Unsheltered by Clare Moleta

$29.99 AUD

Category: Literature

As the resourceful, relentless Li tracks her lost daughter across a disintegrating country, the journey will test the limits of her trust, her hope and her love. Unsheltered will leave you wrung out and gasping. Relentlessly propulsive and profoundly moving, Unsheltered taps into some of our worst fears and most implacable motivations, marking the emergence of a fully-formed and urgent literary voice. Against a background of social breakdown and destructive weather, Unsheltered tells the story of a woman’s search for her daughter. Li never wanted to bring a child into a world like this but now that eight-year-old Matti is missing, she will stop at nothing to find her. As she crosses the great barren country alone and on foot, living on what she can find and fuelled by visions of her daughter just out of sight ahead, Li will have every instinct tested. She knows the odds against her: an uncompromising landscape, an uncaring system, time running out, and the risks of any encounters on the road. But her own failings and uncertainty might be the greatest obstacle of all. Because even if she finds her, how can she hope to shield Matti from the future? At times tender, at times terrifying, Unsheltered is an engrossing, unpredictable novel that keeps the reader in suspense all the way to the end. A brilliant feat of imagination that asks if our humanity is the only protection we have left, Unsheltered will affect you in ways a book hasn’t done in years.   ...Show more

The Willow Wren: A Novel by Philipp Schott

$29.99 AUD

Category: Literature

The touching and nuanced portrait of the rise and fall of Nazi Germany through the eyes of a resourceful German boy.Ludwig is an odd and introverted child, growing up in Hitler's Germany. While Ludwig's father, Wilhelm, is a senior Nazi and a true believer, Ludwig escapes the unfolding catastrophe by wi thdrawing into nature and books. Eventually, when the Allied bombing campaign intensifies, Ludwig is sent to a Hitler Youth camp, where his oddness makes him a target for bullying.As the war turns against Germany, the Hitler Youth camp becomes ever more severe and militaristic, and the atmosphere spirals towards chaos. After the Nazis abandon the camp, Ludwig returns home, and his father is presumed dead. With Ludwig's mother descending into depression, the 11-year-old bears increasing responsibility for the survival of the family as starvation sets in under Russian occupation. Soon, it will be impossible to leave the Russian zone, so Ludwig decides that he must rally his despondent mother and lead her and his three younger siblings in an escape attempt to the west.Based on a true story, The Willow Wren is a unique, touching exploration of extremism, resilience, and the triumph of the small.'Philipp Schott pulls off the considerable feat of creating empathy for his characters without ever resorting to easy excuses for their sometimes indefensible choices...a fine, nuanced storytelling achievement.' — Frederick Taylor, historian and bestselling author of Exorcising Hitler: The Occupation and Denazification of Germany ...Show more

Game of the Gods by Paolo Maurensig

$27.99 AUD

Category: Literature

In an ultimate feat of manipulation, the exceptionally talented chess player Malik is turned into a human pawn in a game of warfare which will decide the outcome of World War II. In 1930s British India, a humble servant learns the art of chaturanga, the ancient Eastern ancestor of chess. His natural tal ent soon catches the attention of the maharaja, who introduces him to the Western version of the game. Brought to England as the prince's pawn, Malik becomes a chess legend, winning the world championship and humiliating the British colonialists. His skills as a refined strategist eventually drag him into a strange game of warfare with far-reaching consequences. Inspired by the unlikely true story of chess master Malik Mir Sultan Khan, Game of the Gods is a fascinating tale of karma and destiny, by the author of the multimillion-copy bestseller The Lüneburg Variation. ...Show more

The Measure of Time by Gianrico Carofiglio, Howard Curtis

$19.99 AUD

Category: Literature | Series: Guido Guerrieri Ser.

The latest in the highly successful Guido Guerrieri series, shortlisted for the 2020 STREGA prize, Italy's most prestigious literary award. It is a tense courtroom drama set in Southern Italy, but also a tale about passion and the passage of time. Guerrieri had fallen in love decades earlier with Lorenz a, a beautiful older woman who was in his eyes sophisticated and intellectual. She made wonderful love and opened his mind to high literature, but ultimately treated him as a plaything and discarded him.One spring afternoon Lorenza shows up in Guerrieri's office. Her son Jacopo, a small-time delinquent, stands convicted of the first-degree murder of a local drug dealer. Her trial lawyer has died, so for the appeal, she turns to Guerrieri. He is not convinced of the innocence of Lorenza's son, nor does he have fond memories of how their relationship ended two decades earlier. Nevertheless, he accepts the case; perhaps to pay a melancholy homage to the ghosts of his youth. ...Show more

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

$22.99 AUD

Category: Literature

RUNNER UP PULITZER PRIZE 2019 WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2019 FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARDS A New York Times Top Ten Best Book of 2018 'I loved this book' Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to p ull off an amazing coup: bringing an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDs epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying and after his friend Nico's funeral, he finds his partner is infected, and that he might even have the virus himself. The only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago epidemic, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways the AIDS crisis affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. Yale and Fiona's stories unfold in incredibly moving and sometimes surprising ways, as both struggle to find goodness in the face of disaster. WINNER OF THE STONEWALL BOOK AWARD A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE BOOK A BUZZFEED BOOK OF THE YEAR ...Show more

Painting Time by Maylis de Kerangal

$32.99 AUD

Category: Literature

Hamnet (PB) by Maggie O'Farrell

$22.99 AUD

Category: Literature

WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION - THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Richly sensuous... something special' The Sunday Times'A thing of shimmering wonder' David MitchellTWO EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE. A LOVE THAT DRAWS THEM TOGETHER. A LOSS THAT THREATENS TO TEAR THEM APART.On a summer's day in 1596, a y oung girl in Stratford-upon-Avon takes to her bed with a sudden fever. Her twin brother, Hamnet, searches everywhere for help. Why is nobody at home? Their mother, Agnes, is over a mile away, in the garden where she grows medicinal herbs. Their father is working in London. Neither parent knows that Hamnet will not survive the week. Hamnet is a novel inspired by the son of a famous playwright: a boy whose life has been all but forgotten, but whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays ever written. ...Show more

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami

$19.99 AUD

Category: Literature

"Growing up in the suburbs in post-war Japan, it seemed to Hajime that everyone but him had brothers and sisters. His sole companion was Shimamoto, also an only child. Together they spent long afternoons listening to her father's record collection. But when his family moved away, the two lost touch. ow Hajime is in his thirties. After a decade of drifting he has found happiness with his loving wife and two daughters, and success running a jazz bar. Then Shimamoto reappears. She is beautiful, intense, enveloped in mystery. Hajime is catapulted into the past, putting at risk all he has in the present." ...Show more

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami; Jay Rubin (Translator)

$19.99 AUD

Category: Literature

"Toru Okada's cat has disappeared. His wife is growing more distant every day. Then there are the increasingly explicit telephone calls he has recently been receiving. As this compelling story unfolds, the tidy suburban realities of Okada's vague and blameless life, spent cooking, reading, listening to jazz and opera and drinking beer at the kitchen table, are turned inside out, and he embarks on a bizarre journey, guided (however obscurely) by a succession of characters, each with a tale to tell." ...Show more

The Committed (#2 The Sympathizer) by Viet Thanh Nguyen

$32.99 AUD

Category: Literature

The long-awaited new novel from one of America's most highly regarded contemporary writers, The Committed follows the Sympathizer as he arrives in Paris as a refugee. There he and his blood brother Bon try to escape their pasts and prepare for their futures by turning their hands to capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. No longer in physical danger, but still inwardly tortured by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, and struggling to assimilate into a dominant culture, the Sympathizer is both charmed and disturbed by Paris. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals and politicians who frequent dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese "aunt," he finds not just stimulation for his mind but also customers for his merchandise - but the new life he is making has dangers he has not foreseen, from the oppression of the state, to the self-torture of addiction, to the seemingly unresolvable paradox of how he can reunite his two closest friends, men whose worldviews put them in absolute opposition. Both literary thriller and brilliant novel of ideas, The Committed is a blistering portrayal of commitment and betrayal that will cement Viet Thanh Nguyen's position in the firmament of American letters. ...Show more

American Dirt (PB) by Jeanine Cummins

$22.99 AUD

Category: Literature

'Breathtaking... I haven't been so entirely consumed by a book for years' Telegraph 'I couldn't put it down. I'll never stop thinking about it' Ann Patchett FEAR KEEPS THEM RUNNING. HOPE KEEPS THEM ALIVE. Vivid, visceral, utterly compelling, AMERICAN DIRT is the unforgettable story of a mother and son's attempt to cross the US-Mexico border. A sensation from the moment it published, it continues to create debate and ignite conversation globally. Yesterday, Lydia had a bookshop. Yesterday, Lydia was married to a journalist. Yesterday, she was with everyone she loved most in the world. Today, her eight-year-old son Luca is all she has left. For him, she will carry a machete strapped to her leg. For him, she will leap onto the roof of a high speed train. For him, she will find the strength to keep running. ...Show more

Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen

$29.99 AUD

Category: Literature

"Gripping and illuminating . . . At the heart of Te-Ping Chen's remarkable debut lies a question all too relevant in 21st Century America: What is freedom?" --Jennifer Egan A debut collection from an extraordinary new talent that vividly gives voice to the men and women of modern China and its diaspora Gripping and compassionate, Land of Big Numbers depicts the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled--messily, violently, but still beautifully--into the present.   Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen's stories coalesce into a portrait of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer, the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk, high-reward temptations of China's volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit, trapped for no reason, on a subway platform for months, waiting for official permission to leave.   With acute social insight, Te-Ping Chen layers years of experience reporting on the ground in China with incantatory prose in this taut, surprising debut, proving herself both a remarkable cultural critic and an astonishingly accomplished new literary voice. ...Show more