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General Fiction Books -1-
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Still Here - Linda Grant
Published by Abacus (2004). Paperback in excellent, as new condition. 376pp. NZ $7.50 / P & P: B Alix, arrogant, middle-aged and angry comes home to the derelict port of Liverpool as her mother lies dying. Irritably resigned to living alone for the rest of her life she suddenly finds herself erotically attracted to a stranger. Joseph is an American architect who has come to the city to build a hotel. Refusing to accept that his wife has left him or the trauma of a war he once fought in, the question is whether these survivors of the battles of the Seventies are meant for each other or not... 
The Tree - Judy Pascoe
Publisher: Pier 9 (2010). Paperback in excellent, as NEW condition. 170pp . NZ $6.50 / P & P: B In a voice reminiscent of Scout Finch, the narrator of "To Kill a Mockingbird", Simone observes with candour and fresh insight the ways in which her mother, brothers, neighbours, and community deal with the death of her father. While her mother stares blankly into space, functioning only on the most basic level, and her older brother buries himself in schoolwork, Simone conceives the idea that her father’s spirit lives in the tree in the backyard. She can go out there, climb up and sit in the tree’s branches, and listen as her father talks to her... 
True Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet - Lola Douglas
Hardback with d/w in NEW condition. 263pp . Penguin Book (2006). NZ $6.00 / P & P: B Morgan Carter is a washed-up Hollywood has-been at sixteen. A child prodigy, she fell into the whole Hollywood lifestyle—wild parties, drugs, booze, and all. But Morgan takes it too far and almost dies. After going through six months of detox and therapy, she assumes a new identity as Claudia Miller and is sent to Ft. Wayne, Indiana to experience a "normal" adolescence in a regular Midwestern high school. The idea is to somehow survive her year of banishment, return to Hollywood at the end of the school year, write a tell-all book, and stage a tremendous comeback onto the Hollywood scene... 
The Distinguished Guest - Sue Miller
Flamingo(1996). Large paperback in very good condition. 282pp. NZ $5.50 / P & P: B This profound and moving story of a mother and son, written by the author of "The Good Mother", touches the deepest concerns about love, art, family, and life. At the age of seventy-two, Lily Roberts became a national celebrity on writing her first book - a spiritual memoir. But her new-found fame was not well received by her son Alan and wayward daughter Clary, both profoundly disturbed by Lily's intimate revelations about her married life... 
Rhode Island Blues - Faye Weldon
Paperback in excellent condition. Flamingo/Harper Collins (2001). 330pp. NZ $5.00 / P & P: A Smart, sexy, and infinitely charming, Rhode Island Blues tells the story of Sophia Moore, a loveless and guarded thirty-four-year-old film editor in London who believes that her only living relative is her stormy and wild grandmother Felicity. Troubled by her mother's long-ago suicide and her father's abandonment, Sophia overworks, incessantly contemplates her past, and continues a flat sexual affair with the famous director of her latest film. But when she travels to Rhode Island to help Felicity settle into a retirement centre, she begins to unravel mysteries about her family history while Felicity learns to gamble, falls in love, and uncovers the truth about the centre's evil nurse Dawn. 
Sea Glass - Anita Shreve
Large format paperback in excellent condition. Black Sparrow Books (2010). 148pp. NZ $5.50 / P & P: B In the textile-manufacturing region of New Hampshire in 1929, newlyweds Honora and Sexton Beecher wrestle with all the wonders and challenges that young couples have always faced. They've just purchased a house near the ocean that needs a lot of work, but the couple is dedicated to making it a home. When the economy fails and a single unscrupulous act perpetrated by Sexton is revealed, more than love will be required to keep the marriage from collapsing under the weight of this betrayal... 
Exodus - Julie Bertagna
Picador (2002). Paperback in excellent condition. 337pp. NZ $6.50 / P & P: A It is 2099 - and the world is gradually drowning, as mighty Arctic ice floes melt, the seas rise, and land disappears forever beneath storm-tossed waves. For 15-year-old Mara, her family and community, huddled on the fast-disappearing island of Wing, the new century brings flight. Packed into tiny boats, a terrifying journey begins to a bizarre city that rises into the sky, built on the drowned remains of the ancient city of Glasgow. But even here there is no safety and, shut out of the city, Mara realizes they are asylum-seekers in a world torn between high-tech wizardry and the most primitive injustice. To save her people, Mara must not only find a way into the city but also search for a new land and a new home... 
Soul Catcher - Frank Herbert
Paperback in excellent condition. Published by NEL (1988). 222pp. NZD: 5.00 / P & P : A Katsuk, a militant Native American student, kidnaps 13-year-old David Marshall—the son of the US Undersecretary of State. The two flee into the deepest wilds of the Pacific Northwest, where they must survive together as teams of hunters try to track them. David begins to feel a growing bond of respect for his captor, even as he struggles to escape. What the boy does not know, however, is that he has been chosen as an innocent from the white world for an ancient sacrifice of vengeance. And Katsuk may be divinely inspired . . . or simply insane. This is a story of vengeance and sacrifice. In the conflicted anti-hero, one may see many truths to the feelings harboured by those who were conquered. Many Native American myths are touched upon; e.g. that the bee does not haphazardly sting its victim, rather it chooses that person. 
The Shadowed Bed - Jack Clemo
NZ $3.50 / P & P: A Paperback in very good condition. Lion Publishing (1986). 222pp. Bert's face became dark and ugly, his arm jerked up - but it was not to strike. He pulled a red handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his cheek. In the Cornish claywork village of Cam Veor, sinister, occult forces are at work among the villagers. Over a single weekend, when the village is cut off from the outside world by a landslide, its conflicts reach flash-point. Then one of the characters central to the designs of evil is decisively released from its hypnotic hold over her. In Jack Clemo's powerfully symbolic novel, the industrial scene takes on cosmic significance as the lives of the villagers are changed by warring magnetic forces... Jack Clemo, original name Reginald John Clemo is an English poet and author whose physical sufferings—he became deaf about 1936 and blind in 1955—influenced his work. 
The Poseidon Adventure - Paul Gallico
Paperback in excellent condition. 470pp. Arrow Books (2006). NZ $3.50 / P & P: A This Gallico classic novel is the exciting story of a luxury ocean liner that capsizes after it is struck by a colossal tidal wave, leaving its survivors to fend for themselves and find a way out. It is a study of people and human nature. What the author has done is assemble a collection of characters (a few more than in the movie), a number of whom do not like one another--especially antogonist/protagonist Mike Rogo and Rev. Scott, respectively. They are placed in a life and death situation in which they are forced to interact on more than a social level--they are forced to rely on one another. As the story unfolds, so does the psyche of each character and there is not a one who's personal history is not explored. As the struggle to survive becomes increasingly more demanding and life threatening, we see relationships unravel as each character's demons and vulnerabilities are exposed. Tensions, resentments and bitterness bubbling just beneath the surface of the characters prior to the capsizing come welling forth, sometimes violently, throughout the course of the story. For better or for worse, all are changed forever by the end. Most notably, we see a the facade of the "nuclear family" torn down for good as the Shelby family is ripped brutally apart. Unlike the cardboard characters of Susan and Robin in the movie, the two are more developed in this book, along with parents, Richard and Jane. Susan suffers a violent encounter with a crew member and Robin is lost forever, while simultaneously the marriage of their parents Richard and Jane fall to pieces before the eyes of all. 
Touching the Sky - Susan Madison
Paperback in NEW condition. Published by Harper Collins (2002). 446pp. NZ $5.00 / P & P: A Melissa Sherman was twenty-two when she left New York and moved to the quiet town of Butterfield, amid the rugged mountains and lakes of Vermont, to escape the pain of a broken heart. Now she has built a life for herself and seems to have everything she could wish for. But she still feels a corrosive sense of loneliness. Something is missing from her life. When she befriends Lisa who has recently moved to the country with her husband Ben, Mel cannot help but be reminded of everything she has lost. But when Lisa’s life is shattered by tragedy, and Ben turns to Mel for reassurance, Mel herself is drawn to him with an all-consuming passion that precludes all else. TOUCHING THE SKY is an insightful and emotional tale that is guaranteed to tug at your heart. 
Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
Large paperback in excellent condition. Picador (1997). 310pp. NZ $5.00 / P & P: A Bridget Jones's Diary, the first book in the Bridget Jones series. Meet Bridget Jones—a 30-something Singleton who is certain she would have all the answers if she could: - a. lose 7 pounds - b. stop smoking - c. develop Inner Poise "123 lbs. (how is it possible to put on 4 pounds in the middle of the night? Could flesh have somehow solidified becoming denser and heavier? Repulsive, horrifying notion), alcohol units 4 (excellent), cigarettes 21 (poor but will give up totally tomorrow), number of correct lottery numbers 2 (better, but nevertheless useless)..." Bridget Jones' Diary is the devastatingly self-aware, laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of Bridget's permanent, doomed quest for self-improvement — a year in which she resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1.5 inches, visit the gym three times a week not just to buy a sandwich, form a functional relationship with a responsible adult, and learn to program the VCR. Over the course of the year, Bridget loses a total of 72 pounds but gains a total of 74. She remains, however, optimistic. Through it all, Bridget will have you helpless with laughter, and — like millions of readers the world round — you'll find yourself shouting, "Bridget Jones is me!" 
Bridget Jones : The Edge of Reason - H. Fielding
Large paperback in excellent condition. Picador (2004). 422pp. NZ $5.50 / P & P: A Bridget Jones #2 - The Edge of Reason The Wilderness Years are over! But not for long. At the end of Bridget Jones's Diary, Bridget hiccuped off into the sunset with man-of-her-dreams Mark Darcy. Now, in The Edge of Reason, she discovers what it is like when you have the man of your dreams actually in your flat and he hasn't done the washing-up, not just the whole of this week, but ever. Lurching through a morass of self-help-book theories and mad advice from Jude and Shazzer, struggling with a boyfriend-stealing ex-friend with thighs like a baby giraffe, an 8ft hole in the living-room wall, a mother obsessed with boiled-egg peelers, and a builder obsessed with large reservoir fish, Bridget embarks on a spiritual epiphany, which takes her from the cappuccino queues of Notting Hill to the palm- and magic-mushroom-kissed shores of ... 
The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith
Large paperback in excellent condition. Penguin Books (2002). 420pp. NZ $5.00 / P & P: B By a strange coincidence in life Alex-Li is a half Asian half Caucasian of Jewish Religion. As a teenager, during the visit to a wrestling event with two other friends he meets another boy who opens to him the world of autograph collecting. Unfortunately that same day his father days of a heart-attack. Years later Alex-Li is a professional autograph collector and carries a completely chaotic life. He is still surrounded by the same friends of that day. All three try to make their own strides in life with some regular (Call-centre employee at an insurance) to uncommon jobs (rabbi), as usual they know better what Alex-Li should do than himself. There is Esther, the sister of one of Alex-Li friends who worships Alex-Li and is his irregular love. In his profession Alex-Li meets a wide range of strange people, who are colourful characters on its own. The big dream of Alex-Li is to get an autograph of an old Hollywood star named Kitty Alexander... When one day an autograph of her appears in the kitchen confusion reigns and the origin of the autograph remains a mystery. A trip to New York will become crucial to solve this mystery while paranoia increases when the celebration of the anniversary of Alex-Li's father comes closer... The Autograph Man is a deeply funny existential tour around the hollow trappings of modernity: celebrity, cinema, and the ugly triumph of symbol over experience. It offers further proof that Zadie Smith is one of the most staggeringly talented writers of her generation. 
Faith Without Doubt - Anna Blundy
Large paperback in excellent condition. Headline (2005). 344pp. NZ $4.50 / P & P: A Second Book in the Faith Zanetti series. 2003. War-torn Baghdad: Saddam Hussein may be hiding in a hole, but foreign correspondent Faith Zanetti is once again at the heart of the action. And once again, she's loving it: the heat, the rush, the danger -- dare she say it -- the excitement. But there is one bombshell that even Faith isn't prepared for. Green-eyed weapons inspector Joshua F.Klein is powerful, wise and seductive, and he's also got the stories Faith needs. Standing under fire with this man, she feels safer than she's ever felt before. But in fact, she's in more danger than ever -- buffeted by passion for a man whose allegiances are as mysterious as he is elusive. Is she covering the sodding war or is she losing her mind? With fat photographer Don McCaughrean, hard as nails Carly Posner and her on-off lover Eden Jones, Faith plunges headlong into the war on Saddam and the battle for her own sanity... 
Wickerby - An Urban Pastoral by Charles Siebert
Hardback with pictorial d/j, both in excellent, near new condition. Crown Publishers (1998). 216pp. NZ $7.50 / P & P: B Against the backdrop of a tumbledown Brooklyn neighbourhood, Charles Siebert, a native Brooklynite and long time city-dweller, reflects upon the five months he has just spent at Wickerby, an old, collapsing log cabin in the woods of Canada. In vivid, lyrical prose, Siebert relates the events that prompted his sudden departure to Wickerby, and, while recounting the details of his isolated existence there, arrives at a series of stunningly original insights that explore and often explode the classic Romantic distinctions between city and country, man-made and natural. Along the way, the book's episodic, wide-ranging narrative takes us from Brooklyn's rooftops, where "pigeon mumblers" chase their flocks into the sky, to Albert, Wickerby's reclusive caretaker who pilfers the cabin's artifacts for his own yard sales. In what emerges as a refreshing subversion of the typical log cabin book, this beautifully composed account of a journey away from the city ultimately allows us to view the city anew: not as the traditional antagonist of the natural world, but as a logical and inevitable outgrowth of that world, an entity as wondrous and awe-inspiring as anything found in nature. 
Josh Lawton - Melvyn Bragg
Hardback with pictorial d/j both in very good condition. Published by Hodder and Stoughton (1992). 207pp. NZ $5.50 / P & P: B Both a contemporary love story and a portrayal of innocence brutally curtailed, this novel charts the rites of passage of a young Cumbrian who falls in love, marries, fathers a child and is then betrayed. JOSH LAWTON, a young Cumbrian orphan and farm worker, is an exceptionally good man. Strong and athletic, he is trained to be a fell runner by Cedric, a garrulous ex-soldier who takes Josh under his wing. But Cedric is alienated when Josh falls in love with Maureen, a worldly girl from the neighbouring town, marries her and fathers a child. However, the quiet and simple life that Josh loves does not satisfy Maureen who seeks excitement back home in the arms of her former lover, a local bully. The betrayal brings Cedric back into Josh's life, eager to discredit the woman who had usurped him. It also leads to a climax that is both inevitable and shocking: Josh, who hates fighting, is drawn into a battle with Maureen's lover and is killed. Cedric, filled with revenge, can only turn his knife on himself. The novel's tragic ending is both a warning against simplicity and a cry for its presence in everything. 
The Man Who Walks - Alan Warner
Large paperback in excellent condition. Jonathan Cape (2002). 284pp. NZ $4.50 / P & P: B After the scandalous theft of £27,000 from a local pub, a homeless drifter pursues his eccentric uncle, 'The Man Who Walks', up into the Highlands to recover the money. The nephew's frantic, stalled progress and other bizarre diversions form this wickedly hilarious novel. But who is The Man Who Walks? Is he simply a water-carrying madman with one glass eye and a fondness for whisky and pony nuts, and who has a physiological inability to handle slopes? Or is he a savant, touched by the hand of God, wandering the back roads along ancient, ancestral tracks? And as the sinister, unstable nephew gains on The Man Who Walks, can it be that it will all end in a field and that this field is Culloden Moor? 
The Time Is Not Yet Ripe - Ying Bian (Editor)
Paperback in excellent condition. Foreign Languages Press (1991). 382pp. NZ $4.00 / P & P: A An excellent collection of writings by China's brightest contemporary authors. Their stories are representative of a new literary age (1976-1989) marked by the boldness with which writers explore different themes and experiment with different styles. Revealing a panorama of contemporary life in the various echelons of China, the book is a guide to contemporary Chinese literature. Published in China in English in 1991 by the Foreign Languages Press, a government-related publisher that seeks to bring Chinese fiction to a larger audience abroad, the book contains 11 works by as many writers. There are 9 short stories and 2 excerpts from novels. The oldest writers are Lu Wenfu (1928-), Deng Youmei (1931-) and Wang Meng (1934-). The youngest are Zhang Kangkang (1950-), Jia Pingwa (1952-) and Wang Anyi (1954-). Others include Shen Rong (1935-), Zhang Xianliang (1936-), Zhang Jie (1937-), Feng Jicai (1942-) and Ah Cheng (1949-). These authors were called representative of China's literary flowering between 1976 and 1989. Four of the writers are women. 
Trinity Fields - Bradford Morrow
Large paperback in very good used condition. Published by Flamingo (1995). 437pp. NZ $4.00 / P & P: A A powerful novel about innocence and guilt, atonement and healing, friendship and betrayal, Trinity Fields maps the landscape of the American soul. In many ways, Los Alamos is an ideal place for best friends Brice McCarthy and Kip Calder to grow up. There’s wilderness to explore; brilliant and fascinating people, including their own parents and neighbours; and a booming wartime (World War 2) economy. Still, the town was built for one purpose: to manufacture a weapon capable of total annihilation. As the two boys grow and the United States enters the Vietnam War, the psychic fallout of their parents’ deeds pushes Brice and Kip toward opposite sides in the conflict—one, a soldier; the other, an anti-war activist—even as they come to love the same woman. rinity Fields is a sweeping saga of American life in the atomic age that brilliantly illuminates the soul of a nation. 
Fanny by Gaslight - Michael Sadleir
Paperback in excellent, as new condition. Mild age fading of pages edge. Published by Penguin Books (1981). 458pp. NZ $5.00 / P & P: A A fictional exploration of prostitution in the Victorian Underworld of London. Fanny by Gaslight is the tragic life story of a young girl born to two lovers and brought up in the seediest possible corner of Victorian London. Her early life as well as her adulthood is littered with pimps, prostitutes, drunkards and schemers but she herself stands apart from the degeneracy around her. She does not judge but she is very separate. Sadleir has set up a series of binary opposites which he explores in the story. Firstly, and most prominently, there is the opposition between honesty and hypocrisy. Fanny is an honest girl as are both of her parents and all of the various allies she picks up in her life. However “low” they may seem to the outside world, they are honest about themselves and to others. They contrast sharply and are oft injured by the battalion of hypocrites in the tale. The aristocratic drunkard who dabbles in paedophilia; the glamorous society lady who meets her lovers in a high class brothel; the list is endless. In this polarised world“sex” is part of the “honest” section and “marriage” is presented as a deeply hypocritical state. As Fanny’s father comments: “I have some reason for not regarding marriage as the element of a love affair that is made in heaven. Heaven comes at an earlier stage if it comes at all”. Fanny herself identifies with this non conformity and refuses to marry the man that she loves, a steadfastness for which she pays in heavy coin. |