• Current Reading – A Beginner’s Guide to Japan

    A Beginner's Guide To Japan

    A Beginner’s Guide to Japan

    Pico Iyer
    Brief reflections and musings on all that is Japan, by travel writer Pico Iyer – a ‘foreigner’ who has spent over three decades living in the country, and who has a Japanese wife. Droll, fascinating, and insightful.

  • REMEMBER ME

    Remember Me

    Remember Me

    Charity Norman
    As an ailing doctor’s dementia progresses, his guard and filters dissolve, giving his daughter, who’s returned from overseas to care from him, alarming glimpses into a life he had previously kept secret.

  • LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY

    lessons in chemistry

    lessons in chemistry

    Bonnie Garmus
    A delightful and thought-provoking story about Elizabeth Zott, a research chemist, who, after constantly coming up against the sexism of the 1950s/60s, has to navigate a more unusual route to fulfil her true potential.

  • The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

    Shehan Karunatilaka - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida

    the seven moons of maali almeida

    Shehan Karunatilaka
    This Booker Prize-winning novel is a sharp-witted and confronting political satire set in the liminal space between Sri Lanka of the 1990s and the afterlife. Murderer photojournalist Maali Almeida has seven moons to attend to any unfinished business (including finding out who murdered him), before he must move towards the Light or forever be condemned to exist in limbo. Powerful, disturbing, brave writing.

  • Megan Nicol Reed – One of Those Mothers

    Megan Nicol Reed - One of Those Mothers

    One of Those Mothers

    Megan Nicol Reed
    In this page-turning domestic drama, a dark secret hovers over the seemingly benign Auckland community of Point Heed. Doubt, suspicion and panic soon start to unravel close friendships. As the story moves towards the denouement, moral conundrums plague principal players and questions of complicity swirl, even after the close.

  • Katherine Mansfield’s Europe

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    Katherine Mansfield’s Europe

    Redmer Yska
    Armed with Katherine Mansfield’s letters and journals, Redmer Yska retraces her restive journeys across Europe in the latter years of her short life. Ever reminded of her own mortality, Mansfield travelled between France, Switzerland and Germany seeking a cure for her pulmonary tuberculosis, while packing as much writing into her days as circumstance, inspiration and her health permitted.

  • The Axeman’s Carnival

    The Axeman's Carnival - Catherine Chidgey

    The Axeman’s Carnival

    Catherine Chidgey
    Narrated by a rescued magpie, this novel takes one inside the abusive relationship of a farming couple fallen on hard times in Central Otago. Humour lightens what is often a sobering read, while also heightening the pathos.

  • Steve Braunias – Missing Persons

    Steve Braunias - Missing Persons

    Missing Persons

    Steve Braunias
    The harrowing and often heartrending human detail behind 12 true-crime stories of death and disappearance in New Zealand, by award-winning journalist Steve Braunias.