Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness)
First editions are like virgins in a brothel: sought after, rarely fondled and destined to live out their days in a basement somewhere. Thankfully, these beauties can still be found in second-hand bookstores, or if you're lucky enough (hint), will come to you from a dear friend...
Bonjour Tristesse takes the reader to the South of France through the scheming eyes of Cécile, a 17-year-old hedonist on vacation with her father Raymond, the sensual and fetching widower, and his conservative mistress, Elsa.
The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions
Meet Kenji Kawakami, designer, pathological mail-order enthusiast and author of this book. Kawakami is the founder of Chindogu, the art of the 'unuseless' idea and the tome's premise. He's developed an entire philosophy around bizarre gadgets. There are 10 tenets of Chindogu; man-made objects that have broken free from the chains of usefulness.
Good Sex Illustrated
In 1973 French writer Tony Duvert conducted a close reading of a series of children's sex manuals with the aim of revealing how the ‘sex-positive' culture of the 1960s had been officially rerouted into promoting the nuclear family. Perhaps because of his passionate belief in the integrity of unpoliced sex and pleasure and the contention that sex education retards what might otherwise be naturally developed sexual behaviour and attitudes, Good Sex Illustrated was met with controversy.
My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead
Jeffrey Eugenides knows about love. Dave Eggers, the 'Bono of lit', knew that Jeffrey knew about love, and asked him to compile a book of love stories. In 25 parts, My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead charts that many-splendoured thing from its first flush to its final denouement, from 'voyeuristic longing to disenchanted entanglement'.
Torpedo Volume 2
Some people hope short fiction will save the world. Or, at least, they hope that within the carefully designed pages of the latest anthology or journal, a bastion of TRUTH will call out to them. Fiction writers are expected to trigger epiphanies; to elicit congruence from our jumbled up thoughts and emotions; to ask some questions and answer others.
Tales From Outer Suburbia
If the word 'awesomest' was an illustration (or even a word) then it would be illustrated by Shaun Tan. Tan is the king of Australian book illustration and creator of last year's award-winning comic book The Arrival.
Typically Tan's stories are allegories about the human condition, his skill as an artist and writer is to take everyday themes and create an extraordinary and hallucinatory experience.
Air Guitar
Dave Hickey is the love child of Hunter S. Thompson, Lester Bangs, Giorgio Vasari, Anais Nin, Mark Twain, Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag and, still skimping on his alimony, Lenny Bruce. To wit, he is: promiscuously inclusive, as humanly warm as pee-pee on denim, smarter than a dagger, as serious as your life and funnier than a muthafucka.
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