Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home by Joanna Nell

$34.99 NZD

Category: Staff Picks - Louise

The joyous, charming and utterly irresistible new novel from the author of mega-bestseller The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village At nearly ninety, retired nature writer Hattie Bloom prefers the company of birds to people, but when a fall lands her in a nursing home she struggles to cope with the loss of independence and privacy. From the confines of her 'room with a view' of the carpark, she dreams of escape. Fellow 'inmate', the gregarious, would-be comedian Walter Clements also plans on returning home as soon as he is fit and able to take charge of his mobility scooter. When Hattie and Walter officially meet at The Night Owls, a clandestine club run by Sister Bronwyn and her dog, Queenie, they seem at odds. But when Sister Bronwyn is dismissed over her unconventional approach to aged care, they must join forces -- and very slowly an unlikely, unexpected friendship begins to grow. Full of wisdom and warmth, The Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home is a gorgeously poignant, hilarious story showing that it is never too late to laugh -- or to love. ...Show more

We Are Wolves (HB) by Katrina Nannestad

$22.99 NZD

Category: Staff Picks - Louise

THE POWERFUL NEW NOVEL FROM AWARD-WINNING AUSTRALIAN WRITER KATRINA NANNESTAD Sometimes it's good to be wild. Sometimes you have to be wild. When the Russian Army marches into East Prussia at the end of the war, the Wolf family must flee. Liesl, Otto and their baby sister Mia find themselves lost and alone, in a blizzard, in the middle of a war zone. Liesl has promised Mama that she will keep her brother and sister safe. But sometimes, to survive, you have to do bad things. Dangerous things. Wild things. Sometimes to survive, you must become a wolf. Bestselling author Katrina Nannestad returns with her most masterful novel yet - a book to crack open your heart, a book to light you up inside, a book to love. ...Show more

Zen Heart: What I've Learned from Animals and Life by Mark Vette

$40.00 NZD

Category: Staff Picks - Louise

A cheeky baboon, a cockatoo sending a heading dog out to round up sheep, a family of pukekos crossing the road, a dog saying 'bugger', an octopus taking a photo. Think of an ad you love, or a New Zealand-made movie, and if it has an animal in it chances are Mark Vette was behind it. He's trained almost every species you can think of. But the famous animal behaviourist and trainer who captured global attention with 'Dogs Who Drive Cars' and 'Dogs Who Fly Planes' is not just an animal maestro. He's a long-time Buddhist, who brings to his relationships with animals a true emotional bond, enormous respect, and the sure knowledge that we humans are just one piece of this great, interconnected puzzle we call Life on Earth. This is his story, and the stories of the animals he has worked with over the decades. From a classic Kiwi childhood of outdoor activities and sport, with plenty of time on the farm, through a growing conviction that killing animals wasn't for him, to his embracing of Buddhism and his developing work with animals of all kinds, Mark's life and beliefs unfold in a thoroughly relatable way - with jaw-dropping and laugh-out-loud moments thrown in. ...Show more

Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi; Yusef Salaam

$22.99 NZD

Category: Real World

From award-winning, bestselling author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five comes a powerful YA novel in verse about a boy who is wrongfully incarcerated. Perfect for fans of the Noughts & Crosses series and The Hate U Give. One fateful night, an altercation in a gentrifying neighbourhood escalates into tragedy. 'Boys just being boys' turns out to be true only when those boys are white.    Suddenly, at just sixteen years old, Amal Shahid's bright future is upended: he is convicted of a crime he didn't commit and sent to prison. Despair and rage almost sink him until he turns to the refuge of his words, his art. This never should have been his story. But can he change it?    With spellbinding lyricism, award-winning author Ibi Zoboi and prison reform activist Yusef Salaam tell a moving and deeply profound story about how one boy is able to maintain his humanity and fight for the truth, in a system designed to strip him of both. ...Show more

The Tally Stick by Carl Nixon

$36.00 NZD

Category: NZ Authors | Reading Level: near fine

A compulsive and chilling novel about subjugation, survival and the meaning of family. The car containing the four sleeping children left the earth. From the top of the wooded bluff, where the rain-slick road had curved so treacherously, down to the swollen river at the base of the cliff, was easily six ty feet. There was no moon that night, only low, leaden cloud clogging the sky. As if suspended, the car hung in the air for a fraction - of a fraction - of a moment . . . John Chamberlain has brought his family to New Zealand from the UK. Before he starts his new job, he takes them on a driving holiday. The car skids over the road and hurtles off a cliff. The year is 1978. In 2010 the remains of John's older son have been discovered in a remote part of the West Coast, showing he lived for four years after the family disappeared. Found alongside him are his father's watch and what turns out to be a tally stick, a piece of wood scored across, marking items of debt. How had he survived and then died? Where was the rest of his family? And what did the tally stick signify? ...Show more

Brasswitch and Bot (#1 Rise of the Remarkables) by Gareth Ward

$22.99 NZD

Category: Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Series: The Rise of the Remarkables

Drawn into a world of prejudice, deceit and danger, Wrench must master her powers, knowing they offer her only hope for survival . . . if they don't destroy the world first. Screams surge along York's narrow Victorian streets as a run-away crackle-tram races toward disaster. Fearing an accident like the one that killed her parents, Brasswitch Wrench is forced to reveal her powers - a decision that will change her life forever. Recruited to the sinister department of Regulators who hunt down others like her, Wrench teams up with their maverick mechanical leader, Bot as they are tasked with halting the rise of the aberration threat. Until today, being called Brasswitch would have got you killed. Now, it might save your life. ...Show more

The Quick and the Dead by Cynric Temple-Camp

$39.99 NZD

Category: Biography

Dr Cynric Temple-Camp's suspense-filled, often Gothic story-telling ability captivated readers in his debut book, The Cause of Death. In the Quick and the Dead, New Zealand's self-confessed aficionado of death is back with more mysterious illnesses, gruesome murders, baffling crimes, and the other curio us, scarcely believable ways people meet their demise.The Quick and the Dead is also a book about life and the margins of survival - why some people live and others don't when faced with a seemingly similar peril. How much does luck, fate and chance play its part? What is the difference between life and death? What separates the quick and the dead? ...Show more

The Mystery of Henri Pick by David Foenkinos; Sam Taylor (translator)

$22.99 NZD

Category: General Fiction | Series: Walter Presents

By turns farcical and moving, The Mystery of Henri Pick is a fast-paced comic mystery enriched by a deep love of books – and of the authors who write them. In the small town of Crozon in Brittany, a library houses manuscripts that were rejected for publication; the faded dreams of aspiring writers. Vis iting while on holiday, young editor Delphine Despero is thrilled to discover a novel so powerful that she feels compelled to bring it back to Paris to publish it. The book is a sensation, prompting fevered interest in the identity of its author – apparently one Henri Pick, a now-deceased pizza chef from Crozon. Sceptics cry that the whole thing is a hoax: how could this man have written such a masterpiece? An obstinate journalist, Jean-Michel Rouche, heads to Brittany to investigate.... The Mystery of Henri Pick is the first novel in Pushkin Press' 'Walter Presents' series - all handpicked by Walter Iuzzolino from around the world. It has sold over 500,000 copies in France, been translated into 17 languages, and made into a successful French feature film.     ...Show more

Nancy Patulski's Favourite Stories

$24.99 NZD

Category: Gift Books

The Night of All Souls by Philippa Swan

$36.00 NZD

Category: General Fiction

In this highly entertaining novel, Edith Wharton is variously reimagined- as a host in the afterlife, a historical figure in a modern novella, and as an elusive presence in the pages of her own writing. But when a lifelong secret is exposed, it's almost too shocking to be true. Hugely acclaimed during her lifetime, writer Edith Wharton is back - with the most extraordinary opportunity. Summoned to a room in the afterlife, Edith finds the manuscript of a new novella inspired by her life. A letter from her one-time editor advises Edith to consider carefully whether to destroy the work or allow its publication. Is this a chance to correct her image of haughtiness and privilege, and to reignite interest in her writing? Edith begins reading the novella to her astonished companions; and what unfolds is a cautionary story of online fame. But as she gradually remembers the details of her life, Edith becomes fearful about what the work might reveal and is haunted by the words- The letters survive, and everything survives.  ...Show more

Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk

$17.99 NZD

Category: Chapter Books

The Newbery Honor-winning author of Wolf Hollow and Beyond the Bright Sea returns with the story of an unforgettable young heroine in Depression-era Maine. After the financial crash, Ellie and her family have lost nearly everything--including their home in town. Forced to start over, Ellie has found a welcome freedom, and a love of the natural world, in her new life on Echo Mountain. But there is little joy, even for Ellie, as her family struggles with the aftermath of an accident that left her father in a coma. An accident for which Ellie has accepted the unearned weight of blame.   Determined to help her father, Ellie will make her way to the top of the mountain in search of the healing secrets of a woman known only as "the hag." But the hag, and the mountain, still have many untold stories left to reveal and, with them, a fresh chance at happiness.   Critically acclaimed author Lauren Wolk weaves a stunning tale of resilience, persistence, and friendship across three generations of strong women, set against the rough and ragged beauty of the mountain they all call home. ...Show more

Come Again by Robert Webb

$32.99 NZD

Category: General Fiction

If you could do it all over again, would you? A recently widowed women is about to find out when she wakes up and finds herself eighteen again in this "compelling" story of second chances (Mail On Sunday). You can't fall in love for the first time twice ... Kate's husband Luke -- the man she loved from the moment she met him twenty-eight years ago -- died suddenly. Since then she has pushed away her friends, lost her job and everything is starting to fall apart. One day, she wakes up in the wrong room and in the wrong body. She is eighteen again but remembers everything. This is her college room in 1992. This is the first day of Freshers' Week. And this is the day she first meets Luke. But Luke is not the man that she lost: he's still a boy -- the annoying nineteen-year-old English student she first met. Kate knows how he died and that he's already ill. If they can fall in love again she might just be able to save him. She's going to try to do everything exactly the same ...   ...Show more