Au Revoir, Tristesse - Lessons in Happiness from French Literature by Viv Groskop

$12.00 NZD

Category: Literature | Reading Level: very good

A lighthearted look at how to bring more humor, happiness, and joie de vivre into our lives through French literature Like many people the world over, Viv Groskop wishes she was a little more French. A writer, comedian, and journalist, Groskop studied the language obsessively starting at age 11, and spent every vacation in France, desperate to escape her Englishness and to have some French chic rub off on her. In Au Revoir, Tristesse, Groskop mixes literary history and memoir to explore how the classics of French literature can infuse our lives with joie de vivre and teach us how to say goodbye to sadness. From the frothy hedonism of Colette and the wit of Cyrano de Bergerac to the intoxicating universe of Marguerite Duras and the heady passions of Les Liaisons dangereuses, this is a love letter to great French writers. With chapters on Marcel Proust, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Stendhal, Honor de Balzac, Albert Camus, and of course Fran oise Sagan, this is a delectable read for book lovers everywhere. ...Show more

The Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox; Lee Gibbons (Designed by)

$14.00 NZD

Category: Fiction | Series: The Dreamhunter Duet 2 | Reading Level: very good

'...amazing and unique ... like nothing else I've ever read. You will want to go there.' Stephenie Meyer - author of the Twilight Saga Suitable for ages 12+ Following on from the mesmerising Dreamhunter, the story continues dramatically as Grace, 'overdreamt' by Laura, introduces a nightmare, instead o f the happy holiday dream programmed, to a packed Opera House audience, with chaotic results. Laura has collected and dreamt the nightmare in response to a letter she thinks is from her dead father, tziga, who has been forced by the government to dream it to keep prisoners frightened and subdued. Laura takes Nown, the sandman she created, with her on a journey to discover what purpose the Depot in the Place is being used for, and finds a far greater secret behind the existence of the Place Itself. Meanwhile Laura has to come to terms with her feelings for Sandy, a young dreamcatcher. She and Rose must accept their changing relationship. 'Knox's haunting, invigorating storytelling will leave readers eager to return to its puzzles - and to reap its rewards Booklist Ages 13+ ...Show more

Q and A - A Novel by Vikas Swarup

$12.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: very good

Vikas Swarup's spectacular debut, which provided the inspiration for the award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire, is a page-turning and beguiling story of love, perseverance, and drama. Vikas Swarup's remarkable debut novel opens in a jail cell in Mumbai, India, where Ram Mohammad Thomas is being held af ter correctly answering all twelve questions on India's biggest quiz show, Who Will Win a Billion? It is hard to believe that a poor orphan who has never read a newspaper or gone to school could win such a contest. But through a series of exhilarating tales Ram explains to his lawyer how episodes in his life gave him the answer to each question. Ram takes us on an amazing review of his own history--from the day he was found as a baby in the clothes donation box of a Delhi church to his employment by a faded Bollywood star to his adventure with a security-crazed Australian army colonel to his career as an overly creative tour guide at the Taj Mahal. Swarup's Q & A is a charming blend of high comedy, drama, and romance that reveals how we know what we know--not just about trivia, but about life itself. Cutting across humanity in all its squalor and glory, Vikas Swarup presents a kaleidoscopic vision of the struggle between good and evil--and what happens when one boy has no other choice in life but to survive. ...Show more

How Proust Can Change Your Life - not a novel by Alain de Botton

$15.00 NZD

Category: Literature | Reading Level: very good

For anyone who ever wondered what Marcel Proust had in mind when he wrote the one-and-a-quarter-million words of In Search of Lost Time (while bedridden no less), Alain de Botton has the answer. For, in this stylish, erudite and frequently hilarious book, de Botton dips deeply into Proust's life and wor k - his fiction, letter, and conversations - and distils from them that rare self-help manual: one that is actually helpful. Here, tendered in prose almost as luminous as it's subject's, is advice on cultivating friendships, suffering successfully, recognising love and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on the first date. And here, too, is a generously perceptive literary biography that suggests that the master is as relevant today as he was in fin de si cle Paris. ...Show more

Time You Let Me In - 25 Poets Under 25 by Naomi Shihab Nye (ed.)

$12.00 NZD

Category: Poetry | Reading Level: very good

They are inspiring talented stunning remarkable wise They are also fearless depressed hilarious impatient in love out of love pissed off And they want you to let them in.

Vengeance is Mine by MIckey Spillane

$15.00 NZD

Category: Hardback fiction | Reading Level: good-very good

Ovid - The Lover's Handbook - A complete translation of the Ars Amatoria by Ovid

$25.00 NZD

Category: Latin Literature | Series: Broadway Translations | Reading Level: very good

Ovid - The Mirror of Venus - Love Poems and Stories from Ovid's Amores, Medicamina a Faciei Femineae, Ars Amatoria, Remedia Amoris, Heroidae, Dasti & Metamorphoses by Ovid

$25.00 NZD

Category: Latin Literature | Series: Broadway Translations | Reading Level: very good

The Arabian Nights - Tales of 1,001 Nights Volume 2 295-719 by Robert Irwin

$15.00 NZD

Category: Literature | Series: The Arabian Nights 2 | Reading Level: very good

Every night for three years the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her next morning. To end this brutal pattern and to save her own life, the vizier's daughter, Shahrazad, begins to tell the king tales of adventure, love, riches and wonder - tales of mystical lands peopled with princes and hunchbacks, the Angel of Death and magical spirits, tales of the voyages of Sindbad, of Ali Baba's outwitting a band of forty thieves and of jinnis trapped in rings and in lamps. The sequence of stories will last 1,001 nights. ...Show more

The Arabian Nights - Tales of 1,001 Nights Volume 3 719-1001 by Robert Irwin (ed.)

$20.00 NZD

Category: Literature | Series: The Arabian Nights 3 | Reading Level: near fine

Every night for three years the vengeful King Shahriyar sleeps with a different virgin, executing her next morning. To end this brutal pattern and to save her own life, the vizier's daughter, Shahrazad, begins to tell the king tales of adventure, love, riches and wonder - tales of mystical lands peopled with princes and hunchbacks, the Angel of Death and magical spirits, tales of the voyages of Sindbad, of Ali Baba's outwitting a band of forty thieves and of jinnis trapped in rings and in lamps. The sequence of stories will last 1,001 nights. ...Show more

Erasmus - The Right to Heresy by Stefan Zweig

$16.00 NZD

Category: Religion | Reading Level: good-very good

Intentions by Oscar Wilde

$10.00 NZD

Category: Essays | Reading Level: good-very good