Books We Love

New and Noteworthy in Photography

Book Week 2020: Our Top Recommendations

Two new middle-grade novels to foster a love of reading

Monogamy

Hamnet

Actress

The Mirror & The Light

The Long Distance Playlist

Dear Girls

Sand Talk

The Dutch House

This Is How We Change the Ending

Three Women

The Girls

The Nickel Boys

It Sounded Better in my Head

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🧚‍♀️ Eek!! This is the cutest. ‘All Abo

🧚‍♀️ Eek!! This is the cutest. ‘All About Fairies’ contains EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about Fairies. Where the fairies come from? What do they do all day? What on earth do they eat?! • This book follows on from ‘All About Mermaids’, and is great for the 5-8 age range. Beautiful illustrations and easy-to-follow writing, these books make mythical creatures EVEN more magical. 🧚‍♀️

ON THE BLOG 📷 A short while ago we ordered a co

ON THE BLOG 📷 A short while ago we ordered a copy of Stephen Shore’s photography book, Uncommon Places, because one of our Book Birds is a fan of his work. It seemed a bit random, but we thought, ‘alright, let’s give it a go.’ Little did we know that this book would be our first step towards building a vibrant collection of titles on the history of photography. 📷 Today on the blog, photography enthusiast Charlotte takes you through our newly acquired titles in this category, giving you the lowdown on what’s special about each of these handpicked books. It seems there is a real appetite for big, beautiful photography art books, and we hope to continue to grow this section of our shop. So go have a read, and tell your mates! Link in bio ⬆️

🎉 BIRTHDAY WEEK 🎉 It’s our birthday this w

🎉 BIRTHDAY WEEK 🎉 It’s our birthday this week, and today seems like a great day to celebrate as our Melbourne friends ease out of lockdown. Hooray for another day of zero cases and cautious steps towards normalcy. 🎉 This week we are FIVE. Five whole years of providing Geelong with a home for booklovers and community of readers. 🎉 To celebrate, we’ve teamed up with @thamesandhudsonau, who are celebrating their FIFTIETH birthday this year as well. We have an incredible stack of T+H titles (and a puzzle!) to give away. Scroll through the gallery to take a closer look. 🎉 To enter, spend $30 in store or via our online shop (in one transaction) between now and 5pm, Friday 6 November. The winner will be drawn Saturday 7 November. One $30+ purchase equals one entry. As always, this is a local giveaway and entrants must be able to collect the prize from the shop. 🎉 Happy birthday to us!

The first thing to say about ‘The Poison Princip

The first thing to say about ‘The Poison Principle’ is that it will permanently alter the way you feel about the colour green. The second thing to say is that it is very, VERY good - a blend of history, science, memoir and true crime for lovers of books like ‘The Trauma Cleaner’ by Sarah Krasnostein • For many years Gail Bell knew her family had a secret. A secret double murder, by poisoning, a few generations back. In ‘The Poison Principle’, Gail Bell traces the history of poisonings both through her life and family, and, as an avid reader, through literature. She looks at various poisons and their properties, the effect they have on the body, and their decline in use (for murder!) over time. Poisons can also pop up in unexpected places, like green wallpaper and green dresses. Poison plays a central role in many myths, fables and lore, and Gail Bell takes this all in her stride, weaving together many threads in an elegant and engrossing way. • ‘The Poison Principle’ is the culmination of TEN years of reading and research by Bell, who is herself a chemist and brings this scientific understanding to her writing. We highly recommend this unusual and blazingly intelligent book.

🎧 New in music 🎵While driving home from the

🎧 New in music 🎵While driving home from the shop one day, we heard the inimitable @stevewide interviewed on @3rrrfm about his two latest books, ‘A Field Guide to Punk’ and ‘A Field Guide to Post Punk & New Wave.’ Steve Wide is the man behind those excellent A to Z illustrated music books (‘The Beatles A to Z’, ‘Bowie A to Z’ and so on) that have been a hit in the shop 🎧 In this new series, however, Steve turns his attention from individual artists to genres. He looks at what defines Punk, Post-Punk and New Wave, who their key influencers, practitioners and innovators were, and what their look, lifestyle and philosophy was and is. We love this idea so much. Music books can often be dominated by biographies and autobiographies, and music photography compilations, which all have their place, but these books - field guides to movements - offer something unique. We’re crossing our fingers that there’s more to come! What do you say @stevewide, perhaps ‘A Field Guide to Shoegaze’ next?? 🎧 Slide for internals of ‘Punk’, and click the links in our link tree to view online ⬆️

Closed today for the public holiday but always ope

Closed today for the public holiday but always open online! • We’re so happy that ‘A Year of Simple Family Food’ by Julia Busuttil Nishimura (or “Julia Ostro”, as people like to call her) has finally arrived. We’ve all waited so patiently for this delivery and now we have STACKS! Phew! Link in bio ⬆️

• NEW OPENING HOURS, AND PUBLIC HOLIDAY CLOSURES

• NEW OPENING HOURS, AND PUBLIC HOLIDAY CLOSURES THIS WEEK • From tomorrow, we will be reopening Tuesdays and extending our weekdays by an hour! Yay! So that’s Tuesday to Friday, 10am to 5pm, and Saturday 10am to 4pm • However, this week has gifted us TWO public holidays, which we intend to take full advantage of. This means we will be CLOSED Wednesday and Friday the 21st and 23rd • A slightly higgledy-piggledy week this week, then, but we’re just rolling with it 🤷🏻‍♀️😊.

📖 BOOK WEEK BLOG POST 📖 Jump across to our b

📖 BOOK WEEK BLOG POST 📖 Jump across to our blog for a THOROUGH run down of our best picks to match this year’s Book Week theme, ‘Curious Creatures, Wild Minds.’ We had such fun matching books to the theme. Perhaps you’ll find some Christmas gift ideas for the young people in your life... Happy Book Week readers! Link in bio.

This is a Beth O’Leary appreciation post! 💓 I

This is a Beth O’Leary appreciation post! 💓 If Chief Book Bird Anna has talked to you about Beth O’Leary’s books, you’ve probably heard her describe them as “the literary version of a big, warm hug.” But we’re not talking your standard hug here. We mean the bookish equivalent of a hug from your sassy, hilarious, open-hearted best friend. 💓 Beth’s books are brimming with all that’s good in the world: love, friendship, humour, kindness, and empathy. The characters are imperfect and relatable, and the stories compelling. We loved Beth’s first two books, ‘The Flat Share’ and ‘The Switch’, and are excited for the release of her third, ‘The Road Trip’, early next year. 💓 We recommend Beth O’Leary for readers of romance and lighter fiction, but who still want substance and depth. 💓

🗓 OCTOBER IS THE NEW DECEMBER 🗓 Christmas sh

🗓 OCTOBER IS THE NEW DECEMBER 🗓 Christmas shopping will look a little different this year. As much as possible, we wish to avoid mosh-pits and scrums in the shop, even though we’ve enjoyed this high-energy, festive time in the past. In 2020, we’re aiming for spaciousness and flow, so that everyone can remain comfortable. Remember that we have our online store now and you can opt for delivery, postage or collection from the shop. In store, numbers will still be capped and patience required. So, to make things as stress-free as poss, come do your Chrissy shopping this month and next. Let’s be organised, readers! Thanks so much.

We love novels about books and writing, because we

We love novels about books and writing, because we reckon it’s a fascinating world (of course we do!). What’s even MORE fascinating is taste: what’s considered good taste, bad taste, high-brow, low-brow, literary, commercial... you get the idea. So we are pretty enamoured with the concept behind @emilyhenrywrites’s latest book, ‘Beach Read’. 🌊 ‘Beach Read’ is about two writers, January and Gus, who are on a retreat writing their next books. January loves a good rom com, whereas Gus considers himself a serious, literary fellow. Yet they have more in common than it seems: they’re both broke, they both have writer’s block, and they both need to write bestsellers before summer ends. To bust through their respective blocks, they decide to swap genres: January will try literary fiction, and Gus commercial... let the race (and risks) begin! 🌊 We love this idea and are excited to start reading ‘Beach Read’. Who’s with us??

📖 ON THE BLOG: TWO NEW MIDDLE GRADE NOVELS TO F

📖 ON THE BLOG: TWO NEW MIDDLE GRADE NOVELS TO FOSTER A LOVE OF READING 📖 Book Bird Charlotte reviews two new books for young readers that revolve around books, reading, bookshops, libraries and magic. Both titles were recently published by @affirmpress, and both are set in Melbourne, yet they’re entirely and fantastically different. Read the full review on our website, link above ⬆️

Look, it’s the new Oliver Jeffers! ‘What We’

Look, it’s the new Oliver Jeffers! ‘What We’ll Build: Plans for Our Together Future’ is a luminous story about building good things and taking bad things down. • A father and daughter gather their tools to work on projects together. First they plan to build a home, then a tower, then roads to go to new places, like the moon. They want to dig holes to hide things in, and shelters for the things they hold dear. And all the time that they’re making plans for the things they’ll build, they’re actually building something bigger and much, much stronger: love 💓 • Another timeless picture book from @oliverjeffers in store now ✨

Helen Macdonald’s first Book, ‘H is for Hawk’, was BIG news. It captured the hearts of a cross-section of readers: memoir lovers, nature lovers, and narrative non-fiction fans. It was a truly moving and unusual book about grief, recovery and falconry. ‘Vesper Flights’ is different. Structured as a “cabinet of curiosities”, each short essay stands alone, and each examines a different topic connected to the natural world, whether that be childhood meadows, wild boars in English forests, or migrating birds in New York City. The subjects covered in ‘Vesper Flights’ are deliberately varied so that the reader feels as if they’re on a discovery trail, ready to be surprised and delighted by what lies around the corner. This is not necessarily for devotees of ‘H is for Hawk’ because the emphasis here is not on story. Instead, it strikes us as perfect for lovers of Annie Dillard and other eclectic nature writers. It’s for the broadly curious, kind of like the book version of opening a box of assorted chocolates, where half the fun is picking which flavour you want to try next... Link in Linktree! ⬆️

October looks good on us! 💃🏼 Three of the mo

October looks good on us! 💃🏼 Three of the most anticipated Australian releases are on full display at the front of the shop right now, and this is just a small selection of what’s hot off the press. Stop by before 4pm to chat all things new and beaut.