The House with Chicken Legs

Sophie Anderson

All 12-year-old Marinka wants is a friend. A real friend. Not like her house with chicken legs. Sure, the house can play games like tag and hide-and-seek, but Marinka longs for a human companion. Someone she can talk to and share secrets with. But that's tough when your grandmother is a Yaga, a guardia...

The Nickel Boys

Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.   As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words o...

Hiakai: Modern Maori Cuisine

Monique Fiso

Monique Fiso is a modern-day food warrior, taking Māori cuisine to the world. After years overseas in Michelin-star restaurants, Monique returned to Aotearoa to begin Hiakai, an innovative pop-up venture that's now a revered, award-winning restaurant in Wellington. Monique has also gone on to feature on...

Mort (#4 Discworld / #1 Death)

Terry Pratchett

'Death comes to us all. When he came to Mort, he offered him a job.' Death is the Grim Reaper of the Discworld, a black-robed skeleton carrying a scythe who must collect a minimum number of souls in order to keep the momentum of dying, well . . . alive. He is also fond of cats and endlessly baffled by h...