Too Many Books Too Little space

Well November is here for Booksellers as books run in the door and there are giant piles all over the shop. In fact we are finding it a little scary just where do these books fit? Shop little, books many. Trying to fit in the reading requirement of a bookshop life between receiving books has been hard too but I have managed a few. Blood by Tony Birch a moving road story of a young boy, the sister he will protect at any cost and their neglectful mother, I shed a tear. The much hyped The Night Circus -Erin Morgensten which really is a magical love story written with great imagination. Death and the

Spanish Lady- Carolyn Morwood a great mystery set in Victoria during the Spanish influenza epidemic in 1919, the first in a 3 book series it was a treat to read. The Marriage Plot -Jeffrey Eugenides what a fabulous tale of a love triangle, growing up and semiotics. Squeezed in The Sisters Brothers -Patrick DeWitt This Booker short listed book really is such a great, violent, western. The story of 2 hitman travelling across America to do a job is a complete page turner.Ate a great meal at the Corner Shop'snewest venture Brain in Williamstown Smoked eel to die for.

More events than you can poke a stick at!

Well it is certainly event time here at the Sun Bookshop get out your diary and start putting aside some time for the following. Saturday 24th of September we have ex Doggies player Barry Hall signing his memoir Pulling no Punches. Put your scarf on and head down at 10.00am. Then the very exciting launch of William McInnes and Sarah Watt's beautiful, funny and moving book, the story of their lives together and with their children Worse Things happen at Sea on Tuesday 27th at 6pm you are all welcome but book for this as it is an event exclusive to the Sun . Our bookclub meets September 28th at 8pm this time we are reading the powerful Kinglake 350 and we are so lucky to have author Adrian Hyland coming along. Saturday October 1st at 11.00am sees Kerry Greenwood's fantastic new Corrina title Cooking the Books being launched, book as Kerry's launches are always popular. Then on Wednesday October 5 we are selling books for Sydney comedian Mandy Nolan at Aqua y Vino call them to purchase tix 9687 9006. Finally at 1.30pm, Saturday the 8th Claire Saxby's beautiful childrens picture book The Carrum Sailing Club will be launched. Whew after that I will be having a fab Latin american meal at Los latinos in Maidstone where I went to for the first time last week and had incredible Fajitas yum, I can not wait to go back.

National Bookshop Day Text Prize Winner

Yes finally got it together to put this photo of our happy winner of these great Text titles on the website. Personally can vouch for 3 of these great reads

Indigenous Literacy Day

Today is Indigenous Literacy Day started by that amazing woman Suzy Wilson at The Riverbend Bookshop in Brisbane. Proof if you ever needed it that one woman and a community can make a huge difference. We will be giving 5 % of our sales to the ILF today along with loads of other bookshops that are also supporting this great event in different ways. So get on down to an ILF friendly bookshop and spread the love. On another tack( is that the sort of tack I mean) I have been reading up a storm. I totally adored Alice Pung's beautiful and moving memoir Her Fathers Daughter, really really liked Amy Waldman's The Submission the story of a 9/11 Memorial Competition a very interesting look at the power of prejudice and the media. Also, do not get too jealous, reading the newest Kerry Greenwood, Corinna Cooking The Books which as always is Kerry Greenwood enjoyable. Has anyone been to the Victorian Pyrenees? I went this weekend and it was pretty countryside with really good wine, practically no other wine visitors highly recommended. Another high recommend is The Naked boy and the Crocodile edited by Andy Griffiths, a fund raising book for the ILF.

Well, what a great start to the week I had an excellent lunch at Cumulus yesterday thanks to the lovely Hachette folk. An incredible meal with US crime writer John Hart, who has a new book Iron House just in stores at a great price. Our lunch was a bit like a John Hart crime novel a range of surprises arriving to keep us interested, and just when you thought it was all over wham here comes the main course. Of course we were all left feeling very satisfied. Quite excited about National Bookshop day I am thinking a Greek Theme for our snacks at the Kerry Greenwood launch of Medea. We now officially have a lot of events coming up. Andy Griffiths Launch,William McInnes and Sarah Watt Launch, Sam DeBrito visit,Barry Hall with Karaoke? Another Kerry Greenwood Launch and Kaz Cooke. Well keep checking the website for dates times etc.

Not Actual Bedside Table

Well tonight is bookclub night and we will be at the Sun Theatre upstairs room 8pm. Unusually we are reading optional books this month either The Hare with Amber Eyes that prize winner, or Townie the book that Michael loves. I unfortunately due to holidays and conferences and time flying and 50 books in a pile beside my bed have read neither bookclub book! Sorry. I have, in the non- fiction vein, started the incredible Kinglake-350 by Adrian Hyland it is a book about the 2009 bushfires, Adrian lives in St Andrews and has written the story in a moving page turner way. Stay tuned for dates on Adrian attending the bookclub (we hope).‘So you have been on holidays’ I hear you say, the answer is a big yes to warm, warm Bali where I read trashy holiday reads only, it was fab. I loved Poison tree by Erin Kelly and Beauty Queens Libba Bray and I can’t remember what else weird as it was only a week ago. What I do remember was an unforgettable meal at Mozaic in Ubud and I came back to find the book of the restaurant is out in September, yummy. So much is going on I had better get into more blogging, and up with the times as I am do you follow us on facebook?

Warm events for cold nights

Cold and Foggy! Why that is perfect reading weather if ever I lived it. Just in at the Sun which I read on the weekend and is quickly doing the rounds is Kylie Ladd’s new book Last Summer great entertaining chick book for the 30+ it is a bit like watching Tangle it sucks you in and you can’t stop till the very end. Tonight at 8pm at the Sun we have Favel Parrett at bookclub we are so lucky to have her come along to talk to us about Past the Shallows an incredible debut novel, I haven’t stopped crying since I reread it on Sunday. I hope to see you there can you bring some tissues? We are also counting down to an exciting event July 18 at The Corner Shop to celebrate the release of The Butcher, The Baker, The Best Coffee Maker, with authors Kylie Smorgan and Gaye Weedon This event is right up my alley, learn the secret locations of amazing food and coffee places around Melbourne. Starting with the Corner shop 11 Ballarat st Yarraville

That Deadman Dance Winner

Well very excitingly, last night in Melbourne Kim Scott won the Miles Franklin prize.

This is his second time. His novel That Deadman Dance is the story of a Noongar man and his encounter with white people in the 1800's. Beautifully written and moving hooray for Kim Scott !!! In Stock now and only $22.99

July so many books, so little time.

Well what an exciting week there are loads of great books coming out for July but 3 of my very favourites are, in no particular order, To Be Sung Underwater -Tom McNeal, There Should be More Dancing by Melbourne Author Rosalie Ham and State of Wonder- Ann Patchett. There are so many others and yesterday I just finished Alan Hollinghurst’s latest great novel The Stranger’s Child . I have never read this Booker prize writer before and I totally loved this big history of the aristocratic, minor poet Cecil Valance, his family and all of the secrets that lay below the veneer of respectability. Smashing. Alan Hollinghurst’s other books are now on my ‘definitely to be read once I retire and have time book shelf’. Really this is just a tiny sample July is a jolly good month old girl.

Vogel Winner : The Roving Party

Rohan Wilson has won the Vogel Award 2011 for his novel The Roving Party, about the genocidal persecution of Tasmania's Aborigines by the founder of Melbourne, John Batman.

The judges described The Roving Party and its depiction of John Batman's man-hunt as a great original new voice full of stark, compelling imagery.

1829, Tasmania.
John Batman, ruthless, singleminded; four convicts, the youngest still only a stripling; Gould, a downtrodden farmhand; two free black trackers; and powerful, educated Black Bill, brought up from childhood as a white man. This is the roving party and their purpose is massacre.
With promises of freedom, land grants and money, each is willing to risk his life for the prize.
Passing over many miles of tortured country, the roving party searches for Aborigines, taking few prisoners and killing freely, Batman never abandoning the visceral intensity of his hunt. And all the while, Black Bill pursues his personal quarry, the much-feared warrior, Manalargena.
A surprisingly beautiful evocation of horror and brutality, The Roving Party is a meditation on the intricacies of human nature at its most raw.

Rohan Wilson lived a long, mostly lonely, life until a lucky turn of events led him to take up a teaching position in Japan, where he met his wife. They have a son who loves books, as all children should. They live in Launceston but don't know why. Rohan holds degrees and diplomas from the universities of Tasmania, Southern Queensland and Melbourne. This is his first book.

He can be found on Twitter: @rohan_wilson.

read more about the Vogel Award here.

May Argghh!

Well it is May, nearly, and we at the Sun Bookshop have been preparing for the Williamstown Literary Festival this weekend so many great events all squished into 2 days check the website.. We are also pretty excited at the Sun to be hosting one of the Miles Franklin short, shortlisters Chris Wormesley at our bookclub Wednesday night, one of my best books from last year have you read it yet? . You also need to know there are so many great books coming out this month, I can’t recommend enough S.J Watsons’ Before I go to Sleep a great book of a woman suffering short term memory loss, scary and incredibly readable. It must be the month of memory loss book because we also have for young adults (anyone really) Forgotten by Cat Patrick a great page turner with a weirdly similar memory loss as Before I go to sleep. It’s a bit like the covers of books some months they all seem to be green or have only half a girls head, go figure! Also loved Ottoman Motel by Chris Currie and A visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and rocks, really. New Restaurant Alert. I have now eaten at Tin Pan Alley in Victoria Street Seddon and it was yummy whenever I walk past I see the wood fired Pizza Oven and want to run in instantly but must keep walking cannot give in… Pizzaaaa. Eat, read be merry.

Miles Franklin Shortlist

A Bookseller never forgets?

I just had a terrible bookseller moment trying to recall the books I have read this week and coming up completely blank, however working backwards it has all returned. Finished Fall this month’s bookclub book. Loved it. Still going with Terror of Living (Urban Waite) incredible writing very Cormac MCarthy. I love that Canadian award The Giller Prize the books are always just my type, beautiful writing and an exploration of human nature, also there is usually a picture of water on the cover. Anyway I completely loved the latest Winner The Sentimentalists by Johanna Skibsrud. Onto the new Sleepers book This too Shall Pass by S.J Finn we are so lucky in Australia to have these small and exciting publishers, so let’s support them. Finally started that incredibly well written and compact story of illness and snails The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey. So very excitingly the Miles Franklin Prize Longlist has been announced. The Short list will be announced next month. I am jumping up and down because my favourite book of last year is on the longlist. Bereft by Chris Wormesley. On the 27^th of April Chris will be attending the Sun Bookclub so get reading and come on down.

Here is the Miles Franklin Longlist list in case you missed it.

Jon Bauer - Rocks in the Belly / Honey Brown - The Good Daughter / Patrick Holland - The Mary Smokes Boys / Melina Marchetta - The Piper's Son / Roger McDonald - When Colts Ran/ Stephen Orr - Time's Long Ruin / Kim Scott - That Deadman Dance / Kirsten Tranter - The Legacy / Chris Womersley – Bereft

So many good Australian Writers, so little time.

Scary Times

Well in these times of floods, earthquakes, tsunamis nuclear meltdowns and so on, I feel the need to escape and escape I did, yesterday, into the excellent psychological thriller by Julia Crouch called Cuckoo. Cuckoo is a page turner of a first novel. When Rose, who is seemingly, contented with her life, invites her recently widowed best friend, Polly, to stay she opens a very nasty can of worms. Glamorous, fragile, Polly arrives at the graceful English home with her wild young boys and the unravelling of everything Rose has strived to perfect, begins. I had a couple of quibbles but all in all so enjoyable.

Last time I blogged (so exciting) I mentioned an Indian restaurant in Victoria st, Seddon. The restaurant is Indian Palette and has perfect small dishes of delicious traditional Indian food with real spices to put to one side, like cardamom pods and cloves. Indian Palette puts me in mind of another book I recently read, Snake by Australian author Kate Jennings which is just about to be reissued. Snake was fabulous; a novel told in small portions, the story of a marriage, it is rich and beautifully executed. Snake was first published in 1996 and is well worth revisiting. Also loving the bookclub book, Fall by Colin Mc Adam and The Terror of Living by Urban Waite (an apt title).

Review : Hand Me Down World

Hand Me Down World, Lloyd Jones (Text Publishing)

Lloyd Jones, author of the wonderful and highly acclaimed novel Mr Pip, has produced another gem. An African woman washes up on the shores of Sicily, after fleeing Tunisia to search for her kidnapped son, her destination is Berlin and we travel the journey with her as the world literally hands her down. Ines, is almost unknowable for the first half of the book, we see her journey through the eyes of those she encounters along the way. Her story is a chimera, a jigsaw of different perspectives gathered by the investigator on her tail and the truth is never clear, even her real name is unknown. The only thing that is always apparent is the powerful love for her son, and the determination to be with him that drives her forward against tremendous odds. When the investigator catches up to her, we finally hear her story told in her own voice pulling apart all that has come before it. The unique structure, the masterful writing, and the heartbreaking picture that it illustrates of the life of a refugee all make this a brilliant and timely novel.

--Michelle--

Preincarnate - Shaun Micallef

Shaun Micallef at the Sun Bookshop

Thursday 9 December

6pm

Help celebrate Shaun's first novel

Preincarnate



For more information click here.

The Fable of all our Lives

The fable of all our lives, Peter Kocan (Fourth Estate)

If you start Peter Kocan's (author of The treatment and the cure and Fresh fields) latest novel in the morning, you will find that by the time you look up and around for perhaps a cup of tea or something to eat, it will already be late in the afternoon, or perhaps even time to watch Margaret and David on a Wednesday night.

The fable of all our lives is the story of Tait, a poet who has received a prestigeous arts grant and set up his house in a small rural town and begun to integrate himself into the tight-knit community. He is also freshly released from a ten-year stint in an institution - where he was serving his life sentence for a crime we are not privvy to at the novel's open.

There are characters galore - they truly make this novel. Some quirky, others frightening, all are fascinating. Tait also explores writing, history, philosophy. It's the perfect novel - intelligent but packed with the intricacies of life - for a long Sunday reading.

And from the publisher's website:
With a rich array of characters, and a potent blend of passion, lyricism and comedy, The Fable of All Our Lives will pose for readers the same question it poses for its protagonist: to what and to whom do we choose to belong?

Australia's past...in fiction

Bereft, Chris Womersley (Scribe)

It is 1919. The Great War has ended, but the Spanish flu epidemic is raging through Australia. Schools are closed, state borders are guarded by armed men and train travel is severely restricted. There are rumours it is the end of the world. In the NSW town of Flint, Quinn Walker returns to the home he fled ten years earlier when he was falsely accused of an unspeakable crime. Aware that his father and uncle would surely hang him, Quinn hides in the hills surrounding Flint. There, he meets a mysterious young girl called Sadie Fox, who encourages him to seek justice — and seems to know more about the crime than she should. A searing gothic novel of love, longing, and revenge, Bereft is about the suffering endured by those who go to war and those who are forever left behind.






Dead Man’s Chest, Kerry Greenwood (Allen & Unwin)

Travelling at high speed in her beloved Hispano-Suiza accompanied by her maid and trusted companion Dot, her two adoptive daughters Jane and Ruth and their dog Molly, The Hon Miss Phryne Fisher is off to Queenscliff. She'd promised everyone a nice holiday by the sea with absolutely no murders, but when they arrive at their rented accommodation that doesn't seem likely at all. An empty house, a gang of teenage louts, a fisherboy saved, and the mystery of a missing butler and his wife seem to lead inexorably towards a hunt for buried treasure by the sea. But what information might the curious Surrealists be able to contribute? Phryne knows to what depths people will sink for greed but with a glass of champagne in one hand and a pearl-handled Beretta in the other, no-one is getting past her.

September Bookclub : Jasper Jones

The bookclub book for September is Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey (Allen & Unwin)

Wednesday 29th September at 8pm and we meet at Corner Shop, on the corner of Ballarat and Canterbury streets, Yarraville.

Jasper Jones is highly acclaimed, and was one of our favourite books of 2009. We are offering all customers 10% off Jasper Jones for the month of September.

Overall Winner, Indie Book of the Year Award 2009
Winner, Indie Book of the Year 2009 - Fiction
Shortlisted, Miles Franklin Literary Award 2010
Shortlisted, 2010 NSW Premier's Literary Award - Christina Stead Prize for fiction
Shortlisted, 2009 Western Australia Premier's Literary Award (Fiction)