The Melbourne Age newspaper has a wonderful online book section, and two recent articles have caught our eye.

The first is a entertaining piece by Caroline Baum, on the art of choosing titles for books:

Julian Barnes is a terrific writer. His prose is elegant, witty and erudite on every subject from relationships to French culture. But when it comes to titles, he unwittingly started a trend from which he has not been able to reap the profit. "If I had a euro for every book title that copies the formula of Flaubert's Parrot, I'd be a rich man," he says, citing the examples of Pushkin's Button and the recently published Audubon's Elephant.

Our second favourite Age piece was published on Monday. Ode to a Bookstore is by Gabriella Coslovich, who laments the closing of the huge deco icon Metropolis on Acland Street.

I paid my last respects a week ago. Walked through a pitifully depleted store, bookshelves near empty, ransacked by bargain-hunting bibliophiles. In deference, I picked up Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye for $12.95, Fodor's Paris for $24 and Lonely Planet's Rome for $17.90. Cheap dreams.