Desire Books

New Desire Book Cover Posters!

2011-11-30T17:49:00.001-08:00

For all of you have waited so patiently for us to make good on our Great Poster Promise, THEY'RE READY. We have an amazing range of 20 different A3+ posters; photos we've taken of gorgeous, iconic and/or just plain strange books that have crossed our path. We've got some in store, and we're taking Christmas orders. Get your order in by Dec 18th at the latest... Don't delay, these are the Christmas presents you won't find anywhere else!

$45 unframed, $100 framed.

Image size is 31cm x 46.5cm, and will fit in both A3 and 12"x16" framing mats.

Order via email, phone or come by the store between 10am and 5pm (address and number on right top of page)

Here's the first bunch, but we'll be adding many more to the catalogue over time.

(Desire Books watermarks have been added on the reproductions below; actual prints don't have a watermark.)

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We Are Not the First, by Andrew Tomas

#WFAT001

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Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut

#BCKV001

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Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Daniken

#CGED001

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Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, by Garry Hogg

#CHGH001

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The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac

#DBJK001

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Delta of Venus, by Anais Nin

#DVAN001

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The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

#FHAR001

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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos

#GBAL001

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A Ghost at Noon, by Alberto Moravia

(dark background)

#GNAM001

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A Ghost at Noon, by Alberto Moravia

(light background)

#GNAM002

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Guerrilla Warfare, by Che Guevara

#GWCG001

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The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, by Tom Wolfe

#KBTW001

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The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann

#MMTM001

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The Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs

#NLWB001

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On the Road, by Jack Kerouac

#ORJK001

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Post Office, by Charles Bukowski

#POCB001

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The Girl Nadja, by anonymous

#TGN001

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Ulysses, by James Joyce

(light background)

#UJJ001

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Ulysses, by James Joyce

(dark background)

#UJJ002

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Bonfire at Desire, Episode 6

2011-11-22T00:48:00.000-08:00

Each Bonfire at Desire comes with a new flavour of magic that nobody can predict. Pack your poems, stories, songs, films, friends and wine and head down to this lovely little bookshop and we'll all have a taste of what the sixth monthly installment brings us.

Tuesday the 29th of November at 7pm at ye olde bookshoppe, Desire Books 3/3 Whistler St, Manly.

New badge packs!

2011-11-03T01:41:00.000-07:00

Over the next couple o' months we'll be releasing a bunch of nifty badge packs! (How much is "a bunch"? Our friends at the Institute of Reference Materials and Measurements in Belgium define a bunch as "a smidge more than some".)

The first two:

Great Literary Moustaches

And, Desirable Vintage Portable Typewriters

Available in store now!

Bonfire at Desire, Episode 5

2011-10-18T13:54:00.001-07:00

YES! The theme of this Bonfire at Desire will be (but not limited to) Halloween. You know the drill; spooks, spirits, afterlife, witchy wikky wicca, spider poo, vampires, lads, all the things that make you clench your butt cheeks when you think of them. Get to it, my pretties! Winner gets to sacrifice the goat. Tuesday the 25th at the magical witching hour of 7pm.

Thanks for the theme suggestion, Tim!

(That was a joke about the goat; there are no winners or losers at Bonfire. We sacrifice it together.)

2011 Nobel Prize for Literature Competition

2011-10-06T01:08:00.001-07:00

Bonfire at Desire, Episode 4

2011-09-05T14:10:00.000-07:00

The fourth Bonfire at Desire is coming on the last Tuesday of the first month of spring. Gather round, bring your poems, stories, films, songs, friends, wine, warmth and share them all around.

Tuesday, September 27th, 7:00pm - 10:30pm at:

Desire Books

3/3 Whistler St

Manly, Australia

ALSO!: The sock wrestling continues. Reigning champion Simon wants your dirty, smelly socks. Do you want his?

Bonfire at Desire, Episode 3

2011-08-28T04:45:00.001-07:00

It's on again! Your favourite thing to do every four weeks or so.

Bonfire is the night we open Desire Books for an open mic night; open to anyone who has something to share to an open audience. So far we have had poetry, film, live music, spoken word/rap, stories, performances, a children's book reading, choc banana muffins and drinks and this will only be our third night!

Please, come share yourselves.

Tuesday, August 30 · 7:00pm - 10:30pm at:

Desire Books

3/3 Whistler st

Manly, Australia

BYO lack of inhibitions.

Manly Jazz Festival 2010

2010-09-29T03:14:00.000-07:00

Manly Jazz Festival is back, again, for its 33rd year...

We're delighted to announce that this year we have a great little be-bop ensemble playing our store. They go by the name of inner west jazz quartet, and they've got a few regular gigs around Sydney and they're sharp and they're hot and they're pretty freakin' smart.

They'll be playing on Sunday the 3rd of October, from 12pm to 4pm (with occasional breaks here and there to cool down, 'cause they're so damn hot).

Our address is: 3/3 Whistler St, Manly. (Click here for directions and map.)

Manly Jazz Festival 2010
Hot Jazz, Cool Surf
October 2-4
For full festival details click here.

Find of the Week

2010-08-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

Seeing
by José Saramago (2004)

José Saramago, one of my favourite authors, died a few months ago. His death prompted me to pick up one of his later novels and read him again. The premise of Seeing is delicious: In a semi-fictional state sometime in the recent past, a federal election is held. At the polling booths, election volunteers are alarmed at the low voter turn-out. In fact, not a single person enters the polling stations until lunch time. When they do finally come to vote, all at the last minute, the officials momentarily relax and conclude that bad weather was to blame for the slow start to Democracy. But when the votes are tallied, it appears that an overwhelming majority of the populace has cast a blank vote. Government officials are confused. Another election is called and the result is worse than that of the first. The government panics, the police impose curfews and the suspicious are interrogated.

On the eve of this country's federal election, I momentarily considered featuring Saramago's Seeing as the Find of the Week but finally decided against it. It seemed too obvious, too topical, but also, too hopeful. The events of the novel result in terrible consequences, but there's something incredibly romantic about the idea of a social institution falling apart; a finely tuned, precision mechanism that can't deal with a perfectly reasonable outcome of its own objectives. And now that we find ourselves in a similar, though less poetic, momentary state of uncertainty, it feels like this book should really be sent out to you Desire-ites out there.

Find of the Week

2010-07-21T06:17:00.001-07:00

On the Road
by Jack Kerouac (1958)

It's been a year since we adopted this pretty little bookshop from the lovely Mrs Kree and Mr Adam. A year! Holy shit! The things we have seen! The memories!

There was the time the cops threatened to send us to Long Bay for not having a dealer's license ("Umm, I just Googled it and, actually, we don't need one, Officer").

There was the time I drove ten hours to do a house call that consisted of a single dusty box of year old Women's Weekly magazines.

There are the dozens of book fairs at which we literally trip-up grannies and dry-hump Enid Blyton collectors (it psychs them out).

And there are the dear customers, Fruit Loops the lot of you, making us dance for our supper every single day (how we love to dance for our supper!).

And then, in our anniversary week, along comes a sign from the Heavens. What is it, you ask? The ghost of Samuel Beckett has decided to haunt the store? There is treasure buried under our floor boards? We've found a Gutenberg Bible at a garage sale in Mona Vale? No, it's much better than all these things combined. We've scored a First UK Edition copy of Jack Kerouac's On The Road. Only 3000 were printed and only a small fraction of those remain. It's in reasonable shape, too.

Oh my, we're sweaty, and it's the middle of freakin' winter!

(Click here for all the Find of the Week posts)

First edition orgy!

2010-07-17T19:33:00.000-07:00

Chickity check yo'self before you wreck yo'self/
'Cause first editions on yo shelf is good fo' yo' health.

What to do with books that have died

2010-07-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

Transforming Your Old Books into Unique Planters

Find of the Week

2010-06-23T06:10:00.000-07:00

Rogue
by Fabio (1994)

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein

Between you and me, I think Heinlein is a bit of a dick, but this quote has its charms. In a similar vein, I believe that one's literary vigour rests in the practice of reading a little bit of everything. Never read a sci-fi book? Try one just for kicks. Never read a novel-length poem? Dante beckons! Still think graphic novels are for chumps? You're the chump! The 19th century Russians scaring you? Good, they're supposed to; stop your whimpering and read some Turgenev. Self-help not your thing? Read some if only to know what you already know that you know. And ultra-cheese romance? Well, why not? I've read one, and one only, and when it comes time to compile my list of 50 Most Important Books of My Life, I suspect that Fabio's Rogue may be among them. It's a classic of the genre: ridiculous, brainless, steamy, over-the-top (perhaps even self-consciously so). It reads like a thesaurus with the bonus addition of "stop/don't stop" quasi-rape scenes:

"In the next instant, Ryder hauled Natalie across the carriage into his lap, and captured her lips in a punishing, possessive kiss. Indignation and traitorous arousal hit her with simultaneous, blinding force. She drew back her hand and slapped him."

And before you come into the store and berate me for my philistinism, I ask you to consider the following: in an interview for Interview magazine, Fabio claimed to have read the entire works of Balzac and Proust, albeit in Italian, and when questioned, made a convincing display of the finer details of their respective oeuvres…

Sexy librarian!

2010-06-19T15:49:00.000-07:00

Sydney Morning Herald, June 17 2010.

Find-Of-The-Week!

2010-03-24T17:10:00.000-07:00

Whoa, Nellie! It's Find-Of-The-Week... Pop in
for Pop-up!

Click here.

Latest issue of Kurungabaa journal!

2010-03-10T02:50:00.001-08:00

Gorgeous surf journal Kurungabaa has just landed instore. It only happens twice a year, so don't delay. Run! Run!

More info here.

First Rule of Write Club...

2010-03-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

Ten rules for writing fiction

Get an accountant, abstain from sex and similes, cut, rewrite, then cut and rewrite again – if all else fails, pray. Inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, we asked authors for their personal dos and don'ts...

From the Guardian: click here

Our news is now blogmaticised!

2010-03-02T22:45:00.000-08:00

And as an opener, I submit a detail from a photo of one of my bookshelves. Talk about intimacy! I might as well publish photographs of my genitalia!

Desire Books

New Desire Book Cover Posters!

$45 unframed, $100 framed.

Image size is 31cm x 46.5cm, and will fit in both A3 and 12"x16" framing mats.

Order via email, phone or come by the store between 10am and 5pm (address and number on right top of page)

Bonfire at Desire, Episode 6

New badge packs!

Bonfire at Desire, Episode 5

Thanks for the theme suggestion, Tim!(That was a joke about the goat; there are no winners or losers at Bonfire. We sacrifice it together.)

2011 Nobel Prize for Literature Competition

Bonfire at Desire, Episode 4

Bonfire at Desire, Episode 3

Manly Jazz Festival 2010

Find of the Week

Find of the Week

First edition orgy!

Chickity check yo'self before you wreck yo'self/'Cause first editions on yo shelf is good fo' yo' health.

What to do with books that have died

Find of the Week

Sexy librarian!

Find-Of-The-Week!

Latest issue of Kurungabaa journal!

First Rule of Write Club...

Our news is now blogmaticised!

Thanks for the theme suggestion, Tim!

(That was a joke about the goat; there are no winners or losers at Bonfire. We sacrifice it together.)

Chickity check yo'self before you wreck yo'self/
'Cause first editions on yo shelf is good fo' yo' health.