{"title":"Michel Houellebecq","description":"\u003cp\u003eMichel Houellebecq’s work traverses the boundaries of \u003cem\u003eGeneral Fiction\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ePhilosophy\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003eArts \u0026amp; Culture\u003c\/em\u003e, offering provocative explorations of contemporary society, human desire, and existential despair. His novels and essays challenge conventions with a stark, often unsettling clarity, inviting readers to confront the complexities of modern life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFrom incisive cultural critiques to deeply personal reflections, Houellebecq’s writing combines bleak wit with philosophical inquiry, crafting narratives that linger long after the last page. His work is essential for those drawn to literature that probes beneath the surface of civilisation and human nature.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"atomised-by-michel-houellebecq-9780099283362","title":"Atomised","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe gloriously moving and extravagantly filthy cult classic from the internationally bestselling author of \u003cem\u003eSubmission\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHalf-brothers Michel and Bruno have a mother in common but little else.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMichel is a molecular biologist, a thinker and idealist, a man with no erotic life to speak of and little in the way of human society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBruno, by contrast, is a libertine, though more in theory than in practice, his endless lust is all too rarely reciprocated.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBoth are symptomatic members of our atomised society, where religion has given way to shallow 'new age' philosophies and love to meaningless sexual connections.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAtomised\u003c\/em\u003e tells the stories of the two brothers, but the real subject of the novel is the dismantling of contemporary society and its assumptions, its political incorrectness, and its caustic and penetrating asides on everything from anthropology to the problem pages of girls' magazines. A dissection of modern lives and loves. By turns funny, acid, infuriating, didactic, touching and visceral.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46494443602156,"sku":"9780099283362","price":25.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/8922453482223.jpg?v=1748455402"},{"product_id":"serotonin-by-michel-houellebecq-9781529111712","title":"Serotonin","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eLonglisted for the International Booker Prize 2020\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA powerful criticism of modern life by one of the most provocative and prophetic writers of our age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFlorent-Claude Labrouste is dying of sadness. Despised by his girlfriend and on the brink of career failure, his last hope for relief comes in the form of a newly available antidepressant that alters the brain's release of serotonin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWhen he returns to the Normandy countryside in search of serenity, he instead finds a rural community left behind by globalisation and red-tape agricultural policies, with local farmers longing for an impossible return to what they remember as a golden age.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e'Despite its provocations, this is a novel of romantic and sorrowful ideas - Houellebecq as troubadour, singing lost loves'\u003c\/em\u003e - Rachel Kushner\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eMichel Houellebecq has good claim to be the most interesting novelist of our times. . . Exhilarating in its nihilism, often very funny and always enjoyable'\u003c\/em\u003e - Evening Standard\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46495542935788,"sku":"9781529111712","price":24.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11538843482732.jpg?v=1748478231"},{"product_id":"submission-by-michel-houellebecq-9781784702052","title":"Submission","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSubmission\u003c\/em\u003e is the highly-anticipated new novel from the internationally bestselling French writer Michel Houellebecq.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs the 2022 French Presidential election looms, two candidates emerge as favourites: Marine Le Pen of the Front National, and the charismatic Muhammed Ben Abbes of the growing Muslim Fraternity. Forming a controversial alliance with the political left to block the Front National's alarming ascendency, Ben Abbes sweeps to power, and overnight the country is transformed. This proves to be the death knell of French secularism, as Islamic law comes into force—women are veiled, polygamy is encouraged and, for our narrator François—misanthropic, middle-aged and alienated—life is set on a new course.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eSubmission\u003c\/em\u003e is a devastating satire, comic and melancholy by turns, and a profound meditation on faith and meaning in Western society.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46495618924780,"sku":"9781784702052","price":25.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11635353482823.jpg?v=1748480275"},{"product_id":"the-map-and-the-territory-by-michel-houellebecq-9780099554578","title":"The Map and the Territory","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePart thriller, part satire, the critically acclaimed latest novel by the winner of the Prix Goncourt is quintessential Houellebecq and perhaps his best yet.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eArtist Jed Martin emerges from a ten-year hiatus with good news. It has nothing to do with his broken boiler, the approach of another lamentably awkward Christmas dinner with his father or the memory of his doomed love affair with the beautiful Olga. It is that, for his new exhibition, he has secured the involvement of none other than celebrated novelist \u003cem\u003eMichel Houellebecq\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe exhibition brings Jed new levels of global fame. But, his boiler is still broken, his ailing father flirts with oblivion and, worst of all, he is contacted by an inspector requiring his help in solving an unspeakable, atrocious and gruesome crime, involving none other than celebrated novelist \u003cem\u003eMichel Houellebecq\u003c\/em\u003e...\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eShortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2013.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House NZ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46496137674988,"sku":"9780099554578","price":26.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/11634613482223.jpg?v=1748492073"},{"product_id":"whatever-by-michel-houellebecq-9781846687846","title":"Whatever","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust thirty, with a well-paid job, no love life, and a terrible attitude, the anti-hero of this grim, funny novel smokes four packs of cigarettes a day and writes weird animal stories in his spare time. A computer programmer by day, he is tolerably content, until he's packed off with a colleague — the sexually frustrated Raphael Tisserand — to train provincial civil servants in the use of a new computer system.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eWhatever\u003c\/em\u003e, Michel Houellebecq's first novel, was a smash hit in France, expressing the misanthropic voice of a generation. Like \u003cem\u003eA Confederacy of Dunces\u003c\/em\u003e, Houellebecq's bitter, sarcastic, and exasperated narrator vociferously expresses his frustration and disgust with the world.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Allen \u0026 Unwin","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46534319505644,"sku":"9781846687846","price":43.0,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13605913482845.jpg?v=1749426293"},{"product_id":"annihilation-by-michel-houellebecq-9781035026418","title":"Annihilation","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAnnihilation\u003c\/em\u003e was a Daily Express Book of the Year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'The most important novelist to have been publishing in all of Europe over the past three decades' - The Sunday Times\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'An extended meditation on human frailty and the lack of spirituality in the Western world... Houellebecq displays compassion and empathy, and a belief in the redemptive power of love' - New Statesman\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt is 2027. France is in a state of economic decline and moral decay.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAs the country plunges into a closely-fought presidential campaign, the French state falls victim to a series of mysterious and unsettling cyberattacks. The sophisticated nature of the attacks leaves the best computer scientists at the DGSI - the French counter-terrorism agency - scrambling for answers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAn advisor to the country's Finance Minister, Paul Raison is close to the heart of government. His wife Prudence is a Treasury official, while his father Édouard, now retired, has spent his career working for the DGSI. When Édouard has a stroke, his children have an opportunity to repair their strained relationships, as they determine to free their father from the medical centre where he is wasting away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eMichel Houellebecq's \u003cem\u003eAnnihilation\u003c\/em\u003e reveals new sides to his writing, adding compassion and tenderness to the emotions of rage and irony that have powered both him and his earlier works to international fame.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e'We have no one to match Houellebecq' - The Daily Telegraph\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTranslated from the French by Shaun Whiteside.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAnnihilation\u003c\/em\u003e was a #1 Livres Hebdo bestseller in France w\/c 10\/01\/2022, and a #1 Spiegel bestseller in Germany w\/c 24\/01\/2022.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"The Distribution and Logistics Company (TDLC)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46670943486188,"sku":"9781035026418","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781035026418.jpg?v=1752809095"},{"product_id":"the-possibility-of-an-island-by-michel-houellebecq-9780753821183","title":"The Possibility of an Island","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWho, among you, deserves eternal life?\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe Possibility of an Island\u003c\/em\u003e by Michel Houellebecq revolves around Daniel, a highly successful stand-up comedian who has made a career out of playing outrageously on the prejudices of his public. However, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, he has begun to detest laughter in particular and mankind in general. Despite this, Daniel is unable to stop himself believing in the possibility of love.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA thousand years on, war, drought, and earthquakes have decimated the earth, and Daniel24 lives alone in a secure compound—his only companion, a cloned dog named Fox. Outside, the remnants of the human race roam in packs, while Daniel24 attempts to decipher his predecessor's history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn a nightmarish vision of the implosion of the modern world, he, like his predecessor, attempts to fathom the meaning of love, sex, suffering, and regret.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46717850419436,"sku":"9780753821183","price":31.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/10311593482456.jpg?v=1754486051"},{"product_id":"h-p-lovecraft-against-the-world-against-life-by-michel-houellebecq-9782374950846","title":"H. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBest-selling French novelist Michel Houellebecq pays tribute to the master of horror, H. P. Lovecraft.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePart biographical sketch, part pronouncement on existence and literature, the best-selling French novelist Michel Houellebecq's \u003cem\u003eH. P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life\u003c\/em\u003e, was published in France in 1991 and is the first non-fiction text ever published by the author. Here, France's most famous contemporary author praises his prewar American alter ego's style, which couldn't be less like his own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a foreword by Lovecraft admirer Stephen King, this eloquently translated edition is an insightful introduction to both Lovecraft's dark mythology and Houellebecq's deadpan prose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Thames and Hudson (Australia) Pty Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46843999912172,"sku":"9782374950846","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/16107393483033.jpg?v=1758823455"},{"product_id":"interventions-2020-by-michel-houellebecq-9781509549962","title":"Interventions 2020","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe death of God in the West was the prelude to a metaphysical soap opera that continues to this day. Christianity’s masterstroke was to combine a fierce belief in the individual with the promise of eternal participation in the Absolute. When that dream evaporated, various attempts were made to offer the individual a minimum of being. The latest of these attempts is advertising, which seeks to arouse desire and transform the subject into a docile phantom, doomed to follow advertising’s every whim. But, like all previous attempts, this superficial participation in the world fails, and unhappiness and depression continue to spread.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe can all produce a cold revolution in ourselves, however, by stepping outside the flow of information and advertising. We need to take some time out, unplug the television, turn off our smartphones, stop buying stuff and adopt an aesthetic attitude to the world. We just need to stay still for a few seconds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is one of the key themes developed by Michel Houellebecq in this collection of his texts and interviews from the last three decades, \u003cem\u003eInterventions 2020\u003c\/em\u003e. Here he explains and elaborates on his point of view, discusses his novels and addresses a wide range of topics from politics, religion and literature to suicide, euthanasia and paedophilia. An indispensable book for anyone interested in the work of one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000650252524,"sku":"9781509549962","price":35.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/12521873482725.jpg?v=1763293632"},{"product_id":"interventions-2020-by-michel-houellebecq-9781509549955","title":"Interventions 2020","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe death of God in the West was the prelude to a metaphysical soap opera that continues to this day. Christianity’s masterstroke was to combine a fierce belief in the individual with the promise of eternal participation in the Absolute. When that dream evaporated, various attempts were made to offer the individual a minimum of being. The latest of these attempts is advertising, which seeks to arouse desire and transform the subject into a docile phantom, doomed to follow advertising’s every whim. But, like all previous attempts, this superficial participation in the world fails, and unhappiness and depression continue to spread.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWe can all produce a cold revolution in ourselves, however, by stepping outside the flow of information and advertising. We need to take some time out, unplug the television, turn off our smartphones, stop buying stuff and adopt an aesthetic attitude to the world. We just need to stay still for a few seconds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is one of the key themes developed by Michel Houellebecq in this collection of his texts and interviews from the last three decades. Here he explains and elaborates his point of view, discusses his novels and addresses a wide range of topics from politics, religion and literature to suicide, euthanasia and paedophilia. An indispensable book for anyone interested in the work of one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Unknown","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47000650383596,"sku":"9781509549955","price":110.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/12521803482725.jpg?v=1763293651"},{"product_id":"in-the-presence-of-schopenhauer-by-michel-houellebecq-9781509543250","title":"In the Presence of Schopenhauer","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe work of Michel Houellebecq – one of the most widely read and controversial novelists of our time – is marked by the thought of Schopenhauer. When Houellebecq came across a copy of Schopenhauer's \u003cem\u003eAphorisms\u003c\/em\u003e in a library in his mid-twenties, he was bowled over by it and he hunted down a copy of his major philosophical work, \u003cem\u003eThe World as Will and Representation\u003c\/em\u003e. Houellebecq found in Schopenhauer – the radical pessimist, the chronicler of human suffering, the lonely misanthrope – a powerful conception of the human condition and of the future that awaits us, and when Houellebecq’s first writings appeared in the early 1990s, the influence of Schopenhauer was everywhere apparent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBut it was only much later, in 2005, that Houellebecq began to translate and write a commentary on Schopenhauer’s work. He thought of turning it into a book but soon abandoned the idea and the text remained unpublished until 2017. 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France is in a state of economic decline and moral decay. As the country plunges into a closely-fought presidential campaign, the French state falls victim to a series of mysterious and unsettling cyberattacks. The sophisticated nature of the attacks leaves the best computer scientists at the DGSI – the French counter-terrorism agency – scrambling for answers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAn advisor to the country's Finance Minister, Paul Raison is close to the heart of government. His wife Prudence is a Treasury official, while his father Édouard, now retired, has spent his career working for the DGSI. 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