the sun bookshop

At Last Proof of a Winner

2012-02-03T13:41:00.000+11:00

So now that the whole holiday thing has come to an end we thought you might like to see a photo of the fabulous Shaun. Shaun won our annual Christmas Competition a whole window full of books.
Hooray for Shaun he is one lucky Yarravillian.

2012-02-02T16:32:00.003+11:00

Crikey its all going on here in the hood, Yarraville is truly pumping as the Pop-Up park gets underway, families and happy folk everywhere. Deckchairs umbrellas and grass. Between the Sun Bookshop and the Younger Sun. No longer do we take our lives in our hands whilst delivering stock. Oh Happy days.

Win Books!

2011-12-01T09:26:00.001+11:00

This is not really our window ours is a little smaller with less books, but a very nice window all the same

Our famous Win Window Competition begins today. Come on down to the bookshop, purchase a book and go into the running to Win, Win, Win books from our Summer reading Christmas Thingo! Very Exciting!

Exploding Bookseller!

2011-11-29T15:35:00.001+11:00

Okay so we have in the shop now Hard Cover copies of Erin Morgenstern's 'The Night Circus'. Hard Cover at only $32.95, yes you read correctly! 'The Night Circus' is a great fantasy romance for those who do not love fantasy, people like me for example. There are actually so many new and fabulous reads waiting for you just inside our doors at the moment, it can be a little overwhelming. Its a bit like a degustation meal the delicious morsels just keep coming, try Hippstermattic, so funny. How about one of the loads of the Vintage Classics or Penguin modern classics, cheap yet so so good! The Drop by Michael Connolly or Ian Rankin's newest The Impossible Dead.What about a book on Jerusalem, either James Carrolls' Jerusalem,Jerusalem or Simon Sebag Montefiores' Jerusalem. True Crime, Essays, Art, Cooking, Science. Too much stop I might explode.

1Q94

2011-11-08T09:58:00.004+11:00

This mighty tome is absolutely flying out our door.

We have to agree with the blurb -

1Q84 is a magnificent and fully-imagined work of fiction – a thriller, a love-story and a mind-bending ode to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is a world from which the reader emerges stunned and altered.

Have you picked up yours yet?

Too Many Books Too Little space

2011-10-26T10:15:00.001+11:00

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.

Cooking the Books Launch

2011-10-06T11:11:00.002+11:00

A Kerry Greenwood launch is always a joy to be involved with. Deb Cox and David Greagg were the launchers and the book was sung into launch by about 25 choristers singing beautifully in Latin. Thanks to Kerry for her stamina when book signing and to all the Kerry fans who made the morning fabulous.

Bookclub

2011-10-06T11:04:00.001+11:00

The Sun Bookshop bookclub was lucky enough to have Adrian Hyland come along last month. People battled school holidays and foul weather and were not disappointed by this fascinating man and his brilliant book. Kinglake 350

Missed Connections

2011-10-01T10:25:00.004+10:00

I've been reading Sophie Blackall's Missed Connections blog for a long time now and it is extremely exciting to now have her book in our hot little Sun Bookshop hands!

Sophie takes the sweet, the strange, the very romantic 'missed connections' and sets them against her ethereal, imaginative and beautiful illustrations.

Here's what she says about what she does:
Messages in bottles, smoke signals, letters written in the sand; the modern equivalents are the funny, sad, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless, poetic posts on Missed Connections websites. Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I'm trying to pin a few of them down.

We also love Sophie's illustrations for the very excellent Ivy and Bean books - in stock now over in the Younger Sun.

Go look at Sophie's blog.

William one night Adrian the next.

2011-09-27T22:20:00.001+10:00

Well tonight at the Sun was a great success with the very funny and entertaining William McInnes with his pal Andrew Gilbert launching Worse Things Happen at Sea.. William and his wife Sarah Watt have written a beautiful funny and moving book of their lives and their family. Great photographs by Sarah and fabulous words from them both. Wednesday night (tomorrow) at the Sun we are so lucky to have Adrian Hyland at our Bookclub 8pm where we will be discussing Kinglake 350, his incredible personal and informative account of the events on Black Saturday. The week finishes up on Saturday with the unstoppable Ms Kerry Greenwood's newest Corrina tale, Cooking the Books being launched at 11.00am Saturday morning.. As always you are welcome just let us know for catering. Thanks to all you bookshoppers who support our great events.

Barry Hall in the House

2011-09-24T10:12:00.002+10:00

A veritable stadium of Barry Hall fans have gathered at the Sun Bookshop today to get their hats, shirts and especially their books signed by the former Bulldogs player.

Characters and Risotto

2011-09-18T10:49:00.004+10:00

Well this gorgeous book landed in the shop last week and is selling like hotcakes. Why? Because it is very gorgeous and fabulously interesting. Characters (why is it so hard for me to spell that word?) is a fabulous look at signage and typography in and around Melbourne, including the gorgeous Sun Theatre sign pre restoration. Don't trust the index on this one it is actually on page 190. We have an added interest here at the Sun because one of Yarraville's own characters and our long time customer, sometimes handy man and pal Warren Kirk has photographs featured in the book, very exciting.

Don't miss Warren's Photograph of the man with his Jesus trolleys just past the index, the lucky last one in the book. Saturday saw The Help which was great and just like when I read the book, I cried and ate chocolate, also made an asparagus risotto from Jamie Oliver it was a really excellent recipe and tasted like Spring.

More events than you can poke a stick at!

2011-09-15T11:26:00.004+10:00

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

2011-09-09T12:48:00.003+10:00

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

2011-09-07T13:43:00.002+10:00

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.

Kinglake-350

2011-08-23T14:06:00.003+10:00

Kinglake-350

By Adrian Hyland (published by Text*)

This book blew me away. It is both enlightening and emotionally engaging. The story follows Roger Wood the Police Officer in charge at Kinglake on that fateful day, his courage and dedication is a total inspiration. The strong sense of community and the courage of Wood and many others shine through in what is a heartbreaking and compelling account of the terror that they faced. It has the narrative drive of good fiction but also the research and detail to vividly inform us of the nature of the Black Saturday fires and the relationship between fire and the Australian landscape. This is a not a finger pointing exercise like so many other things that I have seen written about that day, it is the real face to face experience of the people on the frontline. Highly recommended.

Michelle

*If you buy any book by Text Publishing for the next little while at the Sun Bookshop you will go in the draw to win $150 worth of Text books!

NatBookshopDay - Kerry Greenwood!

2011-08-20T12:57:00.002+10:00

Kerry is here! She is wonderful! We love her and are so excited to be launching Medea today.

National Bookshop Day - Kerry Greenwood!

2011-08-19T15:03:00.002+10:00

Come down to the Sun Bookshop tomorrow for National Bookshop Day. Let the world know that real bookshops with real staff and real books are here to stay!

Join us for the launch of the incredible Kerry Greenwood's book Medea at 1pm.

10 Ballarat Street, Yarraville. It's where it's all at. Be there.

2011-08-17T08:10:00.004+10:00

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.

Win a book to Review

2011-08-11T16:59:00.003+10:00

Well goodness me what about England very scary and not to make light of it maybe less TV and more reading could help. I have been reading up a storm and have no inclination to riot. Finally read One Day ,some of it is set in Hackney, (enjoyed it a lot) and I was reading it in the flipback edition which was a very fine experience didn’t feel any different except for the lack of weight in my bag this has to be a good way to go. Okay so we have been going a little mad at the shop this week organising National Bookshop day events it is suddenly only 1 week away but just confirmed is the Wests own William McInnis reading a few stories for little ones at 10.00am yeh! Another Westie Kerry Greenwood is relaunching her Delphic Women Series starting with Medea at 1pm double Yeh! We have prizes from Text and Hachette Childrens and other fun stuff too.
I don’t want to make you all too jealous but I am reading Jeffrey Euginedes newest book (out soon) The Marriage Plot. I love it. Calling Yarraville readers of this blog if you are out there and would like to review a book for us I have 1 copy of The Ridge by Michael Koryta and 1 of Megan Delahunt’s new book To the Island so the first 2 people into the shop on Friday 12th of August ,that’s tomorrow, can WIN!

Not Actual Bedside Table

2011-07-27T16:35:00.003+10:00

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

2011-06-29T12:38:00.004+10:00

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

2011-06-23T07:13:00.006+10:00

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.

2011-06-22T11:25:00.002+10:00

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.

Volcanic Ash and other blurring of sightlines

2011-06-15T16:34:00.003+10:00

Well when I am feeling ill, and frankly who does’t this cold, cold winter , I love to lay in bed eat soup drink hot lemon drinks and read something incredible. Well last week I was doing that very thing when I opened an advance copy of The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles it was fantastic perhaps one of my fave US titles this year. I can’t wait till August when it is in the shop and some of you can share in the thrill of Katey Kontent’s life and times. I did read this in a real live book form and not as an electronic book,which is just as well as lentil soup and screens do not mix. I must be a bit old fashioned but reading a whole book from a screen just feels like work to me. Speaking of the rules of civility, I do not think that Nick Sherry was very civil when proclaiming the demise of the bookstore. I for one love bookshops, of course I am in one nearly everyday, speaking with customers and learning all the time from face to face interactions. We will have to celebrate if we are still in the hood in 5 years time and I do hope that Village Idiom is still there and Maritas of Yarraville and Plump and and and...

Picking a Winner!

2011-06-15T11:00:00.001+10:00

As the announcement of the Miles Franklin Award for 2011 draws near (22 June) I have a confession to make. I just read last year’s winner ‘ Truth’ by Peter Temple and am asking myself why I left it so long! What a fantastic read and reading current headlines about the dramas surrounding the Victoria Police you get the feeling it really could be the ‘truth’. Other great award winning books I’ve read of late are the Pulitizer Prize winning ‘A Visit to the Goon Squad’ by Jennifer Egan, the Vogel winner ‘The Roving Party’ by Rohan Wilson and Hugo and Nebula award winning sci-fi novel ‘The Windup Girl’ by Paolo Bacigalupi. All very different books but really great reads, so reading the award winners is really paying off.

Michelle

2011-06-10T13:09:00.001+10:00

All is very exciting here at the Sun Bookshop if you are one of the many who was after the Betty Churcher bookNotebooks then dash on in because it is back in stock hooray! We are deciding on what cheese to have with our glass of wine when Jane Clifton comes down on Wednesday I just like a plain old Wanganui from Curds and Whey at the Vic Market it is a delicious and very tasty cheese from New Zealand, whilst some are pumping for a milder cheese hmmn maybe both! I have been reading reading reading and was hit by the idea that Michael Koryta is actually very Stephen King he started off as crime but a supernatural element began creeping in with So Cold the River anyway his last two books Cypress House and The Ridge (due September) have continued the whole supernatural thing. I really enjoy these books, well written page turners anyway I am now going to shelve them in fiction. So for Stephen King fans I say give them a go

Nostalgic for Cake?

2011-06-07T12:06:00.003+10:00

Whether you made them for your children, or had them made for you when you were a kid...

We think everyone needs a copy of this Vintage Edition of the Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake book.

You could make the jelly-filled pool! The dolly cake, the spaceship - maybe even the castle or the train!! The possibilities are practically endless, and topped with hundreds and thousands and jubes. Delish!

June New Releases

2011-06-04T10:43:00.005+10:00

The Life: A Novel, Malcolm Knox : Allen & Unwin
He looked into the Pacific and the Pacific looked back into him. The Life tells the story of former-world-champion Australian surfer, Dennis Keith, from inside the very heart of the fame and madness that is 'The Life'. Now bloated and paranoid, former Australian surfing legend Dennis Keith is holed up in his mother's retirement village, shuffling to the shop for a Pine-Lime Splice every day, barely existing behind his aviator sunnies and crazy OCD rules, and trying not to think about the waves he'd made his own and the breaks he once ruled like a god. Years before he'd been robbed of the world title that had his name on it - and then drugs, his brother, and the disappearance and murder of his girlfriend and had done the rest. Out of the blue, a young would-be biographer comes knocking and stirs up memories Dennis thought he'd buried. It takes Dennis a while to realise that she's not there to write his story at all. Daring, ambitious, dazzling, The Life is also as real as it gets - a searing, beautiful novel about fame and ambition and the price that must sometimes be paid for reaching too high.

The Amateur Science of Love, Craig Sherborne : Text Publishing
They say we fall in love. But really we fall in sickness. I lost appetite for food in those two nights with Tilda. My stomach was sunken in its wishbone cavity. Me, I was never sick, but I was sick now, the strangest sickness that made my eyes gleam green with excellent health. They had shiny white edges. My cheeks were glossed in a fresh oil of pink. Colin dreams of escaping his parents’ New Zealand farm for a grand stage career. He makes it to London and a disastrous audition before meeting Tilda—beautiful Tilda, older, an artist—who brings his future with her. A heady romance leads to a new home in a decaying former bank in a small town hours from Melbourne. They are building a life together—but there are cracks in the foundation. This is a love story, told from passionate beginning to spectacular end. It is intimate and honest, blackly funny and emotionally devastating.

Parisians, Graham Robb : Picador

New Format
The Sunday Times Top Ten Bestseller from the award-winning author of The Discovery of France. No-one knows a city like the people who live there – so who better to relate the history of Paris than its inhabitants through the ages? Taking us from 1750 to the new millennium, Graham Robb's Parisians is at once a book to read from cover to cover, to lose yourself in, to dip in and out of at leisure, and a book to return to again and again – rather like the city itself, in fact.

See more new releases on our website.

Lovesong is a winner

2011-05-18T15:00:00.002+10:00

The 2011 winners of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards were announced the other night.

There were lots of happy authors, including Alex Miller, who received the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction as well as the People's Choice Award for his book Lovesong, which was also shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award last year.

Click here for more information.

2011-05-18T14:28:00.002+10:00

So I have been reading a lot of incredible books the list is long and it is time to indulge my secret passion CHICKLIT, only the highest quality of course. One title I have had on the shelf for ages is I Think I Love You by Alison Pearson now this being a book about a woman's old David Cassidy obsession, it completely spoke to me as did her first book I Don't Know how She Does It which begins with a woman breaking store bought shortbread in a desperate attempt to make it look homemade for her child's school fete. Anyway I am so far not disappointed it is very funny and filled with excellent1970's outfits. I know I should be reading Just Kids by Patti Smith for bookclub (and finishing To be Sung Underwater by Tom McNeal) but I've nearly got a whole week. Ohh just confimed for June15 at 6.00pm is an event with the fab Jane Clifton to celebrate the release of her memoir The Address Book. So please come and join us for a glass of wine and a piece of cheese . Did I mention it was the Sun Bookshops birthday May 2nd, 13 years old we feel very teenagery now. Happy Birthday to Us.

2011-05-11T14:18:00.003+10:00

So I was wondering how many people have discovered the fabulous Denise Mina, Scottish Crime Writer and one of my very favourites. She has so far written two trilogies and is onto her third. The first began with Garnet Hill which she won the Crime Writers Associations best first novel prize. Exile and Resolution completed this first series. Paddy Meehan appeared in the next, The Field of Blood, The Dead Hour and The Last Breath . Paddy was a reporter who grew up in quick smart in the 3 novels, solving crimes along the way. Now her latest protagonist DI Alex Morrow who has a dodgy family background and a whole lot of sadness she is trying to hide, is of course, a hard, yet fabulous detective first in Still Midnight and is now back in the new and page turning Wasp Season. Alex Morrow investigates the murder of a single woman who seems to live a quiet and private life, but is she really the demure spinster her neighbours believed her to be, Alex is another great strong female character . Of course we can not leave out Denise Minas stand alone book Sanctus the story of a psychologist accused of murdering one of her psychopath patients. Very excitingly Orion will be reissuing the Garnethill trilogy in July, hooray. While you are discovering new things have you ever been to Lulo a truly excellent and delicious Spanish and Latin American, modern food restaurant in Glenferrie rd Hawthorn. Take Denise Mina or a friend and go there for anything they suggest yum, great spanish wine too!

The Ottoman Motel

2011-05-01T10:18:00.002+10:00

The Ottoman Motel, Christopher Currie (Text Publishing)

Christopher Curries’ debut novel is a fabulous page turner. I read it in one sitting and was totally engrossed. Simon, a young boy, stops with his parents in Reception the town where his grandmother lives. Whilst Simon stays at the hotel, his parents go for a drive and never return. A distressed Simon is taken in by the townsfolk but feels that nobody is searching for his parents in any meaningful way and that’s when he and another parentless boy take matters into their own hands. This book is a great way to while away a rainy weekend (and there seems to be plenty of those).

---Deb---

Vogel Winner : The Roving Party

2011-04-29T10:16:00.000+10:00

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.

May Argghh!

2011-04-27T14:24:00.001+10:00

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

2011-04-27T13:18:00.000+10:00

Oh yes we are famous

2011-04-26T12:08:00.000+10:00

It was a little while ago now, but did you see us in the Maribyrnong Leader?

Click here to check it out!

Bossypants

2011-04-14T09:37:00.000+10:00

I love 30 Rock I love Mean Girls and yes I love Tina Fey. So how excited was I when yesterday we received loads of copies of her new memoir Bossypants. I took a copy to the bank with me and

stood in the queue killing myself laughing, then stood in front of the teller doing the same thing. Went home killed myself laughing, stayed up, too late, killing myself laughing. I love Bossypants.

I am also pretty excited about reading Karen Russell's ,Swamplandia and just finished A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. I really enjoyed this American writers characters in the music scene can't stop thinking about them actually, she gives you just enough story but doesn't tie everything up. Very excitingly, I will not say too much but, I have been reading so many great books that are coming in the next few months. The Life a novel by Malcolm Knox is one . I think this is a breakthrough novel for Malcolm Knox I loved Jamaica but this one is at another level, incredible. Oh yes, new restaurant alert in Yarraville went to

the Corner Shop's new venue, The Wee Genie, in Anderson street, Yummy

review : Mr Peanut

2011-04-06T08:54:00.000+10:00

Mr Peanut, Adam Ross (Viking)

What a curious read this is, fantastically curious. Mr Peanut explores several dysfunctional marriages, and the intersection of love and violence. The opening sentence sets the scene of just how dysfunctional Alice and David’s marriage had become: “When David Pepin first dreamed of killing his wife, he didn’t kill her himself. He dreamed convenient acts of God.” So begins the journey through the past and present of the Pepin’s marriage and as a backdrop the marriages of the officers investigating Alice’s death. Early on Ross refers to MC Escher’s ‘Encounter’ and like that image this book is a complex, circular journey full of dark and light, he also throws in some Hitchcock and a real unsolved murder case. This is a brilliant read and more than a little mind-bending.

--Michelle--

Chic-lit at its finest!

2011-04-01T09:35:00.000+11:00

The Secret Life of Dresses, Erin McKean (H&S Fiction)

A wonderful novel about vintage dresses, small towns, romance and being a little lost in life. Author Erin Mckean created the famous US website Dress-A-Day; and her knowledge, respect and love of stitching, hemlines, and floral patterns poetically transcends into her first novel. You’ll be absorbed by the 20-something year old Dora as she faces the challenges of losing a loved one, dealing with family secrets and the heartache of making tough decisions. A great read for lovers of vintage fashion, shift dresses and Jackie Kennedy gloves: “chic-lit” at its finest.

--Felicity--

A Bookseller never forgets?

2011-03-23T12:19:00.000+11:00

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.

Visible Ink 22

2011-03-19T15:57:00.000+11:00

Forget about American novels recommended by Oprah. Delve into some eye-opening new Aussie writing and art. The Visible Ink anthology is a collaborative project, run out of RMIT for 22 years. Each year a fresh team of editors calls for submissions Australia-wide, and publishes a selection of delectable stories, poems and images by some of our most talented and innovative emerging writers and artists.

Libbi Gorr Event

2011-03-17T12:26:00.000+11:00

Yum, ate gorgeous french food at PM 24 last night, Lemon Curd to die for, and as you may already know chef Phillipe Mouchel along with Rita Erlich has a new book called More Than French recipes and stories, divine! Let me feed you two morsels of information.Wednesday April 6 at 12pm we are hosting an event at the Sun Theatre with Rebecca Barnard chatting to Libbi Gorr about her book The A-Z of Mummy Manners, an hilarious look at etiquette for the modern mother. Run away from home or work and join us for Dips, biccies and a glass of wine it is not PM24 but its free, book on info@sunbookshop.com.My second morsel is that I was lucky enough to see the Williamstown Festival Programme so far and I feel very excited loads of excellent people and events I would love to attend.

Scary Times

2011-03-16T15:02:00.000+11:00

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).

From this day forward The Sun Bookshop really will post blogs

2011-03-08T14:59:00.000+11:00

We at The Sun Bookshop, have been very slack, unlike our co-workers at the Younger Sun, from this day forward we promise to be conscientious bloggers giving you our thoughts on what we are reading, exciting, newsy, booky stuff and very interesting information about very interesting things.

So to begin I must sing the praises of Jasper Ffordes’ great new Thursday Next tale ‘One of our Thursdays is Missing’. If you have not read any Jasper Fforde you should beg, borrow or even purchase ‘The Eyre Affair’ and work your way through the series to this new one, which is, as always, hilarious, inventive and chock full of literary references.

In the latest instalment there is trouble in book world, the real Thursday Next has disappeared but is urgently needed for peace talks to head off a Genre War between The Racy Novel and Women’s Fiction. Fictional Thursday is called to stand in for real Thursday, but fictional Thursday has her own troubles with a growing backlist readership and an understudy who can’t handle crowds. Too funny, found myself laughing in public when eating Indian food in Seddon, which is great if you want Daal shooting out of your nose.

Good deeds at Christmas : Buy a present for a local Sudanese child

2010-12-15T11:17:00.000+11:00

The Younger Sun (in cahoots with the Sun) bookshop is going to be giving a bunch of books as Christmas presents to young Sudanese children this year. The majority of these kids have arrived in Australia as refugees or are the children of refugees from South Sudan.

Most of these kids are otherwise unlikely to receive anything at Christmas and by giving books we're also increasing their access to reading materials within their homes. So if you would like to donate a book too - you can! Just come into the shop and choose one you think is great.

The books will be distributed amongst young Sudanese families in Melbourne's west by the Lost Boys Association.

Already our hearts have been warmed by the generosity of our customers. Thank you!

Win Keith Richard's Life...autographed!

2010-12-14T15:43:00.000+11:00

The Sun Bookshop is giving away an exclusive signed copy of Keith Richards' biography!

Just buy a copy of Life - a Christmas present perhaps - and you are instantly in the running to win a copy signed by the man himself.

We aren't kidding around.

Enter today!

Right now!

With the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the riffs, the lyrics and the songs that roused the world, and over four decades he lived the original rock and roll life: taking the chances he wanted, speaking his mind, and making it all work in a way that no one before him had ever done.Now, at last, the man himself tells us the story of life in the crossfire hurricane. And what a life. Creating immortal riffs such as the ones in 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' and 'Street Fighting Man' and 'Honky Tonk Women'. Falling in love with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Marriage, family and the road that goes on forever.In a voice that is uniquely and intimately his own, with the disarming honesty that has always been his trademark, Keith Richards brings us the essential life story of our times.

Michael Hyde : All along the watchtower

2010-12-05T10:10:00.000+11:00

All along the watchtower, Michael Hyde (Vulgar Press)

Local author Michael Hyde has written a memoir of his years as an activist during the 1960s and his opposition to Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war, his trips to China and Cambodia - and he has also given us a wonderful insight into the life of young, political and wild youths of that time.

Michael is fortunate enough to have recently recovered his ASIO file and he found that writing All along the watchtower was so much easier with with all the records of his phone calls, movements - and photos too!

The book is being released to coincide with an SBS documentary on Michael.

Review : Hand Me Down World

2010-12-02T12:37:00.000+11:00

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

2010-11-28T12:23:00.000+11:00

Shaun Micallef at the Sun Bookshop

Thursday 9 December

6pm

Help celebrate Shaun's first novel

Preincarnate

For more information click here.

Saraban: a chef's journey through Persia

2010-11-13T12:02:00.000+11:00

Saraban: a chef's journey through Persia, Greg and Lucy Malouf.

How majestic! So sumptuous!

Following on from the success of their award-winning books, Saha and Turquoise, Greg and Lucy Malouf now explore one of the world's earliest and greatest empires: Saraban is an unforgettable journey through the culinary landscapes of ancient Persia and modern-day Iran. Persian cooking is one of the oldest and most sophisticated cuisines in the world and its influence has spread across India and the Middle East to North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula and even through Medieval Europe. It's a cuisine that is subtle, elegant and alluring, which rejoices in rice, uses fresh herbs in abundance and combines meat, fish, fruit and vegetables with exotic spices, such as saffron, cardamom and dried limes. In Saraban, Greg and Lucy discover a land where the rich diversity of climate, countryside, architecture and poetry provide a fitting background for an equal variety and richness of cuisine. Join them as they visit bustling bazaars and tiny soup kitchens, pick saffron before dawn and fish, in time-honoured tradition, from wooden dhows in the Persian Gulf.

'Just add flour, salt, a little red wine ...'

2010-11-04T12:27:00.000+11:00

How to Make Gravy: A to Z, A Mongrel Memoir, Paul Kelly (Penguin)

We are big Paul Kelly fans. His CDs are on high rotation at the Sun and we know all the words. This is one of the reasons we were so excited about his autobiography. The other reason is that it's awesome. Come and check it out.

from publisher's website: This extraordinary book had its genesis in a series of concerts first staged in 2004. Over four nights Paul Kelly performed, in alphabetical order, one hundred of his songs from the previous three decades. In between songs he told stories about them, and from those little tales grew How to Make Gravy, a memoir like no other. Each of its hundred chapters, also in alphabetical order by song title, consists of lyrics followed by a story, the nature of the latter taking its cue from the former. Some pieces are confessional, some tell Kelly's personal and family history, some take you on a road tour with the band, some form an idiosyncratic history of popular music, some are like small essays, some stand as a kind of how-to of the songwriter's art – from the point of inspiration to writing, honing, collaborating, performing, recording and reworking.

Paul Kelly is a born storyteller. Give him two verses with a chorus or 550 pages, but he won't waste a word. How to Make Gravy is a long volume that's as tight as a three-piece band. There isn't a topic this man can't turn his pen to – contemporary music and the people who play it, football, cricket, literature, opera, social issues, love, loss, poetry, the land and the history of Australia … there are even quizzes. The writing is insightful, funny, honest, compassionate, intelligent, playful, erudite, warm, thought-provoking. Paul Kelly is a star with zero pretensions, an everyman who is also a renaissance man. He thinks and loves and travels and reads widely, and his musical memoir is destined to become a classic – it doesn't have a bum note on it.

The Fable of all our Lives

2010-10-17T15:38:00.000+11:00

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?

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER : THE FINKLER QUESTION

2010-10-14T18:49:00.000+11:00

Howard Jacobson has won the prestigeous Man Booker Prize* for his novel The Finkler Question.

from the publisher's website:

Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disappointed BBC worker, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick, a Czechoslovakian always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results.
Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor's grand, central London apartment. It's a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. Better, perhaps, to go through life without knowing happiness at all because that way you had less to mourn?
Treslove finds he has tears enough for the unbearable sadness of both his friends' losses. And it's that very evening, at exactly 11:30pm, as Treslove hesitates a moment outside the window of the oldest violin dealer in the country as he walks home, that he is attacked. After this, his whole sense of who and what he is will slowly and ineluctably change.
The Finkler Question is a scorching story of exclusion and belonging, justice and love, ageing, wisdom and humanity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best.

Keep your eyes peeled for a Sun Bookshop staff review of this remarkable book.

*He gets 50,000 pounds for winning this prize. That's around $80,000...

Book Signing Saturday 9th October

2010-10-08T10:44:00.000+11:00

Brad "Johnno" Johnson, former captain of the Western Bulldogs, will be at the Sun Bookshop on

Saturday the 9th (that's tomorrow, folks!)

at 9.30am

Come along and celebrate the launch of his memoir

Johnno: Bulldog Through and Through

(Michael Joseph Publishing)

Australia's past...in fiction

2010-10-07T12:54:00.000+11:00

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.

Freedom: A Novel, Jonathan Franzen

2010-09-27T19:58:00.000+10:00

I cannot rave enough about Freedom, it is absolutely brilliant. Franzen has produced another insightful family drama with characters and relationships that continue to resonate long after I turned the last page. Walter Berglund is a bike riding environmental lawyer, and Patty rebels against her high profile Democrat family and chooses to devote herself to her children rather than pursue a career. Both try to create a perfect world for their children but of course mistakes are made. Richard the enigmatic musician and Walter’s best friend is a constant presence (and source of friction) in their lives. At times funny, at times tragic but always totally engaging. Freedom is a testament to Franzen’s literary genius and is destined to become a modern classic.
Michelle

Our Tragic Universe, Scarlett Thomas

2010-09-26T17:15:00.000+10:00

From the author of the brilliant, physics-inspired sci-fi-ish novel The End of Mr Y comes Our Tragic Universe. Looking at it one way, not a lot happens in this book. But if you look at it at a certain angle a whole mess of ideas (some unfinished and others half-realised) come spilling out. The protagonist, Meg, is struggling to write her ‘proper’ novel – instead distracted by the formulaic genre novels she churns out to pay for her rather meagre existence, which amounts to a damp flat in Devon with her unemployed (and quite frankly rather whingy) boyfriend Christopher and her dog B (who is very intelligent) and a cast of brilliantly curious characters (including a mysterious Beast). Lit up in lights, screaming at her for attention is the uncomfortable (but pleasurable) truth about the kiss Meg shared with the handsome, older, curator of the local museum (and how she mostly wishes it would happen again). Thomas leads us down one-way streets, to dead ends, leaves one three-page, involved philosophical musing to head off down another. She explores the mechanics and methods of writing – the ‘storyless story’, the death of the author, metafiction – as well as philosophy, Zen Buddhism, poltergeists, magic, ships in bottles, fame and whether or not we’re actually all living in some kind of fictional Second World without ever knowing it.

What happens in Our Tragic Universe is what happens after Meg reads a book she thinks she’s supposed to review and it turns out hadn’t ever sent it to her to review in the first place.

Kate

September Bookclub : Jasper Jones

2010-09-20T17:13:00.000+10:00

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)