Our latest newsletter about books for children

He is the link to our latest newsletter about kid’s books. Click to look at it, and we hope you like it enough to subscribe.

New books, events and news from Fairfieldbooks – http://eepurl.com/xi0ov

Signed Andy Griffiths Books!

Last week we were very pleased to have a visit from the fabulous Andy Griffiths. He kindly signed (and even drew pictures in!) lots of his books, which you could be lucky enough to become the new owner of if you’re quick! A great chance to get a signed copy to add to your collection, or give to someone as a special gift.

 

The Son – Phillip Meyer

Every once in a while you come across a book that is so captivating that  you immediately want to search out and read everything and anything the author has ever written. Unfortunately for me, The Son is only Phillip Meyer’s second book so I’ll have to wait a while. The novel is nothing short of epic, spanning the vast and bloodied history of Texas from the Comanche raids of the 1800s up until the politics surrounding big oil money in the present day. Meyer’s story beautifully captures the social upheavals sweeping through Texas, but never at the expense of his characters. Each protagonist, Eli, Peter and Jeanie, is distinctly and refreshingly human;  fallible, flawed and struggling with their own nature, the pressures of Texan life and the expectations of others. While Eli’s kidnapping by a raiding band of Comanches is the most riveting (and horrifying) vein of the novel, all three characters portray something of the complexity of life on a frontier. Meyers has a wonderful talent for drawing out big questions of what is right and wrong in a way that forces you to re-evaluate any preconceived notions about nature, nurture, strength, kindness and weakness. All in all, The Son is a masterpiece and I have no doubt that Meyer is fully deserving of the praise, ‘a modern day John Steinbeck’. Highly recommended

News, authors & events.

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We also have a newsletter about children’s books, and a quarterly about crime fiction

Women’s Prize for Fiction 2013

Huge congratulations to A.M. Homes, who was the winner of this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction for her novel May We Be Forgiven.  The shortlist was very strong and included past winners Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver, as well as favourite Hilary Mantel who has won just about every literary prize going! Miranda Richardson, who was Chair of the judges this year described the book as a “dazzling, original, viscerally funny black comedy” and “a book we want to read again and give to our friends” If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, we have it in stock. Paperback $20

Lulu Bell and the Fairy Penguin

Belinda Murrell has written about a young girl called Lulu Bell in two stories.  Lulu Bell and the Fairy Penguin & Lulu Bell and Birthday Unicorn.  Lulu lives with her family, goes to school, spends time with her friends and does lots of things young girls do.   The books are an ideal step up from the Billie B Brown books in reading level and they are suitable for 7-9 year olds.  They have lots of situations to identify with, and will work well both as a read aloud or early reader.

As a bonus, Belinda Murrell and the illustrator Serena Geddes will be here very briefly in the shop on Saturday 22nd June at 10am.  If you are quick you will catch them.  If you miss them, we will have signed copies of the books to sell.  Come on down and meet them.

Classics

We’ve been lucky in recent years that so many publishers have taken the trouble to produce gorgeous looking collections of classics at great prices. Of course there have always been the good old Penguin Black Classics, but a couple of years ago Penguin added a beautiful clothbound selection of both adults and childrens classics that retail for only $19.95 each. The children’s selection is even available in a lovely boxed set of eight titles for $120 – perfect for a very special gift. And recently they’ve added a delightful selection of clothbound Australian classics. They’ve also released Popular Penguins, a broad collection of older and modern classics in small format traditional orange striped paperbacks for only $9.95 each – bargain!

Around about the same time, Vintage released it’s classics collection, with stunning covers and distinctive red spines – and only $12.95 each. Vintage also added a children’s classics selection with equally thoughtful covers for $9.95 each. At the moment, if you buy any two Vintage classics (either adults or kids) you can have a sweet Book Journal to record everything you read. We also still have some cute activity book and pencils to give away with any kids Vintage classic purchase.

Australia’s own Text Publishing was next off the block with their highly visible yellow Text Classics collection – and all by Australian writers, so ably filling gaps left by Penguin and Vintage. They’ve also gone to lengths to include books that had sadly gone out of print, thereby ensuring these fabulous books won’t be forgotten. And they’re adding new titles to the collection all the time. You can rediscover these titles  for only $12.95.

Earlier this year Angus and Robertson released their own collection of Australian classics for $15 each. If you buy two of these great titles, we are giving away a very useful cloth carry bag – we don’t have many left, so be quick!

And finally, something to look forward to – Penguin will be producing a collection of Crime Classics in August this year. They’ll look similar to the Popular Penguin series, but with green stripes instead of orange. And best of all they’ll be only $9.95 each.

So if you’re looking for a failsafe gift, want to fill the gaps in your home library or just want to finally read that book that you never got around to reading, you can’t go past a classic!