Welcome to Bookland

Did you know that Bookland is a fictitious country? There is such a thing, and this one was created in the 1980s to reserve an EAN (European Article Number) for books, regardless of which country they come from. This helps the EAN to catalogue books by ISBN (International Standard Book Number). Most products have an EAN, but the Bookland code lets the EAN combine the two.

Almost every book published since 1970 has an ISBN. Books that are published privately do not have ISBNs. Here at JimmyD’s ISBNs are just one of the things we use to catalogue our books. Our catalogue enables us to look up books and know immediately if they are on the shelf, even if all we have is a title or an author’s name. It’s very useful, and it helps us serve you better, too. So if there’s a certain book you’re looking for, come into JimmyD’s and we’ll help you find it.

Have a look here for more info on ISBNs.

If You Liked… You’ll Like…

If you liked E. Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, you’ll also like Due Preparations for the Plague by Janette Turner Hospital. Turner Hospital is an Australian author, although the book is set in the US. Lowell is traumatised by the hijacking that killed his mother. Samantha survived a hijacking and cannot let go. Together the two investigate a mysterious sports bag crammed with documents and tapes. The book has the sensibility of a thriller but is much more complex emotionally — sort of like Proulx meets Le Carre, really.

The book is very emotionally descriptive and it has the same dreamy quality to the plot that some of Proulx’s stuff has. It’s an absorbing, intelligent book, with just a hint of the dark humour that I loved in The Shipping News. It has a dark tone and doesn’t mind delving into the fear and suspicion of our post-9/11 world.

You really can tell that the author loves words, too. Have a look at this quote from the front page:

Brightness falls from the air, and so do the words, which rush him. They swoop like starlings from the radio hooked to his belt, though before brightness, before Queens have died young and fair, the broadcast was blurred murmur, bits of music, bits of talk, voices heard but not listened to. Now the phrases flock about Lowell and he bats at them, distressed. Dust hath closed Helen’s eye, I am sick, I must die–but no, Lowell thinks, I must not–Lord, have mercy on us, and yes, Lowell prays, Lord have mercy, because in spite of the fact that the reader has a mellow voice, a soothing and expensive poetry-reading voice, an unmistakably National Public Radio voice, what Lowell can hear is his own father in shallow duet, word for word and line for line, and then suddenly, with a sharp change of tone, Forty thousand feet, he hears, severed fuselage… the fatal plunge…

And a little bit later:

He throws himself forward across the steeply pitched roof and lies sprawled there. The tiles beat against his heart like frightened birds.

Most of all I think that both authors share the belief that emotional trauma can be escaped by their characters, but through a slow process of learning and redemption, not through the usual cathartic soap-opera tricks. Very gentle, beautiful writing.

The Crime Fiction Detective: Classic Crime Fiction is a must for any CF fan

“I let go of the gun and took hold of his wrists. They were greasy and hard to hold. The Indian breathed gutterally and set me down with a jar that lifted the top of my head. He had my wrists now, instead of me having his. He twisted them behind me fast and a knee like a corner stone went into my back. He bent me. I can be bent. I’m not the City Hall. He bent me.
I tried to yell, for no reason at all. Breath panted in my throat and couldn’t get out. The Indian threw me sideways and got a body scissors on me as I fell. He had me in a barrel. His hands went to my neck. Sometimes I wake up in the night. I feel them there and I smell the smell of him. I feel the breath fighting and losing and the greasy fingers digging in. Then I get up and take a drink and turn the radio on.”
That is a quote from Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely.
He was a plump, dark, youngish man of medium height, broad through the jaws, narrow between the eyes. He wore a black bowler hat, a black overcoat that fitted him very snugly, a dark suit, and black shoes, all looking as if he had bought them within the past fifteen minutes. The gun, a blunt black .38-calibre automatic, lay comfortably in his hand, not pointing at any-thing.

This is a quote from Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man

If you love crime fiction, why not go back to the source and read some of the classics? Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were the first to write about the LA detective, a witty, hard-boiled guy who didn’t melt down under pressure and who survived to tell his sometimes-confusing tale in a dark, cynical tone.

Readers of any crime fiction will love these hard-boiled classics. There are some hallmarks of hard-boiled crime that you won’t find anywhere else, at least not this clear-cut. The plot is usually linear and the audience doesn’t know that a man is about to come through the door with a gun in his hand until he does. Likewise, if the detective gets conked on the head and knocked out (that may very well happen, since while hard-boiled detectives are often shrewd and very smart, they’re not superhuman or endowed with the catlike reflexes of some of our more contemporary heroes), we don’t know what’s going to happen until he wakes up. This close, almost claustrophobic POV highlights the seamy underbelly of Los Angeles, where most of these early detective novels are set.

The detective himself is a cynical, world-weary type. He’s more intelligent than he is a thug, but he won’t hesitate to take out his gun and menace people. He’s often principled and well-read, so you get the feeling that this is a detective who oscillates between wanting to be in the world he is in (wanting to stand up for his client, wanting to solve the crime or simplify it) and condemning it, as if he landed in this world of greys, of lies and half-truths, of crime and virtue, by no fault of his own. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe explains in his first novel appearance, The Big Sleep, that he is a college dropout who worked for the DA until he was fired for disobeying orders. Later on we see that he grew up in a small town and that he abhors the thought of that stultifying life: working in a hardware store and marrying the boss’s daughter. Although he hates the lies and murky morality that some of his clients surround him with, he prefers this life to another. He values his education and is widely read, but he feels smothered in rich settings. He enjoys living by his wits. Ross MacDonald’s Lew Archer is a similar knot of contradictions. Archer has a past as a juvenile delinquent, and although he falls in love with many of the women he meets we know that he is divorced and that he is often disgusted with himself when he falls in love with another femme fatale. Archer hates being a tough guy, but he can’t help it.

The detective is always just a little bit detached, a little bit of an outsider. He’s tailor-made to observe and pass silent (and sometimes not-so-silent) judgement.

Many hard-boiled detectives have a quirk that makes them more reflective, something they use as a sort of escape from their work: Chandler’s Philip Marlowe often makes observations informed by the chess games he plays against himself.

If you’re a crime fiction fan (as I am), come in and have a look at our classics. We have plenty of Ross MacDonald, some James M. Cain, the last of Chandler’s novels and a couple by Dashiell Hammett. It’s refreshing to see the roots of the hard-boiled crime fiction we see today, and they’re always a great, breathless read.

- Agnes

Covers so bad… The Incredible Melting Man by Phil Smith

The incredible book of the incredible movie.  We love: the messy melty zombieness, and the feeble attempt at a swirling hellish background. Also the subtitle exclamation, sans deserved punctuation: “he is a human time bomb”. Blurb extract: “On the run from… the dreadful organism which had taken possession of his flesh, turning him into a fiendish nightmare but leaving his mind intact to cringe from the murderous horror he had become”. Disgustingly wonderful. Incredible, even. All this could be yours for five bucks. ONO.

L’Yan

Cute Cats and Cool Cats: Kittens in Japan

I’m not much of a cat lover, but I just had to post about this book that just came in. It’s full of cats and very Japanese, and it’s called Kittens in Japan (unsurprisingly, perhaps).

The dust jacket tells me that the book is a companion volume to “… the ever popular KITTENS ON VACATION…” It seems that some people can never resist a kitten, and after flicking through this book I can see why.

Obviously, it’d be a great gift for a cat lover, or a great desk/coffee table book. And for the more internet-savvy among us, I can imagine that it would be great lolcat fodder.

Take a look! Let the cuteness take over!

We have quite a few catty books in the shop at the moment (including Christmas Carols for Cats and A Curious History of Cats), so come in and take a look.

-Agnes

POETRY-What is the Zeony?

What is the Zeony?

 What is the Zeony?

One part water shifting

Over breast untrembling.

Noting a branch of melaleucas,

Unguent at its leg.

Its knees are bent and

Shine like pomegranates.

The Auguries of its

Left hock speak

To lacing on

Its coronet.

© Patrick Hromas, Child of Equus, 2009 www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/h/hromas

Seeking – Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Do you have a copy of Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat Pray Love” in very good condition? We have a number of people wanting this title. So come on in and recycle your copy! We buy books in very good condition, or can offer store credit if you want to get another book…

Buy a Book for the Nerd In Your Life

I’m a bit of a nerd (perhaps a geek or a dork, or all three), and I’ve selected a few books from the shelves that would be excellent as a nerdy gift. Note bene!

Tools Of War: The Weapons That Changed The World, by Jeremy Black
“Firing 20 arrows a minute, English archers at the Battle of Cre`cy launched a million deadly missiles from their longbows…”
This book is perfect for the history nerd in your life. The sweeping narrative style never gets boring but allows for a lot of historical trivia, too. There are lots of perfect little nuggets of information on warfare and weaponry from prehistory to the 21st Century. Just right to offload while you’re watching an ABC documentary.

Understanding Beer Making: Brewing The Perfect Beer, by Grant Sampson
When conversation about historical weaponry or US Presidential Trivia runs dry (there are only two US Presidents buried in Arlington National Cemetery — can anyone guess who they are?*), geeks like to talk about beer. There’s a lot of science to beer: the taste, the head, the barley, the glucose, yadda yadda yadda. So if you’re a culinary geek or someone who just likes to drink, this is a perfect summer book. Learn how to brew your own beer… with science!

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Perfect holiday reading! This never boring book tells us why Europe and the Near East are the cradle of our society. Perfect food for thought and discussion for budding historians, geopoliticians, biologists and scientists. From the author of The Third Chimpanzee. Curl up in bed and wrap your opposable thumb and ex-brachiating arm around this one!

Richard Feynman and modern physics by James Gleick
Not just atomic bombs — there are bongo drums involved too. A great gift for any budding physicists out there, or anyone interested in a biography with pith. Someone should direct a biopic about this guy!

The Devil’s Music: In The Eye Of The Hurricane, by Pete Davies
Think Twister. It certainly “sweeps” you along! (Bad pun intended).

- Agnes.

*Kennedy and Taft

POETRY – Tears for an Administrator

Tears for an Administrator,
Tears for a songwriter,
Tears for an administrator,
Tears under a moon
So crisp and full
It could cut your fingertip.
These days overlap
At a time of spring,
When messages of love
Coalesce and jasmine
And lily fight for my
Transcendental soul.
Yet my tears are only external,
And like the sodden earth
Or the fecund, mossy
Unhewn stone, they will
Evaporate, relinquish
Their secrets and
Give birth to the lithe,
Bountiful beauty within you. 

© Patrick Hromas, 2009 www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/h/hromas

2777 Poets

Welcome to the 2777 Poets. Here is your very own space for publishing pieces you want to share with the world. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, 2777 Poets is a group of poets and poetry readers who meet once a month at JimmyDs Bookshop in Springwood to share poems and explore the writing of other poets.

If you are interested in what the group are up to, email me at magda@jimmyds.com.au. Feel free to add your comments to any post.

Comments go through the Administrator.