Random Recipes

random A Fine Prospect: A History of Remuera, Meadowbank & St Johns Jenny Carlyon & Diana Morrow Remuera is, and always has been, one of Auckland’s best addresses. From earliest times wealthy merchants built grand houses on great estates, with magnicent views out to the harbour and gulf islands. Theirs was a social Welcome to the May issue of Random News. This month we have a wonderful mixed bag of books, both local and international! With everything from crime to romance, cooking to New Zealand history, there’s sure Dirt Bomb Fleur Beale The Conductor Sarah Quigley In a rare publishing event, the inclusion of a bonus CD will allow the beautiful and haunting music of Shostakovich to wash over readers as they become lost in Sarah Quigley’s exquisite new novel, which transports us to 1941 Leningrad. Kaboom Matt Gallagher Iraq, late 2007. Lieutenant Matt Gallagher arrives just as US policy Be Dierent: Adventures of a Free- Range Aspergian John Elder Robison The author of the New York Times Look Me In The Eye The Spoiler Annalena McAfee Two female journalists – one old, one young, one a veteran war correspondent, the other a writer of celebrity gossip – meet for the rst time. It is January 1997, the dying days of John Major’s government, and newspapers, ghting for a dwindling readership, are plunging downmarket amid wild rumours that the Internet is about to change the world for ever. Honor Tait (b. 1917), one of the most renowned journalists of her era, is increasingly haunted by her past; Tamara Sim (b. 1970), who compiles lists of what’s in and what’s out for Psst!, the weekend entertainment supplement of the Monitor, is struggling to secure her future, at any cost, in an increasingly precarious industry. When Sim is sent to interview Tait, their mutual incomprehension generates a rich seam of dark comedy. But when their dierent worlds nally collide, the consequences are devastating. McAfee’s trenchant rst novel is part satire, part portrait of an era poised unknowingly on the brink of a technological revolution. There are two sides to every story and, as this witty novel suggests, there is no escape from that most disabling and universal aw – vanity. Annalena McAfee worked in newspapers for more than three decades. She was Arts and Literary Editor of the Financial Times and founded the Guardian Review , which she edited for six years. 06 May; Harvill/Secker; $39.99 Jennifer Balle: JBalle@randomhouse.co.nz A Man of Parts David Lodge The mind is a time machine that travels backwards in memory and forwards in prophecy, but he has done with prophecy now …’ Sequestered in his blitz-battered house on the rim of Regent’s Park, as the second war he has lived through moves into its nal phase, the ailing Herbert George Wells, ‘H.G.’ to his family and friends, looks back on a life crowded with incident, books, and women. Has it been a success or a failure? Once he was ‘the man who invented tomorrow’; now he feels like yesterday’s man, deserted or disparaged by readers, and depressed by the collapse of his utopian dreams for mankind. Stories I Only Tell My Friends Rob Lowe A wryly funny and moving account of an extraordinary life lived almost entirely in the public eye. Teen idol at fteen, international icon and founder of the Brat Pack at twenty, and one of Hollywood’s top stars to this day, Rob Lowe chronicles his experiences as a painfully misunderstood child actor in Ohio uprooted into the wild counterculture of mid-seventies Malibu, where he embarked on his unrelenting pursuit of a career in Hollywood. The Outsiders placed Lowe at the birth of the modern youth movement in the entertainment industry. During his time on The West Wing , he witnessed the surreal nexus of show business and The Moment Douglas Kennedy Thomas Nesbitt is a divorced writer in the midst of a rueful middle age. Living a very private life in Maine, he nds his solitude disrupted one wintry morning by the arrival of a box postmarked Hanging Hill Mo Hayder What if you found yourself divorced and penniless, with no skills and a teenage daughter to support? What if the only way to survive was to do things you never thought possible, to go places you never knew existed? These are questions Cal has never really thought about before. Married to a successful business man, she’s always been a bit of a dreamer. Until now. Her sister Zoe is her polar opposite. Untold Story Monica Ali APRIL RELEASE UNDER EMBARGO! What if Princess Diana hadn’t died? Had she lived, what direction would her life have taken? How would she have matured into her 40s and beyond? What if the tragedy in the Alma Tunnel never happened, and she were still alive today? Where would she be, and what would she be doing? Diana’s life and marriage were fairy tale and nightmare rolled into one. Adored by millions, in her The Forgotten Waltz Anne Enright The Forgotten Waltz is a memory of desire: a recollection of the bewildering speed of attraction, the irreparable slip into longing. In Terenure, a pleasant suburb of Dublin, in the winter of 2009, it has snowed. Gina Moynihan recalls the trail of lust and happenstance that brought her to fall for ‘the love of her life’, Seán Vallely. She remembers the days of their aair in one hotel room or another, long afternoons The Echo Man Richard Montanari It is fall in Philadelphia and the mutilated body of a man is found in one of the poorest neighbourhoods of the city. The victim has been viciously tortured to death. It’s the work of a sadistic mind in free fall. When homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano investigate, they soon realise that their crime scene is linked to the past. Eight years ago, another body was found in the same place, in the same position, killed in the same manner. The case was never closed. Apart from their killer’s unusual calling cards, the crime scene photos – past and present – are identical. As another brutalised body appears, then another, it becomes horrifyingly clear that someone is recreating unsolved murders from Philadelphia’s past in the most sinister of ways. And the killer is closer than they think... Richard Montanari is the Top Ten Sunday Times bestselling The Devil’s Garden, Play Dead, The Rosary Girls, The Skin Gods Broken Angels , as well as the internationally acclaimed thrillers Kiss of Evil, Deviant Way Lucy’s Kiss Rachel Herron Lucy never forgot ‘The Kiss’. Or the bad boy she shared it with. Now, 17 years later, he’s back - and, dammit, he’s still sexy as hell… As owner of The Book Spire in the sleepy town of Cypress Hollow, Lucy Harrison isn’t used to too much excitement. But in one night all that changes when Owen Bancroft walks back into her life and sparks - quite literally - y. The question is, does he even remember their one perfect kiss? And, perhaps more importantly, does she really want him to? Drawing Conclusions Donna Leon Summer of Love Katie Fford Sian Bishop has moved to an idyllic Oxfordshire village for a better life her herself and her young son Rory. With her roses-round-the-door cottage, the perfect school for Rory just down the road, and her very own vegetable patch she knows she’s made the right decision. She’s also struck gold in Richard – steady, safe, reliable, he is the perfect man for her and the perfect potential stepfather for Rory. But little does she realise she’s now living in the village, Gus – the wonderful, irresistible, dangerous, unreliable and straight-out- of-a-Georgette-Heyer-novel, Gus – grew up in. And her quiet life in the country is about to get a whole lot more complicated... Katie Fforde lives in Gloucestershire with her husband and children. Recently her old hobbies of ironing and housework have given way to singing, Flamenco dancing and husky racing. She claims this keeps her t. To nd out more about Katie Fforde visit her website at www.katieorde.com and follow her on twitter @KatieFforde. 06 May; Century; $39.99 Caitlyn Ellwood: CEllwood@randomhouse.co.nz aby Gone Jenny Douché It is estimated that one in six couples are unable to conceive, that one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, and that 600 babies are stillborn or die soon after birth each year. Any one of these experiences can be the most traumatic thing that couples ever go through. It is also very lonely and isolating. Many are desperate to read other people’s stories in order to gain comfort, however there are very few New Zealand stories available in published form. Jenny compiled this book after losing her son, James, during late pregnancy. Baby Gone contains 45 true stories, written from the heart by those aected. The stories give moving accounts about the conception and pregnancy experiences, but perhaps most importantly, they talk of the emotional roller-coaster that is life after loss. These stories will help readers see that they are not alone in their feelings, and that they are not going crazy. Jenny Douché is the founder of the Smarter Than Jack series, which was started in 2001 and raised over $440,000 for animal charities around the world. The rst book in the series won the Booksellers’ Choice Special Recognition Award in 2002. Jenny also compiled Bona Fide: 53 True Kiwi Stories About Life as a Teen and co-wrote The Kiwi Eect . She was short-listed for Wellingtonian of the Year in 2004. 25 May; Hugs Press; $29.99 Jenny Douché : jenny@babygone.com Auckland Writers and Readers Festival Authors on tour in April It has been 11 years since the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival began, and Random House is delighted to once again be part of this highlight in Auckland’s cultural calendar. We pleased to have international writers Madhur Jarey, Fatima Bhutto, James Fergusson and Gail Jones gracing our shores for this year’s festival. They join a wide