Poets & Thieves' 1st Birthday

Date:	31 May 2009
Time:	10:00 - 18:00
Location:	Poets & Thieves
Street:	1 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park
Town/City:	Melbourne, Australia

Phone:	0413561842
Email:	poetsandthieves@yahoo.com

And to think...it wasn't that long ago we were a small, quiet secondhand book store. 

We opened with moderate fanfare a whole year ago - the Romans put it best when they said "tempus fugit" - it certainly does. They also said "nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione", which bears much less relevance to anything than originally intended.

Anyway, the bookstore is officially a year old this Sunday, and we'd like you to come visit - at the very least you'll get 10% off any book in store, a bellyful of wine and maybe a game of chess.

Seriously though, we've gone from about 400 books to over 4000 (not including the eleventy billion we've sold) - if you haven't been come in in a while you'll be pleasantly surprised at the depth of quality literature currently gracing our shelves.

It's also my 27th birthday on the 31st, which means the bookstore and I are both Geminis. All four of us want to see you there on Sunday. 

Alcohol, eye-candy, conversation and books provided.

Poets & Tweets?

Good afternoon, gruff bookish-types and anyone else who may have stumbled across our little patch of the mothership.

This is to let you know that Poets & Thieves are now on the Twitter bandwagon. Find us right here:

www.twitter.com/poetsandthieves

We'll endeavour to update you on the goings-on instore (it's all very rock 'n' roll) as well as let you know about some of the new titles to grace our shelves.

You really are too spoiled.

New titles in this week include;

An elephantine collection of Les Murray's work complete with audio CD.

The classic of post-soviet literature 'Babylon' by Victor Pelevin

The newest stock, the latest... ting...s

[5629] No author. Missel De Jeanne d'Arc: Paroissien Roman, Contenant Les Offices Des Dimanches et Des Fêtes De l'Année En Latin et En Français. Limoges Dalpayrat & Depelley, 1899. Small hard cover First Edition. 48mo - over 3" - 4" tall. Decorative Leather-Bound. Private Press. Very Good ***French language*** 540 pages, illustrations on each page. Calendar at the beginning of the book begins in 1899, which should be the date of publication. Hardcover first edition full green leather boards decorated with floral motifs. Gold-edged pages. Exceedingly rare, this is a unique, collectible work.  $199.00


[5630] Carroll, Lewis. Phantasmagoria and Other Poems. ill. Frost, Arthur B.. London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1919. Reprint. Decorative Cloth. Very Good / No Jacket. Lovely little number. Very minor fading to spine, otherwise tight and bright decorative red cloth boards.  $22.00


[5631] McSpadden, J. Walker. Stories from Wagner. George G. Harrap & Co., 1911. 1st Edition. Decorative Leather-Bound. Excellent Beautifully-kept real leather-bound. Green. Some fadin to spine. Unique, collectible.  $29.00


[5632] Carroll, Lewis. The Hunting of the Snark. ill. Holiday, Henry. London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1908. Reprint. Decorative Cloth. Excellent / No Jacket. Beautiful edition with decorative red boards. In fantastic condition. Photos available on request.  $99.00


[5633] Bannerman, Helen. The Story of Little Black Mingo. London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd., . 32mo - over 4" - 5" tall. Hard Cover. Fair / No Jacket. Lovely little edition of this rarity - some considerable wear and tear to the spine and thus loosening of pages (though all are present).  $22.00


[5634] Beaumont, Francis & Fletcher, John & Pocock, Guy N. (Ed.). The Knight of the Burning Pestle. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1931. 32mo - over 4" - 5" tall. Cloth. Good / No Jacket.  $10.00


[5635] Collodi, Charles. The Adventures of Pinocchio. ill. Watson, A. H.. London: Collins, 1957. Hard Cover. Excellent / Good. Introduced by Compton MacKenzie, this is a well-preserved copy, with protective wraps.  $10.00


[5636] Campbell, Thomas. The Poetical Works of Thomas Campbell. London: Edward Moxon, 1837. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Three-Quarter Leather. Fine / No Jacket. Magnificent, well preserved first edition of the collected poetical works. Elegant three-quarters brown leather with five raised bands and double gilt borders and gilt floral clusters in the compartments. Photo available on request.  $299.00


[5637] Collodi, Charles. Pinocchio: The Tale of a Puppet. ill. Folkard, Charles. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1940. Reprint. Decorative Cloth. Very Good Great condition - some warping at front cover. Pages tight, bright. Delightful.  $49.00


[5638] Redgrave, Corin. Michael Redgrave: My Father. London: Richard Cohen Books, 1995. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Excellent / Fine.  $10.00


[5639] Slessor, Kenneth. The War Dispatches of Kenneth Slessor: Official Australian Correspondent, 1940-1944. Queensland, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1988. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Excellent / Very Good. ISBN: 0702220760.  $15.00


[5640] Carey, Gary. All the Stars in Heaven: The Story of Louis B. Mayer and M. G. M.. London: Robson Books, 1982. Hard Cover. Excellent / Very Good.  $10.00


[5641] Barrymore, Diana & Frank, Gerold. . New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1957. Reprint. Cloth. Very Good / No Jacket.  $15.00


[5642] Nye, Robert. Falstaff. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1976. 1st Edition. Cloth. Excellent / No Jacket.  $15.00


[5643] De Groen, Frances. Xavier Herbert: A Biography. Queensland, Australia: Univ of Queensland Pr, 1998. ISBN: 0702230219.  $18.00


[5644] Quirk, Lawrence J.. Norma: The Story of Norma Shearer. Gordonsville, Virginia, U.S.A.: St. Martin's Press, 1988. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Excellent / Very Good. ISBN: 0312017987.  $69.00


[5645] Godden, Rumer. A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep. MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1987. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Excellent / Fine. ISBN: 0333422805.  $15.00


[5646] Loy, Myrna & Kotsilibas-Davis. Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming. London: Bloomsbury, 1987. Hard Cover. Excellent / Very Good. ISBN: 0747500843.  $59.00


[5647] Whitelaw, Billie. Billie Whitelaw...Who He?: An Autobiography. Agincourt, ON, Canada: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Excellent / Fine. ISBN: 0340606207.  $10.00


[5648] Higham, Charles. Merchant of Dreams: Louis B. Mayer, M.G.M., and the Secret Hollywood. E Rutherford, New Jersey, U.S.A.: Donald I. Fine, Inc., 1993. Hard Cover. Excellent / Very Good. ISBN: 1556113455.  $18.00


[5649] Matthews, T. S.. Great Tom: Notes towards the Definition of T. S. Eliot. Harper & Row, 1974. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good / Very Good. ISBN: 0060128380.  $10.00


[5650] Godden, Rumer. Four Dolls. ill. Baynes, Pauline. London: MacMillan Children's Books, 1983. Very Good / No Jacket.  $10.00


[5651] Woodford, Peggy. Schubert: His Life and Times. Midas Books, 1978. 1st Edition. Excellent / Very Good. Some foxing to d/j.  $12.00


[5652] Morley, Sheridan & Kobal, John (Ed.). Ingrid Bergman. Pavilion Books, 1985. 1st Edition. Soft Cover. As New ISBN: 0907516904.  $15.00


[5653] Ispirescu, Petre. Tales and Stories. ill. Murray Childrens Books. Very Good Some foxing, no d/j. Rare.  $15.00


[5654] Stokes, Sewell & Maugham, W. Somerset (Int.). Without Veils: The Intimate Biography of Gladys Cooper. London: Peter Davies, 1953. 1st Edition. Very Good / No Jacket.  $10.00


[5655] Plowden, Alison. Marriage With My Kingdom: The Courtships of Queen Elizabeth I. London: Book Club Associates, 1977. 1st Edition. Excellent / Very Good.  $13.00


[5656] Plowden, Alison. The Young Elizabeth: The First 25 Years of Elizabeth I. Readers Union, 1972. Hard Cover. Excellent / Very Good.  $10.00


[5657] Okri, Ben. Dangerous Love. Phoenix House, 1996. 1st Edition. Soft Cover. Very Good  $15.00


[5658] Mayes, Frances. Under the Tuscan Sun: At Home in Italy. New York, New York, U.S.A.: Broadway Books, 1997. 1st Edition. Soft Cover. As New ISBN: 0767900383.  $10.00


[5659] Kelly, Linda. The Kemble Era: John Philip Kemble, Sarah Siddons and the London Stage. The Bodley Head, 1980. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Excellent / Fine.  $10.00


[5660] Fraser, Antonia. Mary Queen of Scots. London: Book Club Associates, 1972. Excellent / Fine.  $10.00


[5661] Drummond, John. Speaking of Diaghilev. Faber and Faber, 1997. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Excellent / Very Good. ISBN: 0571178642.  $15.00


[5662] O'Brian, Patrick. Post Captain. HarperCollins, 2002. Excellent ISBN: 0006499163.  $10.00


[5663] Reilly, Graham (Ed.). My First Love & Turning Points. Albert Park, Victoria: Julie Morgan Marketing, 1995. 1st Edition. Excellent ISBN: 0646255169.  $5.00


[5664] Shercliff, Jose. Jane Avril of the Moulin Rouge. ill. Toulouse-Lautrec. Jarrolds, 1952. 1st Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good / Good.  $10.00

[5665] Goldblatt, Howard (Ed.). Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused: Fiction from Today's China. New York: Grove Press, 1999. 1st Edition. Soft Cover. Excellent ISBN: 0802134491.  $12.00


[5666] Wong, Jan. Red China Blues. Random House Australia, 1997. Excellent ISBN: 0868246921.  $15.00

Latest acquisitions

Christie, Agatha	Endless Night
Armstrong, Lance & Jenkins, Sally	It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life
Christie, Agatha	After the Funeral
Christie, Agatha	The Man in the Brown Suit
Christie, Agatha	Death on the Nile
Buarque, Chico	Budapest
Lewycka, Marina	Kurze Geschichte des Traktors auf Ukrainisch
Gavalda, Anna	Zusammen ist man weniger allein
Pratchett, Terry	Eric (Discworld)
Christie, Agatha	13 For Luck!: A Selection of Mystery Stories
Sa, Shan	The Girl Who Played Go
Learner, Tobsha	The Witch of Cologne
Martin, Steve	The Pleasure of My Company
Gawenda, Michael	American Notebook: A Personal and Political Journey
Hazzard, Shirley	The Great Fire
Murray-Smith, Joanna	Sunnyside
Waters, Sarah	The Night Watch
Paschke, Barbara & Volpendesta, David	Clamor of Innocence: Central American Short Stories
Moorhouse, Frank	The Electrical Experience
Heller, Zoë	Notes on a Scandal
Mitchell, Susan	Tall Poppies
Bacall, Lauren	By Myself
Guest, Judith	Ordinary People
Clough, Arthur Hugh (Dryden Edition Revised with an Introduction by)	Plutarch's Lives: Dryden Edition, Volume One
Potok, Chaim	The Book of Lights
Ward, A. C.	Bernard Shaw
Hopkinson, Tom	George Orwell
Wyndham, Francis	Graham Greene
Warner, Rex	E. M. Forster
Aristophanes	The Birds/The Frogs/The Clouds/The Wasps/Lysistrata
Theroux, Paul	The London Embassy
Stevenson, Robert Louis	Treasure Island
Kemal, Yashar	To Crush the Serpent
Morales, Adelaida Garcia	The Silence of the Sirens
Twain, Mark	A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
Proulx, E. Annie	The Shipping News
Wilde, Oscar	The Sayings of Oscar Wilde
Murdoch, Iris	A Word Child
Shaw, George Bernard	Androcles the Lion
Johnston, George	My Brother Jack
Ibsen, Henrik	A Doll's House and Other Plays
Suzuki, Shunryu	Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Charteris, Leslie	The White Rider
Carey, Peter	Oscar & Lucinda
Ackroyd, Peter	London: The Biography
Borges, Jorge Luis	Labyrinths
MacIntyre, Stuart (Ed.) & Scalmer, Sean (Ed.)	What If? Australian history as it might have been
Greenland, Seth	Shining City
Nasar, Sylvia	A Beautiful Mind
Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee	Sister of My Heart
Maha-Paoraya, Thanorm	An Elephant Named Maliwan: A Thai Novel
Smith, Betty	A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Murdoch, Iris	The Sacred and Profane Love Machine
Clarke, Austin	The Polished Hoe
Murdoch, Iris	The Sea, The Sea
O'Hagan, Andrew	Be Near Me
O'Flynn, Catherine	What Was Lost
Thomson, Rupert	Death of a Murderer
Barnes, Julian	Arthur & George
Clarke, Susanna	Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
Bolaño, Roberto	Distant Star
Jones, Lloyd	Mister Pip
Lawson, Mary	The Other Side of the Bridge
Allende, Isabel	The Infinite Plan
Maloney, Shane	The Brush-Off
Dalrymple, William	White Mughals: Love & Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India
Rand, Ayn	Anthem
Al Aswany, Alaa	The Yacoubian Building
Tartt, Donna	The Secret History
Márquez, Gabriel García	Love in the Time of Cholera
Chaplin, Charles	My Autobiography
Maugham, W. Somerset	Of Human Bondage
Rand, Ayn	For the New Intellectual
Rand, Ayn	Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
Hosseini, Khaled	The Kite Runner
Burgess, Anthony	The Right to An Answer
O'Rourke, P. J.	Modern Manners: Etiquette for Very Rude People
Fuentes, Carlos	The Old Gringo
Frey, James	A Million Little Pieces
Virgil	The Aeneid
Satyricon & Gillette, Paul J.	Satyricon: Memoirs of a Lusty Roman
Stokes, Henry Scott	The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima
Mezrich, Ben	Bringing Down the House
Grossmith, George & Grossmith, Weedon	The Diary of a Nobody
Huxley, Julian	Essays of a Humanist
Caesar	The Civil War
Anderson, Jessica	An Ordinary Lunacy
Hustvedt, Siri	What I Loved
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor	Crime and Punishment
Koestler, Arthur	The Ghost in the Machine
Barnet, Sylvan (Ed.) & Berman, Morton (Ed.) & Burto, William (Ed.)	The Genius of the Early English Theater
Hamer, Richard (Ed.)	A Choice of Anglo-Saxon Verse
Hughes, Robert	Culture of Complaint
Dickens, Charles	Hard Times
White, Patrick	The Burnt Ones
Stendhal	Scarlet and Black
Naipaul, V. S.	A Flag on the Island
Dessaix, Robert	Corfu
Wharton, William	Birdy
Doctorow, E. L.	Loon Lake
Koestler, Arthur	The Heel of Achilles: Essays 1968-1973
Fowles, John	A Maggot
Jefferson, D. W.	Eighteenth-Century Prose 1700-1780
Pierre, D. B. C.	Vernon God Little
Voltaire	Candide, Zadig and Selected Stories
Ronson, Jon	The Men Who Stare At Goats
Gardner, Helen (Ed.)	The Metaphysical Poets
Rushdie, Salman	Midnight's Children
Burroughs, Augusten	Dry.: A Memoir.
Hartnett, Sonya	The Ghost's Child
Pope, Alexander	Collected Poems
Chesterton, G. K.	Father Brown
Huxley, Aldous	Brave New World
Pirsig, Robert M.	Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Manguel, Alberto (Ed.)	Other Fires: Stories from the Women of Latin America
Dessaix, Robert	Night Letters
Oxenham, John	Bees in Amber
Hemingway, Ernest	Across the River and into the Trees
Austen, Jane	Sense and Sensibility
Trypanis, Constantine A.	The Penguin Book of Greek Verse
Hawthorne, Nathaniel	The House of the Seven Gables

Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books in Talks with President Obama

Albert Park, AUSTRALIA: Poets & Thieves have today announced that they have reopened diplomatic ties to the United States of America following the historical inauguration of Barack Obama. Following similar overtures from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Cuba's Raúl Castro, the small rogue bookstore located at 1 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park (tram no. 1 from Swanston St, stop 29) have likewise sought to end years of diplomatic estrangement and trade restrictions from the superpower.

The root of the impasse is well-known: on his first state visit to Poets & Thieves, then-President Bill Clinton browsed for a couple of hours and upon finding a suitable gift "for his wife", Clinton then pressed Poets & Thieves for a $1 discount off the $5 book. Unable to comply, Nathan Joyce flatly refused. "That book is cost price." It was then that Clinton turned to reporters and uttered the immortal line, "Mark my words. Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books, a long-time friend and ally of my great nation, blows." Nathan Joyce then returned the book, a Danielle Steele, to the shelf. Clinton never returned, though he managed to enact a trade embargo, disallowing all American booksellers and public to sell to or buy from the tiny bookstore.

The subsequent presidency of George W. Bush saw matters reach dire new lows, though his planned invasion of Poets & Thieves was halted at the last moment when the store agreed to cease manufacture of nuclear arms and to put an end to the sale of all Janet Evanovichs, a move that drew widespread condemnation from readers of terrible books everywhere.

After the inauguration of Barack Obama, Poets & Thieves were among the first to receive a call from the new president. A spokesman from Poets & Thieves was today able to confirm that the New Leader of the Free World had requested some books be put aside for his daughters, and had not, as yet, requested a discount. The spokesman then said that Poets & Thieves, in a bold gambit, were able to convince the president to visit the store and hold a book signing for his two books, The Audacity of Hope and Dreams from My Father as soon as he brought peace to the Middle East.

In related news, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton refused to be drawn on whether or not she would be visiting the store. "Everyone who knows me knows I wouldn't be seen dead with a Danielle Steele. I'm sorry, but I don't know if I can visit that store. Of course, what Barack chooses to do is entirely up to him. He is, of course, pwezzy-dent", she said, rolling her eyes.

Marius' Farewell Party 30/11/08

Poets & Thieves' Board of Directors have, in light of the impending economic depression, seen fit to unleash the razor gang on our robust business. What does this mean? 

Staff cuts! 

We're very sorry to announce that Marius, our weekend shopkeeper, has been made redundant. His last shift will be the last day of this month, Sunday November 30. With his generous severence package, Marius now plans to trek his way across the glorious Indian subcontinent, bhang in one hand, camera in the other, in his own inimitable style.

Please join us on November 30 between 10am and 5pm for his glorious farewell party. There will be wine provided and 10% off all books. All the cool cats and beautiful people will be there, so please make your attendance a high priority. 

We're at 1 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park.

On Why You Should Buy Secondhand at Christmas

Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books boasts the most potential Christmas presents per square metre than any other business in the world. From Douglas Adams to Zola and everything in between (except Haruki Murakami - he tends to sell out as soon as we get our paws on him), our shelves are stuffed with high-quality literature from around the world and even beyond.

Where does it say that a gift must be brand-spanking new? Age and use cannot alter the content of a classic book. If anything, it heightens the experience to know that someone's eyes, many years ago, have predated your own as they wind through a novel. It is in many senses a shared experience - you and the previous owner sharing the secrets of the author together, maybe not at the same time, but perhaps in some cosmic, metaphysical sense.

Because a used book costs less than a new book (unless it's collectible), your money goes further here. You can literally can get three secondhand books for the price of one new book. Not only that, we're not beholden to publishers or shareholders and as such, our rigorous book selection process is based exclusively on quality of material rather than marketability, packaging or popularity. When people bring their books in for us to purchase, we run our trained, impartial eyes over the pile and pick out only the best (sometimes the odd history of 60 Minutes c. 1981 will slip through the cracks but as we get more experienced, this is happening less and less.) What this means in practice is that almost any book you buy from here - while it may have a creased spine or the pages might be slightly brown - has passed our stringent quality testing process. We're like an exclusive private school - so many owners have applied to submit their books for sale that we need to put them on a waiting list, and even then there is no guarantee they'll merit a spot on our shelves.

One key consideration you should also be making this Christmas is whether or not you're going to support the ravenous destruction of planet Earth by buying a new book. Studies have shown that authors and their publishers are directly responsible for the vast majority of the global warming phenomenon: for example, 73.45% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed in recent years to facilitate the publication of the Harry Potter series - a series that we, for this reason, refuse to stock. You can rest assured that we here at Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books have never killed, maimed or inconvenienced a tree, let alone a whole forest. Yes, our books came from trees originally, but if more and more people read the same copy of a book, then that tree's death at the hands of Penguin or Faber & Faber will not have been completely in vain.

Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books Makes it Look Easy, Again

Perhaps you have found the book you've always been looking for here at Poets & Thieves - with the stock we have, it's really not all that surprising.

But imagine this staggeringly improbable sale: two bunny-hating, reindeer-loving Finnish girls on a working holiday walked in today and were quick to find not only The Return of the Bunny Suicides but Nainen (Kautta Vuosien - Mitä Jokaisen Naisen Tulee Tietää Itsestään) - a guide to gynecology for young Finnish females - in Finnish!

Here at Poets & Thieves, such serendipitous finds are commonplace, run of the mill. Everyday, a young pregnant lady holding a shitzu will come in and say, "do you have any post-modern literature set in Bangladesh in 1965 by a Sicilian author - not Italian, I'm looking specifically for Sicilian? It has to be between 234 and 236 pages long, and have been published by Faber and Faber." More often than not, we have the book.

This is what being a bookseller is all about.

Logo sought

You can't have it all, can you? Melbourne's biggest little bookstore has gone from strength to strength since we threw our legs open to you, the public, on May 18, 2008. Some businesses have "Est. 1808" et cetera above their door - it will be 2208 before we can lay claim to that sort of prestige and we may very well be dead at the time. We compensate by thieving archaic inscriptions from musty old books. You'll find them stuck to our walls all over the shop. This lends our cosy store a real sense of history, once you get past the sleek laptop and our post-modern, borderline avant-garde shelving arrangements. 

For a long time we've been mulling over the need for a logo. To take our store to the next level (world domination), we feel this aspect of the brand is necessary. We have a number of ideas:

• A red hand holding a quill
• A raven
• A dagger and a quill
• A flaxen-haired nymphmaniac snorting a line of cocaine from the hairy belly of Charles Bukowski, in sepia
• A raven in a tree
• A raven snorting a line of cocaine from the hairy belly of Charles Bukowski, in black and white
• A faux Penguin bookcover, circa 1960s, with Poets & Thieves as the title
• Just stealing Borders' logo and installing an information point in the store (if you've seen Black Books, starring Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey, you'll know what we mean)

The point is, we don't have a logo, and we'd like one. Here's where you or your more talented friend come in. Send us sketches, ideas. It could be anything so long as it fits, and we'll know when it fits. We can come to some sort of arrangement, be it books, money, alcohol, goodwill or even "favours" (you'll need to speak to Marius about that - he's on most weekends.)

We are, of course, as ever, serious about this logo business and don't wish to get our hopes up for nothing. All you welfare-loving, scruffy, substance-abusing Artists out there pondering your place in this corporation-controlled world and how you can best represent it on canvas using fish scales, aluminium foil and the knotted hair from a dead dog's scrotum need some direction. We're not going to ask you twice! 

A logo for Poets & Thieves! Let's do lunch. Your people could call our people. Hop to it, sweety, toot suite.

A tale of infinite jest..

“Think for a second – what if all the infinitely dense and shifting worlds of stuff inside you every moment of your life turned out now to be somehow fully open and expressible afterward, after what you think of as you has died, because what if afterward now each moment itself is an infinite sea or span or passage of time in which to express it or convey it, and you don’t even need any organized English, you can as they say open the door and be in anyone else’s room in all your own multiform forms and ideas and facets?”

David Foster Wallace, an author of seemingly unstoppable curiosity, imagination and ambition and the writer of critically acclaimed 1996 novel "Infinite Jest," was found dead at his home. The Claremont Police Department said Wallace's wife had called them Friday night, saying she returned home to find that her 46-year-old husband had hanged himself.

"He was the best of our generation, and his death is a loss beyond describing," Richard Powers, winner of the National Book Award in 2006 for the novel "The Echo Maker," told The Associated Press on Sunday.

"I am so sad — stunned — it reminds us all of how fragile we are, and how close at hand the darkness is," said fellow author A.M. Homes, whose books include the novel "The End of Alice" and "The Mistress's Daughter," a memoir. "He was a wonderful writer, a generous friend, and a singular talent."

A native of Ithaca , N.Y. , Wallace was often compared to Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo as an avatar of the Information Age, a visionary and eclectic as hip to ancient Greece and British poetry as he was to computers and television and popular culture. He also wrote often about addiction, depression and suicide, a post-1960s Dystopia in which "irony, irreverence, and rebellion come to be not liberating but enfeebling."

Wallace's other works include short story collections "Girl With Curious Hair" and "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men," and essay collections "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," and "Consider the Lobster."

Poets & Thieves FAQ & YouTube debut

Some of the more common questions imposed on us at Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books include:

• "Oh look, Edith, it's a secondhand book store." [Person pops head inside the door] "How long have you been open?" (Usually since 10am.)
• "Do you mind if I bring my dog inside?"
• "How do you get your books?" (From unsuspecting charities, jails, the infirm, bordellos and Borders. More frequently they're brought to the store by local residents who're moving house or running out of space in their 23-room mansion.)
• "You look much too young to be sell-ing books. Shouldn't you be out horse-playing or spray-painting that graf-fiti non-sense you ruffians special-ize in these decades?"
• "Do you have any Jodi Picoult?" (No.)
• "Are these books organised any particular way?" (Fiction in front, arranged alphabetically from A-Z. Non-Fiction out the back, arranged alphabetically from D-A-H-E-H-B-A-A-K-Z-Y-J-E-W-U-T-U-W-V-B-C-A-K-Y-U-I-E-R-R-R-H-B.)
• "I need a book for my book club. I don't remember the author, or the title. Do you have it?"
•  "Do you have a King James Bible without the apochrypha? And it has to say, on page 516, that the Lord may smite thee, because in one version I have, it says the Lord might smite thee. Do you have change for a coffee?" (Yes.)
• "I lost my King James Bible what you sold me! Have my partner's ukelele as a token of my sorrow. Do you have change for a coffee?"
• "I am a writer. This is a bookstore. Do you mind if I wax prolix for an interminably long period de tempo? Oh, Robert Drewe. Just fabulous. Just exquisite. Just... fabulous."
• "Oh now, this is a cosy little store. Have you been here long?" (Again, since 10am.)
• "How do you manage to maintain your Herculean physique despite sitting behind that desk all day putting books in a database?" (Working in the book trade is physically demanding and requires the sort of stamina, strength and agility more commonly seen in rhythmic gymnasts or synchronised swimmers. You might be placing a copy of Houellebecq's Platform on the shelf and then be called upon to perform a grand battement jeté balancé if the signed J. M. Coetzee topples off the shelf on the other side of the store. Obviously we also see huge muscle-mass gains in a continuous protein-based intravenous food-delivery regimen - a little trick we picked up from other dealers operating more venerable establishments. Never - ever - forget that just because they're borderline comatose they can't take you out.)
• "Do you take EFTPOS?" (No. Swiping a plastic card through a slit is just too anti-climactic.)

In tenuously-related news, Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books are soon to begin filming an propaganda video for the popular internet porn site, YouTube. At this stage we're looking for three buxom wenches aged 18-21 capable of performing under considerable duress and intoxication, three AFL players capable of forming a sentence and a promise from you that you'll forward the end result to all and sundry and all over the interweb; as we stated at the very beginning of this enterprise, the goal is total world domination. 

!!!!!!GRAND OPENING!!!!!!

That’s right, after a successful trial period we are officially open for business. Come down to the store on Sunday 24 August from 1-4pm to help us celebrate the birth of an empire. Drinks (alcoholic only) and snacks will be provided.

Please send this email on to any and all interested parties.
Send this invite to 10 or more people, print out proof and bring it down to the shop on the day for a FREE BOOK*!



*Free book from selected stock only.
**Limit of one free book per person.
***Offer only available while selected stock lasts.
****Some of the selected stock is actually pretty good.
*****Some of the selected stock is quite crap.

Death of a literary hero

“It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones.”

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel prize winner for literature who was exiled from the Soviet Union for his graphic portrayals of life in Soviet labour camps, has died overnight aged 89.

For a full range of his works including biography and other soviet writers of the period drop in to the store or browse our catalogue online.

New additions

Thanks to David S., Kevin R. and those two Austrian backpackers who had to leave the country due to the expiration of their VISAs and couldn't take their books with them, we have some fine new titles in store for you to choose from. Among them are:

• Dawe, Bruce - Sometimes Gladness (Collected Poems 1954 to 1997)
  
• Wordsworth, William - Selected Poetry
  
• Ziolkowski, Theodore - The Novels of Hermann Hesse (A Study in Theme and Structure)
  
• Thompson, Mel - Teach Yourself Eastern Philosophy
  
• Eggers, Dave - A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius & Mistakes we Knew we were Making (Notes, Corrections, Clarifications, Apologies & Addenda)
  
• Márquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
  
• Borges, Jorge Luis - Labyrinths
  
• Parker, Dorothy - The Portable Dorothy Parker
  
• Eugenides, Jeffrey - Middlesex
  
• Tacitus - Nero and the Burning of Rome
  
• Boyd, William - Armadillo
• Amis, Kingsley - Take a Girl Like You
  
• Lawrence, D. H., Sagar, Keith (Ed.) - Selected Poems
  
• Salinger, J. D. - For Esmé - With Love & Squalor
  
• Pope, Alexander - A Selection by Douglas Grant
  
• Fitzgerald, Edward (Trans.) - Rubâiyât of Omar Khayyâm
  
• Burgess, Anthony - Little Wilson and Big God (Being the First Part of the Confessions of)
  
• Sartre, Jean-Paul - The Reprieve
  
• Benstock, Shari -Women of the Left Bank (Paris, 1900-1940)
  
• Okri, Ben - Starbook (A Magical Tale of Love and Regeneration)
  
• Saul, John Ralston - Voltaire's Bastards (The Dictatorship of Reason in the West)
  
• Jörgensen, Michael - Kidnap (Another Detective Bouvet Mystery)
  
• Shakespeare, Nicholas - In Tasmania
  
• Block, Stefan Merrill - The Story of Forgetting
  
• Dubus III, Andre - The Garden of Last Days
  
• Frey, James - Bright Shiny Morning
  
• Fonseca, Isabel - Attachment

Poets & Thieves would also like to declare ourselves to be carbon neutral despite the tonnes of trees that had to die so that we could exist. Our recycled books are made from 100% recycleable paper. We also recycle shelves by retrieving them from the dumpsters near to other secondhand bookstores in the process of closing down. In addition to all this, Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books are working on ways to keep warm this winter after new research from the CSIRO discovered that the entire Harry Potter series* could keep a small family warm for up to 16 days if burned correctly.

*Hardcover editions only

World-best classical guitarist to make Melbourne debut at Poets & Thieves

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives us great pleasure here at Poets & Thieves to announce that the Brisbane-based guitarist Sir Adrian G. Roll (BMus Hons.), 23, will be performing sporadically from this Thursday the 26th of June until Sunday the 29th of June during business hours - 10am until 5pm.

Adrian is an experienced performer whose delicate musicality and rugged good looks have set tongues wagging during performances in places as diverse as Newcastle, Darwin, Brisbane and Bundaberg. His repertoire is as wide-ranging as his haircut and includes pieces by Sor, Rodrigo, Albeniaz, Granados, J. S. Bach and others. Under the tutelage of Isolde Schauppe at the University of Queensland, Adrian has honed these pieces into an astonishing display of technical dexterity, musicality and performance which will no doubt add a dose of class to the goings-on here at Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books.

Nathan.

New books

Thanks very much to Wendy who so kindly brought some new books in for our store. Among them are:

• Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
• American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
• The Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen and
• The Mentor by Sebastian Stuart

All have been well looked after, are in superb condition, and are looking for new readers and new homes.

In other news, we have a bunch of $3 copies of Hamlet just waiting to fly off the shelf - all are in very good condition.

We're also scouting around for certain authors, so if you have any of the following in your collection, please bring them around:

• David Mitchell (anything except Black Swan Green)
• Jorge Luis Borges
• Ian McEwan
• Rimbaud
• Martha Gellhorn
• Harold Lamb
• Anthony Burgess
• Dante

Also, we have a local gentleman on the prowl for some good art books to copy from. Are there any out there?

Vincent Van Gogh's Recommendation - 20 June, 2008

"How dare thou rouse me from my syphilitic hallucinations! I suppose you want another book recommendation, do you? Well, let me see what I can conjure up for you. Has anyone seen that scoundrel Gaugin, by the by? And where is my razor? Not for my ear, you roustabout - for my beard.

"Well if it's a book you want I must recommend Dubliners by James Joyce. It was Bloomsday not so long ago and I had some of that foul-tasting swill they call Guinness in honour of that interminable Irishman and his - what did Virginia call it - his cloacal obsession. Dubliners is a more concise portrayal of Joyce's city and is rife with that "scrupulous mean-ness" he liked to bandy about before he went off the deep end with Finnegans Wake, which I assume to be some great literary hoax and about as funny as a hatful of scorpions.

"Now, will you leave me alone? I have business to attend to in the troposphere."

Get your dose of dialectical materialism and dictatorial mannerisms here at Poets & Thieves!

Comrades,

We're pleased to announce yet another glorious upgrade to our World-Best facilities:

THE LITTLE COMMUNISTS' CORNER

Featuring such works as Mao's Little Red Book, Stalin's On the Opposition (everyone), Lenin's Socialism and War and Marx's succinctly-titled Preface and Introduction to a Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. All the above are published in Moscow or Peking, and, true to communism's long-lasting impact in the globalised world, we're flogging these books off for profit.

The Little Communists' Corner - Be there, or Tiananmen Square.

New additions + Swingin' golf section

Be-still your beating hearts. Poets & Thieves Quality Secondhand Books' rabidly-expanding collection puts the competition to shame. We're fresh out of Shantaram, though, which sorely disappointed a young lady today. If you have it in your collection and would like to see it in ours, please bring it round. We pay great rates for your great books although we probably have enough Janet Evanovich for the time being - thank you anyway to those who have already tried.

Thanks to a thoughtful local, we have 40 quality new additions. Among them are:

• Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
• The most popular Booker Prize winner ever, Life of Pi by Yann Martel
• Carpentaria by Alexis Wright
• On Chesil Beach by the ever-reliable Ian McEwan and,
• The explicit Kate Holden memoir, In My Skin.

Thanks to all those who've bought books, and we encourage you to come back for more.

Golf afficionados will be pleased by the opening of our all-new golf section. Whether it be tips on how to improve your swing, or any other tip that might somehow apply to the game, you're bound to score a hole-in-one at Poets & Thieves.

Our address again?

1 Victoria Avenue, Albert Park.

Emails to poetsandthieves@yahoo.com (no .au)

Searchable ABE Books Database

Hello folks. Now that we're online with ABE it's become easier to search our stock for a book or simply to browse through and place an order. Find the database here, listed alphabetically:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sortby=5&vci=53399566

Happy hunting!

Online sales

Poets & Thieves have sucessfully recorded their first online sales!!
You can browse our fine selection of books through http://www.abebooks.com/.
Simply place your order via that service and we'll post the book out to you asap.
Although you will of course miss the opportunity to enjoy the cosy ambience of our little shop and the scintillating conversation of the presiding bookseller.

A new hope...

Welcome all to Poets & Thieves.
Aleks, Kyra, Nath and Rob Roy have defied all sensible advice and finally opened our second hand bookstore in Albert Park. With over 2,000 titles already in stock and more added daily, the store is a treasure trove of bargain-priced literary fiction. We also have a range of non-fiction and collectible titles and, of course, a diverse poetry selection.
We're open 10-5 Wednesday to Sunday so drop in and say hi. And buy a book!