Excitement!
For Brisvegas based LP readers, the twice yearly Lifeline Bookfest is on again, and it’s open til 8pm tonight and tomorrow and continues on til Wednesday. Over at the Convention centre – details at Our Brisbane. All proceeds go to support Lifeline’s counselling work.
I’m headed over soon, will post some snaps of snappy purchases later!
Update: I’m back – I concentrated on the priced and unpriced section and eschewed fiction tonight (except for some Jacobean tragedies). I tend to take advantage of the five day nature of the bookfest and preserve my sanity and my fingers from papercuts by doing about an hour and a half of browsing and buying each day (with the exception of the last day when almost all the good stuff is gone). Tomorrow’s mission is science fiction in priced and the high quality section. More photoblogging of the bookfest over the fold… but the first pictures give some indication for those who haven’t been how huge the thing is. I believe it’s the largest second hand book sale in the southern hemisphere. Which is why I get really excited when it comes around!
Oh and you can buy fluffy toys too.
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/bookfest3.JPG"
NB: Post now updated with day two’s finds
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Different sections attract different customers. This is the literature/classics table in the priced section.
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Some books are over-represented. There are tons of copies of this one.
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/windschuttle.JPG"
And some might struggle to attract a buyer under any circumstances.
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<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/greatdepression.JPG"
After spending $16 on 6 books from the priced section, and $6.50 on 7 from the unpriced section, I headed up to Tempo on Boundary St to have some dinner. Another consideration for bookfesters is how much you buy on any given visit because you have to carry it with you (particularly for public transport folks like myself). I filled my backpack, and the load was quite comfortable for the ten minutes walk from the Convention Centre to West End.
Cafe Tempo:
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/tempo.JPG"
I bought a copy of Woodward’s The Agenda just to have some light reading over dinner and on the bus home. It went well with an NZ Babich Sauv Blanc!
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/winebook.JPG"
Tempo’s a great place to eat because you can sit out on the street in the cool of the early evening, and the prices are more than reasonable. I thoroughly enjoyed my linguini with king prawns, mint, coriander, spinach, roasted garlic and chili.
Here’s what I bought.
From the priced section, I found some neat books – sociological classics like Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions and Bryan Wilson’s Magic and the Millenium on religion and apocalypticism, some lit crit, Erik Erikson’s biog of the young Luther, some essays by Barbara Ehrenreich and a social and political history of the Parisian magistrature in the 17th century. That might sound dull but for some unknown reason there are really interesting books on ancien regime French clergy and officialdom – I already own a couple.
Unpriced is mostly crap, but I think I made some interesting finds.
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/unpricedsection.JPG"
Updated: Day Two:
I had a bookfest buddy today – we arrived at around 3pm, and stayed til 5 30. Much time was taken up by searching cookbooks in the unpriced section for curios – a task that actually bore fruit with two remarkable finds (and I didn’t buy the plum cookbook), but I think they deserve a post of their own. It’s remarkable to see how absolutely appalling the recommended “entertaining” fare of Australia was in the 70s – faux French dishes heavy on fat and endless variations on mutton, chops and lamb. Plus the always reliable prawn cocktail. I don’t know if anyone has written a cultural history of cookbooks and domestic dining – it’d be really interesting to trace when and how things changed. Honestly, I think it was a downhill slide from Mrs Beeton until the 80s. The only older cookbooks which contained anything anyone actually would want to cook were slightly hippyish and/or vego. But more on that later.
Anyway, it was a lot more crowded than last night:
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/bookfestday2.JPG"
My bookfest buddy and I did the West End trek, significantly more burdened than I had been yesterday, as more hardbacks went into the mix of today’s finds. We repaired to Lock ‘n’ Load for a glass of Tahbilk Marsanne, and I had beer battered barra and chips and salad. No fushionista dining today! The potato and rosemary pizza bread was superb. Anything with potato and rosemary always is. Lock ‘n’ Load is apparently a gastro-pub according to this blurb. That’s a London thing, we’re told.
<img src= "http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/wine.JPG"
<img src= "http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/barramundi.JPG"
<img src= "http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/potatorosemary.JPG"
Today I concentrated mainly on science fiction. My friend also got a bit of a haul, but our respective collections are more or less interchangeable, which is a good thing.
<img src= "http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/sciencefiction.JPG"
But I also raided the “high quality” section, where I bought a few history, theology and sociology books.
<img src= "http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/nonfiction.JPG"
I won’t be back til Tuesday, I don’t think, as I have a ton of work to do tomorrow. I’ll be looking out for sublime cowgirl’s copy of To Kill a Mockingbird then as I plan to do the “literature/classics” sections thoroughly. I only picked up a couple today – Mary Renault’s Alexander Trilogy which comes doubly recommended to me, and The Monk, Matthew Lewis’ 1796 Gothic potboiler. It’s always interesting to go back to the beginnings of genre fiction, and the eighteenth century Gothic authors could write. It may also teach me something of Tony Abbott’s psychology, as an added bonus.
<img src= "http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/litfiction.JPG"
Already stripped bare by the time we arrived at 9AM. You’ve got to have real commitment to get to the interesting stuff or the overlooked gems these days. And, recalling the time I (six-foot-two, solid, shaved head) got repeatedly trodden on by little old ladies as I bent down to fix a broken trolley, it’s more like a war than a sport.
Yeah, I’ve more or less given up on the first morning rush, Nick. Because they bring out new stock each day, there is still good stuff to be found on subsequent days. But I’m still heading over – it’s just fun anyway!
Well, there were fewer interesting books in the travel sections by the time I was through.
What strategies do others employ? I start in the high quality section and work my way over to the unpriced section. I find if I go the other way I baulk at the prices – $7 for a book! Unfortunately no repeat of last year’s good fortune – a $50 note tucked inside a book.
Last time I volunteered at the Bookfest, we got to browse and buy what we wanted before the general public were let in. Depending on your spare time, that could be the way to go.
I know it’s an irony, isn’t it!
Any other time of the year if you saw that price in a second book store, you’d think it an amazing bargain. You can get spoiled by 50c books!
David, do you have to hang out with that weird announcer guy with the pith helmet and the swagger stick though? That may be a disincentive!
I often find the best stuff in the priced section. Though sometimes there are some really surprising ones in the unpriced. But it depends very much on what you’re looking for – I tend to focus on politics and science fiction, occasionally “literature” but there’s far too much to sort through I think. “Penguines” as the sign said used to be worth a browse, but I find now that I own almost every second hand Penguin book I want.
It’s interesting that Penguin has a brand name associated with quality in paperbacks such that it (alone) gets its own section at the sale.
Oh, Colonel Fogey? Nah, I think he has his private dressing room (with only BROWN Smarties, damnit!) and only comes out once the crowd is warmed up. RHIP, you know…
Oh, yeah, that announcer guy. I’ll never forget his astonished tones years ago when he announced a “grunge and grothic [sic]” literature section. Given that I tended to dress in black and be self-important at the time, I was not amused. Pretty funny in retrospect though.
I’ve mostly given up on the science fiction section as it’s entirely covered with extruded fantasy product of the Mercedes Lackey school. Though there’s often quite a bit of the good old stuff if you want to search.
Mrs VVB and I went over about 3pm and just got back. Haven’t trawled all the lanes yet so I’ll go back to tomorrow, a triumph of hope over experience.
I’ve update the post with photoblogging – of my purchases, among other stuff.
Hope you saved some good stuff for me Mark!
Does UQ still do their alumni book fair? Now that was a place to get a bargain.
Big? You thought that was big? (I suppose the ‘bargain’ aspect has a different dimension of merit, though.)
Ah, my friend, next year save your money, and instead buy a plane ticket to Portland, Oregon, to visit the truly terrifying Powell’s Books, the Death-Star-sized book store around which all other book sales revolve like tiny asteroids. Bring three empty steamer trunks, to fill up with your amazing finds. (again, bargains I’m not so sure about, I’m not a price-point kind of guy.)
And let me know when you’re coming, I’d be happy to give you a guided tour of the more book-happy parts of the Great Northwest! (Seattle has its great bookshops, too, but they are merely charming and cool, not vertigo-inducing the way Powell’s is.) As well as the legendary micro-breweries and the up-and-coming Columbia and Willamette Valley wines… oh, and rain. Did I mention rain? You guys seem to be a bit peckish in that regard…
Mark, it was a lot more crowded than that in the morning, though not unbearably so. I’ll probably go back tomorrow for a more leisurely browse. I got the impression the high quality section is replenished daily (at least I’ve found new books in a section I’d previously trawled thoroughly), and the other sections not so much.
The sorting must be a nightmare and seems a bit idiosyncratic sometimes, or maybe people plonk discarded books down anywhere. I’ve seen Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in the gardening section and Guide to the X-Files in Science!
Mick, the UQ Alumni Book Fair is on from 21 to 25 April.
j_p_z, I’ve bought stuff from Powells via Abebooks. Second-hand books seem to be a lot cheaper in the US than here.
Mark, you know your phone has a flash-type light you can put on? I only mention this because some of us are food obsessed and wanted to see more details of the prawn linguini. When you’re in camera mode, choose options, scroll down to the ‘Light On’ option and voila, the King Prawns, mint etc will be revealed in all their undoubted glory.
I have avoided the book fairs for a while now, cos I get caught up in the frenzy and still have books from there that I haven’t read. There is still some good stuff to be found as the days go on, espec. on the last day when the books in the more expensive section are reduced to half price across the board.
Oh, thanks, Kirsty, I didn’t know!
Prawn linguini really was very good…
Can i beg a favour?
If anyone who is going spots ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, can ya grab it for me?
I want to read it to my daughter, and would be eternally grateful.
Will keep my eyes open, sg!
thank-ya muchly!
btw, as I’m about to head out the door to dinner, that linguini looks phenomenal, and it’s making me f*cking hungry. Was it an Asian recipe, or Italian, or Asian-Italian fusion? (looks sort of Asian, which is why I ask. But after trying Tex-Mex Eggs Florentine –also phenomenal– I figure just about any sort of fusion goes these days.)
SG – I’ll swap you a Mockingbird for an Aldi 68cm tv?
Didn’t stay in there for too long… but managed to pick some good’uns.
Noel O’Sullivan – Conservatism
Bob Woodward – The Agenda
Paul Corcoran – Political Language and Rhetoric
The Foucault Reader
Simon Critchley – Ethics, Politics, Subjectivity
Matt Ridley – The Origins of Virtue (with a very flattering blurb from LP’s man of the moment, Dick Dawkins)
Hey, is that MS comic sans on the spine of Windschuttle’s book?
Good. Freakin’. Lord.
I think it is, or what’s known as “Modern Australian”.
Had beer-battered barramundi and chips tonight after more hard bookshopping!
Asian-Italian fusion? Is that where you pretend the noodles are spaghetti?
Anything you can put sweet chilli sauce on I reckon. Potato wedges – close enough. Pizza with asian stuff on it. Personally I’m a big fan of veggie lasagne with said chilli sauce.
Anybody who wants to come to my place and guarantee to take about 5-600 books will find ones just like the ones in the pictures PLUS a whole lot more. They are double stacked, there’s piles on floor, there’s hundreds and hundreds of them and they are coming in at a rate that far exceeds capacity to accommodate them.
Linguini, Cliffi, it’s linguini! I’m with Angharad – it’s the sauces and the herbs!
Updated: Day Two:
I had a bookfest buddy today – we arrived at around 3pm, and stayed til 5 30. Much time was taken up by searching cookbooks in the unpriced section for curios – a task that actually bore fruit with two remarkable finds (and I didn’t buy the plum cookbook), but I think they deserve a post of their own. It’s remarkable to see how absolutely appalling the recommended “entertaining” fare of Australia was in the 70s – faux French dishes heavy on fat and endless variations on muttons, chops and lamb. Plus the always reliable prawn cocktail. I don’t know if anyone has written a cultural history of cookbooks and domestic dining – it’d be really interesting to trace when and how things changed. Honestly, I think it was a downhill slide from Mrs Beeton until the 80s. The only older cookbooks which contained anything anyone actually would want to cook were slightly hippyish and/or vego. But more on that later.
More in the post, but since we were talking about food.