Abbey's Bookshop

The mountain looms. Gentlemen - and ladies - start your engines, Bathurst is coming. It’s no longer as simple as Ford vs Holden, for obvious reasons, but here are some great titles to get you all revved up.
#

WEEKEND SELECTOR STACK - Offered for a wet weekend! Choose a book - or three - from this tower of great stories and non-fiction reads, from the natural world to history, politics and beyond …

ABBEY’S BOOKSELLER PICK —— GREG: Applebaum’s latest book is a look at the state of the world in this current climate, where democracies are being constantly challenged from autocratic states. These states are no longer just the province of one ultimate leader but operate with a combination of corrupt bureaucrats, sophisticated surveillance techniques and a host of highly organised propagandists, mainly focusing on the power of social media to manipulate and influence. By focusing on certain examples of these states, Applebaum’s book does not merely aim to expose these countries but is a warning for us to act before it’s too late. Greg

📣Michael Robotham in conversation with the SMSA’s Victoria Hall!

Spend your lunch break immersed in the world of crime fiction with Michael Robotham, the #1 bestselling and award-winning author, as he discusses his latest gripping novel, Storm Child.

In Storm Child, we revisit the life of Evie Cormac, a survivor of childhood captivity whose repressed memories resurface when seventeen bodies are discovered on a British beach. With only one survivor and two women still missing, Evie and forensic psychologist Cyrus Haven must navigate a web of dark forces and buried secrets to uncover the truth.

Don’t miss this chance to hear from the master of suspense in a captivating lunchtime interview.

Where: SMSA, 280 Pitt St, Sydney
When: 15th October, 12:30pm
Tickets: https://tinyurl.com/3hmaf587
or smsa.org.au

Michael Robotham

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer, Lucy Barton, who lives nearby in a house next to the sea. Together, Lucy and Bob talk about their lives, their hopes and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, befriends, Olive Kitteridge, who is living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known, reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Under a glittering full moon, a Kyoto coffee shop with no fixed location or fixed hours appears only where and when it’s needed. It is run by talking cats serving the finest teas and coffees, delicious desserts and age-old astrological wisdom.

The Full Moon Coffee Shop attracts customers who have lost their way in their life, from a down-on-her-luck screenwriter to a failed video game developer. In the middle of the night, the feline guides will set them back on their fated paths.

INTERMEZZO – SALLY ROONEY | LIMITED OFFER STICKER SHEET!

Is this a moment in time when things unravel or come together for two brothers? Sally Rooney’s new novel has all the moving pieces ... AND STICKERS!

The first 40 pre-orders of INTERMEZZO come with a limited offer INTERMEZZO sticker sheet – order now!

Stick them on your book, the fridge, your bookshelf, diary, the dog (no, not the dog) ...

Intermezzo is an exquisitely moving story about grief, love and family, from the author of the multi-million-copy bestseller NORMAL PEOPLE.

WIN $100 GIFT VOUCHER AND HELP LITERACY

Following on from Indigenous Literacy Day on 4 September, make a donation to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation through our website abbeys.com.au during September and you will go into the draw for a $100 Gift Voucher. We have three vouchers to be won! Winners will be notified by email in early October. Good Luck!

The rebirth of Italy after the Second World War is one of the most impressive political transformations in modern European history. In 1945, post-fascist Italy was devastated by war and its reputation in the international arena was nil. Yet by December 1955, when Italy was admitted to the United Nations, the nation had contested three acrimonious but free general elections, had a flourishing press, and was a leader in the re-building of Europe. The contrast with Fascism was stark.

When retired Maths teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan. Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the Balearics Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. The new novel from the author of the The Midnight Library

HENRY V reigned over England for only nine years and four months, and died at the age of just thirty-five, but he looms over the landscape of the late Middle Ages and beyond.

Think of a place where you can stand at the intersection of Christian and Arab cultures, at the crossroads of the British, Ottoman, Byzantine, Roman and Egyptian empires; a place marked by the struggle between fascism and communism and where the capital city is divided in half as a result of bloody conflict; where the ancient olive trees of Homer’s time exist alongside the undersea cables which link up the world’s internet. A political, cultural and geographical history of Cyprus with reflections on time, place and belonging.

WEEKEND SELECTOR STACK! There’s a tremendous selection to choose from here. Take a chill moment (or three) to browse this stack to end all stacks (not really, we will be stacking again).

!! TICKET GIVEAWAY !! One of our favourite festivals is back and this year we have 3 DOUBLE PASSES to give away for the Italian Film Festival Presented by Palace!! 🇮🇹 🛵 🍝

LIKE & TAG who you’d like to go with before midnight Mon 16 Sept to enter the draw to win! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
- Winners will be drawn on the 18/09/24
- Winners will be contacted via Facebook/Instagram or emailed and will have 24hrs to respond before another winner is drawn.

DARREN HAYES • SIGNED COPIES!

Darren Hayes - singer, songwriter, producer, performer and former frontman of the iconic pop duo Savage Garden - takes control of his life story in this candid, unfiltered memoir.

ABBEY’S has Darren’s memoir, UNLOVABLE, available to order with a signed bookplate - limited to the first 100 copies ordered!

The orders are coming in fast - don’t miss out! Get your order in today. We’re shipping overseas too!
Order at abbeys.com.au or visit our store.

It may be 11am here, but it’s definitely high noon in America. After the debate, go deeper with the Don.

India is the forgotten heart of the ancient world. For a millennium and a half, India was a confident exporter of its diverse civilisation, creating around it a vast empire of ideas. Indian art, religions, technology, astronomy, music, dance, literature, mathematics and mythology blazed a trail across the world, along a Golden Road that stretched from the Red Sea to the Pacific. William Dalrymple draws from a lifetime of scholarship to highlight India’s oft-forgotten position as the heart of ancient Eurasia.

Brooke will be in conversation with the SMSA’s Victoria Hall. They’ll pull back the veil on ‘The Fog’ – a thrilling mystery set on the haunting Rathlin Island, off the coast of Ireland.

The Fog was inspired by Brooke’s own eerie experiences at a Yorkshire writers’ retreat, formerly the home of poet Ted Hughes and rumoured to be haunted by Sylvia Plath. The Fog blends suspense and the supernatural into a page-turner that’s impossible to put down.

The Fog is listed as “Tomorrow’s Biggest” by Apple Books, and this is your chance to hear from the author herself.

Abbey’s will be at the event so you can get your hands on a personally-signed copy.

Where: SMSA, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney
When: 16 Sept, 12:30pm
Secure your spot today: https://tinyurl.com/bdz46npz
See smsa.org.au for more details

Put some colour (and comfort) into your Sunday.

It’s the summer of 1914 and the world is on the brink of catastrophe.

In London, we have 26-year-old Venetia Stanley – aristocratic, clever, bored … reckless. Venetia is having a love affair with the British Prime Minister, H. H. Asquith, a man more than twice her age. He writes to her obsessively, sharing the most sensitive matters of state.

As the country enters into war, a young intelligence officer is assigned to investigate a leak of top secret documents. It’s safe to say that, from here, things get messy.

This is Robert Harris weaving fact and fiction into an almighty political thriller.

Ex-detective Jackson Brodie returns and is staving off a bad case of midlife malaise when he is called to a sleepy Yorkshire town, and the seemingly tedious matter of a stolen painting. But one theft leads to another, including the disappearance of a valuable Turner from Burton Makepeace, home to Lady Milton and her family. Once a magnificent country house, Burton Makepeace has now partially been converted into a hotel, hosting Murder Mystery weekends.

As paying guests, a vicar, an ex-army officer, impecunious aristocrats, and old friends converge, we are treated a fiendishly clever mystery. The stage is set. The players are ready. By night’s end, a murderer will be revealed.

ABBEY’S BOOKSELLER PICK —— Lindy: Set in Adelaide in the summer of 1917, this is based on the true life of Miss Kate C***s, a fascinating woman who became the first policewoman in the British Empire to be paid the same as her male colleagues, and with the same duties (and who was also a churchgoing woman who knew jujitsu, helped ‘fallen’ women and abhorred the men who placed them in that position).

This vastly enjoyable mystery centres around the death of a shopgirl found drowned on Glenelg Beach, and the efforts Miss Kate C***s and her junior colleague, Ethel Bromley (a very modern young woman indeed), to uncover the truth.

Full of authentic historical details, fascinating characters and an interesting storyline, this is great reading and highly recommended – and better still, will be the first in what I hope will be a long-running series!

I do have one quibble though – don’t judge this book by its cover, as it seems the designer wanted a certain jauntiness, so used an ENGLISH magpie instead of an Australian one!!! Let’s hope that cultural cringe disappears... Lindy
 
anderson

WIN $100 GIFT VOUCHER AND HELP LITERACY

Wednesday 4 September is Indigenous Literacy Day and Abbey’s supports the Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) because we see firsthand the joy and excitement that reading can bring.

COMPETITION!
Make a donation to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation through our website abbeys.com.au during September and you will go into the draw for a $100 Gift Voucher. We have three vouchers to be won! Winners will be notified by email in early October. Good Luck!

A man who lived life on his own terms. With this new biography, enriched by unlimited access to Isherwood’s partner, Don Bachardy, Katherine Bucknell shows how Christopher Isherwood achieved a uniquely inspiring personal life. He effected lasting change in our culture, through both his literary works and the way he lived.

Penguin Books Australia

Liane Moriarty continues to throw ‘life’ - or death - our way … It all begins on a flight from Hobart to Sydney. The flight will be smooth. It will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off the plane. But almost all of them will be changed forever. Because on this ordinary flight, something extraordinary happens. ‘A lady’, unremarkable until she isn’t, predicts how and when many of the passengers are going to die. For some, death is far in the future; for others, it is very close.