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Unit y Books
Issue 37
Summer 2009–10 One moment . . .
Before you find yourself happily overwhelmed by the staggering wealth of our literary world
contained in these pages, make a note of these 2009 treasures (already adorning Unity’s shelves)
that should be contemplated for any Christmas list.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel: the winner of the 2009 Booker imagines
The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness: the second in the series is
as tense, shocking and deeply moving as the Knife of Never Letting
Go (pb $28.00).
the life of Thomas Cromwell to create an oftentimes funny, lyrical
and perfectly imagined historical novel that is as far from pith
as possible (pb $37.00).
On Origin of Stories by Brian Boyd: an extraordinary account of the
The Ascent of Money by Niall Fergusson: a richly original and
evolutionary origins of art and storytelling (hb $85.00).
humanistic look at the origins of money and how it makes the
world go round (pb $30.00).
The Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen: a book of poems and line
drawings depicting age, wisdom, sorrow and beauty as only
Cohen can (pb $28.00).
The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas: a stark fictional tale that touches
on modern parenting, ethics, social boundaries and justice (pb
$38.00).
101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick: holds
within it diagrammatic and whimsical lessons on everything from
colour theory to how to draw a straight line (hb $33.00).
Home by Marilynne Robinson: described best by the NY Times as “at
once hard and forgiving, bitter and joyful, fanatical and serene”
(pb $30.00).
Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander: an accurate and hilarious
The Philosopher and the Wolf by Mark Rowlands: a moving tale between
James K. Baxter: Poems Edited by Sam Hunt: Hunt’s selection of
look at the unbearable whiteness of being (pb $28.00).
man and wolf that illustrates how human philosophy falls short
in comparison to the innate wisdom of nature (pb $30.00).
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness: the first in a series of
almost 50 of his mentor Baxter’s poems that have made an
indelible impression on the grooves of his brain and tongue
(hb $30.00).
unflinchingly clever examinations of the impossible choices of
growing up — a book that transcends age and transfixes everyone
who reads it (pb $28.00).
And last but not least, E3 Call Home by Janet Hunt: a richly engaging
children’s book exploring the incredible journey of two godwits
flying from New Zealand to Alaska (pb $25.00).
NEW ZEALAND
Encircled Lands: Te Urewera
1820–1921 Judith Binney
(Bridget Williams Books) hb $80.00
Godwits: Long-Haul Champions
For Europeans during the 19th century, the
Urewera was a remote and savagely enticing
wilderness. For the inhabitants, it was a sheltering
heartland. This history documents the first
hundred years of the “Rohe Potae” (“encircled
lands”) of the Urewera following European
contact, and provides the historical context for
Tuhoe’s quest for a constitutional agreement to
restore their “nationhood”.
Keith Woodley
(Raupo) pb $50.00
Equal parts natural history, travel narrative and
photographic study, this beautifully presented
book tells the story of one of nature’s quiet
achievers. With a compelling and accessible style,
respected godwit expert Woodley draws on both
his own eye-witness accounts as well as meticulous
research, taking readers on an incredible journey
from New Zealand to Alaska and back.
Villa: From Heritage to
Contemporary
Dick Frizzell: The Painter
Dick Frizzell (Godwit) hb $75.00
Jeremy Salmond, Jeremy Hansen,
Patrick Reynolds (Godwit) hb $75.00
Dick Frizzell’s playful kiwi iconography
is well presented here in the high-quality
hardback it deserves. With Frizzell’s expressive
modernist images and an essay by Hamish
Keith, this book illustrates the artist’s life in
his own words. Full of deadpan humour and
showing the clear arc of artistic maturation,
Dick Frizzell: The Painter celebrates the vitality
that is consistent in his work.
Thousands of New Zealanders love and live in
villas. This gorgeous book features beautiful
renovations and villas that have remained
untouched over the years, including an infamous
student flat. Photographed by Patrick Reynolds
and described by Home NZ editor Jeremy
Hansen, with a survey of villa architecture by
Jeremy Salmond.
Aphrodite’s Island: The European
Discovery of Tahiti Anne Salmond
Her Life’s Work: Conversations
with Five New Zealand Women
(Viking) hb $65.00
Deborah Shepard
(AUP) pb $45.00
Salmond’s new offering gives a bold account of
the European discovery of Tahiti, delving into
the island’s almost mythic status in Western
imaginings about sexuality and the exotic. With
sources as diverse as Tahitian oral histories and
European artworks, Aphrodite’s Island offers
groundbreaking insights into Tahitian life during
a period when this tiny island became a crossroads
for Europe.
Her Life’s Work is a collection of interviews that
provide a unique insight into the lives of five
women who, as the book reveals, have had
remarkably interesting lives in New Zealand.
Covering the fields of literature, film, history, art,
education and academia, the interviews show us
the extraordinary effects that these women have
had on our country.
Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye
The Vault
Roger Horrocks
(AUP) pb + dvd $60.00
Neil Pardington
(Christchurch City Art Gallery) hb $50.00
Len Lye needs little introduction as one of
New Zealand’s most respected contemporary
artists. As Lye’s assistant during his late career,
Horrocks draws on personal experience in an
illuminating and fascinating account of the work
and processes of this infamous kinetic artist. Art
That Moves includes a DVD containing a short
documentary, four complete films, and footage
of Lye’s sculptures.
Pardington says, “The idea of the camera being a
storehouse of ideas and images (or as Kodak would
have it, memories) is central to The Vault. This
stunning 96-page book, inspired by working in
museum storerooms, accompanies an exhibition
of the same name. 65 images are complemented
with texts from Ken Hall and Anna-Marie White
and an interview by Lara Strongman.
Marti Friedlander
Way Back Then, Before We Were Ten:
New Zealand Writers and Childhood
Leonard Bell
(AUP) hb $80.00
ed. Graeme Lay
(David Ling) pb $35.00
From Maori moko to Norman Kirk, from street
scenes to artist portraits, Marti Friedlander’s
photographs have recorded our lives and culture
over 50 years. This landmark book is the first
sustained examination of her life and work. It is
illustrated with almost 200 of her photos, many
published for the first time. A limited signed
slipcase edition is also available ($150.00).
In this anthology, 26 distinguished New Zealand
writers evoke memories of their early years,
taking us through the plethora of emotions and
the complexities of a child’s sensibility. Full to
the brim with wide-eyed accounts of places and
spaces that children inhabit, and told through
the words of the adult mind, this is a charming
mix of nostalgia and insight.
FICTION
Magpie Hall
Too Much Happiness
Rachael King
(Vintage) pb $37.00
Alice Munro
(Chatto & Windus) hb $55.00
“There were two rumours surrounding my greatgreat-grandfather Henry Summers: one, that his
cabinet of curiosities drove him mad; and, two,
that he murdered his first wife . . .” Rachael King
follows her award winning first book The Sound
of Butterflies with an engrossing, complex new
novel involving taxidermy, tattoos and gothic
Victorian novels.
The Queen of the short story (once described
as Canada’s Chekhov) returns with ten superb
examples of why she is read and lauded worldwide.
“Alice Munro’s latest collection of short stories
reaffirms her as a writer of piercing insight . . . Some
of the most honest, intuitive and exacting fiction,
long or short, of our time” — The Times.
Her Fearful Symmetry
Inherent Vice Thomas Pynchon
Audrey Niffenegger
(Jonathan Cape) pb $39.00
(Jonathan Cape) pb $39.00
A new Pynchon novel is always an event and this
glorious pastiche of noir set in 1960s California is
no exception. “Inherent Vice is Thomas Pynchon
doing Raymond Chandler through a Jim Rockford
looking glass, starring Cheech Marin (or maybe
Tommy Chong). What could easily be mistaken
as a paean to 1960s Southern California is also
a sly herald of that era’s end. This, of course, is
exactly the kind of layered meaning that readers
expect of Pynchon . . . With Pynchon’s brilliance
comes readability” — LA Times.
When Elspeth Noblin dies of cancer, she leaves
her estate, including an apartment overlooking
the graveyard, to the twin daughters of her twin
sister, from whom she has been estranged for
twenty years. When Valentina and Julia show
up to claim their inheritance, they soon discover
that Elspeth is still in residence, albeit in ghostly
form. A ghost story, mystery, and love story
combined into one from the best-selling author
of The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Blood’s A Rover James Ellroy
The Infinities John Banville
(Century) pb $43.00
(Picador) pb $40.00
Summer, 1968. Martin Luther King and Robert
Kennedy are dead. The assassination conspiracies
have begun. A dirty-tricks squad is getting ready to
deploy at the Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Black militants are warring in southside LA And
fate has placed three men at the nexus of history.
Political noir as only James Ellroy can write it,
this is a novel of astonishing depth and scope,
a massive tale of corruption and retribution, of
ideals at war and the extremity of love.
Set over the course of a single day, Banville’s first
novel since the Booker Prize-winning The Sea is a
family saga which doubles as an investigation into
ideas about space and time. “A superb novel about
maths and myths . . . a Beethoven string quartet of
a novel. It deals with huge ideas — plenty of them
— and in doing so, breaks new ground in its own
medium . . . a masterpiece of a book” — Independent
on Sunday. “Written in such saturatedly beautiful,
luminous prose that every page delights, startles
and uplifts” — The Times.
Access Road Maurice Gee
(Penguin) pb $37.00
2666 Roberto Bolaño
Three brothers and sisters in their eighties are
struggling to cope with events of the past. It all
bursts into the open when an old school friend
visits with malice in his heart. “Gee draws us into
an ordinary, benign world and then confronts us
with flashes of brutality. He lulls, he entertains,
and then he socks us with a few home truths”.
— Charlotte Grimshaw, The Listener. This is
vintage Maurice Gee.
(Picador) pb $30.00
Told in five parts, 2666 is the epic novel that
defines one of Latin America’s greatest writers and
his unique vision of the modern world. Conceived
on an astonishing scale, and — in the last years of
Roberto Bolaño’s life — with burning, visionary
commitment, it has been greeted across Europe and
Latin America as his masterpiece, surpassing even
his previous work in inventiveness, imagination,
beauty and scope.
The Trowenna Sea Witi Ihimaera
(Raupo) pb $37.00
The Year of the Flood Margaret Atwood
Witi Ihimaera takes a little-known episode from
our history as the inspiration for his engrossing,
sweeping new novel. Hohepa Te Umuroa and
four companions are convicted of insurrection
and transported to the convict town of Hobart.
Ismay Glossop and her doctor husband Gower
McKissock have also come to Tasmania and, on
Maria’s Island near Hobart, their lives intersect with
the five Maori, with unexpected consequences.
A compelling historical drama by one of New
Zealand’s master storytellers.
(Bloomsbury) hb $50.00
In this novel about a bioengineered future world
decimated by plague, Margaret Atwood retells her
2003 novel Oryx and Crake from new perspectives.
“Atwood knows how to show us ourselves, but the
mirror she holds up to life does more than reflect
— [it] gives us both a deepening and a distorting
effect . . . We don’t know how we will evolve, or
if we will evolve at all. The Year of the Flood isn’t
prophecy, but it is eerily possible” — Jeanette
Winterson, The New York Times.
Truth Peter Temple
(Text) pb $37.00
The Original of Laura
The eagerly awaited sequel to Temple’s brilliant,
award-winning The Broken Shore is a novel about
a man, a family, a city. It is about violence,
murder, love, corruption, honour and deceit.
And it is about truth. “Peter Temple is arguably
our leading writer of crime fiction, if not one of
Australia’s best novelists regardless of genre . . .
This is a complex, multi-layered novel that weaves
together past and present crimes with intricate
family relationships and the smell of political
corruption” — Canberra Times.
Vladimir Nabokov (Penguin) hb $60.00
When Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977, he
instructed his heirs to burn the 138 handwritten
index cards that made up the rough draft of his
unfinished novel. But Vera Nabokov could not
bear to destroy her husband’s work and when she
died the fate of the manuscript fell to her son.
Dmitri Nabokov wrestled for three decades with
the question of whether to honor his father’s
wish before deciding to allow publication of
the fragmented narrative. Dark yet playful, and
preoccupied with mortality, it affords us one last
experience of Nabokov’s creativity.
Parrot & Olivier in America
Peter Carey (Hamish Hamilton) hb $55.00
Ordinary Thunderstorms From the two-time Booker Prize-winning author:
an irrepressible, audacious, trenchantly funny new
novel set in the 19th century and inspired in part
by the life of Alexis de Tocqueville. With dazzling
exuberance and all the richness of characterization,
story, and language that we have come to expect
from this superlative writer, Peter Carey explores
the birth of democracy, the limits of friendship
and whether people really can remake themselves
in a New World.
William Boyd (Bloomsbury) pb $39.00
What is the devastating effect on your life when,
through no fault of your own, you lose everything
— home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport,
money, credit cards, mobile phone — and you can
never get them back? A heart-in-mouth conspiracy
novel from the author of Restless, winner of the
2006 Costa Novel of the Year.
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s
Nest Stieg Larsson
Last Night in Twisted River
John Irving
(Bloomsbury) pb $40.00
(MacLehose Press) pb $38.00
The third volume in this explosive trilogy opens
with Lisbeth Salander fighting for her life in
intensive care, her father lying a few doors along
the corridor as a result of wounds inflicted on him
by Salander herself. “Larsson has produced a coup
de foudre, a novel that is complex, satisfying,
clever, moral . . . This is a grown-up novel for
grown-up readers, who want something more
than a quick fix and a car chase. And it’s why
the Millennium trilogy is rightly a publishing
phenomenon all over the world” — Kate Mosse,
The Guardian.
From the author of A Widow for One Year, A Prayer
for Owen Meany and other acclaimed novels,
comes a story of a father and a son — fugitives
in 20th-century North America. From the novel’s
taut opening sentence to its elegiac final chapter,
what distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is
the author’s unmistakable voice, the inimitable
voice of an accomplished storyteller.
Somebody Loves Us All
Damien Wilkins
(Victoria University Press) pb $30.00
Paddy Thompson, speech therapist, newspaper
columnist, is 50 and happy. His dark period is
behind him: a failed marriage, a career crisis.
His life feels sane and settled. But new upsets
and challenges are looming. This wonderful new
novel, from one of our finest writers, boldly and
exuberantly asks large questions about how we
express ourselves, not only through speech but
also through gesture, action, and silence.
A Gate at the Stairs
Lorrie Moore
(Faber) pb $39.00
In her dazzling new novel — her first in over
a decade — Lorrie Moore turns her eye on the
anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America.
“Her most powerful book yet . . . An indelible
portrait of a young woman coming of age in
the Midwest in the year after 9/11 . . . The novel
explores, with enormous emotional precision,
the limitations and insufficiencies of love, and
the loneliness that haunts even the most doting
of families” — The New York Times.
The Glass Room
Simon Mawer
(Little Brown) pb $35.00
“Simon Mawer’s latest book is a historical novel
set in Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s . . . The
Glass Room is a book about a culture slipping from
decadence into catastrophic decline. It’s a study
of a marriage. It concerns itself with art, music,
architecture, indignity, loneliness, terror, betrayal,
sex. And the Holocaust. It should, therefore, be
pretentious, unbearable schlock of the most
appalling kind. But it’s not. It is, unexpectedly,
a thing of extraordinary beauty and symmetry”
— The Guardian.
North South
Glen Colquhoun And Nigel Brown
(Steele Roberts) pb $35.00
Award-winning poet Glenn Colquhoun imagines
the northern gods of his Celtic heritage engaging
with the atua Maori of the south, and creates a
new mythology for those in this country who
“have in their arms both ways”. Nigel Brown has
handwritten and illustrated Glenn’s words. An
amazing collaboration between one of our best
poets and one of our most outstanding artists — the
result is a feast for the eyes, ears and tongue.
The Man in the Wooden Hat
Jane Gardam
(Europa) pb ($32.00)
The Lacuna
Filth (Failed In London Try Hong Kong) is a
successful lawyer when he marries Elisabeth
in Hong Kong soon after the War. Reserved,
immaculate and courteous, he finds it hard to
demonstrate his emotions. But Elisabeth is a
free spirit. She was raised in Japanese internment
camps that killed her parents, but left her with
a lust for survival and an affinity with the Far
East. “Delicious and poignant . . . there are
rich complexities of chronology, settings and
characters, all manipulated with marvellous
dexterity” — Spectator.
Barbara Kingsolver
(Faber) pb $40.00
In her first novel in nine years, Barbara Kingsolver
takes us on an epic journey from the Mexico
City of artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo to
the America of Pearl Harbor, FDR, and J. Edgar
Hoover. The Lacuna is a poignant story of a man
pulled between two nations as they invent their
modern identities. “A fascinating, compelling
book” — Kate Atkinson.
Museum of Innocence
Orhan Pamuk
(Faber) pb $40.00
Backroads: Charting a Poet’s Life
Sam Hunt (Craig Potton) hb $50.00
Orhan Pamuk’s first novel since winning the Nobel
Prize in Literature in 2006 is set in Istanbul between
1975 and today, and tells the story of Kemal, the
son of one of Istanbul’s richest families, and of
his obsessive love for a poor and distant relation,
the beautiful Fusun, who is a shop-girl in a small
boutique. An irresistible love story.
Sam Hunt’s life as a poet and performer has never
followed the straight and narrow, but rather the
winding backroads that lead to places and people
away from the mainstream. Backroads is a memoir,
a series of reflections by Hunt on his life as a poet.
The narrative is enriched by many of Hunt’s poems,
as well as work from other poets who have been
important to him. Fascinating!
NON FICTION
Catching Fire:
How Cooking Made Us Human
Richard Wrangham (Profile) pb $40.00
Eating Animals
Perhaps homo erectus should be renamed homo
gastronomicus! Richard Wrangham, a professor of
biology at Harvard University, makes a compelling
case for the importance of cooked food in the
biological and social evolution of humanity. The
mastery of fire spurred not only cultural, but also
anatomical and physiological changes that reshaped
human bodies as much as communities. Wrangham’s
original account of evolution stresses the role of the
technologies we shape in shaping us.
Jonathan Safran Foer
(Hamish Hamilton) pb $37.00
A part-time vegetarian throughout his young life,
Jonathan Safran Foer was spurred to investigate the
production and consumption of meat by the need
to make dietary choices on behalf of his newborn
son. The result is this wonderfully vivid account of
the ways we justify our eating habits, and the brutal
reality behind these myths. Safran Foer’s moral
ferocity is balanced by his humour and sympathy
for the unsuspecting omnivore.
The Secret Lives of Buildings
Edward Hollis
(Portobello Books) hb $75.00
The Age of Wonder
Richard Holmes
(HarperPress) pb $28.00
The apparent stability and unchanging faces of
buildings hide a secret process of transformation
and adaptation. As buildings outlast the cultures
that construct them they are forced to take on
new meanings, new functions, new lives. Hollis
offers a rich collection of such metamorphoses,
showing us how to read the stories that reside in
the architecture we inhabit.
Richard Holmes, author of a celebrated biography
of Coleridge, delivers a compelling argument against
the assumed antipathy between the sciences and
the arts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Holmes stresses the shared wonderment of artist and
scientist before the dynamism, mystery and marvel
of the Romantic universe, and the shared joys of
discovery, expression and transformation.
A History of Christianity:
the First Three Thousand Years
Diarmaid MacCulloch
(Allen Lane) hb $65.00
Finest Years: Churchill as Warlord
1940–1945 Max Hastings
Diarmaid MacCulloch’s authoritative and ambitious
history of Christianity takes us back to the origins
of the Hebrew Bible, following the itinerary of the
Christian faith across the globe. With a cast of
characters including monks, saints and slavers, the
depth and emotive power of MacCulloch’s narrative
make it an essential contribution to understanding
the new forms of religion that characterise our
supposedly secular age.
(HarperPress) pb $40.00
Finest Years is an intimate and clear-sighted
portrait of Britain’s greatest war leader, tracking his
meteoric rise and equally swift decline. Hastings
explores Churchill’s fraught wartime decisions and
relationships — with America, Russia, and with his
own country. Himself a hero, Churchill expected
heroism from all those around him.
Pompeii: The Life of a Roman Town
SuperFreakonomics
Mary Beard
(Profile) pb $30.00
Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
(Allen Lane) pb $38.00
Mary Beard, Britain’s leading classical scholar,
excavates the life of the buried town in its
recalcitrant everydayness: pagan religion, bad
breath, intestinal parasites and sex at the public
baths. We learn what the people of Pompeii might
have eaten, how they dressed and danced, the things
they loved. This delightfully profane and engaging
portrait questions the supposed “modernity” of
the contemporary mundane.
In SuperFreakonomics, the rogue economists continue
the exploration of the hidden economic side to
contemporary life. The authors are not afraid of
the tough questions: should suicide bombers buy
life insurance? Can kangaroo steaks solve global
warming? Could a sex change boost your salary?
Hilarious and surprising, this is a fitting “freakquel”
to the worldwide sensation Freakonomics.
What the Dog Saw
Professor Stewart’s Hoard
of Mathematical Treasures
Malcolm Gladwell
(Allen Lane) pb $37.00
Ian Stewart
(Profile) hb $35.00
A collection of Gladwell’s best writing for the
New Yorker magazine, What the Dog Saw tracks the
extraordinary development of his ideas, the source
material for three of the most influential books
of the past decade, The Tipping Point, Blink and
Outliers. Whether his subject is mustard, hair dye
or Silicon Valley, Gladwell demonstrates once again
his unparalleled capacity for wonder.
In his Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, Ian Stewart
showed us a new, exciting mathematical world, far
from the drudgery of high school classrooms. This
second volume of treasures from the Professor’s
collection is just as tantalising and rich. Not just for
geeks, Stewart’s trademark clarity and wit make this the
perfect book for anyone with a taste for puzzles.
Unpacking My Library:
Architects & Their Books
Shop Class as Soulcraft:
An Inquiry into the Value of Work
Jo Steffens
(Yale University Press) hb $40.00
Matthew B. Crawford (Penguin) pb $30.00
Crawford, a philosopher and motorcycle mechanic,
delivers a moving, graceful paean to “manual
competence.” Like Heidegger before him, Crawford
laments our increasing alienation from our
possessions and how they are made, expressed in
the decline of shop class. The answer lies in a return
to the simplicity of handcraft — not only of things,
but of ourselves as well.
A celebration of the arts of reading and
collecting, this beautiful new book explores
the shelf lives of 14 leading contemporary
architects. Combining photographs of personal
libraries with conversations with the owners
about what the books have meant to them, Unpacking
my Library offers an intimate glimpse into the literary
foundations of creative architectural practice.
1492
Outside of a Dog: A Bibliomemoir
Felipe Fernández-Armesto
(Bloomsbury) pb $40.00
Rick Gekoski
(Peribo) hb $40.00
While prophets and soothsayers may have predicted
that the world would end in 1492, in this compelling
and cogent book Fernández-Armesto suggests that this
momentous year in fact saw the beginnings of the
modern world. Travel in the company of real historical
adventurers from Granada to Timbuktu, witness the
rise and fall of empires, and the binding together of
economies and cultures across the globe.
As Groucho Marx said, outside of a dog, a book is
man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it is much too
dark to read! Gekoski’s “bibliomemoir” is a deeply
personal account of the books he has lived with
and loved best. His diverse collection — from
Wittgenstein to Roald Dahl — expresses the richness
of a life, a reading self.
Replenishing the Earth
We Need to Talk About Kelvin
James Belich
(Oxford University Press) hb $65.00
Marcus Chown
(Faber) pb $35.00
We are living in a globalised world but, for a settler
state like New Zealand, globalisation is hardly new.
Belich’s latest, history on a grand scale, uncovers the
“settler revolution” of the 19th century that forever
changed the face of the world. The convergence of
technological, social and economic forces created
the booms and busts of colonial expansion,
spreading the European languages and cultures
across the globe.
Marcus Chown, celebrated author of Quantum
Theory Cannot Hurt You and The Never-Ending Days of
Being Dead, uncovers the cosmic signs in the world
around us. What does the static on your television
screen tell us about the origins of the universe?
What can the reflection of a face in the window
mean in the logic of the universe? Through these
everyday events, Chown makes the most advanced
science accessible.
Hot, Flat & Crowded
Venice: Pure City
Thomas L Friedman
(Penguin) pb $30.00
Peter Ackroyd
(Chatto & Windus) hb $80.00
According to Thomas Friedman, the three forces
of global warming, the rise of the middle class and
the acceleration of human population growth have
the potential to make our world a hot, flat and
crowded place to live. The honesty and clarity of
Friedman’s new work is at times frightening, but
equally powerful is his passionate call to arms for
a new “green revolution.”
Venice takes its readers on a journey through the
vibrant history of the “pure city.” Ackroyd’s account
is atmospheric and wonderfully rich, peopled by
glass blowers, great artists, ruthless merchants, lepers
and decadent doges. This carnival parade, however,
passes by the dark and silent places of Venice and
its history, giving a sense of a civilisation always
on the verge of sinking.
BIOGRAPHY
Journey Through My Family:
The Wellington Story
Looking For Answers:
A Life of Elsie Locke
Jane Wellesley
(Phoenix) pb $39.00
Maureen Birchfield
(CUP) hb $70.00
From Waterloo and through the generations since, the
daughter of the eighth Duke of Wellington portrays
an intimate and fascinating account of her family’s
history. Peppered with eccentrics, spies, playboys and
lawnmower-towing elephants, the Wellesley family
tree is filled with larger-than-life characters every
bit as compelling as their most famous ancestor, Sir
Arthur Wellesley, “The Iron Duke”.
Writer and activist Elsie Locke’s contribution
to Aotearoa was largely unrecognised in her
lifetime. She campaigned for birth control,
women’s rights, nuclear disarmament, social
justice and the environment. She wrote 40
books, numerous articles, school journal stories, and
was a published poet. Birchfield reveals the private
person (and mother of four) who strove to improve
our world.
Nothing Was the Same: A Memoir
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham
Kay Redfield Jamison (Scribe) pb $32.00
Selina Hastings
(John Murray) hb $79.00
Kay Jamison applies the acute perceptions of a
psychologist and the literary elegance of a writer
to the subject of losing a spouse to cancer. Jamison
looks back at her relationship with husband, Richard
Wyatt, who battled severe dyslexia before becoming a
renowned researcher of schizophrenia. A penetrating
study of grief viewed from the interior, and a deeply
moving memoir.
Predominantly homosexual, Maugham had a
disastrous marriage to Syrie Wellcome but was
deeply in love with the charming Gerald Haxton.
Maugham moved in literary and theatrical circles in
London, New York and Hollywood and entertained
lavishly at his luxurious villa. Outwardly, his life
was richly rewarding, but privately he suffered
anguish from an unrequited love affair and a
shocking final betrayal.
The Blaze of Obscurity:
Unreliable Memoirs V
Clive James (Picador) pb $40
Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol
For many, Clive James was better known as a
television figure, yet he hasn’t stopped writing since
before his television career began. His skills as a writer
and cultural commentator intertwine perfectly in
his fifth instalment of memoirs. A keen observer of
human nature, James tells the tales of his television
years with customary wit and wisdom.
Tony Scherman
(HarperCollins) hb $75.00
Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol is an accurate measure
of Andy Warhol — the enigmatic Wizard of Odd,
and a sharp-eyed chronicle of those unsettled
days in the early 1960s when everything was up
for grabs. A fascinating account of how Warhol’s
x-ray vision exposed the vulgar and irrepressible
new world of 1960s America, and collapsed the old
hierarchies of art.
Mad World: Evelyn Waugh and the
Secrets of Brideshead
Paula Byrne (Fourth Estate) hb $60.00
Paula Byrne offers a fresh look at one of England’s
greatest novelists. Her extensive research and
engaging narrative offers something for everyone.
She shows the influence that Waugh’s experiences
had on his great novel, and vice versa. As Waugh’s
pivotal relationships are examined, a previously
unseen complexity unfolds. As with many literary
icons the truth seems stranger than fiction.
City Boy: My Life in New York
during the 1960s and 1970s
Edmund White
(Bloomsbury) pb $40.00
From Isherwood to Mapplethorpe, Borges to
Burroughs, Edmund White knew them all, and writes
about them in City Boy with love, affection, insight
and often biting wit. This is a moving and candid
portrait of a time and place — a book of gossip, sex
and genius, and a rounded, stereoscopic vision from
one of this generation’s most engaging writers.
Rifling Through My Drawers
Clarissa Dickson Wright
(Hodder & Stoughton) pb $40.00
Dickson Wright is the idiosyncratic, no-nonsense,
politically incorrect, gun-toting, plus-fours-wearing
half of the beloved Two Fat Ladies. In Rifling Through
My Drawers she takes us on a revealing, warts-and
all-romp through the English countryside. A followup, of sorts, to the very funny biography Spilling
the Beans. Not just for foodies.
Gore Vidal:
Snapshots in History’s Glare
Gore Vidal (Abrams) hb $75.00
This is Gore Vidal’s visual memoir of his remarkable
life, including never-before-seen photographs,
letters and manuscripts from his vast archives.
Vidal looks back on his days as an Army officer
in WWII, his rise as a ground-breaking and
controversial novelist, his years in Hollywood, his
forays into the political arena and his notoriously
public triumphs and feuds.
Sissinghurst: An Unfinished History
Adam Nicolson
(HarperPress) pb $28.00
Award-winning writer Nicolson turns his attention
to the history of his family estate. From medieval
manor to 18th century prison to flourishing Victorian
farm and National Trust Gardens, this is a story of an
inheritance. Nicolson attempts to return the estate
to past glories. “A masterpiece of rural romanticism
told with shameless lyricism” — Sunday Times.
Who Wants to be a Billionaire:
The James Packer Story
Paul Barry
(Allen & Unwin) hb $60.00
After watching his father, tycoon Kerry Packer, lose
hundreds of millions of dollars in the world’s casinos,
James chose to bet billions on buying them instead.
Then the global recession hit, and he nearly lost it
all. This book is a tale of economic tragedy as well
as a portrait of the troubled relationship between
a domineering father and his son.
Ned and Katina: A True Love Story
Patricia Grace
(Penguin) pb $40.00
Patricia Grace’s new book is a warm, beautifully
written true story. In Crete during WWII a wounded
Maori Battalion soldier and a young Cretan woman
fall in love. After marrying in Crete, they return to
New Zealand and live long, rich and happy lives
together. Years after their deaths, their whanau
approach Grace to tell their story.
TRAVEL
Nine Lives: In Search
of the Sacred in Modern India
William Dalrymple
(Bloomsbury) pb $40.00
The Magnetic North:
Notes from the Arctic Circle
Sara Wheeler
(Jonathan Cape) hb $65.00
Nine people, nine lives — a Buddhist monk, a
Jain nun, a tantric skull feeder, an illiterate goat
herder, a temple prostitute et al — each one
taking a different religious path, each one an
unforgettable story. Exquisite and mesmerizing
and told with an almost biblical simplicity,
Dalrymple’s first travel book in over a decade
explores how traditional forms of religious life
in South Asia have been transformed during the
region’s rapid period of change. A modern Indian Canterbury Tales.
The homogeneity of the Antarctic that
enchanted a youthful Sara Wheeler in her
bestselling Terra Incognita finds its counterpart
in the embattled polar lands at the other end of
the earth. The complex and ambiguous Arctic,
Wheeler writes, “perfectly captures the elegiac
melancholy of middle age”. The Magnetic North
is a spicy confection of history, science and
reflection in which Wheeler meditates on the
role of the Arctic in public and private life.
Bicycle Diaries
David Byrne
(Faber) hb $50.00
More Miles than Money: Journeys
through American Music
Two decades ago, Talking Heads frontman David
Byrne discovered the cities of the world on his
trusty fold-up bike and became convinced that
urban biking opens one’s eyes to the inner
rhythms of a city’s geography and population.
This account of what he sees and who he meets
as he pedals along, with his musings on world
music, urban planning, fashion, architecture
and cultural dislocation make for an engaging,
humorous and canny read.
Garth Cartwright
(Serpents Tale) pb $40.00
Armed only with a Greyhound ticket and enough
money for his next beer, Garth Cartwright set
out to see whether the American roots music
he loved — blues and country, folk and soul
— was still alive in the 21st century. His epic
journey across the Southwest brings him into
contact with an exotic mix of the real stars of
Americana. This is more than just a travelogue,
as Cartwright is a world-class columnist and a
prize-winning music journo.
A Book of Silence:
A journey in search of the
pleasures and power of silence
Sara Maitland (Granta) pb $30.00
Stones Into Schools
Sara Maitland was living alone in the countryside
when she fell in love with silence. This is her
journey as she delves deep into the rich cultural
history of silence, its importance in religious
traditions, its use in psychoanalysis and artistic
expression, and its significance in fairytale and
myth. Beautifully articulated and spiritually
fulfilling, this is guaranteed to be a Unity
hotcake. (Annie Dillard fans take note!)
Greg Mortenson
(Viking) pb $37.00
In Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson recounted his
relentless efforts to establish schools for girls
in Afghanistan. Mortenson’s latest offering
picks up where he left off with his extensive
work in Kashmir and Pakistan after the 2005
earthquakes and the unique ways he has built
relationships with Islamic clerics , militia
commanders and Afghan warlords. He shares
his vision for peace through education and
literacy and weaves the strands together with
the rich personal stories in this remarkable
two-decade humanitarian effort.
Get Her Off the Pitch
Lynne Truss
(Fourth Estate) hb $30.00
The very masculine world of sport doesn’t
produce much in the way of reportage by
women (apart from Joyce Carol Oates) But this
collection of essays by the bestselling author of
Eats Shoots and Leaves is a must-read! Lynne Truss
spent four years as a sports writer for The Times
covering every major event and permanently
on an almost-vertical learning curve. Boxing,
golf, tennis, footie — Lynne’s writing is fresh,
hilarious and very smart.
Cello Suites
Eric Siblin
(Allen & Unwin) pb $35.00
While attending a recital of Bach’s cello suites,
music critic Eric Siblin became enthralled with
what he was hearing and subsequently obsessed
with solving with the mystery behind them.
Siblin’s account of his travels around Europe,
through archives to festivals, conferences,
cemeteries, and even to cello lessons make
this read a spine-tingling, beautifully-written
journey of discovery. A study of music, a work
of history and a passionate tribute.
POPULAR CULTURE
The Songbook
Dave Dobbyn
(Craig Potton) hb $60.00
Coinciding with a new “best of” album,
Craig Potton brings us a “best of” book.
Dave Dobbyn is one of New Zealand’s most
timeless musicians and this lovely hardback
collects 40 of his songs on paper for the
first time. The songs are accompanied by
Dobbyn’s thoughts about each one, as well
as the lyrics, guitar chords and photos.
100 Essential New Zealand Films
Hamish McDouall
(Awa Press) pb $40.00
It’s okay to want to see films just because
they’re Kiwi. New Zealand’s film industry
has boomed in the past decade, but that
didn’t happen without some legwork. This
informative pictorial book represents the
best of Aotearoa in film. Also check out
100 Essential New Zealand Albums by Nick
Bollinger as well – it’s the same thing, but
for our homegrown music.
Leonard Cohen: Hallelujah Tim Footman
(Chrome Dreams) pb $40.00
Prolific music biographer Footman turns
his pen towards Cohen, the bard of the
bedsit, and reveals fresh insights into his
writing style via interviews with friends and
band members, the court case that forced
him back on the road and his years on
Mt Baldy as a Zen practitioner. Previously
unseen photographs make this book a
must-have.
The Fallen: Life In and Out of
Britain’s Most Insane Group
Dave Simpson
(Canongate) pb $28.00
Ever been asked to play at one of the UK’s
biggest music festivals with musicians you’ve
just met who are covered in blood? If so,
you’ve probably been in The Fall. Frightening
and hilarious, The Fallen is Simpson’s feverish
quest to track down all fifty-odd past members
who have walked through The Fall’s everrevolving doors.
Art of Classic Rock: Rock
Memorabilia Tour Posters
and Merchandise from
the 70s and 80s
Rob Roth And Paul Gruskin
(Goodman Books) hb $80.00
Grunge
This comprehensive collection of posters,
memorabilia and merchandise accumulated
over many years is chronologically
displayed, revealing how art, colour,
typography and design have changed over
the decades. Artists such Elton John, The Who and
Led Zeppelin are featured in this welcome addition
to the ranks of our music section.
Michael Lavine and Thurston
Moore
(Abrams) hb $58.00
Radiating out from Seattle in the
mid-1980s, grunge went from
injecting excitement into the indie
punk scene to overground success,
quickly becoming a dirty word. Sub
Pop staff photographer Lavine and
Sonic Youth’s Moore were there.
Their personal friendships with the bands involved (including Nirvana,
Soundgarden and Mudhoney) form the basis of this lavishly photographed
inside account of the life, death and exploitation of the movement.
Robert Crumb’s Book of Genesis
Robert Crumb
(Jonathan Cape) hb $60.00
From the Creation to the death of Joseph, this
is comics legend R. Crumb’s interpretation
of the Book of Genesis. Crumb applies his
signature irreverent, psychedelic style to
the text and brings new insights to these
harrowing, tragic, and even juicy stories.
Described as a cartoonist’s equivalent of the
Sistine Chapel, this project has been five
years in the making.
The Wire: Truth Be Told
Rafael Alvarez
(Canongate) pb $40.00
Look inside this dramatic television
phenomenon with one of the writers. Alvarez
presents the real life experiences behind the
stories and the creative tensions involved in
bringing them to the screen. With photos and
a notable list of contributors including series
creator David Simon, this is an insightful read,
worthy of the critically acclaimed show.
COOKBOOKS
Ad Hoc at Home Thomas Keller
Thai Street Food
(Artisan) hb $100.00
David Thompson
(Lantern) hb $115.00
Thomas Keller is best known for
revolutionary American haute cuisine. He
now turns his attention to old-fashioned
American home cooking (think Cherry
Pie and Braised Pork Belly), and gives us a
beautiful large-format book which revamps
old classics, making them quick and
accessible to cooks of all levels. A wonderful
introduction to the pleasure of family-style American comfort food.
This beautiful large-format cookbook by Thai
food expert David Thompson is concerned
with capturing the essence of Thai food
and street life. It includes a photo essay
by Earl Carter, as well as a huge variety of
Thai street dishes. This collection shows
how dynamic and vibrant Thai life — and
food — really is.
Go Fish
Coco
Al Brown
(Random) hb $65.00
Ferran Adria et Al
(Phaidon) hb $85.00
Al Brown — best known for his work on
Hunger for the Wild and for his Wellington
restaurant, Logan Brown — brings us a
new book which exemplifies his cooking
philosophy of fresh produce, simple
preparation and accurate seasoning to create
tasty family food. This is a clear, easy-to-use
hardback, perfect for cooks of all levels. Paua
ravioli anyone?
Coco is a compendium of 100 up-and-coming
chefs from all over the world chosen by ten of
the world’s leading culinary figures — such as
Ferran Adria, Mario Batali and Alice Waters.
Each chef’s entry highlights their work,
providing pictures of their restaurant, a menu
and a recipe. A fascinating glimpse into the
future of cuisine and cooking.
Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey
Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable
Patch Nigel Slater
Rick Stein
(BBC) hb $78.00
(Fourth Estate) hb $60.00
Rick Stein is an established and muchloved figure of British cooking, famous for
introducing exotic flavours to British palates.
He has most recently turned to Southeast
Asia for inspiration, going as far as Vietnam,
Cambodia and Thailand to document
his extraordinary food experiences and
translating them into recipes such as Penang
Road Laksa. With charming commentary and
stunning photography.
Nigel Slater’s latest culinary offering focuses on
the delights of fresh, seasonal produce, simple
combinations and straightforward preparation.
Organised alphabetically, each entry highlights a
particular fruit or vegetable, its complementary
flavours, ideal cooking methods and seasonal
availability — all in unhurried, warm prose.
Slater’s zeal for good food is palpable — this is
as much a cookbook as it is a romance.
MoVida Rustica Frank Camorra
Peter Gordon: A Culinary Journey
(Murdoch) hb $70.00
Peter Gordon (Viking) hb $70.00
Following the success of MoVida, Frank
Camorra returns to Spain to give a culinary
tour of his home country. A wonderful balance
of tradition and innovation, each recipe is a
slice of regional history and culture. Aimed at
sharing this experience, this book captures the
essence of Spanish cooking through exciting
recipes and enticing photography.
Peter Gordon looks retrospectively at the
international influences that have shaped
his cooking style and philosophy for the
last 25 years. This cookbook highlights 80
fusion recipes ranging from Asia to Europe,
all exquisite and exotic dishes such as Sea
Urchin Panna Cotta. Gordon also chooses 13
ingredients and demonstrates the influence
they have had over contemporary cooking.
The Fat Duck Cookbook
Heston Blumenthal
(Bloomsbury) hb $105.00
I Know How To Cook
Ginette Mathiot
(Phaidon) hb $80.00
Ever wondered how to make jelly of
quail? Snail porridge? Blumenthal’s
cooking is a remarkable mix of science,
art and cooking; he has been called a
“culinary alchemist” for his innovations
in molecular gastronomy. The Fat Duck
Cookbook contains recipes, vivid food
photography and essays guaranteed to
astound, intrigue, delight and shock. Each
dish is as much a work of art as it is a meal.
Learn what the French have known for three
generations with, this remarkable French classic,
now translated into English for the first time
since it was published in 1932. . With over
1200 recipes, Mathiot brings us traditional
home cooking – from sauces to sweets, soups to
salads – in a comprehensive and practical guide
to getting the best out of every ingredient , the
raison d’être of French cooking. Bon appétit!
10
River Cottage Everyday
La Cucina: The Regional Cooking
of Italy Italian Academy
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
(Bloomsbury) hb $75.00
of Cuisine (Rizzoli) hb $100.00
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall believes that
everyone at every meal should, and can, eat
delicious, healthy, economical food and this
is his proof — a wonderful resource offering
insights on food sourcing, thrifty food tricks
and easy, tasty recipes. From after-work
dinners, to kids’ lunchboxes, these recipes
are designed to help you eat healthily and
ethically, anywhere, anytime.
Fifty years after the Italian Academy of Cuisine
was formed with the intention of preserving
traditional Italian cooking, La Cucina is
the culmination of their research. This is a
revolutionary collection of recipes collected
from home cooks all over Italy. Providing
intimate details on traditional ingredients and
techniques, this book is an absolute must for
any admirer of real Italian cooking.
BIG & GORGEOUS
Photo-Wisdom: Master
Photographers on their Art
James Cook and the Exploration
of the Pacific
Lewis Blackwell
(Hachette) hb $79.00
Adrienne L. Kaeppler and Robert Fleck
(Thames & Hudson) hb $90.00
Revelatory interviews coupled by images
hand-picked by the photographers themselves
are the lens through which we see these visual
storytellers’ motivations and methods. From
photojournalists to celebrity shooters, PhotoWisdom is an unrivalled exploration of contemporary
photographic practice.
This book documents Cook’s three voyages
and reproduces around 500 ethnographic and
natural history items gathered by Cook and
his team. Magnificent paintings and drawings
give us a rare insight into the explorers’
euphoric yet curious view of the exotic South
Sea landscapes and its peoples.
The Sartorialist
60: Innovators Shaping Our
Creative Future Lucas Dietrich
Scott Schuman
(Penguin) pb $55.00
(Thames & Hudson) hb $136.00
Schuman’s photo-blog “the bellwether American
site that turned photo-blogging into an art
form” — The New York Times — also turned
people on the street into everyday style icons.
The Sartorialist is a collection of shots taken on
the world’s footpaths, capturing the stylish in
their natural habitats. A look-book, a photo
essay and a moment in time.
Any creative endeavour that contributes to the
redefinition of our aesthetics, values or ideas
is herein explored by a group of international
experts from across 12 fields of creative
practice, each choosing five people who
affect our visual lives (artists, photographers,
architects, fashion designers, street artists).
The resulting compendium is a must for the
boundary breaking and inspired.
The World in Vogue
Louis Vuitton: Art, Fashion and
Architecture Louis Vuitton
Plum Sykes (Knopf) hb $175.00
(Rizzoli) hb $195.00
Mick Jagger and his family in Mustique,
Gloria Steinem reporting on Truman Capote’s
Black and White Ball, gardens from East
Hampton to Corfu — The World in Vogue is
trendsetters and models, artists and authors,
beauty and style all bound up in a beautiful
hardcover book that would sit perfectly
next to your copy of Vogue Living on your
extremely chic coffee table.
Louis Vuitton maintains the richest and most
varied associations with the world of art.
Explored here within these covers are the
artists, architects, designers, and photographers
(Zaha Hadid, David LaChapelle & Takashi
Murakami . . .) who, under the tutelage of
Mark Jacobs, collaborated in the most dynamic
of ways. Thread and paint and posturing are
included in this seductive anthology of the
fashion house’s most visible alliances.
Dogs in Vogue
Judith Watts (Little Brown) hb $120.00
The Infinity of Lists Umberto Eco
“The next best thing to having the world
at your feet is to have a dog at your heels,”
observed Vogue in 1930. Companions to
style icons and royalty, society leaders, artists
and models, Dogs in Vogue immortalises
and idolises the canine race in articles by
the likes of Dorothy Parker with dazzling
photographs by Cecil Beaton and Mario
Testino and paintings by many of Vogue’s
greatest artists (think Douglas Pollard to
Rene Bouet-Willaumez).
MacLehose Press, hb $110.00
A companion volume to On Beauty and On
Ugliness, The Infinity of Lists explores the
beauty in the orderly and the recorded.
Eco looks broadly at collections such as the
ugliest of grotesque creatures, cabinets of
the curious and the slightly more oblique
inventories of Homer and Joyce in order
to demonstrate how lists can capture the
spirit of a time.
11
GIFTS & STOCKING STUFFERS
The Pocket Book of Boosh
Bedside Book of Beasts:
A Wildlife Miscellany
Julian Barratt & Noel Fielding
(Text) pb $35
Graeme Gibson (Bloomsbury) hb $60.00
Journey through time and space with all your
Boosh friends in this handy pocket-sized Book
of Boosh. Learn the mysteries of Tarot from
Naboo and the mysteries of dancing from
Bob Fossil. All the hilarity and weirdness of
the Mighty Book of Boosh but smaller! Packed
with stories, comic strips and artwork, this is
a must-have for Boosh fans.
This eclectic collection of essays, images, poems
and scientific extracts is tied together by a
common reference, the wild animal. From cave
paintings to contemporary literature, Gibson
draws on sources from Calvino to Margritte,
Kafka to Rousseau. This is a spirited sequel to
Gibson’s previous publication, the meditative
Bedside Book of Birds.
Howard’s End is on the Landing
This is not a Book
Susan Hill
(Profile) hb $40.00
Keri Smith
(Perigree) pb $20.00
One afternoon, while looking for a book on
her shelves, Susan Hill encountered dozens
of books she had never read, forgotten she
owned, or wanted to read a second time. This
book is about her discovery and inspiration
to embark on a year-long voyage through her
books, forsaking new purchases in order to get
to know her collection again.
Listen as this “book” makes music — the
cover makes a great drum — and whirrrrrr the
pages to produce rapid waves of sound. This
gem redefines the use of bound leaves within
a cover. If imagination remains moribund,
prompts are here to assist: tear a strip off the
page and leave a message for a stranger in a
public space. Go on an adventure with this fab
non-book book.
What Would Keith Richards Do?
Daily Affirmations from a Rock ’n’
Roll Survivor Jessica Pallington West
The Alphabet of the Human
Heart
(Bloomsbury) pb $25.00
Matthew Johnstone and James Kerr
(MacMillan) pb $25.00
Self help from the patron saint of sinners.
Uncle Keith, rock god, reinventor of the wheel
and musical vampire, imparts the wisdom of
the ages. This is a wonderful compendium of
quotes alongside one-liners from the great
philosophers. Marvel at his scathing putdowns
of fellow musicians and band mates, learn how
to cook Shepherd’s pie. Live a little.
A handbook for the happy, and a Bible
for the broken-hearted, The Alphabet of
the Human Heart is an enchanting and
enriching journey through the upside and
the downside of what it means to be human
— our hopes and our fears, our strengths
and our weaknesses, our highs and our lows.
Perfumes: The A-Z Guide
Cautionary Tales for Boys and Girls
Luca Turin & Tania Sanchez
(Profile Books) pb $35.00
John Hay-Mackenzie
(Pier 9) hb $35.00
An entertaining, critical and masterful guide,
this updated paperback adds 300 new fragrances
to the original 1500 of its hugely successful
hardback predecessor. Fascinating, educational
and funny, this will appeal whether you are a
perfume enthusiast, simply curious about what
to try next, or just after a good chuckle. Turin
and Sanchez show their love for the art of
perfume-making, while clearly having fun.
Why should you do as you are told? Does it
really matter if you litter? Here are the tales of
12 wicked boys and girls who found out too
late. Taking inspiration from twelve derangedlooking soft toys, John Hay-Mackenzie presents
wonderfully dark watercolour artworks in this
book with matching cautionary tales for children
to ponder, fear and ultimately learn from.
Old Possum’s Book of Practical
Cats T.s.eliot and Axel Scheffler
Telling Tales: A History of Literary
Hoaxes Melissa Katsoulis
(Faber) hb $33.00
(Constable & Robinson) pb $33.00
First published in 1939, this classic book of
poetry has been reissued to celebrate the
80th anniversary of Faber, the publishing
house that Eliot helped build. Following
in the footsteps of great illustrators such
as Edward Gorey, Axel Scheffler of Gruffalo
fame has the honour of bringing sleepy old
Deuteronomy and Rum Tum Tugger to life.
Purrfect for cat owners of all ages.
Covering an increasingly eccentric array of
writers’ mischievous stunts, book-detective
Katsoulis illuminates a sub-genre of the literary
world: biblio true crime. From the first literary
hoax, which apparently occurred in 400BC
through to the Oprah-duping James Frey, this
is the ultimate readers’ guide to the works
that fooled publishers, readers and critics the
world over.
12
CHILDREN & young adults
Timmy the Tug
Jim Downer and Ted Hughes
(Thames & Hudson)
hb $45.00
The Reflections of a Solitary
Hamster
Astrid Desbordes and Pauline Martin
(Gecko) pb $25.00
Over ten years after the death
of Ted Hughes, his widow
Carol discovered an illustrated
manuscript among his papers.
It was Timmy the Tug, a longforgotten children’s verse that
Hughes wrote in the mid-1950s to accompany his friend Jim Downer’s
drawings of a heroic little boat. This gorgeous facsimile volume recounts
Timmy’s escape from his moorings and subsequent adventures on the high
seas and is the ideal gift for both Hughes completists and children with a
healthy sense of wonder.
The friendship between a group of forest
animals is brought to life in this enchanting
book of comic-strips that is a humorous
take on French philosopher Jean-Jacques
Rousseau’s Reveries of a Solitary Walker.
Hamster is a selfish, narcissistic character who
is nevertheless surrounded by affectionate
friends who love him, warts and all.
Philosophical, ironic and terribly funny, The
Reflections of a Solitary Hamster will appeal to
thoughtful readers young and old.
Friends: Snake & Lizard
Joy Cowley
(Gecko) pb $20.00
The Magical World of Milligan
Spike Milligan
(Virgin) hb $48.00
The award-winning partnership of Joy
Cowley and Gavin Bishop are back with
more stories about the daily adventures of the
popular Snake and Lizard. Snake is elegant
and calm, and a little self-centred; Lizard is
exuberant and irrepressible. Even though
they’re opposites, they are good friends.
With its wisdom, acceptance and good
humour, Friends: Snake and Lizard captures
the essence of friendship and is enriched by
Gavin Bishop’s beautiful illustrations in the
warm and clear colours of the desert.
“On the ning nang nong where the cows go
bong and the monkeys all say boo . . .” This
brand new compendium gathers together a
grand selection of Spike Milligan favourites,
including such delightful poems and stories
as “On the Ning Nang Nong”, “The Terrible
Monster Jelly” and “Lots of Twits”. Complete
with Milligan’s drawings and sketches, The
Magical World also includes poems from
Silly Verse for Kids to commemorate the 50th
anniversary of its publication.
Cowshed Christmas
Who Wants to Be a Poodle?
I Don’t! Lauren Child
Joy Cowley & Gavin Bishop
(Random House) pb $25.00
(Puffin) hb $28.00
All the farmyard animals — the cow, the collie,
hens, sheep and lambs, ducks, kune kune,
and the ginger cat — come to the cowshed
door. They all come mooing, baaing, clucking,
barking, quacking and meowing and they all
come bearing true kiwi gifts like a rugby ball,
a pavlova, jandals and a kiwi toy. And who
do you think they saw? The classic Christmas
story is given a New Zealand twist in this
warm and evocative retelling.
Trixie Twinkle Toes doesn’t want a
maid to plump her cushions. She wants
to roll in the mud and paddle in the
puddles. Trixie Twinkle Toes may look
like a prancing poodley poodle. But, on
the inside, she’s a dazzlingly daring dog
ready to make a big splash! A stunning
new book from the incomparable Lauren
Child is always a delicious treat. Prepare
yourselves for the choicest, funniest and
most stylish picture book of the summer.
The Word Witch
Margaret Mahy
(HarperCollins) hb $45.00
The Rabbit Problem
Do you know about the Word Witch? She
can lasso with a limerick, haunt with a haiku
and wrap you tight in a rhyme, quick as
lightning. Her cauldron is a dictionary, her
wand a mighty pen, and she stirs her words
at midnight, making tempting treats for
children, to please and tease and tantalise
them with imaginary treasures and delectable
dreams. Her name is Margaret Mahy. These
are her spells.
Emily Gravett (Macmillan) hb $33.00
Hop along to Fibonacci’s Field and follow
Lonely and Chalk Rabbit through a northern
hemisphere year as they try to cope with
their fast-expanding brood and handle a
different challenge each month, from the
cold of February to the wet of April and the
heat of July. This extraordinary picture book
is packed with gorgeous details and novelty
elements including a baby rabbit record
book, a carrot recipe book and a surprise
pop-up ending.
13
Yummy: My Favourite
Nursery Stories
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days
Jeff Kinney
(Puffin) pb $17.00
Lucy Cousins
(Walker) hb $40.00
The newest installment of the Wimpy Kid
phenomenon sees our hero Greg Heffley
defying the perfect school holiday weather
to live out his ultimate summer fantasy: no
responsibilities and no rules. But Greg’s mom
has a different vision for an ideal summer
— one packed with activities and “family
togetherness”. Whose vision will win out?
Or will a new addition to the Heffley family
change everything?
From Lucy Cousins, creator of Maisy,
comes this collection of eight classic
nursery stories. With spare, bold
language and brilliant, vibrant pictures
Cousins gives famous characters like
Red Riding Hood, Henny Penny and the
Three Little Pigs new life and imbues
their great adventures with her own
very modern magic. These stories are treasures of the
imagination that were first told long ago and will be
told again and again, far into the future.
The Incredible Book Eating Boy
Pop-up Edition
The Magician’s Elephant
Oliver Jeffers
(HarperCollins) pb $35.00
Kate DiCamillo and Yoko Tanaka
(Walker Books) hb $30.00
Roll up, roll up! Meet the Incredible Book
Eating Boy! See his fantastic feats leap off
the page in this stunning pop-up edition.
Henry loves books, but not like you and I.
He loves to EAT books! And better still, he
realises that the more books he eats, the
smarter he gets. But a book-eating diet isn’t
the healthiest of habits, as Henry soon finds
out. Enjoy this spectacular pop-up novelty
edition — a must-have gift for all ages.
In her eagerly awaited new novel, Kate
DiCamillo conjures a haunting fable about
trusting the unexpected and making the
extraordinary come true. When a fortuneteller’s tent appears in the market square,
orphan Peter Augustus Duchene knows the
questions that he needs to ask: Does his
sister still live? And if so, how can he find
her? With atmospheric illustrations by Yoko
Tanaka, this is a captivating tale that could
only be conjured by the author of the Tale
of Despereaux.
There Are Cats in This
Book Viviane Schwarz
(Walker Books) pb $18.00
Ghost Hunter
Open the covers of this inventive,
interactive book to find that the
cats inside are ready to play in very
surprising ways! Three sprightly cats
named Tiny, Moonpie, and André are
eager to involve you in their games,
whether it’s tossing a ball of yarn (oof!),
hiding in boxes (comfy), or getting
caught in a pillow fight (biff!). With
an irresistible story that directly engages the reader, this book’s clever
design and bright illustrations make for cat-tastic lift-the-flap fun.
Michelle Paver
(Orion) hb $35.00
In the sixth and final installment of the
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, the Eagle
Owl Mage holds the clans in the grip of terror.
To fulfill his destiny, Torak must seek his lair
in the Mountain of Ghosts, defy demons
and tokoroths, and find his way through
the Gorge of the Hidden People. Wolf must
overcome terrible grief; Renn must make an
agonising decision; and in the final battle
against the Soul-Eater, Torak must face the
most heart-rending choice of all.
Battle of the Sun
Jeanette Winterson
(Bloomsbury) pb $20.00
Jack is the chosen one, the boy the Magus needs
to perfect the alchemy that will transform
London of the 1600s into a golden city. But
Jack isn’t the kind of boy who will do what
he is told by an evil genius, and he is soon
involved in an epic and nail-biting adventure,
featuring dragons, knights and Queen Elizabeth
I, as he battles to save London. This a magical
and unputdownable adventure story by the
acclaimed author of Tanglewreck.
New Puffin Classics
(Puffin) pb $12.00
Penguin have made classic literature cool
and affordable again and Puffin are doing
the same thing for kids with these latest
titles in their classics series.
The Happy Prince, What Katy Did,
Wuthering Heights, Anne of Avonlea,
Kidnapped and The Red Badge of Courage
are now available in bright, durable Puffin
paperback with forewords from eminent
writers like S E Hinton, Alexander McCall
Smith and Marcus Zusak, bringing new
perspective and understanding to these
timeless reads.
14
WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
“And now”, cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start!”
The Wild Things
Dave Eggers
Hirsute edition (McSweeneys) hb $49.00
Standard edition (Hamish Hamilton) hb $40.00
This is an all-ages novelisation of Sendak’s Where the Wild Things
Are by one-time boy wonder and all-time literary champion, Dave
Eggers. Full of wit and soul and freedom, Eggers captures the light
of this classic and delivers it to us on 288 pages — something to
sink your terrible teeth into.
Where the Wild Things Are
Maurice Sendak
(Red Fox) pb $20.00
Making Mischief: A Sendak Appreciation
Gregory Maguire
(Harper Collins) hb $50.00
Gregory Maguire (author of Wicked)
here pays tribute to Maurice Sendak
and his work as one of the most
extraordinary and widely acclaimed
author/ illustrators. Maguire
reconsiders Sendak’s oeuvre with adroit
and idiosyncratic scrutiny, examining
Sendak’s aesthetic influences from
William Blake to Walt Disney. He
paints a deeply interesting portrait of a
life that has been all at once secretive,
imaginative and truly talented.
The best american series
pb from $30.00 (Houghton Mifflin)
The Best American Series is the premier annual showcase for the country’s top
notch short fiction and nonfiction. Each volume’s series editor, a leading writer
in the field, selects and compiles eclectic and provocative writing from promising
new voices and prize-winning favourites. This winning and unique system has
made the Best American Series the most respected — and most popular — of its
kind.
Penguin Great Ideas
pb $11.95 each
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They
have transformed the way we see ourselves — and each other.
They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They
have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They
have enriched lives — and destroyed them. The latest books
in Penguin’s Great Ideas series include works from some of the
greatest thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas
shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
15
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16