Escalator Press: 7 books

New Zealand, 1932. The height of the Great Depression. In the wilds of the Ōtaki River Gorge, the newly-formed Eugenics Department gathers the best and brightest in an attempt to create perfection. … But what makes a perfect person? Fifteen-year-old Eve knows she’s not one – but...

Leaving for the big smoke was your big idea. But everything is here, sun, fish. Everything. You can buy fish there but here you are taught how to catch them. We dance anytime not just special time. We climb coconut trees, swim and dive for free.   Poetry by Rob Hack.

We were supposed to be the good guys. We did the right thing. At first ... When Oscar and his friends hack into the school's surveillance system, the plan is simple: find the footage, blackmail the bullies, and leave no fingerprints. But the sense of power it brings them is hard to let go ... How...

In this remarkable memoir, Trish Harris writes about growing up with acute arthritis – about pain and loss, identity, and living creatively. With illustrations by Sarah Laing, and perceptive essays, this book captures a deeply moving experience of knitting a body and soul together.

Beneath a range of mountains lies the rural town of Waitapu. Here, sisters Ruby and Rowena reconnect, Mereata feels her tīpuna like a breath on the back of her neck and Harriet goes missing from the rest home. With a cast of lively characters, this collection of 18 short stories cracks open...

A grand piano crashes off a crane that’s lifting it into a block of council flats. Stefan, piano restorer and illegal immigrant, has the impossible task of trying to rebuild it. His future depends on it. And – for better or worse – a misfit bunch of tenants decides to help him. Adrienne...

Marko has come to the ends of the earth to escape a once illustrious past in Bulgaria. So why does a Polish bookstore owner call him a traitor? And who covertly photographed him for the newspaper? Someone knows who he is. They are trying to expose him in his new country, and there is nothing...