Tag Archives: books

Not Black Books

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Dylan-Moran

If, like me, you have always loved reading, the idea of owning your own bookstore may also be your idea of heaven.

I have been in customer service all my life, yet I have never worked in a bookshop before. I have worked at independent cinemas and theatres, I have worked in menswear and wine sales, but not in a place that would make me the happiest: selling books. Although working at the Cinema Nova was fantastic, the diet wasn’t great (choc tops and popcorn). Getting to watch as many films as you want and being able to choose the emptiest cinemas to do it in was brilliant. (However, as a result, I now hate sharing cinemas with other people.)

Then there was the TV show Black Books. That was truly the dream writ large – or rather, medium-sized – in my lounge room. To be Bernard Black, to own a bookshop where you can curse at the customers, drink wine and smoke cigarettes all day and just read while you ignore the customers you aren’t yelling at. Sounds idyllic.

(Well, not so much these days, now that I’ve given up the cigarettes and recognise the link between too much alcohol and depression. And I’m an early riser, so all that’s left of that dream is yelling at or ignoring customers, and reading.)

Today I am working in a bookshop. It is not my own and I am not yelling at or ignoring customers. And it’s by no means a conventional bookshop, because it is the bookshop attached to a publishing house, Wakefield Press, an independent Adelaide publisher. I didn’t mean to end up here and my role is not really bookshop assistant, but I am here in the bookshop and I will assist you if you come in.

I wish I had worked in a bookshop earlier in my life. To be surrounded by books is a lovely thing. Wakefield’s director of marketing and the author of the delightful Boomer and Me spends a day a week working at Imprints in Hindley Street. Does she need to, between all her writing of reviews and working here at Wakefield and working on her own book? Probably not, but she cherishes her time there among the books and the book buyers.

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One thing I have found working in retail is that you tend to end up shopping where you work. I drank a lot of wine when I worked as a fine wine assistant and I still have ties from when I worked in menswear. Ending up with more books doesn’t seem such a bad thing. 

Today I was planning to take home Stephen Orr’s This Excellent Machine. It has had some great reviews! But someone has put The Hawke Legacy out on display and sentimentality draws me to that one instead.

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Emma Sachsse is an Adelaide-based writer who can sometimes be found looking after the reception desk/bookshop at Wakefield Press, or slinging our books to gift shops and other nooks & crannies around Adelaide.

Antarctic Ideas: Hot Reads for Cold Nights

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A good book is, in many ways, like a good conversation. It engages with ideas in a way that leaves you energised, knowing more than you did when you began – but still thinking and questioning. Maybe that’s why we at Wakefield feel a special affinity with the Adelaide Festival of Ideas.

In the lead-up to the full festival program announcement in a few weeks, we’re remembering an event from this time last year that shone a spotlight on the home of the blizzard: Antarctica: Past, Present and Futures. Paleontologist John Long, writer Sean Williams and director of the Royal Society of South Australia, Paul Willis, each shared their experiences in Antarctica.

 

To discover more about Antarctica for yourself, why not burrow into one of our gripping true Antarctic stories? Preferably under a blanket or by the fire!

 

Home of the Blizzard

Sir Douglas Mawson

A classic tale of discovery and adventure by a bona fide Australian hero, this has been called ‘one of the greatest accounts of polar survival in history’ by Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

This is Mawson’s own account of his years spent in sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds, of pioneering deeds, great courage, heart-stopping rescues and heroic endurance. At its heart is the epic journey of 1912-13, during which both his companions perished.

 

Shackleton’s Boat Journey

F.A. Worsley

This is the classic account of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition of 1914-16, told by Frank Worsley, captain of the expedition ship, Endurance.

First trapped then crushed by ice, the Endurance drifted in an ice floe for five months before reaching the barren and inhospitable Elephant Island, leaving 22 men there while Shackleton, Worsley and four others made the 800-mile journey to get help.

Braving hurricane-force winds, fifty-foot waves and sub-zero temperatures, this is an extraordinary story of survival.

 

Body at the Melbourne Club

David Burke

This fascinating biography of the first Australian-born member of an Antarctic expedition gives a new perspective on one of the great polar expeditions.

As an expert horseman, Bertram Armytage was given charge of the ponies in Ernest Shackleton’s great 1907-1909 polar expedition, during which he narrowly escaped the jaws of killer whales. In London, he was decorated by royalty for his achievements. But then, aged just 41, back on home ground, he shot himself in his part-time residence of the Melbourne Club. This is his story.

 

South by Northwest: The Magnetic Crusade and the Contest for Antarctica

Granville Allen Mawer

The race for the South Magnetic Pole started in the fabled Northwest Passage, when rival French, American and British expeditions were sent to find it in 1840-41. At the turn of the century, it defeated their successors, Shackleton and Mawson. It wasn’t until 1986 that Australian scientists finally found it, after a marathon, multi-expedition hunt that collectively unveiled much of Greater Antarctica along the way.

Books available at www.wakefieldpress.com.au and from good bookshops everywhere.

 

The Wakefield Press Reader’s Guide to Open State

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Open State festival has a packed program which kicks off on Thursday 28 September and runs through to Sunday 8 October. Publisher Michael Bollen brings you the Wakefield Press Reader’s Guide to Open State.

My, my. It’s an eye-opener and source of pride, browsing the Open State program, reminding us how books and reading interweave past, present and future. Picking through the goodies on offer, the mind thinks inevitably, Hmm, could be a book in that. And thinks too: Now, which of our existing books best fits that theme?

One session, Blast From the Past, is about getting our stories on screen. We have a host of possibles. Maybe a soapie set in Adelaide’s first gaol, feeding off Rhonnda Harris’s Ashton’s Hotel with its cast of intriguing characters. Or tales from underground, using Carol Lefevre’s beautiful book of true stories, Quiet City: Walking in West Terrace Cemetery.

Then again, perhaps Simon Butters’s YA novel, The Hounded, about alienation in Adelaide’s hinterland, is the best screen fit. Though it works also with the question that obsesses our town – Adelaide is one of the world’s most liveable cities: fact or fiction?

You can take a stroll to decide in the Future Adelaide Walking Tour. Have a browse along the way in Lance Campbell’s and Mick Bradley’s deluxe book, City Streets, which showcases the CBD in 1936 and 2011. Whither now?

Dickson Platten have helped shape the Adelaide landscape through people-centric place-making since the 1960s, and you can celebrate that 50 years of achievement at the opening of their exhibition, On Show. We have books from both Dickson and Platten: Addicted to Architecture, Hybrid Beauty and the lovely Lure of the Japanese Garden.

From one design icon to another: the beloved Jam Factory present Drink. Dine. Design. featuring finely crafted objects, ideas and applications that enhance the joy of eating and drinking. Learn more about the Jam Factory in its fortieth-anniversary book, Designing Craft / Crafting Design.

Nick Jose has written both fiction (Avenue of Eternal Peace) and non-fiction (Chinese Whispers) about China, so its no surprise to see him as one of the co-curators of Writing China, a day-long series of transcultural, transmedia events. Brian Castro is a prominent participant, likely mentioning his novel On China (and why not also add Drift and Double-Wolf to your bedside reading pile). 

Among the many events that make up Writing China is Reimagining: Panel and Readings. This panel considers how fiction can take the world you know – your city – and make it new. A full-on accompaniment might be Stephen Orr and his latest book of short stories, Datsunland. In the words of Kerryn Goldsworthy in the Sydney Morning Herald, ‘[Orr’s] work continues to have a prominent place in the literary mapping and recording of South Australia and Adelaide’.

For the last weekend of the festival, we’ll be selling our wares at the annual State History Conference. This year’s beguiling theme is Hearts and Minds: revaluing the past. There’s much of that in our new Colonialism and its Aftermath – the first comprehensive history of Aboriginal South Australia since Native Title.

We at Wakefield look forward to seeing you round this Open State as we venture from our normal habitat: gladly chained to the wheel, churning out South Australia’s tales to the world.

Behind the Veil – the Deutsch version!

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A mysterious box arrived in our office this morning, post-stamped Leverkusen, Deutschland. We soon discovered its contents were none other than five beautifully wrapped books – German editions of the best-seller Behind the Veil by Lydia Laube, published as Hinter Dem Schleier by Drachemond Verlag.

The Germans have certainly out-done themselves with their version (left) – a stark contrast to ours (right). Let us know which you like best!

Not only do our German counterparts make lovely books like ours, they also explain the quality of their work in the same way that we do: ‘Machen Bücher glücklich? Wir sagen ja! Daher sind unsere Verlagstitel mit Herzblut erdacht und mit Liebe gemacht.’ (Translation: ‘Books make you happy? We say yes! Therefore our published titles are passionately conceived and made ​​with love. Enjoy your reading!’)

 

 Lydia Laube

Above: a very excited Lydia Laube holding her copy of Hinter Dem Schleiner at the Wakefield HQ this morning.

Click here for more information about Behind the Veil (and if you’re really keen, you can get a bundle of Laube’s armchair travel books for a very special price here.)