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Shop 139, Irene Village Mall. Cnr. Nellmapius and Pierre Van Reyneveld Roads. Irene. Centurion.Gauteng. Republic of South Africa. Monday-Thursday : 09:00 - 19:00 Friday : 09 : 00 - 20 : 00 Saturday : 08 : 00 - 18 : 00 Sunday : 09 : 00 - 17 : 00 Telephone : 27 (0)12 662 2829 E-Mail : tallstories@megaweb.co.za There is no substitute for knowledge. Tall Stories is a book shop offering fine books for discerning readers. We sell only the best books: collectables, africana, publishers overstocks and quality pre-loved books. We also buy good books, every day of the week. Come to us for that elusive africana you have been searching for - be it botany, travel, hunting, zoology or other. Impress your friends with your collection of Dostoevsky and Murakami. We accept Visa, AMEX. and Mastercard

Friday, November 19, 2010

NOVEMBER, 2010 NEWSLETTER.

And We Are Back !

After an absence of a year, just one second before the tidal wave of despair engulfed you, just a breath before the last shred of hope curled up and died, a heartbeat before giving up and submiting to the horror of SABC tv, the Tall Stories Newsletter arrives. After a long silence due in part to aliens, vampires, sulphur pits and badly adjusted underwear, it returns. Huzzah, and hark the trumpets and the angelic choirs.
During said long silence, many things happened. Many did not, but that's another story.

Those of you who regularly attend the shop will have met the newest bookdealer. A ferocious(ly cute) cat called Agatha-Panther, she has been hard at work helping us in the shop by being nice to customers, demanding food and attention, and sitting in the windowsill, staring at the passing parade.
She arrived as a small bundle of kitten fur, and has grown into a seasoned and well-travelled book cat, handsome to behold and regal in her acceptance of the adoration in which she is held by all.
We were also pleased to witness Mario Vargas Llosa, a long favourite author, be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. For an interesting read and some background on this author, go to: http://bit.ly/cwJrXd
We were also pleased to learn that Bill Bryson is back in the United Kingdom, and has been appointed vice-chancellor of Durham University. An entertaining interview with him is found here: http://bit.ly/bKHWDL
It has been fifty years since the landmark Lady Chatterly's Lover judgment in Penguin Books' favour. For legal and literary interest, read this: http://bit.ly/8Y1U2X
Collections of Books for Sale :

We have two collections of books that we are going to be selling by themselves,in otherwords,the collections will not be broken up.
The first comprises approximately 129 titles, all about Aviation. From Vlamgat to Aircraft of the S.A.A.F. via Air War Flanders 1918 to I Flew For the Fuhrer.The second collection is comprised of around 96 titles, all about Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. From Contact to When a Crocodile Eats the Sun via Troopiesongs and Rhodesia Before 1920.If you are interested in either set, either contact us in the shop or at :
tallstories@megaweb.co.za

Our Unused Book Specials for this Month.
*whilst stocks last.
Mr. and Miss Anonymous

College senior Lily Madison is on her own and desperate to pay for her last semester of school. With nowhere to turn, she makes the difficult decision to donate her eggs to a fertility clinic. Sam Parker is also a penniless student who supplements his tuition money by visiting a sperm bank. One day, Lily and Sam meet at the clinic and talk about their secret. They agree that the clinic gives them an odd feeling, as if all is not as it seems. Despite their obvious attraction, Lily and Sam go their separate ways. Twenty years have passed and Lily often wonders if she has a child somewhere in the world. She also thinks a lot about Sam. Now a wealthy entrepreneur, Sam never forgot Lily either, and when he sees her in an airport one day, he falls for her all over again. But while they enjoy their unlikely reunion, a story on the news has them riveted. Two teenage boys are missing and their disappearance may be linked to the fertility clinic Sam and Lily visited in college. In a shocking twist, one of the boys looks exactly like Sam. Lily and Sam are now determined to find out what really went on at the clinic all those years ago. When the whole story comes out, the truth will be more than they bargained for. But they will discover that letting go of their secrets from the past is the best way to build a future worth fighting for...
Published Price : R185.00
Tall Stories Price :
R 95.00

Fern Michaels (born Mary Ruth Kuczkir) is an American author of romance and thriller novels, including nearly 50 best selling books with more than 70 million copies in print.
More Unused Book Specials for this Month.
*whilst stocks last.
Samurai Swords - A Collector's Guide to Japanese Swords
For 700 years Japanese civilization was dominated by a single warrior caste. This project looks at the weaponry & clothing of Samurai men and women over the centuries.
Fascinating history, detailed technical information, advice on collecting and preservation - all in a single volume. The pages are beautifully illustrated with dynamic paintings, specially taken photographs, detailed diagrams and maps

Tall Stories Price : R280.00
Hand colored Albumen print of a Samurai circa 1890 (photograph coutesy Wikipedia)

Samurai in armour, 1860s. Hand-coloured photograph by Felice Beato
(photograph coutesy Wikipedia)

A Sammurai katana in Koshirae
(photograph coutesy Wikipedia)


This Months Featured Book

* Beyond the Light Barrier *

Originally published in 1977 in Germany, the first two editions were sold out within weeks. This is the autobiogrpahy of Elizabeth Klarer, a Cambridge educated meterologist. who believed that she had had an affair (which resulted in a child) with an extraterrestrial being. It deals primarily with this affair with Akon, a male astrophysicist living on Meton, one of the planets of Proxima Centaur, which is apparently Earths' closest stellar neighbour, at a distance of 4.2 light years away from us. According to the author, she was taken, via spacecraft to Meton, where she lived with Akon and his family for four months. She apparently gave birth to their son whilst on Meton. Akon apparently continued to visit Klarer until 1963, when his work in this part of the galaxy was completed. Akon explained to Ms. Klarer the workings of the light-propulsion system used in his spacecraft. She in turn conveyed this information to the U. S. National Aeronautical and Space Administration as well as the S. A. Air Force authorities. This information is also documented in the book.

Imprint: South Africa, Howard Timmins, 1980
Edition: First South Africa Edition.
Binding: Hardback , with Dustjacket
Book Condition: Very Good. Jacket: Very Good
Binding: Blue Boards.Octavo.191 pp. Illustrated with black and white photographs. Slight spinal lean. Ink name of a previous owner on the front free end paper. Base of the boards slightly rubbed. Small chips in the top edge of the rear panel of the dust-jacket. Flaps of the dust-jacket creased. Closed tear in the rear panel of the dust-jacket (25mm). Slight wear to all edges of the dust-jacket.

R 650.00

STOCK CLEARANCE SALE

Hello Folks !

We are having a bit of a stock clearance sale which will last until Sunday 21st November, 17 : 00, or, whilst stock lasts.

Titles on Sale include :



Pretty Dead Things

Barbara Nadel
Paperback, 373 pages, August 2008
Published by Headline Book Publishing

When Emine Aksu, the flamboyant wife of an Istanbul style guru, suddenly goes missing, Inspector Cetin Ikmen's investigation leads him deep into her strange and colourful past. Emine was a hippie when she was younger, who wholeheartedly enjoyed the liberated lifestyle that swept across Istanbul in the sixties. Her husband suspects that she was visiting an old friend at the time of her disappearance. Meanwhile, Inspector Mehmet Suleyman is called to a terrifying scene at the art deco Kamondo Stairs in the old banking district of Karakoy. The skeleton of a woman has been discovered in one of the large plant containers. Could these two bizarre incidents be linked?

Published Price : R82.00
Now : R 30.00



Memorandum - A Story with Pictures

Marlene Van Niekerk

Hardcover, 136 pages, November 2006
Published by Human & Rousseau

In this title about a hospital experience the text and visual images offer parallel narratives that resonate poignantly with each other. Adriaan van Zyl's series of more than 20 paintings portrays a patient's experience from waiting room to ward giving a quietly disturbing view of the soullessness of hospitals in general. Marlene van Niekerk's accompanying story is a narrative by JP Wiid, a lonely man who is diagnosed with cancer of the liver just before his retirement. The night before a scheduled operation he starts writing a "memorandum" about an experience he had during his first stay at the hospital - sharing a ward with two enigmatic men in a state of postnarcotic euphoria, he overheard their strange conversation, one which was to have a profound effect on his life. He writes how, in the ensuing four months, he becomes a regular visitor to the library, anxious to learn more about the diverse concepts he had been exposed to for the first time. Everything new which Wiid learns about the world comforts him and helps him to accept his fate. Most importantly he makes a friend for the first time - an eccentric but very helpful librarian. While writing the memorandum, Wiid makes a life-changing decision - not to have the operation the next day. He chooses instead to make the rest of his life worth living by filling it with knowledge about cultures, structures, histories, literature and music. In the process he discovers his true self - and his true vocation.

Published Price : R300.00
Now : R60.00



The Duel - Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power

Tariq Ali
Hardcover, 304 pages, September 2008
Published by Simon & Schuster


Pakistan, the likely home of Osama Bin Laden and safe house for the Taliban forces fighting NATO in Afghanistan, stands on the front line of the war against terror. Yet, as recent events have shown, this long-time ally of the West and recipient of $10 billion of American aid in the past decade, is in deepening crisis. As President Pervez Musharraf struggles, with ever-diminishing success, to cling to power through states of emergency and imprisonment of his opponents, a range of forces are attempting to fill the vacuum that surrounds him: (before her death) Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, both previous presidents themselves and, Ali, argues, more corrupt than Musharraf himself; a lawyers movement that has taken to the streets demanding adherence to the constitution and the rule of law; and the Islamists in Waziristan and the North West Frontier whose increasingly effective assaults on the Pakistan army threaten to tip the country into full-blown civil war.With customary verve and acuity, Ali parses the prospects for these contending groups, drawing on extensive first-hand research and personal knowledge of many of the key players involved to assess the causes and consequences of Pakistan's rapid spiral into political chaos.

Published Price : R255.00
Now : R60.00



Kydd : The Admiral's Daughter

Julian Stockwin
Paperback - Trade, 324 pages, October 2007
Published by Hodder & Stoughton

In the eighth book of this popular series, Thomas Kydd and Nicholas Renzi return to England in 1803 after tumultuous episodes on the other side of the world to find England in peril of starvation and bankruptcy. Kydd is placed back in command of his beloved vessel, "Teazer," but he barely has time to prep her for the sea when he is sent on an urgent mission. Smugglers, enemy privateers, and treacherous sea conditions await Kydd on his journey to northern France on the eve of war, but equally worrisome events are occurring ashore. A growing attachment to the admiral's daughter curbs Kydd's blissful reunion with "Teazer" and he is forced to make a terrible decision that may cause the end of his friendship with Renzi--or the end of his naval career.

Published Price : R 145.00
Now : R 45.00



Patrick Parker's Progress
(New Edition)


Mavis Cheek
Paperback, 320 pages, March 2005
Published by Faber & Faber

Patrick Parker, child of bomb-devastated Coventry, adored and encouraged by his mother, fulfils his dream destiny to be a great architect and bridge builder. Audrey Wapshott, born at the same time, feels her dream destiny is to become Patrick's wife. But ambitious Patrick has other plans and Audrey, abandoned, is left to follow her own, random path to self-fulfilment beginning with Paris, and sinfulness, in the arms of a much older man. Mavis Cheek's eleventh novel will delight her many fans with its fast-paced, funny and insightful story of ambition, love and revenge.

Published Price : R 102.00
Now : R25.00