We’ve put it on the Book Haven blackboard: ‘Books are way better than AI slop!’ Please, with huge AI companies buying & destructively scanning secondhand books to feed their large language learning models, please do support your local bookshops and libraries!

Friday 28 August is National Poetry Day - it’s a day to celebrate poets & poetry. On our blackboard we’ve a sample of poets to delight… And we have 20% off our secondhand poetry (excluding those in the expensive catalogue) from today and all weekend! #nationalpoetryday

We got emailed a link to an article by Hana Lee Goldin substack.com/home/post/p-... Three eras of destruction: 1st era of annihilation left ashes & knowledge of the devastation, 2nd era of spectacle left photographs of the fires & the threat those fires were meant to carry, 3rd era is disappearance

Books Have Always Been Destroyed. But Never Like This.

We’ve entered the third era of libricide.

substack.com

"There’s an ethical & moral argument to be made against the destruction of books...No doubt second-hand booksellers, receiving bulk orders are finding themselves having to weigh up difficult decisions." For us, also the issue is do we want to be involved in offshoring of knowledge for AI companies?

The Spinoff@thespinoff.bsky.social · 2w ago

How AI is coming for second-hand books

Today: a kōrero about ‘The Valley - Crime and Punishment in a NZ City’. Speakers: Asher Emanuel Lawyer & author of The Valley Harry Walker Former Māori Welfare Officer & Cultural Report writer, author of ‘A Voice For The Silenced’ Oliver Neas Lawyer & producer of the podcast Undercurrents

A load of books ordered by an AI company was tracked to an Amazon warehouse by @404media.co They took a photo of the logo on the door, it really is unbelievable! It all adds weight to Anthropic's chilling statement: “Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world”

404 Media@404media.co · 3w ago

SCOOP: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it. What did we find? It ended up at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. Yes. This is literally the logo outside the Amazon warehouse door. Read now:

On 1News last night a story about AI companies purchasing books from Aotearoa NZ to train AI. We're against the practice, as is Renee Rowland from BookSellersNZ. Patent lawyer Zoe Dewhurst said if this were it happen here, it would not be allowed. Full story here: www.1news.co.nz/2026/08/17/n...

NZ bookstores receive bulk orders suspected of being used to train AI

One seller said the orders were for non-fiction books published before the 1990s.

1news.co.nz

This Thursday 20 August at 6.30pm we have: Asher Emanuel Lawyer & author of ‘The Valley - Crime and Punishment in a New Zealand City’ Harry Walker Former Māori Welfare Officer & Cultural Report writer, author of ‘A Voice For The Silenced’ Oliver Neas Lawyer & producer of the podcast Undercurrents

Which cover will you choose? There's 4 styles of kluge, designed by @toddatticus.com And that's just the cover, inside is another world (or is it?) - it's a world of AI companies. @pipadam.bsky.social says kluge is a scream in a dark room. It's a workplace satire about AI and the value of a body...

It's today! It's time for us to welcome kluge to the world - Happy Launch Day @pipadam.bsky.social 👁️ Friday 14 August, 6pm 👁️ Aro Valley Community Centre, Wellington @thwupbooks.bsky.social will be there, with readings from Kerry Donovan Brown, Always Becominging, Brannavan Gnanalingam - & pip adam!

Happy publication day pip adam! kluge is here, and it's making a massive splash. And there are four covers to choose from (or collect!) thanks to the genius of Todd Atticus. teherengawakapress.co.nz/products/klu...

6.15pm Hot chips and deep-fried vegan treats. 6.45pm Talking from the awesome @thwupbooks.bsky.social folk and readings from Kerry Donovan Brown, Always Becominging and Brannavan Gnanalingam

Book Haven@bookhavennz.bsky.social · 3w ago

Come to the launch of kluge: 👁️ Friday 14 August, 6pm 👁️ Aro Valley Community Centre, Wellington The event will include readings from Kerry Donovan Brown, Always Becominging and Brannavan Gnanalingam - and, of course, pip adam @pipadam.bsky.social

Tomorrow, 14 August 6pm at Aro Valley Community Centre is the launch! We'll be there with kluge - so looking forward to it.

Te Herenga Waka University Press@thwupbooks.bsky.social · 3w ago

'No one else in New Zealand is writing books like this.' newsroom.co.nz/2026/08/13/b...

The official launch of pip adam's new book 'kluge' is Friday 14 August, 6pm at Aro Valley Community Centre, Wellington It's such a timely release! We need a book like kluge. We all need to think more about where AI & all those big companies are taking us. Thank you @pipadam.bsky.social !

New episode of Better off Read. My new book kluge comes out on Thursday. i'm doing four events to celebrate the four colours the cover comes in. You can read about them and listen to a short excerpt here better-read.com/2026/08/11/k...

kluge: four covers four events

My new novel kluge is released in Aotearoa this week. Read about kluge Thanks to the amazing work of Te Herenga Waka University Press and Todd Atticus it has a beautiful cover which comes in four c…

better-read.com

pip adam reads from Audition - the book nominated for this year's Ursula K Le Guin prize for fiction. Congratulations pip! @pipadam.bsky.social

Ursula K. Le Guin@ursulakleguin.com · 3w ago

Pip Adam's novel Audition is shortlisted for the 2026 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction. Here, Pip (@pipadam.bsky.social) introduces the book, then reads from the novel's opening pages. More about this year's shortlist: www.ursulakleguin.com/prize26

We just got interviewed today on RNZ about the bulk buying of books for AI training. In April we got several large orders and then just last week more: 180 books in 10 orders in one day, all going to a US warehouse. It really must be another version of #ProjectPanama www.rnz.co.nz/life/books/w...

Wellington second-hand bookstore’s mysterious orders

Book Haven in Wellington's Newtown started to receive more orders than it could possibly handle.

rnz.co.nz

We're excited to be the bookseller at the launch of 'kluge' by @pipadam.bsky.social It's a satire about artificial intelligence - about the end days of a tech company & its all-powerful owner, told in the style of a stand-up comedy. DETAILS Friday 14 August, 6PM Aro Community Centre #pipadam

Remember The Armenians is a night of Armenian poetry & music today 6.30pm L4/99 Willis Street, Te Aro. You can find them on Instagram @Rememberthearmenians Armenian books we have in shop are Razmik Davoyan & Diana Der-Hovanessian, & 'The 40 Days' by Franz Werfel. #RememberTheArmenians

When Jesse Mulligan over @rnz.co.nz.web.brid.gy asked what critters we'd like featured on merch, we gathered novels with critters on the covers: butterflies, flies, ants, bugs & more. Plus, some nonfiction & a copy of the wonderful 'Scratching for a Living' by Ruud Kleinpaste. #Critteroftheweek

It's Bastille Day, & here's some books about that time: non-fiction books are by Mark Traugott, Leo Gershoy, Archibald Robertson, Edmund Burke, J. H. Shennan, & John Paxton. Fiction are by Victor Hugo, Dickens, Marge Piercy, Jonathan Grimwood, & 'Juliet Grey #BastilleDay #FrenchRevolution #Bastille

We're delighted by the location of these two articles on RNZ website - well done @rnz.co.nz.web.brid.gy #nzpols #trump

Highly recommend the NZ Wars Collection podcast on @rnz.co.nz.web.brid.gy Also read Vincent O'Malley's 'The New Zealand Wars Ngā Pakanga O Aotearoa', 'A History Of Queen's Redoubt And The Invasion Of The Waikato' by Ian Barton & Neville Ritchie, & BWB book 'Fragments From a Contested Past' #NZWars

Mānawatia a Matariki We‘re closed Rāmere Friday 10 July to celebrate Matariki.

It’s world chocolate day, so here’s a few chocolatey books we have in the shop. If you want to know about chocolate politics though, some good books are: ‘Cocoa’ by Kristy Leissle, ‘Chocolate on Trial’ by Lowell J. Satre. Sadly, neither are in stock at the moment #WorldChocolateDay #secondhandbooks

Yippee! Pip Adam’s novel ‘Audition’ is shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize. www.ursulakleguin.com/prize26

On Thursday 25 June at 6.30pm, Stacey Teague, Becs Tetley, Mary McCallum, & Janis Freegard will be at Book Haven to tell us what “feeling at home” means to them. The event runs for about an hour but we’ll keep the doors open late so you can squeeze some book browsing in afterwards. Do come along.

20 June is World Refugee Day. The theme is ‘Until Everyone is Safe’, but just days ago the EU Pact on Migration & Asylum came into force stopping the right to asylum if arriving by sea in Europe, then on Wednesday the EU Parliament passed an anti-migrant bill & right-wingers chanted ‘send them back’

Are you interested in the Horn of Africa? We happen to have a range of books about Eritrea and Tigray. And with Ethiopia having their first election since the formal end of the Tigray War, we think it’s timely to highlight them. They’re books from the ‘80s, including the journal ‘Horn of Africa’

Join us today Thursday 21/5 at 6.30pm at BookHaven for the launch of Paul Maunder’s novel ‘The Sculptor from Rūnanga’ - Mike Garvey is an ordinary man living on the West Coast - but as the images from Gaza become impossible to ignore, he makes a decision that change’s everything.