Memoir The Bookseller at the End of the World

Ruth Shaw: Allen&unwin, $37

The little town of Manapouri is almost as far south as you can go on New Zealand’s South Island. Shaw has established a tiny second-hand bookshop there – complete with a children’s annex and a blokes’ veranda. Tales of the readers who find the shop punctuate Shaw’s memoir, which is not your average Baby Boomer yarn. Shaw’s happy youth in NZ was shattered by an act of appalling violence and she fled, mostly on boats, to PNG, Southeast Asia and Australia. But eventually she followed her heart home and her bookshop is part of the healing she found herself, and which she offers to others. We connect with stories like these – no wonder people beat a path to her door.