Potts Point Pin-Ups

If you're not familiar with the talents of American photographer Elliott Erwitt, then you must come in and have a look at this book.  Better known for his black and white images, Elliott Erwitt Kolor is a special amped up look at this photographic master of capturing the ironic, absurd and sometimes the sublime in everyday life.

In store now $195

Bestselling Fiction in 2013

When we compiled our list of bestsellers in the past 12 months, the results were hardly a surprise.
See what you think of what our customers loved in 2013.

10. Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan












9. Dear Life by Alice Munro












8. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson












7. Barracuda by Christos Tsiolkas












6. The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion












5. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan












4. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn












3.  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt












2. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent












1. The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Potts Point Pin Ups Alison Oliver Prints

We have the most gorgeous Alison Oliver prints in store at the moment.  The vivid colours put a smile on our faces every day.

The prints are from a gorgeous range of Baby Lit primers that we have highlighted before.  The books that the prints are from are Romeo and Juliet:  A Counting Primer, Pride and Prejudice: A Counting Primer and Alice in Wonderland: A Colours Primer.

$40 each

Author Interview with Jeff Apter, author of "Up From Down Under: How Australian Music Changed the World"

Jeff Apter, author of more than 15 music titles, agreed to speak to us about his latest book Up From Down Under.
This is what he had to say.

PP: Tell us about Up From Down Under: How Australian Music Changed the World.

JA:  It's a big (and hopefully) bold study of the many Australian entertainers who have made it to the top in American, featuring such stars as Peter Allen, Helen Reddy, Olivia Newton-John, the Bee Gees, Rick Springfield and Air Supply.  I also look at the downside of fame, and how some of these acts didn't live long enough to fully savour their success. What price a dream; that's the central theme of the book.

PP:  What does researching the music industry entail?  Loads of gigs, late nights and partying?  You can tell us, we won't tell anyone.....

JA:  If only!  Truth be told, it's like any other project with a strong research component:  lots of digging into archives, plenty of reading, listening and asking the right questions of the right people.  I'll leave the partying to the people I write about.  I'd need two livers if I wanted to keep up.

PP:  There really aren't that many books out there about the modern Australian music industry.  Why is that?

JA:  Good question.  Sometimes I wonder whether we truly appreciate the depth of talent we have and the amount of success Australians have achieved over the past 40 years.  Many people who've read this book have been surprised by how high my various subjects have climbed.  Grammys?  Really?  Hundreds of millions of records sold - are you sure?  Consider Up From Down Under a wake-up call - look what we've achieved!  Look how far we've come!

PP:  What is your favourite Australian music success story?

JA:  The Peter Allen story is pretty remarkable.  He was probably facing a life of playing old standards for holiday makers on the Gold Coast when, purely by chance, he met Judy Garland, who took to him like a long-lost son - and fixed him up with Liza Minelli, of course.  The ride that Peter then undertook - from Tenterfield to Rio and beyond - is truly staggering, and ultimately, tragic.  Not many people get to play New York's Radio City Music Hall, let along take to the stage astride a camel.  Only a superstar can do that.

PP:  You've worked with musicians writing autobiographies, like Kasey Chambers and Mark Evans of AC/DC.  Do you like collaborating in this manner?  And how does it work?

JA:  It's very different to the books I write along, but equally satisfying.  When I'm in co-writing (or ghostwriting) mode, I'm as much an editor as a writer.  "Tell me everything", I'll say to my subject, "and then let's pick the best stuff".  It's interesting how quickly you lock into a rhythm when you co-write; the words (and the stories) just flow.  The first question my subject usually asks is, "We have to come up with 80, 000 words?  Are you kidding?  I write three minute songs."  Then, six weeks later, we'll have half the book written and it suddenly doesn't seem so daunting.

PP:  Is there a musician who you would love the chance to write with?

JA:  I've written about, and interviewed, Daniel Johns (formerly of Silverchair) many times; I even wrote a Silverchair biography called A New Tomorrow.  But I'd really like the opportunity to co-write with him, a true collaboration.  I think he's a fascinating guy and a massive creative talent, with strong opinions.  So Daniel, if you're reading this.....

PP:  Are you working on anything new?

JA:  Indeed, I am.  Expect a new book on the Gibb brothers - the four Gibb brothers, including Andy - sometime in 2014.  Their story is another of those amazing rollercoaster rides that I'm constantly drawn to - huge highs, staggering lows and some painful tragedy.  I hope I can do their lives and careers justice.

Interview with Mark Lamprell, author of "The Full Ridiculous"

Mark Lamprell, author, screenwriter and filmmaker was in the store earlier this week to talk to us about his new book called The Full Ridiculous.

The Full Ridiculous is a funny and compelling novel about love, family and the precarious business of being a man.  It examines the terrible truth that sometimes you can't pull yourself together until you've completely fallen apart.

Interview with Mark Lamprell

Gelato Messina - It doesn't get better than this.

Recently, I was one of eight lucky recipients of a golden ticket for the Gelato Messina factory in Rozelle.  I felt like Charlie Bucket standing outside the walls of the Willy Wonka factory. Tucked away behind an unassuming facade, the factory turns out mountains of delicious gelato to feed our insatiable appetite for all things Messina.

Founded in 2000 by Nick Palumbo, Messina is a Darlinghurst institution which has been slowly taking over Sydney with shops at Star Casino, Surry Hills and as of last week Bondi Beach. The queues outside the stores in Darlinghurst and Surry Hills have to be seen to be believed. Look out Melbourne, there is a Gelato Messina scheduled to open very soon in Fitzroy and plans are afoot for stores in China too.

Nick and his fabulous team demonstrated how they make their gelato starting with a lemon sorbet, followed by a traditional vanilla ice cream and finally, the extremely delicious Bombe Alaska.  Whilst they were hard at work talking and demonstrating, we got to eat our way through a special gelato meal.

The first course was a simple lemon sorbet served with sake.  The intense lemony flavour is created by using both the juice and the pulp of the lemon and not just any lemon but Meyer lemons. We discovered that sorbet is a simple combination of water, sugar and fruit - the secret to success lies in the use of the right type of sugars and in the right combinations.

Following this was a bruschetta served with a pretty pale pink tomato sorbet. The flavours were refreshing and surprising.

Our next course was a Foiddle Pop (I am not totally sure of the spelling but it is a Duck Foie Gras Paddle Pop).  The Foiddle Pop is the prettiest shade of pink, with cherry gelato and popping candy on the outside. We were all giggling as the candy popped away in our mouths.  Not too sweet nor too savoury it was absolutely delicious.

Our main course was an 18 hour sous vide pork belly with crackling, apple and pepper gelato and pumpkin puree.  The Gelato Messina boys had taken the traditional apple and pork combination and put a whole new crazy twist on it and it was YUM!!!

For dessert we had mini pavlovas served in little jars with lids on.  The base was a passionfruit jelly with raspberries and mini meringues and a few micro mint leaves.  The texture and flavour was absolutely sublime.

As we worked our way through each course, the boys chatted about their inspiration and their process.  They make everything, with the exception of the savoiardi biscuits for the tiramisu, on the premises. Every paste, jam, brioche or cake is made in house and they spend hours working to create the perfect ingredient for the gelato making process.  The ingredients used in gelato have to not only taste good but also have to work at many different temperatures.  The process is quite complex and it would seem that the secret to success is to make sure that the cooling process happens quite quickly, in under one and a half hours, otherwise you run the risk of bacteria forming in your gelato.

Only the best ingredients are used in the gelati. We tried the Callebaut chocolate and the hazelnuts which are sourced in Piemonte in Italy.  The pistachios come from the town of Bronte, which is in the foothills of Mount Etna in Sicily, where the soil creates the right environment for growing the perfect pistachio.  The pistachios are hand picked and shelled, hence the fantastic green of the pistachio gelato.

Nick and Donato, his business partner have been working together for the past three years.  They have a great sense of humour and look to films and television to provide inspiration for their ever expanding range of flavours.  They are inspired by shows like the Mighty Boosh and Game of Thrones.  Hence the Khaleesi or the fabulous Robert Brownie Jr - milk chocolate gelato, chocolate brownies and chocolate fudge sauce..  And as they describe it "Go on.. relapse today, rehab tomorrow".

Our visit was to give us some insight into the boys and their inspiration before their book is launched later this year.  The Gelato Messina book will include 50 recipes and has been painstakingly written for both the professional and domestic chef. Luckily, for those of us without blast freezers, we will still be able to try making these gelati at home.  The dark arts of which sugars to use and the process of chilling the gelato are all explained.  It strikes me that it is extremely generous, this sharing of years and years of professional knowledge. Nick said that he is happy to do this as he is always seeking to improve and advance the art of gelato making and for this he should be commended.

$39.95 due November

Personally, I plan to use the book as an armchair guide to decide which flavour I will have on my next visit to the Darlinghurst store.  It is a well worn path from my house to Gelato Messina and from our place all roads lead to Gelato Messina and sometimes we visit two or three times a week.  I feel happy and safe in the knowledge that the ingredients they use are so fresh and so much care is taken in the making of the gelati.  

My personal favourite is the Hello Sailor, the prettiest pale pink you could ever imagine, it is a sorbet made of ruby red grapefruit juice and Aperol and the sailor should be pronounced with a sibilant ‘s”. Having said that, I recently made a visit to the Darlinghurst Laboratorio and in the interest of "research" for this blog entry we tried three of the new monoporzione. The Pop Porn, Strawberry Fields and what could possibly be my new favourite, the Golden Bluff.

I am sure Marie Antoinette would have said "Let them eat ice cream and make sure it is Gelato Messina".

Potts Point Pin-Ups

It's a love fest for Sydney from the very cool crowd at Monocle Magazine, who were recently in town to launch their new book The Monocle Guide to Living.

Sydney features very strongly in this gorgeous yellow cloth bound almanac which features design team, Smith and Carmody and the gorgeous Bronte restaurant, Three Blue Ducks.

As we've come to expect from this dynamic publication, destinations from around the world abound in the book - Sydney doesn't claim all the pages.

Here's a sneak peak.

Tao Lin @ Alaska Projects for the National Young Writer's Festival

Tao Lin is not like other touring writers.  He hates reading his own work, doesn't respond well to the question and answer format and seems a little like he'd prefer to be somewhere else at his own event.  Okay, okay, he's probably a lot like other touring authors, but there is something about his obvious apathy that is either utterly affronting or back-thumpingly heroic.   The crowd that attended the NYWF event hosted by Alaska Projects, for the most part, belonged wholeheartedly to the latter school of thought.  They laughed when he awkwardly sidestepped answering questions, empathised about the mainstream critical response to his books, endured with great humour a long slideshow of seemingly random images and commented over and over again about how much his work resonated with their lives.                                                                                                 Tao Lin is the author of three novels, two books of poetry and one short story collection.  He runs his own publishing house called MuuMuu House (which mainly accepts content found on the internet) and according to Bret Easton Ellis "is the most interesting prose stylist of his generation".

According to other critics, Tao Lin is either the end of the modern novel, a "Kmart-realist", or he is the voice of his generation and a playful minimalist.

Taipei is Tao Lin's latest novel.  The book follows the meanderings of Paul, a writer.  We go from Manhattan to Taipei, along the way experiencing love and pain with unexpected consequences; connections are made via technology and many a drug are ingested with careless ease.  

When NYWF author, Wilfred Brandt asked Tao about the autobiographical nature of Taipei, Tao agreed that much of the first draft of the book was drawn from his memory.  When he was further drawn on the topics of sincerity and irony, Tao responded that he believes everybody misunderstands the true nature of the terms.  "You don't know what you are intending when you say something" - sincerity and therefore love and romance don't make sense.  "I'm interested in writing about relationships without such simplistic definitions".

Questions abounded from the enthusiastic audience and whilst Tao didn't answer a lot of those questions directly, the evening threw up some interesting fodder - from what are Tao's influences (he's been reading the same book for 10 years The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, and mostly reads those books he first encountered in college), how does he place himself in the American canon (no response), how does he feel about the critical response to his work ("If I didn't know me, I wouldn't like me either", but doesn't let readers' responses affect how he writes), how does he work (almost stream of consciousness writing, then labours over the editing), to the eggplant motif of Taipei (he didn't know about this, but "I think it has enough").

There were also questions about the author's ability to articulate the altered state of his characters.  Tao brushed these aside mostly, but did allude to a scene in Taipei where Paul does a book event whilst high.  What Tao himself meant by this can only be guessed at, but the twitterverse quickly made the leap - one tweet claiming "the author is superhigh". 

Twitter, blogs, online forums, Tumblr - these are the worlds of Tao Lin and his readers and where Tao Lin shines.  His is an intertextual universe where more than one medium is employed to tell the whole story. Other authors, such as Sheila Heti and Miranda July, similarly incorporate social media into their writing and novels, which sometimes gives them the feel of a collaborative art project.                                                                         Tao Lin's Taipei is strictly a novel and is written with little elaboration.  It may authentically capture the mood of a "connected" generation, but it feels like it is authenticity in a bubble as Taipei is a book about a generation of adults who don't know how to act or talk to each other face to face.  When the real world beckons, just like it was for Tao Lin at Alaska Projects, awkwardness and boredom ensue and mistakes happen.                         No matter how you see the work, there is no denying that Tao Lin is showing us how a new generation lives and engages with the world.  "Reading makes me feel less alone" said Tao Lin that night and it's obvious that many of the large crowd agreed with him.  One only wonders if it would be his own work that Tao himself would reach for when looking for solace.

Granta interview with Yuka Igarishi
Sydney Morning Herald review by Mark Tewfik
National Young Writer's Festival programme (Oct 3-6)