L’Yan, doing her Christmas shopping at JimmyD’s

LYan doing all her Christmas shopping at JimmyD's

Welcome…

You may have noticed that we have been busy painting and drilling and moving everything over the last few weeks. There is a small prize for anyone who can pick 5 or more things that have changed since September this year, so come in and have a look around!
We hope you enjoy the changes to the front of the shop as much as we do.

How do I get a book from JimmyD’s Bookshop?

JimmyD’s is at 258 Macquarie Road, Springwood (opposite the train station and next to St George Bank)

Our opening hours are:

9.30 – 5.00 weekdays

10.00 – 3.00 Saturday

12.00 – 3.00 Sunday in summer.

PHONE: 02 4751 8010

EMAIL:  magda@jimmyds.com.au

SEARCH ONLINE: http://www.abebooks.com/jimmyds-springwood/52299787/sf

We have MANY other books that are not listed online, so if there is anything you are looking for that you don’t find, ask us!

We love to talk about books, and if you’re trying to track down a rare book or  just find some light reading, JimmyD’s staff are always happy to help.

Awesome Christmas gifts 2011

Our favourite Christmas stuff this year: M-Cups - stackable doll measuring cups! Cute as!

JD’s on FB

JimmyD’s Bookshop – FIND US ON FACEBOOK! We would love to see you.

Thank you!

Hello to everybody who finds our website and wonders where we have gone!

I would just like to let you know that we still appreciate all of the emails and phone calls we get from you. We love to help you find that elusive book you have been looking for for ages! We have a lot of books in the shop and in storage that aren’t all listed for sale on the internet, so keep the questions coming and we will continue to try our best to help out.

If you are on facebook, find us at our page: JimmyD’s Bookshop

We would love to hear from you!

L’Yan

Weird Author Names, No. 1.

I’m just putting some new age books onto our system, and I came across this book:

The author’s name is so… intriguing. Sort of like a portmanteau of “good” and “savage”, and somehow just right for the author of a slim little Astrology volume from the mid-60s. I also feel compelled to share the author’s bio with you, since it’s almost as charming as his name.

“The author has worked as a reporter and tramp printer for at least half of the major dailies in the U.S. and has written hundreds of articles for the national magazines TRUE and FACT.”

TRUE and FACT indeed. You can pick up this charming little book in our New Age section, for $11.

-Agnes.

The Far Side by Gary Larson

Someone used to give my dad  a Far Side calendar for  Christmas every year, one of those desk calendars you flip over every day. I loved reading that calendar all at once. There was something about Gary Larson that was too cool to save for a calendar.

Gary Larson, if you didn’t know, does one-panel cartoons that are often dark, surreal and wildly funny. They’re a great gift for someone with a sense of humour, I think, but they’re also addictive (hence the way I spurned the one-cartoon-a-day calendar format).

Here’s something you might not know (that I discovered on Wikipedia). One of Larson’s cartoons features two chimpanzees groooming each other. One finds a blonde hair on the other and says “ Conducting a little more ‘research’ with that Jane Goodal tramp?” This is typical of Larson’s humour, which often features anthropomorthised animals. The Jane Goodal Institute wanted to sue Larson for this cartoon, but Goodal refused since she found the cartoon funny. She has since praised Larson’s ideas for the way they contrast the way that animals and humans live.

Jane Goodall isn’t the only friend Gary Larson has in the world of zoology, either. He has had a species of butterfly and a species of louse named after him. 

You’ll love Gary Larson if you like smart, surreal, weird and “quirky” humour, if you love animals or pop culture. I think this book would be a great gift for the scientist, office worker or comedy buff in your life. Maybe I’ll give it to my dad as a replacement for the calendar, this year.

Agnes.

Shantaram-a-rama

Joy of joys! Somebody just brought in a copy of Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts… which is also on the Top 100 lists. Therefore I simply must read it. I will slowly make my way through it and let y’all know how I go. Its a doozie.

L’Yan

Seen the Movie? Read the Book! (Maugham, The Painted Veil)

The most recent film of The Painted Veil came out in 2006, starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts. The vibrant Kitty meets Walter, a quiet but intelligent young doctor. The two marry, but Kitty has an affair and Edward accepts a place as a sort of epidemiologist in China, which is in the middle of a cholera outbreak. The movie is quite stunning visually and the nasty, loveless relationship (at least one one side — as a Facebook user would say, it’s complicated) was reminiscient, at least for me, of another Maugham work, Of Human Bondage  (that one was made into a charming and amusing film with Leslie Howard and Bette Davis).

The book is very… polite. Maugham is very much a product of his era (as all writers are), and in my (not terribly informed) opinion, that might be why his books are often dismissed as overwrought and sentimental. The latter is certainly true, but if you enjoyed the emotional interplay of the movie (which is really quite sophisticated at the same time as it is downright malicious), you’ll like the book.

Maugham’s plain prose was often criticised for being quite lowbrow,  and this is easy to see, especially when you consider that in his time Modernism was first beginning to assert itself. It’s not hard to infer that Maugham was probably confused about his sexuality (for a public man of Maugham’s generation, being openly gay was impossible), and many of the relationships in his books are dysfunctional and overemotional.

If you liked the movie, I’d recommend that you give the book a go, especially if you like reading classics. Even with the subject matter there’s a sort of comforting quaintness in this book that you won’t get in many other writers of Maugham’s vintage.

-Agnes.

You can find this one, and some other Maugham (pronounced “mawm”, by the way) works, on our Classics shelf. We have whole shelf devoted to books that have been turned into films (and vice versa), too.

What do you think of Maugham?