OUR Picks

Here are our latest recommendations. This is where you can learn more about what we’re reading and loving and what you, our customers, are buying.

WHAT WE'RE READING

Emilie: Long-Lost Fairy Tales by Kate Forsyth (out now)

Gavin: Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel (out June)

Hannah: Butter by Asako Yuzuki (out now)

Joanna: Mrs Gulliver by Valerie Martin (out late March)

Kasey: Butter by Asako Yuzuki (out now)

Molly: Alphabetical Diaries by Sheila Heti (out April)

Rose: Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez (out now)

OUR TOP 10 BESTSELLERS FOR MARCH

BOOKS WE LOVE

Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K Reilly

Greta and Valdin Vladisavljevic are Māori-Russian-Catalonian siblings, both unhappily in love with people who may or may not be entirely unsuitable for them. With the love and interference of their idiosyncratic family, they must assert themselves and their value.

This very, very funny book is an utter treat. Reilly’s witty, observational humour not only makes Greta and Valdin one of the most entertaining novels you’ll read this year, it also facilitates exploration of queer identity and joy. Come for the laughs, stay for the commentary on multiracial identity in Aoteara/New Zealand and the complexity of familial tangles that simultaneously bind and support. Hannah

Anita de Monte Laughs Last

Inspired by the life and death of conceptual artist Ana Mendieta, this novel is a page-turner with a question of justice at its heart: who gets to be remembered, and why? Anita is an on-the-rise Cuban artist murdered by her lauded sculptor husband in 1985, narrating her fury beyond the grave. In 1998, Raquel, an art history student who feels like an outsider at her Ivy League university, navigates the intersection of class, race and gender as she falls in love with a wealthier, well-connected young artist. The thrill of the story is in waiting for Raquel to uncover Anita's story and make the connection to her own life. ROSE

Practice by Rosalind Brown

This cellular-level dissection of a day in the life, and mind, of a young student, while she wrestles with Shakespeare’s sonnets, is a compelling and thrilling novel. Annabel's attempts to find clarity in her writing are hindered by the dualities of her life, the schism between an intellectual existence and the demands of her animal body. Brown's great skill is in detailing the tracks our thoughts run toward unbidden, the tributaries of our subconscious, and how much of our lives, and its eternal dualities, is internalised, never to be seen even by those closest to us. GAVIN

This Ragged Grace by Octavia Bright

Octavia Bright is the co-host of one of my favourite podcasts, Literary Friction, and I've been waiting for this book for some time. It is such a brave, moving story full of wisdom about her recovery from alcohol addiction and her beloved father’s decline into Alzheimer’s at the same time. She writes so honestly about the chaos and denial of addiction and so beautifully about loss and, ultimately, death. I really loved it. Jo

Vladivostok Circus by Elisa Shua Dusapin

I find it difficult to resist any book set in a circus! There is something fascinating about the bright showiness of a big top performance juxtaposed with the secrecy of backstage life; intense glamour sitting beside what must be a steely, perhaps monotonous dedication to craft. Dusapin with her trademark delicate, evocative descriptions is the perfect author to bring this rarefied atmosphere to life. Our guide to the world of cirque is fellow outsider Nathalie, a costume designer hired to work with the three performers set to execute the deadly Russian Bar Routine at a festival in Ulan Ude. There is a misty beauty to the writing in Vladivostok Circus, but also a tight thread of tension held throughout. Breathtaking. Emilie

We All Lived in Bondi Then by Georgia Blain

This collection of stories by the blazing and formidable talent that is Georgia Blain, published posthumously, track the ordinary madnesses, the bliss and the sorrow it is to be in relationship with others, as the characters reel from extremis to pleasure, ascension to despair. Blood and guts. As an avid Blain fan, it was a treasure and a delight to read new words from a beautiful brain taken from this world too soon. MOLLY

The Caretaker: A Novel by Ron Rash

I devoured this unflinching portrayal of humanity in one sitting. Seventeen-year-old Jacob’s prosperous parents are obsessed with him living the life they’ve plotted for him, but didn’t account for him falling in love with the 16-year-old hotel-maid, Naomi. Disinherited and conscripted, Jacob is shipped to Korea, while pregnant Naomi is left under the watch of Jacob’s close friend Blackburn Gant - a target of ridicule due to the lasting impact of polio. Rash’s usual affection for midcentury Appalachia underpins The Caretaker, but so does a harsh undercurrent of class bias, stigma and intolerance. Kasey