Fall in ♥ with a Fictional Character!

During February, we will be offering 3 for 2 on a range of classical & modern fiction titles.

Biggest Loser BIGGEST Aerobics Class!

We will be selling copies of Michelle Bridges' brand new Crunch Time
Cookbook this Sunday at the Biggest Loser BIGGEST Aerobics Class!
Michelle will be signing books at lunchtime.
Help us to break a World Record!

Sunday 31st January 2010 at EQ Moore Park Show ring. Follow link below to register.

http://ten.com.au/competitions-Aerobics.htm

#1 on our Dymocks top 10 House & Garden list - Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion

We LOVE Book of the Month The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova ♥

A story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve hope.

James A. Levine's The Blue Notebook - reviewed by Shandos Cleaver

The Blue Notebook is the tragic tale of Batuk, a beautiful Indian girl sold into prostitution by her poor rural family at the age of nine. After her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder, she is taken to work on the Common Street of Mumbai, kept in a cage next to other child prostitutes, including her friend Puneet, a girl-boy who is the most valuable of all.

Upon pilfering a dropped pencil from her boss, the immense Mamaki or “Hippopotamus”, Batuk, miraculously literate followed a protracted hospital stay due to TB, begins to record her life, firstly with the pencil in a blue notebook, followed by a variety of other writing materials. Batuk’s writing is a way for her to reclaim part of her life and keep it secret within herself. “And so I look within myself and assemble myself in words,” she writes. “I take the words that are my thoughts and dreams and hide them behind the dark shadow of my kidney… I craft the words of merriment and sadness (they are the same) into a pyramid and place it under my skin so I can touch it whenever I need to know where my feelings are.”

Repeatedly throughout her writing Batuk descends into a world of fantasy to escape from the grim realities around her. Some of these fantasies she acknowledges that she knows are false, such as the euphemism of “sweetcake” for the act of sex and the references to herself as a “princess” and her cage as a magnificently decorated “throne”: “I am not deranged, but there are countless days I wish I were.” However, there are other times when it seems that her senses are overwhelmed and she no longer knows what is reality and what is imagination, particularly with the tiger skin in the hotel penthouse she is later taken to.

As you delve deeper into the world of Batuk, particularly during the scenes that ensue in the hotel penthouse, it is hard not to hope that as this is a work of fiction, occurrences like this don’t really happen in the world. However, it is hard to ignore the stark truth and the facts about child prostitution in many parts of the world, including India. And whilst Batuk’s story may be fictional, it was inspired by the author’s sighting, whilst investigating child labour for the UN, of a street girl, “the girl in the pink sari with the rainbow trim”, in such a street Mumbai writing intently in a notebook.

A mesmerizing story despite the heartbreaking tale that it tells, The Blue Notebook brings a touching human face to the sad reality of child prostitution. Along with the benefits that it will bring through the donation of part of its proceeds to the International and National Centers for Missing and Exploited Children, hopefully this book will also raise people’s awareness and stop us from deluding ourselves that such issues don’t exist.

REVIEWER BIO:

An avid reader as long as she can remember, Shandos Cleaver has most recently worked as an IT programmer and enjoys art festivals, wine tasting, books that let her experience life all over the world and a healthy addiction to Twitter (@scleaver).

Angels are the new Vampires! We LOVE Lauren Kate's "Fallen" ♥

Chandler Burr's You Or Someone Like You - Reviewed by Elena Gomez

New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr decided to vent his angry opinion about orthodox religion to the world. His chosen medium? A charming and sophisticated novel about married couple Anne and Howard Rosenbaum.

English-born, and with a PhD in literature, Anne Rosenbaum is classy. But she’s also a snob. As the narrator, her eloquence and powerful opinions set her apart from the glamourous superficial world of Hollywood that her movie executive husband is part of. Despite the glaringly obvious: “nobody in Hollywood reads”, Anne suddenly finds herself the leader of a book club, filled with hotshot directors and agents.

Despite Anne and Howard’s love for each other, and their seventeen-year-old son Sam, they can’t escape the dark spot in their lives: Howard comes from an Orthodox Jewish family who refuse to accept Anne as their daughter-in-law. And Orthodox Jewish religion dictates that the child is the religion of the mother. You can imagine, they have their fair share of awkward moments. Howard has shunned the Talmudic reasoning for Anne’s love. As the presence of this truth ebbs and flows in their lives, Anne finds she is becoming a celebrity in her own right, with all of Hollywood waiting to see what book she will recommend to her club next.

You Or Someone Like You is a multilayered story. Firstly, and perhaps at its most shallow level, it is a wistful scenario about what Hollywood would be like if all its top suits and execs were well-versed in English literature. But it is also a sociological examination about humans and group identity, of “Us and Them”, as explored through Howard’s sudden orthodox Jewish reawakening. It’s a bitter and controversial look at the hypocrisy of religion, and while in this case examines the faults of Judaism (Burr suggests a ‘holier-than-though’ attitude), it could be easily said about any of the major religions of the world, religions that require their followers to believe they are better people than others because of their faith. But, to the book loving readers of Burr’s novel, it is a gorgeous exploration of literature, and how it affects us, how it permeates through our lives, and informs our relationships with others and ourselves. Anne is the ever articulate expert on Eliot, Auden and Shakespeare, and her love of the written word is contagious, leaping off the pages. She tells her audience, and us, “Literature shocks not because what it shows about us is inherently surprising. It does the exact opposite. It is shocking because it breaks down what we would be and shows us what we know we are.” (p378)

Despite being a compelling read, the story at times is didactic and a little preachy. And with all these layers, it’s an emotional and intellectual bombardment. Anne is a self-proclaimed snot, yet her other fault, a coldness-masked fragility, is ultimately what allows us to sympathise with her. The book will fill your head with so much to think about that you emerge from it feeling a little heady. But this isn’t exactly a terrible thing.

A startlingly emotional story about the pervasiveness of orthodox religion, told through the marriage of Jewish Hollywood executive Howard Rosenbaum and his Gentile, PhD literature-holding wife, Anne. Witty and full of fantastic references to English and American literature, it’s a social exploration of the ever-confusing notion of identity and belonging in the modern world.