A saint is crucified on the same Mediterranean island where, centuries later, a Japanese soprano recovers her lost voice. Youths throw a rock through a car windscreen in urban Accra, and a woman sees this as a sign she will never reproduce. A murderer escapes across the Sydney suburbs, bringing together an ex-swimming champion, a yoga devotee and a Chinese virgin. An insolent nephew recovers from illness to ask his wealthy aunt for accommodation for himself and his pregnant wife. In Hong Kong, a mistress awaits her married lover in a luxury hotel, and at a summer party outside Verona, a Ukrainian émigré seduces a heavily pregnant woman’s husband in his last foray into the world of hedonism. After his father’s car strikes a fox, a boy roams a French village at night, and in West Africa a young advertising executive tries to make sense of a corpse in an Elvis shirt, and an American woman who sleeps with her dogs. The Cartography of Others is a collection of twenty stories that take place from fumy Accra to the Italian Dolomites, from suburban Sydney to high-rise Hong Kong. Lives are mapped, unpicked, crafted, overturned. Each story inhabits a location that becomes as vital as the characters themselves, men and women who are often far from home, immersed in unfamiliar cultures, estranged from those they hold dear. Love is panicked, worn, tested.

A wayward, wanton selection of stories grounded in displacement, desire, and the wish coursing through us to accede to the state of love. There is torment and illness, crude reality and distant fragrant places, peopled by characters that reside close to our bones, our psyches, our flesh. A Japanese soprano has lost her voice and seeks repose on a sailing boat in Corsica. A South African advertising executive learns the ropes at his Accra office. Destructive lovers interview a renowned musician in dusty Bamako. Lovers meet, fade, delude. We are weak and defiant beings, ever-learning, ever-lustful. Fine stories, rank with exotic air, bursting like old fruit. - Bruce Pascoe McNamara's work has a fierce, vital beat, her stories robust yet finely worked, her voice striking in its confidence and originality. She writes with sensuous precision and a craft that is equally precise. This is fiction that can stand up in any company. - Hilary Mantel

Sixty-eight writers and eight artists gather at a hui in a magnificent cave-like dwelling or meeting house. In the middle is a table, the tepu korero, from which the rangatira speak; they converse with honoured guests, and their rangatira-korero embody the tahuhu, the over-arching horizontal ridge pole, of the shelter. In a series of rich conversations, those present discuss our world in the second decade of this century; they look at decolonisation, indigeneity, climate change . . . this is what they see.Edited by Witi Ihimaera and Michelle Elvy, this fresh, exciting anthology features poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction, as well as korero or conversations between writers and work by local and international artists. The lineup from Aoteraoa includes, among others, Alison Wong, Paula Morris, Anne Salmond, Tina Makereti, Ben Brown, David Eggleton, Cilla McQueen, Hinemoana Baker, Erik Kennedy, Ian Wedde, Nina Mingya Powles, Gregory O' Brien, Vincent O' Sullivan, Patricia Grace, Selina Tusitala Marsh and Whiti Hereaka. Guest writers from overseas include Aparecida Vilaç a, Jose-Luis Novo and Ru Freeman.

'Women are born in survival mode. Their job, they are told, is to love. But what is this love they neither know nor see – this illiquid, no-return-on-investment, invisible land they must buy with all their soul money?' Lilith. Wild, untameable Lilith. She is the love of Adam's life – the only woman for the only man on Earth. Until Adam replaces her with Eve. Biddable, meek, subservient Eve. 'Lilith is demanding, short-tempered and unnatural in her sexual desires,' Adam complains to God. Cast out of Eden, Lilith roams the Earth, masters the dark arts and fights the system: dissent is delicious. She is now the Lilith - night monster, seductress of demons. And child-killer. Lilith, from whom the word lullaby comes – 'Lilith, begone,' sing mothers to protect their sleeping babies. Lilith, the irresistible temptress. Eden's controversial once-occupant goes on a rampage to discover all that she is and all that she could be. Beyond Adam. Beyond Eden. Beyond God. In this gripping take on female rage and agency, Shinie Antony sculpts a ferocious woman born from the ashes of her former self. Exuberant, unapologetic and unrestrained, Lilith shines, soars and persists - a historic villainess and a modern-day heroine.

The Busy People's Bible Study Plan delivers on the promise of its title. The author understands Christians and our need to connect with our Heavenly Father and anticipates the numerous excuses that we allow to get in the way and prevent us from forging an extraordinary bond with him. Whether it is during a commute, taking a lunch break, or just before turning in for the day, this book will provide you with suggestions and strategies to help you develop a consistent time for meaningful, personal communion opportunity to be with God.