Ilse was found on BRTD's doorstep one morning, chewing through a ragged copy of The Corporations Act. We took her in, removed the offending material, and fed her a steady diet of cultural studies, history, crime noir, graphic novels, fantasy and the entire Penguin Classics backlist.
She is still waiting for David Tennant to make her an honest woman, but will settle for Mr. Tilney should the Good Doctor be unavailable.
Ablutions
by Patrick de Witt
July 2009
PB $32.99
This outstanding debut novel is as dark as Guinness and it is Angostura bitter. Our unnamed protagonist is a bartender in a seedy Hollywood bar. His alcoholism, drug abuse and nihilistic attitude reminded me of a grown up (but still messed up) Holden Caulfield, and de Witt has written this loser with intimate verve. Intoxicating prose and a plot like a vortex make this an engrossing read.
Subway Art 25th Anniversary Edition
by Martha Cooper & Henry Chalfant
May 2009
HB $59.95
I've been drooling over this large format, super glossy edition for weeks. This book was originally put together by Cooper and Chalfant when graffiti was exploding across New York City's trains and surfaces in the 1970s and 80s.
The production values of this edition are exceptional - fold out pages for those long, whole car pieces, and follow up notes on many of the artists featured in the original book a quarter of a century ago. There are also 70 additional photographs, and a new introduction and afterword. Seeing some familiar vibrant, cheeky pieces in such lush new colours is exciting. If you're looking for a gift for a graffiti-mad friend or relative, this is will get you massive brownie points.
The Decisive Moment: How the Brain Makes Up Its Mind
by Jonah Lehrer
March 2009
PB $34.95
When should you trust your instincts, and when is it better to detatch from your emotions and evaluate things carefully? How does an epiphany occur? Why do elite athletes "choke", and how do you think your way through a disaster? Lehrer's mix of hard science and compelling anecdotes make for a tremendously engaging read. This book slams the door on the notion that humans are above all rational, and that rationality is the most sophisticated state of being. Feel deeply, and think carefully, says Lehrer: think about thinking. A great companion to one of my other favourite recent books about the mind, Norman Doige's The Brain That Changes Itself.
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
by Reif Larsen
May 2009
PB $34.95
Reif Larsen's ambitious work effortlessly portrays the blank incomprehension felt by 12 year old T.S. when it comes to the adult world. Obsessive cartographer and meticulous illustrator, T.S. sees the world in terms of its connections, and we are treated to his charts and drawings in the margins: how the conversation at the dinner table flows between T.S., his mother, sister and father - and how the absence of his brother alters the dynamic. When T.S. is awarded the prestigious Baird Award by the Smithsonian, he takes off across country, hopping trains from his home on the ranch in Montana like a cheerful, if short, hobo. As he travels across the immensity of the North of the United States, his brilliant mind is busy creating a narrative (and pictures) that make sense of his sometimes bewildering situation. The large format of this book allows for some brilliant illustrations and graphical digressions. It's truly something I've never seen before and I enjoyed it immensely.
The Blade Itself
by Joe Abercrombie
August 2006
PB $22.99
Oh baby. My two year feeding frenzy of fantasy has just been capped with a great big blood flecked poisoned cherry and ain't it cool. All my requirements for romping radness are here: Colour blind, impervious to pain, foul mouthed, arse kicking chick? Check. Demented, sarcastic cripple missing his teeth and with a lust for torture? Check. Vain, stupid nobleman who can't tell the difference between being a hero and being a ponce? Check. Nine-fingered psychotic fighter with more scars than a butcher's chopping block, and a stench to bring tears to the eyes of a gong merchant? Chickedy check. Abercrombie flings filth, death and cynicism at you without pausing to wipe his boots, and his First Law Trilogy is my new favourite. Life's just going to kick you in the face and spit pus on your dreams, after all. You might as well go down with a dirty fight.
Watchmen
by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
1995
PB $45.00
If you thought the movie pulled its punches, you're right. Alan Moore's unflinching critique of the cult of the hero - and superhero - may seem strange from a man who made a living from writing superhero comics, but Moore has always been a maverick.
The Watchmen are deeply flawed individuals who elected themselves heroes: a psychotic murderer, a flabby, impotent loser, a self confessed child-killer, a desperately lonely, hung up mummy's girl... How can they be trusted to save humanity? Do they even know the difference between right and wrong?
In the alternate universe of The Watchmen, the US won the Vietnam War, Nixon is still president after the banning of term limits, and electric cars are the norm. There are three main story lines running in this complex graphic novel: the present day, outlawed Watchmen and their sad lives; flashbacks to their predecessors, the Minutemen and their successes; and the comic-within-a-comic tale of the Black Freighter, a story of doing unspeakable wrongs to avenge a selfish concept of what's right.
Deeper within you find questions of morality, the nature of human self destruction, and fear of the kind of perfection that comes through homogenity.
Watchmen is a tour de force often imitated but never bettered. It's a sophisticated, politically charged and challenging read - pick up a copy today.
Memoirs of a Master Forger
by William Heaney
December 2008
HB $29.99
William Heaney is a fraud. He forges rare books, collaborates in a literary hoax, and is cynical about his work for a non-profit organization. He drinks too much red wine and broods over his ex-wife's new partner, a pompous celebrity chef. But there is something different about Heaney: he sees demons. They trail their owners like ghostly shadows, a disembodiment of regret, fear, rage or temptation. London is infested with them, clinging to the mad, the homeless, the disturbed and the depressed.
This is a fine book, deftly observed and subtly meditative. There are layers upon layers to this work, the first being the fact that this is not really a memoir and it's not really by William Heaney. Slippery as a fish, Memoirs is a discussion of these very modern times, and the different ways of seeing we all use to cope. Don't let the demons put you off -- you'll miss a great read.
Wild: An Elemental Journey
by Jay Griffiths
August 2008
PB $26.95
Wild is an intoxicating book that's written like an hallucination or a dream. Griffiths slides around in the mud, glorying in earthy word play and the sexual charge of the wild, where everything is hell bent on mating and replicating. Griffith's writing is so sensual there are times when the sounds of the forest are deafening, and the drunken prose of someone so in love with the earth is staggering. There is grand passion here, passion so overwhelming it takes a woman to write it. Gobsmackingly good.
The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes and Why
by Amanda Ripley
August 2008
PB $34.95
Do you pay attention to safety instructions when you fly? You probably should, says Amanda Ripley. Why? Well, when we're faced with a disaster - or any catastrophe - we're rarely able to think straight. That's why people tug at armrests instead of the handle on the emergency escape door. If you've rehearsed the motions in your mind, you've got a better chance of survival - even if you do go temporarily blind, or experience tunnel vision or hearing. Find out what it's like to escape a plane crash, the Twin Towers, a nightclub fire and a school shooting - and wonder why some people are heroes, and others are bystanders. What's your 'disaster personality'?
The Eye: A Natural History
by Simon Ings
March 2008
PB $26.95
I love reading books that answer questions I didn't even know I had! For example, what's with those afterimages you get when you've been staring at something too long? And how come humans seem to be the only animals with the whites of their eyes exposed? Vision is such a vital part of human life, but we seem to take it for granted without wondering at how incredible it really is. Ings has managed to put together a lucid account of the development of the eye which can be easily understood by a lay person.
Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror
by Chris Priestley
November 2007
PB $16.95
I underestimated this children's book - or perhaps I just forgot how overactive my imagination is. Walk the spooky forest path to Uncle Montague's and try not to look over your shoulder. There are trees that eat kids out there, or so he says, and plenty of other bloodcurdling creatures. But can you trust a man who never eats, and keeps a mysterious and unseen servant? If you're like me, you'll need to read this in daylight hours. If you like a good fright, read it at night - home alone, if possible!
Cocina Nueva: The New Spanish Kitchen
by Jane Lawson
November 2005
PB $39.95
This well set out and beautifully photographed Spanish cookbook is a total drool fest. It's become a vital part of both my kitchen and my mother's, with recipes ranging from the fast and simple to the slow and extraordinary. Whip up a batch of Sangria and cook to your heart's content - don't forget to check out the chorizo and potato salad, it's a killer.
Worst Journey in the World
by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
1922
$35.00
This knuckle-whitening account about Robert F. Scott's fatal Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole is a classic adventure story. Cherry's endurance in teeth-shatteringly cold mid-Winter -56C temperatures and his miraculous survival after being trapped, tentless, in a blizzard while collecting penguin eggs is breathtaking enough- but what really gets to me is the sense of impending doom as Scott and his team set out, leaving Cherry and a few others behind, never to return. After he returned from the Pole, having found Scott and his companions dead in their tent, Cherry went on to fight in World War One - a remarkable man and a remarkable book.
My favourite book
The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye & Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler.
Philip Marlowe may be my ideal man - he plays chess, cracks wise and makes killer coffee. Chandler gives him a moral depth and sharp intellect that sets him above other hard boiled detectives, who look two-dimensional in comparison. There just isn't a chink in Chandler's prose: it's sharp where it needs to be and supple where it counts. On top of that, it has more witty one liners than an Inner West dinner party. This collection shows Chandler, and Marlowe, at their best.
My favourite author
Iain Banks
I first read The Wasp Factory, Banks' debut novel, when I was in high school. Until then, I didn't think you could write with so much humour about such disturbing subject matter. Needless to say, his clever prose and slightly askew characters had me hooked and I quickly made my way through the rest of his body of work. Iain Banks is the thinking person's Irvine Welsh, eager to engage with politics and matters of social significance but also keen to explore the private, obsessive worlds we all carry around inside us. Word play, punning and general literary in-jokes are scattered throughout his work, and each time I pick up one of his books I seem to discover another.
What's beside the bed
Gates of Graffiti by Torkel Stjostrand Gates, doors, apetures, all covered in masses of tags, throwups, stencils and pasteups. Energetic and wonderfully captured!
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin: A modern interpretative translation with sparkle and wit. Le Guin's practical but cheeky nature shines through, and the original text itself is fresh and elegant.
Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde: What happens when you can only see one colour, and the rest of the world is in greyscale? Fforde's new series looks set to be a cracker if this first installment is anything to go by.