Feel Good Reads
American humourist P.J. O'Rourke once said, "Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it." But sometimes we simply feel like reading something other than all those worthy and impressive literary award winners - something lighter but still well-written, something wonderfully witty which makes us laugh out loud, or maybe just a cracking good adventure. So for all of you who wander in and tell us that you're looking for something different to read, but you don't really know what you want; or who need something for a friend in hospital; or a book to take on holiday; or just something to escape from the grimness of the nightly news - we are delighted to present a new area in our bookshop entitled "Feel-Good Reads."
Titles include both fiction and non-fiction options - beloved classics from P.G. Wodehouse, Barbara Pym, and Nancy Mitford; hilarious travel narratives from Bill Bryson; amusing essays from David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs; modern Australian classics from John Clarke, Shane Maloney, and Thea Astley; plus many more from Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions to Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole series; from Alexander McCall-Smith's warm and witty Scottish tales to Paul Carter's gripping and often hilarious true-life adventures.
We will also be promoting Feel-Good Friday where we will feature a chosen title from these shelves and posting on facebook, twitter and instagram so keep an eye out for your next great read.
Thursdays at Orange Blossom House by Sophie Green
$32.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction
From the author of The Inaugural Meeting of the Fairvale Ladies Book Club and The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle comes a delightful new novel about friendship, love and finding yourself. Far North Queensland, 1993: At 74, former cane farmer Grace Maud is feeling her age, and her isolation, and thinks ...Show more
The Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home by Joanna Nell
$19.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction
The joyous, charming and utterly irresistible new novel from the author of mega-bestseller The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement VillageAt nearly ninety, retired nature writer Hattie Bloom prefers the company of birds to people, but when a fall lands her in a nursing home she struggles to cope with ...Show more
Happy Hour by Jacquie Byron
$32.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction
Elizabeth Strout meets Marian Keyes in this wonderful, joyful, funny debut novel from Australian author Jacquie Byron. Gin in one hand, paintbrush in the other, Franny Calderwood has turned her back on the world, or at least the world she used to love. Having lost her husband, Frank, in tragic circumsta ...Show more
The Tea Ladies of St Jude's Hospital by Joanna Nell
$32.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction
The heartwarming and hilarious new novel by the author of cherished bestsellers, The Single Ladies of Jacaranda Retirement Village and The Great Escape from Woodlands Nursing Home The Marjorie Marshall Memorial Cafeteria has been serving refreshments and raising money at the hospital for over fifty year ...Show more
Crampton Hodnet by Barbara Pym
$22.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction | Series: Virago Modern Classics Ser.
INTRODUCED BY LOUIS DE BERNIERES'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'I'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen' PHILIP LARKINFormidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties for young academics and acting as watchdog for the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-n ...Show more
Civil To Strangers by Barbara Pym
$22.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction | Series: Virago Modern Classics Ser.
INTRODUCED BY HAZEL HOLT'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' Richard Osman'I'd sooner read a new Barbara Pym than a new Jane Austen' Philip LarkinWhen Barbara Pym died in 1980, she left a considerable amount of unpublished material. This volume contains an early novel, Civil to Strangers, three novellas and ...Show more
An Academic Question by Barbara Pym
$22.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction | Series: Virago Modern Classics Ser.
INTRODUCED BY KATE SAUNDERS'I'm a huge fan of Barbara Pym' RICHARD OSMAN'My favourite writer . . . I pick up her books with joy' JILLY COOPERIn a provincial university town, Caro Grimstone, a dissatisfied faculty wife, becomes the unwilling accomplice to her husband Alan's ambitions. When she volunteers ...Show more
The No-Show by Beth O'Leary
$32.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction
'Sweepingly romantic, bursting with character, and so, so clever I gasped out loud' Gillian McAllister 'Utterly heartwarming and a total page turner. The No-Show is Beth O'Leary at her very best' Lindsey Kelk 'It will break your heart in a million different ways' Louise O'Neill 'A truly brilliant book' ...Show more
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
$19.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction | Series: Penguin Essentials Ser.
John Kennedy Toole's hilarious satire, A Confederacy of Dunces is a Don Quixote for the modern age, and this Penguin Modern Classics edition includes a foreword by Walker Percy.Never published during his lifetime, John Kennedy Toole's masterful comic novel takes its title, as well asfrom Jonathan Swift ...Show more
The Revolving Door of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
$19.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction | Series: 44 Scotland Street
For seven-year-old Bertie Pollock, life in Edinburgh's most celebrated fictional street has just got immeasurably better. The enforced absence of his endlessly pushy mother Irene - currently consciousness-raising in a Bedouin harem (don't ask) - has manifold and immediate blessings: no psychotherapy, no ...Show more
Tinkering: The Complete Book of John Clarke by John Clarke
$29.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Non-fiction
Introduction by Lorin Clarke This book tells the story of John Clarke's writing life, including the fan letter he sent to All Black Terry Lineen when he was ten, a golf instruction manual unlike any other, Anna Kareninain forty-three words, and the moving essays he wrote after the deaths of his parents. ...Show more
A Dream of Italy by Nicky Pellegrino
$29.99 AUD
Category: Feel Good Fiction
Here is your chance to buy your own home in southern Italy for less than the price of a cup of coffee. The picturesque mountain town of Montenello is selling off some of its historic buildings for just one euro each. To be considered as a future resident of Montenello contact the town's mayor, Salvio Va ...Show more