Dear Subscribers
What do Jung, Dylan, Borges, Stalin and Lawrence of Arabia have in
common? We're featuring biographies of all five in our store this week.
We also have some great titles for younger readers, including parts of
the famed Northern Lights trilogy. Michael Chabon is once again
featured in our fiction section with a great collection of short
stories; and our non-fiction titles cover American history, gardening
and some interesting topics in between. Drop in and pick up a title for
your office Kris Kringle.
We've just opened a Fly By Night store in South Melbourne
over the Christmas season. It's all very exciting. We're at Shop G17
Clarendon Centre, Clarendon St South Melbourne. Click here for a map. We're open 9am-8pm every day (Sundays 11am-5pm).
Look forward to seeing you in the store(s). Cheers, the Fly By Night Books Team
Featured Fiction
Werewolves in Their Youth by Michael Chabon- $10
 The
Coen Brothers have picked up an option on Chabon's The Yiddish
Policeman's Union (as seen last newsletter) and although he's huge in
the states, out here his star is still rising. Werewolves in Their
Youth is his second collection of short stories and features such gems
as the title story, in which the protagonist has chosen the moniker
'King of the Retards' for himself, along with 'House Hunting' where a
drunk real estate agent shows a couple through a house much too
expensive for them while pocketing small objects. This is fabulous work
from a talented writer who seems here to have really hit his stride.
Buy it for the train ride home and you won't even notice the inevitable
ten minute delay.
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold-$10
 This
novel hits the illustrious heights of being both moving and
entertaining; written in 'quicksilver' prose by a man who has proved
his storytelling skills in the lion's den of Hollywood, Carter Beats
the Devil takes real-life magician Charles Carter and subjects him to
pirates, escapes from railroad tracks, dastardly moustachioed men and
the FBI without losing the readers empathy or straining the suspension
of disbelief. Terry Pratchett once famously said that Fantasy is
logical; it's just that it's logical about the wrong things, and while
Gold isn't strictly writing fantasy, he sure manages to put logic in
some strange places. This is really good fiction; if you've been jaded
by below-par novels recently, let this one refresh your literary
palette.
Arlington Park by Rachel Cusk -$10
 Acclaimed
British Novelist Rachel Cusk begins her day-in-the-life novel with a
violent thunderstorm that hits a perfect pitch for what follows.
Arlington Park is set in a wealthy London suburb where absurd
expectations and self-involvement pervade the moneyed existence of a
group of young mothers; Cusk builds the tension to an extraordinary
point before allowing the forces within the narrative to congeal into a
kind of literary thunderhead. If you like compelling fiction, you'll
like this; the epitome of the 'domestic' thriller.
Featured Non-Fiction
Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen E Ambrose-$10
 The
extraordinary clash of cultures that occurred in the adolescence of
white America is a goldmine for Stephen E Ambrose and his focus; the
vastly different but parallel private and public lives of General
Custer and Crazy Horse makes for great reading. This is historical
writing at its best - Ambrose is thorough enough for this to be
satisfying for buffs, but entertaining enough to intrigue interested
amateurs, and the famous and decisive clash between the by then
established colonists and the last remnants of the Indigenous American
nation is a story worth reading.
Put What Where? Over 200 Years of Bizarre Sex Advice by John Naish-$12
 I
don't think there's much more I can do to sell this to you than quote
the following hints:
"A person who consumes sage upon which a cat has ejaculated will have
kittens" says the venerable Albertus Magnus; and here is some other
excellent advice; if a man feels he is about to "emit semen... he
should close his mouth and open his eyes wide, hold his breath and
firmly control himself. He should move his hands up and down and hold
his breath in his nose... at the same time gnashing his teeth a
thousand times..." I can only say that once this book is inserted into
the stocking over the fireplace, you will have a guaranteed and
invaluable source of Christmas cheer.
Four Letter Word: New Love Letters by Joshua Knelman and Rosalind Porter- $12
 A
remarkable book featuring love letters written by some of the best and
boldest (as well as some of the most infamous) names in the arts.
Leonard Cohen opines that "You're going to leave me. I know you're
going to leave me." And Hari Kunzru admits that "as I stood on the
corner, watching you go, I felt excited, relieved and scared all at
once. I wondered if I'd just had a narrow escape." Put this in the
Christmas stocking of someone you love.
Faber Book of Gardens Edited by Philip Robinson- $15
 Gardens
are places both mundane and mysterious. Be it a fig sapling growing out
of a crack in a wall or a sprawling thing of legend; walled-in, hanging
or altogether vanished, these are the sites of our most precious
memories, florid utterances and quiet escapes. In this new edition of a
perennial favourite- the gardening book- Robinson has compiled writers
new and old into a sensual melange that's sure to get you itching to
get your hands dirty. In more ways than one.
Featured Biography
Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung- $10
 Carl
Jung was the protégé, friend, collaborator and eventually the
antagonist of Sigmund Freud and he pursued a vastly different approach
to Freud's 'talking cure'; rejecting the notion that civilisation was
inherently repressive, and that art was little more than the expression
of a neurotic symptom. A contentious and charismatic figure, Jung's
reputation has weathered accusations of Fascism and revelations of
philandering and highly dubious relationships with female patients to
become one of the iconic figures of the last century. Memories, Dreams,
Reflections is a highly idiosyncratic work- don't expect details of
conversations or even reliable anecdotes (the section involving
poltergeist activity in the bookcases is particularly wonderful), but
do expect a lastingly fascinating memoir- a genuine gift to posterity
from one of the more interesting minds of the last century.
Lawrence of Arabia- The Selected Letters edited by Malcolm Brown -$20
 I
have in my bookshelf an old and faded copy of The Seven Pillars of
Wisdom by TE Lawrence which I picked up at a garage sale; It's spine as
un-cracked now as it was when I first acquired it, already old, from
some other bibliophile who must have thought 'how fascinating' and then
paled at the first, dense pages. Thankfully the famous man's letters
aren't quite so intimidating and the extraordinary political and
cultural climate Lawrence found himself in shines through in a wealth
of writing to such extraordinary contemporaries as Robert Graves and
Noel Coward. This is a wonderful insight into to mind of a romantic and
enigmatic figure.
Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore- $12
 Josef
Stalin was born to an alcoholic father; a cobbler who was violently
opposed to education and an overbearing and peculiar mother (who
engaged in 'trysts' with men who she thought might advance the
education forbidden to her son at home). A street tough; gangster;
public speaker of great charisma; poet and ladies man; there's much in
the early years of Stalin's life that both supports and confounds the
destiny he made for himself. It's been said many times that the real
face of evil is mundane, and there is much in the profile of Stalin
that suggests ordinary generosity and kindness in the nature of this
man who came to be rivalled only by Hitler and Mao as the greatest mass
murderer of the 20th century. Montefiore utilised newly available
archives to inform this lively portrait of a young man who became a
monster, and applied his research with an eye to the detail of what was
a wild young life, making Young Stalin not only informative, but also
an excellent and surprising read.
Borges; A Life by Edwin Williamson- $20
 Taking
a psychoanalytic lens to the life and work of the man who changed the
course of Latin American Literature has proved fruitful for Williamson.
This exceptionally well researched biography shines light on the
extraordinary writing that came from within such an apparently mundane
figure; Borges was a sickly, introverted child and a man of quiet
habits (he remained living with his mother until her death at 75 and
boasted that he didn't venture further than his room or his father's
library for days at a time), yet his life's work is a testament to the
sustaining power of a rich inner life and formidable imagination.
Comparable only to Kafka in its perfection and strangeness, the oeuvre
of this simple man provides Williamson with rich material for analysis.
A surprising and illuminating work from a talented writer.
Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes by Greil Marcus- $10
 In
1967 Dylan and the Band sequestered themselves in a studio to mess
around and to put onto the record versions of over 100 folk songs that
until then had been mostly at the mercy of the oral tradition. Drawing
a parallel between the life of mythic culture; stories told and re-told
with no 'authentic' or 'original' version and the folk music of North
America, Marcus uses the legendary recordings as a springboard to
examine the vanishing spectre of 'weird old America', it's stories,
legends and myths- some of which appear in the songs themselves. This a
must for anyone interested in Dylan, the rebirth of folk music in the
50's and 60's or in the vast, strange conglomeration of people and
events that came eventually to make up the great U S of A.
Featured Titles for Younger Readers
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman - $10
 The
first book in Pullman's spectacularly successful His Dark Materials
trilogy; this is a magnificent novel for younger readers and a
wonderful book for readers of any age. Lyra is embroiled in the
political machinations of her spectacularly sundered family and on a
quest the grace and scope of which must have had Pullman's competitors
(in any part of the fantasy realm) gnashing their teeth in envy. Like
those other books about a boy wizard these novels become more complex
and adult as they progress and this first instalment is a simple tale,
but still utterly fantastic reading whether you're a young person
looking for something intelligent and engrossing to get your brain into
or one of us older types that just wants the summer hours to slip away
into something literally fantastic.
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman- $10
 The
final part of the His Dark Materials Trilogy begins with our
protagonist drugged in a cave in a place something like the Himalayas,
her daemon as helpless as she is under the attentions of the dangerous
and seductive Mrs Coulter. Will has the subtle knife and he's on his
way to find her and to usher in the kind of changes that have parallels
throughout every culture, every world and every life; no matter how
small. It's the best book of the three and perfectly readable as a
novel in its own right; really unforgettable stuff.
Note: We unfortunately don't have the second title The Subtle Knife in
stock, but don't let that stop you from picking up the other two novels
in this series for the young person in your life at a massive discount
from regular retail prices. This is a present that will get you brownie
points all year.
Badness for Beginners by Ian Whybrow and Tony Ross- $6
 Two
little wolves are trying their very best to be as bad as Mum and Dad
keep exhorting them to be. One of them is very good at being bad; he
howls for more and throws up bones in the restaurant, growls at helpful
strangers and makes holes in bridges; the other's earnestly trying, but
not quite there yet. A lovely tale of inverse values and why we don't
have them.
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