Smiths Alternative Bookshop

76 Alinga St Canberra City - in the Melbourne Building.

Phone: 02 6247 4459 Email: books@smithsbooks.com.au

You are welcome anytime to come to the shop and browse the books or contact us for more information.
Some titles may be out of stock by the time you order but we normally get them back in pretty quickly

AND we are far enough away from the soul destroying, choice stealing mall that you will not be tainted by the crass commercialistic, small business hating multi nationals that inhabit that part of town.

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A Warrior's Life - A Biography of Paul Coelho by Fernando Morais . Fans of Coelho′s work will eagerly tear through this attentive, satisfying biography.′ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Paulo′s first official biographer, Fernando Morais, provides an exhaustive look at Paulo′s fascinating and varied life, taking several years to research his subject, and interviewing everyone who knows Paulo. He weaves together the strands of Paulo′s life, revealing the man behind the world-famous writer.

Paulo Coelho was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August 1947. Before he became internationally known and a worldwide bestseller, he had to overcome many obstacles. As a teenager, he was subjected to the brutality of electric shock treatment in the psychiatric hospital where his parents, who took his rebelliousness as a sign of madness, interned him three times. As a member of the esoteric underworld, he was put in prison for alleged subversive activities against the Brazilian dictatorship and subjected to physical torture.

Later, Paulo joined forces with rock star Raul Seixas and together they composed songs that revolutionized Brazilian rock music. Hippie, journalist, rock star, actor, playwright, theatre director and producer of television programs, this whirlwind life came to an end in 1982, during a trip to Europe. In Dachau and later in Amsterdam, Paulo had a mystical meeting with "J", his new mentor, who persuaded him to walk the Road to Santiago de Compostela, a medieval pilgrim′s route between France and Spain.

In 1986 Paulo walked the Road to Santiago, and it was there that he reconverted to Christianity and found again the faith bequeathed to him by the Jesuit fathers of his school years. He would later describe this experience in his first book, The Pilgrimage. The following year, The Alchemist, established his worldwide reputation. The novel has already achieved the status of a universally admired modern classic. Now, for the first time, discover the true story of the man behind some of the world′s most loved books.
$ 35.00

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Day of the Dead/Dia de Los Muertos Paper Dolls by Lum, Kwei-Lin . This graphic Day of the Dead sticker set celebrates a November holiday joyfully observed by people of Mexican heritage. With 25 colorful stickers that identify everyday items in English and Spanish, kids will be introduced to a second language and learn more about the festival that's dedicated to lost loved ones.
$ 24.95

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Fado by Stasiuk, Andrzej . In this delightful collection of essays-by turns wry and reflective, wistful and witty-contemporary Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk turns his attention to the villages and small towns of Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Albania, and of course his native Poland. Stasiuk travels to places no tourist would think of visiting, and in his characteristically lyrical prose, lays out his own unique and challenging perspective on the fascinating, unknown heart of Central Europe. He reminds us of the area's extraordinarily rich cultural and ethnic makeup, explores its literature, and shows how its history is inscribed permanently in its landscapes. Above all, he describes with fascination how past, present, and future co-exist and intertwine along the highways and back roads of the region.

Review: Stasiuk is . . . an accomplished stylist with an eye for the telling detail that brings characters and situations to life. . . . I caught a flavor of Hamsun, Sartre, Genet and Kafka in Stasiuk's scalpel-like but evocative writing. -- Irvine Welsh
$ 22.95

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Gonzo by Thompson, Hunter S., Crist, Steve, Nabulsi, Laila . Hardback , "Gonzo" presents a rare look into the life of Thompson, whose groundbreaking style of "gonzo" journalism made him one of the greatest writers of his generation. Now, for the first time, his photographs and archives have been collected into a visual biography worthy of his literary legacy. With a heartfelt introduction by close friend Johnny Depp, "Gonzo" captures a man whose life was as legendary as his writing. Through photographs, writing and memorabilia, "Gonzo" chronicles Thompson's numerous adventures, including his early days as a foreign correspondent in Puerto Rico, living in Big Sur in the sixties, time on the road with the Hell's Angels, running for Sheriff of Pitkin County in 1970, and many personal moments with friends and family throughout the years.
$ 84.00

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How the World is Made by Michell, John, Brown, Allan . Galileo described the universe as a large book written in the language of mathematics, which can only be read by those with knowledge of its characters triangles, circles and other geometrical figures. In "How the World Is Made", John Michell explains how ancient peoples who grasped the timeless principles of sacred geometry were able to create flourishing societies. His more than 300 colour illustrations reveal the secret code within these geometrical figures and how they express the spiritual meanings in the key numbers of 1 through 12. He identifies the various regular shapes and shows their constructions; their natural symbolism; their meetings, matings and ways of breeding; and, their functions within the universal order. In the process, Michell helps us see the world in a new light. Disparate shapes and their corresponding numbers are woven together, resolving themselves into an all-inclusive world image that pattern in the heavens, as Socrates called it, which anyone can find and establish within themselves.
$ 59.95

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Jerusalem by Tavares, Goncalo M. . One morning late in May, between three and six A.M., a group of lonely men and women wait to be brought together, like the elements in an equation. Ernst Spengler is about to throw himself out his window. Mylia, terminally ill and in enormous pain, goes out to visit a church. Hinnerk Obst, who's always been told by the neighborhood children that he looks like a murderer, walks the streets with a loaded gun. As these characters are manipulated and brought together, a world of violence, fear, pain, and uncertainty is portrayed, where human nature itself, and the mechanisms determining our actions, our fictions, and the elements of our imagination, are laid bare. Jerusalem is a terrifying and grimly humorous summation of the possibilities and limits of the human condition at the beginning of the 21st century.

Review: Goncalo M. Tavares burst onto the Portuguese literary scene armed with an utterly original imagination that broke through all the traditional imaginative boundaries. This, combined with a language entirely his own, mingling bold invention and a mastery of the colloquial, means that it would be no exaggeration to say-with no disrespect to the young Portuguese novelists writing today-that there is very much a before Goncalo M. Tavares and an after . . . I've predicted that in thirty years' time, if not before, he will win the Nobel Prize and I'm sure my prediction will come true. -- Jose Saramago
$ 22.95

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John Dies at the End by Wong, David . It's a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit. On the street they call it Soy Sauce, and users drift across time and dimensions. But some who come back are no longer human. Suddenly, a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. What it gets instead is John and David, a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No. No, they can't. "John Dies at the End" has been described as a 'Horrortacular', an epic of 'spectacular' horror that combines the laugh out loud humor of the best R-rated comedy, with the darkest terror of H.P. Lovecraft. Hilarious, terrifying, engaging and wrenching, "John Dies at the End" takes us for a wild ride with two slackers from the Midwest who really have better things to do with their time than prevent the apocalypse.
$ 39.95

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Nicholas Mosley's Life and Art by Rahbaran, Shiva . The son of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of Britain's Fascists in the 1930s, and himself the inheritor of a noble title, Nicholas Mosley nonetheless fought bravely for Britain during World War II, and became a tireless anti-Apartheid campaigner thereafter, finding little sense in living the "hypocritical" life of a British aristocrat . . . and yet, his numerous extramarital affairs came to shake not only the foundations of his marriage to his first wife, Rosemary, but also his growing sense of himself as a religious man. The present biography is written in the form of six interviews, each focusing upon one aspect of Mosley's life-from his childhood and experiences as a young man, up to his reflections on religion, science, philosophy, and their impact on the political and ideological developments of our time.
$ 39.95

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Our Circus Presents by Teodorovici, Lucian Dan . Every day, the Birdman performs the same ritual: he climbs out onto his window ledge to see if he can manage to kill himself-and never does. The Birdman is a member of a loose-knit group of failed suicides, each pursuing absurd ways to end their lives: one saving up lost-dog reward money to buy enough good whiskey to drink himself to death, another hoping to contract a fatal disease by sleeping with as many women as possible. When it seems these routines will continue indefinitely, the Birdman meets a "professional" suicide: the dangerous and inscrutable "man with orange suspenders," who makes a living by trying to hang himself whenever he sees a potential rescuer approaching. This chance encounter, which leads at last to a real death, will force the Birdman to confront the roots of his desire to escape from life, and to see first-hand that dying is more than just a rehearsal.
$ 22.95

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Preserving the Italian Way by Demaio, Pietro . Born in Australia in 1949, Pietro Demaio is a Melbourne GP whose parents were from Varapodio in Calabria. They arrived with an empty suitcase but a heart full of traditions, stories, recipes and skills that allowed them to survive, firstly in the heart of Calabria and then a new Australia of the 30s and 40s.

Over the years, Pietro grew up with a taste for a range of preserves that were not available in the 50s and 60s. As a young father, he had a passion to pass his "dreaming" on to his three sons, Giuseppe, Carlo and Alessandro, with the help of his wife, Lynn. Even though he was born in Australia he feels a strong familiarity and links with Italy that have driven him to collect this series of traditional recipes from friends and family.

This collection of preserving recipes is also an engaging mix of memories and anecdotes of childhood and travel. It oozes with a love and oneness with the rich and varied tapestry that Italy is today. As you follow the recipes, recall and remember the brave pioneers that travelled to Australia to give us a wonderful life through a heritage that stretches back to the Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Normans, Austrians and the French. With each new wave came new skills in preserving food.
$ 39.95

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Running Away by Toussaint, Jean-Philippe . A European man arrives in Shanghai, ostensibly on vacation, yet a small task given him by his Parisian girlfriend Marie starts a series of complications. There is a mysterious Chinese man and a manila envelope full of cash. Later, he meets a woman at an art gallery and they agree to travel together to Beijing, yet when he joins her at the train station, the Chinese man is along. Events eclipse explanations, and soon he surrenders himself to the on-rush of experience. Toussaint's latest novel pulls the reader into a jet-lag reality, a confusion of time and place that is both particularly modern and utterly real. The Chaplinesque slapstick of his acclaimed early works The Bathroom and Camera is here replaced by an ever-unfolding fabric of questions, coincidences, and misapprehensions large and small. The mature Toussaint shows himself to be no less ingenious an inventor of existential dilemmas, but with a new, surprising tenderness, and a deepened concern for the inexpressible immediacy and sensuality of human experience.
$ 19.95

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The Book of Jokes by "Momus" . Imagine a universe where every joke you've ever heard is solid, real, and occasionally dangerous-and all happening, one after the other, to the same small group of people. Detailing a series of filthy and ludicrous episodes in the life of a single family, saddled with a super-eccentric, sexually rapacious father, The Book of Jokes tells the story of the youth and education of a bland young boy doomed to record-in an incongruously serious, autobiographical mode-all the ridiculous incidents befalling his household. With their lives dictated by set ups and punchlines, the boy's family quickly becomes luridly dysfunctional, and he realizes that the only way to escape his tragicomic fate is by trying to take control of the joke-telling himself. Channeling the spirits of Chaucer, Rabelais, Flann O'Brien, and Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini, the Vatican secretary who compiled the first known book of jokes in 1451, The Book of Jokes is a happy raspberry in the face of life as we know and tell it.
$ 22.95

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The Country Where No One Ever Dies by Vorpsi, Ornela . Paperback , 250 x 150mm.
$ 19.95

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The Word Book by Kanai, Meiko . Like the surfaces of a jagged crystal, each story in this collection shows an entirely different facet when viewed from a different angle. Playing games with the basic units of both life and fiction-the solid certainties of the self, the world around us, and the words we use to describe these things to one another-Mieko Kanai creates a reality where nothing is certain, and where a little boy going out to run errands for his mother might find that he's an adult, and his mother long dead, at the end of a single train ride. Using precise language to describe dreamlike plots owing as much to Kafka and Barthelme as to Kenzaburō Ōe and the long tradition of the Japanese folktale of the macabre, The Word Book is an unforgettable voyage to absurd, hilarious, and terrifying locales, and is the English-language debut for one of the greatest and most interesting Japanese writers working today. from The Word Book: . . . he remembered the black leather case that had been stolen on the train. And the chocolate he had saved for later, carefully rewrapping it in its silver foil; and the blood, clear as a glass bead, that had seeped out in the center of the bruise just under his nipple; and Maureen O'Hara, smiling provocatively in her evening gown of satin (or velvet) the same green as her eyes; and the feral-smelling musk. His remembering that he had a mother who drank a liter of milk was so sudden and unnatural that he burst out laughing. The abruptness with which one remembers that one has forgotten even the fact of having forgotten. At this rate, he'd probably forgotten that he'd forgotten many other things. So I think. In this weightless space of memory. At a coffee stand in front of the station facing the triangular park where small cypress trees were planted . .
$ 22.95

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Western by Montalbetti, Christine . Setting out to tell the story of a mysterious cowboy-a stranger in town with a terrible secret-Christine Montalbetti is continually sidetracked by the details that occur to her along the way, her CinemaScope camera focusing not on the gunslinger's grim and determined eyes, but on the insects crawling in the dust by his boots. A collection of the moments usually discarded in order to tell even the simplest and most familiar story, Western presents us with the world behind the cliches, where the much-anticipated violence of the plot is continually, maddeningly delayed, and no moment is too insignificant not to be valued. Montalbetti's daring theft of movie technique and subversion of a genre where women are usually relegated to secondary roles-victims, prostitutes, widows, schoolmarms-makes Western a remarkable wake for the most basic of American mythologies.
$ 22.95

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Woody Guthrie by Guthrie, Woody, Tweedy, Jeff . To document Woody Guthrie's vast cultural legacy, this book comprises the largest collection of Woody Guthrie artwork ever to be published in the world. It contains a wealth of evocative paintings, drawings, watercolor, sketches, writings and other meaningful, inspirational material found in his hundreds of personal journals. "Woody Guthrie: A Life With Art" will for the first time display a varied selection of Guthrie's visual oeuvre, including original material drawn from the Woody Guthrie Archive in New York. Complementing this compelling visual homage will be essays, quotes, and artistic contributions from contemporary artists and figures. Together, "Woody Guthrie: A Life With Art" is a unique look back at this legendary figure that conveys the breadth and depth of Guthrie's influence.
$ 115.00

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Yoga Therapy by Mohan, A.G. . Most people think of yoga as a solitary activity that is inherently therapeutic. While that is generally true, yoga poses and breathing practices can also be prescribed for specific health problems--often in combination with dietary advice taken from Ayurveda, traditional Indian medicine. "Yoga Therapy" is an essential guide for yoga teachers, advanced practitioners, and anyone who wants to make therapeutic use of yoga. A. G. and Indra Mohan prescribe postures, breathing techniques, and basic Ayurvedic principles for a variety of common health problems, including asthma, back pain, constipation, hip pain, knee pain, menstrual problems, and scoliosis. "Yoga Therapy" is one of the few books that shows yoga teachers how to put together appropriate yoga sequences and breathing techniques for their students. Mohan details how to correctly move into, hold, and move out of poses, how to breathe during practice to achieve specific results, and how to customize a yoga practice by creating sequences of yoga poses for a particular person., Paperback , 274 x 210mm.
$ 39.95

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