Books Archive

Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit

By Emma Neale

September 11, 2025

Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit, the new collection by Otepoti poet and writer Emma Neale, is fascinated by our doubleness. Prompted by the rich implications in a line from Joseph Brodsky – ‘The real history of consciousness starts with one’s first lie’ – it combines a personal memoir of childhood lies with an exploration of wider social deceptions.

From the unwitting tricks our minds play, to the mischievous pinch of literary pastiche; from the corruptions of imperialism or abuse, to the dreams and stories we weave for our own survival, these poems catalogue scenes that seem to suggest our species could be named for its subterfuge as much as for its wisdom. Yet at the core of the collection are also some tenets to hold to: deep bonds of love; the renewal children offer; a hunger for social justice; and the sharp reality that nature presents us with, if we are willing to look.

Some Helpful Models of Grief

By Hana Pera Aoake

September 11, 2025

A composite chronicle of various loves—desired, lost, or never realised—and their corresponding joys and griefs against the backdrops of contemporary art and late capitalism. These poems radiate with Aoake’s characteristic force, tenderness, intelligence, and humour, often all within the very same breath. The personal is the political is the personal.

Stone & Sky

By Ben Aaronovitch

September 4, 2025

‘This isn’t London. The rules are different up here, and so are the allegiances.’

Detective Sergeant Peter Grant takes a much-needed holiday up in Scotland. And he’ll need one when this is over…

If more’s the merrier, then it’s ecstatic as his partner Beverley, their young twins, his mum, dad, his dad’s band and their dodgy manager all tag along. Even his boss, DCI Thomas Nightingale, takes in the coastal airs as he trains Peter’s cousin Abigail in the arcane arts.

And they’ll need them too, because Scotland’s Granite City has more than its fair share of history and mystery, myth … and murder.

When a body is found in a bus stop, fresh from the sea, the case smells fishy from the off.

Something may be stirring beyond the bay – but there’s something far stranger in the sky…

Martyr!

By Kaveh Akbar

September 4, 2025

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.

Wolf Hour

By Jo Nesbo

September 3, 2025

This killer has a story.

When a small-time crook is shot down in the streets of Minneapolis, all signs point to a lone wolf, a sniper who has vanished into thin air.

To tell it, he needs to get caught.

When the shooter strikes again, it’s maverick detective Bob Oz they call in to crack the case. They don’t think this victim will be the last.

And this wolf wants the world to know…

As the body count rises, Oz suspects something even more sinister is at play. And the closer he gets to the truth, the more disturbed he becomes. Because this serial killer reminds him of someone dangerous: himself.

He’s only just getting started.

Wolf Hour is a gritty standalone thriller packed with unexpected twists, dark secrets and bubbling personal and political tension, from the king of the cliffhanger.

The Book of Guilt

By Catherine Chidgey

September 3, 2025

England, 1979. Vincent, Lawrence and William are the last remaining residents of a secluded New Forest home, part of the government’s Sycamore Scheme. Every day, the triplets do their chores, play their games and take their medicine, under the watchful eyes of three mothers: Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night.

Their nightmares are recorded in The Book of Dreams.
Their lessons are taken from The Book of Knowledge.
And their sins are reported in The Book of Guilt.

All the boys want is to be sent to the Big House in Margate, where they imagine a life of sun, sea and fairground rides. But, as the government looks to shut down the Sycamore Homes, the triplets begin to question everything they have been told.

Gradually surrendering its dark secrets, The Book of Guilt is a profoundly unnerving exploration of belonging in a world where some lives are valued less than others.

Flashlight

By Susan Choi

September 2, 2025

The astonishing story of one family swept up in the tides of the twentieth century, ranging from post-war Japan to suburban America and the North Korean regime

One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town while her father Serk, a Korean émigré, completes an academic secondment from his American university. When Louisa wakes hours later, she has washed up on the beach and her father is missing, probably drowned.

The disappearance of Louisa’s father shatters their small family unit. As Louisa and her American mother Anne return to the US, this traumatic event reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened to Serk slowly unravels.

Undoctored: The Story of a Medic Who Ran Out of Patients.

By Adam Kay

September 2, 2025

This is Going to Hurt was the publishing phenomenon of the century, read by many millions, loved by at least fifty of them, and adapted into a major TV series. But it was only part of the story.

By turns hilarious, heartbreaking and humbling, Undoctored is about what happens when a doctor hangs up his scrubs, but medicine refuses to let go of him. It’s about an extraordinary medical school education. It’s about opening old wounds and examining the present-day scars.It’s about hospital admissions and personal ones. It’s about blowing up your life and stitching it back together.It’s about being a doctor and being a patient.It’s about 300 pages long. Undoctored is Adam Kay’s funniest and most moving book yet – an astonishing portrait of a life in and out of medicine, from one of Britain’s finest storytellers.