Monday, November 09, 2009
Paul Holmes: An author's greatest sin Herald on Sunday,
Sunday Nov 08, 2009
By Paul Holmes
Witi Ihimaera has admitted to plagiarism.
Photo / Brett Phibbs
The great author Witi Ihimaera has admitted to plagiarism. There is probably no greater sin an author can commit. The world comes down heavily on plagiarism. It is cheating. It is theft of intellectual property.
What's more, Ihimaera is a professor of English. He is also a Distinguished Creative Fellow in Maori Literature at the University of Auckland. Ouch! What titles these university types give themselves. Ihimaera's new book, The Torwenna Sea is a 528 page novel. 0.4 per cent of it is plagiarised. I make that about two pages. It is not the crime of the century, but you do not do it.
So Ihimaera being caught thieving other people's work is one thing and it is shocking enough. What is curious is the attitude of the university. The Dean of Arts, Jan Crosthwaite, says the university has investigated "and is satisfied there was no deliberate wrong doing".
Excuse me? How do you plagiarise in a way that is not deliberate? How do you plagiarise by accident? If you have plagiarised, presumably you had the other author's work next to you as you typed, knowing you were using another person's sentences. How do you do that unconsciously?
Read the rest of the Paul Holmes piece at The Herald online.
Footnote:
The Bookman is very sad about this turn of events but will not comment until I hear or read a full response from the beleagured author himself.
Sunday Nov 08, 2009
By Paul Holmes
Witi Ihimaera has admitted to plagiarism.
Photo / Brett Phibbs
The great author Witi Ihimaera has admitted to plagiarism. There is probably no greater sin an author can commit. The world comes down heavily on plagiarism. It is cheating. It is theft of intellectual property.
What's more, Ihimaera is a professor of English. He is also a Distinguished Creative Fellow in Maori Literature at the University of Auckland. Ouch! What titles these university types give themselves. Ihimaera's new book, The Torwenna Sea is a 528 page novel. 0.4 per cent of it is plagiarised. I make that about two pages. It is not the crime of the century, but you do not do it.
So Ihimaera being caught thieving other people's work is one thing and it is shocking enough. What is curious is the attitude of the university. The Dean of Arts, Jan Crosthwaite, says the university has investigated "and is satisfied there was no deliberate wrong doing".
Excuse me? How do you plagiarise in a way that is not deliberate? How do you plagiarise by accident? If you have plagiarised, presumably you had the other author's work next to you as you typed, knowing you were using another person's sentences. How do you do that unconsciously?
Read the rest of the Paul Holmes piece at The Herald online.
Footnote:
The Bookman is very sad about this turn of events but will not comment until I hear or read a full response from the beleagured author himself.
Comic books are good for children's learning Parents should not "look dow
n" on comics as they are just as good for children as reading books, a new study claims.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Published: The Telegraph, 06 Nov 2009
Researchers believe they can benefit from tales about the caped crusader, Superman and even Dennis the Menace in the same way they can from reading other types of literature, despite teachers and parents often being snooty about comics, experts say.
According to the research, critics say that reading comics is actually a "simplified version" of reading that doesn't have the complexity of "real" books with their "dense columns of words and lack of pictures".
But scientists from the University of Illinois claim that reading any work successfully, including comics, requires more than just absorbing text.
Professor Carol Tilley, from the department of library and information science, said that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, and children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books.
She said there was evidence that they increased their vocabulary and instilled a love of reading.
She said: "A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words.
"Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words."
She added: "Although they've long embraced picture books as appropriate children's literature, many adults – even teachers and librarians who willingly add comics to their collections – are too quick to dismiss the suitability of comics as texts for young readers.
"Any book can be good and any book can be bad, to some extent. It's up to the reader's personality and intellect. As a whole, comics are just another medium, another genre.
"If reading is to lead to any meaningful knowledge or comprehension, readers must approach a text with an understanding of the relevant social, linguistic and cultural conventions.
"And if you really consider how the pictures and words work together to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature."
The research on comics was published in the journal School Library Monthly.
n" on comics as they are just as good for children as reading books, a new study claims. By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Published: The Telegraph, 06 Nov 2009
Researchers believe they can benefit from tales about the caped crusader, Superman and even Dennis the Menace in the same way they can from reading other types of literature, despite teachers and parents often being snooty about comics, experts say.
According to the research, critics say that reading comics is actually a "simplified version" of reading that doesn't have the complexity of "real" books with their "dense columns of words and lack of pictures".
But scientists from the University of Illinois claim that reading any work successfully, including comics, requires more than just absorbing text.
Professor Carol Tilley, from the department of library and information science, said that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, and children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books.
She said there was evidence that they increased their vocabulary and instilled a love of reading.
She said: "A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words.
"Some kids, yes. But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words."
She added: "Although they've long embraced picture books as appropriate children's literature, many adults – even teachers and librarians who willingly add comics to their collections – are too quick to dismiss the suitability of comics as texts for young readers.
"Any book can be good and any book can be bad, to some extent. It's up to the reader's personality and intellect. As a whole, comics are just another medium, another genre.
"If reading is to lead to any meaningful knowledge or comprehension, readers must approach a text with an understanding of the relevant social, linguistic and cultural conventions.
"And if you really consider how the pictures and words work together to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature."
The research on comics was published in the journal School Library Monthly.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Media: World conquest on menu for Annabel Langbein to develop her brand in the manner of Jamie Oliver.
Photo / Babiche Martens
New Zealand is getting its own Julia Child. Cooking and food writer Annabel Langbein has signed an international licensing deal with international television distributor Fremantle Media Enterprises.
By John Drinnan Writing in The Business Herald, Friday Nov 06, 2009
Annabel Langbein says the deal will enable her to starts with a 13-part TV series based around Central Otago.
But Langbein - who stresses she is a home cook and not a chef - said Fremantle had indicated it was focused on developing her brand.
"I call it global domination by spatula," she said.
Called Free Range Cooking With Annabel Langbein, the series was filming this week. The show is being made by TVNZ, which will have New Zealand broadcast rights.
But it will be Langbein who owns the show rights and who will benefit if and when sales kick off around the world. Langbein has developed a strong brand for her cookery books and also online.
Fremantle - which distributes some of the most successful TV shows in the world - could not be reached at print time.
But Langbein said Fremantle saw the New Zealand locale - with its reputation for freshness - as a selling point.
The series will be produced by Dana Youngman, a former head of the TVNZ internal production unit.
Langbein pointed to other cooking brands Fremantle had developed, such as Jamie Oliver and Martha Stewart. Her publishing manager is Debra Millar, former publishing boss at ACP Magazines New Zealand.
Photo / Babiche Martens
New Zealand is getting its own Julia Child. Cooking and food writer Annabel Langbein has signed an international licensing deal with international television distributor Fremantle Media Enterprises.
By John Drinnan Writing in The Business Herald, Friday Nov 06, 2009
Annabel Langbein says the deal will enable her to starts with a 13-part TV series based around Central Otago.
But Langbein - who stresses she is a home cook and not a chef - said Fremantle had indicated it was focused on developing her brand.
"I call it global domination by spatula," she said.
Called Free Range Cooking With Annabel Langbein, the series was filming this week. The show is being made by TVNZ, which will have New Zealand broadcast rights.
But it will be Langbein who owns the show rights and who will benefit if and when sales kick off around the world. Langbein has developed a strong brand for her cookery books and also online.
Fremantle - which distributes some of the most successful TV shows in the world - could not be reached at print time.
But Langbein said Fremantle saw the New Zealand locale - with its reputation for freshness - as a selling point.
The series will be produced by Dana Youngman, a former head of the TVNZ internal production unit.
Langbein pointed to other cooking brands Fremantle had developed, such as Jamie Oliver and Martha Stewart. Her publishing manager is Debra Millar, former publishing boss at ACP Magazines New Zealand.
STEPHEN KING'S GLASS MENAGERIE
by James Parker
Published: New York Times, November 5, 2009
UNDER THE DOME
By Stephen King
1,074 pp. Scribner.
US$35
Now that the town halls have blazed with vituperation, and fantastical patriots are girding themselves for fascist/socialist lockdown, Americans of a certain vintage must be feeling a familiar circumambient thrill. Boomers, you know what I’m talking about: cranks empowered, strange throes and upthrusts, hyperbolic placards brandished in the streets — it’s the ’60s all over again! Once more the air turns interrogative: something’s happening here, but we don’t know what it is, do we, Mr. Jones? Stop, children, what’s that sound?
In Stephen King’s new novel, “Under the Dome,” the people of Chester's Mill, Me., get a letter from the president. Typically exalted in its rhetoric, it wrings a tear from at least one grateful citizen. But Big Jim Rennie, the town’s second selectman, is disgusted. He scowls at the printed sheet. Yep, there it is in black and white: “The bastard had signed it himself, and using all three of his names, including the terrorist one in the middle.
Why is Obama writing to Chester’s Mill? Because an enormous transparent dome, not breachable by prayer, bullet, laser beam or cruise missile, has suddenly and unaccountably descended over the town. Its provenance is uncertain (aliens? North Korea?), but its effect is incontrovertible: no one gets in, no one gets out. Some kind of energy field is attached to it; at close range it blows up iPods and (bad news for incautious oldsters) pacemakers, and sends a gust of “horripilation” through the human nervous system.
The full revirw at NYT.
Saturday, November 07, 2009
COOK THE BOOKS - an invitation
Cook the Books is delighted to be hosting an evening with Anna on Wednesday 11 November from 6pm. We will be serving canapes selected by Anna -matched with wine. And Anna will be sharing her thoughts on Coco, The Modern Pantry & anything else gastronomic we feel like chatting about.
If you would like to join us on the 11th please reply, address details below, - reservations are essential. Cost $10pp redeemable on the purchase of Coco from Cook the Books.
About COCO - $85
"Coco" is an exciting, unprecedented guide to the most exceptional talent in the international restaurant world. "Coco" presents 100 of the best emerging chefs from around the world. It is selected by 10 superstar chefs: Ferran Adria (Spain), Mario Batali (US), Rene Redzepi (Denmark), Alice Waters (US), Jacky Yu (Hong Kong), Gordon Ramsay (UK), Ferguson Henderson (UK), Shannon Bennett (Australia), Alain Ducasse (France) and Yoshihiro Murata (Japan).
The selected 100 chefs are creating the most innovative cuisine today. From Singapore to New York, Stockholm to Surrey, Hong Kong to Paris, these chefs are pushing their craft to new heights and have just begun to receive attention for their cooking. Arranged alphabetically by chef,it includes the curator's presentation of the chef, a sample menu by the chef, and two to three of the chef's signature recipes.
Also included are photographs of each recipe as prepared by the chef, their restaurant, the chef at work, and the chef's environment, including farmers' markets and favorite ingredients. In the second half of the book, each chef-curator discusses one specific dish that has had a particular significance throughout his/her life or career, accompanied by a recipe and photograph of the dish. Part cookbook, part guide to the world's best new restaurants, and part who's who of the international food scene, "Coco" showcases the cooking of today's best new chefs, as chosen by today's culinary icons.
About Anna Hansen.
The 39-year-old New Zealander, who has received rave reviews since she opened The Modern Pantry 14 months ago, is now regarded as one of London’s top female chefs. She was one of 10 chefs chosen for Coco by English chef curator Fergus Henderson who owns St John restaurant in London and is famous for his Nose to Tail Eating philosophy of using offal and other neglected cuts of meat. Henderson, who employed Hansen as a kitchen porter at his French House Dining Room when she first moved to London at the age of 22, says selecting only 10 chefs for Coco was an enormous challenge because the list of talented people to chose from was huge and Phaidon’s criteria were exacting. “But Anna stood out. She’s in there because her food is absolutely super,” says Henderson.
“Fusion” cuisine can be very hard to get right. But Anna’s food has a real process behind it and a grounding that makes it successful.” Her food philosophy includes taking the Asian approach of using combinations of sweet, sour, salt and spice in most dishes. Some of her favourite ingredients include miso, tamarind, lemon grass, star anise, dried shrimps, Turkish chilli and cassava. “Anna has a very gentle touch. She does lots of tasty small things and everything is delicious.
“She washed pots when she came to work for me and she worked her way up to be the head chef running the kitchen in the French House Dining room which is remarkable. It also says a lot about what a wonderful spirit Anna has.”
Hansen says she feels both honoured and flattered to be included in Coco. “Going out on my own and setting up my own restaurant took quite a bit of courage and it has been a lot of hard work. So it’s great that all that effort is paying off ,” she says.
Hansen employs more than 30 people at The Modern Pantry, a Georgian built town house and former steel foundary which now has a 26-seat private dining room, a 40-seat ground floor cafe and a shop which sells baked goods and icecreams.
From the NZ Herald.
COOK THE BOOKS
The Cookbook Store
81 Ponsonby Rd
AUCKLAND
Ph: (09) 3606513
Fax: (09) 3606514
Email: books@cookthebooks.co.nz
www.cookthebooks.co.nz
Further to my previous post this story from the New Zealand Herald:
How Witi was found out
By Yvonne Tahana writing in The New Zealand Herald,
Saturday Nov 07, 2009
Plagiarism was revealed in Witi Ihimaera's newest novel when a book reviewer googled phrases from The Trowenna Sea.
Jolisa Gracewood reviewed the book, which went on sale at the beginning of the week, for the New Zealand Listener.
It tells the story of Hohepa Te Umuroa, who was convicted of insurrection and transported as a convict to Tasmania with four other Maori in the 1840s.
In her blog, Jolisa Gracewood said that while reading the novel, she had a feeling something was not right with parts of the text.
"Google was my first port of call - it turns out that Google Books is bad news for authors, in at least one more way than previously suspected ..."
However, there was "no joy" in stumbling across 16 examples which the magazine put to Ihimaera.
Gracewood said that as a writing teacher, "I'd occasionally come across a phrase or a paragraph that was somehow out of kilter with the surrounding text. It's a curiously physical phenomenon: the hairs on the back of your neck go up, and your heart sinks. "Sometimes it's a false alarm," she said. "But I never expected to encounter that feeling as a book reviewer, let alone with a new work by a respected writer." The full story at NZH.
Jolisa Gracewood's blog.
How Witi was found out
By Yvonne Tahana writing in The New Zealand Herald,
Saturday Nov 07, 2009
Plagiarism was revealed in Witi Ihimaera's newest novel when a book reviewer googled phrases from The Trowenna Sea.
Jolisa Gracewood reviewed the book, which went on sale at the beginning of the week, for the New Zealand Listener.
It tells the story of Hohepa Te Umuroa, who was convicted of insurrection and transported as a convict to Tasmania with four other Maori in the 1840s.
In her blog, Jolisa Gracewood said that while reading the novel, she had a feeling something was not right with parts of the text.
"Google was my first port of call - it turns out that Google Books is bad news for authors, in at least one more way than previously suspected ..."
However, there was "no joy" in stumbling across 16 examples which the magazine put to Ihimaera.
Gracewood said that as a writing teacher, "I'd occasionally come across a phrase or a paragraph that was somehow out of kilter with the surrounding text. It's a curiously physical phenomenon: the hairs on the back of your neck go up, and your heart sinks. "Sometimes it's a false alarm," she said. "But I never expected to encounter that feeling as a book reviewer, let alone with a new work by a respected writer." The full story at NZH.
Jolisa Gracewood's blog.
The incredible likeness of being
by Guy Somerset - from the latest issue of the NZ Listener
The Listener uncovered some surprising similarities to other works in Witi Ihimaera’s The Trowenna Sea. We confronted him with the evidence.
The full text of this article appears in the NZ Listener
(November 9-15 2009), on sale now.
Witi Ihimaera is in the middle of marking exams and essays when he first responds to the Listener about the 16 examples this magazine put to his publisher of striking resemblances between parts of his new historical novel, The Trowenna Sea, and previously published work by other writers.
As well as being one of New Zealand’s leading authors, Ihimaera is a professor and Distinguished Creative Fellow in Maori Literature at the University of Auckland, where he is founder and course convenor of the Masters in Creative Writing programme.
His response comes swiftly. He is apologetic to all parties. During an ensuing interview with him and Geoff Walker, publishing director of Penguin New Zealand, under whose Raupo imprint The Trowenna Sea was released, Ihimaera says he is “horrified” about his “errors”.
The full text will be available at the NZ Listener online on 30/11/2009.
Subscribe online to the NZ Listener.
FOOTNOTE:
Following The NZ Listener story becoming public yesterday, Friday, the University of Auckland has issued the following :
University Of Auckland statement
Professor Witi Ihimaera has apologised for inadvertently using other authors’ material without acknowledgement in his new novel The Trowenna Sea.
Some lines and paragraphs in the 528-page book, amounting to less than 0.4 percent of the total content, were unintentionally included without proper acknowledgement, said Professor Ihimaera, who is Professor of English and Distinguished Creative Fellow in Māori Literature at The University of Auckland.
“I have been working with my publisher, Penguin New Zealand, to contact the authors whose work I did not acknowledge and express my sincere regret and apologies to them. I am deeply sorry and take full responsibility for this oversight. “The authors I have managed to contact understand how it occurred and have accepted my apologies. The passages in question will be fully acknowledged in a future edition of the book.”
“Though the amount of non-attributed material may seem insignificant, any failure to acknowledge the work of others is most regrettable and is of concern to the University,” said the Dean of Arts, Associate Professor Jan Crosthwaite.
“The University of Auckland has investigated this matter and is satisfied there was no deliberate wrongdoing. I have been assured by Professor Ihimaera that he has taken speedy steps to remedy his unfortunate oversight.”
by Guy Somerset - from the latest issue of the NZ Listener
The Listener uncovered some surprising similarities to other works in Witi Ihimaera’s The Trowenna Sea. We confronted him with the evidence.
The full text of this article appears in the NZ Listener
(November 9-15 2009), on sale now.
Witi Ihimaera is in the middle of marking exams and essays when he first responds to the Listener about the 16 examples this magazine put to his publisher of striking resemblances between parts of his new historical novel, The Trowenna Sea, and previously published work by other writers.
As well as being one of New Zealand’s leading authors, Ihimaera is a professor and Distinguished Creative Fellow in Maori Literature at the University of Auckland, where he is founder and course convenor of the Masters in Creative Writing programme.
His response comes swiftly. He is apologetic to all parties. During an ensuing interview with him and Geoff Walker, publishing director of Penguin New Zealand, under whose Raupo imprint The Trowenna Sea was released, Ihimaera says he is “horrified” about his “errors”.
The full text will be available at the NZ Listener online on 30/11/2009.
Subscribe online to the NZ Listener.
FOOTNOTE:
Following The NZ Listener story becoming public yesterday, Friday, the University of Auckland has issued the following :
University Of Auckland statement
Professor Witi Ihimaera has apologised for inadvertently using other authors’ material without acknowledgement in his new novel The Trowenna Sea.
Some lines and paragraphs in the 528-page book, amounting to less than 0.4 percent of the total content, were unintentionally included without proper acknowledgement, said Professor Ihimaera, who is Professor of English and Distinguished Creative Fellow in Māori Literature at The University of Auckland.
“I have been working with my publisher, Penguin New Zealand, to contact the authors whose work I did not acknowledge and express my sincere regret and apologies to them. I am deeply sorry and take full responsibility for this oversight. “The authors I have managed to contact understand how it occurred and have accepted my apologies. The passages in question will be fully acknowledged in a future edition of the book.”
“Though the amount of non-attributed material may seem insignificant, any failure to acknowledge the work of others is most regrettable and is of concern to the University,” said the Dean of Arts, Associate Professor Jan Crosthwaite.
“The University of Auckland has investigated this matter and is satisfied there was no deliberate wrongdoing. I have been assured by Professor Ihimaera that he has taken speedy steps to remedy his unfortunate oversight.”
BILL MANHIRE PAYS TRIBUTE TO HEATHER MCKENZIE
Heather McKenzie
Everyone we know was shocked and distressed to hear of the sudden death, just a few days ago, of Heather McKenzie.
Heather was Publicity Director at Victoria University Press. She was only 44. We knew her well because many of us at the IIML, staff and students, enjoyed her personal and professional support. She became our very good friend.
She was warm and generous and positive. She took our books to the world, talked them up, and at the same time poured us a drink. She had the gift of making us feel proud of what we had written – even those of us whose dearest hope was to publish a book that might, on some far distant day, just about break even.
Heather had a rich background in books: over the years she worked in retail, in distribution, and in publishing. Whichever angle you look at our book world from, you will see Heather McKenzie somewhere near the heart of it.
Our deep sympathy especially to her partner Neil; to her family; and to Craig and Fergus and Kyleigh, her friends and colleagues at VUP.
First published in the Newsletter from theVictoria University
Heather McKenzie
Everyone we know was shocked and distressed to hear of the sudden death, just a few days ago, of Heather McKenzie.
Heather was Publicity Director at Victoria University Press. She was only 44. We knew her well because many of us at the IIML, staff and students, enjoyed her personal and professional support. She became our very good friend.
She was warm and generous and positive. She took our books to the world, talked them up, and at the same time poured us a drink. She had the gift of making us feel proud of what we had written – even those of us whose dearest hope was to publish a book that might, on some far distant day, just about break even.
Heather had a rich background in books: over the years she worked in retail, in distribution, and in publishing. Whichever angle you look at our book world from, you will see Heather McKenzie somewhere near the heart of it.
Our deep sympathy especially to her partner Neil; to her family; and to Craig and Fergus and Kyleigh, her friends and colleagues at VUP.
First published in the Newsletter from the
New York Times,November 5, 2009,
No. 1 Omission From Top 10 Book List: Women
By Dave Itzkoff
Right - Publishers Weekly The Nov. 2 issue of Publishers Weekly contains its PW Top 10 list.
The trade publication Publishers Weekly likely wanted to provoke discussion with its annual list of the year’s best books, but not like this. In its issue of Nov. 2, Publishers Weekly compiled its PW Top 10, a decidedly subjective ranking of the best fiction and non-fiction published in 2009, including the biography “Cheever: A Life” by Blake Bailey; the novel “Await Your Reply” by Dan Chaon; and the graphic novel “Stitches” by David Small. But as The Guardian reports, the ranking has drawn protests from a women’s literary group, which notes that there are no female writers on the list.
Cate Marvin, a founder of the group Women in Letters and Literary Arts, told The Guardian, “The absence made me nearly speechless.” She added: “It continues to surprise me that literary editors are so comfortable with their bias toward male writing, despite the great and obvious contributions that women authors make to our contemporary literary culture.”
In her introduction to the year-end lists, Louisa Ermelino, the reviews director of Publishers Weekly, wrote, “We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz,” adding: “It disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male.”
Which books by women should Publishers Weekly have included on its PW Top 10 list? Should it have taken gender into consideration when the list was compiled? Post a comment and let us know.
The complete PW Top 10 List appears below:
Cheever: A Life
Blake Bailey (Knopf)
Await Your Reply
Dan Chaon (Ballantine)
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon
Neil Sheehan (Random House)
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders
Daniyal Mueenuddin (Norton)
Big Machine
Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)
The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
Richard Holmes (Pantheon)
Stitches
David Small (Norton)
Shop Class as Soulcraft
Matthew B. Crawford (Penguin Press)
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
Geoff Dyer (Pantheon)
Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon
David Grann (Doubleday)
From NYT.
From Publishing Perpectives
In Praise of the Lowly Chapbook
Editorial by Bryce Milligan (pic left)
SAN ANTONIO: As a regional publisher whose books range from handmade chapbooks to 600-page works of fiction and history, I have been wondering what will become of the physical book in this brave new digital world. Already my paper-and-ink sales are declining as my ebook sales increase-except for, of all things, the lowly chapbook. I began to wonder why this might be, and what it portends.
I am an author, an editor, a publisher, a book designer. I'm married to a librarian. My century-old house doesn't have insulation, it has books. I'm a poster child for a little bibliophilic introspection.
(read on ...)
Bonus Material: A Tale of Two Chapbooks
By Edward Nawotka
As discussed in our lead article today, Bryce Milligan outlines the appeal of chapbooks in an increasingly digital world. These artisanal, often hand-finished books can be pricey, but make for lovely collectibles. By way of illustration, we offer two examples on offer from Milligan's Wings Press:
(click here for the titles)
Arifa Akbar: Why always write in a room of one's own?
The Week In Books, The Independent.
Friday, 6 November 2009
Are writers born or do they emerge after a year of being 'workshopped' on a creative writing course? There is evidence either way Dickens didn't sit through an MA in the fens, yet the starry alumni graduating from Iowa's Writers' Worshop and the University of East Anglia's Creative Writing MA hint at the fact that writing fiction is not a given birthright, but a learned art.
Anita Desai, (pic right EPA), the acclaimed Indian author and Professor Emeritus of creative writing at MIT, reignited the debate this week when, speaking alongside her daughter, Kiran Desai, she suggested creative writing courses ultimately distract writers from finding their own voices. What is needed is peace and quiet for the alchemical process of storytelling to take place. "Even though I have taught creative writing programmes, they are awful," said Desai. "You have to withdraw into a world you have invented and be alone while you are inventing it. Once you have closed yourself into an inner world, you are truly free. There is no influence, there is no pressure. It's important to say I'm not listening to anyone else..."
The Desais made a charming appearance in London to discuss the various forces that formed their writing careers, and to mark the 25th anniversary of Wasafiri magazine of international contemporary writing. But however beguiling an argument Desai puts forward, most will agree that mother and daughter are - enviably - natural born writers. Desai Elder published her first book aged 26 and continued to write while raising four children, while Desai Younger initially signed up to study sciences at Bennington in Vermont, before tutors spotted her natural aptitude for writing. She went on to become the youngest woman to claim the Booker prize.
Of course, Desai acknowledged that her views were partly born from cultural difference: creative writing programmes were "unheard of in India" when she took Kiran, aged 15, to study in America. There is, comparatively, a lack of romance to the writers who learn their art in a classroom but perhaps it is the last bastion of artistic snobbery to expect ordinary mortals to know how to write fiction without learning it as a formal discipline.
Skye Sherwin, 32, a freelance arts writer doing a creative writing course at Birkbeck, said "In the artworld, it would be almost unheard of for an artist not to have gone through art school, so it didn't seem so outlandish to me that workshops and lectures could enable people writing fiction."
When Ian McEwan signed up for a creative writing course at UEA in 1970, he was the only person on it. Nearly two decades later, when Kazuo Ishiguro won the Booker prize, there was an almighty explosion of applicants to courses across the country. Our appetite has only grown since then.
Today, 300 hopefuls battle it out for 24 places at UEA. Andrew Cowan, its course director, said Desai had voiced an ambiguity felt by every writer who was also a teacher of creative writing. But what these courses can do, he said, is to 'ready' a writer for the long years of 'solitary invention' ahead. "We have had writers here who have gone on to win prizes. They were with us for one year, and they didn't write their prize winning books in that year. What students are getting is a schooling in how to be their own best critic." Tracy Chevalier, the acclaimed novelist and UEA alumna, said the course was helpful but "not in the actual mechanics of writing a better sentence."
And it's a myth that writers worked entirely in isolation. she added. "Without an editor, you might think 'I've written the best sentence ever'. It's a rare writer who can't do without outside influence." Yet, she draws a distinction between a good course and a good writer. "A course will only take you so far. The rest of it is down to the spark that certain people have, and other people don't. Courses can't give you that spark."
More at The Independent.
Non-fiction slumps as fiction sales soar 90%
06.11.09 Victoria Gallagher, Graeme Neill and Philip Stone in The Bookseller
Retailers are concerned about the performance of hardback non-fiction books in the run-up to Christmas, despite hardback fiction books "muscling" in to replace some of the lost revenue.
Sales of this year’s top 10 non-fiction books in October were down 52% year on year, while sales of hardback fiction titles have soared by 90%.
Figures for the most recent week to 31st October showed non-fiction continuing to underperfo
rm. Only Guinness World Records and Delia Smith’s Delia’s Happy Christmas (Ebury) sold more than 10,000 copies last week. Last year 10 hardback non-fiction titles passed this threshold during the same period.
By contrast six hardback fiction titles sold more than 10,000 copies at UK book retailers last week, with two of those selling more than 30,000 copies. Only three hardback fiction titles sold more than 10,000 copies in the same week last year.
The Total Consumer Market has dropped only marginally year on year over the month of October. Value sales were down 0.6% to £146.9m and volume sales dropped 1.6% to 17.3m. But this masks a massive drop in hardback non-fiction sales over the period. Hardback non-fiction sales in October 2009 reached 427,658, compared with unit sales of 896,704 in October 2008.
Booksellers noted that r.r.p.s on books are high this year with hardback non-fiction titles including Peter Kay, Ant and Dec and Jeremy Clarkson priced at £20 and Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver even more expensive. One retailer said: "Publishers have got a bit greedy when it has come to cover price. You have to discount that highly to make it attractive to the consumer."
Peter Kay’s The Sound of Laughter was noted by several retailers as showing a disappointing performance. It sold 51,730 copies in October. One retailer said: "It’s not great value in comparison to other books. £20 is a lot for a book of not even 300 pages. It’s significantly less value than other memoirs."
Cookery titles have in the past been a Christmas staple, with celebrity chefs whipping up high sales. However, sales of Jamie’s America (Michael Joseph) have been well behind Jamie’s Ministry of Food (Michael Joseph) from last year. Sally Hughes of Books for Cooks said: "Jamie did well when he was on TV but has fallen off quickly. River Cafe is not moving as well as we thought it might—it is selling but it seems a bit slow."
However, retailers hailed the success of Guinness World Records, which knocked Dan Brown off this week’s top spot with sales of 31,812.
Among the non-fiction books expected to pick up steam in the weeks before Christmas were Where’s Stig? (BBC Books) and The Hummingbord Bakery Cookbook as well as books by Delia Smith, Jeremy Clarkson and Ant and Dec. One retailer said: "Ant and Dec have done better than expected. That should hold on in the run-up to Christmas or even get better with the broadcast of ‘I’m a Celebrity’."
In spite of non-fiction’s woes, sales of fiction are thriving in early autumn. Hardback fiction was up almost double (90.2%) in October year on year. Books by Dan Brown, Martina Cole and Terry Pratchett have been enjoying healthy sales figures despite the recession.
Rachel Russell, business unit director for books at W H Smith, said: "Fiction is doing very well and seems to be muscling into the non-fiction market. I expect gifting to come later in non-fiction because Christmas falls on a Friday."
However, Steph Bateson, book buying manager at Asda, said: "I don’t think fiction is squeezing out non-fiction." Bateson added: "Fiction is a self-purchase whereas non-fiction is a gift purchase. It’s unlikely you would buy Peter Kay for yourself now in case you got bought it for Christmas."
Despite the lack of non-fiction sales, retailers remained positive about the coming weeks. "It’s always a concern when the big books aren’t hitting for customers but I’m not concerned about how Christmas will end up," said Bateson.
Most retailers predicted that the Christmas rush would begin later this month. Phil Edwards, senior buying manager at Gardners, said that the slow start was something he had experienced in previous years. "We don’t normally see a pick-up in the Christmas market until school half-terms and Bonfire Night are over," he said. "In addition, it still doesn’t feel like the Christmas period is upon us—not when we have just come out of an Indian summer."
06.11.09 Victoria Gallagher, Graeme Neill and Philip Stone in The Bookseller
Retailers are concerned about the performance of hardback non-fiction books in the run-up to Christmas, despite hardback fiction books "muscling" in to replace some of the lost revenue.
Sales of this year’s top 10 non-fiction books in October were down 52% year on year, while sales of hardback fiction titles have soared by 90%.
Figures for the most recent week to 31st October showed non-fiction continuing to underperfo
rm. Only Guinness World Records and Delia Smith’s Delia’s Happy Christmas (Ebury) sold more than 10,000 copies last week. Last year 10 hardback non-fiction titles passed this threshold during the same period.By contrast six hardback fiction titles sold more than 10,000 copies at UK book retailers last week, with two of those selling more than 30,000 copies. Only three hardback fiction titles sold more than 10,000 copies in the same week last year.
The Total Consumer Market has dropped only marginally year on year over the month of October. Value sales were down 0.6% to £146.9m and volume sales dropped 1.6% to 17.3m. But this masks a massive drop in hardback non-fiction sales over the period. Hardback non-fiction sales in October 2009 reached 427,658, compared with unit sales of 896,704 in October 2008.
Booksellers noted that r.r.p.s on books are high this year with hardback non-fiction titles including Peter Kay, Ant and Dec and Jeremy Clarkson priced at £20 and Delia Smith and Jamie Oliver even more expensive. One retailer said: "Publishers have got a bit greedy when it has come to cover price. You have to discount that highly to make it attractive to the consumer."
Peter Kay’s The Sound of Laughter was noted by several retailers as showing a disappointing performance. It sold 51,730 copies in October. One retailer said: "It’s not great value in comparison to other books. £20 is a lot for a book of not even 300 pages. It’s significantly less value than other memoirs."
Cookery titles have in the past been a Christmas staple, with celebrity chefs whipping up high sales. However, sales of Jamie’s America (Michael Joseph) have been well behind Jamie’s Ministry of Food (Michael Joseph) from last year. Sally Hughes of Books for Cooks said: "Jamie did well when he was on TV but has fallen off quickly. River Cafe is not moving as well as we thought it might—it is selling but it seems a bit slow."
However, retailers hailed the success of Guinness World Records, which knocked Dan Brown off this week’s top spot with sales of 31,812.
Among the non-fiction books expected to pick up steam in the weeks before Christmas were Where’s Stig? (BBC Books) and The Hummingbord Bakery Cookbook as well as books by Delia Smith, Jeremy Clarkson and Ant and Dec. One retailer said: "Ant and Dec have done better than expected. That should hold on in the run-up to Christmas or even get better with the broadcast of ‘I’m a Celebrity’."
In spite of non-fiction’s woes, sales of fiction are thriving in early autumn. Hardback fiction was up almost double (90.2%) in October year on year. Books by Dan Brown, Martina Cole and Terry Pratchett have been enjoying healthy sales figures despite the recession.
Rachel Russell, business unit director for books at W H Smith, said: "Fiction is doing very well and seems to be muscling into the non-fiction market. I expect gifting to come later in non-fiction because Christmas falls on a Friday."
However, Steph Bateson, book buying manager at Asda, said: "I don’t think fiction is squeezing out non-fiction." Bateson added: "Fiction is a self-purchase whereas non-fiction is a gift purchase. It’s unlikely you would buy Peter Kay for yourself now in case you got bought it for Christmas."
Despite the lack of non-fiction sales, retailers remained positive about the coming weeks. "It’s always a concern when the big books aren’t hitting for customers but I’m not concerned about how Christmas will end up," said Bateson.
Most retailers predicted that the Christmas rush would begin later this month. Phil Edwards, senior buying manager at Gardners, said that the slow start was something he had experienced in previous years. "We don’t normally see a pick-up in the Christmas market until school half-terms and Bonfire Night are over," he said. "In addition, it still doesn’t feel like the Christmas period is upon us—not when we have just come out of an Indian summer."
Friday, November 06, 2009
NBR has a look at Whitcoulls parent
NBR Editor's INSIGHT 5/11/2009
The right timing
The recovery in world sharemarkets since they bottomed in early March has mainly benefited existing stocks.
Apart from Hong Kong and the US, initial public offerings have been thin on the ground. Private equity funds, too, have been slow to absorb investors’ new appetites for risk.
This is partly due to the counter-intuitive nature of these funds and the people who run them: they buy at the top of the market and wait too long to make their exit.
By contrast, the old Brierley-style raiders preferred to buy when assets were cheap and sell before the market peaked.
So the investors who have been making money this year have been those used to playing the market cycles, rather than those born yesterday who have to sell over-priced goods to wary buyers.
Just how some of these private equity players will be able to break even remains a mystery.
The bad news on Myers is already in: the shares fell 8.5% on their debut, after listing at $A4.10, opening at $A3.88 and closing at $A3.75.
Everyone agreed it was over-valued and that the future of retail stocks is far from certain.
Two other retailers are waiting in the wings: Kathmandu, which already has its former owner lining up with a rival business, and Ascendia Retail, which owns the Rebel Sports chain.
None of these companies is likely to be a dog. But asking investors to buy retail stocks when there is more money to be made elsewhere is dumb.
The main reason, of course, is that the equity funds need to get out, after buying into the sector during boomtime euphoria.
Are books different?
Retail figures are the last to recover in any economic cycle, and the logic hasn’t changed. Yet talk is of yet another float from a part of retailing that can hardly be called defensive – bookselling.
REDgroup Retail owns the biggest book chains in Australia and New Zealand – Whitcoulls, Borders and Angus & Robertson (Australia) – and has had a succession of corporate owners with varying success.
In the past year, its owner, Pacific Equity Partners (PEP), has concentrated on consolidating operations, boosting revenues and margins, and running a previously disparate outfit as a single entity.
It’s the supermarket approach compared with the corner store in a commodity that many customers feel passionately about, and generally favours the niche operators over the generalists.
Of course, that is not to say the supermarket approach won’t work. In the US, Wal-Mart, Target and Amazon – which all target different parts of the market – have launched a price-cutting war based on selling popular and hyped pre-orders titles at steep discounts – for example, hardbacks for as little as $US9 a copy instead of $US20.
Naturally, specialist, local and independent bookseller are horrified, not just in the US but around the world.
In New Zealand, price-cutting is not such an issue but some publishers tell me they are more than a little worried by the PEP's re-engineering of two of the market's biggest buyers.
Predictably enough, not just the management but the buying decisions are moving to Australia, will the consequent loss of local customer knowledge, a fear locally produced titles will disappear from the shelves, and more cost to smaller publishers who will have to pitch their wares to (horror!) Australians.
Industry processes such as firm sales and sale or return are also likely to be affected, reducing the choices for both publisher and book seller, as well as adding generally to their costs.
More at NBR
Footnote:
As one senior book trade figure commented to me this morning after reading the NBR story:
....... really interesting as I believe his comments are pretty much on the mark. It is hard to believe REDgroup could be happy when their market share has gone from nearly 50% to not much more than 30%. I’m not sure how the very bullish public announcement on the result stackss up when compared with the full accounts.(the links are in the NBR article) Maybe be this is what is wrong with the financial world. In any case it is certainly a major issue for all larger publishers/distributors in New Zealand and puts their New Zealand future in jeopardy.
I’m pleased your blog concentrates on what we all love – the books and more importantly their contents –however this is all pretty serious stuff.
ANOTHER SMALL MILESTONE
The previous post about Bruce Springsteen is the 7000th post to this blog since I launched it on 26 October 2006.
The previous post about Bruce Springsteen is the 7000th post to this blog since I launched it on 26 October 2006.
The Boss' book bonanza
Springsteen autobiography deal could fetch $10M advance
Keith J.Kelly, New York Post, November 4, 2009
Springsteen autobiography deal could fetch $10M advance
Keith J.Kelly, New York Post, November 4, 2009
Photo - Dave Allocca -Picture Group
The Boss is going to find out if he was Born to Write.
Bruce Springsteen is said to be quietly working on his autobiography. Publishing insiders are already panting for the book -- even though there is no manuscript yet.
"It could be the biggest rock music autobiography of all time," said one insider at a major publisher, who did not want to be named. "He could get $9 million to $10 million for the world rights."
Springsteen has already been the subject of a few bios written by his unofficial historian, David Marsh, who is married to Springsteen's co-manager Barbara Carr. It could not be learned if Marsh will be involved in this book.
"Springsteen is a better writer than Marsh," said our source.
Springsteen is, however, said to be interested in hiring a researcher to assist him.
If there is a bidding war for the book, insiders expect it to eclipse the $8 million advance scored by Rolling Stone Keith Richards from Little Brown or the $4 million advance that Broadway Books paid Eric Clapton.
The Boss, who recently turned 60, has kept voluminous journals throughout his career. They will serve as the basis for the book.
Read more.
Conn Iggulden and Lizzy Duncan: the vital spark The author and the illustrator explain how bonfire night banter ignited new careers for both of them
Story by Richard Lea, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 November 2009
Flying tonight ... Tollins, freshly escaped from fireworks. Illustration: Lizzy Duncan
It all happened because of bonfire night. As he stood with family and friends amid the oohs and aahs of the village firework display, novelist Conn Iggulden found himself trying to explain, in answer to a curious child's question, how the fireworks made such pretty colours.
"So I said that they stuff a fairy inside, and that the 'whee' you can hear is the fairy screaming," he says. Before long he was telling a story about tough little fairies getting blown up which amused and horrified a small circle of his children and their friends. The illustrator Lizzy Duncan, who happened to be standing nearby, remembers "chuckling in the background, looking at all these kids' faces going 'Oh my God!'" She told Iggulden she had an image of the story in her head; he asked her if she'd draw it for him.
"I really don't think I knew who he was," she says. "I hadn't put two and two together and come up with Conn Iggulden. It didn't occur to me that the drawing would lead to anything." But the collaboration sparked that evening ignited a new career in children's fiction for the historical novelist Iggulden: he teamed up with Duncan to produce Tollins, a handsomely illustrated tale about the eponymous small flying people who live unnoticed at the bottom of the garden, in which he tells the story of how, when bumbling humans start catching them to add to their fireworks, one of them fights back.
"I went home and was so inspired," he says, "that I wrote the first story in a stream". About 5,000 words came "ever so fast, and then I polished it, and gave it to Lizzy to see what she thought. She came back with some drawings and I said 'I think we're on to something'."
Before his fortuitous encounter with Duncan, Iggulden had often wondered what it would be like to work with an illustrator, and had even tried his hand at producing his own picture book called The Magic Marigolds. "I thought, 'it can't be that hard'," he says. "My agent still talks about it as the worst idea I've ever had." But he and Duncan hit it off straight away. After spending the 1990s working in animation, Tollins was Duncan's first shot at illustrating a children's book, something she'd wanted to do "since I was
very small". "Thank goodness everyone had a bit of faith," she says, "because I was coming into this with a very blank canvas." "I've always been slightly wary of those people who are precious about their art," says Iggulden. "I've always tried to be professional, and Lizzy had much the same attitude."
Read the full piece at The Guardian online.
Tollins: Explosive Tales for Children by Conn Iggulden 240pp, HarperCollins Children's Books, £14.99
Story by Richard Lea, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 November 2009
Flying tonight ... Tollins, freshly escaped from fireworks. Illustration: Lizzy Duncan
It all happened because of bonfire night. As he stood with family and friends amid the oohs and aahs of the village firework display, novelist Conn Iggulden found himself trying to explain, in answer to a curious child's question, how the fireworks made such pretty colours.
"So I said that they stuff a fairy inside, and that the 'whee' you can hear is the fairy screaming," he says. Before long he was telling a story about tough little fairies getting blown up which amused and horrified a small circle of his children and their friends. The illustrator Lizzy Duncan, who happened to be standing nearby, remembers "chuckling in the background, looking at all these kids' faces going 'Oh my God!'" She told Iggulden she had an image of the story in her head; he asked her if she'd draw it for him.
"I really don't think I knew who he was," she says. "I hadn't put two and two together and come up with Conn Iggulden. It didn't occur to me that the drawing would lead to anything." But the collaboration sparked that evening ignited a new career in children's fiction for the historical novelist Iggulden: he teamed up with Duncan to produce Tollins, a handsomely illustrated tale about the eponymous small flying people who live unnoticed at the bottom of the garden, in which he tells the story of how, when bumbling humans start catching them to add to their fireworks, one of them fights back.
"I went home and was so inspired," he says, "that I wrote the first story in a stream". About 5,000 words came "ever so fast, and then I polished it, and gave it to Lizzy to see what she thought. She came back with some drawings and I said 'I think we're on to something'."
Before his fortuitous encounter with Duncan, Iggulden had often wondered what it would be like to work with an illustrator, and had even tried his hand at producing his own picture book called The Magic Marigolds. "I thought, 'it can't be that hard'," he says. "My agent still talks about it as the worst idea I've ever had." But he and Duncan hit it off straight away. After spending the 1990s working in animation, Tollins was Duncan's first shot at illustrating a children's book, something she'd wanted to do "since I was
very small". "Thank goodness everyone had a bit of faith," she says, "because I was coming into this with a very blank canvas." "I've always been slightly wary of those people who are precious about their art," says Iggulden. "I've always tried to be professional, and Lizzy had much the same attitude."Read the full piece at The Guardian online.
Tollins: Explosive Tales for Children by Conn Iggulden 240pp, HarperCollins Children's Books, £14.99
The Penguin New Zealand Travel Guide: North Island Diana and Jeremy Pope
The Penguin New Zealand Travel Guide: North Island, a unique travel guide written by New Zealanders for New Zealanders, is making a return!
The Penguin New Zealand Travel Guides are the most comprehensive handbooks to touring New Zealand and are the indispensable accompaniment for all New Zealanders and others travelling or planning to travel around New Zealand Aotearoa. They belong in the glove box of every New Zealander’s car.
This North Island edition provides unparalleled coverage of where to go and what to do in the hundreds of places listed - from major cities to tiny country towns, from rugged national parks to sun-warmed coastal resorts. A special feature is the history and folklore as well as the natural history of each area.
Now 30 years since first publication (then known as the ‘Mobil Guides’) and into its tenth edition, this award-winning guide has been fully rewritten and expanded to reflect a wealth of new content, and to further enrich the pleasure of exploring New Zealand. The South Island counterpart is in preparation.
Dia
na and Jeremy Pope, after seeing the world on their OE, returned to New Zealand and in 1973 wrote the first of what they hoped would be the sort of travel guides they, as fourth-generation New Zealanders, would have liked to have been able to buy. These struck an instant chord and, well over 200,000 copies later, are now recognised as one of New Zealand’s greatest publishing successes.When the pair is not travelling the country, Diana, who has a degree in history and a diploma in archaeology, pursues her interest in photography. Jeremy, a lawyer, is a New Zealand Human Rights Commissioner. Diana and Jeremy have received the Horwath Sir Jack Newman Award that recognises outstanding individual contributions to travel in New Zealand.
THE BOOKMAN'S BOOK OF THE WEEK:
One of the joys of being a book reviewer at this time of the year is the steady stream of gorgeous books arriving aimed at the Christmas market.
Kevin Judd’s superb new book is such an example. It is an evocative collection of his best vineyard photography from all of New Zealand’s wine regions. This beautifully presented hardback illus
trates the beauty, diversity and breadth of one of the New World wine industry’s great success stories.
kland, Waiheke, Northland, Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa in the North Island, and Mar
Covering Auclborough, Nelson, Canterbury and Central Otago in the South Island, the character and terroir of each region are elegantly revealed in Kevin Judd’s remarkable photography. Each wine region has an introduction written by both Kevin Judd and Bob Campbell, one of New Zealand’s top wine critics and writers.
The Landscape of New Zealand Wine is a truly stu
nning and most appealing book for both New Zealanders and visitors alike.
Kevin Judd is one of Marlborough’s pioneer winemakers whose career is intrinsically linked with the global profile of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Kevin was the founding winemaker at Cloudy Bay, a pivotal role during which he directed the company’s first 25 vintages. He established his own label Greywacke in 2009.
He developed a parallel career in wine photography. For two decades his evocative images have appeared in publications worldwide. His first book The Colour of Wine, published by Craig Potton Publishing in 1999, sold over 8,000 copies.
The publishers have kindly allowed me to reproduce some of my favourite images which will give you a small taste of the book, it is a thing of great beauty.
INTERNET MARKETING OF BOOKS & E-BOOKS
Message from Martin Taylor
There's less than TWO WEEKS left to register at the special Earlybird rate of $160+GST for the seminar that will show you how to market books and ebooks online.
Full details and a registration form are on our website at digitalpublishing.org.nz/events.
Our experts, led by Random House of Canada's Heather Sanderson are hands-on practitioners who will show you:
· How the internet is changing book marketing
· How to build a global online publishing business from New Zealand
· How to use social networking and online community-building to market books and ebooks
· Email list-building strategies: Why great lists can (still) be your best marketing asset
· What makes Amazon the world's most successful bookseller and what you can learn from them
· How Search Engine Optimisation and web analytics help you attract visitors and measure success of campaigns
· Plus numerous case studies, examples and ideas to learn from and try in your own business
This great value workshop runs in Auckland from 9:00-4:30pm on 2 December. It's just $160+GST ($180) for members of the Publishers' Association (BPANZ), NZ Society of Authors, Booksellers NZ and CLL-mandated publishers. Normal rate after 16 November is $360 so register online today at http://digitalpublishing.org.nz/events.
Best regards
Martin
Martin Taylor
Director
Digital Publishing Forum
Visit us online: http://digitalpublishing.org.nz
blog: http://activitypress.com/ereport
Email: martin@digitalstrategies.co.nz
Ph: +64-9-529-9573
Mobile: +64-21-936-950
skype: martin.taylor30
twitter: http://twitter.com/nztaylor
linked-in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/martintaylornz
Message from Martin Taylor
There's less than TWO WEEKS left to register at the special Earlybird rate of $160+GST for the seminar that will show you how to market books and ebooks online.
Full details and a registration form are on our website at digitalpublishing.org.nz/events.
Our experts, led by Random House of Canada's Heather Sanderson are hands-on practitioners who will show you:
· How the internet is changing book marketing
· How to build a global online publishing business from New Zealand
· How to use social networking and online community-building to market books and ebooks
· Email list-building strategies: Why great lists can (still) be your best marketing asset
· What makes Amazon the world's most successful bookseller and what you can learn from them
· How Search Engine Optimisation and web analytics help you attract visitors and measure success of campaigns
· Plus numerous case studies, examples and ideas to learn from and try in your own business
This great value workshop runs in Auckland from 9:00-4:30pm on 2 December. It's just $160+GST ($180) for members of the Publishers' Association (BPANZ), NZ Society of Authors, Booksellers NZ and CLL-mandated publishers. Normal rate after 16 November is $360 so register online today at http://digitalpublishing.org.nz/events.
Best regards
Martin
Martin Taylor
Director
Digital Publishing Forum
Visit us online: http://digitalpublishing.org.nz
blog: http://activitypress.com/ereport
Email: martin@digitalstrategies.co.nz
Ph: +64-9-529-9573
Mobile: +64-21-936-950
skype: martin.taylor30
twitter: http://twitter.com/nztaylor
linked-in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/martintaylornz
Scottish Publisher Canongate Pulls In Millions From Obama Book Rights
04 Nov 2009
Canongate has posted a massive turnover of £7.35million in just six months, after the US president's non-fiction works topped the charts across the globe.
Sales of The Audacity of Hope and Dreams From My Father are expected to sell two million copies in the UK and Commonwealth, not including the new e-book edition for iPods, which will see the publishers beat last year’s record profit of £2.6million.
Keeper by Andrea Gillies wins the first ever Wellcome Trust Book Prize
A thoughtful and moving book which takes the reader on a journey into dementia has won the first, £25,000 Wellcome Trust Book Prize.
The prize which is in its inaugural year is open to outstanding works of fiction and non-fiction on the theme of health and medicine. Andrea Gillies’ book Keeper (Short Books) which is about the author’s decision to take on the full-time care of her mother-in-law, an Alzheimer’s sufferer, beat a shortlist of six books.
The diverse shortlist featured both factual accounts and gripping novels on broad subject matter from a thriller set in a US laboratory to real life accounts of living with illness.
Keeper is a very humane and honest exploration of living with Alzheimer’s giving an illuminating account of the disease itself.
Jo Brand, comedienne and former psychiatric nurse chaired the judging panel and made the announcement at an awards ceremony at the Wellcome Collection, London. She said:
“Andrea Gillies’ account of living with Alzheimer’s is the perfect fusion of narrative with enough memorable science not to choke you. It’s a fantastic book – down to earth and darkly comic in places. The judges found it compelling”.
Clare Matterson, Director of Medicine, Society and History at the Wellcome Trust, added:
“The prize aims to examine the links between medicine, culture and society by celebrating excellent writing and bringing it to the attention of a broad and varied audience”.
Jo Brand’s judging panel included BBC science journalist Quentin Cooper, Welsh poet and non-fiction writer Gwyneth Lewis, physician and author Raymond Tallis and Richard Barnett, expert in the history of modern medicine. The shortlisted books were:
The shortlist::
Havi Carel - Illness - (Acumen Publishing)
Brian Dillon - Tormented Hope - (Penguin - Ireland)
Andrea Gillies - Keeper -(Short Books)
Allegra Goodman - Intuition - (Atlantic Books)
Jonny Steinberg - Three Letter Plague - (Random House/Vintage)
Abraham Verghese - Cutting For Stone - Random House/Chatto)
To find out more about The Wellcome Trust Book Prize please visit http://www.wellcomebookprize.org
A thoughtful and moving book which takes the reader on a journey into dementia has won the first, £25,000 Wellcome Trust Book Prize.
The prize which is in its inaugural year is open to outstanding works of fiction and non-fiction on the theme of health and medicine. Andrea Gillies’ book Keeper (Short Books) which is about the author’s decision to take on the full-time care of her mother-in-law, an Alzheimer’s sufferer, beat a shortlist of six books.
The diverse shortlist featured both factual accounts and gripping novels on broad subject matter from a thriller set in a US laboratory to real life accounts of living with illness.
Keeper is a very humane and honest exploration of living with Alzheimer’s giving an illuminating account of the disease itself.
Jo Brand, comedienne and former psychiatric nurse chaired the judging panel and made the announcement at an awards ceremony at the Wellcome Collection, London. She said:
“Andrea Gillies’ account of living with Alzheimer’s is the perfect fusion of narrative with enough memorable science not to choke you. It’s a fantastic book – down to earth and darkly comic in places. The judges found it compelling”.
Clare Matterson, Director of Medicine, Society and History at the Wellcome Trust, added:
“The prize aims to examine the links between medicine, culture and society by celebrating excellent writing and bringing it to the attention of a broad and varied audience”.
Jo Brand’s judging panel included BBC science journalist Quentin Cooper, Welsh poet and non-fiction writer Gwyneth Lewis, physician and author Raymond Tallis and Richard Barnett, expert in the history of modern medicine. The shortlisted books were:
The shortlist::
Havi Carel - Illness - (Acumen Publishing)
Brian Dillon - Tormented Hope - (Penguin - Ireland)
Andrea Gillies - Keeper -(Short Books)
Allegra Goodman - Intuition - (Atlantic Books)
Jonny Steinberg - Three Letter Plague - (Random House/Vintage)
Abraham Verghese - Cutting For Stone - Random House/Chatto)
To find out more about The Wellcome Trust Book Prize please visit http://www.wellcomebookprize.org
Thursday, November 05, 2009
MERCURIO’S MENU
Paul Mercurio
Murdoch Books
NZRRP: $39.99
Mercurio’s Menu bundles the best recipes from the ‘Mercurio’s Menu’ TV series and features Paul’s own recipes in his fun, laid-back style
It seems that dancing is not Paul Mercurio’s only passion and his foodie travel show ‘Mercurio’s Menu,’ watched by over a million people in Australia and New Zealand, would indicate it’s a passion well-shared.
Paul Mecurio takes his viewers, and now his readers, on a humour-filled journey around Australia and New Zealand seeking out great regional produce and cooking with the locals. Along the way he indulges armchair travellers with some incredible scenery and entertaining foodie hints and tips.
Paul covers all Australian states and territories plus parts of New Zealand. The book is organised by state and includes many captivating photographs of the landscapes and producers Paul meets along the way.
Murdoch Books have bundled the best of the program’s recipes, imagery and fun facts into not only the perfect companion book to the TV show, but a book with a simply great mix of antipodean recipes and stunning location photography.
One of these recipes especially appealed to me so Paul and his publushers kindly agreed to let me reproduce it here for readers of Beattie's Book Blog:
Bangalow sweet pork roast with anchovy sauce
Recipe by Daud Kendall from Byron Bay Beach Café
Serves 6
1.5 kg (3 lb 5 oz) pork loin, rind on
1 tablespoon oil
125 ml (4 fl oz/½ cup) water
Sauce
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 anchovy fillets, crushed
2 teaspoons chopped rosemary
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F/Gas 6). Dry the pork well with paper towels. Rub the rind surface lightly with oil and rub in a generous amount of sea salt. Sit the pork on a rack in a roasting tin and place into the oven for 30 minutes. Reduce the heat to 180°C (350°F/Gas 4) and pour the water into the base of the tin to prevent the fat from splattering.
Cook for a further 1 hour, then turn on the top element or place under a preheated grill (broiler) for about 5–10 minutes to make the crackling nice and crisp. Set the pork on a plate and rest in a warm place for at least 15 minutes.
For the anchovy sauce: Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the garlic and fry until lightly golden, then add the anchovies and rosemary and fry for 30 seconds. Splash in the balsamic vinegar and remove the pan from the heat.
Serve the pork with the anchovy sauce and roasted vegetables.
Note:
The quality of the pork is the key to this recipe. We have used Bangalow sweet pork from the Byron Bay hinterland. The loin should be tied by the butcher and the rind scored. If you are using a bone-in roast, it is not necessary to tie it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul Mercurio is best known for his lead role in the Baz Luhrmann blockbuster Strictly Ballroom, but he is jack of many trades. Most recently, Paul was on the panel for ‘Dancing with the Stars’ in Australia and New Zealand and his own culinary travel show ‘Mercurio’s Menu’ is shown on Food TV (SKY Digital Channel 9).
Saturday Morning with Kim Hill on Radio NZ National7 November 2009
For the last 30 years, lawyer Jeremy Pope and his wife Diana have been updating their best-selling Mobil travel guides of the North and South islands from the 1970s. The fully rewritten and expanded Penguin New Zealand Travel Guide: North Island (Penguin, ISBN: 978-014301010-4) was published recently, and Jeremy will talk to Kim at around 11.40am.
Earlier in the programme, between 10 and 11am in the Playing Favourites slot, ex-pat New Zealander Reg Mombassa talks to Kim from Sydney. Reg was a founder member of the Australian group Mental as Anything, and his designs were instrumental in the success of surfwear company Mambo Graphics. He has an ongoing career as a globally acclaimed fine artist, and tells his story to another explat Kiwi, Murray Waldren, in The Mind and Times of Reg Mombassa (HarperCollins, ISBN: 978-0-7322-8789-4).
For full details of the programme schedule and guests, check the web page - www.radionz.co.nz/saturday - from around midday on Friday.
Penguin flogs it (and sells some books) 
What's the most depressing piece of Penguin merchandising? Notebooks featuring the classic covers of much-loved titles that cost more than the novels themselves
- Anthony Cummins, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 4 November 2009
Left - a reader at the Guardian Hay Festival. Photograph: Martin Godwin
Few publishers are brands the way Penguin is a brand. Launched in 1935, its fame owes much to its earliest titles: their covers, that is, rather than the texts themselves. The trademark uniform – two coloured stripes and black Gill Sans lettering – lasted three decades before being dropped for the sake of greater variety. But you don't have to visit a second-hand book shop to see examples of the design. Resurrected in time for Penguin's 70th birthday in 2005, it's now a familiar sight on official merchandise that includes bags, mugs, tea towels and deck chairs. You can carry your groceries in The Lost Girl, drink from Vile Bodies, dry the dishes with A Room of One's Own, and lean back on Brighton Rock. As a promotional website tells us.
Across all generations and types of people, the Penguin range strikes such a chord that they may now be truly considered part of our literary, lifestyle culture.
Lifestyle: always an odd word when used as a modifier. The New Oxford says it means "products designed to appeal to a consumer by association with a desirable lifestyle". While I can't imagine who buys wall canvases of 1930s Penguins at a hundred quid a pop – enlighten me – or even what lifestyle they are supposed to evoke, it seems pretty obvious that the famous three-stripe design is now intended for a market that's somewhat different from its original audience.
To recap: the publisher Allen Lane set up Penguin to try to increase the numbers of people able to afford good books. In paperback editions priced 6d (two and a half pence) – "same as a packet of cigarettes" – he reprinted quality fiction and non-fiction and ensured their availability not only at bookseller s but also at railway stations and tobacconists. With launch titles including works such as Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms and André Maurois's biography of Shelley, Ariel, Lane brought respectability to a sector of the market that had been regarded with suspicion since the arrival of something resembling a British education system in 1870.
The full story at The Guardian online.
Headline plots to ensure 'Dan Brown bread'
04.11.09 Catherine Neilan The Bookseller
Headline rearr
anged the publication date of Martina Cole's latest novel Hard Girls to take advantaged of the week when Dan Brown's sales would be lowest, ensuring a number one slot in the Original Fiction chart.
Kerr MacRae, deputy m.d and c.o.o, said the publisher had "plotted against Harry Potter" to work out the optimum date to schedule her launch. Yesterday it was revealed that Cole had taken her ninth turn at the top of the fiction chart. MacRae said: "We thought Dan Brown would be at the bottom of his trough by this week, by using a book of the same magnitude to see what happened - the closest we could predict was 30-40,000, so it was the lower end of what we expected. But then we didn't expect to go to number one on a partial week."
He added: "The fact that Martina has got to number one and knocked Dan Brown off, when no one else could, is testament to her, and it's great that a domestic author can do that to a big international star. As Martina would say, he's 'Dan Brown bread'."
Headline is now anticipating increased sales for Brown's novel in the run up to Christmas, although Cole is also expected to be a big festive seller. "There will be another curve to the Dan Brown rollercoaster, but Martina goes up proportionately as well," said MacRae. "We will be trying to keep her there as long as possible, and that becomes harder the closer we get to Christmas – but do have additional things up our sleeve, including a big TV campaign with WHSmiths."
Part of her growing popularity was "probably to do with 'The Take'", which had appeared on Sky1 during the summer, but also to do with support from the high street chain. "We had a great result from W H Smith," MacRae said.
LARKIN 25 - ANOTHER LOOK AT LARKIN
Next year the city of Hull will lead the celebrations of the man who is its most famous (adopted) son.
"Larkin 25 - Another Look at Larkin" will celebrate and commemorate the life and work of the poet Philip Larkin with a series of events pivoting on the 25th anniversary of his death on 2 December 2010 highlighting the attractions of "Larkin country".
To coincide Faber will publish Larkin's Letters to Monica.
Larkin spent most of his adult life with Monica Jones, a professor of English, whom he met when he was 24.
Los Angeles Adds Glam to Guadalajara
By Chad W. Post - Publishing Perpectives |
Bonus Material: Deals Taking Longer, says Dutch Rights Manager |
Claude Lévi-Strauss, 100, Dies; Altered Western Views of the ‘Primitive’
By Edward Rothstein, New York Times
Published: November 4, 2009
Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist whose revolutionary studies of what was once called “primitive man” transformed Western understanding of the nature of culture, custom and civilization, has died at 100.
Left - Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist and father of structuralism.
His son Laurent said Mr. Lévi-Strauss died of cardiac arrest Friday at his home in Paris. His death was announced Tuesday, the same day he was buried in the village of Lignerolles, in the Côte-d’Or region southeast of Paris, where he had a country home.
“He had expressed the wish to have a discreet and sober funeral, with his family, in his country house,” his son said. “He was attached to this place; he liked to take walks in the forest, and the cemetery where he is now buried is just on the edge of this forest.”
A powerful thinker, Mr. Lévi-Strauss, in studying the mythologies of primitive tribes, transformed the way the 20th century came to understand civilization itself. Tribal mythologies, he argued, display remarkably subtle systems of logic, showing rational mental qualities as sophisticated as those of Western societies.
Mr. Lévi-Strauss rejected the idea that differences between societies were of no consequence, but he focused on the common aspects of humanity’s attempts to understand the world. He became the premier representative of “structuralism,” a school of thought in which universal “structures” were believed to underlie all human activity, giving shape to seemingly disparate cultures and creations.
His work was a profound influence even on his critics, of whom there were many. There has been no comparable successor to him in France. And his writing — a mixture of the pedantic and the poetic, full of daring juxtapositions, intricate argument and elaborate metaphors — resembles little that had come before in anthropology.
“People realize he is one of the great intellectual heroes of the 20th century,” Philippe Descola, the chairman of the anthropology department at the Collège de France, said last November in an interview with The New York Times on the centenary of Mr. Levi-Strauss’s birth. Mr. Lévi-Strauss was so revered that the occasion was celebrated in at least 25 countries.
A descendant of a distinguished French-Jewish artistic family, he was a quintessential French intellectual. as comfortable in the public sphere as in the academy. He taught at universities in Paris, New York and São Paulo, Brazil, and also worked for the United Nations and the French government.
The full report NYT.
By Edward Rothstein, New York Times
Published: November 4, 2009
Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist whose revolutionary studies of what was once called “primitive man” transformed Western understanding of the nature of culture, custom and civilization, has died at 100.
Left - Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist and father of structuralism.
His son Laurent said Mr. Lévi-Strauss died of cardiac arrest Friday at his home in Paris. His death was announced Tuesday, the same day he was buried in the village of Lignerolles, in the Côte-d’Or region southeast of Paris, where he had a country home.
“He had expressed the wish to have a discreet and sober funeral, with his family, in his country house,” his son said. “He was attached to this place; he liked to take walks in the forest, and the cemetery where he is now buried is just on the edge of this forest.”
A powerful thinker, Mr. Lévi-Strauss, in studying the mythologies of primitive tribes, transformed the way the 20th century came to understand civilization itself. Tribal mythologies, he argued, display remarkably subtle systems of logic, showing rational mental qualities as sophisticated as those of Western societies.
Mr. Lévi-Strauss rejected the idea that differences between societies were of no consequence, but he focused on the common aspects of humanity’s attempts to understand the world. He became the premier representative of “structuralism,” a school of thought in which universal “structures” were believed to underlie all human activity, giving shape to seemingly disparate cultures and creations.
His work was a profound influence even on his critics, of whom there were many. There has been no comparable successor to him in France. And his writing — a mixture of the pedantic and the poetic, full of daring juxtapositions, intricate argument and elaborate metaphors — resembles little that had come before in anthropology.
“People realize he is one of the great intellectual heroes of the 20th century,” Philippe Descola, the chairman of the anthropology department at the Collège de France, said last November in an interview with The New York Times on the centenary of Mr. Levi-Strauss’s birth. Mr. Lévi-Strauss was so revered that the occasion was celebrated in at least 25 countries.
A descendant of a distinguished French-Jewish artistic family, he was a quintessential French intellectual. as comfortable in the public sphere as in the academy. He taught at universities in Paris, New York and São Paulo, Brazil, and also worked for the United Nations and the French government.
The full report NYT.
Melbourne Based Bookstore Owner Redgroup May Float Before Christmas After Strong Earnings
Book2Book report - Wednesday 04 Nov 2009
Speculation is growing that Melbourne-based bookstore owner RedGroup may list on the Australian Securities Exchange before Christmas after the company posted impressive results.
RedGroup, which owns the Angus & Robertson chain in Australia, the Borders chain in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, and the Whitcoulls chain in New Zealand, is currently owned by private company Private Equity Partners, which is believed to be keen to offload the business.
The company's results have heightened speculation of a pre-Christmas float.
Smart Company
Authors back changes to literary festival circuit
04.11.09 Caroline Horn in The Bookseller
Effective event promotion by festival organisers and a set rate for attendance are among the key requests by authors following a downturn in attendance and book sales at some of this year's literary festival events, reported by The Bookseller last week.
Author and reviewer Amanda Craig said the proliferation of regional literary festivals had resulted in "too many events", and added, "many authors feel that they have a gun put to their head by their publishers to attend them". Craig added that discounted books should also be introduced. "Authors are in despair at how badly hardbacks are selling. No one wants to pay for a ticketed event and a full-price hardback during a recession."
Author Meg Rosoff called for an "honest attempt" at publicity and a warm welcome for authors. "Without publicity and ticket sales, the whole enterprise is just depressing." Adèle Geras said careful programming, where less well known authors were paired with bigger names, could help avoid low audience numbers, as well as side-stepping event clashes with high profile authors.
Some literary festivals are experimenting with different approaches. City funding for the StarLit festival in Hoxton Square, run by the Shoreditch Trust, enabled pupils to each 'buy' a book. Author Catherine Johnson said: "Every author/illustrator who took part knew that their audience was able to choose any book they wanted from the shop." Children's writer Emma Barnes suggested putting children's authors directly into schools for the day alongside public events, so guaranteeing "a sizeable audience and a decent fee", she said, "both of which are good news for the author".
Author Liz Kessler said UK festival organisers could learn from the National Book Festival in Washington where every author was assigned a 'festival escort' for the day and events were held in easily-identifiable marquees. She said: "I found the whole thing extremely well organised, brilliantly attended and an absolute delight to take part in!"
Alyx Price, group publicity director for Scholastic, said successful events depended on festival events and publishers working in partnership. "Publishers can't expect to book an event for an author and then walk away from it. Successful events require work from all parties."
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Offering Arts marketers the chance to become more internet savvy
Creative New Zealand media release
4 November 2009
Does the idea of web marketing, social media and web analytics intrigue you?
Do you want to speak to the Generation V [Virtual]?
Does your arts organisation have a Facebook page or are on Twitter or MySpace but not quite sure whether you are utilising social networking to its maximum benefit?
If your answer to any of these questions is yes then the smART talk 02 Crack Web Marketing forum is for you. Creative New Zealand and The Big Idea are running the second in a series of three online forums aimed at arts & creative sector professionals in any creative field. smART talk 02 Crack Web Marketing is hosted by The Big Idea | Te Aria Nui and aimed at those who want to grow audiences using web marketing. It runs from 11 November until the 3 December.
US President, Barack Obama used the Internet to organise his supporters, advertise to voters, raise funds and communicate with constituents in a way that would in the past have required an army of volunteers and paid organisers on the ground. This was done by using interactive Web 2.0 tools and in doing so Obama’s campaign-use of the internet forever changed the business of politics.
The result? Many commentators said that were it not for the internet, Barack Obama would not be president. So what can the internet do for your arts organisation? smART talk 02 specialist guest Vicki Allpress Hill , the Manager of Online & CRM for The Edge, aims to answer as many of your questions and challenges and hopes that you and your colleagues can learn about what works and what doesn’t, explore your next moves and share your success stories.
Vicki Allpress Hill is thrilled to be working with Creative New Zealand and The Big Idea on the ‘Crack Web Marketing’ smART talk forum. “My passion for the best-practice use of online tools and strategies in the arts is well-known and well-documented, and I am looking forward to this opportunity to share some of the knowledge and learning I have built up over my many years of involvement and experience in this area.”
This forum is designed to offer practical help and advice on some of the key areas of web marketing such as; web analytics, email marketing, social media, Search Engine Optimisation & Marketing (SEO & SEM) and online marketing.
You can join the forum by posing questions and involving yourself in the conversation and you can sign up for a daily and/or weekly summary digest.
To find out more go to http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/smart-talk/smart-talk-02-crack-web-marketing
smART talk 02 | Crack Web Marketing with Vicki Allpress-Hill commences on11 November. Vicki has been a regular contributor at Creative New Zealand’s 21st Century Arts Conferences . Currently Manager – Online & CRM for The Edge in Auckland, Vicki has also worked and consulted with some of the most successful arts organisations in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and US and has authored books, papers and blogs on the subjects of audience development and online marketing.
11 November - 3 December forum online at www.thebigidea.co.nz
WORDS ON A SMALL ISLAND
FIRST WAIHEKE ISLAND LITERARY FESTIVAL
Last week I had the great good fortune to attend The Waiheke Literary Festival an inspiring festival of books including among the speakers a food writer, dramatist, artist and photographer, along with novelists, children’s writers and poets.
This is the firs
t of what organisers hope will be an annual two day event.
Among those I heard speak were Richard Wolfe who has a string of books to his credit largely in the area of popular culture. He was most entertaining as Chair John Daly-Peoples led him through a series of questions that provided Wolfe with the ooportunity to talk of his professional life, formerly as a museum curator/designer and more latterly as a full-time writer. he now has 31 titles to his credit and he spoke particularly of his two most recent titles, CRIKEY, Random House 2009, and NEW ZEALAND PORTRAITS, Penguin 2008.
Then it was the turn of former art curator/art historian, critic/writer Christopher Johnstone who spoke about his two latest books and how he went about selecting and sourcing the images, writing the text, and how he was influenced by his life in the arts in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand. Both of these two handsome titles, LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS IN NEW ZEALAND, and THE PAINTED GARDEN, were published by Random House NZ.
So the Festival was off to a good start with these two articulate and interesting writers.
Over a truly superb, long lunch at the wonderful Mudbrick Winery restaurant we were entertained by master playwright Roger Hall (pic right) who answered a series of questions enabling him to ponder o
n the huge success of his many plays, talking about highlights, generational diffreneces, NZ humour and more besides.
Then it was the turn of Jeremy Hansen and Patrick Reynolds, co-author and photographer of the stunning VILLA published to great acclaim recently by Random House, who took us behind the scenes for a look at the process of selecting the homes featured on the book and some of the interesting experiences they had. VILLA is magnificently designed and crammed with photographs of everything from the original photos of villas in the 1890s and fragments of glorious old wallpaper, from totally untouched interiors to the most innovative additions.
Finally food editor/cookery writer extraordinaire Lauraine Jacobs, just return
ed from Bali's Ubud Writers & Readers Festival delivered a mouth-watering address on all matters food particularly mentioning the fun experienced as editor of the recently published TREASURY OF NZ BAKING (Random House) with receipes from the best-loved food writers around the country and with royalties going to Breast Cancer Research.
A great day, I almost nodded off on the 35 minuted ferry ride back to Auckland. Next year I hope to be there both days.
There were many other stars on show that evening and the next dayamong them Stanley Palmer, Alex Johnson, Kate de Goldi, Ron Sang, and Selina Tusitala Marsh.
Congratulations to the organisers on a fine first festival.
Left - Richard Wolfe, photo by author/photographer Janet Hunt who also took the photo of Roger Hall above.
And the pic right of artist Stanley Palmer in front of a canvas that
features in his latest title, EAST.
Last week I had the great good fortune to attend The Waiheke Literary Festival an inspiring festival of books including among the speakers a food writer, dramatist, artist and photographer, along with novelists, children’s writers and poets.
This is the firs
t of what organisers hope will be an annual two day event.Among those I heard speak were Richard Wolfe who has a string of books to his credit largely in the area of popular culture. He was most entertaining as Chair John Daly-Peoples led him through a series of questions that provided Wolfe with the ooportunity to talk of his professional life, formerly as a museum curator/designer and more latterly as a full-time writer. he now has 31 titles to his credit and he spoke particularly of his two most recent titles, CRIKEY, Random House 2009, and NEW ZEALAND PORTRAITS, Penguin 2008.
Then it was the turn of former art curator/art historian, critic/writer Christopher Johnstone who spoke about his two latest books and how he went about selecting and sourcing the images, writing the text, and how he was influenced by his life in the arts in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand. Both of these two handsome titles, LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS IN NEW ZEALAND, and THE PAINTED GARDEN, were published by Random House NZ.
So the Festival was off to a good start with these two articulate and interesting writers.
Over a truly superb, long lunch at the wonderful Mudbrick Winery restaurant we were entertained by master playwright Roger Hall (pic right) who answered a series of questions enabling him to ponder o
n the huge success of his many plays, talking about highlights, generational diffreneces, NZ humour and more besides.
Then it was the turn of Jeremy Hansen and Patrick Reynolds, co-author and photographer of the stunning VILLA published to great acclaim recently by Random House, who took us behind the scenes for a look at the process of selecting the homes featured on the book and some of the interesting experiences they had. VILLA is magnificently designed and crammed with photographs of everything from the original photos of villas in the 1890s and fragments of glorious old wallpaper, from totally untouched interiors to the most innovative additions.
Finally food editor/cookery writer extraordinaire Lauraine Jacobs, just return
ed from Bali's Ubud Writers & Readers Festival delivered a mouth-watering address on all matters food particularly mentioning the fun experienced as editor of the recently published TREASURY OF NZ BAKING (Random House) with receipes from the best-loved food writers around the country and with royalties going to Breast Cancer Research.A great day, I almost nodded off on the 35 minuted ferry ride back to Auckland. Next year I hope to be there both days.
There were many other stars on show that evening and the next dayamong them Stanley Palmer, Alex Johnson, Kate de Goldi, Ron Sang, and Selina Tusitala Marsh.
Congratulations to the organisers on a fine first festival.
Left - Richard Wolfe, photo by author/photographer Janet Hunt who also took the photo of Roger Hall above.
And the pic right of artist Stanley Palmer in front of a canvas that
features in his latest title, EAST.
New book explores natural history of Banks Peninsula
A concise and up-to-date summary of the landscape, vegetation and wildlife of the uniqu
e volcanic landform of Banks Peninsula has been published by Canterbury University Press.
Natural History of Banks Peninsula is the work of botanist and conservationist Hugh Wilson and draws on information he gathered during a five-year botanical survey of the peninsula.
The book traces the natural history of the area, including the impact of two waves of human colonisation, and looks at the flora and fauna, geology and ecology of the peninsula today.
The text is accompanied by a range of stunning photographs and a number of the author’s own pen and ink drawings. The book also includes full checklists of species found on the peninsula.
Mr Wilson said the aim of the book was to provide a detailed appreciation of the landscapes, history, plants and animals of the region for local residents, Christchurch citizens and visitors from further away.
He said he hoped the information would appeal for its intrinsic interest as well as helping all sorts of landowners – farmers, life-stylers, conservation trusts, councils, government departments and home gardeners – with land management.
The publication of the book was sponsored by the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust and the Josef Langer Trust.
As well as being a botanist, Mr Wilson is also a reserve manager, writer and artist who has lived and worked for more than 20 years on Hinewai Reserve, a nature reserve on Banks Peninsula that is privately owned and funded but freely open to the public. He has written a number of books on New Zealand’s natural history, including field guides to the plants of Mount Cook National Park and Stewart Island.
A concise and up-to-date summary of the landscape, vegetation and wildlife of the uniqu
e volcanic landform of Banks Peninsula has been published by Canterbury University Press.
Natural History of Banks Peninsula is the work of botanist and conservationist Hugh Wilson and draws on information he gathered during a five-year botanical survey of the peninsula.
The book traces the natural history of the area, including the impact of two waves of human colonisation, and looks at the flora and fauna, geology and ecology of the peninsula today.
The text is accompanied by a range of stunning photographs and a number of the author’s own pen and ink drawings. The book also includes full checklists of species found on the peninsula.
Mr Wilson said the aim of the book was to provide a detailed appreciation of the landscapes, history, plants and animals of the region for local residents, Christchurch citizens and visitors from further away.
He said he hoped the information would appeal for its intrinsic interest as well as helping all sorts of landowners – farmers, life-stylers, conservation trusts, councils, government departments and home gardeners – with land management.
The publication of the book was sponsored by the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust and the Josef Langer Trust.
As well as being a botanist, Mr Wilson is also a reserve manager, writer and artist who has lived and worked for more than 20 years on Hinewai Reserve, a nature reserve on Banks Peninsula that is privately owned and funded but freely open to the public. He has written a number of books on New Zealand’s natural history, including field guides to the plants of Mount Cook National Park and Stewart Island.
NEW ZEALAND POST WRITERS & READERS WEEK
The Festival within the Festival
Around the world attendance at literary festivals is skyrocketing. Writers and readers, in ever increasing numbers, are coming together to share ideas, explore and reflect on the world in which we live.
In 2010 New Zealand Post Writers and Readers Week will bring together some of the most exciting voices in literature, science, philosophy, history, travel writing, genre fiction and children’s literature.
The 19 international and 3 New Zealand writers announced thus far include some of literature’s luminaries as well as tomorrow’s stars. In a programme that will echo the themes of the larger Festival, New Zealand Post Writers and Readers Week will explore the issues surrounding religious tolerance, the consequences of history, our political future, colonisation, troubled families and the thrill of the sinister. All in a 
programme that is as challenging as it is entertaining for readers of every age.
The 2010 line-up includes some of contemporary fiction’s very best writers including literary superstars Neil Gaiman,(pic right), Richard Dawkins and Simon Schama. American novelist Susanna Moore, Pakistani novelist Kamila Shamsie and the phenomenally popular German novelists Daniel Kehlmann and Iliya Troyanov, as well as our own Emily Perkins.
Less well known here in New Zealand, but quickly making names for themselves internationally are Canadian novelists Lisa Moore and Gil Adamson, and Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk. From across the Tasman come two fabulous fiction writers Joan London and Margo Lanagan. Our featured genre writers include Spooks scriptwriter and novelist Neil Cross and Booker Prize short-list writer Sarah Waters.
Poets are always one of the most highly anticipated parts of New Zealand Post Writers and Readers Week, and 2010 will feature three wonderful poets - New Zealand’s own Bill Manhire, Canadian poet and arts journalist Kevin Connolly, and English poet and playwright Glyn Maxwell.
The 2010 non-fiction list includes some of our most controversial and influential thinkers, including the philosopher Peter Singer and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. History plays a major role in the 2010 programme and the Festival is delighted to be hosting both Simon Schama and James Belich. Writers of both nonfiction and fiction are the wonderfully talented Geoff Dyer and Chloe Hooper.
New Zealand Post Writers and Readers Week returns to its home in the Embassy Theatre. New for 2010 are the Town Hall Talks which will feature Richard Dawkins, Simon Schama and Neil Gaiman in conversation. Also new in 2010 is An Afternoon Tea with Sarah Waters.
The New Zealand International Arts Festival is again thrilled to present Once Upon A Deadline, New Zealand’s only writing marathon. This single day, free event will see six writers armed with laptops following a mystery course around the city Googling as they go. Watch out as writers appear in unlikely places, including the writer’s cage. Join 2008 champion David Geary as he defends his title at the Town Hall for the Read-Off.
For the kids Young Writers and Readers Day returns, this time at Capital E with a day-long programme featuring Joy Cowley, Gavin Bishop, Paula Green and Fifi Colston.
The full New Zealand Post Writers and Readers programme will be launched on 26 January 2010 and public sales open on 9 February 2010.
For more information, images and interviews please contact:
Susana Lei’ataua
Media Communications Manager
New Zealand International Arts Festival
Tel: +64-4-473-0149 Mobile: +64-27-331-1242
Email: susana.leiataua@festival.co.nz
Move Over Vampires – and Welcome to Mummies and Cavemen!
A scary Egyptian mummy, wild haired cave girls, a band of rockabilly hobos and local celebrities mixed and mingled with a crowd of devoted young fans and some impressive dinosaur bones at the launch of Jill Marshall’s two new books for children last Sunday. The much-loved author of the bestselling Jane Blonde series has just published a wacky picture book called Kave-Tina Rox for pre-schoolers and a spooky adventure story called Doghead for readers aged 8 to 14.
Given that dinosaurs and cave children feature in Kave-Tina Rox while a host of bizarre ancient Egyptian gods and monsters appear in Doghead, the Origins Gallery at the Auckland Museum on the night of November 1, was the ideal venue for this thrilling launch. Indeed it was difficult to know who was more excited to be a private guest at the museum after dark - the many children who were invited to come along, or the eager parents who accompanied them.
The lucky guests
were treated to readings from Doghead and Kave-Tina Rox by another dynamic duo, Michael Hurst and Jennifer Ward-Lealand, while musical entertainment was provided by Hobo, definitely a band with a future given that none of its members are even in high school yet.
HEATHER MCKENZIE
Jane Harris said...
Jane Harris said...
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Neil is tremendously thankful for the love and support that is surrounding him — and for stories about Heather.
Her funeral will be at 11.00am on Friday at Old St Paul's in Wellington (gather for 10.30). Neil would like people to bring a garden flower for Heather's casket.
There is also an online page for Heather where people can leave messages about Heather and for Neil if they would like to:
www.tributes.co.nz
Longacre Press sells to Random House
Random House NZ has purchased the award winning Dunedin-based publisher Longacre Press. Publisher Barbara Larson will remain based in Dunedin as a roving commissioner for Random House.
Longacre will become an imprint within Random House NZ’s local publishing division, joining Godwit another quality local imprint. As Annette Riley, Longacre’s Publicity and Marketing Manager, is due to retire at the end of November, the publicity and marketing functions will from then on be resourced from within Random House’s current team.
Longacre Press is regarded by the booktrade as a respected publisher of quality books, and has received many awards and accolades for their work. This was reflected at the 2009 Industry Awards when booksellers voted Longacre Press as runner up (to Random House) in the Publisher of the Year Awards. In May 2009 Longacre’s book The 10pm Question by Kate de Goldi won the NZ Post Children’s Book of the Year Award, and later had the distinction of winning not only the Readers’ Choice Award at the Montana NZ Book Awards, but was also joint runner up for the Montana Fiction Award along with another Longacre book, Bernard Beckett’s Acid Song.
Soon after Longacre was established in 1994 the company published the landmark book Timeless Land and went on to develop a strong young adult list; a significant and diverse non fiction list including commercial successes such as Hurricane Tim –The Story of Sir Tim Wallis by Neville Peat, and Josh Kronfeld’s autobiography On the Loose. More recently Genesis a novel by Bernard Beckett has achieved widespread international recognition, rights having been sold to more than twenty-five countries.
The sale reflects Longacre principals Barbara Larson and Annette Riley’s desire to secure a long term home for the Longacre authors and their books. Barbara Larson said, “With Annette’s retirement it was time to think about a succession plan. Random House understands the values of Longacre and our publishing focus. Random House was the obvious purchaser as they were acting as our sales and distribution agent, and already had a part investment in the company.”
Karen Ferns, Random House NZ’s Managing Director said, “I have huge respect for what Annette and Barbara have achieved as independent publishers backed by their hardworking team. Longacre’s list of books is testimony to the breadth and quality of the Longacre Press publishing range. I have also long admired the energy, verve and care that Longacre have given to their authors and their books. Random House intends to ensure those qualities are reflected in our ongoing stewardship of those relationships, and in our use of the Longacre name.”
Annette Riley said, “I am extremely proud of our books and their authors, our staff, our southern heritage, and what has been achieved over the 15 years of Longacre’s operation. I find it hard to think of a more interesting career.”
Karen Ferns
Managing Director
Random House NZ
09 444 7197 021 606 414
Barbara Larson
Publisher
Longacre Press
03 477 2911 021 577 291
Annette Riley
Publicity and Marketing Manager
Longacre Press
03 477 2911
Amazon.co.uk reveals top 100 titles for 2009 03.11.09 Graeme Neill in The Bookseller
A title promoting the benefits of growing one's own pharmaceuticals and two of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy are among Amazon.co.uk's bestselling new releases of 2009 so far.
In a top 100 
revealed on its website, Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol unsurprisingly sits at number one. However, the top 10 is an eclectic mix of books including a title about cupcake cookery, a work of fiction from one of the Big Beasts and Booker winner Wolf Hall.
Larsson's conclusion to the Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, is the second bestselling new release with his previous book, The Girl Who Played With Fire, at number seven. James Wong's Grow Your Own Drugs rounds out the top three.
While it has only been on sale since the start of October, Terry Pratchett's Unseen Academicals sold enough copies to get it into Amazon.co.uk's top 10.
Amazon.co.uk also reveals the 10 most watched book videos, with Nigel Slater's Tender ahead of Dead Until Dark: A True Blood Novel by Charlaine Harris, the first in Harris' "TrueBlood" series.
The top 10 "2009" bestsellers:
1. Dan Brown - The Lost Symbol (Bantam)
2. Stieg Larrson - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Quercus)
3. James Wong - Grow Your Own Drugs (HarperCollins)
4. Anthony Beevor - D-Day (Viking)
5. Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate)
6. Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals (Doubleday)
7. Stieg Larrson - The Girl Who Played with Fire (Quercus)
8. Rick Stein - Far Eastern Odyssey (BBC Books)
9. Wilbur Smith - Assegai (Macmillan)
10. Tarek Malouf - The Hummingbird Bakery's Cookbook (Ryland, Peters and Small)
The top 10 most watched book videos:
1. Tender by Nigel Slater
2. Dead Until Dark: A True Blood Novel by Charlaine Harris
3. Flanimals Pop-Up by Ricky Gervais
4. Simon's Cat by Simon Tofield
5. And Another Thing by Eoin Colfer
6. The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell
7. The Atheist's Guide to Christmas by Ariane Sherine
8. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
9. The Brightest Star in the Sky by Marian Keyes
10. The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain by Si King and Dave Myers
In Praise of The Chambers Dictionary
From Shelf Awareness:On the occasion of the closing of publisher Chambers Harrap, Scotland native Robin Dunn, director of the St. John's College Bookstore, Annapolis, Md., wrote:
In my more tender years, there must have been at least three dozen sizable publishers in Edinburgh (and more in Glasgow, not least the pre-Harper/Murdoch Collins). There was much wailing and anguish when Chambers lost its independence (even if it was to the French rather than to "the neighbours.") Now this. As was famously said at the time of the loss of the country's political independence in 1707, it's "the end o’ a lang sang."
Fortunately, the abyss left by the departed has been shrinking, thanks notably to Canongate (founded in 1973) and Mainstream (1978).
The Chambers Dictionary is the bestselling English-language dictionary at SJC Bookstore. If you suspect nationalist-inspired handselling, by the way, you'd be wrong. It's because the word got out long ago that it's simply THE best. Why? Well, I could spout off about comprehensiveness, layout, presentation of examples and pronunciation and so forth. In all those respects it's excellent--but the biggest reason is that (so to speak) it converses with English as an entire family, rather than selecting just one of its members to interview. Thus, Chambers offers standard "British" English--which mostly means English English--cheek by jowl with U.S., Australian, Caribbean, Scots, Canadian, South African, New Zealand, Irish and other variations of usage and spelling. Such versatility makes it uniquely useful among dictionaries.
After Playing Games, iPhone Gets Serious about Books
From Flurry
The iPhone is a versatile multi-media device that has already significantly impacted th
e business models of music, games and other Media & Entertainment industry categories. In particular, since Apple launched the App Store in July 2008, game developers have flocked to the iPhone, creating an alternative for consumers to the leading handheld gaming platform, Nintendo DS. In Nintendo's October 29 earnings call, the company cited iPhone competition against its DS as one of the reasons profits fell by more than half last quarter, from 133 billion yen a year prior to 64 billion yen, or $709 million.
To predict which sector of Media & Entertainment iPhone might next impact, Flurry researched the number of applications released to the App Store, by category, since its inception. From August 2008 to August 2009, more apps were released in the Games category than any other. This September, however, we observed another category, Books, usurping Games for the first time ever. To illustrate the surge in the supply of books to the App Store, the chart below compares the number of books and games released to the App Store per month, over the last four months, as a percentage of all released applications.
The full piece at Flurry.
HarperCollins and Skype team up to host first ’virtual’ world author tour with International bestselling author Cecelia Ahern
WEBWIRE – 
Monday, November 02, 2009
Monday, November 02, 2009LONDON - This November HarperCollins and Skype have created an innovative world first event - ’Cecelia Ahern’s Virtual World Tour’ - to promote the publication of her latest novels, The Book of Tomorrow and The Gift, across the globe. Cecelia, one of the UK’s best selling authors, who wrote PS: I Love You which was made into a highly successful Hollywood movie, will join events around the world via Skype video.
Unable to embark on her regular worldwide promotional tours this year due the arrival of her first baby this autumn, HarperCollins and Skype are bringing Cecelia together with her fans through real-time Skype video. Cecelia will join events live from her home in Dublin and will appear on screens at selected retailers in central city locations. Events will range from celebrity-hosted evenings to invite-only retailer events. Fans will be able to speak to Cecelia and buy pre-signed copies of her new books. The tour kicks off with an event at the new Liverpool Waterstones store on Friday 13th November with further events scheduled in Frankfurt, Johannesburg, Sydney and Singapore.
Cecelia Ahern has sold 12 million books in over 48 countries in only five years. At 28, she is one of the biggest success stories in commercial fiction. She is also the creator of the successful TV drama series, Samantha Who?
Kate Fitzpatrick, Digital Marketing Manager says: "Our partnership with Skype has given Cecelia a fantastic opportunity to reach her fans in all corners of the globe at a time when she is unable to travel. As a first truly international PR event for HarperCollins the use of Skype has proved that distance doesn’t have to be a barrier for fans to engage and interact with their favourite authors"
"Skype is delighted to make it possible for Cecelia to connect in a meaningful way with her fans even though she can’t be with them in person" said Jonathan Watson, Skype’s marketing manager. "We hope this is first of many virtual book tours we will facilitate with Harper Collins"
The full story at Webwire.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
“The Help,” a novel about the relationships between African-American maids and their white employers in 1960s Mississippi, has the classic elements of a crowd pleaser: it features several feisty women enmeshed in a page-turning plot, clear villains and a bit of a history lesson.
Kathryn Stockett, author of the popular novel “The Help.” by Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times
An Excerpt From 'The Help' (penguingroup.com) The book, a debut novel by Kathryn Stockett, also comes with a back story that is a publishing dream come true: at first rejected by nearly 50 agents, the manuscript was scooped up by an imprint of Penguin and pushed aggressively to booksellers, who fell in love with it. Since it came out in February, “The Help” has been embraced by book clubs and bloggers who can’t stop recommending it to their friends.
All of which helps explain why “The Help” — which some enthusiasts have compared to Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” — has maintained a tenacious hold close to the top of several best-seller lists, despite one of the strongest seasons for big-name authors in recent memory. Amid blockbusters from the likes of Dan Brown, Michael Connelly, Patricia Cornwell and Nicholas Sparks, Ms. Stockett has stayed within the Top 5 on The New York Times Hardcover Fiction Best-Seller list since August.
“It is running and it’s going to continue to run,” said Vivienne L. Jennings, co-owner of Rainy Day Books, an independent bookstore in Fairview, Kan.
According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of retail sales, “The Help” has sold 445,000 copies in hardcover. At Barnes & Noble, the country’s largest retail bookstore chain, Sessalee Hensley, the chain’s fiction buyer, said the number of copies sold per week had grown steadily since August. “I think it’s completely word of mouth,” she said.
The publisher, Amy Einhorn Books, an imprint of Penguin Group USA, has delayed the publication of a paperback edition next year from February to June. “It’s really hit a nerve,” said Ms. Einhorn, whose imprint started off with “The Help” as its inaugural title. “People are passionate about this book.”
The novel features three narrators. Two are black housekeepers, Aibileen and Minny, who work for white families in Jackson; the third is Skeeter, a young white woman who aspires to be a writer and break free of the Junior League expectations of her childhood friends (one of whom employs Aibileen) and her starchy mother.
Skeeter desperately wants to impress an editor at a publishing house in New York with a book idea, and gradually persuades the maids to talk about working for white families at a time when merely telling the truth put them in enormous jeopardy.
With its intimate portrayals of the maids’ relationships with their employers and the children they care for, “The Help” appeals to readers who feel they are getting a behind-the-scenes peek into a dark period in the country’s history.
Read the full story at NYT.| A Cautionary Tale about POD
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| Bonus Material: Is Xlibris Profiting More from Selling Publicity than Printing?
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Over the years, how many people have read Joan Didion’s po
inted, moody, celebrated essays and come to New York in the hope of writing some of their own? The path of those would-be writers is patently stubborn, given the tone Ms. Didion (pic right) strikes in the essay so many name as their favorite, “Goodbye to All That.” It is a famous elegy for the passing of youth, but also a catalog of Manhattan’s enervating clichés, and, implicitly, a rejection of the New York literary scene she inhabited.
I went back and reread the essay the other day because the title, final and nostalgic, has been reverberating through my mind on a regular basis. I hear it, for example, every time I go to a party and run into a writer or editor I admire who has recently been laid off. So many people in the world of book and magazine publishing greet every such piece of news with a flash back to 12 or 20 years ago. Back then, if anyone with a flair for stringing sentences together lost a job, it was a given that he would land quickly on his feet at an online publication or a small publishing house. But now, goodbye to all that. I have the same thought when some 22-year-old wants help placing a 6,000-word article: Goodbye to all that. When old friends and colleagues from the industry meet up at some sort of gathering, we look at each other and laugh and shrug and marvel at the changing landscape. We mourn more seriously in private.
At Condé Nast, editors are grappling with 25 percent budget cuts and the closing of beloved magazine titles; at Forbes, a quarter of the editorial staff will lose their jobs; Time Inc. has also announced deep cuts that will surely mean another round of layoffs. Newspapers, including this one, are shedding jobs, too, but it is the world of magazines and publishing houses that constitutes a culture specific to New York. Some of those magazines, and some of those houses, will survive the crisis. That culture of living well off the exchange of ideas, most likely, will not.
Part of what is gone, perhaps appropriately, is the glittering, gluttonous self-indulgence — content that took itself too seriously, or associate market editors who did the same, a bad case of the press believing its own press.
The financials always seemed a bit unhinged. Not only was I lucky enough to be paid, just a few years out of college, to think and write and opine for a few well-read magazines, I was encouraged to dine out as much as possible, and expense it — it was my job to capture the mood of what was hot around town. I remember a colleague who once prepared for a business trip by sending a company messenger over to a friend’s office to pick up an Ambien. In the early ’90s, editorial assistants at Condé Nast could get reimbursed for lunches they ate at their desks — and we did, right up to the $15 limit, sneaking in enough sushi to save for dinner. Some magazines were even documents of that particular literary, luxurious world, letting the reader peek into the tasteful Cobble Hill homes of the editors or read essays about the dilemma of a writer in love, a writer, of course, in New York.
But what is lost, along with a lot of image packaging, is that expansive home for good writing. Philip Roth recently predicted, in The Guardian of London, that in 25 years, the number of people reading novels would be akin to the numbers now reading Latin poetry; it will be a curiosity, certainly not a profit center. This is painful gospel for anyone who reads Philip Roth, or other great writers, the way other people read religious texts — to make sense of the world, to be humbled or inspired by the power of language.Read the full text at NYT.
Thanks to author Lauraine Jacobs for bringing this article to my attention.
What’s hot on iPhone? Books, books, books!
By Marjorie Kehe | 11.02.09, writing in The Christian Science Monitor
It is up to you, of course: You can use your iPhone to hone your Skee-Ball skills or you can re-read “Persuasion”. But don’t assume that iPhones are mostly about games. Last month one out of every five new iPhone and iPod touch applications launched in Apple’s App Store were book-related. 
In fact, book applications for iPhone exceeded the popularity of games apps in the last four months, according to a report by market research firm Flurry. (Meanwhile, Flurry says, games slipped to about 13 percent of new iPhone applications released last month, down from 117 percent in July 2009.)
The report goes on to say that reading books on iPhones is becoming so popular that Amazon, maker of the Kindle, may need to watch its back. According to the folks at Flurry, the iPhone is quickly gaining ground as the e-book reader of choice for many and could steal market share from Amazon’s Kindle.
Amazon has yet to release sales figures for its Kindle, but it’s been estimated that about 3 million of the e-readers will be sold in the US in 2009. According to Flurry, in August, 1 percent of the entire US population (about 300 million) was reading a book on the iPhone.
Whether you prefer the big screen (the Kindle’s is about 6 inches) or the small (you know what an iPhone looks like), that’s a lot of readers already opting for e-books.
Marjorie Kehe is the Monitor’s book editor. You can follow her on Twitter at twitter.com/MarjorieKehe.
John Z. Robinson, Dymocks Booksellers in Three Lamps, Ponsonby, Auckland and Longacre Press invite you to help celebrate the launch of
RED STUDIO6.00 to 7.00 pm on Tuesday 24th November
Dymocks, 344 Ponsonby Road,
Three Lamps, Auckland.
‘Lino printing is a simple procedure, a kind of
stamp-making that is no more sophisticated than a potato cut. This simplicity appeals
to me.’ John Z Robinson
Light refreshments will be served.