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Books

…Early Riser

Jasper Fforde really pushes out the SciFi / Fantasy / Dystopia genre with this one. An alternative UK where nothing is quite as it seems and extreme winters that mean that humans hibernate.
This new environment means that everyone has to gain weight to survive the winter, and being to thin is seen as very socially undesirable. I should fit right in! I’m not so sure about the comparatively lo-tech alternative though. Early Riser almost has a Terry Pratchett Discworld feel to it and keeps you guessing to the end with lots of questions raised that are wrapped up neatly. This is somewhat disappointing as it leaves no room for a sequel to this stand-alone masterpiece of story-telling, but it is rather refreshing in this age of a trilogy is not enough novel series.Early Riser Cover

There is one quote that I wanted to pull out, that calls itself out as being paraphrased from someone else but I can’t find a source with my meagre Google-Fu:

“If you can’t have change without injustice, then there should be no change”

…The Stone Gods

Wow, Jeanette Winterson takes us on a roller coaster ride with The Stone Gods. Three interlinked stories that left me wanting just a little bit more, and keeps us guessing.

Winterson The Stone Gods

Dystopian sci-fi at it’s best, written in 2007, there is a fair amount of foreshadowing of our current detached political environment. There is also a stark warning of the effects of ignoring the environment.

“Human beings aren’t just in a mess, we are a mess. We have made every mistake, justified ourselves, and made the same mistakes again and again. It’s as though we are doomed to repetition.”

Sure there are awkward passages, and the transition between the three sections is a little difficult but the final tie-up makes it all worthwhile.

Hyland’s Bookshop

Sometimes you just lose track of a business.

Hyland’s Bookshop in the City was a place that I hunted down – a little oasis of British Railway Books in Melbourne.  It was hidden away in a upstairs dark building  in Flinders Lane. I can’t remember how I found out about it, but I used to visit there as often as I could browsing books. We more reading than browsing – but that never seemed to be an issue.

Then they moved to an even more out of the way premises on Flinders Street, but I was visiting enough to to find the sign on the door of the old shop and be pointed to the right place. But I didn’t pay enough attention – because the next time I went to visit I couldn’t find it. I just thought that I wasn’t looking in the right place, and looked a few more times on visits to the City, then gave up.

Of course I could have always looked in the Yellow Pages – but where’s the fun in that! And this was back in the days before wide-spread internet use – the mid to late 1990s. For some reason today the memory of Hyland’s popped-up. A little Googling later I found it – on the other side of the CBD with a website, and a good stock of railways books according to the catalogue. Bonus – now I just need an opportunity to go there; Hyland’s Bookshop [^] – Level 1, 29-31 Heffernan Lane, Melbourne, Victoria 3000.


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