Oscar and Friends Booksellers - Bookshop Double Bay Sydney

Gabriel Brockwell, aesthete, poet, philosopher, disaffected twenty-something decadent, is thinking terminal. His philosophical enquiries, the abstractions he indulges, and how these relate to a life lived, all point in the same direction. His destination is Wonderland. The nature and style of the journey is all that's to be decided.
Taking in London, Tokyo and Berlin, Lights Out In Wonderland documents Gabriel Brockwell's remarkable global odyssey. Committed to the pursuit of pleasure and in search of the Bacchanal to obliterate all previous parties, Gabriel's adventure takes in a spell in rehab, a near-death experience with fugu ovaries, a sexual encounter with an octopus, and finally an orgiastic feast in the bowels of Berlin's majestic Tempelhof Airport. Along the way we see a character disintegrate and re-shape before our eyes.
Lights Out In Wonderland carries you through its many corridors of delight and horror on the back of Gabriel's voice, which is at once skeptical, idealistic, broken and optimistic. An allegorical banquet and a sly commentary on these End Times and the march towards insensate banality, DBC Pierre's third novel completes a loose trilogy of fictions, each of which stands alone as a joyful expression of the human spirit.

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting team, husband and wife Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, take us on a journey through Africa and Asia to meet an extraordinary array of exceptional women struggling against terrible circumstances. More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they are girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century combined. More girls are killed in this routine 'gendercide' in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, the central moral challenge was slavery. In the twentieth, it was totalitarianism. In the twenty-first, Kristof and WuDunn demonstrate, it will be the struggle for gender equality in the developing world. Fierce, moral, pragmatic, full of amazing stories of courage and inspiration, HALF THE SKY is essential reading for every global citizen.

As a train pulls into Yaroslav Station, Moscow, a teenage girl wakes to discover an unimaginable horror. Her baby has been taken... When the station police are suspicious of the girl's elusive story, Maya finds herself having to search for her baby in this dangerous part of the city - Three Stations - without their help. Her only ally is a young man, Zhenya, who is drawn to her cause and who knows the dark underbelly of the city well. Increasingly disillusioned with the workings of Moscow's Prosecution Service, Arkady Renko is teetering on the brink of resignation when; trying to save the skin of his vodka-loving detective friend Victor Orlov - he becomes drawn into a strange new case.

In the twenty-first century, it′s not just capital that′s globalized: labour is too. Workers in special economic zones are trapped in lives of poverty with no trade unions to represent their rights. But a group of teenagers from across the world are set to fight this injustice using the most surprising of tools - their online video games.

In Industrial South China Matthew and his friends labour day and night as gold-farmers, amassing virtual wealth that′s sold on to rich Western players, while in the slums of Mumbai ′General Robotwallah′ Mala marshalls her team of online thugs on behalf of the local gang-boss, who in turn works for the game-owners. They′re all being exploited, as their friend Wei-Dong, all the way over in LA, knows, but can do little about.

Until they begin to realize that their similarities outweigh their differences, and agree to work together to claim their rights to fair working conditions. Under the noses of the ruling elites in China and the rest of Asia, they fight their bosses, the owners of the games and rich speculators, outsmarting them all with their unbeatable gaming skills. But soon the battle will spill over from the virtual world to the real one, leaving Mala, Matthew and even Wei-Dong fighting not just for their rights, but for their lives...

He is one of the biggest stars that has ever existed, the only key member left from the unquestioned ′biggest band of all time′. But despite the almost unprecedented press coverage he has received throughout his lifetime, the personal relationships, the lifestyle and indeed the private personality of Paul McCartney remain a source of intrigue and relative mystery to the public.

Spanning the entirety of McCartney′s life from early childhood right up to the present day, FAB delves deep into the life of this remarkable and often surprising man, revealing the often dark reality behind his consistently positive, relaxed public image. For the first time, Sounes will examine in detail the lifestyle of one of the richest men on the planet, the truth behind his much publicized divorce from Heather Mills, as well as his tempestuous relationship with the other Beatles, with startling revelations.

Nothing compares to the moment when, after arriving in a foreign city, the hotel room's drapes are drawn back to reveal the world outside. A collection of the most breathtaking sights of all time from Balinese beaches to bustling metropolises to African savannahs teeming with wildlife

Semi-famous former hit-singer Hollis Henry is running on empty. Lacking whatever it is that made her life tick, she agrees to work again for sinister Belgian businessman Hubertus Bigend, proprietor of the mysterious Blue Ant agency.

Ex-junkie Milgrim's also on the payroll, Bigend appreciates Milgrim's knowledge of the street and his linguistic skills so much that he's paid for his costly rehab, and now he has him on a project working on something to do with military designs. Milgrim doesn't know why – and Bigend isn't saying. But then Milgrim's also not telling Bigend about the US agent on his trail.

Soon it's clear to Hollis and Milgrim that Bigend and Blue Ant are in deep trouble. Powerful and threatening groups want Blue Ant to back off. And anyone considered a footsoldier for Bigend is liable to find themselves caught in the crossfire.

Set among London's dark and tangled streets after the money-crash, Zero History is a brilliant thriller about the hidden webs and patterns that underlie the new century.

This is the riveting story of one of the wealthiest families in the world. Dhirubhai Ambani was a rags-to-riches Indian tycoon whose company Reliance, which emerged from the textile industry, is now one of India’s major corporations. His sons Anil and Mukesh took over after his death in 2002 and their respective arms of the company are bigger than the parent ever was. The brothers are now worth $43 billion and $42 billion respectively, largely from petrochemicals, telecommunications, and entertainment. To say that the sibling tycoons are not close is an understatement; their feud—personal and business—is an extraordinary story itself. But as this book shows, the Ambani saga tells a bigger story about modern India, not only as an economic powerhouse but about the complicated links between government and big business.

On the autobahn in Vienna a taxi leaves the carriageway and strikes the crash barrier, flinging its male and female passengers out of its back doors as it spins through the air. The driver cannot explain why he lost control; only saying that the mysterious couple in the back seat seemed to be about to kiss… Set against the tumultuous backdrop and aftermath of the war in the Balkans, The Accident intimately documents an affair between two people caught in each other’s webs. The investigation into their deaths uncovers a mutually destructive obsession that mirrors the conflicts of the region.

Somewhere between vivid hallucination and cold reality, Ismail Kadare’s new novel is a bold departure and an intense exploration of the contours of a union that moves inexorably towards its own demise.

'I used to regret not being born Catholic because it meant I'd been denied the joys of self-flagellation. Then I discovered DA and he solved my problem.' Bill Leak, cartoonist, and anagram of Killable
'He's the Sergeant Pepper of cryptic crosswords. A complete mindf**k.' Geoffrey Rush, actor, and anagram of Gruffy Heroes
Many a puzzle solver has battled against the devilish mind of long-time crossword maker and wordaholic David Astle, known to many as DA.
In Puzzled he holds out a helping hand to the lost and perplexed taking us on a personal tour into the secret life of words. Clue by clue, chapter by chapter, we step through a central puzzle, uncovering and unravelling word-secrets as we go. The Steve Irwin Fluke, the Swastika Accident, the Abracadabra Pyramid - hidden meanings, anagrams, reversals - all the Dark Arts are finally revealed.
More than a how-to manual, more than a memoir, Puzzled enlightens us about cryptics and delights in the quirky realm of wordplay. It is a book for word junkies everywhere.