NEW RELEASES

ransack by essa may ranapiri         $25
In these poems, essa may ranapiri addresses the difficulty of assembling and understanding a fractured, unwieldy self through an inherited language — a language whose assumptions and expectations ultimately make it inadequate for such a task. 

All My Goodbyes by Mariana Dimópulos      $30
a novel told in overlapping vignettes, which follow the travels of a young Argentinian woman across Europe (Malaga, Madrid, Heidelberg, Berlin) and back to Argentina (Buenos Aires, Patagonia) as she flees from situation to situation, job to job, and relationship to relationship. Within the complexity of the narrator's situation, a backstory emerges about a brutal murder in Patagonia which she may or may not be implicated in, but whether this is the cause of her flight is never entirely clear — she is driven as much by psychological concerns, her relationship with her father, uncertainty about her identity and purpose in life.
>> You are in the middle of time.
>>Truth and lies. 

The Country Life by Rachel Cusk           $23
In this comedy drawing on literary tropes shared with Jane Eyre and Cold Comfort Farm, unhappy, solitary Stella arrives in a tiny village to answer an advertisement for the job of caregiver to Martin Madden, the handicapped son of a rich farming family. New edition. 
 "Cusk's loaded sentences can be a joy or a stumbling-block, depending on your state of mind. Stella's every sensation is logged, and every nuance of every encounter calibrated, but it's the kind of analysis that can often make you gasp. Cusk is at her best at capturing the psychological make-up and mannerisms of particularly unpleasant people." —The Independent

A Life's Work by Rachel Cusk         $25
When first published in 2001, A Life's Work divided female critics and readers. One reviewer wrote a piece demanding that Cusk's children were taken into care, that was she was unfit to look after them. Oprah Winfrey invited her on the show to defend herself and the book as protests grew about the its honest, gritty account of the misery of those early months. It is a remarkable book on the complications of being an ambivalent mum in an age of white-washed families.
>>"I was only being honest."

>>"If she really didn't care, she wouldn't have written the book."

Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk          $23
The lives of middle class English women living in suburbia are dissected to perfection in this novel. New edition.
"The refined intelligence of Rachel Cusk's writing, with its exhaustive clarifications, elaborate metaphors and distinctly bitter aroma, may not be everybody's cup of tea, but for those who appreciate that particular blend of qualities, her books are a source of rich pleasure." —James Lusden, Guardian

The Animal Gazer by Edgardo Franzosini         $35
Rembrandt Bugatti was the brother of the famous builder of luxury sports cars, Ettore. He made bronze sculptures of wild animals that he spent long hours observing in the Paris and Antwerp Zoos. Sometimes he took the animals to live in his Paris apartment while he worked on his pieces. Franzosini's haunting short novel recreates the eccentric, orderly life of this strange genius, a gentle man who loved animals and created memorable sculptures. His life was ruined by the declaration of war in August 1914. As the Germans drew closer to Paris and Antwerp, the zoos in both cities were closed. Then, in fear and panic, the decision was taken to shoot the captive creatures. Firing squads of soldiers massacred the wild cats, elephants and eagles. Bugatti, by then working in a military hospital, killed himself, unable to live in such a world.

Mid-Century Graphic Design by Theo Inglis          $45
Very good coverage. Includes Ray Eames, Paul Rand, Alex Steinweiss, Joseph Low, Alvin Lustig, Elaine Lustig Cohen, Leo Lionni, Rudolph de Harak, Abram Games, Tom Eckersley, Ivan Chermayeff, Josef Albers, Corita Kent, Jim Flora, Ben Shahn, Herbert Bayer and Helen Borten.

The History of Philosophy by A.C. Grayling       $38
Authoritative. Accessible. Covers both Western and Eastern traditions. 

Dragonflies and Damselflies of New Zealand by Milen Marinov and Mike Ashbee      $50
Remarkable organisms that have survived 325 million years (so far). 

Mailman by J. Robert Lennon       $28
"A phantasmagoria of American paranoia and self-loathing in the person of a deranged but somehow good-hearted middle-aged mail carrier in steep decline, the book hums with a kind of chipper angst." —Jonathan Lethem, Los Angeles Times

Rape: From Lucretia to #MeToo by Mithu Sanyal          $33
“This is a book for today. Mithu Sanyal is insightful, thoughtful, and provocative. She encourages us to think about sexual violence in new ways and, most importantly, has challenging things to suggest about the way we should deal with rapists.” —Joanna Bourke
>>Sanyal examines the role of race and the recurrent image of the black rapist, the omission of male victims, and the racist agenda behind media reporting of rape in these videos.

The Necessity for Consolation: John Cousins speaks edited by Robert Hoskins and Norman Meehan    $40
"Of all New Zealand composers, John Cousins has thrown the spear furthest." —John Psathas
Cousins's work has evolved from conventional musical composition to sculptural performance, mixed-media and sonic art.
>>'Three Little Duets'.
>>'Parade'.

A Communist in the Family: Searching for Rewi Alley by Elspeth Sandys         $40
In 2017, Sandys travelled to China to mark the 90th anniversary of her relative's arrival in Shanghai in 1927. New Zealander Rewi Alley went on to become one of the cultural heroes of twentieth century China. Sandys went on to write this book, which among other things, is a meditation on the relationship between memory and writing. 

Fabulous by Lucy Hughes-Hallett       $33
Marvellous reworkings and updatings and recreations of stories from Graeco-Roman myth, the Bible and folk-lore, reminiscent of Angela Carter. 

Lay Studies by Steven Toussaint         $25
"Steven Toussaint writes with a formidable blend of intellectual toughness and technical command. These finely worked poems range over a wide territory, local and global, religious, social (a devastatingly intelligent piece, 'Yes or No', evoking the world of online pseudo-discourse), and offer many memorable images and phrases (a favourite is 'The furious pleasure / of a man being listened to'). This is an excellent collection of demanding and rewarding poetry." —Rowan Williams

Only in Tokyo: Two chefs, 24 hours, the ultimate food city by Michael Ryan and Luke Burgess       $45
From daybreak to late night, discover the creative people and compelling stories behind the restaurants, bars and tea houses of Tokyo. 

The Book of Why: The new science of cause and effect by Judea Pearl            $30
What does it actually mean for one thing to cause another? How does Pearl's work in this area underlie the development of artificial intelligence? 

Bunny by Mona Awad         $35
A lonely MFA student is drawn into a clique of rich girls who seem to move and speak as one in this bizarre and disconcerting novel. 
"One of the most pristine, delightful attacks on popular girls since Clueless. It made me cackle and nod in terrified recognition." —Lena Dunham

The Heartland: Finding and losing schizophrenia by Nathan Filer      $33
Filer, mental health nurse and award winning writer, takes us on a journey into the psychiatric wards he once worked on. He also invites us to spend time with world-leading experts, and with some extraordinary people who share their own stories about living with this strange and misunderstood condition. Are there new ways of thinking about mental health? 
"A truly important book." —Max Porter

The Ungrateful Refugee by Dina Nayeri           $37
There are more than 25 million refugees in the world. Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother, and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel-turned-refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. 
"Dina Nayeri's powerful writing confronts issues that are key to the refugee experience." —Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathiser

This is Not a Drill: An Extinction Rebellion handbook        $24
Useful.

No-One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg       $8
"Everything needs to change. And it has to start today."
>>"The message is clearly not getting through."

BOOKS @ VOLUME #135  (6.7.19)

Read our latest NEWSLETTER

Book of the Week. Carl Shuker’s new novel, A Mistake, is a compelling story of human fallibility, and of the dangerous hunger for black and white answers in a world of exponential complication and nuance. When something goes badly wrong during an operation, a surgeon at a city hospital — a gifted, driven and rare woman excelling in a male-dominated culture — finds her life redefined by a mistake. 

>>Read Stella's review. 
>>Shuker on Failure. 

>>"A scalpel-sharp tale of misadventure." 
>>"Would you consent to going under her scalpel?"
>>Shuker talks with Kim Hill. 
>>Q&A with Carl.
>>"Carl Shuker is a novelist; a good one, too, an award-winning one."
>>Carl Shuker will be speaking with Naomi Arnold at the VOLUME MAPUA LITERARY FESTIVAL on 22 September. Book your tickets now. 
>>Start reading. 
>>Books by Carl Shuker.
"You’d think Carl Shuker couldn’t get any better, but A Mistake is the novel at its visceral and emotional best. This is the most compelling book I’ve read in years. It pulls you along at breakneck speed through questions of failure, exposure and manners. Shuker reinvents the form with every novel and A Mistake is a masterpiece which feels more like a body than a book — the life pumps and glugs and flexes inside its pages." —Pip Adam 

A Mistake by Carl Shuker   {Reviewed by STELLA} Medical misadventure is the stuff of shouty headlines and third-hand anecdote: told, embellished and finger-pointing. We all know mistakes happen in all professions but when it comes to medicine we are quick to blame and sharply condemn. Accountability is fine, but where is the line between personal responsibility and institutional culpability? In Carl Shuker’s A Mistake, his latest novel, we are in crisis mode from the opening pages. A young woman with severe abdominal pain is in A&E — immediate surgery necessary. Elizabeth Taylor, perfectionist, surgeon, 27 hrs on her feet, is in charge and the theatre is ready — the stage set. We know that this is just the beginning of a disaster, and just as we, the reader, are shunted into the midst of this medical freneticism, the author calls cut and the clapper board comes down and we are taken back to 1986 — to the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. The tension is the same, the anticipation and our watchfulness as the audience just as intense. From the small confines of the theatre and looking down through Elizabeth’s eyes at her patient (well, her patient’s body — her awareness of the woman sometimes seems absent), we are suddenly surrounded by the hype and immensity of space science and we are looking up at the sky in wonder — waiting and on tenterhooks as the countdown begins. Shuker cleverly moves between these two situations building an energetic forcefield — and what some readers will feel is a distraction is anything but: technical language — medical in our hospital theatre and astrophysical at NASA mission control, blow-by-blow action — as the surgeons operate and as the NASA team relay information (the as-it-happens variety), the power hierarchy — who’s in charge in each scenario, and the realisation of the error (too late to save anyone). It all piles up around us — the chaos growing. Yet it is what happens next that will reveal more: the consequences for the medical team and for the engineers. Shuker’s Elizabeth Taylor is not the easiest character to slide along with — she’s a perfectionist, dedicated, frustrating, sometimes a lousy friend, brash, dismissive of fools, and is described variously as a brilliant surgeon and a ‘fucking psychopath’. Yet she's loyal, takes the rap for the mistake and, unlike the bureaucratic nightmare she has to work under, she’s not looking for the ‘good’ PR story even when there is wriggle room for her to distance herself from the crisis. But it’s hard to tell whether she has been altered by the mistake or is ultimately only concerned for her own record. Ego, power and success are themes that you expect in this story, and with these comes the flip side: young doctor burnout and suicide, overwork, failed relationships, doubt, recklessness and the unrelenting pressure to be right always. Shuker’s new novel is a departure in style from his previous work. The Method Actors, his first novel, which I read back in 2005, was a big, brilliant, complex book. A Mistake is sharp, scalpel-fine. Shuker has pared this novel back to bone and gristle, letting the reader feel, by being stabbed repeatedly with attack language, reckless behaviour, fleeting insights and snide dialogue, the intensity of this life and this error. The ending is as abrupt as the start and you will be wounded — but intrigued by that scalpel cut. Long after you read this novel you will have a scar to remember it by.

Aftermath by Rachel Cusk    {Reviewed by THOMAS} “All my memories are being taken away. Nothing belongs to me any more. I have become an exile from my own history. I no longer have a life. It’s an afterlife; it’s all aftermath.” Does Rachel Cusk’s Aftermath, published in 2012 on the brink of the three years of silence that preceded Outline, the first of the three books of Cusk’s completely remarkable ‘Faye’ project, provide any gleanings for readers of those novels as to the preconditions for their eventual production and for the austere perfection of their style? Aftermath is comprised of a series of personal essays (and one story) written in the painful period following Cusk’s separation from her husband and the father of her children, a period in which she tries desperately, obsessively, to make sense of the harm done to her indivisible concepts of herself and of her world. “Everything that was formless in our life together now belongs to me,” she writes. She surprises herself by declaring at the moment of crisis that her children belong to her alone and not to her husband. “The children belong to me: once I would have criticised such a sentiment, but of certain parts of life there can be no foreknowledge.” Cusk attempts to defend her unexpected claim with an appeal to a generalised form of biological privilege, though she is perhaps using the wrong wrench to grasp her situation (blame her therapist) and, in any case, the ambivalence between the particulars of her personality and the generic role of motherhood is suitably unresolved (and unresolvable): “I felt inhabited by a second self, a twin whose jest it was — in the way of twins — to appear to be me while doing things that were alien to my own character.” Cusk’s interpretative statements may flatten the pieces in which they appear, expelling the reader, but these pieces also contain details and descriptions as so sharp and enduring that they could only have been recorded in the vacuum created by the abandonment of pre-existing structures and approaches that accompany the self-abnegation that Cusk plays out in this book. The passage describing her visit to the dentist with her daughter, for example, or that describing the landlady of the place she stayed when she took her daughters on a horse-riding holiday in Devon, or that describing her boarder’s emotional disintegration, leave impressions against which a reader can have no defence. When Aftermath was written, Cusk had already repudiated most of the conventional novelistic crutches of fiction (plot, character, ‘invention’, &c) as “fake and embarrassing” and was convinced that the author’s own life was the only authentic subject for literature. Aftermath displays the perils of that approach but also shows the first stages of another, even more acidic ‘cleansing’ process: the removal of the author herself. When Cusk started writing again in Outline, this process is more or less complete (but can’t be more than complete): the author exists only as others say to her they see her to exist (self-definition is not possible, after all; we are only ever usefully — and non-definitively — defined by others) and, although the ‘Faye’ novels are full of ideas, they are not obviously imposed by the author as defining interpretations but are voiced at a degree’s or several degrees’ remove. In Aftermath Cusk suggests “the problem usually lies in the relationship between the story and the truth. … The closer the cut the more pleasing the effect,” and consciousness of this ‘problem’ is the impetus for her eventual production of the ‘Faye’ novels, which recalibrate the relationship between literature and life. At this stage, however, “it’s too late to run away from something whose nature I can’t in any case discern. It’s just a shape in the darkness, understanding or its opposite. I can’t tell.” She is approaching the silence that she will eventually pass through, shedding what will not serve. Read Thomas's 'reviews' of the 'Faye' novels: >Outline, >Transit and >Kudos.

NEW RELEASES

Aftermath by Rachel Cusk         $25
Rachel Cusk's Aftermath scrutinises the transformative period of her life marked outwardly by her divorce. What are the effects on women of the tectonic pressures of connection and separation evident in contemporary society? Cusk's work, as always, bursts with sharp observations and sharp sentences. New edition.
>>"The gears of life had gone into reverse."
>>Unhappy all the time. 
>>"I was heading into total silence." 

My Name is Monster by Katie Hale        $33
After the Sickness has killed off her parents, and the bombs have fallen on the last safe cities, Monster emerges from the Arctic vault which has kept her alive. When she washes up on the coast of Scotland, everyone she knows is dead, and she believes she is alone in an empty world.Monster begins the long walk south, scavenging and learning the contours of this familiar land made new. Slowly, piece by piece, she begins to rebuild a life. Until, one day, she finds a girl: another survivor, feral, and ready to be taught all that Monster knows. But the lessons the girl learns are not always those Monster means to teach.

Crossing by Pajtim Statovci      $37
Amid the conflict and desolation of post-Communist Albania, teenage boys Agim and Bujar share restless dreams of escape. After Bujar's father dies and Agim's family discover him dressed in his mother's clothes, the pair flee to the Albanian capital of Tirana, hungry for a chance to shape their own lives. From Tirana to Rome, from Madrid to New York, Crossing charts the refugee's struggle for another identity and another story in a world that seems to offer only dead ends. From the author of My Cat Yugoslavia. 

A Careful Revolution edited by David Hall      $15
Climate change is happening and the potential long-term costs are incalculable. But how do we manage the short-term costs of mitigation? How do we undertake a low-emissions transition that won't undermine the public support that it relies upon? This book makes the case for a careful revolution and provides the tools to prepare New Zealanders for change.

Live a Little by Howard Jacobson       $35
What chances are there for a nonagenarian romance when the parties are either losing their mental and physical capacities or — worse — unable to leave their earlier life behind? 

The Good Thieves by Katherine Rundell        $17
An exciting adventure from the author of Rooftoppers and The Wolf Wilder. "Vita set her jaw, and nodded at New York City in greeting, as a boxer greets an opponent before a fight." Fresh off the boat from England, Vita Marlowe has a job to do. Her beloved grandfather Jack has been cheated out of his home and possessions by a notorious conman with Mafia connections. Seeing Jack's spirit is broken, Vita is desperate to make him happy again, so she devises a plan to outwit his enemies and recover his home. She finds a young pickpocket, working the streets of the city. And, nearby, two boys with highly unusual skills and secrets of their own are about to be pulled into her lawless, death-defying plan.

See What Can Be Done by Lorrie Moore         $28
Three decades of the application of Moore's sharp and quirky mind to every cultural manifestation from books to films to politics (and back to books) has left this marvelous residue of essays and criticism. Now in paperback.
>> "The route to truth and beauty is a toll road." 

The Five: The untold lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold         $40
Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden and Wales. They wrote ballads, ran coffee houses, lived on country estates, they breathed ink-dust from printing presses and escaped people-traffickers.
What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women. For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that 'the Ripper' preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as Rubenhold has discovered, it has prevented the real stories of these women from being told. 

Abigail and the Birth of the Sun by Matthew Cunningham and Sarah Wilkins     $20
"Daddy," Abiigail asks, "where did the sun and all the planets come from?" To find out the answer, Daddy invites Abigail on a magical journey through time and space. Together they explore the birth of all living things. By the next morning, Abigail has thought of another big question... 

Superior: The return of race science by Angela Saini        $35
A rigorous examination of the insidious history and damaging consequences of race science — and the unfortunate reasons behind its apparent recent resurgence across the globe.

"Roundly debunks racism's core lie." - Reni Eddo-Lodge

Home Remedies by Xuan Juliana Wang         $33
Xuan Juliana Wang’s short story collection introduces us to the new and changing face of Chinese youth. From fuerdai (second-generation rich kids) to a glass-swallowing qigong grandmaster, her stories upend the immigrant narrative to reveal a new experience of belonging.
“An urgent and necessary literary voice.” —Alexander Chee   
“Tough, luminous stories.” —New York Times 
"Artful, funny, generous and empathetic. Xuan Julian Wang is a radiant new talent." — Lauren Groff

Dressed: The secret life of clothes by Shahidha Bari         $65
Ranging freely through literature, art, film and philosophy, Dressed tracks the hidden power of clothes in our culture and our daily lives. From the depredations of violence and ageing to our longing for freedom, love and privacy, from the objectification of women to the crisis of masculinity, each garment exposes a fresh dilemma. Item by item, the story of ourselves unravels.

The Discovery of Slowness by Sten Nadolny        $25
Ridiculed for his slowness when he was young, John Franklin used those same qualities to explore the Arctic and pave the way for the discovery of the Northwest Passage. 
"Offers all the pleasures of the best historical fiction." —Daily Telegraph

The Stopping Places: A journey through Gypsy Britain by Damian Le Bas         $28
Damian Le Bas grew up surrounded by Gypsy history. His great-grandmother would tell him stories of her childhood in the ancient Romani language; the places they worked, the ways they lived, the superstitions and lores of their people. In a bid to better understand his heritage, Damian sets out on a journey to discover the stopping places - the old encampment sites known only to Travellers.

Amity and Prosperity: One family and the fracturing of America by Eliza Griswold        $28
Tells the story of the energy boom's impact on a small town at the edge of Appalachia and of one woman's transformation from a struggling single parent to an unlikely activist.
Winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

The Wet Collection: A field guide to iridescence and memory by Joni Tevis     $35
Using such models as Joseph Cornell's box constructions, crazy quilts, and specimen displays, Joni Tevis places fragments in relationship to each other in order to puzzle out lost histories, particularly those of women. 

The Idle Beekeeper: The low-effort, natural way to raise bees by Bill Anderson          $65
Anderson teaches step-by-step how to build a hive system developed to allow maximum idleness, harvest honey and extract honeycomb, make mead and beeswax candles, and to closely observe and understand these most fascinating and productive of insects. 

Let's Go (So We Can Get Back): A memoir of recording and discording with Wilco, &c by Jeff Tweedy       $40
>>Learning to love the music you hate. 
>>Live in Amsterdam last month. 
>>Why Tweedy wrote the book. 

Vernon Subutex 2 by Virginie Despentes          $28
"The VERNON series is the culmination of a career spent scratching at scars and exposing society’s contradictions: the smarmy yet self-loathing middle classes, the complicit women, the men inside the patriarchal system who seem barely capable of being, let alone wanting to be in control. Despentes identifies these flaws and looks closer rather than turning away." — The White Review

Being Numerous: Essays on non-fascist life by Natasha Lennard        $33
Shatters mainstream consensus on politics and personhood, offering in its place a bracing analysis of a perilous world and how we should live in it.
>>What does an anti-fascist life actually feel like? 

Mandalay: Recipes and tales from a Burmese kitchen by MiMi Aye     $53
Burmese food draws techniques and ingredients from Thailand, India and China but has its own landscape of flavours. 

The Rapture by Claire McGlasson         $33
McGlasson’s novel brings to life an odd slice of British history from 1926, when the Panacea Society flourished in Bedford. Largely made up of women who had lost husbands, brothers or sons in the Great War, the Society is centred on the figure of Octavia, a prophetess and self-proclaimed Daughter of God, who claims to have been sent to pave the way for the return of Jesus. 

Elderhood: Redefining aging, transforming medicine, reimagining life by Louise Aronson        $43
Humans are spending decades longer being 'old' than we did even a century ago. What implications does this have for our rethinking of society, our medical approaches and our intentions? 

The Imitation Game: Alan Turing decoded by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Purvis      $30
A graphic novel of Turing's life. 

The Island Kitchen: Recipes from Mauritius and the Indian Ocean by Selina Periampillai     $53
From the colourful markets of Mauritius to the aromatic spice gardens of the Seychelles, to the fishing coasts of the Maldives, to the lagoons of Mayotte and the forests of Madagascar.