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

Excerpt from The Dag’s Dictionary by Richard Glover, published by ABC Books 2004:

Damn!nesia (damn nee’ zee ah) n.

An affliction by which you walk purposefully from one end of the building to the other, but forget mid-trip where you were going.

I suffer from this constantly.

JimmyD’s staff always get a laugh out of this book.  We have a copy in stock right now for $11. But be warned: this book never sticks around very long!

I also like this one:

Liebry (ly’ bree) n.

A pile of unread but fashionable books placed on a coffee table in order to impress visitors.

L’Yan

This copy is now SOLD. Let us know if you are interested and we can putyou on our seeking list!

Hi all! L’Yan here.

I would like to thank all the ladies who continually recommend Di Morrissey to me as a light read. Its taken me two and a half years but finally I have read some of her work.

Recently I have tried Monsoon, The Islands and The Reef. I wouldn’t usually have bothered reading more after Monsoon as I found the characters drab and the story dragging, but I warmed to The Islands and really have to admit that I quite liked The Reef.

Why these three titles? Why, because they are on the A&R/Dymocks top 100 of course! Otherwise how would I have narrowed it down? The blurbs really don’t tell you anything: if you compare blurbs, all the books seem to be the same. So I went with the recommendations. You really can’t trust a blurb.

What I disliked: her cliche male characters; some seemingly unnecessary chapters where nooothiiiing happens (I do not have the attention span for this!). What I loved: her strong female characters; her sense of the importance of the setting to both character and reader; and her descriptions of the landscapes (she is particularly emotive about Australia, which I love!).

I would recommend Di Morrissey to fans of Judy Nunn, Monica McInerney, current Kate Grenville and Geraldine Brooks. Aussie Aussie Aussie. Let me know if you can recommend anything else.

 This book was chosen as Notable Book by both the New York Times and the Washington Post.

On the frontispiece Brooks quotes a poem by John Dryden recounting “…When spotted deaths ran arm’d through every street” — a vision of the plague striking London in 1666. He called this poem the Annus Mirabilis, The Year of Wonders. This titular “year of wonders” is obviously a thread that runs strong through the book. We follow the protagonist, Anna (a housekeeper in the small mountainous village of Eyam) through the plague year of 1666 and beyond. In the beginning  the plague is only vaguely referred to, but as you work through the book the historical detail becomes more precise and very graphic. I was intruiged by the fact that the plague was bought to Eyam via an infected bolt of cloth. The ending isn’t disastrous but Brooks doesn’t sell it out to the cheap trick of a happy ending, either. As a whole the book manages to remain realistic through a sweeping, dramatic narrative.

In summary: A good read, well-researched, an interesting and breathless book by an Australian author.

 If you like this book, we have some other books in stock that you might like:

Wrack by James Bradley, a gripping historical mystery set in New South Wales.

Foreign Correspondence by Geraldine Brooks.

In The Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant, set in 16th Century Venice.

  L’Yan recommends this book for people who like Salley Vickers, Kate Grenville, David Malouf and Valerie Anand.

Agnes

“Almost every Australian knows the name ‘Ned Kelly’. Few know more than the basic facts…”

In this selection off our Top Shelf, historian John Molony explores the circumstances surrounding the life and death of Ned Kelly. It’s part work of scholarship and serious biography and part speculative fiction. Take a look at this excerpt from the dust-cover:

“On the eve of his hanging, his mother, a prisoner in the same Melbourne Gaol, said to him, ‘Mind you die like a Kelly, son’; he had certainly lived like one. This is the story of Ned Kelly, of his people, who were destined to poverty, degradation and rejection, and of the land that made a legend of him.”

Our copy is a first edition in very good condition, for $25. It surely is an important milestone in Ned Kelly scholarship, but this is no dry historical tome. The early chapters outline Ned Kelly’s childhood without slipping into a laundry list of woes. The book doesn’t seek so much to explain Ned Kelly’s actions as to catalogue them in a very erudite fashion. An enjoyable book for any lover of Australiana or real life crime!

Peter Watt is Australia’s answer to Clive Cussler, with beautiful, practical characters, spectacular settings and a working knowledge of his subjects.

 If you enjoy sprawling sagas (especially Australian ones!), give his first trilogy a go: book one is Cry of the Curlew, book two is Shadow of the Osprey, book three is Flight of the Eagle.  They explore the intricacies of complicated relationships and the harshness of outback Australian life… and whilst it all sounds very typical, I promise you a fantastic read. I couldn’t put them down. The Aboriginal characters are particularly beautiful.

Author blurb taken from Papua: ‘Peter Watt has spent time as a soldier, articled clerk, prawn trawler deckhand, builder’s labourer, pipe layer, real estate salesman, private investigator, police sergeant and adviser to the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. He has lived and worked with Aborigines, Islanders, Vietnamese and Papua New Guineans and he speaks, reads and writes Vietnamese and Pidgin.  Good friends, fine food, fishing and the vast open spaces of outback Queensland are his main interests in life.  Peter Watt can be contacted at www.peterwatt.com’

JimmyD’s currently has two Peter Watt titles in stock, Papua and To Chase the Storm.

Recommended for people who read: Clive Cussler, Wilbur Smith, Bryce Courtenay, Tom Clancy, William Stuart Long, Colleen McCullough.

Enjoy! L’Yan

In May 2006 Lincoln Hall, who lives in the Blue Mountains, was thought to have died on his way back down Mt Everest. He was left behind by his fellow climbers, only to be discovered next morning by another party. Before that he had made an attempt on the mountain in 1984.

” it was the goal of a small team of Australians. They planned a quick, lightweight ascent of an unclimbed route without oxygen. But their battle with storms, avalanches, extreme cold and thin air meant they soon began to run out of time. WHITE LIMBO is a compelling story of danger and the incredible limits of human endurance. Published more than two decades ago, it continues to be a true adventure classic.” From Booktopia

Retail price new $19.95 our price recycled $12.00

This book has SOLD

Set in Sydney’s Northwest (Castle Hill and surrounds), ‘Finding Cassie Crazy’ is a good read in the ‘young adult’ category. Themes include boys, love, friendship, heartbreak – which all sounds typical for a book aimed at teens, but this book is a real surprise. Chapters alternate the voices of each of the characters, and the format switches between lists, letters, prose, plays, student noticeboards… It was all crazy enough for me to keep reading. Also it was nice to read a book where I knew something about the area it was set in!

This book is a companion to Jaclyn Moriarty’s bestseller ‘Feeling Sorry for Celia’.  If you feel too grown-up to delve back into “young-adult” territory, keep an eye out for “I Have A Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes”, her attempt at adult fiction. And of course, let me know what you think.

L’Yan

Don’t you love food books with great pictures of mouth watering plates of food? This one looks at food from different regions in Australia and recipes to go with some of the local ingredients. It has a some really simple recipes which I’m going to try. I like the sound of the Beer cake. It’s made with a simple almost rock cake dough but with beer in it, loaded with mixed fruit and topped with streusel. Yum, I feel like going home and making it right now. Will report on how it goes.

Magda

This book is for sale at JimmyD’s Bookshop

If you’ve ever travelled or lived in the real Australian outback you will really enjoy Arthur Upfield’s depictions of the landscape and its climate, as well as his descriptions of the characters and language of the era. It’s a real slice of our history in a crime novel format.

Upfield created Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte (Bony) from the Queensland Police. He was in 29 novels, mostly set in the Australian outback. The books were turned into a popular television series in the 1970’s.

You may have seen the ABC drama recently called 3 Acts of Murder, based on a true crime story. Arthur Upfield had written a book called The sands of Windee, that was used as inspiration for a real life murder.

There are plenty of websites where you can find out more about him. Here’s just one.

http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/upfield.html

Magda

This book is for sale at JimmyDs Bookshop for $10.00.