I was in Sydney on the weekend for my little sister's 40th birthday party and was wandering around in the enormous Borders bookstore in Bondi Junction when I came across this little display shelf of best-selling non-fiction. As my phone camera is pretty crapulous at taking photos you may not be able to make out the author's name on the last book on the right - Manthropology by Peter McAllister.
Those of you who know JB from the old days or have read the Felafel books will know that Pete makes quite a few guest appearances in those books...
He has also surfed on my couch many times and is a great guy and a talented writer. He dropped into Melbourne from his current digs on Chaz's side of the continent as part of the publicity tour for this book.
At the time I picked up a copy and only recently got around to reading it properly. In it he examines how modern man would compare to his ancient ancestors in areas such as brains, battles and babes, and guess what we don't do to well...
I used to live in the most awesome bachelor pad in Brisbane with a couple of guys and we had the best ever SPACE PARTY to launch his last book - the sci-fi thriller Cosmonaut - which unfortunately never did as well at the bookstores as he had hoped. But who would have ever thought that when Pete said he was at university studying archaelogy and anthropology he really had a far more cunning plan in mind then becoming a modern day Indiana Jones. Instead he has turned it into a series of columns for Ralph Magazine (or one of those soft pron mags), a new book and maybe even a television series is on the cards..
Anyway I fully recomend this book to you guys - Chaz, Havock etc - it is funny and full of facts.
Plus you are supporting a proto-Burger from the days before the interwebby thingie...
I look forward to reading it. JP lent me Cosmonaut after JB had regaled us with tales of Pete (really must return that book to JP). I really enjoyed it, it is hard to believe it was his first novel!
ReplyDeleteSo yeah, it is definately on the list of books to purchase.
Interesting must read, and if possible meet up with this guy if he lives over here. I mean yes i've read Felafel but how bad can someone be?!!
ReplyDeleteWill pick up a copy
ReplyDeleteas soon as I can do so as an e-book
until then will hunt down a library read.
Though I suspect for all the run better, stronger, faster these superman would drop at the first sneeze of flu season and thought that that thunder was caused by the gods bowling so pretty easy to confuse and put one over on them.
Don't think I should buy any books until I get my hand on some of JB's work 1st. Hopefully for Christmas.
ReplyDelete