100,000+ Books, Games & Puzzles in-stock πŸ‡³πŸ‡Ώ

Thanks for supporting our NZ-owned independent bookstore ❀️ Overnight NZ Delivery πŸš€

Gould's Book Of Fish

3.7 goodreads logo

Ratings/reviews counts are updated frequently.

Check link for latest rating.
( 5,803 ratings, 702 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan is a captivating tale set in 19th-century Tasmania, exploring the life of William Buelow Gould, a convict turned artist. Through his beautifully illustrated and surreal manuscript of fish, the novel weaves a rich narrative of imprisonment, art, and the struggle for identity against a backdrop of colonial oppression. It's a blend of historical fiction and magical realism, highlighted by themes of creativity and survival.
Read More
Format: Paperback / softback
$2400
Elsewhere:
$2600
AVAILABLE WITH SUPPLIER Ships from our Auckland warehouse within 4-6 weeks

Found a better price? Request a price match

Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book may appeal to you if you enjoy novels that blend history and imagination, presenting a surreal story set in a 19th-century Australian penal colony. Its vivid prose and complex narrative structure explore themes of identity, transformation, and the power of art, making it a fascinating read for those who appreciate richly detailed and unconventional storytelling.

Book Hero thinking about your next read

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

'A work of pure brilliance', Seattle Times

From the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2014, this is his Commonwealth Writers' Prize-winning novel.

Once upon a time, which was called 1828, before all fishes in the sea and all living things on the land were destroyed, there was a man named William Buelow Gould. A white convict who fell in love with a black woman, he discovered too late that to love is not safe. Silly Billy Gould, invader of Australia, liar, murderer and forger, was condemned to the most feared penal colony in the British Empire, and there he was ordered to paint a book of fish.

Once upon a time, there were miracles...

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781761048135

Publisher: Penguin Random House Australia

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 12 April 2023

Country: Australia

Imprint: Penguin Random House Australia

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 33.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 197.0mm

Weight: 327g

Pages: 480

About the Author

Richard Flanagan has been described by the Washington Post as 'one of our greatest living novelists' and as 'among the most versatile writers in the English language' by the New York Review of Books. He won the Commonwealth Prize for Gould's Book of Fish and the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Question 7 was shortlisted for the Prix Femina etranger and the Prix du meilleur livre etranger as a novel, and won the 2024 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. He is the first and only author to have ever won both the Booker and the Baillie Gifford prizes.

Also by Richard Flanagan

View all
  • Question 7
    Beginning at a love hotel by Japan's Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West's affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave labourer near Hiroshima when the atom bomb...
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Narrow Road to the Deep North
    The highly anticipated Australian original series based on Richard Flanagan's Booker Prize-winning novel is launching on Prime Video on 18 April 2025. A masterpiece . . . The Narrow Road to the Deep North is an extraordinary piece of writing and a high point in an already distinguished career. - Michael Williams, The Guardian Available on Prime Video from 18...
    Paperback
    $1999
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Wanting
    Richard Flanagan's Wanting reminds us that he is one of the most exciting novelists working anywhere, full stop - The Age From the winner of the Man Booker Prize. The bestselling, universally lauded novel of desire and its denial from acclaimed writer Richard Flanagan. Van Diemen's Land, 1841. Mathinna, the adopted Aboriginal daughter of the island's governor, Sir John Franklin,...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Sound Of One Hand Clapping
    The Sound Of One Hand Clapping is described as a 'heartbreaking story, beautifully told' by the Literary Review, and it delivers from its wonderfully atmospheric opening to its touching conclusion. Written by the winner of the Man Booker Prize, The Sound Of One Hand Clapping is one of the most-loved and biggest-selling literary novels in Australian history. In the winter...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • First Person
    Flanagan's best work to date. - Readings Magazine What is the truth? In this blistering story of a ghost writer haunted by his demonic subject, the Man Booker Prize winner turns to lies, crime and literature with devastating effect. About to go to trial for defrauding the banks of millions, con man and corporate criminal Siegfried Heidl offers broke writer...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Death Of A River Guide
    One of the most auspicious debuts in Australian writing. – Times Literary Supplement From the winner of the Man Booker Prize, Death of a River Guide, Richard Flanagan's debut novel, is widely regarded as a classic in Australian literature. Beneath a waterfall on the Franklin, Aljaz Cosini, river guide, lies drowning. Beset by visions at once horrible and fabulous, he...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Narrow Road to the Deep North
    A masterpiece . . . The Narrow Road to the Deep North is an extraordinary piece of writing and a high point in an already distinguished career. - Michael Williams, The Guardian A novel of the cruelty of war, the tenuousness of life, and the impossibility of love. August, 1943. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
    Richard Flanagan is one of the greatest writers at work in the world today - I admire him and his writing immensely. The Living Sea of Waking Dreams is a haunting, urgent and important book about our broken and confusing age," says James Rebanks. In a world of perennial fire and growing extinctions, Anna's aged mother is dyingβ€”if her three...
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2600
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Question 7
    Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize 2024 Beginning at a love hotel by Japan's Inland Sea and ending by a river in Tasmania, Question 7 is about the choices we make about love and the chain reaction that follows. By way of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West's affair through 1930s nuclear physics to Flanagan's father working as a slave...
    Hardback
    $3600
    Elsewhere:
    $4000
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Toxic
    Is Tasmanian salmon one big lie? In a triumph of marketing, the Tasmanian salmon industry has for decades succeeded in presenting itself as world’s best practice and its product as healthy and clean, grown in environmentally pristine conditions. What could be more appealing than the idea of Atlantic salmon sustainably harvested in some of the world’s purest waters? But what...
    Paperback
    $2700
    Elsewhere:
    $3000
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Seize the Fire
    In Seize the Fire, Richard Flanagan argues that Australia is not a fixed entity, but a molten ideaβ€”a country with a future that is ours to shape and ours to dream anew. Australia is not a fixed entity, a collection of outdated bigotries and reactionary credos, but rather an invitation to dream, and this countryβ€”our countryβ€”belongs to its dreamers. If...
    Paperback
    $1500
    Elsewhere:
    $1599
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks
  • Notes on an Exodus
    Notes on an Exodus explores the exodus of refugees from Syria, crafted by Man Booker Prize winner Richard Flanagan, with illustrations from Archibald Prize winner Ben Quilty. In January 2016, Richard Flanagan and Ben Quilty travelled to Lebanon, Greece, and Serbia to follow the river that signifies the exodus of our ageβ€”that of refugees from Syria. Flanagan's notes and Quilty's...
    Paperback
    $1299
    Available
    Ships in 4-6 weeks

More from General Fiction

View all
  • The Wedding People
    'BEST READ OF THE YEAR SO FAR' THE TIMES 'BOOKS AS FUN AS THIS ONE ARE FEW AND FAR BETWEEN' GUARDIAN Phoebe Stone arrives at a grand beachside hotel in Rhode Island wearing her best dress and least comfortable shoes. Immediately she is mistaken for one of the wedding people β€” but she's actually the only guest at the Cornwall...
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (3)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Throne of Glass Box Set (Paperback)
    Enter the realm. Unleash the darkness. Live the legend. Discover the worldwide phenomenon of the #1 New York Times-bestselling Throne of Glass series in this gorgeous 8-book box set! In a land without magic, an assassin is summoned to the castle. She has no love for the vicious king who rules from his throne of glass, but she has not...
    Set
    $12400
    Elsewhere:
    $15500
    (6)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Goal
    Welcome to Briar U!Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy!Read The Goal now for the perfect forced proximity romance! She's good at achieving her goals . . . College senior Sabrina James has her whole future planned out: graduate from college, kick...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Red Rising
    The first book in the incredible New York Times bestselling series Darrow is a Helldiver, toiling beneath the surface of Mars. As a member of the Red caste, he performs grueling labor in the belief that his sacrifice will enable future generations to one day inhabit the surface of the Red Planet. The Reds are humankind's lowest caste, living in...
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    (1)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Score
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession... Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Score now for the perfect friends with benefits romance! He knows how to score, on and off the ice... Allie Hayes is in crisis mode. With graduation looming, she still doesn't have...
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    The Ballad of Falling Dragons [Special Deluxe edition]
    The No.1 Sunday Times bestselling sensation When the Moon Hatched continues with the second book in The Moonfall Series, The Ballad of Falling Dragons… Raeve’s thirst for vengeance continues to burn, as does her love for Kaan Vaegor – a staunch beacon from a past she’s yet to face. With Rekk’s blood still fresh on her hands, she learns the...
    Hardback
    $5999
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Theo of Golden
    THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLING PHENOMENON'For anything to be truly good, there must be love in it. Nothing is what it's supposed to be if love is not at the core.' One morning, a stranger arrives in the town of Golden. No one knows who he is or where he came from…His name is Theo and he's arrived there by chance –...
    Paperback
    $2899
    Elsewhere:
    $3499
    (5)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Golden Son
    ENDER'S GAME meets THE HUNGER GAMES in this, the second in an extraordinary trilogy from an incredible new voice.'I'm still playing games. This is just the deadliest yet.' Darrow is a rebel forged by tragedy. For years he and his fellow Reds worked the mines, toiling to make the surface of Mars inhabitable. They were, they believed, mankind's last hope....
    Paperback
    $2400
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Voracious
    From USA Today bestselling author and TikTok sensation comes the gripping, steamy dark romance series that everyone is talking about!'Filled with TENSION, HEARTBREAK and ELECTRIC CHEMISTRY. This one will tear your heart right out of your chest before tossing it back in and sewing you up' No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Brynne Weaver'Leigh Rivers is THE QUEEN OF...
    Paperback
    $2200
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • Project Hail Mary
    Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, the SUNDAY TIMES and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author of The Martian, offers a gripping new adventure in hard science fiction. With endorsement from notable figures such as Barack Obama and a slew of five-star reviews, this novel promises a thrilling and intellectually stimulating journey. Ryland Grace, a lone astronaut, finds himself on a...
    Paperback
    $2399
    Elsewhere:
    $2400
    (4)
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • The Mistake
    Welcome to Briar U! Get ready for your newest obsession . . . Discover the addictive world of the Off-Campus series from The Queen of Hockey Romance, Elle Kennedy! Read The Mistake now for the perfect second chance romance! He's a player in more ways than one . . . College junior John Logan can get any girl he wants....
    Paperback
    $2499
    Elsewhere:
    $2799
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow
  • New Release
    On Mystic Lake
    One of the greatest storytellers of our time - Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing Annie Colwater's only child has just left home for school in England. On that same day, her husband of twenty years confesses that he's in love with a younger woman. Left alone in the beautiful California house which was once a home, Annie...
    Paperback
    $3100
    Elsewhere:
    $3800
    In Stock
    Ships tomorrow

Why buy from us?

Book Hero is not a chain store or big box retailer. We're an independent 100% NZ-owned business on a mission to help more Kiwis rediscover a love of books and reading!

Service & Delivery

Service & Delivery

Our warehouse in Auckland holds over 100,000 books, toys, board games and puzzles in-stock so you're not waiting for your order to arrive from overseas.

Auckland Bookstore

Auckland Bookstore

We're primarily an online store, but for your convenience you can pick up your order for free from our bookstore, which is right next door to our warehouse in Hobsonville.

Our Gifting Service

Our Gifting Service

Books make wonderful thoughtful gifts and we're here to help with gift-wrapping and cards. We can even send your gift directly to your loved one.