Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop by Amy Witting

$10.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Series: Text Classics Ser. | Reading Level: near fine

Isobel Callaghan is struggling to make a career as a writer in Sydney. She is isolated, poor and hungry, and fears she's going mad. Leaving her room in a boarding house in search of food, she has a breakdown on the way to the corner shop. Waking in hospital, Isobel learns that she will be confined to a sanatorium in the Blue Mountains. There, among the motley assortment of patients, and with the aid of great works of literature, she will confront the horrors of her past. But can she find a way to face the future? Confronting and compassionate, profound and funny, the second Isobel Callaghan novel is every bit as brilliant as its much-loved predecessor. It confirmed Amy Witting as one of the finest Australian writers of her time. Amy Wittingwas born in Sydney in 1918. She attended Sydney University, then taught French and English in state schools. Beginning late in life she published six novels, including The Visit, I for Isobel, Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shopand Maria's War; two collections of short stories; two books of verse, Travel Diaryand Beauty is the Straw; and her Collected Poems. She had numerous poems and short stories published in magazines such as Quadrantand the New Yorker. Her acclaimed short fiction is collected in the volume Faces and Voices. Witting was awarded the 1993 Patrick White Prize. Isobel on the way to the Corner Shopwon the AgeBook of the Year Award. Amy Witting died in 2001. 'Her reflections on human nature are eloquently drawn, intimate, compassionate and witty.' Australian Amy Witting is comparable to Jean Rhys, but she has more starch, or vinegar. The effect is bracing.' New Yorker '[Witting] lays bare with surgical precision the dynamics of families, sibling, students in coffee shops, office coteries. One sometimes feels positively winded with unsettling insights. There is something relentless, almost unnerving in her anatomising of foibles, fears obsessions, private shame, the nature of loneliness, the nature of panic.' Janette Turner Hospital 'A beautifully but unobtrusively honed style, a marvellous ear for dialogue, a generous understanding of the complex waywardness of men and women.' Andrew Riemer 'Sparkling prose and extraordinary ability to enter the minds of a wide variety of characters.' A Reader's Guide to Australian Fiction 'Quietly brilliant...Witting's characterizations are staggeringly sharp--it is hard to imagine a novel more keenly observed--simultaneously heartbreaking and (subtly) hilarious, not because they're exaggerated, but because they are so unsettlingly, overwhelmingly true...A compassionate masterpiece.' STARRED Review, Kirkus ...Show more

A Saint from Texas by Edmund White

$14.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Reading Level: near fine

From Edmund White, a bold and sweeping new novel that traces the extraordinary fates of twin sisters, one destined for Parisian nobility and the other for Catholic sainthood. Yvette and Yvonne Crawford are twin sisters, born on a humble patch of East Texas prairie but bound for far more dramatic and tr agic fates. Just as an untold fortune of oil lies beneath their daddy's land, both girls harbor their own secrets and dreams-ones that will carry them far from Texas and from each other. As the decades unfold, Yvonne will ascend the highest ranks of Parisian society as Yvette gives herself to a lifetime of worship and service in the streets of Jericó, Colombia. And yet, even as they remake themselves in their radically different lives, the twins find that the bonds of family and the past are unbreakable. Spanning the 1950s to the recent past, Edmund White's marvelous novel serves up an immensely pleasurable epic of two Texas women as their lives traverse varied worlds: the swaggering opulence of the Dallas nouveau riche, the airless pretension of the Paris gratin, and the strict piety of a Colombian convent. For nearly half a century, Edmund White's work has revitalized American literature, blithely breaking down boundaries of class and sexuality, and A Saint From Texas is one of his most joyous, gorgeously written, and piercing works to date. ...Show more

Girl by Edna O'Brien

$12.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Reading Level: near fine

Girl, Edna O'Brien's courageous new novel is an unforgettable depiction of one woman's abduction by Boko Haram.  Captured, abducted and married into Boko Haram, the narrator of this story witnesses and suffers the horrors of a community of men governed by a brutal code of violence. Barely more than a g irl herself, she must soon learn how to survive as a woman with a child of her own. Just as the world around her seems entirely consumed by madness, bound for hell, she is offered an escape of sorts - but only into another landscape of trials and terrors amidst the unforgiving wilds of northeastern Nigeria, through the forest and beyond; a place where her traumas are met with the blinkered judgement of a society in denial. How do we love in a world that has lost its moorings? How can we comprehend the barbarism of our enemies, and learn forgiveness for atrocities committed in the name of ideology? ...Show more

Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes

$12.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Reading Level: near fine

Summer 2011. Berlin. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of ground, alive and well. Things have changed - no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman. People certainly recognise him, though - as a brilliant, satirical imper sonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable, happens, and the ranting Hitler takes off, goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own TV show, becomes someone who people listen to. All while he's still trying to convince people that yes, it really is him, and yes, he really means it. Look Who's Back is a black and brilliant satire of modern media-bloated society, seen through the eyes of the Fuhrer himself. Adolf is by turns repellent, sympathetic and hilarious, but always fascinating. Look Who's Back is outrageously clever, outrageously funny - and outrageously plausible. ...Show more

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

$15.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

The Mothers by Brit Bennett

$14.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Ferociously moving despite Bennett s thrumming plot, despite the snap of her pacing, it s the always deepening complexity of her characters that provides the book s urgency." The New York Times Book Review "Luminous engrossing and poignant, this is one not to miss." People, Pi ck of the Week "Fantastic a book that feels alive on the page." The Washington Post One of The Today Show's "Must-Read Books for Fall" A dazzling debut novel from an exciting new voice, The Mothers is a surprising story about young love, a big secret in a small community and the things that ultimately haunt us most. Set within a contemporary black community in Southern California, Brit Bennett's mesmerizing first novel is an emotionally perceptive story about community, love, and ambition. It begins with a secret. "All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season." It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance and the subsequent cover-up will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt. In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a "what if" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever." ...Show more

Eligible: A Modern Retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld

$16.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

"NEW YORK TIMES" BESTSELLER Wonderfully tender and hilariously funny, "Eligible" tackles gender, class, courtship, and family as Curtis Sittenfeld reaffirms herself as one of the most dazzling authors writing today. This version of the Bennet family and Mr. Darcy is one that you have and haven t met bef ore: Liz is a magazine writer in her late thirties who, like her yoga instructor older sister, Jane, lives in New York City. When their father has a health scare, they return to their childhood home in Cincinnati to help and discover that the sprawling Tudor they grew up in is crumbling and the family is in disarray. Youngest sisters Kitty and Lydia are too busy with their CrossFit workouts and Paleo diets to get jobs. Mary, the middle sister, is earning her third online master s degree and barely leaves her room, except for those mysterious Tuesday-night outings she won t discuss. And Mrs. Bennet has one thing on her mind: how to marry off her daughters, especially as Jane s fortieth birthday fast approaches. Enter Chip Bingley, a handsome new-in-town doctor who recently appeared on the juggernaut reality TV dating show "Eligible." At a Fourth of July barbecue, Chip takes an immediate interest in Jane, but Chip s friend neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy reveals himself to Liz to be much less charming. . . . And yet, first impressions can be deceiving. Praise for"Eligible" Even the most ardent Austenite will soon find herself seduced. "O: The Oprah Magazine" Blissful . . . Sittenfeld modernizes the classic in such a stylish, witty way you d guess even Jane Austen would be pleased. "People "(book of the week) [A] sparkling, fresh contemporary retelling. "Entertainment Weekly" [Sittenfeld] is the ideal modern-day reinterpreter. Her special skill lies not just in her clear, clean writing, but in her general amusement about the world, her arch, pithy, dropped-mike observations about behavior, character and motivation. She can spot hypocrisy, cant, self-contradiction and absurdity ten miles away. She s the one you want to leave the party with, so she can explain what really happened. . . . Not since "Clueless, " which transported "Emma" to Beverly Hills, has Austen been so delightedly interpreted. . . . Sittenfeld writes so well her sentences are so good and her story so satisfying. . . . As a reader, let me just say: Three cheers for Curtis Sittenfeld and her astute, sharp and ebullient anthropological interest in the human condition. Sarah Lyall, "The New York Times Book Review" A clever, uproarious evolution of Austen s story. "The Denver Post" If there exists a more perfect pairing than Curtis Sittenfeld and Jane Austen, we dare you to find it. . . . Sittenfeld makes an already irresistible story even more beguiling and charming. "Elle" A playful, wickedly smart retelling of Jane Austen s "Pride and Prejudice." "BuzzFeed" Sittenfeld is an obvious choice to re-create Jane Austen s comedy of manners. [She] is a master at dissecting social norms to reveal the truths of human nature underneath. " The Millions""" A hugely entertaining and surprisingly unpredictable book, bursting with wit and charm. "The Irish Times" An unputdownable retelling of the beloved classic. "PopSugar"" ...Show more

Winter by Ali Smith

$25.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Series: Seasonal Ser. | Reading Level: near fine

Shortlisted for the British Book Award - Fiction Book of the Year and the Orwell Prize for Political Writing The second novel in the Man Booker Prize-nominated author's Seasonal cycle; the much-anticipated follow-up to Autumn (a New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Financial Times, The Guardian, Southe rn Living, and Kirkus Reviews best book of the year). Winter. Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. And now Art's mother is seeing things. Come to think of it, Art's seeing things himself. When four people, strangers and family, converge on a fifteen-bedroom house in Cornwall for Christmas, will there be enough room for everyone? Winter. It makes things visible. Ali Smith's shapeshifting Winter casts a warm, wise, merry and uncompromising eye over a post-truth era in a story rooted in history and memory and with a taproot deep in the evergreens, art and love. ...Show more

Abigail by Magda Szabó; Len Rix (Translator)

$15.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Reading Level: very good

A cult coming-of-age novel by the author of THE DOOR and KATALIN STREET. Magda Szabo's Abigail is the most widely read of all her novels in her native Hungary. Now, fifty years after its original publication, it appears in English for the first time. Gina, the only child of a widowed general, lives a c osseted and carefree existence in Budapest, even in the shadow of the Second World War. When the general sends her to girls' boarding school in Debrecen, in the east of the country, she is devastated. Her belongings are taken away on arrival, and she is initiated into the peculiar rites of her peers. She soon finds herself ostracized and, desperately unhappy, tries to escape. When brought back to the school, all she can do is entrust her fate to the legendary and mysterious Abigail, a statue of a woman in the school grounds, to whom the pupils confide their troubles in handwritten messages. But who is the mystifying figure behind Abigail, who wishes her well? Eventually Gina achieves hard-won solidarity in a restrictive environment, and begins to discover her place in the world. Rich in imagery, and with Gina's internal world beautifully realised, Abigail is a tale of suspense and revelation in a shifting world where things are often not quite as they first seem. Translated from the Hungarian by Len Rix ...Show more

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

$12.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Reading Level: very good

Effia and Esi: two sisters with two very different destinies. One sold into slavery; one a slave trader's wife. The consequences of their fate reverberate through the generations that follow. Taking us from the Gold Coast of Africa to the cotton-picking plantations of Mississippi; from the missionary sc hools of Ghana to the dive bars of Harlem, spanning three continents and seven generations, Yaa Gyasi has written a miraculous novel - the intimate, gripping story of a brilliantly vivid cast of characters and through their lives the very story of America itself. Epic in its canvas and intimate in its portraits, Homegoing is a searing and profound debut from a masterly new writer. ...Show more

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

$10.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Reading Level: near fine

Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and a baffling new world, the characters in Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

$12.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Reading Level: near fine

SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2016 SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2016 SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NEW BLOOD DAGGER AWARD 2016 Selected as a Book of the Year 2016 inThe Times, Observer and Daily Telegraph. Fully lives up to the hype - a taut psychological thriller, rippled with comedy as black as a raven's wing, Eileen is effortlessly stylish and compelling. Robert Douglas Fairhurst, The Times. The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop. Trapped between caring for her alcoholic father and her job as a secretary at the boys' prison, she tempers her dreary days with dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, her nights and weekends are filled with shoplifting and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father's messes. When the beautiful, charismatic Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counsellor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted, unable to resist what appears to be a miraculously budding friendship. But soon, Eileen's affection for Rebecca will pull her into a crime that far surpasses even her own wild imagination. ...Show more