The Oscar & Friends team have done an amazing job of growing little hairs just below their noses. So far we've raised $825 for prostate cancer and depression initiatives. You can help support us by visiting http://mobro.co/OscarAndFriendsCookieDusters and clicking donate.
Go Team!!

We had another great First Monday Book Club last night and resident photographer Natalie was in the house to take some classy pictures. If you missed out on the fun you should definitely come to our next First Monday Book Club. We'll be discussing 'What the family Need' by Steven Amsterdam which looks great.

It's competition time! Thanks to the good folk at Murdoch books, we've got four copies of Gourmet Farmer series 2, by Matthew Evans to give away. All you have to do to go into the running is answer this riddle:

 What was the name of Matthew Evans most recent book???
 (extra points if you can do it without Google)

 Pop your answers in the comment section of this post. The competition closes next Friday 11th November... Good Luck!

This Sunday the 6th of November, Double Bay will be pulsating with life and a fabulous FAIR.
Knox street will be lined with vintage and classic cars. There will be amusement rides for children and masses of stalls with produce, in Cross, Bay and Knox streets. The fair opens at 10am and will feature wonderful music and festive times.

The Daily Beast has put together some sexy photos of great independent bookstores across America.
Has anyone been to any of these? They sure look nice.

There was a mad rush after the prize was announced, but now we are all reloaded and ready for you! And these new ones say "Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2011" Fancy!

It feels like we've been waiting forever, but now the new Murakami - 1Q84 - has finally arrived. Come in and grab a copy before I eat them all!

Here's a bit about the new book:

The year is 1984 and the city is Tokyo. 
A young woman named Aomame follows a taxi driver's enigmatic suggestion and begins to notice puzzling discrepancies in the world around her. She has entered, she realizes, a parallel existence, which she calls 1Q84 --"Q is for 'question mark.' A world that bears a question." Meanwhile, an aspiring writer named Tengo takes on a suspect ghostwriting project. He becomes so wrapped up with the work and its unusual author that, soon, his previously placid life begins to come unraveled. 
 As Aomame's and Tengo's narratives converge over the course of this single year, we learn of the profound and tangled connections that bind them ever closer: a beautiful, dyslexic teenage girl with a unique vision; a mysterious religious cult that instigated a shoot-out with the metropolitan police; a reclusive, wealthy dowager who runs a shelter for abused women; a hideously ugly private investigator; a mild-mannered yet ruthlessly efficient bodyguard; and a peculiarly insistent television-fee collector. 
A love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell's--"1Q84" is Haruki Murakami's most ambitious undertaking yet: an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of our most revered contemporary writers.

"Murakami is like a magician who explains what he's doing as he performs the trick and still makes you believe he has supernatural powers . . . But while anyone can tell a story that resembles a dream, it's the rare artist, like this one, who can make us feel that we are dreaming it ourselves." 
- "The New York Times Book Review"

We've been awaiting this one eagerly

From bestselling author Walter Isaacson comes the landmark biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. In Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography, Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs' professional and personal life. Drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs as well as extensive interviews with Jobs' family members, key colleagues from Apple and its competitors, Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography is the definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation.

Hurry in before the staff buy all the copies!

There is so much good Book-to-TV excitement to look forward to in the near future. After announcing adaptations of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, and Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, HBO has blown my mind by announcing that Swamplandia! by Karen Russell will be making the leap too. (I loved this book so very much and recommend you read it!)

read more about the adaptation: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/scott-rudin-hbo-swamplandia-250780

and read my Swamplandia review.

and William's A Visit from the Goon Squad Review!