MELBOURNE CIRCLE: WALKING, MEMORY AND LOSS
“Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss is a very special book. It’s restless but gentle. Hard to pin down. You can imagine discussions being held in bookshops: where to put it? The travel section? Memoir? Melbourne history? Book of maps? My advice would be not to worry about categories. Just read it, take to the streets and walk in the same spirit of enquiry.” – Sophie Cunningham, The Age
“Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory and Loss is a beautiful meditation on the streets in which we live, ghosts, love and loss … While there is sadness in this book, Gadd writes with warmth, humour and a generosity of spirit.” – Stephen Romei, The Weekend Australian
“This is an endearing book about enduring love and serendipitous discoveries; of remnants of the past pasted onto old buildings, and the way these ghost signs are portals into another time.” – The Saturday Paper
“This is a love letter to the city of Melbourne, and an homage to an enduring relationship between two people in love through life’s ups and downs, peppered throughout with fabulous tales of some of Melbourne’s more colourful history. A deeply personal book that at times took my breath away with its raw honesty. FIVE STARS” – Good Reading magazine
“What a gem this book is! Oddity, wonderment, weirdness, radical attention: these splendid essays reveal a marvellous Melbourne most of us have never encountered before. Gadd’s gift is for quirky intensification and deeply affectionate narrative. This is a psychogeography dense with vernacular history, humane detail, and from beneath the shadow of grief, love.” – Gail Jones, author of Five Bells and The Death of Noah Glass.
DEATH OF A TYPOGRAPHER
“Nick Gadd’s Death of a Typographer is a romp of a novel. It’s a witty and playful quasi-detective fiction that’s populated by a motley crew of obsessives who swoon or grimace at particular letterforms. Gadd’s endearingly oddball characters ride on a narrative full of typographical jokes and exotic locations. You’ll never look at fonts again without appreciating their idiosyncrasies after reading this book.” – Thuy On, ‘Books of the Year 2019’, The Weekend Australian
“This clever, stylish, very funny novel will appeal to anyone who loves the printed word.” – Kerryn Goldsworthy, The Age/Sydney Morning Herald
“Through the pages of this much-more-than-your-average crime novel, Gadd provides a detailed, gripping and often hilarious glimpse into the world of typographers and their typefaces. It is a cracking read. Four-and-a-half stars” – Good Reading magazine
“It’s a great piece of work, a work with real heart, and that’s not such a common thing. I believed in and liked all the characters, and there are lots of funny bits. And the book had a quality, for me, which is hard to pin down – a kind of spirituality underneath the comedy, touching on some important things.” – Simon Loxley, author of Type: the Secret History of Letters
“Death of a Typographer is a joyous book – from a word nerd’s point of view I’ve never seen such fun being had with the sheer joy of fonts, and it’s a cracking yarn with great characters.” – David Astle, presenter, Evenings, ABC 774 Melbourne
“This is a smart and funny book that revolves around typefaces. Lest you think that no one could possibly make a story out of such an arcane speciality, fear not – Gadd’s book is a whole lot of fun. It’s a mystery that’s full of wonderful in-jokes that bibliophiles will love.” – The Big Issue
“Nick Gadd’s Death of a Typographer is a clever romp, a kind of noir Dan Brown with serifs instead of angels, and a beautifully designed book into the bargain.” – Jane Sullivan, The Age/The Sydney Morning Herald
“A romp of a book, sprightly and erudite.” – The Sunday Age
“Set primarily in Melbourne with excursions to overseas destinations including a Tibetan monastery, the Peruvian plains, and Naples backstreets, Gadd’s novel is both a celebration and a gentle satire of typography. The typographical gags are a delight to discover.” – The Sunday Sun-Herald (Sydney)
“It’s very smart. Very funny. Deserves a big international release. An excellent summer read.” – Michael Cathcart, presenter, ABC Radio National
“A smart, witty, riveting read that made me laugh out loud and changed the way I see fonts.” – Angela Savage
“You might think Jasper Fforde has hit a new high, but Nick Gadd’s brilliant blend of humour, mystery and, yes, typography is all his own.” – Nick Earls
“And my book of the year is Death of a Typographer by Nick Gadd. A literary murder-mystery about a legendary, yet reclusive, typographer and the most beautiful font ever created. Full of in-jokes and intrigue, I was laughing out loud throughout.” – Scott Pack (UK)
“It’s so well paced, and so quirkily interesting that it held me to the very end. I loved seeing such an original idea carried through so stylishly.” – Gert Loveday’s Fun With Books (book blog)
“You thought using Comic Sans was a typographical crime? What about a type related murder? A witty crime parody, set in the seamy underworld of Dark Type. You’ll never see the printed word the same way!” – Charming Language (book blog)
GHOSTLINES
Winner, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript
Winner, Ned Kelly Award for a debut crime novel
“Ghostlines is rough-cut, grainy and good … Earthy and exciting, with a bluesy, wistful air.” – The Australian
“Gadd’s novel is all crime and intrigue … He understands the the magical effect that a dud story coming good can have on a once-great but now disengaged reporter – the thrill of the hunt, the accidental discoveries and the growing understanding as happenings slowly add up to an intriguing, dangerous whole.” – Seamus Bradley, The Sunday Age, ‘Read of the Week’
“A ripping yarn of art theft, corruption and murder. This is an atmospheric, intriguing and spooky debut.” – The Sun-Herald (Sydney)
“A thriller with a neat psychological twist. Gadd’s Trudeau is a convincing central character whose own story is just as compelling as the mystery at the heart of the story.” – The Herald-Sun (Melbourne)
“Crime fans will enjoy the compelling narrative, the succinct writing and the pleasing lack of blood, gore and psychopathic behaviour that mars most contemporary crime stories. FOUR STARS” – Bookseller & Publisher
“Unforeseen twists and a spine-tingling supernatural element leave the reader anticipating more from a promising new author.” – Adelaide Advertiser
Nick Gadd - author 