, and her determined attempts to establish herself as an artist.
Oaxaca: Home cooking from the heart of Mexico by Bricia Lopez and Javier Cabral $65
140 authentic yet accessible recipes highlighting the pre-Hispanic indigenous cuisine of the Oaxaca region.
Damascus by Christos Tsiolkas $37
Tsiolkas's new novel continues to explore the themes he treated in The Slap and Barracuda: violence, toxic masculinity, inequality, brutality — but does so 2000 years back in time, when Christianity was just being established in the face of persecution. Tsiolkas's novel may be heretical, but his call to withstand the ills of the world is as urgent as ever.
Still Lives: A memoir of Gaza by Marilyn Garson $35
A very insightful account of four years working with the United Nations emergency team in Gaza. On her last day Garson told her Palestinian colleagues that she is Jewish. New Zealand author.
>>Interview on Breakfast TV.
Homesick: Why I live in a shed by Catrina Davies $45
Fed up with being on the suffering end of the British housing crisis, Davies left Bristol for a shack in the far west of Cornwall. Rebuilding the shack, and spending more time by herself, she found a greater sense of direction and appreciation of nature.
"You will marvel at the beauty of this book, and rage at the injustice it reveals." —George Monbiot
"Incredibly moving. To find peace and a sense of home after a life so profoundly affected by the housing crisis, is truly inspirational." —Raynor Winn, author of The Salt Path
How to Catch a Mole, And find yourself in nature by Marc Hamer $30
"I have been catching moles in gardens and farms for years and I have decided that I am not going to do it any more. Molecatching is a traditional skill that has given me a good life but I am old now and tired of hunting and it has taught me what I needed to learn." Moles are mysterious: their habits are inscrutable, they are anatomically bizarre, and they live completely alone. Marc Hamer has come closer to them than most, both through his long working life out in the Welsh countryside, and his experiences of rural homelessness as a boy, sleeping in hedgerows. Beautifully illustrated with wood engravings, this book is a gem of nature writing.
Living Bread: Tradition and innovation in artisan bread making by Daniel Leader $75
With inspiration from a community of millers, farmers, bakers, and scientists, this book provides a fascinating look into the way artisan bread baking has evolved and continues to change — from wheat farming practices and advances in milling, to sourdough starters and the mechanics of mixing dough.
Morning Glory on the Vine by Joni Mitchell $55
Mitchell originally made this compilation of drawings and hand-written lyrics as a gift for friends in 1971.
>>Blue (1971).
Printed in North Korea: The art of everyday life in the DPRK by John Bonner $60
Depicting the everyday lives of the country's train conductors, steelworkers, weavers, farmers, scientists, and fishermen, these unique lino-cut and woodblock prints are a fascinating way to explore the culture of this still virtually unknown country.
#Tumeke! by Michael Petherick $30
A lively story of various goings-on told through texts, Instagram posts, emails, fliers, committee minutes, posters, diary entries, blog posts, chatrooms, school homework, raps and the reliably bonkers community noticeboard. Inventive and fun.
"Wildly inventive and a goatload of fun. A surprise triple reverse jackknife to the funny bone. I’ve never read anything like it. Tumeke!" —Toby Morris
>>Look inside!
Lampedusa by Stephen Price $35
A novel of the final years of Giuseppe Tomasi, last prince of Lampedusa, as he struggles to complete his novel, The Leopard (published to great acclaim in 1958).
Venice: A literary guide for travellers by Marie-José Gransard $27
"Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it, or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little." —Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Kafka, Poe, Rousseau, Mann, Ruskin, Pound, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Stravinsky...
Boy Giant by Michael Morpurgo $25
War had meant that Omar must leave Afghanistan with his mother and journey across the sea. When their boat sinks, they are washed ashore and have experiences they never could have imagined. Morpurgo's riff on Gulliver's travels carries important messages in a world beset by displacement and populism.
>>"The world is getting nastier."
Pride: The story of the LGBTQ equality movement by Matthew Todd $65
From Stonewall to the present. Well illustrated. Includes Georgina Beyer.
I Thought We'd Be Famous by Dominic Hoey $25
Poems charting the changes in Hoey's life due to the development of a chronic illness, and due to the treatments.
>>How to lose money and entertain people.
Warrior: A life of war in Anglo-Saxon Britain by Edoardo Albert and Paul Gething $45
The anonymous bones found in an Anglo-Saxon graveyard in Northumberland lead us to a better understanding of a violent period of history, where religious fervour and tribal expansion combined to transform Britain.
The Bee and the Orange Tree by Melissa Ashley $40
A novel based on the life of Marie Catherine d'Aulnoy, 'inventor' of the fairy tale at the turn of the seventeenth century.
Peculiar Questions and Practical Answers: A little book of whimsy and wisdom from the files of the New York Public Library illustrated by Barry Blitt $35
Is it possible to keep an octopus in a private home? What is the psychological effect of a birthmark on a child? Where can I rent a guillotine? What do you feed a salamander? What is the natural enemy of a duck? Who built the English Channel? A compendium of questions asked of librarians before they invented Google to lighten their load.
>>A few questions, usefully filed.
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