Newsletter

May 2012 at Jeffreys Books

May is the month of many things. Melbourne grows colder and Melburnians merge to the MCG. And mid-month everything pauses and we celebrate Mums (or maybe we’re just stuck in traffic from the Mother’s Day Classic). If you’re looking for something for Mum let us help you find the perfect gift. You’ll find some suggestions below and much more inspiration in-store.
In literary news, we’ve had the announcement of the Vogel winner for 2012 Eleven Seasons by Paul D Carter. This is a coming-of-age story of a high school dropout obsessed with football. This novel is proof that sport and literature can meet.
The National Year of Reading continues with the theme this month of Escape. Text has tied in perfectly with the release of a series of Australian Classics. Many of these titles have recently been out of print. There are many treasures to discover – or escape with.
The Orange Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing throughout the world (orangeprize.co.uk). The shortlist was announced on the 17^th of April in London: Esi Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues, Anne Enright’s The Forgotten Waltz, Georgina Harding’s Painter of Silence, Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles, Cynthia Ozich’s Foreign Bodies and Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder . Some great book club suggestions!

Jeffreys Last Tuesday Book Club
A Perfectly Good Man - Patrick Gale
When 20-year-old Lenny Barnes, paralysed in a rugby accident, commits suicide in the presence of Barnaby Johnson, the much-loved priest of a West Cornwall parish, the tragedy's reverberations open up the fault-lines between Barnaby and his nearest and dearest. The personal stories of his wife, children and lover illuminate Barnaby's ostensibly happy life, and the gulfs of unspoken sadness that separate them all. Across this web of relations scuttles Barnaby's repellent nemesis - a man as wicked as his prey is virtuous. Returning us to the rugged Cornish landscape of Notes from an Exhibition, Patrick Gale lays bare the lives and the thoughts of a whole community and asks us: What does it mean to be good?
7pm Tuesday 29 May. Purchase the book to reserve your place.

 
 
Jeffreys Brain Food Book Club
Us and Them: The Importance of Animals - Anna Krien 
 

In this dazzling piece of reportage, Anna Krien investigates the contemporary animal kingdom and our place in it. From pets to food, from wildness to science experiments, Krien also reveals how animals are faring in this new world order. Examples range from the joyful to the deeply unsettling.
11am Wednesday 16 May. Purchase the book to reserve your place.

Joy Dettman Event in conjunction with Malvern Library 
It is a delight to present Joy Dettman at Stonnington Library - Malvern.
Joy Dettman will discuss her new book Wind in the Wires, the latest saga in the hugely popular Woody Creek series.
Why not make it a date with Mum? Some quality time together shared with a fantastic author.
6.30pm, Wednesday 23 May at Malvern Library. For bookings call 8290 1366

Dear Uncle Jeffrey,
 
Since Easter I have been suffering a severe chocolate addiction. I’m lucky to make it to lunchtime without indulging. In the evening, once I’ve finished my daily intake of three portions vegetables, one portion protein (and sometimes one portion carbohydrate) my mind snaps to chocolate. I’ve snuck chocolate into my children’s lunchboxes just to decrease the temptation at home not to mention how I covet my children’s chocolate stashes as I collect their dirty washing.
 
Please help
Charles

Dear Choc-top Charlie,
When one faces a problem the best fix is to go to the source. And when it comes to chocolate I am the golden ticket. I am Willy Wonka’s chocolate stream. I am the chocolate fountain at the high tea buffet. But just don’t ask me how to avoid all forms of the cacao bean. For that, turn to David Gillespie of Sweet Poison Quit Plan fame.
If you want my advice, become a connoisseur. Immerse yourself in knowledge, appreciate its true beauty and chocolate can be your friend. Start out with a history of our great chocolate families with Deborah Cadbury’s The Chocolate Wars. From here, step it up to Le Cordon Bleu Chocolate Bible and everything in between – David Herbert’s Best-Ever Baking Recipes , Belinda Jeffery’s Mix and Bake and for the gluten intolerant, Indulge by Rowie Dillon.
 
Go forth and melt, curl and temper
Uncle Jeffrey

Fiction to Escape With
The Red House - Mark Haddon
Family, that slippery word, a star to every wandering bark, and everyone sailing under a different sky. After his mother's death, Richard, a newly remarried hospital consultant, decides to build bridges with his estranged sister, inviting Angela and her family for a week in a rented house on the Welsh border. Four adults and four children, a single family and all of them strangers. Seven days of shared meals, log fires, card games and wet walks. But in the quiet and stillness of the valley, ghosts begin to rise up. The parents Richard thought he had. The parents Angela thought she had. Past and present lovers. Friends, enemies, victims, saviours. And watching over all of them from high on the dark hill, Karen, Angela's stillborn daughter. The Red House is about the extraordinariness of the ordinary, weaving the words and thoughts of the eight characters together with those fainter, stranger voices - of books and letters and music, of the dead who once inhabited these rooms, of the ageing house itself and the landscape in which it sits. Once again Mark Haddon, bestselling author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and A Spot of Bother has written a novel that is funny, poignant and deeply insightful about human lives.

Celebrating Life
Lives - Peter Robb
In Lives, an extraordinary writer encounters some remarkable people - and evokes their inner lives. Peter Robb has an uncanny ability to get into the skin of other people: to show them in a new light, to home in on what makes them tick. In Australia, these range from Alex Dimitriades to Ivan Milat, from Marcia Langton to Julian Assange. In Italy, Robb immerses the reader in the worlds of Fellini, Caravaggio, Calvino and Pasolini. Elsewhere, his observations of EM Forster, Arthur Rimbaud, Peter Carey and Gore Vidal illuminate the real people behind the public image. Featuring much previously unpublished material, this is a fascinating exploration of some notable lives - in all their variety, glamour and idiosyncrasy.

Growing Minds - Mature and Younger
Australian Story: Stories of Courage, Determination and Love
Australian Story is without doubt one of the best-loved shows on the ABC. A cornerstone of Monday night viewing for 15 years, it has brought into our homes and hearts the very personal accounts of our fellow Australians.  The epsiodes chosen for this fourth collection of Australian Stories include the exciting tale of Black Caviar, the Aussie horse that has equalled Phar Lap's record and is the first animal to feature on Australian Story; the incredible seventy-year struggle to recognise the actions of two truly heroic World War II sailors, Teddy Sheean and Captain Hec Waller; the dedication of Jan Cameron, a successful businesswomen who now devotes her life to improving the way factory farmed animals are treated in this country; and the powerful story of love, hope and determination between Sally Nielsen and her fiance Sam Goddard, who wakes from his coma for an hour each day in extraordinary circumstances.

Some for Mums and Bubs
My Mum is Beautiful
Let me tell you all the ways I love my mum...My mum is beautiful because she points out tiny things in books to me. In her newest picture book, Jessica Spanyol succeeds in capturing, with great warmth and humour, the incredible bond between a mother and a child. Told from the perspective of a small bear, these very true words perfectly embody how love is measured in a child's mind: a gesture so simple, can mean so very much. With beautiful art, Jessica has created a lively and charming world for her characters, infused with contemporary patterns and humorous details. The book's simplicity and vibrancy will enchant young children and parents alike, no doubt establishing itself as a firm bedtime favourite.