Ripley's Believe It or Not! Mind Blown by Ripleys Believe It Or Not! (Compiled by)

$49.99 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction | Series: Annual Ser.

A Believe It or Not is something incredibly hard to believe, but undeniably true--something that totally blows your mind Mind Blown , the 17th book in the bestselling series from Ripley's Believe It or Not , is filled with unbelievable stories and images that will do just that. You'll be blown away by t his all-true, all-new collection of incredible facts, unexpected stories, and stunning photography.   Ripley's Believe It or Not Mind Blown is sure to amaze and astound children and adults alike with thousands of strange stories, unusual feats, and hair-raising oddities from around the world. Discover how one woman can crush apples with her biceps and read about the spider that lives underwater--yes, it's all weird and it's all true Bursting with vibrant and eye-catching photos, as well as submissions from our dedicated readers, this book is a must-have for every curious mind. ...Show more

Olive, Mabel and Me by Andrew Cotter

$37.00 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

"My name is Andrew Cotter and once upon a time I was a sports broadcaster. In Olive, Mabel and Me I try to explain how it can be that after a career commentating on Olympic Games, World Cups and Wimbledon finals, I am now far better known for describing the daily lives of my Labradors, Olive and Mabel. Or perhaps even the march of the Fairy Penguins of Phillip Island in Australia - a country that has become a second home each northern winter. It is a story of viral videos and millions upon millions of views worldwide. Above all it is about Olive and Mabel - the adventures we have had together and my love for them in the very strangest of times, when all of us seemed to need the companionship of our dogs more than ever" Andrew Cotter is one of the world's best-known sports broadcasters. But when international golf, tennis and rugby were all cancelled and the world went into lockdown, he found himself at a loose end. That's when he decided to apply his brilliant commentating skills to some epic contests between his two Labradors, Olive and Mabel. The result was an internet sensation. The series of videos-including Game of Bones-has been viewed nearly 40 million times on social media, and the videos have resonated with dog owners and sports fans everywhere. In lockdown, Andrew even found himself providing commentary for the nightly march of the fairy penguins on Phillip Island in Victoria, a video that has also been viewed millions of times. In his book Olive, Mabel and Me, Andrew gives us a commentary of a different kind as he tells the heartwarming story of life with his dogs. This is the complete account of their rise to internet stardom, and how walking and climbing in the mountains helps them all find peace, joy and happiness away from the hectic world of the media. Beautifully written, touching and funny, Olive, Mabel and Me is, above all, a book about the love we have for our dogs, especially in these strange and difficult times of social isolation. It is a treat for dog lovers everywhere.     ...Show more

The Next Great Migration - The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah

$32.99 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

'Rich with eclectic research and on-the-ground reporting, Shah's book presents us with a dazzlingly original picture of our relentlessly mobile species' NAOMI KLEIN'Fascinating . . . Likely to prove prophetic in the coming months and years' OBSERVER'A dazzling tour through 300 years of scientific histor y' PROSPECT'A hugely entertaining, life-affirming and hopeful hymn to the glorious adaptability of life on earth' SCOTSMANWe are surrounded by stories of people on the move. Wild species, too, are escaping warming seas and desiccated lands in a mass exodus. Politicians and the media present this upheaval of migration patterns as unprecedented, blaming it for the spread of disease and conflict, and spreading anxiety across the world as a result. But the science and history of migration in animals, plants, and humans tell a different story. Far from being a disruptive behaviour, migration is an ancient and lifesaving response to environmental change, a biological imperative as necessary as breathing. Climate changes triggered the first human migrations out of Africa. Falling sea levels allowed our passage across the Bering Sea. Unhampered by borders, migration allowed our ancestors to people the planet, into the highest reaches of the Himalayan Mountains and the most remote islands of the Pacific, disseminating the biological, cultural and social diversity that ecosystems and societies depend upon. In other words, migration is not the crisis - it is the solution. Tracking the history of misinformation from the 18th century through to today's anti-immigration policies, The Next Great Migration makes the case for a future in which migration is not a source of fear, but of hope.   ...Show more

Finding Freedom Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family by Omid Scobie; Carolyn Durand

$37.99 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

When news of the budding romance between a beloved English prince and an American actress broke, it captured the world's attention and sparked an international media frenzy. But while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex have continued to make headlines – from their engagement, wedding, and birth of their son Archie to their unprecedented decision to step back from their royal lives – few know the true story of Harry and Meghan. For the very first time, FINDING FREEDOM goes beyond the headlines to reveal unknown details of Harry and Meghan's life together, dispelling the many rumours and misconceptions that plague the couple on both sides of the pond. As members of the select group of reporters that cover the British Royal Family and their engagements, Omid Scobie and Carolyn Durand have witnessed the young couple's lives as few outsiders can. With unique access and written with the participation of those closest to the couple, FINDING FREEDOM is an honest, up-close, and disarming portrait of a confident, influential, and forward-thinking couple who are unafraid to break with tradition, determined to create a new path away from the spotlight, and dedicated to building a humanitarian legacy that will make a profound difference in the world. ...Show more

White Fragility - Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk about Racism by Robin DiAngelo

$28.00 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

Anger. Fear. Guilt. Denial. Silence. These are the ways in which ordinary white people react when it is pointed out to them that they have done or said something that has - unintentionally - caused racial offence or hurt. After, all, a racist is the worst thing a person can be, right? But these reaction s only serve to silence people of colour, who cannot give honest feedback to 'liberal' white people lest they provoke a dangerous emotional reaction. Robin DiAngelo coined the term 'White Fragility' in 2011 to describe this process and is here to show us how it serves to uphold the system of white supremacy. Using knowledge and insight gained over decades of running racial awareness workshops and working on this idea as a Professor of Whiteness Studies, she shows us how we can start having more honest conversations, listen to each other better and react to feedback with grace and humility. It is not enough to simply hold abstract progressive views and condemn the obvious racists on social media - change starts with us all at a practical, granular level, and it is time for all white people to take responsibility for relinquishing their own racial supremacy. ...Show more

Having and Being Had by Eula Biss

$40.00 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

A timely and arresting new look at affluence by a consistently surprising writer. 'My adult life can be divided into two distinct parts,' Eula Biss writes, 'the time before I owned a washing machine and the time after.' Having just purchased her first home, she now embarks on a roguish and risky self-au dit of the value system she has bought into. The result is a radical interrogation of work, leisure and capitalism. Described by the New York Times as a writer who 'advances from all sides, like a chess player', Biss brings her approach to the lived experience of capitalism. Playfully ranging from IKEA to Beyonce to Pokemon, across bars and laundromats and universities, she asks, of both herself and her class, 'In what have we invested?' ...Show more

Apocalypse Never Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All by Michael Shellenberger

$39.99 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

Climate change is real but it's not the end of the world. It is not even our most serious environmental problem. Michael Shellenberger has been fighting for a greener planet for decades. He helped save the world's last unprotected redwoods. He co-created the predecessor to today's Green New Deal. And h e led a successful effort by climate scientists and activists to keep nuclear plants operating, preventing a spike of emissions. But in 2019, as some claimed “billions of people are going to die,” contributing to rising anxiety, including among adolescents, Shellenberger decided that, as a lifelong environmental activist, leading energy expert, and father of a teenage daughter, he needed to speak out to separate science from fiction. Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas. Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions. What's really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs... ...Show more

Rage by Bob Woodward

$55.00 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

Bob Woodward's new book, Rage, is an unprecedented and intimate tour de force of original reporting on the Trump presidency. Rage goes behind the scenes like never before, with stunning new details about early national security decisions and operations and Trump's moves as he faces a global pandemic, ec onomic disaster and racial unrest. Woodward, the #1 internationally bestselling author of 13 #1 bestsellers, including Fear: Trump in the White House, shows Trump up close in his entirety before the 2020 presidential election. President Trump has said publicly that Woodward has interviewed him. What is not known is that Trump provided Woodward a window into his mind through a series of exclusive interviews. At key decision points, Rage shows how Trump's responses to the crises of 2020 were rooted in the instincts, habits and style he developed during his first three years as president. Rage draws from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand witnesses, as well as participants' notes, emails, diaries, calendars and confidential documents. Woodward obtained 25 personal letters exchanged between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that have not been public before. Kim describes the bond between the two leaders as out of a "fantasy film," as the two leaders engage in an extraordinary diplomatic minuet. Rage will be the foundational account of the Trump presidency, its turmoil, contradictions and risks. It is an essential document for any voter seeking an accurate inside view of the Trump years - volatile and vivid.   ...Show more

Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World by Naomi S. Baron

$40.99 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

People have been reading on computer screens for several decades now, predating popularization of personal computers and widespread use of the internet. But it was the rise of eReaders and tablets that caused digital reading to explode. In 2007, Amazon introduced its first Kindle. Three years later, App le debuted the iPad. Meanwhile, as mobile phone technology improved and smartphones proliferated, the phone became another vital reading platform. In Words Onscreen, Naomi Baron, an expert on language and technology, explores how technology is reshaping our understanding of what it means to read. Digital reading is increasingly popular. Reading onscreen has many virtues, including convenience, potential cost-savings, and the opportunity to bring free access to books and other written materials to people around the world. Yet, Baron argues, the virtues of eReading are matched with drawbacks. Users are easily distracted by other temptations on their devices, multitasking is rampant, and screens coax us to skim rather than read in-depth. What is more, if the way we read is changing, so is the way we write. In response to changing reading habits, many authors and publishers are producing shorter works and ones that don't require reflection or close reading. In her tour through the new world of eReading, Baron weights the value of reading physical print versus online text, including the question of what long-standing benefits of reading might be lost if we go overwhelmingly digital. She also probes how the internet is shifting reading from being a solitary experience to a social one, and the reasons why eReading has taken off in some countries, especially the United States and United Kingdom, but not others, like France and Japan. Reaching past the hype on both sides of the discussion, Baron draws upon her own cross-cultural studies to offer a clear-eyed and balanced analysis of the ways technology is affecting the ways we read today-and what the future might bring. ...Show more

Somewhere Becoming Rain: Collected Writings on Philip Larkin by Clive James

$27.99 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

Clive James is a life-long admirer of the work of Philip Larkin. Somewhere Becoming Rain gathers all of James's writing on this towering literary figure of the twentieth century, together with extra material now published for the first time.The greatness of Larkin's poetry continues to be obscured by th e opprobrium attaching to his personal life and his private opinions. James writes about Larkin's poems, his novels, his jazz and literary criticism; he also considers the two major biographies, Larkin's letters and even his portrayal on stage in order to chart the extreme and, he argues, largely misguided equivocations about Larkin's reputation in the years since his death.Through this joyous and perceptive book, Larkin's genius is delineated and celebrated. James argues that Larkin's poems, adored by discriminating readers for over half a century, could only have been the product of his reticent, diffident, flawed, and all-too-human personality.Erudite and entertaining in equal measure, Somewhere Becoming Rain is a love letter from one of the world's best living writers to one of its most cherished poets. ...Show more

Billionaire at the Barricades by Laura Ingraham

$44.99 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

One Hundred Miracles - Music, Auschwitz, Survival and Love by Zuzana Ruzickova; Wendy Holden

$24.99 NZD

Category: General Non-Fiction

The remarkable memoir of Zuzana Ružicková, Holocaust survivor and world-famous harpsichordist. 'Extraordinary' Sunday Times'Compelling' Daily Telegraph Zuzana Ružicková grew up in 1930s Czechoslovakia dreaming of two things: Johann Sebastian Bach and the piano. But her peaceful, melodic childhood was to rn apart when, in 1939, the Nazis invaded. Uprooted from her home, transported from Auschwitz to Hamburg to Bergen-Belsen, bereaved, starved, and afflicted with crippling injuries to her musician's hands, the teenage Zuzana faced a series of devastating losses. Yet with every truck and train ride, a small slip of paper printed with her favourite piece of Bach's music became her talisman. Armed with this 'proof that beauty still existed', Zuzana's fierce bravery and passion ensured her survival of the greatest human atrocities of all time, and would continue to sustain her through the brutalities of post-war Communist rule. Harnessing her talent and dedication, and fortified by the love of her husband, the Czech composer Viktor Kalabis, Zuzana went on to become one of the twentieth century's most renowned musicians and the first harpsichordist to record the entirety of Bach's keyboard works. Zuzana's story, told here in her own words before her death in 2017, is a profound and powerful testimony of the horrors of the Holocaust, and a testament in itself to the importance of amplifying the voices of its survivors today. It is also a joyful celebration of art and resistance that defined the life of the 'first lady of the harpsichord'- a woman who spent her life being ceaselessly reborn through her music. ...Show more