There's a website that just sells book ends

Conveniently you can find it at http://www.justbookends.com/

Buy the novel idea set at Etsy 

New Murakami

It's not out until November 11 (thats' 1.11.11 -  sounds like a very auspicious date to me) but  I got lucky and scored an advance of Murakami's IQ84 this week. Its first printing sold out the day it was released in Japan. It's a big book, and was first published in 3 volumes over there.I don't expect the rush will be quiet so big here but clearly it's best enjoyed without indulging in too many overseas reviews first - reclusive Murakami didn't share any details about the book prior to it's long awaited release day - he said he felt doing that had "diminished the novelty" of his previous books.

The Rum Diary (Diaries)

Even though Johnny Depp has been working on this since 2007 I didn't realise it was on the way. Looks fun...

Infinite Jest

 Parks and Recreation show runner Michael Schur (below in grey hoodie), is a huge David Foster Wallace fan, and based the “Calamity Song” video he directed for (awesome band) The Decemberists on his novel Infinite Jest. Here's some action shots from the set...

More on this story at NY Mag

Abbey Lee v The Brain that Changes Itself

Thanks for sending me this Liz!

I'm reading: You'll be Sorry When I'm Dead

Marieke is one of my favourite local writers. Like a lotta people I discovered her via Frankie magazine. Though you may also know her from her notorious (now defunct) blog Reasons You WIll Hate Me or from her stint on Triple J or her work on First Tuesday Book Club. Man, she's so funny and provocative and cool and clever. And her first book is a blissfully good collection of stories. It opens with her childhood ambition to become a prostitute and closes with her awkward and confronting encounters with her idol, Bob Ellis. There's heartfelt, sad stuff like her best friend's ongoing battle with cancer but all of it, even the cancer, is laced with her salty wit and sense of humour. Love.

Jarvis in print

Jarvis Cocker is releasing a book of his lyricsin October. While there's not a lot of detail available about what will be in the book (beyond, obviously, his lyrics) Jarvis said this in an interview that was released with the announcement... 

[my lyrical breakthrough came about] 

"by falling from a window and being in hospital for about a month ... my gaze shifted to the normal everyday things, things that I thought 'oh that's too everyday to be bothered with' ... I had the realization that that's actually what I was quite interested in ... I was interested in how people lived their lives because I didn't have a clue how to live mine." 

[viaPitchfork]

Pure and simple

Story book prints by Christian Jackson.

Buy them here

Her side of the story

After much wrangling Random House have secured the tell-all memoir of fashion legend/icon/Anna Wintour's punching bag Grace Coddington. It's costing them $1.2 million which is about the average price of one of her shoots. It'll be written by Vanity Fair's style director Michael Roberts.

I'm reading: A Small Book About Drugs

It's by (ex-Sydney Morning Herald journalist) Lisa Pryor. Who I know, but I say without bias,  it's really great. You know how rare it is to read something that you truly feel is a refreshing, new point of view? And then agree with it and relate to it completely? Rare I say! Rare indeed. And this is it exactly. 

Lisa Pryor, Jon Ronson (!!) and Jonathan Safran Foer (!!!) are all appearing at The Festival of Dangerous Ideas. You can buy tickets here. My anticipation levels are high. 

A Visit from the Goon Squad

I'm back from my time out. While I stopped blogging I didn't stop reading or buying  books I'll never have time to read. So there's catching up to be done. 

I chose Jennifer Egan's A Vist from The Goon Squad for book club because it seemed like a no-brainer. They basically down sized the title font on the cover so they could fit in all of the glowing reviews from highly respected print publications.

So, I was genuinely surprised when I didn't like it. It's not that there's a lot wrong with it. Egan is a gifted and clever writer and there are some fascinating stories but the book takes the non-linear format to the extreme. In each chapter a new character is in the drivers seat and just when you think you've worked out how they may or may not have fitted in to the lives of the previous character a new chapter begins. I spent much of the book wondering if I drank too much in my 20's and that's why my brain couldn't keep with the book or if she'd just made it overly-overly-overly complicated for the reader. It seems to be referred to as "genre-bending" in all those fancy reviews but I like to call it "bewlideringly confusing".

The thing is while you are "in" the stories, and not trying to work out how they relate to each other it definitely is great story telling; dark and funny (at times unbelievable), plot lines inhabited by outlandish, unpredictable characters (Sasha a compulsive thief and liar, Scotty who blinded himself staring at the sun as a child and a woman who does PR for a foreign dictator). Sadly though, none of these fascinating characters are particularly likeable. And many of their tales end abruptly. There's a lot of loose ends.

It's hard to say exactly what this book is about but it revolved loosely around two characters; Bernie (an aging record company exec) and Sasha (the thief and Bernie's PA). As  both of them work in the music industry - there's a kind of tragic 90's rock n roll back drop to the story. And there's a lot of focus on how our lives and relationships change as we age (aging always seems to hurt the rocknrollas most, yeh?)

It's experimental, it's fun, it feels modern and cool but over all I just thought... meh. 
If you're going to take it on I recommend using the character map over at Ready When You Are. Side bar here: Egan (below) has made a deal with HBO to turn it n to a TV series, She says she's very inspired by The Sopranos.