Tara McLeod : A Typographic Journey by Tara McLeod et al.

$45.00 NZD

Category: Books About Books | Reading Level: near fine

The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa

$12.00 NZD

Category: Literary Fiction | Reading Level: very good

Hat, ribbon, bird, rose. To the people on the island, a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning. It can be burned in the garden, thrown in the river or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed. When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of b eing taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn't forget, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next? The Memory Police is a beautiful, haunting and provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss from one of Japan's greatest writers. For readers of The Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451 and Nineteen Eighty-Four. ...Show more

The Last Days of Socrates by Christopher Rowe (Notes by, Introduction by, Translator); Harold Tarrant (Introduction by); Plató

$10.00 NZD

Category: Philosophy | Series: Penguin Classics | Reading Level: very good

"Consider just this, and give your minds to this alone: whether or not what I say is just"   Plato's account of Socrates' trial and death (399 BC) is a significant moment in Classical literature and the life of Classical Athens. In these four dialogues, Plato develops the Socratic belief in responsibi lity for one's self and shows Socrates living and dying under his philosophy. In Euthyphro, Socrates debates goodness outside the courthouse; Apology sees him in court, rebutting all charges of impiety; in Crito, he refuses an entreaty to escape from prison; and in Phaedo, Socrates faces his impending death with calmness and skilful discussion of immortality. Christopher Rowe's introduction to his powerful new translation examines the book's themes of identity and confrontation, and explores how its content is less historical fact than a promotion of Plato's Socratic philosophy.   For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. ...Show more

So I Have Thought of You. The Letters of Penelope Fitzgerald by Penelope Fitzgerald

$14.00 NZD

Category: Literary biography | Reading Level: very good

A fascinating collection of letters from the great English novelist -- and prolific correspondent -- Penelope Fitzgerald. Acclaimed for her exquisitely elegant novels -- including the Booker Prize-winning 'Offshore' -- and superb biographies, Penelope Fitzgerald was one of the finest British authors of the last century. Published here for the first time are her collected letters. An unparalleled record of the life of this greatly admired writer, these letters reveal her most important family relationships and friendships, and paint a clear picture both of herself and of her correspondents. They show us how she managed her own career -- according to her own convictions -- and how determined she was to put her world view across. A fascinating portrait of Penelope Fitzgerald as a mother, as a friend and as a writer, these letters give the same pleasure they gave to those who first opened them. Penelope Fitzgerald was one of the most distinctive voices in British literature. The prize-winning author of nine novels, three biographies and one collection of short stories, she died in 2000. ...Show more

The Limits by Alice Miller

$12.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Poetry | Reading Level: very good

Ours is a life worth losing; let’s unlace it from its post and see what creature it becomes. . . . The poems in this extraordinary full-length collection by Alice Miller ask you to force yourself beyond your own boundaries. They are curious, restless, bold; they marry lyrical music and intricate metapho r as they search for other human voices beyond the rumblings of the apocalypse and the stubbornness of myth. From bare battlefields to crisp Antarctica to the gates of Troy, from re-written history to love story, they ask for something more from the world than just riding till the spoke breaks. A poet for whom one way’s easy but an easy way’s / worse, Miller in this collection traces a path that leads beyond our limits – to where we set the sky on silent, where we’re braver than science, and where we try to un-glimpse what we’ve lost. ...Show more

Forbidden Fruit: Selected Tales in Verse by Jean de la Fontaine

$12.00 NZD

Category: Poetry | Reading Level: very good

Working the Scrapbook by Peter Bland

$12.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Poetry | Reading Level: very good

The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell

$30.00 NZD

Category: World War I | Reading Level: very good

Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell by Elizabeth Bishop & Robert Lowell (ed Thomas Travisano with Saskia Hamilton)

$40.00 NZD

Category: Literary biography | Reading Level: very good

When first introduced to Robert Lowell in 1947, Elizabeth Bishop wrote that 'he was living in a basement room on Third Avenue ...and was rather untidy. He was wearing a rumpled dark blue suit ...I took to him at once.' Lowell was equally taken by Bishop, and thought she had 'more to offer, I think, than anyone writing poems in English'. The candid, affectionate, constrained and loving friendship of the two American poets is recorded in letters written over three decades. It begins after the publication of their first books, when they were 'as mischievous as children about the figures they held most in awe' (David Kalstone), and ends only with Lowell's death. The letters also record the complications of each other's lives - Lowell's mental illness, Bishop's struggles with alcohol, their mutually crossed love affairs. In their now celebrated correspondences, they performed best for one another, as the drama of their public and private lives unfolded. ...Show more

We British - The Poetry of a People by Andrew Marr

$30.00 NZD

Category: Poetry | Reading Level: very good

More than just an anthology, WE BRITISH is a history of Britain told through its poetry. Written by Britain's most celebrated political commentator for World Poetry Day. This is the story of Britain told from inside. Hundreds of thousands of Britons over many centuries have left traces of what it was li ke to be them - letters, drawings, text messages, emails and social network exhibitionism. But unlike texts, emails or television, poetry allows people from distant times to talk directly to us, with nobody else getting in the way: a mediaeval ploughman, a Tudor drunk or a jilted Georgian woman can look us in the eyes. What follows, then, is not a history of Britain in verse, but an epic story of what it was to be "British" - which means Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Northumbrian, Mercian as well as English. Combining some of the greatest of our poetry, including poems far too little-known, with explanations and brief historical essays, WE BRITISH amounts to a surprising, uplifting journey towards a new way of thinking about who we have been and who we are. ...Show more

A Storm of Swords A Song of Ice and Fire #3 by George R R Martin

$8.00 NZD

Category: Science Fiction & Fantasy | Series: Song of Ice and Fire | Reading Level: very good

THE BOOK BEHIND THE THIRD SEASON OF GAME OF THRONES, AN ORIGINAL SERIES NOW ON HBO. Here is the third volume in George R. R. Martin's magnificent cycle of novels that includes "A Game of Thrones" and "A Clash of Kings." As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin's stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction. A STORM OF SWORDS Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and still the wars rage as violently as ever, as alliances are made and broken. Joffrey, of House Lannister, sits on the Iron Throne, the uneasy ruler of the land of the Seven Kingdoms. His most bitter rival, Lord Stannis, stands defeated and disgraced, the victim of the jealous sorceress who holds him in her evil thrall. But young Robb, of House Stark, still rules the North from the fortress of Riverrun. Robb plots against his despised Lannister enemies, even as they hold his sister hostage at King's Landing, the seat of the Iron Throne. Meanwhile, making her way across a blood-drenched continent is the exiled queen, Daenerys, mistress of the only three dragons still left in the world. . . . But as opposing forces maneuver for the final titanic showdown, an army of barbaric wildlings arrives from the outermost line of civilization. In their vanguard is a horde of mythical Others--a supernatural army of the living dead whose animated corpses are unstoppable. As the future of the land hangs in the balance, no one will rest until the Seven Kingdoms have exploded in a veritable storm of swords. . . . ...Show more

The Bellfounder by Steven Toussaint

$12.00 NZD

Category: New Zealand Poetry | Reading Level: very good

Poetry. Reverent, reverberant, THE BELLFOUNDER is both augury and echo, uniting the medieval and the modern in a theological soundscape shaped by Dante's Divine Comedy, the films of Tarkovsky, and the music of Arvo Pärt. These poems, lyric intercessions to an absconded God, herald a remarkable new voice in American poetry. ...Show more