Our latest newsletter for adults!
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https://mailchi.mp/9b74bb90c706/the-latest-in-good-reading-and-our-next-event
Genevieve Novak and her new book, Crushing
Our next event!
We have scheduled another Sunday Soiree to celebrate the release of local author Genevieve Novak’s new book, Crushing.
It is at 4.30 in the shop on Sunday 2nd April. Tickets are $5 and include a glass of wine. There will be some seating available but it will be mostly standing room. You can book at Trybooking on the link here.
https://www.trybooking.com/CGOWW
Come along for a fun hour of bookish chat and a glass of wine. Crushing, and Genevieve’s previous book No Hard Feelings will be available to purchase on the day and I’m sure Genevieve will be very happy to sign them!
I’ll Leave you with This
by Kylie Ladd
Kylie Ladd’s new book, I’ll Leave You With This, has just hit the shelves and it’s a ‘must’ read for those who like detailed characters, inter -woven through each others lives, connected by family and loss.
Kylie was in conversation with Toni Jordan on our first Sunday Soiree, last Sunday. She spoke eloquently and engagingly about her family background and experiences at Uni and as a writer. This her 8th book. Toni got her to explain her characters and how the book is structured. The event was attended by about 20 people who enjoyed wine, cheese or soft drinks and who contributed to a lively discussion at the end. Toni Jordan’s latest book, Dinner with the Schnabels, was also mentioned.
I’ll Leave You With This is a heartbreaking, funny, thought-provoking and honest novel about a brother’s legacy and the tangled bonds of sisterhood.
Allison, an obstetrician, has always put others before herself and is torn between her job and young family.
Prizewinning film director Bridie hasn’t had work in over a decade, though her actor husband is on the brink of stardom.
Clare, desperate for a baby, is bereft when her wife leaves her after their latest IVF failure.
And Emma, the youngest, has turned to God to fill the aching loneliness in her life.
When their only brother Daniel is killed the four women drift even further apart… Then, on the third anniversary of Daniel’s death, Clare proposes an idea- they should trace the many recipients saved by his donated organs. Perhaps their brother’s gift of life can bring them back together again?
‘Ladd blends depth and pace in this thought-provoking novel that is filled with hope and humour.’ Joanna Nell
PB. $32.99
Happy New Year
Happy New Year to all our lovely customers. It’s 2023 and we are back to normal hours in store. It is the time of year when people are relaxing (great reads for that include last year’s bestseller Lessons in Chemistry and one of my personal favourites, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin). It’s also when people are looking to become their best selves and head to self-help and cook books to get them through the year. The Fast 800 Keto recipe book has just hit the shelves and is certainly a book I’ll be taking home in order to inject a bit more health into our summer eating! Hope you are enjoying the sun and that we see you in store soon.
Summer Reading
Yay! We all survived the Christmas rush and are now relaxing with our summer books and hearing what customers are currently reading. At the moment I am thoroughly enjoying working my way through Mick Herron’s sublime Slow Horses series. Next I might pick up Remainders of the Day by Shaun Bythell, the diary of a bookseller from Wigtown, U.K., which one of my favourite customers has just finished reading. She enjoyed it so much that she kept reading parts aloud to her family. We are on summer hours this week (10am- 5pm) but will be back to normal after New Year. Happy Summer Reading to you all!
A Cookbook for Christmas
Christmas is definitely the time for buying cookbooks. It’s the perfect gift because if you’re lucky you might get a nice dinner out of it. Without a doubt, the cookbook we are selling most of at the moment is RecipeTin Eats Dinner by Nagi Maehashi. As someone who can be a bit skeptical about social media fame, I was prepared to be underwhelmed by this book. How wrong I was. This is the perfect book for a newbie cook or someone like me who is always looking for a bit of inspiration when it comes to dinner. Both Heather and myself have regularly cooked from this and the results have been delicious. It’s destined to be under my family’s Christmas tree this year for younger members of my family, why not pop it under yours as well! There were many other great cookbooks this year but I’ll just give a couple of my personal highlights. Karen Martini’s Cook is an encyclopedia of fabulous recipes to rival Stephanie Alexander’s Cooks Companion. (I really recommend Karen’s banana bread recipe among many others!) Lastly, the first recipe book from Sydney chef Tom Walton, More Fish, More Veg is brilliant. If you need to increase fish and vegetable intake this is the perfect book for you with simple but tasty recipes!
Perfect Christmas ideas
We are always on the look out for books that will be the perfect gift for the hard-to-choose-for non-fiction reader. The Passion of Private White by the legendary wordsmith Don Watson fits that category perfectly. This is a book of profound insight into Australian history, following the life of the anthropologist Neville White and the world of the hunter-gatherer clans of remote Northern Australia, with whom he lived and worked for half a century. We were lucky enough to have Don come and visit us in store so we have some signed copies but they won’t last long.
Nikki Savva’s Bulldozed arrived last week and has been already been a hit with customers keen to get the inside scoop on the election that brought down Scott Morrison and elevated Anthony Albanese. Full of candid political gossip, raw ambition and tactical missteps, it is a page turner and it isn’t often you can say that about Federal Parliament.
The Booker is Back!
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was the Booker winner this year and promptly sold out all over the country. We’ve been waiting for the reprint and finally it is here. This is an astonishing novel by Sri Lankan author, Shehan Karunatilaka, who triumphed over some of the best books of this year. I loved both Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These and Percival Everett’s The Trees on the shortlist, so can’t wait to dive into this one in the summer holidays and see if I agree with the judges. Seven Moons is set in afterlife when Maali Almeida wakes up dead and unusually is told in the second person (ie you). Hailed by critics, loved by our lucky customers who had already snaffled our few copies, I can’t wait until the summer holidays when I will sit down and read it!
Christmas is coming…
If you have been on Station Street lately you will have seen our lovely window of Australian plants and animals looking festive, painted for us by the talented Wina Jie. It’s a gentle reminder to us and you that Christmas is coming (four weeks and counting) and we are here to help with picking the perfect present for under your tree. Coming soon will be an email for subscribers about our favourite books of the year and which one (or maybe more than one) is the Book of the Year according to Fairfield Books! Want to be a subscriber to our emails? Just ask in store or send us an email on books@fairfieldbooks.com.au. If you are looking to order books to get here for Christmas then do it NOW!!! I don’t need to tell you about supply line strains, illness and floods but we are currently navigating all three. So get in early and then you can relax and enjoy December all that more! Wishing for sunny skies for you both metaphorically and literally at the moment and hope to see you in store soon!
Getting ready for Christmas
It’s getting close to Christmas which is the busiest time of year for the store! There is nothing we enjoy more than picking the perfect present for people. If you are looking for great recommendations then one of the best places is to be on our email list for our newsletters. We produce a general adult fiction/non-fiction, a crime one and a kids one. If you are interested in signing up just let us know next time you are in store.
We are also busy collating our favourite books for the year. At the moment I’m just putting together our favourites email newsletter which includes titles such as Jennifer Egan’s The Candy House, Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like This and Robbie Arnott’s Limberlost among others. Remember that there will be a display of all our favourite books for the year in store.
And while you are here make sure to admire our friend Wina’s beautiful new Christmas window. We’ve had lots of people in the street stop to chat to her as she painted it!
Summer Reading Guide
Click the link below to see our Reading Guide. Book selections for all, up to Christmas and beyond to the summer holidays.
