NEW BOOKS
HUSH
Anna Scaife
Shot to no 7 in the first week on sale in Nielsen's bestseller list.
We turned and sprinted until our lungs stung in our chests. I kept my eyes on the road. Headlights circled in the distance as we crossed the paddocks. I tasted acid, like the candied ginger Nan served at Christmas that burned your throat. If she knew we were out there with a knife getting mixed up with the Mitchells, she'd have killed us.
Anna Scaife, in eleven short stories, describes the sudden fear, the macabre, the middle-age feminist rage, and the unexpected tragedies, which can befall everyday New Zealanders.
Pammy was the youngest of the [knitting] club members at sixty-eight. She dyed her shoulder-length hair blonde, and her cheeks were crosshatched with deep creases from years of smoking. 'She's a climber,' Helen said. 'It'll come in handy.' 'What does she climb?' 'Anything. She shot up my apricot tree like a ferret the time my sun umbrella got away on us.'
9781067086541
Published September 2026
$40
HOW TO PAINT A NUDE
Sam Mahon
Shortlisted for the 2026 Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize for Fiction
A Belarusian refugee and a local artist meet for coffee every Tuesday in pre-quake Christchurch to discuss art, romance, political oppression, the degradation of our natural environment and much more.
This sly and wry reflection from artist and provocateur Sam Mahon abounds with meta-fictional games and killer one-liners.
Mahon may have changed some names but he doesn't pull punches: Sometimes it is an author's duty to protect the guilty."
ISBN 9781067086527
Published October 2025
$40
HOW TO PAINT A NUDE Sam Mahon A Belarusian refugee and a local artist meet for coffee every Tuesday in pre-quake Christchurch to discuss art, romance, political oppression, the degadation of our natural environment and much more. This sly and wry reflection from artist and provocateur Sam Mahon abounds with meta-fictional games and killer one-liners. Mahon may have changed some names but he doesn't pull punches: 'Sometimes it is an author's duty to protect the guilty
THE ART OF COLONISATION - IMAGES OF EUROPE'S ENCOUNTERS WITH NEW ZEALAND AOTEAROA
Paul Moon
Professor Paul Moon is one of New Zealand's most prolific authors; his biography on photographer Ans Westra garnered glowing reviews. His meticulous research in this book shows through selected art works how imperial art became a form of colonisation by colour: 'Artists in New Zealand in the colonial era, not tied to a state vision, tried to flex their individual aesthetic and ideological perspectives.' A spectacular production both historically and aesthetically with 20 short, fast-paced chapters. Artists include Holle, Sporing, Hodges, Earle, Tupaia, Heaphy, Watkins, Steele, and more.
ISBN 9781738583690
Published January 2026.
Approx 25 colour plates.
KIM - A JOURNEY BETWEEN TWO WORLDS Kim Rangiaonui Logan
Born Māori (Ngātikahungunu), raised Pakeha, Kim Rangiaonui Logan's father was commander in D Company, 28th Māori Battallion, but returned from the war a damaged man. He and his wife were unable to cope with two small boys, Kim and Wilfred. Their childhood was bleak and cruel, so Kim climbed and climbed - Everest, Aorangi Mt Cook, anywhere, he climbed away from his pain to success with mountaineers like Peter Hillary, and later as a guide and survivor, notably the chopper crash in the Mark Inglis/Phil Doole rescue. Always climbing, his marriage crashed, but then he met Glennys and his life turned around. Now in his seventies, living in Queenstown and reconnecting with his Māori world, this is no misery memoir, nor merely another mountaineering book.
ISBN 9781067086510
Published November 2025.
