| Memorial Theatre Foyer Back to School One-stop Shop Between 23rd February and 13th March this year vicbooks will be operating a "one-stop-shop" for undergraduate courses, in the Memorial Theatre Foyer. You will be able to buy all your texts and notes plus a selection of study books, stationary and snacks from this site and all usual payment methods will be accepted. Our aim is to cut down on queuing times and also allow our regular customers to enjoy shopping in our main shops which will be open as usual. *If you are picking up a web order; wish to buy or sell secondhand books; are enrolled for postgraduate study; receive a training incentive allowance; or Work and Income are paying for your books, please visit either the Kelburn or Pipitea shop, depending on which campus your courses are based at. |
Wars Without End: The Land Wars in Nineteenth Century New Zealand by Danny Keenan $40.00 Penguin Books Keenan describes the bloody fighting between Maori and Imperial forces in the 1840s and 1860s, during the so-called "Land Wars". He examines the role played by iwi who sided with the colonial forces, placing both the antagonistic and fratricidal conflicts in context as part of a wider struggle to protect, possess and control the land - an issue which remains unresolved today.Buy now | Fast-Talking P.I. by Selina Tusitala Marsh $24.99 AUP
Self-defined as a "writer of tales" Marsh fills her poetry with stories from the lives of herself and her family. But the appeal of her debut also lies in the often formal poetic structure which gives extra weight to her images and words. Buy now |
History of Histories: Epics Chronicles Romances & Inquiries from Herodotus & Thucydides to the 20th Century by John Burrow $35.00 Penguin Books Burrow presents the practice of history as an integral part of human society and culture. The study of the past as an intellectual pursuit is only a small part of its importance. As various "schools" of history have shown, interpretations of the past can be used as the basis for nation-building, social revolution and reconciliation, but also for propaganda, and justification for imperialism and genocide. Buy now | Galileo Antichrist by Michael White $32.99 Phoenix The Catholic Church's eventual denunciation of the Roman Catholic Galileo as a heretic came at a time when religious authority was increasingly threatened by the discoveries of the "natural philosophers". Galileo could have escaped martyrdom by backing down on some of his more controversial theories, but he did not. White investigates the circumstances of Galileo's trial, drawing on new evidence from the Vatican. Buy now |
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz $27.99 Faber & Faber
Geeky, overweight Oscar lives with his Dominican family in New Jersey, lusting after impossible girls and failing to escape from a family curse. A trip back to the Dominican Republic might be the turning point in his life - but it just might destroy him in the process. Hilarious, slangy, sad and profane all at once, this is an outstanding novel. Buy now My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories From Chekhov to Munro edited by Jeffrey Eugenides $24.99 Fourth Estate
A collection of some of the best classic and contemporary fiction on the theme of love in many forms - romantic, erotic, impossible, eternal and extinguished. Stories and extracts by writers from the time of Catullus convey a range of styles and moods. Buy now UFO in Her Eyes by Xiaolu Guo $34.99 Chatto & Windus
Kwok Yun becomes a local celebrity when she spots a spinning disc above the rice fields. She receives a large cheque in thanks from a westerner she helps, but as her village is over-run by security agents and UFO-opportunists, she becomes more and more concerned for her sidelined neighbours and their counterparts elsewhere in rural China. Buy now | The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway $26.99 Chatto & Windus
Superficially about a misfit gang of mercenary environmental troubleshooters, this quite dazzling book grapples with ideology, expediency, loyalty, the politics of identity and inclusion and a version of the eternal pirates versus ninjas dilemma, all within the context of a worst-case-scenario world, where everyone's nightmares have the potential to actually come true. Funny, scary and tightly plotted over its 600 pages, this book is a true original and highly recommended. Buy now The Road by Cormac McCarthy $27.99 Picador Film edition
Scarred by their pasts, a man and his son trek through an unforgivingly arid American landscape, trying to reach the coast. The father tries to help his son feel some hope for the future, but their prospects are bleak, and the rare fellow travellers they encounter only threaten further devastation. A film is planned for release this year. Buy now Girl on the Landing by Paul Torday $38.99 Weidenfeld & Nicholson
A chance glimpse of what he believes to be a woman in a green dress in a painting - but which nobody else can see - is the first clue Michael has that his grip on reality may be slipping. As he starts to question the way he lives his life, his wife Elizabeth - who had originally married him for his steadiness and responsibility - finds herself falling in love with him. But can their newly awakened relationship hold together when everything Michael thought he knew about himself and the world seems to be coming apart? Buy now |