Lew McLeod has been travelling and working with Painter Hayes since he was a boy. Shearing, charcoal burning, whatever comes. Painter made him his first pair of shoes. It's a hard and uncertain life but it's the only one he knows. But Lew's a grown man now. And with this latest job, shearing for John Drysdale and his daughter Clara, everything will change. Stephen Daisley writes in lucid, rippling prose of how things work, and why; of the profound satisfaction in hard work done with care, of love and friendship and the damage that both contain. ‘Daisley’s reverence and knowledge of the outback transcends the cliché of heat, dust and flies, inviting readers into a mesmerising world of desert flora and fauna…He minutiae of the woolshed and animal behaviour are brought to life with skill and affection.’ Readings

    On the other hand, she loses 72! There is also the unspoken New Year's resolution--the quest for the right man. Alas, here Bridget goes severely off course when she has an affair with her charming cad of a boss. But who would be without their e-mail flirtation focused on a short black skirt? The boss even contends that it is so short as to be nonexistent. At the beginning of Helen Fielding's exceptionally funny second novel, the thirtyish publishing puffette is suffering from postholiday stress syndrome but determined to find Inner Peace and poise. Bridget will, for instance, "get up straight away when wake up in mornings." Now if only she can survive the party her mother has tricked her into--a suburban fest full of "Smug Marrieds" professing concern for her and her fellow "Singletons"--she'll have made a good start. As far as she's concerned, "We wouldn't rush up to them and roar, 'How's your marriage going? Still having sex?'" This is only the first of many disgraces Bridget will suffer in her year of performance anxiety (at work and at play, though less often in bed) and living through other people's "emotional fuckwittage." Her twin-set-wearing suburban mother, for instance, suddenly becomes a chat-show hostess and unrepentant adulteress, while our heroine herself spends half the time overdosing on Chardonnay and feeling like "a tragic freak." Bridget Jones's Diary began as a column in the London Independent and struck a chord with readers of all sexes and sizes. In strokes simultaneously broad and subtle, Helen Fielding reveals the lighter side of despair, self-doubt, and obsession, and also satirizes everything from self-help books (they don't sound half as sensible to Bridget when she's sober) to feng shui, Cosmopolitan-style. She is the Nancy Mitford of the 1990s, and it's impossible not to root for her endearing heroine. On the other hand, one can only hope that Bridget will continue to screw up and tell us all about it for years and books to come. --Kerry Fried

    Now Cameron is a twenty-nine-year-old research assistant with no meaningful ties to anyone except her aging boss, noted historian Oliver Doucet.Nearly a decade after the incident that ended their friendship, Cameron receives an unexpected letter from her old friend. Despite Oliver’s urging, she doesn’t reply. But when he passes away, Cameron discovers that he has left her with one final task: to track down Sonia and hand-deliver a mysterious package to her. The Myth of You and Me captures the intensity of a friendship as well as the real sense of loss that lingers after the end of one. Searingly honest and beautiful, it is a celebration and portrait of a friendship that will appeal to anyone who still feels the absence of that first true friend.A People Magazine “10 Great Reads,” 2005A BookSense Pick

    From her first stock show to the day she turns eighteen and flees for the comforts of the city, Dickie bucks the cattle-ranching lifestyle and yearns for manicured lawns, housebroken pets, and neighborhood playmates. Yet she reluctantly finds herself drawn to the vast, desolate landscape of the desert and the solitude it offers—a feeling she won't acknowledge even within herself.Now a grown woman, Dickie is a respected reporter in Salt Lake City, convinced that physical distance and a convenient but passionless relationship will erase the memory of her painful childhood. But when her brother dies in a tragic accident, Dickie finds herself back in the farmhouse she tried so desperately to abandon. Suddenly, she is faced with her family's past and a love she's never admitted to, bringing down the walls of her carefully contrived existence.Accustomed to the physical boundaries city life entails, Dickie feels emotionally exposed by the fenceless expanse of the ranch. As she navigates her past, piecing together relationships, romance, and the pull of the mountains themselves, she finally confronts the pivotal moment of her childhood—the horrifying discovery that made her flee the desert so many years ago.A novel that spans two generations and vast landscapes, The Last Cowgirl brings to mind the writing of Pam Houston and Barbara Kingsolver. Richman's provocative prose, pulled from personal experience, will strike a chord with anyone who has been faced with demons from their past and found solace in the space around them.

    Self-conscious and increasingly uncertain about her long-term plans, she’s studying a major that no longer interests her and is caught up in a bewildering affair with a married professor. In an impulsive attempt to redeem herself, she answers a want ad seeking a caregiver.What she finds is a wealthy, cultivated woman in her midthirties. Once an advertising executive, accomplished chef, and skilled decorator, Kate is now in the advanced stages of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). She and her husband, Evan, handle their situation with mordant humor, careful planning, and a lot of determination. Yet while Bec perceives the couple as charmingly frank and good-humored, strains exist beneath the surface.Bec is soon a vital part of her employer’s household, and their increasing closeness transforms both women’s lives and their relationships. The more she acts on Kate’s behalf, the further Bec strays from her stringent comfort zone. She performs every task, from the most administrative to the most intimate, and she translates Kate’s speech for strangers, friends, and even family. Sometimes enthusiastically, sometimes reluctantly, Bec advances further and further into Kate’s world, surprised by her own increasing dedication and ease. But how closely can Bec intertwine her own life with Kate’s?The two confront their obstacles unsentimentally, with dark humor and unflinching candor, as their relationship is slowly stripped of pretense. Honesty becomes their touchstone: They may find humor in the most devastating moments, but they won’t pretend to believe in silver linings that don’t exist. With crystal clarity, debut author Michelle Wildgen has crafted a deeply affecting novel about the singular relationship between two women, balancing humor and regret, sensuality and necessity, and testing the outer limits of friendship. Advance Praise for You’re Not You “Michelle Wildgen’s novel You Are Not You is so skillfully rendered that it’s hard to believe it is a first novel. The character of Bec, a twentysomething who has a habit of falling into things---jobs, love affairs---is funny, completely unsentimental, and really great for a reader to hang around with. Her worldview and how it changes when she goes to work for Kate, a refined woman in her thirties, is riveting. I simply couldn’t put this book down.”---Whitney Otto, author of How to Make an American Quilt “What an enjoyable and deeply satisfying novel. In You’re Not You, Michelle Wildgen manages to capture, in some extraordinary way, what it’s like to be a fairly ordinary college student, waiting for one’s life to begin. Bec is a wonderfully complex heroine, and the nuances of her relations with the remarkable Kate are both vivid and suspenseful. This is an exhilarating debut.”---Margot Livesey, author of Banishing Verona “With You’re Not You, Michelle Wildgen has produced an artful and slyly seductive debut novel about a caregiver in full thrall to her charge’s steely hold on sensuality, taste, and grace.”---Helen Schulman, author of P.S. “Michelle Wildgen writes with a lush, fierce clarity about the most private and complex of matters: the relationship between identity and intimacy, the body’s pleasures and profound betrayals, the sharp impact of loss, and the gifts of deep attachment. You’re Not You is startling and smart, a wise, beautiful novel.”---Nancy Reisman, author of The First Desire

    It tells the story of a mother and daughter who make their way west from Wisconsin, living off an ex-husband's credit card.

    When news spreads of a high school teacher's relationship with his underage student, participants and observers alike soon take part in an elaborate show of concern and dismay. But beneath the surface of the teenage girls' display, there simmers a new awareness of their own power. They obsessively examine the details of the affair with the curiosity, jealousy, and approbation native to any adolescent girl, under the watchful eye of their stern and enigmatic saxophone teacher, whose focus may not be as strictly on their upcoming recital as she implies.

    When armed conflict drives a wedge between Maori and Pakeha, not everyone can choose sides easily. For Isla McKinnon, the choices are bitter. Taken in by local Maori when her parents are brutally murdered, she has grown to womanhood and taken a Maori husband. In a thrilling tale of love and loss from the land wars - when simmering tensions between Maori and the encroaching Pakeha settlements exploded into bloody warfare - love and trust are put cruelly to the test. Separated from her husband and her family and restored to Auckland society, Isla must learn to survive in both worlds. Inevitably, she must decide between them, and lose part of her heart forever.

    Tomorrow they must go their separate ways.So where will they be on this one day next year? And the year after that?And every year that follows?--back cover

    No one can hear her, just us boys. We're the dead Finnegans – Ma, Thomas, Ben and me.Ten-year-old John Finnegan can't leave his garden. Ever since they were murdered he, his brothers and his ma have been stuck there, caught between the worlds of the living and the dead. Unseen and unnoticed, he watches the events after his life unfold – including the actions of his murderer.James Stack is born dirt-poor on an Irish tenant farm and the great famine shadows his childhood. But his clever sister's lace making may save the family – until Aileen is sent to the other side of the world on a convict ship. To save her, James joins the redcoats and follows her across dangerous waters to a hopeful new land. But can he ever leave the death and hunger of his homeland behind?Based on the 1865 Otahuhu murders, Purgatory is a startling, gripping novel from an immensely talented new author.

    As single mother Sidney Walker struggles to save her troubled young son, she finds she is not as alone as she thinks when help comes from the most unexpected person.

    A group of white-collar deadbeats attend a swinger’s party in the era of drunk Muldoon. A pervasive smell seeps through the walls of a German housing block. A seabird performs at an open-mic night.Bug Week is a scalpel-clean examination of male entitlement, a dissection of death, an agar plate of mundanity. From 1960s Wellington to post-Communist Germany, Bug Week traverses the weird, the wry and the grotesque in a story collection of human taxonomy.

    Drawing on his personal knowledge of the South Pacific and Australasia, novelist Graeme Lay recreates the peerless navigator's life up to, and including, his first circumnavigation of the world. In particular, Graeme explores the relationship between James and his remarkable wife Elizabeth, the woman he married when he was 34 and she 21 and by whom he had six children, all born while he was away at sea.This novel also depicts the often stormy relationship between the self-made English naval commander and the dashing, privileged naturalist Joseph Banks, who accompanied Cook on his first world voyage.

    As his relatives revisit their past, Daniel learns of a remarkable love story between his Maori grandmother Oriwia and his Japanese grandfather Chappy. The more Daniel hears about his deceased grandfather, the more intriguing – and elusive – Chappy becomes.In this touching portrayal of family life, acclaimed writer Patricia Grace explores racial intolerance, cross-cultural conflicts and the universal desire to belong. Spanning several decades and several continents and set against the backdrop of a changing New Zealand, Chappy is a compelling story of enduring love.

    Her best friend Iraia wants the same, but as the descendent of a slave, such things are barely conceivable to him. One summer as they approach adulthood, they notice that their friendship has changed, and that, if they are ever to experience freedom, they will need to travel beyond the isolation and safety of their Queen Charlotte Sound home.One hundred years later, twins Lula and Bigsy's birth is literally one in a million, as their mother Tui likes to tell people. But when Tui dies they learn there is much she kept secret, especially about their heritage. They too will need to travel beyond the world they have known, to an island they barely knew existed, at the eastern edge of New Zealand's Pacific realm.Neither Mere and Iraia, nor Lula and Bigsy are aware that someone else is part of their journeys. He does not watch over them so much as watch through them, feeling their loss and confusion as if it were his own.