Photo - Bettman/Corbis.
Friday, March 30, 2007
BEATRIX POTTER - A JOURNAL
Penguin Books - NZ $39.95
Following our viewing of the movie, Miss Potter, which I wrote about last week, Annie bought me a copy of this most attractive and appealing book which I have read and enjoyed and added to my collection of books by and about Beatrix Potter.
Sorry about the colours which are quite different and much nicer on the actual book than those shown in this image.
The large hardback book, (great value at this price), is filled with facsimile reproductions of letters, diary and journal entries and cards in BP's handwriting. Many of them you can actually open out and set into the back inside cover of the Journal is a complete edition of "The Tale of Peter Rabbit".
The Baubles of Office
This massive tome (600 pages + DVD) from Victoria University Press tells more than most of us will ever want to know about the New Zealand General Election of 2005.
But if you are a political science student or work in politics then clearly the book is absolutely essential reading.
Liberally sprinkled with graphs and maps, detailed indices, appendices and notes and with a most impressive array of contributors it is a superb piece of academic publishing. Although, having said that, I would have to say as a layman that much of the book is readily accessible and indeed some parts are totally fascinating. I especially enjoyed the contributions from Jane Clifton and Kathryn Ryan as well as Pita Sharples' summary of the Maori Party situation.
Here is the copy from the back cover of the book which I think is a fair summary without too much of the puffery that publishers often employ.
“The Baubles of Office” is the story of a cliff-hanger election, New Zealand’s closest yet under MMP. For nearly two weeks no one knew who had won, Labour or National. On election night it was Don Brash who was cheerful and elated, Helen Clark who seemed grim and shaken. New Zealand acquired a government only when Winston Peters ignored a last-minute written appeal from the leaders of four other parties to come to a meeting to agree on terms. Instead, he met with Helen Clark and became the country’s Foreign Minister – accepting ‘the baubles of office’ that he had so openly disdained in a major campaign address.
The contributors to this book include political party strategists from all of the parties elected to Parliament. Rodney Hide, upset victor in Epsom in 2005, tells how it was done. Media personalities, including Radio New Zealand’s Kathryn Ryan, describe what it was like covering a campaign where the likely winner changed with every new poll. New Members of Parliament – the Maori Party’s Pita Sharples and Labour’s Shane Jones – speak about their first campaigns, successful beginnings to new political careers. Listener and Dominion Post political columnist Jane Clifton provides her usual witty and insightful observations, describing MPs both new and old, brought into Parliament by the 2005 election.
The book includes first-hand accounts of the campaign from United Future’s Peter Dunne and Labour Cabinet Minister Steve Maharey, new Green Party leader Russel Norman, and the National Party’s campaign manager Steven Joyce. Academic commentators frequently seen on New Zealand television – including Therese Arseneau (TV3), Jon Johansson (TV One; Sky TV), Colin James (TV One) and Nigel Roberts (TV One) – offer their perspectives on aspects of the campaign, including National’s mischievous use of billboards, the involvement of the Exclusive Brethren and Don Brash’s use of rhetoric on sensitive Treaty issues.
The book is distinctive as it includes a special DVD containing a package of the campaign’s audio-visual highlights. These include excerpts from the televised party leaders’ debates as well as the leaders’ opening night campaign addresses. The DVD also exposes New Zealand political parties’ advertising and marketing strategies, with excerpts from TV ads from the 1999 and 2002 campaigns as well as from 2005. The DVD also includes photographs of many of the party billboards used during the campaign, including those of the National Party (on which the cover design is based).
ISBN 0 86473 539 1 (ISBN 13 9780864735393)Paperback includes DVD600pp, 210mm x 148mm $49.95
This massive tome (600 pages + DVD) from Victoria University Press tells more than most of us will ever want to know about the New Zealand General Election of 2005.
But if you are a political science student or work in politics then clearly the book is absolutely essential reading.
Liberally sprinkled with graphs and maps, detailed indices, appendices and notes and with a most impressive array of contributors it is a superb piece of academic publishing. Although, having said that, I would have to say as a layman that much of the book is readily accessible and indeed some parts are totally fascinating. I especially enjoyed the contributions from Jane Clifton and Kathryn Ryan as well as Pita Sharples' summary of the Maori Party situation.
Here is the copy from the back cover of the book which I think is a fair summary without too much of the puffery that publishers often employ.
“The Baubles of Office” is the story of a cliff-hanger election, New Zealand’s closest yet under MMP. For nearly two weeks no one knew who had won, Labour or National. On election night it was Don Brash who was cheerful and elated, Helen Clark who seemed grim and shaken. New Zealand acquired a government only when Winston Peters ignored a last-minute written appeal from the leaders of four other parties to come to a meeting to agree on terms. Instead, he met with Helen Clark and became the country’s Foreign Minister – accepting ‘the baubles of office’ that he had so openly disdained in a major campaign address.
The contributors to this book include political party strategists from all of the parties elected to Parliament. Rodney Hide, upset victor in Epsom in 2005, tells how it was done. Media personalities, including Radio New Zealand’s Kathryn Ryan, describe what it was like covering a campaign where the likely winner changed with every new poll. New Members of Parliament – the Maori Party’s Pita Sharples and Labour’s Shane Jones – speak about their first campaigns, successful beginnings to new political careers. Listener and Dominion Post political columnist Jane Clifton provides her usual witty and insightful observations, describing MPs both new and old, brought into Parliament by the 2005 election.
The book includes first-hand accounts of the campaign from United Future’s Peter Dunne and Labour Cabinet Minister Steve Maharey, new Green Party leader Russel Norman, and the National Party’s campaign manager Steven Joyce. Academic commentators frequently seen on New Zealand television – including Therese Arseneau (TV3), Jon Johansson (TV One; Sky TV), Colin James (TV One) and Nigel Roberts (TV One) – offer their perspectives on aspects of the campaign, including National’s mischievous use of billboards, the involvement of the Exclusive Brethren and Don Brash’s use of rhetoric on sensitive Treaty issues.
The book is distinctive as it includes a special DVD containing a package of the campaign’s audio-visual highlights. These include excerpts from the televised party leaders’ debates as well as the leaders’ opening night campaign addresses. The DVD also exposes New Zealand political parties’ advertising and marketing strategies, with excerpts from TV ads from the 1999 and 2002 campaigns as well as from 2005. The DVD also includes photographs of many of the party billboards used during the campaign, including those of the National Party (on which the cover design is based).
ISBN 0 86473 539 1 (ISBN 13 9780864735393)Paperback includes DVD600pp, 210mm x 148mm $49.95
THE PESTHOUSE by Jim Crace Macmillan Hardcover NZ$50.00
“Everybody died at night.”
This is the opening sentence of Jim Crace’s haunting new novel due for release in New Zealand on 9 May.
“Everybody died at night.”
This is the opening sentence of Jim Crace’s haunting new novel due for release in New Zealand on 9 May.
A cloud of toxic gas arrives from the depths of a nearby lake to wipe out the entire community of Ferrytown.
One is immediately arrested
Like The Road by Cormac McCarthy, reviewed on my blog earlier this month, The Pesthouse is set in a post-apocalyptic America. Set perhaps 500 or more years into the future the country has entered a dangerous, primitive dark age following an unspecified catastrophe. Written language has gone and a plague of some sort has swept the land causing the population to flee eastwards with a view to reaching the coast and hopefully passage to a better life in some distant place.
The two protagonists, Margaret and Franklin are beautifully drawn as they struggle to survive in a truly awful place, an America beyond any recognition. In a strange sort of way the novel is a love story, the love that develops between these two unusual but appealing characters.
This is a beautifully crafted, deeply disturbing and intense novel that will stay with me for some time to come.
For another view here is Peter Bradshaw’s review that appeared in New Statesman issue of 5 March .
Crace has won many awards including the Whitbread Novel of the Year, US National Book Critics Circle Award, E.M.Fortser Award, the Guardian Fiction Prize and has been shortlisted for the Booker.
Jim Crace’s website can be accessed with this link.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Gordon loaned me a back copy of the VQR - The Virginia Quarterly Review - which has as a sub-title - A National Journal of Literature & Discussion at the University of Virginia.
He has subscribed to it for some while but somehow in all these years of being around literature it has never crossed my screen. Well that will be different from now on, I am so impressed with it I'm signing up for a subscription.
Use this link to have a look at their website and you'll understand my excitement.
Click on above to go to this story from The Independent.
I must admit I have trouble not thinking of him as David Brent from The Office !
Here is the BBC site on Ricky Gervais.
The pic above comes from the same BBC website.
THE STEEP APPROACH TO GARBADALE
Iain Banks Sphere NZ$37.00
Iain Banks is rated as one of the great contemporary British writers. He is 53 years of age but has a raft of books to his credit. He writes literary fiction, and The Steep Approach to Garbadale fits into that category, it is his 12th literary fiction novel, and then he writes Science Fiction under the name Iain M. Banks and he has 9 books published in this genre, 6 of which deal with a vast interstellar civilization, the Culture, which I gather has a huge following although not being a sci fi reader I can’t comment on that.
He has also written a work of non-fiction, Raw Spirit, a travelogue of Scotland and its whiskey distilleries.
So he is prolific, accomplished and well-regarded in literary circles.
The central character of this new book is 35 year old Alban McGill. He belongs to the very wealthy Wopuld family who have made a fortune over several generations as the manufacturers of the UK’s best-selling board game, Empire.
He has severed all links with his extensive and wealthy family but as the novel opens he has been tracked down by his cousin Feilding in Perth, (Perth Scotland I hasten to add not Perth, Australia). Feilding informs him that the family firm is the subject of an unwelcome takeover bid from an American firm and persuades him to return to the family fold and help him fight the sale of the company.
We then have a series of flashbacks between Alban’s life as a child and teenager growing up in both Scotland and England and the present – we learn of his thwarted teenage love affair with his beautiful cousin Sophie, which he has never really got over, the mysterious suicide by drowning of his mother. The description of that suicide by the way is superbly written and is Iain Banks at his very best.
Banks also provides Alban with an opportunity to tell the Americans just what he thinks of their government’s foreign policy. Near the end of the novel while attending a meeting which is to decide whether or not to sell he tells them that “the USA is a great country full of great people. It’s just their propensity as a whole for electing idiots and then conducting a foreign policy of the utmost depravity.” He also has a go at their support of President Musharaff in Pakistan.
One has to remember that in 2004 Banks was one of a group of politicians and prominent media figures in the UK that tried to have Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
He subsequently cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. He has given his protagonist Alban in The Steep Approach to Garbadale the same sort of political beliefs.
For me this novel is something of a curate’s egg – there is some great characterization, especially of Alban’s great aunts and grandmother, occasional flashes of the pub humour for which he is famous, and there is the stunning first person suicide account but there are also places where the story rambles off on tangents and several times I found my mind wandering away from the book, and then there is the tendency for speechifying, there are two pages of his tirade against US imperialism. In the end the central figure of Alban, although affable and appealing is somewhat unconvincing.
The novel is 400 pages, a big read and in the end I was glad to finish it so I could start on something else.
Iain Banks Sphere NZ$37.00
Iain Banks is rated as one of the great contemporary British writers. He is 53 years of age but has a raft of books to his credit. He writes literary fiction, and The Steep Approach to Garbadale fits into that category, it is his 12th literary fiction novel, and then he writes Science Fiction under the name Iain M. Banks and he has 9 books published in this genre, 6 of which deal with a vast interstellar civilization, the Culture, which I gather has a huge following although not being a sci fi reader I can’t comment on that.
He has also written a work of non-fiction, Raw Spirit, a travelogue of Scotland and its whiskey distilleries.
So he is prolific, accomplished and well-regarded in literary circles.
The central character of this new book is 35 year old Alban McGill. He belongs to the very wealthy Wopuld family who have made a fortune over several generations as the manufacturers of the UK’s best-selling board game, Empire.
He has severed all links with his extensive and wealthy family but as the novel opens he has been tracked down by his cousin Feilding in Perth, (Perth Scotland I hasten to add not Perth, Australia). Feilding informs him that the family firm is the subject of an unwelcome takeover bid from an American firm and persuades him to return to the family fold and help him fight the sale of the company.
We then have a series of flashbacks between Alban’s life as a child and teenager growing up in both Scotland and England and the present – we learn of his thwarted teenage love affair with his beautiful cousin Sophie, which he has never really got over, the mysterious suicide by drowning of his mother. The description of that suicide by the way is superbly written and is Iain Banks at his very best.
Banks also provides Alban with an opportunity to tell the Americans just what he thinks of their government’s foreign policy. Near the end of the novel while attending a meeting which is to decide whether or not to sell he tells them that “the USA is a great country full of great people. It’s just their propensity as a whole for electing idiots and then conducting a foreign policy of the utmost depravity.” He also has a go at their support of President Musharaff in Pakistan.
One has to remember that in 2004 Banks was one of a group of politicians and prominent media figures in the UK that tried to have Tony Blair impeached following the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
He subsequently cut up his passport and posted it to 10 Downing Street. He has given his protagonist Alban in The Steep Approach to Garbadale the same sort of political beliefs.
For me this novel is something of a curate’s egg – there is some great characterization, especially of Alban’s great aunts and grandmother, occasional flashes of the pub humour for which he is famous, and there is the stunning first person suicide account but there are also places where the story rambles off on tangents and several times I found my mind wandering away from the book, and then there is the tendency for speechifying, there are two pages of his tirade against US imperialism. In the end the central figure of Alban, although affable and appealing is somewhat unconvincing.
The novel is 400 pages, a big read and in the end I was glad to finish it so I could start on something else.
Photo of Iain Banks by Neil Hanna for Scotland on Sunday.
Iain Banks has an extensive website which can be found via this link.
I reviewed this book today for Radio New Zealand National.
OPRAH PICKS "THE ROAD"
Oprah has announced her long awaited book club pick and it is Cormac McCarthy's bleak, apocalyptic novel that I blogged here on 15 March.
Oprah has announced her long awaited book club pick and it is Cormac McCarthy's bleak, apocalyptic novel that I blogged here on 15 March.
The reclusive McCarthy is reported to have agreed to do his first television interview ever with Winfrey.
Pic from Wikipedia entry on the author.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
SIMON O'NEILL SCORES STUNNING REVIEW IN THE AUSTRALIAN
New Zealand tenor Simon O'Neill received a rave review for his concert performance in Adelaide last Saturday evening.
Chris Else, Bookman
Back on Feb 22 I reviewed Chris Else's latest novel, Black Earth White Bones.
Else is a blogger himself and his site can be found at www.ventiak.com . He posted a blog a few days back which he called the Mr.Pip phenomenon which is generating some discussion.
Back on Feb 22 I reviewed Chris Else's latest novel, Black Earth White Bones.
Else is a blogger himself and his site can be found at www.ventiak.com . He posted a blog a few days back which he called the Mr.Pip phenomenon which is generating some discussion.
IN CHAINS - MAJOR UK BOOKSELLERS IN A BIND
Interesting story from the Guardian.......................
Interesting story from the Guardian.......................
CHANCE OF A HAPPY ENDING FOR BORDERS
This from the Guardian online http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2042004,00.html...............
This from the Guardian online http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2042004,00.html...............
BORDERS TO SELL NZ STORES
The New Zealand Herald carries this story today.
Borders booksops in NZ are up for sale but its not known if they will close or continue to operate under new ownership.
The New Zealand Herald carries this story today.
Borders booksops in NZ are up for sale but its not known if they will close or continue to operate under new ownership.
This news comes as something of a surprise considering Borders are to open their 4th NZ store at Auckland's Sylvia Park complex tomorrow.
Their other stores are in Queen St, Auckland, Lambton Quay, Wellington and the Riccarton Mall in Christchurch.
Watch this space.
Their other stores are in Queen St, Auckland, Lambton Quay, Wellington and the Riccarton Mall in Christchurch.
Watch this space.
Photo of Jim Dale from his home page where I learned that according to the Guinness Book of Records he holds the first six places in the 10 biggest selling audio books with his recordings of the first six Harry Potter titles. Soon he will hold the top 7 places I guess.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
I wonder where the initiative might come from to create NZ's first Book Town, something along the lines of Sedberg.
Pic shows Sleepy Elephant Bookshop, Sedberg.
WARNER BOOKS ANNOUNCES CHANGE OF NAME
When Hachette Livre bought Warner Books from Time Warner part of the deal was they had to change the name of the company. The New York Times reports today on the new name. Pic by Pietr Redinski for the NYT shows publisher Jamie Raab in the office she will be leaving behind. She joined Warner Books in 1986 as a senior editor and was appointed publisher in 1997.The Warner imprint has been around since 1970.
R.I.P. Warner Books.
And this on the subject from Writers Write.
COMPLETE GUIDE TO BOOK TOWNS
If you are a bookseller or author or publisher or librarian and are planning to visit the U.K. then incorporate some of these destinations suggested by the Independent and your trip may be tax deductible?
TOLKEIN JNR COMPLETES LORD OF THE RINGS
The first new Tolkein novel in 30 years will be published on 17 April and fans world-wide will be lining up to buy a copy. This story from The Independent.
Notes discovered in his papers long after J.R.R.Tolkein's death have now been developed into the fourth book in the Lord of the Rings sequence by Christopher Tolkein, The Children of Hurin , Harper Collins NZ$50
Harper Collins hope to release the book here on the international publication date of 17 April..
Pic. of J.R.R.Tolkein from Wikipedia.
Monday, March 26, 2007
the ghost in my family
Ian McEwan talks to Bryan Appleyard of the Sunday Times about the dramatic news of his secret brother, a story uncannily like one of his novels. Photo - Sunday Times.
Bryan Appleyard, a freelance journalist and widely published author himself has his own website.
Just looking at my current copy I see it is the 54th edition of the De Luxe Edition first published in 1955. Of course the very first edition appeared way back before World War One in 1907 and since then more than three million copies have been sold.The word icon is widley over-used but I think it is fair to describe this remarkable book in that way.
Now you can read the 1914 edition courtesy of the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre at Wellington's Victoria University.
Many of the recipes have long gone out of fashion but I was amused by this little ditty:
Do you love me? said the cup to the custard.
I'm just brimming up in you replied the custard.
You sweet thing answered the cup.
Delightful.
Which was followed by this little homily : A Golden Rule - hold fast to that which is good.
If you would like to view the 1914 edition click on this link.
IS IT THE END FOR BOOKS?
This story appears today in the New Zealand Herald "The Business" weekly supplement. It was originally published in current issue The Economist under the heading " the future of books - not bound by anything".
The artwork above, by Daniel Pudles, is also from The Economist.Use this link to read the whole story but take solace from the final paragraph which reads as follows:
....... anthologies of short stories and poems, like longer novels, are
unlikely to disappear. People want to be guided by others. They also want media suitable for unhurried reading in beds and bathtubs and on beaches. Above all, they want paper books for what digitisation is revealing them to be. Books are not primary artefacts, nor necessarily vehicles for ideas. Rather, as Godin puts it, they are "souvenirs on the way we felt" when we read something. That is
something people are likely to go on buying.
unlikely to disappear. People want to be guided by others. They also want media suitable for unhurried reading in beds and bathtubs and on beaches. Above all, they want paper books for what digitisation is revealing them to be. Books are not primary artefacts, nor necessarily vehicles for ideas. Rather, as Godin puts it, they are "souvenirs on the way we felt" when we read something. That is
something people are likely to go on buying.
LOVE WITHOUT HOPE – Rodney Hall Picador NZ$26
"Madness is the theme of Australian eminent man of letters Rodney Hall’s latest which made it an especially appropriate book for me to read right now having just finished Sebastian Faulk’s “Human Traces” which also has running through it the theme of madness and its treatment.
There are however two major differences in these two fine novels.
The Faulks is set in the latter days of the 19th century and tells the story of two doctors working in the psychiatric world while the Hall is set in the 1980’s where the protagonist is a patient in a mental hospital. So you might say the stories are told from opposite sides of the bed.
Love Without Hope is a beautifully written story and by Hall’s standards is most accessible. It tells the story of Lorna Shoddy and the plot revolves around whether or not she will escape the asylum and return to claim her farm and her beloved horses.
In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald Hall said he asked himself what he would do if he were incarcerated in a mental institution at someone else’s whim and malicious intention. If you were not insane to begin with, surely you would become so under such circumstances. The line between sanity and insanity can be, after all, very fragile. One could easily topple over from one side into the other.
It happened to someone he knew in Brisbane in the 1970’s, “she had been missing for some years, then she told me her husband had done it to her. She was only in her 30’s, the idea started me thinking”.
From these ideas Hall has crafted a very fine literary novel. Disturbing at times, often actually, but always with a great sense of hope running through it we read of
small-town malice and the greed of several of its inhabitants leading to the incarceration of Lorna and of her desperate efforts to be freed.
Hall’s great characterisation skills shine through the story, particularly in the characters of Lorna and her wonderful, elderly alcoholic doctor, Dr.Parker, but also in the various dark characters responsible for Lorna’s plight.
This is small country town New South Wales in the 1980’s when there actually was a Department of Lunacy with an asylum superintendent titled the Master of Lunacy.
Hall captures the town and its residents perfectly.
Reading a novel so beautifully crafted as this one should not be surprised to learn that Hall has twice won the annual Miles Franklin Literary Award, one of the illustrious events on the Australian literary calendar
It was first one by Patrick Wright for “Voss’ in 1957 and has since been won by many of Australia’s leading writers including Tim Winton, Frank Moorhouse, Shirley Hazzard, Murray Bail, Peter Carey, David Malouf and Elizabeth Jolley.
Rodney Hall sits comfortably in this exalted company. Love without Hope is his 13th novel."
I reviewed this in the Sunday Star Times yesterday - posted here in case you missed it.
"Madness is the theme of Australian eminent man of letters Rodney Hall’s latest which made it an especially appropriate book for me to read right now having just finished Sebastian Faulk’s “Human Traces” which also has running through it the theme of madness and its treatment.
There are however two major differences in these two fine novels.
The Faulks is set in the latter days of the 19th century and tells the story of two doctors working in the psychiatric world while the Hall is set in the 1980’s where the protagonist is a patient in a mental hospital. So you might say the stories are told from opposite sides of the bed.
Love Without Hope is a beautifully written story and by Hall’s standards is most accessible. It tells the story of Lorna Shoddy and the plot revolves around whether or not she will escape the asylum and return to claim her farm and her beloved horses.
In a recent interview with the Sydney Morning Herald Hall said he asked himself what he would do if he were incarcerated in a mental institution at someone else’s whim and malicious intention. If you were not insane to begin with, surely you would become so under such circumstances. The line between sanity and insanity can be, after all, very fragile. One could easily topple over from one side into the other.
It happened to someone he knew in Brisbane in the 1970’s, “she had been missing for some years, then she told me her husband had done it to her. She was only in her 30’s, the idea started me thinking”.
From these ideas Hall has crafted a very fine literary novel. Disturbing at times, often actually, but always with a great sense of hope running through it we read of
small-town malice and the greed of several of its inhabitants leading to the incarceration of Lorna and of her desperate efforts to be freed.
Hall’s great characterisation skills shine through the story, particularly in the characters of Lorna and her wonderful, elderly alcoholic doctor, Dr.Parker, but also in the various dark characters responsible for Lorna’s plight.
This is small country town New South Wales in the 1980’s when there actually was a Department of Lunacy with an asylum superintendent titled the Master of Lunacy.
Hall captures the town and its residents perfectly.
Reading a novel so beautifully crafted as this one should not be surprised to learn that Hall has twice won the annual Miles Franklin Literary Award, one of the illustrious events on the Australian literary calendar
It was first one by Patrick Wright for “Voss’ in 1957 and has since been won by many of Australia’s leading writers including Tim Winton, Frank Moorhouse, Shirley Hazzard, Murray Bail, Peter Carey, David Malouf and Elizabeth Jolley.
Rodney Hall sits comfortably in this exalted company. Love without Hope is his 13th novel."
Sunday, March 25, 2007
RIVALS SQUEEZE BOOKSELLERS
Borders plans to reduce the number of its Waldenbook stores by half by the end of next year and is considering the sale of most of its international businesses.
This and more from the LA Times over the weekend. If you use this link to visit that page you will then see another link to the right which will take you to the current US best-seller lists which I always find interesting.
Borders plans to reduce the number of its Waldenbook stores by half by the end of next year and is considering the sale of most of its international businesses.
This and more from the LA Times over the weekend. If you use this link to visit that page you will then see another link to the right which will take you to the current US best-seller lists which I always find interesting.
This is an excellent website for keeping up with what is happening around New Zealand.
One of their favourite features for me is the cartoon gallery which features the last few weeks of cartoons by the old master Tom Scott.
Here is an example.
AUCKLAND ART FAIR BULLETIN– 8 WEEKS AND COUNTING!_____________________________________________________________
Tickets to the Fair and the following exclusive functions now on sale through TICKETEK -www.ticketek.co.nz
The Vernissage Thursday 17 May. 7pm til very late.
Presented by Sofitel and in association with Hesketh HenryMark the highlight event of the year on your calendar. First chance to purchase and view works from a selection of the best contemporary art ever exhibited in NZ.
Evening includes an official opening by our VIP guest Matthew Collings, making his NZ debut at the Fair. Private View: An Evening with Matthew CollingsFriday 18 May 6-8 pmPresented by ANZ Private BankDon't miss out on an up close and personal engagement with our celebrity UK art commentator who will share his thoughts about the state of contemporary art, in NZ the UK and beyond.
Website- http://www.aucklandartfair.co.nz/A great resource for press and others interested in up to the minute information about the Fair. Visit the updated site, including the new media link, and for the latest news about NZ's only international art fair.
Auckland Art Fair: 18-20 May at the Marine Events Centre, Viaduct Harbour. Watch this space for the next update coming up soon...
Ema Tanaka – Communications ManagerO21-986-887/ mailto:media.aucklandartfair@gmail.comAUCKLAND ART FAIR 18-20 MAYMarine Events Centre, Viaduct Harbour
Presented by: NZ Contemporary Art TrustPrivate Bag MBEP273 Auckland http://www.aucklandartfair.co.nz/
Tickets to the Fair and the following exclusive functions now on sale through TICKETEK -www.ticketek.co.nz
The Vernissage Thursday 17 May. 7pm til very late.
Presented by Sofitel and in association with Hesketh HenryMark the highlight event of the year on your calendar. First chance to purchase and view works from a selection of the best contemporary art ever exhibited in NZ.
Evening includes an official opening by our VIP guest Matthew Collings, making his NZ debut at the Fair. Private View: An Evening with Matthew CollingsFriday 18 May 6-8 pmPresented by ANZ Private BankDon't miss out on an up close and personal engagement with our celebrity UK art commentator who will share his thoughts about the state of contemporary art, in NZ the UK and beyond.
Website- http://www.aucklandartfair.co.nz/A great resource for press and others interested in up to the minute information about the Fair. Visit the updated site, including the new media link, and for the latest news about NZ's only international art fair.
Auckland Art Fair: 18-20 May at the Marine Events Centre, Viaduct Harbour. Watch this space for the next update coming up soon...
Ema Tanaka – Communications ManagerO21-986-887/ mailto:media.aucklandartfair@gmail.comAUCKLAND ART FAIR 18-20 MAYMarine Events Centre, Viaduct Harbour
Presented by: NZ Contemporary Art TrustPrivate Bag MBEP273 Auckland http://www.aucklandartfair.co.nz/
Saturday, March 24, 2007
SUITE FRANCAISE BECOMES ROW FRANCAISE
A right old row is brewing with the claim that Irene Nemirovsky, author of the big selling 2006 title Suite Francaise, was anti-Semitic even though Jewish herself.
This story from the Saturday edition of Melbourne's The Age.
Photo of the author from the New York Times.
OUT OF THE DEEP
Edited by Tessa Duder & Lorraine Orman
Publisher - Reed/IBBY/Storylines NZ$35.00
To mark International Children's Book Day on 2 April a new collection of NZ stories from leading writers is being published this coming week.
I wrote more fully about the big day on my blog a couple of weeks back so use the link to revisit that site for full details.
I must apologise to the editors,authors and publishers for the terrible colours of the cover as shown here. In fact the colours are rich blues and greens but my computer has managed to make them a muddy orange. Oops!
However don't let the colours of the cover put you off as this is an excellent collection of stories from some of our best known writers for kids including David Hill, William Taylor, Tanya Batt, Margaret Mahy, Joy Cowley and Katerina Mataira. A must for all primary and intermediate schools classrooms and libraries.
CHILDREN'S CHOICE - NZ POST BOOK AWARDS
Thousands of kids are voting now for their favourite New Zealand
children's book!
School-age kids from schools and communities around the country are
voting now for their favourite New Zealand children's book in the
celebrated Children's Choice Award organised in conjunction with the New
Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults. Tens of thousands
of voting cards have been distributed to schools, libraries, bookshops
and selected PostShops nationwide and the votes are beginning to come
in.
Children are encouraged to read and make their selection from the twenty
finalist books in this year's awards. They will be weighing up some of
this country's best contemporary writers along with some new-comers to
the scene of children's book writing. Will last year's winners of the
Children's Choice Award, writer Jennifer Beck and illustrator Lindy
Fisher - finalists again this year with their picture book, A Present
from the Past - take the votes again? Or will the votes go to debut
writer, Sharon Holt for her book, It's True! You Can Make Your Own
Jokes? Whoever the winner might be, we won't know until after the
voting closes at 5pm on Tuesday 1 May 2007. The full list of finalists
is available online at www.nzpostbookawards.co.nz and voting is also
available online at the same website.
The Children's Choice Award was introduced in 1997 as a way of giving
school-aged children nationwide the opportunity to have a say in this
country's most prestigious children's book awards. Over the eleven
years since its inception, the number of votes placed has grown to more
than 30,000. Past winners have included Gaelyn Gordon, Bob Kerr and
much-loved writer and illustrator, Lynley Dodd. This award is now
considered by children's authors to be one of the highest accolades they
can receive in New Zealand for their writing.
The winner of the Children's Choice Award will be announced at the New
Zealand Post Book Awards ceremony at Parliament on Wednesday 16 May
2007. They will receive $1000, but they're not the only one to benefit.
Once the votes are tallied, one voting card or online vote is randomly
pulled 'from the hat'. The child whose name appears on this vote will
instantly win $1000 worth of Booksellers Tokens for their school
library.
While the votes are being counted many of the New Zealand Post Book
Award finalists take to the road from Monday 7 May, participating in a
nationwide festival of children's books and literature. They will be
visiting schools and libraries around the country in the lead up to the
awards ceremony on Wednesday 16 May. A full schedule of events will be
available on www.nzpostbookawards.co.nz from mid April.
New Zealand Post has been a steadfast sponsor of the New Zealand Post
Book Awards for Children and Young Adults since 1997. Its partnership
has seen the awards flourish, growing from strength to strength over the
last decade. New Zealand Post's support of these awards reflects their
deep commitment to promoting literacy and literature throughout the
country. Working closely with Booksellers New Zealand, New Zealand Post
and other dedicated segments of the community actively encourage New
Zealand children to read and enjoy books. For those with limited access
to new works, New Zealand Post also purchases and distributes books by
the New Zealand Post Book Awards finalists by supporting the Books in
Homes programme each year.
The New Zealand Post Book Awards are also supported by Creative New
Zealand and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd and are administered by Booksellers New
Zealand.
KEVIN IRELAND - THE OLD MASTER INTERVIEWED IN THE NZ HERALD TODAY
A great interview with Kevin Ireland by Michele Hewitson. This is worth a read.
Photo by Paul Estcourt from the New Zealand Herald.
Airports & Other Wasted Days, Ireland's latest collection of verse is published by Haz
ard Press
ard Press
MORE ABOUT CLIVE JAMES' "CULTURAL AMNESIA"
I posted a blog last Tuesday on this forthcoming title. In today's Sydney Morning Herald they report that the wisecracking entertainer devoted 4 years in homage to the figures who shaped civilisation in the 20th century.
Macmillan NZ advise they will be releasing the title here in May although I hear that one or two booksellers around the countryside expect to have the US edition available in April.
Photo of author from the Sydney Morning Herald.
BORDERS CONFIRM THEIR INTENTION TO WITHDRAW FROM THE UK
The story that went around yesterday has been confirmed by this story in the Guardian overnight.
The story that went around yesterday has been confirmed by this story in the Guardian overnight.
Friday, March 23, 2007
WHARE RAUPO
I blogged this title last month but now Reeds have sent out their press release on the book which I am happy to post on my site.
NEW ZEALAND'S ICONIC PUBLISHING HOUSE CELEBRATES ITS 100TH YEAR THIS MAY!
WHARE RAUPO - THE REED BOOKS STORY
BY GAVIN MCLEAN
Barry Crump, Witi Ihimaera, Kiri Te Kanawa…
Over the last 100 years the House of Reed has been responsible for bringing some of the country's most iconic New Zealanders into the limelight. It has published books as diverse as Pounamu Pounamu and A Pukeko in a Ponga Tree, books that have embedded themselves in the New Zealand psyche. It has also, itself, become a national icon.
To mark the company's 100th anniversary this year, Gavin McLean has authored Whare Raupo: The Reed Books Story, a full and frank account of the company's long history in New Zealand publishing. Given total freedom to author the business's story, McLean has written an engrossing and accessible tale.
'THERE'S A LOT OF THINGS I DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOU CLIF, BUT ... YOU'RE THE BEST BLOODY PUBLISHER IN NEW ZEALAND' – Clif Reed quoting Denis Glover
Anyone who has made a career for themselves in publishing in New Zealand is likely to have a Reed connection and McLean has interviewed numerous former and current Reed staff members. He deals with the entire history, from the business's origins as a religious bookselling hobby, to the company's 20-year foray into the music industry with Kiwi Records, to staff upheavals and restructuring in the 1980s, to the present day.
Within Whare Raupo, readers will find stories that are the stuff of New Zealand publishing legend. All sorts of Kiwi icons make an appearance, from the company's clean-living founder A.H. Reed – a man who was as renowned for walking the length of the country aged 85 as he was for his publishing feats – to authors both famous and infamous, many of whom were not as clean-living as A.H. and Clif would have liked.
Stories featuring Denis Glover, Janet Frame, Mona Anderson and the irrepressible Barry Crump grace the book's pages, as do stories from the editors charged with keeping these authors in order and the books rolling in.
'CRUMP IS ENTIRELY DEAF TO THREATS, ENTREATIES, APPEALS TO COMMON-SENSE OR SELF-INTEREST. PRODDING HIM ... IS LIKELY TO DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD' – Arnold Wall
In May this year – the month A.H. Reed said he founded the business in 1907 – Reed Publishing will celebrate its long publishing history with four centenary celebrations. These will be held as follows: Dunedin on 21 May; Christchurch on 22 May; Wellington on 23 May; and Auckland on 25 May.
SRP $59.99 IMPRINT Reed Books RELEASE 26 April 2007
To arrange an interview with Gavin McLean, contact Kirsteen Ure, Reed Publishing, phone 09 441 2955,
email kure@reed.co.nz
NEW YORKER CARTOON
Love this cartoon from The New Yorker, March 26.
In case the text is too small it reads:
"Is this a bad time to talk about global warming?"
I like the Brockie cartoon on today's issue of NBR.
Headed "Red Carpet Moments" it shows Bush saying to an aide as Helen walks towards him up the red carpet,
"Noo Zealand? That's on the Coney Island line- right?"
The red carpet photo at right was taken by Eric Draper at the 2006 APEC Summit in Hanoi.
MISS POTTER 
RIDES AGAIN
RIDES AGAINBack on 6 December last I posted a blog on Beatrix Potter referiing to the movie, Miss Potter, and its novelisation by Richard Maltby.
Last night we finally got to see the movie at Auckland's most comfortable LIDO cinema and it proved to be a most enjoyable experience. I especially enjoyed the panoramic views of the Lake District, simply stunning.
I imagine the movie has made a huge world-wide impact on sales of the gorgeous Beatrix Potter Peter Rabbit series. It caused me to get out my set of the little books and revisit them this morning.
I also pulled down my copy of "A History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter" by Leslie Linder (now out of print) published by Frederick Warne in 1971 and reprinted with revisions in 1987.
Leslie Linder (1904-1973) was regarded as THE authority on Beatrix Potter. It was he who, 15 years after the Potter's death, succeded in cracking the secret code she used to note thoughts and observations in her diary. See the Beatrix Potter Collections website to read of the huge legacy of Leslie Linder.
R.I.P. HARRY POTTER - and no sequels please !
This image is from the excellent Scholastic Harry Potter site.
Other sites if you are an HP fan are Wikipedia, always great value, and of course JK Rowling's own website.
BOY WIZARD TURNS GREEN
The Guardian reports that Scholastic US has teamed up with the Rainforest Alliance to make sure that "Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows" is less gruelling for the environment than the average book.
Good news especially considering the 12 million first print run by Scholastic.
226 VISITS YESTERDAY
I pay an annual fee to a company which monitors my site, tells me how many vsiits a day I receive, which country the visitors come from, the average length of stay, which stories they read etc.
I do not of course know who the visitors are nor do I have any way of communicating with them, other than via my blog.
It is all quite fascinating. Here for example is the breakdown of where yesterday's visitors came from:
NZ 163
USA 18
Aust 12
UK 12
I pay an annual fee to a company which monitors my site, tells me how many vsiits a day I receive, which country the visitors come from, the average length of stay, which stories they read etc.
I do not of course know who the visitors are nor do I have any way of communicating with them, other than via my blog.
It is all quite fascinating. Here for example is the breakdown of where yesterday's visitors came from:
NZ 163
USA 18
Aust 12
UK 12
and then lesser numbers from Germany, Canada, India, Mexico, Switzerland,
Korea, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Denmark, Luxembourg, Italy and four from
'unknown" countries! So about 70% from NZ.
That NZ figure has been as low as 50% but is usually around the 60-70% mark which I guess is about what one would expect given the NZ flavour of the site.
Korea, Colombia, Indonesia, Japan, Denmark, Luxembourg, Italy and four from
'unknown" countries! So about 70% from NZ.
That NZ figure has been as low as 50% but is usually around the 60-70% mark which I guess is about what one would expect given the NZ flavour of the site.
BORDERS CONSIDERS EXIT FROM UK
Shock headline from the Guardian today which also says they are reviewing all of their international operations including those in New Zealand.
Since I posted this I have received the following from Jennifer:
Another link on the borders saga for youwww.publishingnews.co.uk/pn/pno-news-display.asp?K=e2007032214420986&sg9t=66f77036c0252f61d81c330e79eee7ab
Shock headline from the Guardian today which also says they are reviewing all of their international operations including those in New Zealand.
Since I posted this I have received the following from Jennifer:
Another link on the borders saga for youwww.publishingnews.co.uk/pn/pno-news-display.asp?K=e2007032214420986&sg9t=66f77036c0252f61d81c330e79eee7ab
GIGANTIC GRAPHIC NOVELS
Here is an interesting idea from one of New York's famous independent bookstores, McNally Robinson, 52 Prince Street, Soho. Nice website too.
Here is an interesting idea from one of New York's famous independent bookstores, McNally Robinson, 52 Prince Street, Soho. Nice website too.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
BAMBINA - The Fiat 500 in New Zealand
You have to hand it to Todd Niall - best known as an award winning Radio New Zealand journo and host in recent years of Summer Report - he still drives his first car, the Fiat 500F he bought 30 years ago.
Now he has written & published a most handsome book on the subject. Created in Italy and assembled in Italy, this Italian motoring icon mixed with Kiwi "can-do" to create a unique life for itself, half a world away from its home.
In 2004 Niall made the pilgrimage to the annual Fiat 500 gathering in Garlenda Italy to record the doco "Bambina Days".
Out of that experience has grown this profusely illustrated and fascinating story. It provides an important record of a piece of our social history.
This is his second book, his earlier title published in 2005 , The Trekka Dynasty, told the story of NZ's only mass produced vehicle
I'll include a few pics below to give you something of the flavour of the book.
They show, the Bambina at Scott Base where it spent a summer back in the 60's, Bambina being loaded on to a top dressing plane which provided transport to the pilots when they landed, Miss New Zealand finalists on parade in Gore in 1967.
Technical stuff:Publisher - Iconic Publishing Ltd164 Motu Rd., RD 1, Kumeu,
Auckland 0891
Price - NZ$40.00
ISBN 978 0 473 11885 3
e-mail: nz500@paradise.net.nz
And finally how about this gorgeous Fiat publicity shot which features on the back cover. What year could that have nbeen taken? It was prior to the Nippon clip-ons being added to the Auckland Harbour Bridge.
I have written before about this venerable independent bookstore, one of the world's largest.
Now they are making headlines again with their plans for a series of short films featuring authors to be shown in bookstores - most exciting.
APPEALING INTERACTIVE PUBLISHER'S WEBSITE
Hamish Wright of Wrights Booksellers in Cambridge, NZ has brought to my attention the most attractive and useful website of Harper Collins Canada.
A model for other website creators. Check it you when you have a few minutes to spare.
Hamish Wright of Wrights Booksellers in Cambridge, NZ has brought to my attention the most attractive and useful website of Harper Collins Canada.
A model for other website creators. Check it you when you have a few minutes to spare.
LIBRARY LINK OF THE DAY
Up until now I have posted this link each day on my blog so that you could visit that site if you wished.
From today however I am using an RSS feed from the site which means that automatically each day the latest Library Link of the Day will appear near the top on the right hand side of the page so you can use this link to access it. Also the Links from the previous four days are there.
Also in the right hand column you will find links, updated daily, from The Bookseller, the book sections of the Independent & Guardian newspapers, along with Arts & Letters Daily, the NZ Listener and The New Yorker.
Thus you can easily access all these pages of special interest to book people via my blog.
Happy reading.
Up until now I have posted this link each day on my blog so that you could visit that site if you wished.
From today however I am using an RSS feed from the site which means that automatically each day the latest Library Link of the Day will appear near the top on the right hand side of the page so you can use this link to access it. Also the Links from the previous four days are there.
Also in the right hand column you will find links, updated daily, from The Bookseller, the book sections of the Independent & Guardian newspapers, along with Arts & Letters Daily, the NZ Listener and The New Yorker.
Thus you can easily access all these pages of special interest to book people via my blog.
Happy reading.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
A SHORT HISTORY OF A UKRAINIAN
Marina Lewycka gained a huge amount of media space during her recent visit to New Zealand. Now she is back in the U.K. she is doing the same over there as she promotes her new novel, Two Caravans. Penguin NZ$37.
Read this piece from The Times. and you will see what I mean.
Photo also from The Times, note her winter coat!
There is some good stuff about her on the Loaded Shelf website. It is worth a visit.
Marina Lewycka gained a huge amount of media space during her recent visit to New Zealand. Now she is back in the U.K. she is doing the same over there as she promotes her new novel, Two Caravans. Penguin NZ$37.
Read this piece from The Times. and you will see what I mean.
Photo also from The Times, note her winter coat!
There is some good stuff about her on the Loaded Shelf website. It is worth a visit.
The New Zealand art magazine scene.
Earlier in the year I mentioned finding the very lively and somewhat alternative art magazine White Fungus.
Of course this market is dominated by two heavyweights, Art New Zealand and Art News New Zealand.
Although these two magazines have similar names and are both published in the same format and attract much the same sort of advertising from our prolific number of dealer galleries they are hugely different magazines in their approach.
The diference can be summed up to some extent by statements each make on their websites which you can view in full by using the links above:
Art New Zealand
"Art New Zealand is the major visual arts journal in New Zealand.
First published in 1975, it has consistently surveyed NZ's contemporary art with rigour and professionalism . It is essential reading and refrence for those interested in NZ art. Its place in the art world is secure and its reputation is unequalled."
Art News New Zealand
"Art News is an essential read for anyone interested in the arts. News, reviews, artist profiles and interviews, artist's studios, exhibition listings - each magazine is packed full - and we don't use art speak."
Rather more friendly methinks?
The articles that appear in Art New Zealand are indeed serious pieces employing "rigour and professionalism" and complete, where approriate, with footnotes.They often take the form of serious critiques.
If you are a professional in the arts industry or a student at one of our fine arts colleges then this magazine is essential reading.
On the other hand the articles in Art News New Zealand, and there are many more of them, (the latest issue runs to 134 pages cf Art New Zealand at 84 pages), are more varied, they are friendlier in the language they employ, they are often news stories, and thus all round are much more accesible. Their artist profiles are varied and well-illustrated.
It seems to me that this magazine is more for the interested lay-person although I suspect that students and academics would be buying it too.
One suspects it is a tough old business in which to turn a buck so I wish them all well.
Earlier in the year I mentioned finding the very lively and somewhat alternative art magazine White Fungus.
Of course this market is dominated by two heavyweights, Art New Zealand and Art News New Zealand.
Although these two magazines have similar names and are both published in the same format and attract much the same sort of advertising from our prolific number of dealer galleries they are hugely different magazines in their approach.
The diference can be summed up to some extent by statements each make on their websites which you can view in full by using the links above:
Art New Zealand
"Art New Zealand is the major visual arts journal in New Zealand.
First published in 1975, it has consistently surveyed NZ's contemporary art with rigour and professionalism . It is essential reading and refrence for those interested in NZ art. Its place in the art world is secure and its reputation is unequalled."
A bold, somewhat immodest claim!
Art News New Zealand
"Art News is an essential read for anyone interested in the arts. News, reviews, artist profiles and interviews, artist's studios, exhibition listings - each magazine is packed full - and we don't use art speak."
Rather more friendly methinks?
The articles that appear in Art New Zealand are indeed serious pieces employing "rigour and professionalism" and complete, where approriate, with footnotes.They often take the form of serious critiques.
If you are a professional in the arts industry or a student at one of our fine arts colleges then this magazine is essential reading.
On the other hand the articles in Art News New Zealand, and there are many more of them, (the latest issue runs to 134 pages cf Art New Zealand at 84 pages), are more varied, they are friendlier in the language they employ, they are often news stories, and thus all round are much more accesible. Their artist profiles are varied and well-illustrated.
It seems to me that this magazine is more for the interested lay-person although I suspect that students and academics would be buying it too.
One suspects it is a tough old business in which to turn a buck so I wish them all well.
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark is in Washington, DC, meeting with senior US officials. Tomorrow she meets with the President.
I thought this cartoon by Emmerson which appeared in the New Zealand Herald today, March 21 , really said it all !
In case you cannot read the text, George Bush's assistant is saying:
"Are you finished with the atlas Mr.President? Helen Clark has arrived."
Brilliant !
SEVERE CRITICISM OF WOMEN AUTHORS
Women write too many dull & trvial novels about domesticity according to Muriel Gray, Chair of the 2007 Orange Prize awarded for the most important novel by a woman. This report from the Daily Telegraph.
Women write too many dull & trvial novels about domesticity according to Muriel Gray, Chair of the 2007 Orange Prize awarded for the most important novel by a woman. This report from the Daily Telegraph.
Photo of Muriel Gray from the excellent biographical Wikipedia site on this remarkable woman.
And then Suzi Feay, Literary Editor of The Independent on Sunday, weighed in with her view on the subject!
THE SECRET HORROR STORY OF STEPHEN KING JNR.
This story appeared in The Independent yesterday and was run by the New Zealand Herald this morning.
This story appeared in The Independent yesterday and was run by the New Zealand Herald this morning.
The Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill is the title of the book under discussion.
There was also a great interview with Thomas Keneally in The Independent l
ast Friday that is well worth a read.
ast Friday that is well worth a read.For lots more on Keneally go to this marvellous website where I picked up the accompanying photograph of him.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
MORE ABOUT THE JEFFREY ARCHER JUDAS NOVEL
This from the Melbourne Age.
There is a strong Australian connection to The Gospel According to Judas (MacMillan $30) as you will read in the above and of course we in NZ are interested because of C.K.Stead's novel, My Name Was Judas, (Vintage), published last year to critical praise, including this thoughtful review which appeared in the Guardian.
The Gospel According to Judas is being launched in Rome today and this piece appeared in the Daily Telegraph, London a few hours ago.
Picture of Jeffrey Archer from his official website.
Picture of C.K.Stead from the NZ Book Council website, a great source of information on New Zealand writers.
If you want more about Archer Wikipedia has an excellent website.
CULTURAL AMNESIA by Clive James William Norton US$35
Just published in the U.S. and already attracting a lot of attention, read what four newspapers and an American magazine have to say about it:
I can't wait to own this book, all 876 pages of it!
I presume it will also be published in the U.K. but so far I have only been able to find the edition published by William Norton in the U.S. If any British publisher out there can enlighten me on this please do so. MacMillan publish his autobiographies but I haven't heard from the about this one.
The photo of the author is by Jerry Bauer.And the cover image shows the U.S.edition.
Footnote - within 25 minutes of this post Angie Willocks, Publicity Manager at MacMillan NZ advised that indeed this will be published by them as a hardcover edition RRP NZ$60 and will be here in May. She says it is a mammoth volume. That's a pretty fair price it seems to me when compared to the US price, it is a hardcover and includes gst.
AK in Conversation
Each weekday during the Festival at the Speigeltent down in red Square there have been a series of discussions on cultural matters affecting the city. I have attended two of them and they have been most stimulating.
There are still three to go if you haven't yet made it down there.
Wed 21 March - Speigeltour
Built in 1920, this Grand Dame of Cabaret Salons has travelled to festivals worldwide. Here is your chance for a guided tour of this stunning pavilion.
Thurs 22 March = Laboritoire des Idees
Acclaimed German composer, creator and producer breaks artistic boundaries. Join him as he shares the processes behind his craft and the conception of Max Black.
Fri 23 March - Why Can't Art Be More Like Sport, or Sport Be More Like Art?
Join Bernice Mene (Sportsperson & Black Grace Sponsor), Billy Apple (Artist & Sports Fan), and Andy Hay (Sports Editor NZ Herald) as they throw this quetsion around while delving into the heart of Kiwi culture).
SUPERHERO COMICS ARE SUFFERING FROM SHRINKING READERSHIP AND
SLUMPING SALES
This from the Toronto Star. I note from the front page of that newspaper that the temperature there is 1 degree celsius. That is chilly!
SLUMPING SALES
This from the Toronto Star. I note from the front page of that newspaper that the temperature there is 1 degree celsius. That is chilly!
MONOCLE Issue 01 Volume 01 March 2007
A briefing on global affairs, business, culture & design.
I lost last weekend to this exciting new magazine which I blogged last Thursday.
It is divided into three broad categories - Affairs, Business & Culture. I read the magazine from beginning to end, all 250+ pages, there was nothing in it that failed to interest me.
Some particular mentions from the book world:
A whole page given to Barter Books. Here is an excerpt:
"The traditional Independent British bookshop might be fighting off assaults on all sides (store numbers declined 6 per cent in 2006) but Barter Books thrives.
Launched in 1991 by Mary Manley and her husband Stuart in the third class waiting room of the disused Alnwick railway station, it was inspoired by a summer Mary spent in an antiquarian bookshop in New York, and the sort of overdraft that inspires entrepreneurship.
Since starting with 75 sq. m of space, 10,000 dusty romance novels and a staff of two, Barter has spent 16 years growing an rxtra 650 sq m and stacking 350,000 titles on its shelves, and now employs 26 staff, including artists, linguists, and the Mayor of Alnwick. Employees' ages range from teenagers to an old-timer named Dot, whom the Manleys hope to persuade not to retire on her 70th birthday.
The last time a steam engine was seen at the station was in 1968, but ever since they sold their first Agatha Christie, the Manleys have dreamt of getting the Alnmouth-Alnwick branchline re-opened: at the current rate of progress, Barter Books might just need its own fully functioning railway station after all. "
Here is a pic of Barter Books taken from their most interesting website. To check out the website, and belive me its worth a visit, click on the Barter Books link in the previous para.
One especially fascinating feature on the website is their " Famous Writers Mural" which appears in black and white but when you run your mouse over it that panel turns to colour. You can then click on the panel for enlargement and information, names of authors etc. Great fun.
Barter Books is a second-hand bookstore by the way. Monocle omitted to say that in their piece.
Further on in the magazine there are brief reviews including "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" ,(surely the most reviewed book this year!), "Metropolitan World Atlas", "PA&Co", the story of one of Stockholm's most famous and revered restaurant.
Monocle comes with a cover price of UK5 pounds, US$10, Aust$12.95 so it was a shock to have to pay NZ$34.90 for my copy. Magazzino explained it was an airfreight edition and that all their copies in future would be airfreighted. So I went on to the Monocle website and signed up for a suscription at UK pounds 75 (approx NZ$209 ) so now it will arrive in my po box 10 times a year.
I can't wait for issue # 2 !!
A briefing on global affairs, business, culture & design.
I lost last weekend to this exciting new magazine which I blogged last Thursday.
It is divided into three broad categories - Affairs, Business & Culture. I read the magazine from beginning to end, all 250+ pages, there was nothing in it that failed to interest me.
Some particular mentions from the book world:
A whole page given to Barter Books. Here is an excerpt:
"The traditional Independent British bookshop might be fighting off assaults on all sides (store numbers declined 6 per cent in 2006) but Barter Books thrives.
Launched in 1991 by Mary Manley and her husband Stuart in the third class waiting room of the disused Alnwick railway station, it was inspoired by a summer Mary spent in an antiquarian bookshop in New York, and the sort of overdraft that inspires entrepreneurship.
Since starting with 75 sq. m of space, 10,000 dusty romance novels and a staff of two, Barter has spent 16 years growing an rxtra 650 sq m and stacking 350,000 titles on its shelves, and now employs 26 staff, including artists, linguists, and the Mayor of Alnwick. Employees' ages range from teenagers to an old-timer named Dot, whom the Manleys hope to persuade not to retire on her 70th birthday.
The last time a steam engine was seen at the station was in 1968, but ever since they sold their first Agatha Christie, the Manleys have dreamt of getting the Alnmouth-Alnwick branchline re-opened: at the current rate of progress, Barter Books might just need its own fully functioning railway station after all. "
Here is a pic of Barter Books taken from their most interesting website. To check out the website, and belive me its worth a visit, click on the Barter Books link in the previous para.
One especially fascinating feature on the website is their " Famous Writers Mural" which appears in black and white but when you run your mouse over it that panel turns to colour. You can then click on the panel for enlargement and information, names of authors etc. Great fun.
Barter Books is a second-hand bookstore by the way. Monocle omitted to say that in their piece.
Further on in the magazine there are brief reviews including "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" ,(surely the most reviewed book this year!), "Metropolitan World Atlas", "PA&Co", the story of one of Stockholm's most famous and revered restaurant.
Monocle comes with a cover price of UK5 pounds, US$10, Aust$12.95 so it was a shock to have to pay NZ$34.90 for my copy. Magazzino explained it was an airfreight edition and that all their copies in future would be airfreighted. So I went on to the Monocle website and signed up for a suscription at UK pounds 75 (approx NZ$209 ) so now it will arrive in my po box 10 times a year.
I can't wait for issue # 2 !!
Monday, March 19, 2007
LIBRARY LINK OF THE DAY
Turning kids' love of comics into something educational..............this from the Washington Post.
Turning kids' love of comics into something educational..............this from the Washington Post.
VENEZUELAN BOOK NETWORK WINS THE ASTRID LINDGREN MEMORIAL AWARD FOR LITERATURE
This award which includes a cash prize of US$710,000 (!), was established by the Swedish Governement in 2002, and is the world's largest children's book award.
Astrid Lindgren created the much-loved Pippi Longstocking.
Read the full story from the Washington Post.
JANE ADDICTION
The Jane Austen Society of North America will hold its annual convention in Vancouver in October. For details, and a lot more about Jane Austen, this story from The Globe and Mail.
Picture from Wikipedia.
NEW YORK TIMES BACK ISSUES - BOOK REVIEWS
Hey this is impressive. Every book review from 1997 to today, all available on this one link.
Hey this is impressive. Every book review from 1997 to today, all available on this one link.
SCHOLASTIC WILL PRINT 12 MILLION COPIES OF NEW HARRY POTTER
This is one helluva first printing.................
This is one helluva first printing.................
Sunday, March 18, 2007
MARYANNE MUMMERY, QUEEN OF THE ARTS SPONSORSHIP WORLD SRTIKES OUT IN A NEW DIRECTION !
Those of us who have know Maryanne for a long time were surprised when earlier this month she left the arts world after many years of outstanding service for the sometimes cruel and cynical world of advertising.
Here is the press release from her new employer Zephry WPD.
From the world of art to the art of persuasion
After almost 25 years spent
illuminating the world of arts sponsorship, the incandescent Maryanne Mummery
has decided to swap the orchestra pit for the bear pit of advertising. She is to
be the General Manager, Madama of Client Relations, and Commander of Schmooze at
independent agency Zephyr WPD, where her considerable and proven powers of
persuasion will be spent on charming and farming new business prospects.All I know about Zephyr WPD at this stage is that they have an excellent website:
Have a look at their page on sausages! Fabulous information for all sausage lovers...........
DUTTON'S BRENTWOOD NEWS
Here for your interest is part of their latest newsletter, including some staff picks of books to read............
Remember if you would like to receive their newsletter in full and directly to your own in-box then contact them at the address below.
Staff picks
A brief list of what we’re reading and recommending. Please feel free to call or visit for further suggestions.
Sean – There You Are: Writings on Irish and American Literature and History by Thomas Flanagan: Pure pleasure – Flanagan’s mind is keen, honest; his paragraphs funny and poetic; his company difficult to part with.
Scott – The Last Carousel by Nelson Algren: A collection of non-fiction pieces that dance into your heart and come barefooting out of your mind. The Chicago bard zigzags with alacrity and humor, and the reader comes away totally alive with a smile.
Erin – Facts For Visitors by Srikanth Reddy: This collection of poems was one of the winners published in 2004 by the University of California Press. These poems are a wonderful blend of oblique mysticism and concrete imagery.
Channa – The Last September by Elizabeth Bown: Bowen wrote keenly observant novels of England and her native Ireland set in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s. She’s one of those writers who, once you’ve discovered her, you’ll want to read everything she wrote. In The Last September, a wealthy English family is living out the end of British rule in Ireland. Young Lois lurches toward freedom and her own independence, while her elders cling to the only life they know. Beautifully evocative of the time and place.
Diane – The Children of Men by P.D. James: The coming attractions in theaters for The Children of Men looked too scary, but the novel by P.D. James, the marvelous English mystery writer, beckoned to me from the Dutton’s counter - even though I generally avoid mysteries and sci-fi. Set in the near future, the book takes up a quite plausible world in which women are no longer able to conceive, the aged are encouraged to suicide, and the oppressive government somewhat parallels that in Orwell’s 1984. As with James’ mysteries, the main characters are multi-faceted, thinking, feeling human beings who offer excitement and hope to the reader. I think this novel has far more significance than Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Cheryl – History of the End of the World by Jonathan Kirsch: Kirsch examines the origin of The Book of Revelation in the New Testament as well as the ways it has been read and interpreted throughout the centuries. He argues persuasively that Revelations has played a very significant, sometimes catastrophic, role in Western History and offers numerous examples of the powerful effect Revelations has had on people and movements throughout the ages. Recommended for anyone interested in Western history or those of us who’ve ever wondered why the heck The Book of Revelation is in the Bible in the first place.
Odds and ends
Contact us
Dutton’s Brentwood
11975 San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
310-476-6263
Duttons@earthlink.net
On the web
www.duttonsbrentwood.com
Everything old is new again………especially our website. Hot on the heels of a revamping of our Book Sense site, we have given our main web page a make-over. Come see our new look, with a new staff picks page, a greatly expanded (and updated) links page, and many other improvements. The address is: www.duttonsbrentwood.com.
Ooops, my bad…….last week’s newsletter contained two glaring errors (and perhaps even more that I still haven’t caught). First, in the staff picks, Flann O”Brien was deprived of an “n”, making his first name into a custardy dessert (it was spelled correctly elsewhere in the review). Second, also in the staff picks section, Scott’s glowing review of Last Carousel was mistakenly bestowed upon his previous week’s pick - Philip Levine’s What Work Is. The corrected review appears above.
Thanks for the Cool Memories………Last week French theorist and author Jean Baudrillard passed away. Though embraced more by the political left than by the right, his work was fiercely independent, defying easy labels and frequently courting controversy. His most famous formulations - hyper-reality and simulacra - argued that reality is so highly filtered by the trappings of consumerist culture (television, film, advertisements, political spin) as to be no longer “real”; that all that we take to be reality – including feelings and even “needs” – are actually simulacra.
Among his most famous books are Simulations, Cool Memories and his theoretical treatise/travelogue America in which he famously derided the U.S. as being, essentially, more fake than real (ironically, he actually quite liked the U.S., particularly Southern California, arguing that a contrived paradise is nevertheless still a paradise). His later works, particularly those post-9/11, were often criticized for being overly theoretical and not sufficiently sympathetic to the victims of terrorism – which he saw as an unavoidable response to globalization. He was 77.
Here for your interest is part of their latest newsletter, including some staff picks of books to read............
Remember if you would like to receive their newsletter in full and directly to your own in-box then contact them at the address below.
Staff picks
A brief list of what we’re reading and recommending. Please feel free to call or visit for further suggestions.
Sean – There You Are: Writings on Irish and American Literature and History by Thomas Flanagan: Pure pleasure – Flanagan’s mind is keen, honest; his paragraphs funny and poetic; his company difficult to part with.
Scott – The Last Carousel by Nelson Algren: A collection of non-fiction pieces that dance into your heart and come barefooting out of your mind. The Chicago bard zigzags with alacrity and humor, and the reader comes away totally alive with a smile.
Erin – Facts For Visitors by Srikanth Reddy: This collection of poems was one of the winners published in 2004 by the University of California Press. These poems are a wonderful blend of oblique mysticism and concrete imagery.
Channa – The Last September by Elizabeth Bown: Bowen wrote keenly observant novels of England and her native Ireland set in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s. She’s one of those writers who, once you’ve discovered her, you’ll want to read everything she wrote. In The Last September, a wealthy English family is living out the end of British rule in Ireland. Young Lois lurches toward freedom and her own independence, while her elders cling to the only life they know. Beautifully evocative of the time and place.
Diane – The Children of Men by P.D. James: The coming attractions in theaters for The Children of Men looked too scary, but the novel by P.D. James, the marvelous English mystery writer, beckoned to me from the Dutton’s counter - even though I generally avoid mysteries and sci-fi. Set in the near future, the book takes up a quite plausible world in which women are no longer able to conceive, the aged are encouraged to suicide, and the oppressive government somewhat parallels that in Orwell’s 1984. As with James’ mysteries, the main characters are multi-faceted, thinking, feeling human beings who offer excitement and hope to the reader. I think this novel has far more significance than Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
Cheryl – History of the End of the World by Jonathan Kirsch: Kirsch examines the origin of The Book of Revelation in the New Testament as well as the ways it has been read and interpreted throughout the centuries. He argues persuasively that Revelations has played a very significant, sometimes catastrophic, role in Western History and offers numerous examples of the powerful effect Revelations has had on people and movements throughout the ages. Recommended for anyone interested in Western history or those of us who’ve ever wondered why the heck The Book of Revelation is in the Bible in the first place.
Odds and ends
Contact us
Dutton’s Brentwood
11975 San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
310-476-6263
Duttons@earthlink.net
On the web
www.duttonsbrentwood.com
Everything old is new again………especially our website. Hot on the heels of a revamping of our Book Sense site, we have given our main web page a make-over. Come see our new look, with a new staff picks page, a greatly expanded (and updated) links page, and many other improvements. The address is: www.duttonsbrentwood.com.
Ooops, my bad…….last week’s newsletter contained two glaring errors (and perhaps even more that I still haven’t caught). First, in the staff picks, Flann O”Brien was deprived of an “n”, making his first name into a custardy dessert (it was spelled correctly elsewhere in the review). Second, also in the staff picks section, Scott’s glowing review of Last Carousel was mistakenly bestowed upon his previous week’s pick - Philip Levine’s What Work Is. The corrected review appears above.
Thanks for the Cool Memories………Last week French theorist and author Jean Baudrillard passed away. Though embraced more by the political left than by the right, his work was fiercely independent, defying easy labels and frequently courting controversy. His most famous formulations - hyper-reality and simulacra - argued that reality is so highly filtered by the trappings of consumerist culture (television, film, advertisements, political spin) as to be no longer “real”; that all that we take to be reality – including feelings and even “needs” – are actually simulacra.
Among his most famous books are Simulations, Cool Memories and his theoretical treatise/travelogue America in which he famously derided the U.S. as being, essentially, more fake than real (ironically, he actually quite liked the U.S., particularly Southern California, arguing that a contrived paradise is nevertheless still a paradise). His later works, particularly those post-9/11, were often criticized for being overly theoretical and not sufficiently sympathetic to the victims of terrorism – which he saw as an unavoidable response to globalization. He was 77.
Friday, March 16, 2007
NEWS OF THE SWIMMER REACHES THE SHORE
Gregory O’Brien V.U.P NZ$30
I’m starting with an excerpt from the Preface of O’Brien’s latest offering, which I see as something of a cross between a travel book, an autobiographical novel, a memoir and a whole bunch of thoughtful musings. It is generously littered with black and white photographs, newspaper clippings, posters and some of the author’s own fine art.
Greg O’Brien is a remarkable fellow, a Kiwi renaissance man. He is highly accomplished as an artist and a poet, an essayist and an editor, a much published author, and along with all that he is an art historian and a talented curator.
All of these various skills and talents are displayed in this most unusual but highly entertaining volume. I offer my congratulations to O’Brien and Victoria University Press for a job well done.
Last year A.U.P published Chris Price’s “Brief Lives” and I suggested on my blog at the time that it may create category problems when it was submitted for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. I suspect that O’Brien’s title will pose the same problems for those that rule on these matters.
Declaration of interest:
Bookman Beattie owns two pieces of art by Gregory O’Brien.
Gregory O’Brien V.U.P NZ$30
I’m starting with an excerpt from the Preface of O’Brien’s latest offering, which I see as something of a cross between a travel book, an autobiographical novel, a memoir and a whole bunch of thoughtful musings. It is generously littered with black and white photographs, newspaper clippings, posters and some of the author’s own fine art.
“From March until October 2002, my wife, J, our two sons and I were transplanted from New Zealand to the South of France, where we were joined by J’s mother during the high season. We spent much of the time loitering around Menton and the adjacent
Alpes-Maritimes, then venturing as far west as the Pyrenees. The boys and I swam once or twice a day for most of our stay.
The narrative that follows arose from the once-or-twice daily ritual of being
submerged in the Mediterranean. Returning to our rental apartment, I would
reassemble in shorthand as much as I could of my subaquatic reveries. If
circumstances permitted, some I transcribed while at the
beach.
What follows, then, gestated in five hard-bound journals
which, consecutively, accompanied us everywhere. The journals sat with our
towels and sandals, and were occasionally drenched by rogue waves – or they were
hit by beachballs and stray peanuts from the trays of the waterfront
vendors………………….”
Greg O’Brien is a remarkable fellow, a Kiwi renaissance man. He is highly accomplished as an artist and a poet, an essayist and an editor, a much published author, and along with all that he is an art historian and a talented curator.
All of these various skills and talents are displayed in this most unusual but highly entertaining volume. I offer my congratulations to O’Brien and Victoria University Press for a job well done.
Last year A.U.P published Chris Price’s “Brief Lives” and I suggested on my blog at the time that it may create category problems when it was submitted for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. I suspect that O’Brien’s title will pose the same problems for those that rule on these matters.
Declaration of interest:
Bookman Beattie owns two pieces of art by Gregory O’Brien.
The larger one with the pale blue background- "The Laboratory of Time Passing" 2005 and the other a smaller piece from 1986 called "Old Man South Road" and was from an early collection of his verse titled "Location of the Least Person" published by A.U.P. which I bought at the launch in 1987.
MISTER PIP CLEARS FIRST HURDLE IN RACE FOR THE BIG PRIZE
Great news this morning - Wellington writer Lloyd Jones has won the South-East Asia and South Pacific Region of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book Award for his novel Mister Pip.
Congratulations Lloyd, I have been one of the judges for this prize on several occasions and I know just how strong the competition is and how hard it is to win this regional prize
The overall winner of the 21st Commonwealth Writers' Prize will be announced on May 27 at the Clabash Literary Festival in Jamaica. At that Festival Lloyd Jones will meet up with the other regional winners from Africa, Canada and the Caribbean, and Europe and East Asia.
Good luck Lloyd!
And here in case you missed it is the Listener review of Mister Pip from October 2006.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
This Festival starts March 20 and among the highlights will be Philip Pullman introducing the first scenes fromThe Golden Compass starring Nicole Kidman.
I wish I could be there to hear him. I am a great fan.
Pullman is to reveal his feelings at the prospect of seeing His Dark Materials on screen.
LIBRARY LINK OF THE DAY
More than one million pages of historical government documents have been removed from public view since 9/11......................
More than one million pages of historical government documents have been removed from public view since 9/11......................
THE 51 BEST MAGAZINES EVER
Following my confession last week to being something of a magazine-aholic I was delighted by two events this afternoon.
First was my discovery on the Web of a story by Graydon Carter on
the best 51 magazines ever. Now this guy's opinion is worth something as he has been editor of the wonderful Vanity Fair magazine for over 15 years.
The story is well worth a read; see where your favourite magazines are ranked, if they appear at all of course!
My all time favourite came in at number 2 - The New Yorker, headed off for the 1st position by Esquire.
Following my confession last week to being something of a magazine-aholic I was delighted by two events this afternoon.
First was my discovery on the Web of a story by Graydon Carter on
the best 51 magazines ever. Now this guy's opinion is worth something as he has been editor of the wonderful Vanity Fair magazine for over 15 years.
The story is well worth a read; see where your favourite magazines are ranked, if they appear at all of course!
My all time favourite came in at number 2 - The New Yorker, headed off for the 1st position by Esquire.
The second event occurred as I was buying the February issue of Gourmet Traveller at Magazzino, my excellent local magazine store in Ponsonby Road, Auckland. I was buying this issue to get the recipe for Sicilian Calamari Salad which I plan to make on Saturday night.
As I was passing across the $9 I noticed on the counter a big fat A4 format magazine I had not seen before.
Something about it arrested me.
Something about it arrested me.
It was called "MONOCLE- a briefing on global affairs, business, culture and design." 
Issue 01 Volume 01.
This looks interesting I thought, then on opening it I saw the Editor in Chief's name and immediately I knew I had to buy it.
Tyler Brulee.
My mind flashed back to 1996 when in the same store I came across another magazine for the first time - Wallpaper. I bought that first issue of Wallpaper, and was totally entranced by it and its design. So much so that I e-mailed the owner/founder/editor, one Tyler Brulee and offered my congratulations , and best wishes for the future of the magazine.
It was so cutting edge at the time, like a breath of fresh air. He continued to publish his stunning magazine but I suspect struggled financially for over a year before selling the magazine to Time Warner. But the flavour of the magazine pretty much remained until he left in 2002.
Now he is back with another new and exciting magazine, MONOCLE, totally different in content and appearance to Wallpaper, but chock-a-block with stories from around the world from some very fine contributors, and of course profusely illustrated.
Thank goodness the weekend is approaching because I'm going to have to take a day off to read the first issue which runs to 242 pages plus a 16 page inserted illustrated story (read comic) introducing a new hero to maintain world order.
Congratulations Tyler, and all the best for a long and successful life for MONOCLE.
Issue 01 Volume 01.
This looks interesting I thought, then on opening it I saw the Editor in Chief's name and immediately I knew I had to buy it.
Tyler Brulee.
My mind flashed back to 1996 when in the same store I came across another magazine for the first time - Wallpaper. I bought that first issue of Wallpaper, and was totally entranced by it and its design. So much so that I e-mailed the owner/founder/editor, one Tyler Brulee and offered my congratulations , and best wishes for the future of the magazine.
It was so cutting edge at the time, like a breath of fresh air. He continued to publish his stunning magazine but I suspect struggled financially for over a year before selling the magazine to Time Warner. But the flavour of the magazine pretty much remained until he left in 2002.
Now he is back with another new and exciting magazine, MONOCLE, totally different in content and appearance to Wallpaper, but chock-a-block with stories from around the world from some very fine contributors, and of course profusely illustrated.
Thank goodness the weekend is approaching because I'm going to have to take a day off to read the first issue which runs to 242 pages plus a 16 page inserted illustrated story (read comic) introducing a new hero to maintain world order.
Congratulations Tyler, and all the best for a long and successful life for MONOCLE.
NEW ZEALAND BOOK REVIEWER OF THE YEAR
Entries are now open for the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand Review Awards.
There are two awards to enter: the BPANZ Reviewer of the Year and the BPANZ Best Review Page or Programme.
Special acknowledgements will also be made for the following categories:
- best broadcast review
- best short print review (under 500 words)
- best long print review (500 words or more)
- best broadcast review programme
- best magazine review pages
- best newspaper review pages
Entry forms can be downloaded from www.booksellers.co.nz (under the Montana NZ Book Awards section).
To be eligible reviews must have been published or broadcast in New Zealand within the 2006 calendar year and the submission must be received at Booksellers New Zealand by Thursday 12th April.
There is no fee to enter and the winner of the BPANZ Reviewer of the Year Award will receive a $1,000 cash prize.
These awards will be presented as part of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in Auckland on Monday 30th July.
For more information contact Kathryn Carmody.
Tel. 04 387 2833
Mob. 027 287 7963
Email. kathryn.carmody@gmail.com
Web. www.montananzbookawards.co.nz
Entries are now open for the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand Review Awards.
There are two awards to enter: the BPANZ Reviewer of the Year and the BPANZ Best Review Page or Programme.
Special acknowledgements will also be made for the following categories:
- best broadcast review
- best short print review (under 500 words)
- best long print review (500 words or more)
- best broadcast review programme
- best magazine review pages
- best newspaper review pages
Entry forms can be downloaded from www.booksellers.co.nz (under the Montana NZ Book Awards section).
To be eligible reviews must have been published or broadcast in New Zealand within the 2006 calendar year and the submission must be received at Booksellers New Zealand by Thursday 12th April.
There is no fee to enter and the winner of the BPANZ Reviewer of the Year Award will receive a $1,000 cash prize.
These awards will be presented as part of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in Auckland on Monday 30th July.
For more information contact Kathryn Carmody.
Tel. 04 387 2833
Mob. 027 287 7963
Email. kathryn.carmody@gmail.com
Web. www.montananzbookawards.co.nz
WHAT MELBOURNE'S THE AGE NEWSPAPER IS SAYING ABOUT THE BOOK WORLD JUST NOW
Take 10 minutes off and have a browse, it is an excellent newspaper and they are serious about their book coverage.
Take 10 minutes off and have a browse, it is an excellent newspaper and they are serious about their book coverage.
THE ROAD
Cormac McCarthy
Picador
NZ$35.00
I am not at all surprised that McCarthy's latest masterpiece made the final five short listed titles for the National Book Critic's Circle Award, (subsequently won by The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai).
Grim as the subject matter is - and various reviewers have called it post-Armageddonian, post-holocaustian, and post-apocalyptian - and believe me it is very bleak indeed, it is nevertheless a triumph of story telling and I simply could not put the book down. It is a comparatively quick read but if you start reading be prepared to write off several hours.
I'm not going to say too much more about it because it has had an astonishing amount of review coverage already including one by Elspeth Sandys in the Listener of February 10 where she suggested that someone ought to have given George Bush and Tony Blair a copy each for Christmas.
It is the story of a father and son fighting their way across a devastated landscape, one assumes it has been devastated by a nuclear event although this is not actually stated. They are heading south out of the mountains and towards the coast where they hope it will be warmer. They are hunting and hiding as they travel, scavenging for food amongst the ruined landscape, walking on the road by day and hiding well off it by night.
Hence the title of course, and what a cover, it captures the essence of the book perfectly.
For all its bleakness The Road is a remarkably poetic book, and it is a story that moved me and will stay with me a long time.
Highly recommended.
If you would like to learn more about McCarthy, and he is one of the truly great contemporary American authors, click here to go to the excellent Wikipedia entry on him.
Author photo by Derek Shapton for Newsweek.
LIBRARY LINK OF THE DAY
Here is everything , and probably more besides (!), you ever wanted to know about Web 2.0
Here is everything , and probably more besides (!), you ever wanted to know about Web 2.0
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
THE IMPORTANCE OF A COMPETENT INDEX CANNOT BE OVERSTATED
A couple of years back when I was involved in the judging of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards the three judges were appalled at the total absence of indices from several of the submitted non-fiction titles.
I received this e-mail from Alan Eddy today and am pleased to post it on my blog in the hope it might encourage publishers and authors to pay more attention to this most important element of a book.
The Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers' Medal is awarded annually for the most outstanding index to a book or periodical compiled in Australia or New Zealand. The index must be in print and must have been published within the past three years (i.e. 2005-2007). It must have been compiled in Australia or New Zealand, even though the text to which it refers may have originated elsewhere. The index should be substantial in size; the subject matter should be complex; and the language, form and structure of the index should demonstrate the indexer's expertise, as well as serving the needs of the text and reader. The publisher of the winning index will be presented with a certificate recognising their promotion of work of outstanding quality. The judges may also make 'highly commended' awards.
Nominations, with bibliographical details and a copy of the book (which will be returned if requested) should be sent to the Returning Officer. Publishers, indexers and all interested people may nominate indexes, and indexers may nominate their own work.
Dates
Entries open mid-April and close on July 6, 2007. The presentation of awards will be made at the annual meeting in October.
Entry form
An entry form is available from the Returning Officer.
Contact
Alan Eddy, Returning Officer, Awards
PO Box 5062
Glenferrie South
Vic 3122 ,
Australia
Tel (03) 9853 0991 Email aeddy@surf.net.au
A couple of years back when I was involved in the judging of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards the three judges were appalled at the total absence of indices from several of the submitted non-fiction titles.
I received this e-mail from Alan Eddy today and am pleased to post it on my blog in the hope it might encourage publishers and authors to pay more attention to this most important element of a book.
The Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers' Medal is awarded annually for the most outstanding index to a book or periodical compiled in Australia or New Zealand. The index must be in print and must have been published within the past three years (i.e. 2005-2007). It must have been compiled in Australia or New Zealand, even though the text to which it refers may have originated elsewhere. The index should be substantial in size; the subject matter should be complex; and the language, form and structure of the index should demonstrate the indexer's expertise, as well as serving the needs of the text and reader. The publisher of the winning index will be presented with a certificate recognising their promotion of work of outstanding quality. The judges may also make 'highly commended' awards.
Nominations, with bibliographical details and a copy of the book (which will be returned if requested) should be sent to the Returning Officer. Publishers, indexers and all interested people may nominate indexes, and indexers may nominate their own work.
Dates
Entries open mid-April and close on July 6, 2007. The presentation of awards will be made at the annual meeting in October.
Entry form
An entry form is available from the Returning Officer.
Contact
Alan Eddy, Returning Officer, Awards
PO Box 5062
Glenferrie South
Vic 3122 ,
Australia
Tel (03) 9853 0991 Email aeddy@surf.net.au
PETER EMANUEL'S RETIREMENT PARTY
On Monday this week I reminded Peter, who with his brother David ran the hugely successful , and much-missed, London Bookshop chain before it was subsumed into Whitcoulls by Graeme Hart, that it was 11 years that day since his wonderful farewell function at Highwic House in Auckland.
Peter was one of the great characters in the book trade, liked by all, even by publisher's reps when he would refuse to buy the quantity they thought LBS should buy of the next best-seller.
He was a bookseller for 38 years, he served on the Booksellers Association as a councillor for many years, and was always most generous in sharing with new booksellers the knowledge he had gained from years of experience in running one of New Zealand's most successful retail bookselling operations.
I learned much from him when Barry Forbes and I started Beattie & Forbes Bookshop in Napier in 1969.
A devout Wellingtonian for most of his life Peter now lives in retirement in the far north with his wife Carole where they are frequently visited by their children and grandchildren. Good boy Peter.
On Monday this week I reminded Peter, who with his brother David ran the hugely successful , and much-missed, London Bookshop chain before it was subsumed into Whitcoulls by Graeme Hart, that it was 11 years that day since his wonderful farewell function at Highwic House in Auckland.
Peter was one of the great characters in the book trade, liked by all, even by publisher's reps when he would refuse to buy the quantity they thought LBS should buy of the next best-seller.
He was a bookseller for 38 years, he served on the Booksellers Association as a councillor for many years, and was always most generous in sharing with new booksellers the knowledge he had gained from years of experience in running one of New Zealand's most successful retail bookselling operations.
I learned much from him when Barry Forbes and I started Beattie & Forbes Bookshop in Napier in 1969.
A devout Wellingtonian for most of his life Peter now lives in retirement in the far north with his wife Carole where they are frequently visited by their children and grandchildren. Good boy Peter.
URBAN LEGENDS JUST KEEP COMING ALONG !
A well meaning friend sent me the following message asbout hotel key cards by e-mail this morning.
I immediately e-mailed her back suggesting she check her source because it sounded very much like an urban legend to me.
Later I went on to my favourite urban legend website and sure enough there listed on their hottest urban legends was hotel key cards at number 14 !!
HOTEL KEY CARDS
Ever wonder what is on your magnetic key card?
Answer:
a. Customer's name
b. Customer's partial home address
c. Hotel room number
d. Check-in date and out dates
e. Customer's credit card number and expiration date!When you turn them in to the front desk your personalinformation is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner.
An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device,access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense.
Simply put, hotels do not erase the information on these cards until an employee reissues the card to the next hotel guest.
At that time, the new guest's information is electronically "overwritten" on the card and the previousguest's information is erased in the overwriting process.
But until the card is rewritten for the next guest, itusually is kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!
The bottom line is:
Keep the cards, take them home with you, or destroy them.
NEVER leave them behind in the room or room wastebasket, and NEVER turn them in to the front desk when you check out of aroom. They will not charge you for the card (it's illegal)and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuablepersonal information on it that could be easily lifted offwith any simple scanning device card reader.
For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport and discover you still have the card key in your pocket, do not toss it in anairport trash basket. Take it home and destroy it by cutting it up, especially through the electronic information strip!
Information courtesy of Pasadena Police Department
I have long been fascinated by urban legends and in the days before the Web arrived and changed all our lives forever I use to buy every book I came across on the subject. I still have the best three on my bookshelf and I notice coincidentally they were all published in 1999.
For the record they are:
Good Luck Mr.Gorsky-exploring urban myths - Robert Pollock - Reed
Urban Legends - the truth behind the myths - Richard Roper - Career Press
Alligators in the Sewer & 222 other urban legends - T.J.Craughwell - Black Dog & Leventhal
Today these are rather superfluous as Google offers over a million websites on the subject and as quick as a new one comes along someone denounces it on the Web.
The thing that has always astonished me about the urban legend is the way people swear that they are true because "their cousin knew the person to whom it happened" or similar.
Have a look at the website I listed at the top of this post, I'll wager you'll be astonished, and more than a little entertained.
A well meaning friend sent me the following message asbout hotel key cards by e-mail this morning.
I immediately e-mailed her back suggesting she check her source because it sounded very much like an urban legend to me.
Later I went on to my favourite urban legend website and sure enough there listed on their hottest urban legends was hotel key cards at number 14 !!
HOTEL KEY CARDS
Ever wonder what is on your magnetic key card?
Answer:
a. Customer's name
b. Customer's partial home address
c. Hotel room number
d. Check-in date and out dates
e. Customer's credit card number and expiration date!When you turn them in to the front desk your personalinformation is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner.
An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device,access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense.
Simply put, hotels do not erase the information on these cards until an employee reissues the card to the next hotel guest.
At that time, the new guest's information is electronically "overwritten" on the card and the previousguest's information is erased in the overwriting process.
But until the card is rewritten for the next guest, itusually is kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!
The bottom line is:
Keep the cards, take them home with you, or destroy them.
NEVER leave them behind in the room or room wastebasket, and NEVER turn them in to the front desk when you check out of aroom. They will not charge you for the card (it's illegal)and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuablepersonal information on it that could be easily lifted offwith any simple scanning device card reader.
For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport and discover you still have the card key in your pocket, do not toss it in anairport trash basket. Take it home and destroy it by cutting it up, especially through the electronic information strip!
Information courtesy of Pasadena Police Department
I have long been fascinated by urban legends and in the days before the Web arrived and changed all our lives forever I use to buy every book I came across on the subject. I still have the best three on my bookshelf and I notice coincidentally they were all published in 1999.
For the record they are:
Good Luck Mr.Gorsky-exploring urban myths - Robert Pollock - Reed
Urban Legends - the truth behind the myths - Richard Roper - Career Press
Alligators in the Sewer & 222 other urban legends - T.J.Craughwell - Black Dog & Leventhal
Today these are rather superfluous as Google offers over a million websites on the subject and as quick as a new one comes along someone denounces it on the Web.
The thing that has always astonished me about the urban legend is the way people swear that they are true because "their cousin knew the person to whom it happened" or similar.
Have a look at the website I listed at the top of this post, I'll wager you'll be astonished, and more than a little entertained.
INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN'S BOOK DAY
Stories Ring the World
International Children’s Book Day, 2 April 2007
In 2007 New Zealand is the host country of International Children’s Book Day, a worldwide annual event marking Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday.
Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust, as a member of IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People), is organising a three-day mini-festival from 31 March to 2 April 2007 to celebrate the event. Activities include:
The International Children’s Book Day poster, illustrated by Auckland author/illustrator Zak Waipara and featuring a “Message to the Children of the World” written by Margaret Mahy (order poster at www.storylines.org.nz)
Publication of an exciting new anthology called Out of The Deep and other stories from New Zealand and the Pacific (Reed Publishing/Storylines)
The opportunity for schools and libraries to display the ICBD poster, share celebration ideas, and enter an ICBD Competition on the Storylines website
The annual Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal Lecture Function in Auckland on Saturday 31 March 2007
Public readings, Sunday 1 April: city libraries around New Zealand are encouraged to invite children and families to listen to people from many cultures presenting their favourite children’s stories – on the theme of Stories Ring the World
International Children’s Book Day, Monday 2 April: schools and smaller libraries throughout New Zealand are encouraged to hold their own celebrations, using suggestions and resources available on the Storylines website
For further information on the ICBD events and the Zak Waipara poster and leaflet contact childlitnz@storylines.org.nz
or visit http://www.storylines.org.nz
Participate in New Zealand’s first involvement in
International Children’s Book Day, April 2, 2007!
TWO GIANTS OF LITERATURE, ONE BLACK EYE, & 30 YEARS OF SILENCE.
This from TimesOnline today.
Two giants of Latin American literature, Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa, haven't spoken to one another for three decades, use the link above to read why.
This from TimesOnline today.
Two giants of Latin American literature, Garcia Marquez and Vargas Llosa, haven't spoken to one another for three decades, use the link above to read why.
SHEPPARD'S CONFIDENTIAL
The latest bulletin, number 54, has just been e-mailed out to subscribers.
I strongly recommend this e-zine if you have an interest in antiquarian or second-hand books. Subscription is free - just click on the link above.
All dealers should register on Sheppard's World - a site that is becoming a main source for reference. The details are as up to date as possible - the result of a weekly newsletter.
The latest bulletin, number 54, has just been e-mailed out to subscribers.
I strongly recommend this e-zine if you have an interest in antiquarian or second-hand books. Subscription is free - just click on the link above.
All dealers should register on Sheppard's World - a site that is becoming a main source for reference. The details are as up to date as possible - the result of a weekly newsletter.
Whitcoulls, Friends of Takapuna Library and Hatchette Livre are thrilled to invite you to an
Evening in Conversation with STEVE BERRY
(best selling author of The Alexandria Link, The Templar Legacy, Romanov Prophecy and The Amber Room)
Wednesday, 28 March, at 6.00 pm
Takapuna Library, The Strand, Takapuna
Tickets
$5 or
$2.50 for Friends of the Takapuna Library
Refreshments to be served
RSVP Helen Woodhouse, ph 486 8469
Or email helenw@shorelibraries.govt.nz
Evening in Conversation with STEVE BERRY
(best selling author of The Alexandria Link, The Templar Legacy, Romanov Prophecy and The Amber Room)
Wednesday, 28 March, at 6.00 pm
Takapuna Library, The Strand, Takapuna
Tickets
$5 or
$2.50 for Friends of the Takapuna Library
Refreshments to be served
RSVP Helen Woodhouse, ph 486 8469
Or email helenw@shorelibraries.govt.nz
THE MOST UNFINISHED BOOKS - you are not alone in not finishing them
Entertaining piece from the Press Association in the New Zealand Herald this morning which I also read in the online Guardian overnight. See how many of these books you didn't finish...........
funky nz art magazine WHITE FUNGUS ON YOU TUBE
A few weeks back in a piece on shopping in the Auckland suburb Kingsland I mentioned discovering the experimental and lively art magazine , White Fungus.
Late last year editor Ron Hanson , who lived in Taiwan for a number of years, was interviewed by Ling-Ling Liang for a news item on Auckland's World TV, a channel for new Asian immigrants.
Now the interview has appeared on YouTube.
A few weeks back in a piece on shopping in the Auckland suburb Kingsland I mentioned discovering the experimental and lively art magazine , White Fungus.
Late last year editor Ron Hanson , who lived in Taiwan for a number of years, was interviewed by Ling-Ling Liang for a news item on Auckland's World TV, a channel for new Asian immigrants.
Now the interview has appeared on YouTube.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
GOOGLE'S MOON SHOT
Here is the story by Jeffrey Toobin, sub-titled The Quest for the Universal Library, that appeared in The New Yorker issue of Feb 5 2007 which should be compulsory reading by all in the world of books whether they be authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, teachers,or readers.
Here is the story by Jeffrey Toobin, sub-titled The Quest for the Universal Library, that appeared in The New Yorker issue of Feb 5 2007 which should be compulsory reading by all in the world of books whether they be authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, teachers,or readers.
Love the illustration....................
Then this on the same subject appeared in the Guardian this past Saturday, March 10. Do read it as well...................
Then this on the same subject appeared in the Guardian this past Saturday, March 10. Do read it as well...................
CHRISTCHURCH - THE TURNED ON CITY
What is it about Christchurch?
Having surveyed most of the New Zealand public library websites over the past two days I have to say that Christchurch Public Library has the best one I have seen. Have a look for yourself.
And just now I have found www.bethere.co.nz a great site promoting the many autumn attractions of the garden city.
Then there are the beautiful Botanic Gardens and Hagley Park, even they have their own website. These pics show an overview of the Botanical Gardens and an autumn view one of the many magnificent trees to be found in Hagley Park.Full marks to Christchurch,
I look forward to my next visit in April 
when the autumn colours will be at their best.
when the autumn colours will be at their best.And of course one must not overlook the fact the one of the world's great websites, Arts & Letters Daily, is the creation of Denis Dutton who is a professor at Canterbury University.
The university has its own publishing arm, Canterbury University Press.
All these fascinating websites..............................
AK in Conversation
Auckland Festival’s series of cultural discussions returns.
The Famous Spiegeltent will stage these FREE thought-provoking talks on weekday, from 12.30-1.30pm, throughout the Festival.
Wed 14 March: What Makes a Creative City: the Role of Arts in Urban DesignSpeakers include: Auckland City Council’s Urban Design Manager Ludo Campbell-Reid, Michael Brook (New Zealand Film Archive, Unguarded Intersection: Aquarium AK03 and SKY AK07), Britomart Architect Mario Madayag, Auckland Festival, AK07 Windows artist Jessica Pearless and choreographer Marianne Schultz. Chaired by Vincent Heeringa (Idealog Magazine). Presented in association with Auckland City Council.
Thur 15 March: Poignant or Impotent: Political Themes on the NZ StageSpeakers include: visiting political satirist Eddie Perfect (Drink Pepsi Bitch), Christian Penny (Penumbra) and director Lemi Ponifasio (TEMPEST), moderated by Oliver Driver.
Fri 16 March: A Song is a Bastard: the Marriage of Music and PoetrySpeakers include: David Fotter (Façade), poet and songwriter DJ Daren Kamali, with performances from Miriam Barr with cellist Fiona Holding, and Façade Musicians. Moderated by Murray Edmond.
Mon 19 March: Do Festivals Add to the Artistic Development of a City? Chaired by Ilona Rodgers, speakers include David Malacari (Auckland Festival), Carla Van Zon (formerly New Zealand International Arts Festival), Ole Maiava (Pasifika) and Shelagh Magadza (The UWA Perth International Arts Festival).
Tues 20 March: Navigating Auckland’s Visual Arts: an Essential GuideSpeakers include Brian Butler (director ARTSPACE), Sue Gardiner (arts writer), Jenny Gibbs (patron and collector), John Gow (Gow Langsford Gallery) and Chris Saines (director Auckland Art Gallery) moderated by Natasha Beckman (Visual Arts & Public Programme Coordinator, Auckland Festival).
Wed 21 March: SpiegeltourBuilt in 1920, this Grand Dame of Cabaret Salons has traveled to festivals worldwide. Feel her spirit and share her stories as Spiegelmaestro David Bates and La Clique Creative Producer/MC Brett Haylock take you on a tour of the most beautiful of the remaining mirrored pavilions.
Thurs 22 March: Heiner Goebbels - Laboritoire des Idées Acclaimed German composer, producer and creator of Music-Theatre, Heiner Goebbels talks with Michael Hurst about his work.
Fri 23 March: Why Can’t Art Be More Like Sport? …or Why Can’t Sport Be More Like Art?Speakers include Billy Apple (Artist and sports fan), Neil Waka (Sports Presenter) and Bernice Mene (Sportsperson & Black Grace Patron) and Aidee Walker (Actor), chaired by Clayton Carrick- Leslie.
12 – 23 March, Mondays to Fridays from 12.30-1.30pmThe Famous Spiegeltent, Red Square, Britomart, AucklandFREE, no bookings required
AK in Conversation is part of Arts and Minds, the Auckland Festival, AK07 Public Programme which includes Arts Collective and Watch this Space.
Auckland Festival’s series of cultural discussions returns.
The Famous Spiegeltent will stage these FREE thought-provoking talks on weekday, from 12.30-1.30pm, throughout the Festival.
Wed 14 March: What Makes a Creative City: the Role of Arts in Urban DesignSpeakers include: Auckland City Council’s Urban Design Manager Ludo Campbell-Reid, Michael Brook (New Zealand Film Archive, Unguarded Intersection: Aquarium AK03 and SKY AK07), Britomart Architect Mario Madayag, Auckland Festival, AK07 Windows artist Jessica Pearless and choreographer Marianne Schultz. Chaired by Vincent Heeringa (Idealog Magazine). Presented in association with Auckland City Council.
Thur 15 March: Poignant or Impotent: Political Themes on the NZ StageSpeakers include: visiting political satirist Eddie Perfect (Drink Pepsi Bitch), Christian Penny (Penumbra) and director Lemi Ponifasio (TEMPEST), moderated by Oliver Driver.
Fri 16 March: A Song is a Bastard: the Marriage of Music and PoetrySpeakers include: David Fotter (Façade), poet and songwriter DJ Daren Kamali, with performances from Miriam Barr with cellist Fiona Holding, and Façade Musicians. Moderated by Murray Edmond.
Mon 19 March: Do Festivals Add to the Artistic Development of a City? Chaired by Ilona Rodgers, speakers include David Malacari (Auckland Festival), Carla Van Zon (formerly New Zealand International Arts Festival), Ole Maiava (Pasifika) and Shelagh Magadza (The UWA Perth International Arts Festival).
Tues 20 March: Navigating Auckland’s Visual Arts: an Essential GuideSpeakers include Brian Butler (director ARTSPACE), Sue Gardiner (arts writer), Jenny Gibbs (patron and collector), John Gow (Gow Langsford Gallery) and Chris Saines (director Auckland Art Gallery) moderated by Natasha Beckman (Visual Arts & Public Programme Coordinator, Auckland Festival).
Wed 21 March: SpiegeltourBuilt in 1920, this Grand Dame of Cabaret Salons has traveled to festivals worldwide. Feel her spirit and share her stories as Spiegelmaestro David Bates and La Clique Creative Producer/MC Brett Haylock take you on a tour of the most beautiful of the remaining mirrored pavilions.
Thurs 22 March: Heiner Goebbels - Laboritoire des Idées Acclaimed German composer, producer and creator of Music-Theatre, Heiner Goebbels talks with Michael Hurst about his work.
Fri 23 March: Why Can’t Art Be More Like Sport? …or Why Can’t Sport Be More Like Art?Speakers include Billy Apple (Artist and sports fan), Neil Waka (Sports Presenter) and Bernice Mene (Sportsperson & Black Grace Patron) and Aidee Walker (Actor), chaired by Clayton Carrick- Leslie.
12 – 23 March, Mondays to Fridays from 12.30-1.30pmThe Famous Spiegeltent, Red Square, Britomart, AucklandFREE, no bookings required
AK in Conversation is part of Arts and Minds, the Auckland Festival, AK07 Public Programme which includes Arts Collective and Watch this Space.
HANIA, CRETE
In September last year we spent a most wonderful week at the gorgeous port of Hania at the western end of Crete. We had superb accomodation right on the ancient Venetian harbour; the weather was glorious; we hired a car and visited the superbly maintained Commonwealth War Graves at Souda Bay, (a most moving experience), as well as viewing ruins from the Minoan civilisation, swimming at beautiful beaches, walking part of the Samaria Gorge, being amazed by Byzantine churches and generally having the most interesting and relaxing holiday.
It is a time I shall never forget.
The memories of that experience all came flooding back to me this morning when I received an e-mail about a creative writing course being held there this June. I can't imagine a better location - visit their website and have a look if this is of interest.
In September last year we spent a most wonderful week at the gorgeous port of Hania at the western end of Crete. We had superb accomodation right on the ancient Venetian harbour; the weather was glorious; we hired a car and visited the superbly maintained Commonwealth War Graves at Souda Bay, (a most moving experience), as well as viewing ruins from the Minoan civilisation, swimming at beautiful beaches, walking part of the Samaria Gorge, being amazed by Byzantine churches and generally having the most interesting and relaxing holiday.
It is a time I shall never forget.
The memories of that experience all came flooding back to me this morning when I received an e-mail about a creative writing course being held there this June. I can't imagine a better location - visit their website and have a look if this is of interest.
Monday, March 12, 2007
THE CASTLE IN THE FOREST - Norman Mailer - Little,Brown.
Writer and critic Adam Mars-Jones reviews Norman Mailer's latest in the Observer and wonders whether he may have over-reached himself.
Read his review here.
Writer and critic Adam Mars-Jones reviews Norman Mailer's latest in the Observer and wonders whether he may have over-reached himself.
Read his review here.
HOW MANY BOOKS DO YOU THINK YOU MIGHT READ IN YOUR LIFETIME?
Read here how many this man expects to read,and ponder his thoughts on books and reading.
No wonder he is the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle.
Read here how many this man expects to read,and ponder his thoughts on books and reading.
No wonder he is the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle.
Fran Lebowitz Quotes and Biography. Fran Lebowitz Quotations.
Last week my quote of the week was by Fran Lebowitz and as several readers communicated to me how much they enjoyed her quotes I have picked up these from the Web for your pleasure.
Last week my quote of the week was by Fran Lebowitz and as several readers communicated to me how much they enjoyed her quotes I have picked up these from the Web for your pleasure.
SHEPPARD'S CONFIDENTIAL
Sheppard's Confidential is a digital newsletter emanating from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, UK where it is published by Rivendale Press on behalf of Sheppard's World.
The newsletter is concerned about events and activities in the world of antiquarian and second-hand books. if this is an area of interest to you then get yourself on their mailing list by clicking on the above link.
Here is an excerpt from the latest issue, number 53, which suggests that second hand booksellers are experiencing a significant impact from the Internet.
Richard Budd's Last Catalogue
It was with the usual excitement that we opened Catalogue 94 from Richard Budd (please see the entry on our Book Catalogues page), but we were immediately saddened by the news that this was to be his last catalogue and indeed consists of Richard's large and varied reference library.
His observations in the preface to this catalogue rang true:
The book world I joined all those years ago is changing now as the impersonal internet takes over. How dull it will eventually become when there are no more second-hand bookshops, no catalogue booksellers and no fairs, with everything available on the net. ...we will never find the books we didn't know we wanted or those we used joyfully to chance upon in catalogues or at fairs or shops. Such books sometimes changed our lives.
The osmosis of information between collector, writer, academic and bookseller will be gone forever. We and bibliography will all be poorer for that and, as rare books become just another commodity, our business will lose its humanity.
Happily, we have not yet reached that point and, with luck, we may avoid it.
Sheppard's Confidential is a digital newsletter emanating from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, UK where it is published by Rivendale Press on behalf of Sheppard's World.
The newsletter is concerned about events and activities in the world of antiquarian and second-hand books. if this is an area of interest to you then get yourself on their mailing list by clicking on the above link.
Here is an excerpt from the latest issue, number 53, which suggests that second hand booksellers are experiencing a significant impact from the Internet.
Richard Budd's Last Catalogue
It was with the usual excitement that we opened Catalogue 94 from Richard Budd (please see the entry on our Book Catalogues page), but we were immediately saddened by the news that this was to be his last catalogue and indeed consists of Richard's large and varied reference library.
His observations in the preface to this catalogue rang true:
The book world I joined all those years ago is changing now as the impersonal internet takes over. How dull it will eventually become when there are no more second-hand bookshops, no catalogue booksellers and no fairs, with everything available on the net. ...we will never find the books we didn't know we wanted or those we used joyfully to chance upon in catalogues or at fairs or shops. Such books sometimes changed our lives.
The osmosis of information between collector, writer, academic and bookseller will be gone forever. We and bibliography will all be poorer for that and, as rare books become just another commodity, our business will lose its humanity.
Happily, we have not yet reached that point and, with luck, we may avoid it.
FURTHER ACCLAIM FOR AUTHOR
Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss" adds the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award to the Man Booker Prize. This from the Associated Press.
Kiran Desai's "The Inheritance of Loss" adds the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award to the Man Booker Prize. This from the Associated Press.
HOW GREEN WERE THE NAZIS, and other weird titles
The Independent publishes the shortlist for The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year.
The Independent publishes the shortlist for The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for the Oddest Book Title of the Year.
HONOURING WRITERS
In the New Zealand Herald today (March 12) Rae McGregor of Kohimara writes:
It is exciting to read that there will be development of the Tank Farm before 2011 and the Rugby World Cup. There is nothing like an event to spur a city to great development heights.
Auckland's best example is the Viaduct Harbour, which came about because the city hosted the America's Cup.
I hope Wynyard Management has a wide brief on what will be included in the development. I would love to see Auckland honour its writers. Here is a golden opportunity to creeate a writers' walk, which would enhance the city's cultural assets. Let's acknowledge Jane Mander, J.C.Beaglehole, A.R.D.Fairburn, Robyn Hyde, Alan Mulgan and Bruce Mason just to name a few who are no longer with us, and Albert Wendt, Witi Ihimaera, Tessa Duder and Kevin Ireland who are definitely still lively.
Statistics show that reading is the largest leisure activity in this country. As a sophisticated city, let's acknowledge our literary, as well as our sporting, heritage.
Great idea Rae, I am sure we can all add other Auckland based or born writers to your list for consideration. However I'm not sure how happy Wellingtonians would feel about us poaching J.C.Beaglehole. He was born in Wellington and I thought spent most of his distinguished working life there.
In the New Zealand Herald today (March 12) Rae McGregor of Kohimara writes:
It is exciting to read that there will be development of the Tank Farm before 2011 and the Rugby World Cup. There is nothing like an event to spur a city to great development heights.
Auckland's best example is the Viaduct Harbour, which came about because the city hosted the America's Cup.
I hope Wynyard Management has a wide brief on what will be included in the development. I would love to see Auckland honour its writers. Here is a golden opportunity to creeate a writers' walk, which would enhance the city's cultural assets. Let's acknowledge Jane Mander, J.C.Beaglehole, A.R.D.Fairburn, Robyn Hyde, Alan Mulgan and Bruce Mason just to name a few who are no longer with us, and Albert Wendt, Witi Ihimaera, Tessa Duder and Kevin Ireland who are definitely still lively.
Statistics show that reading is the largest leisure activity in this country. As a sophisticated city, let's acknowledge our literary, as well as our sporting, heritage.
Great idea Rae, I am sure we can all add other Auckland based or born writers to your list for consideration. However I'm not sure how happy Wellingtonians would feel about us poaching J.C.Beaglehole. He was born in Wellington and I thought spent most of his distinguished working life there.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
The Plain & Ordinary Canterbury Sketchbook by Pete Canterbury University Press NZ$17.50
This post is dedicated to the alumni of Canterbury University and particularly my former Gisborne Boys High School mates Peter Grayson, Ernie Barrington, Don Beuth and Gary Finlay all of whom graduated from that esteemed university in the 1960’s.
I know all of them would enjoy this delightful publication as it contains sketches and anecdotal notes that bring back to life a cast of colourful Christchurch characters from the 1950’s and 1960’s as well as affectionate portrayals of the buildings and landmarks from that era.
Pete McLauchlan is the sketching postie of Sydenham who never leaves home without his sketchpad. His sketches were a weekly feature in The Press during the 1990’s which earned him a broad readership and there will be many residents, and former residents of Christchurch who will be delighted with this charming book and all its warm nostalgia.
This post is dedicated to the alumni of Canterbury University and particularly my former Gisborne Boys High School mates Peter Grayson, Ernie Barrington, Don Beuth and Gary Finlay all of whom graduated from that esteemed university in the 1960’s.
I know all of them would enjoy this delightful publication as it contains sketches and anecdotal notes that bring back to life a cast of colourful Christchurch characters from the 1950’s and 1960’s as well as affectionate portrayals of the buildings and landmarks from that era.
Pete McLauchlan is the sketching postie of Sydenham who never leaves home without his sketchpad. His sketches were a weekly feature in The Press during the 1990’s which earned him a broad readership and there will be many residents, and former residents of Christchurch who will be delighted with this charming book and all its warm nostalgia.
Canterbury University Press has displayed lateral thinking in preserving this piece of local social history.
Apologies over the colour of the cover depicted above. In fact it is proudly bright red with black text, the Canterbury colours.
The two sketches show, left the colonel and right, Denis Glover.
MORE ON DR.SEUSS
Three of my favourite books on Dr.Seuss are:
1. "Dr.Seuss from Then to Now" - this was published in 1986 on the occasion of the first major retrospective exhibition of his art held at the San Diego Museum of Art.
This is the art that Ted created in his spare time, it never appeared in his books. Fascinating - foreword by Maurice Sendak.
3.Dr.Seuss and Mrs.Geisel - a biography - Judith & Neil Morgan. A captivating official biography, which is both frank and felicitous.
I suspect that these three titles may be out of print but if so then all will be available I'm sure from on-line second hand booksellers.
GREEN EGGS & HOMAGE
A friend sent me this wonderful link this morning which I must share with you.
Dylan Hear a Who - Seuss via Zimmerman -Bob Dylan's tribute to
Dr.Seuss.
Back in the late 1970's I spent a wonderful week with Dr.Seuss culminating in 5 five minute interviews that I did with him for a popular TVNZ programme of the day called Today at One which was fronted by Sharon Crosbie and screened weekdays at 1.00pm.
Dr.Seuss died in 1991 but his much-loved books contiunue to sell in huge numbers world-wide. Until J.K.Rowling came along I suspect he was the biggest-selling children's author ever.
He is much in the news again at present because it is the 50th anniversary of publication of his perhaps most famous title, "The Cat in the Hat."
A friend sent me this wonderful link this morning which I must share with you.
Dylan Hear a Who - Seuss via Zimmerman -Bob Dylan's tribute to
Dr.Seuss.Back in the late 1970's I spent a wonderful week with Dr.Seuss culminating in 5 five minute interviews that I did with him for a popular TVNZ programme of the day called Today at One which was fronted by Sharon Crosbie and screened weekdays at 1.00pm.
Dr.Seuss died in 1991 but his much-loved books contiunue to sell in huge numbers world-wide. Until J.K.Rowling came along I suspect he was the biggest-selling children's author ever.
He is much in the news again at present because it is the 50th anniversary of publication of his perhaps most famous title, "The Cat in the Hat."
Saturday, March 10, 2007
In Los Angeles is the superb Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore which I have visited a couple of times. These days I am on their mailing list and here for your interest is a very small part of the latest issue of their newsletter, without any of the graphics unfortunately.
If you would like to be on their e-mailing list, or read the whole of their newsletter, then you will find their e-mail address and website at the foot of this post.
A piece of trivia for NZ readers, Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore is owned by the brothers of Professor Denis Dutton of Canterbury University, and of the superb Arts & Letters Daily internet publication which for me is compulsory daily viewing.
Calendar
Contact us
Dutton’s Brentwood
11975 San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
310-476-6263
Duttons@earthlink.net
On the web
http://www.duttonsbrentwood.com/
Odds and ends
Hold onto those first editions…….especially if one of them is John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath! At a recent book auction held here in Los Angeles, a first edition of the novel, once owned by Steinbeck’s sister Elizabeth, sold for a record-setting (for a Steinbeck, that is) $47,800. The proceeds from the sale of this copy and several other rare Steinbecks amounted to $200,000, and will be used to refurbish the Pacific Grove bungalow where Steinbeck did much of his work.
Still going strong……….is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Despite an announcement last year that he was retiring from his craft, Gabo (as he is affectionately know in his home country of Colombia) has told friends that he has begun work on another volume of his memoirs. Though it is still too early to be talking up release dates, the eighty-year old (as of Tuesday) author does not appear to be slowing down after all.
Do you youtube?.............While you might not automatically think of the pop culture phenomenon of youtube.com in the same breath as the literary arts, it’s inevitable that a medium that allows users to post their own video would eventually come to include snippets from author interviews and readings. A recent test of youtube, conducted in Dutton’s Brentwood’s back office during a slow moment, revealed that searches on “Chuck Palahniuk”, “Kurt Vonnegut”, “Don Delillo” and “Alice Walker” all yielded clips of varying lengths. “Shakespeare” produced quite a few hits, though, sadly, no videos of the Bard himself. “Thomas Pynchon” netted us his appearance on The Simpsons (with a cartoon bag over his head) and “Charles Dickens” rewarded us with not only a video of an English bloke speed-reading Great Expectations, but also a lengthy (if not entirely scholarly) appreciation of The Old Curiosity Shop by the daringly-dressed Super Amanda. “Laurence Sterne”, sadly, brought up nothing (though “Lawrence Sterne” did offer up Howard Stern).
If you would like to be on their e-mailing list, or read the whole of their newsletter, then you will find their e-mail address and website at the foot of this post.
A piece of trivia for NZ readers, Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore is owned by the brothers of Professor Denis Dutton of Canterbury University, and of the superb Arts & Letters Daily internet publication which for me is compulsory daily viewing.
Calendar
Contact us
Dutton’s Brentwood
11975 San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
310-476-6263
Duttons@earthlink.net
On the web
http://www.duttonsbrentwood.com/
Odds and ends
Hold onto those first editions…….especially if one of them is John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath! At a recent book auction held here in Los Angeles, a first edition of the novel, once owned by Steinbeck’s sister Elizabeth, sold for a record-setting (for a Steinbeck, that is) $47,800. The proceeds from the sale of this copy and several other rare Steinbecks amounted to $200,000, and will be used to refurbish the Pacific Grove bungalow where Steinbeck did much of his work.
Still going strong……….is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Despite an announcement last year that he was retiring from his craft, Gabo (as he is affectionately know in his home country of Colombia) has told friends that he has begun work on another volume of his memoirs. Though it is still too early to be talking up release dates, the eighty-year old (as of Tuesday) author does not appear to be slowing down after all.
Do you youtube?.............While you might not automatically think of the pop culture phenomenon of youtube.com in the same breath as the literary arts, it’s inevitable that a medium that allows users to post their own video would eventually come to include snippets from author interviews and readings. A recent test of youtube, conducted in Dutton’s Brentwood’s back office during a slow moment, revealed that searches on “Chuck Palahniuk”, “Kurt Vonnegut”, “Don Delillo” and “Alice Walker” all yielded clips of varying lengths. “Shakespeare” produced quite a few hits, though, sadly, no videos of the Bard himself. “Thomas Pynchon” netted us his appearance on The Simpsons (with a cartoon bag over his head) and “Charles Dickens” rewarded us with not only a video of an English bloke speed-reading Great Expectations, but also a lengthy (if not entirely scholarly) appreciation of The Old Curiosity Shop by the daringly-dressed Super Amanda. “Laurence Sterne”, sadly, brought up nothing (though “Lawrence Sterne” did offer up Howard Stern).
NEWS FROM NEW ZEALAND OPERA STAR SIMON O'NEILL
NEW YORK – Tenor Simon O’Neill, from Ashburton, New Zealand will return to the Metropolitan Opera as Siegmund in Die Walkuere after understudying Placido Domingo in the role since 2004.
O’Neill is also double cast as Siegmund with Domingo in the Royal Opera Covent Garden new production of Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” in October this year. He is the first New Zealander since his mentor Sir Donald McIntyre to appear in Die Walkuere at both the Met and Covent Garden. Commenting from Vienna where he is currently performing Andre Previn’s opera A Streetcar named Desire O’Neill said “It is a great honour to be cast in such a role with both these prestigious houses, a dream come true.”
Joining O’Neill in the production is Lisa Gasteen as Bruennhilde, James Morris as Wotan, Deborah Voigt as Sieglinde, Michelle DeYoung as Fricka. The production will be conducted by Maestro Lorin Maazel. These performances will mark Maazel’s return to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in nearly 45 years.
Maazel, music director of the New York Philharmonic since 2002, made 16 appearances at the Met from Nov. 1, 1962, to Jan. 19, 1963, conducting Mozart's “Don Giovanni” and Strauss' “Der Rosenkavalier.” He will conduct five performances of “Die Walkuere” Jan. 7-Feb. 9, 2008, the Met said Wednesday.
The gap between performances is believed to be the largest in Met history, director of archives Robert Tuggle said. The longest break he could recall involved conductor Pierre Monteux, who led Met performances from Nov. 17, 1917, to April 15, 1919, then returned from Nov. 16, 1953, to Feb. 4, 1956."One tries to get into the Guinness book of records somehow, however one can," Maazel said during a telephone interview. "They were offering a revival of an opera I'm very fond of during a period in which I was more or less free.
The last person to conduct at the Met while he served as music director of the Philharmonic was Leonard Bernstein, who led a new production of Verdi's “Falstaff” in 1964.
New Met general manager Peter Gelb has made an effort to bring in higher-stature guest conductors in future seasons, a group scheduled to include Riccardo Muti and Seiji Ozawa.
Website: http://www.simononeill.com/
LIBRARY LINK OF THE DAY for March 9
Sports Illustrated WithHolds Swimsuit Issue from Schools & Libraries
Sports Illustrated WithHolds Swimsuit Issue from Schools & Libraries
Friday, March 09, 2007
REMOVAL OF POST FROM YESTERDAY
Yesterday I posted a lively and entertaining piece by Tilly Lloyd which I had taken, without permission as I noted on the post, from The Publisher which is produced for the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand by Diploma in Publishing students at Whitiera Community Polytechnic.
Today I have received a comment from a spokesperson for BPANZ expressing dismay at my action. As a result I have deleted the post.
Yesterday I posted a lively and entertaining piece by Tilly Lloyd which I had taken, without permission as I noted on the post, from The Publisher which is produced for the Book Publishers Association of New Zealand by Diploma in Publishing students at Whitiera Community Polytechnic.
Today I have received a comment from a spokesperson for BPANZ expressing dismay at my action. As a result I have deleted the post.
MAGAZINES
I have to confess to being something of a magazine-aholic.
I have subscriptions to the Listener, Metro and Citymix, (the two Auckland city magazines), NZ Home and Entertaining, Cuisine, Healthy Food, The New Yorker, NBR, Art New Zealand, Wine New Zealand
And then from time to time I buy The Bulletin, Time, The Economist, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Delicious, Dish, The Independent, Winestate, ArtNews New Zealand, Urbis,Vanity Fair and others.
Then of course there are the magazines you get as a result of various memberships –Forest & Bird, NZ Historic Places Trust., Slow Food and the like.
In addition because she works in the fashion industry Annie buys a host of fashion magazines each month.
Our home is constantly in danger of being overwhelmed by books and magazines. The good thing about magazines is that you can pass them on to others after reading although I keep my copies of both Cuisine and The New Yorker.
One of my quotes this week is from Samuel Pepys, “I know not how to abstain from reading.”
I know exactly how Pepys felt.
I find myself feeling very fidgety if I am ever without something to read. I especially hate it if I am waiting to meet someone or waiting for an appointment or bus or if I arrive at the cinema or theatre early and I have nothing to read ……………………
I have to confess to being something of a magazine-aholic.
I have subscriptions to the Listener, Metro and Citymix, (the two Auckland city magazines), NZ Home and Entertaining, Cuisine, Healthy Food, The New Yorker, NBR, Art New Zealand, Wine New Zealand
And then from time to time I buy The Bulletin, Time, The Economist, Australian Gourmet Traveller, Delicious, Dish, The Independent, Winestate, ArtNews New Zealand, Urbis,Vanity Fair and others.
Then of course there are the magazines you get as a result of various memberships –Forest & Bird, NZ Historic Places Trust., Slow Food and the like.
In addition because she works in the fashion industry Annie buys a host of fashion magazines each month.
Our home is constantly in danger of being overwhelmed by books and magazines. The good thing about magazines is that you can pass them on to others after reading although I keep my copies of both Cuisine and The New Yorker.
One of my quotes this week is from Samuel Pepys, “I know not how to abstain from reading.”
I know exactly how Pepys felt.
I find myself feeling very fidgety if I am ever without something to read. I especially hate it if I am waiting to meet someone or waiting for an appointment or bus or if I arrive at the cinema or theatre early and I have nothing to read ……………………
Last night I read the Time magazine issue of March 12 with the gorgeous apple cover, (Forget organic, eat local), and made a start on The Economist of March 3-9.
Actually I should only buy The Economist when I am setting off on a long international flight as there is just so much to read in each issue that I hardly ever get right through them otherwise.
Time magazine has a fascinating double page piece on Shanghai’s Art Deco buildings – they have more than any other city in the world I was surprised to learn – which was done by way of a book review, SHANGHAI ART DECO by Deke Erh and Tess Johnston, their eighth collaboration.
The Economist has four pages of book reviews among them The Thyssen Art Macabre by David R.L.Litchfield (Quartet Books), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), and an Australian title, Carpentaria by Alexis Wright (Giramanda Press).
Thursday, March 08, 2007
FIRST TUESDAY BOOK CLUB - ABC TELEVISION
Have a look at this - nice to see Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones featured.
Have a look at this - nice to see Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones featured.
Top children's writers to tour the country
A record number of writers and illustrators will tour the country this year in celebration of the New Zealand Post Book Awards.
The Twenty top children’s writers and illustrators will visit twenty five regions from North to South in celebration of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2007, from Monday 7 May.
Booksellers New Zealand, organisers of the New Zealand Post Book Awards, chief executive Linda Henderson said it was great that children in the regions would get a chance to meet top writers and illustrators that often only toured to the main centres.
“Every year we make a commitment to tour finalists to regions all over the country. This year more writers and illustrators than ever before will entertain children and adults at some of the many events in celebration of the New Zealand Post Book Awards,” Mrs Henderson said.
The touring writers and illustrators are all finalists in this year’s awards. They take to the road as part of the annual nationwide festival of children’s reading and literature, visiting schools, libraries and bookshops, reading and discussing their work in front of audiences aged anywhere between two to fifteen years of age.
Full event details, including dates and times will be available on-line from early April at:
www.nzpostawards.co.nz
The celebrations culminate in the announcement of the winners of the awards at Parliament in Wellington on Wednesday 16 May.
A record number of writers and illustrators will tour the country this year in celebration of the New Zealand Post Book Awards.
The Twenty top children’s writers and illustrators will visit twenty five regions from North to South in celebration of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children & Young Adults 2007, from Monday 7 May.
Booksellers New Zealand, organisers of the New Zealand Post Book Awards, chief executive Linda Henderson said it was great that children in the regions would get a chance to meet top writers and illustrators that often only toured to the main centres.
“Every year we make a commitment to tour finalists to regions all over the country. This year more writers and illustrators than ever before will entertain children and adults at some of the many events in celebration of the New Zealand Post Book Awards,” Mrs Henderson said.
The touring writers and illustrators are all finalists in this year’s awards. They take to the road as part of the annual nationwide festival of children’s reading and literature, visiting schools, libraries and bookshops, reading and discussing their work in front of audiences aged anywhere between two to fifteen years of age.
Full event details, including dates and times will be available on-line from early April at:
www.nzpostawards.co.nz
The celebrations culminate in the announcement of the winners of the awards at Parliament in Wellington on Wednesday 16 May.
TWO NEWS ITEMS ON DIGITISATION FROM THE UK
1.Explosion in information being conveyed - this from the Guardian
2.Simon & Schuster to digitise backlist - this from The Bookseller
1.Explosion in information being conveyed - this from the Guardian
2.Simon & Schuster to digitise backlist - this from The Bookseller
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
NOTABLE QUOTES
Read this entertaining lengthy book review from
The New Yorker of Feb.19 & 26.
After reading this how can a collector of books of quotations like me not buy "the compendious, enjoyable, and expensive "Yale Book of Quotations" (Yale, US$50) ?
MY FAVOURITE MAGAZINE - THE NEW YORKER
Brilliant cover on the issue of Feb.12 by David Heatley called "Subway Connections". You may not be able to see the detail but it shows a subway car full of poeple and what they are all thinking about those around them. Brillant and very funny.
The covers of the New Yorker and all the wonderful cartoons alone make the magazine worth buying and then of course there are the stories, reviews and new fiction.
Here for your pleasure is an excerpt from this issue.
Critic's Notebook - Anton Reborn
Last week in London, the usually sedate English press was doing cartwheels over Ian Rickson's revival of "The Seagull" at the Royal Court, which is generally considered the finest British production of Chekhov in recent memory. Of its many pleasures- a pitch-perfect cast, a minimal
samovar-free set, elegant staging - the most piquant is the clarity and
psychological cunning of Christopher Hampton's adaptation.
Hampton who made his debut at the Royal Court in the sixties, brings
Checkhov's tragicomic vision of human self-destructiveness into bold relief. His adaptation excavates the unwitting deadliness in all the characters, revealing underneath their palaver a battlefield of unconscious aggression.
The iconic seagull that is shot on a whim by Konstantin and laid
at the feet of his beloved Nina, a would-be actress, subsequently becomes, in her mind, a symbol of her failed life.
Here, however, Hampton's limpid adaptation allows us to see that the
metaphor is more far-reaching than the caprice of destiny
John Lahr.
Here is another:
POSTSCRIPT - WHITNEY BALLIET
"Whitney Balliet, who died last week at the age of eighty, was above all a poet, who pursued poetry by other means. He wrote for this magazine for almost fifty years, mostly about jazz, and what he wrote was so good that Philip Larkin, not an easy man to please about either jazz or poetry, called him a "master of language," while, years later, the young Nicholson Baker still referred to him, in a wondering aside, as a "tireless prodigy." Whitney was about as pure a stylist as anyone who has written American English, yet his sentences were almost always about someone else's art, that's what gave his writing its modestyand its tensile strength."
The above is a brief excerpt from a much longer, superbly written tribute by Adam Gopnik whom some will remember as the author of the enormously entertaining "Paris to the Moon" and other books.
As a result of reading Gopnik on Whitney Balliet I am going to go to my Complete New Yorker CD rom set and look at some of Balliet's articles from the magazine over the past 50 years.
CATE BLANCHETT
Another piece that especially interested me was an eight page story on Cate Blanchett and her husband, the playwright Andrew Upton, and their appointment as co-artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Company, Australia's most prestigious theatre.
"Andrew and I are galvanised by a challenge," Blanchett said. "Frankly, this is the most exciting thing that has happened to us, apart from marriage and having children."
They both come from Melbourne originally so it looks like Australia , and Sydney in particular will be getting back two of its highly talented artistic exports. Lucky Australia.
And lucky me for having a subscription to The New Yorker. Thanks Mark.
LIBRARY LINK OF THE DAY
Whose art is it anyway? An interesting piece from Newsweek on the rturn of antiquities.
Whose art is it anyway? An interesting piece from Newsweek on the rturn of antiquities.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
NEW NOVEL REVIEW
Way back on 14 November last I blogged this colourful 20 page free publication which I had picked up at the Bridgeway Cinema in Northcote. Well the March/April 2007 issue is now out and can be found at various bookstores, cinemas and cafes.
Again there is an interesting and eclectic mix of titles reviewed, 10 full page reviews with a further five covered more briefly.
Among them are The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany, the Song Before it is Sung by Justin Cartwright, The Solitude of Thomas Cave by Georgina Harding, The Museum of Doubt by James Meek and my pick of the best first book in recent months, Salmon Fishing in The Yemen by Paul Torday.
One suspects that the editing and production of this attractive and interesting publication is something of a labour of love for the very busy editor Annaliese Prickett although one should record the advertising support forthcoming from several independent booksellers:
Unity Books, the Women's Bookshop,Jason Books, Dear Reader, Wild Swans Bookstore, and Time Out. And also publishers Penguin Books and Allen & Unwin.
Hats off to you all for your support.
Way back on 14 November last I blogged this colourful 20 page free publication which I had picked up at the Bridgeway Cinema in Northcote. Well the March/April 2007 issue is now out and can be found at various bookstores, cinemas and cafes.
Again there is an interesting and eclectic mix of titles reviewed, 10 full page reviews with a further five covered more briefly.
Among them are The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al Aswany, the Song Before it is Sung by Justin Cartwright, The Solitude of Thomas Cave by Georgina Harding, The Museum of Doubt by James Meek and my pick of the best first book in recent months, Salmon Fishing in The Yemen by Paul Torday.
One suspects that the editing and production of this attractive and interesting publication is something of a labour of love for the very busy editor Annaliese Prickett although one should record the advertising support forthcoming from several independent booksellers:
Unity Books, the Women's Bookshop,Jason Books, Dear Reader, Wild Swans Bookstore, and Time Out. And also publishers Penguin Books and Allen & Unwin.
Hats off to you all for your support.
RANDOM HOUSE BUYS VIRGIN BOOKS
It was announced this morning that the Random House Group has acquired 90% of Virgin Books and worldwide use of the Virgin brand in book, audio and digital publishing. The deal also includes five forthcoming titles by Richard Branson.
It was announced this morning that the Random House Group has acquired 90% of Virgin Books and worldwide use of the Virgin brand in book, audio and digital publishing. The deal also includes five forthcoming titles by Richard Branson.
Monday, March 05, 2007
DIGITISE OR DIE – ARE THE DAYS OF THE INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLER NUMBERED? PERHAPS NOT BUT URGENT ACTION IS REQUIRED.
I am a book lover, a book reader, a book reviewer, a book blogger.
Much of my discretionary spending goes on books. In addition I am fortunate enough to receive books for review. I am surrounded by books. My office is a scene of happy chaos with books all over the place in piles – those waiting to be read for review, those that have been read and have no space to be shelved, those I have bought on a whim or on the strength of a review or recommendation of friends and are yet to be read, and those aside to give to family or loan to friends. Then there are the thousands on the shelves, all read but too precious to be sold or given away. Then there are the book stacks throughout the rest of the house.
The books that I buy are invariably bought from independent booksellers, mostly Unity Books in Auckland and UBS Bookshop in Christchurch but also from other shops around the city and throughout New Zealand and overseas. Just wherever I happen to be at the time.
It is almost impossible for me to walk past a bookstore. I have to enter to see if there is a book or books I just cannot live without.
I love to handle them, critique the covers, read the blurbs and author bios, skim the dedications and acknowledgements, check the indices and bibliographies, assess the paper weight , smell them, and then straighten the piles and adjust the dust jackets. Heaven.
But having been a bookseller myself for 10 years, albeit now many moons ago, I understand the economics of bookselling and just how difficult it is for them to turn a dollar.
Over the past several months I have become increasingly concerned about the fate of independent booksellers. There has been a great deal written on the subject and since I started blogging on 26 October 2006 I have reproduced these stories whenever I have come across them as well as adding my own concerns.
I was especially alarmed by the story that appeared in the Los Angeles times on 7 February this year and subsequently appeared in this country in the Sunday Star Times in the issue of 18 February and blogged by me on 19 February. This story told of the demise of several famous independent bookstores in San Francisco and it sent shivers up my spine.
It was not the big chains that were causing the problems as they had done in the 1990’s but rather the phenomenon that is Amazon.com which in the last three months of 2006 had media sales (which included books) in excess of US$1.25 billion. In three months!
Then today over a long lunch break I read the latest issue of The Listener,(cover date March 10-16 2007), from beginning to end and on The Black Page (page 94) I came across this thoughtful piece by Joanne Black:
Here then is my reading of the situation.
Booksellers have at the most 5 years, maybe a lot less, to either digitize or die.
By digitise I simply mean have a sophisticated inter-active website where people can view books and order them online.
This of course requires investment but you either make the investment or you go out of business, sooner rather than later.
Independent booksellers should get together NOW and employ a web designer who could develop the necessary programmes. I guess it might cost somewhere between $15,000-$30,000 to get something with all the bells and whistles but if 30 independents got together it would only cost $1000 each.
Later the system could be on-sold to others so that eventually the investment would be recouped. But more importantly your online business will save you going the way of the blacksmith and more recently the film developer.
Independent booksellers, get together at the upcoming Booksellers New Zealand Conference, and get on to becoming part of the digital world. It might be your last chance.
I am a book lover, a book reader, a book reviewer, a book blogger.
Much of my discretionary spending goes on books. In addition I am fortunate enough to receive books for review. I am surrounded by books. My office is a scene of happy chaos with books all over the place in piles – those waiting to be read for review, those that have been read and have no space to be shelved, those I have bought on a whim or on the strength of a review or recommendation of friends and are yet to be read, and those aside to give to family or loan to friends. Then there are the thousands on the shelves, all read but too precious to be sold or given away. Then there are the book stacks throughout the rest of the house.
The books that I buy are invariably bought from independent booksellers, mostly Unity Books in Auckland and UBS Bookshop in Christchurch but also from other shops around the city and throughout New Zealand and overseas. Just wherever I happen to be at the time.
It is almost impossible for me to walk past a bookstore. I have to enter to see if there is a book or books I just cannot live without.
I love to handle them, critique the covers, read the blurbs and author bios, skim the dedications and acknowledgements, check the indices and bibliographies, assess the paper weight , smell them, and then straighten the piles and adjust the dust jackets. Heaven.
But having been a bookseller myself for 10 years, albeit now many moons ago, I understand the economics of bookselling and just how difficult it is for them to turn a dollar.
Over the past several months I have become increasingly concerned about the fate of independent booksellers. There has been a great deal written on the subject and since I started blogging on 26 October 2006 I have reproduced these stories whenever I have come across them as well as adding my own concerns.
I was especially alarmed by the story that appeared in the Los Angeles times on 7 February this year and subsequently appeared in this country in the Sunday Star Times in the issue of 18 February and blogged by me on 19 February. This story told of the demise of several famous independent bookstores in San Francisco and it sent shivers up my spine.
It was not the big chains that were causing the problems as they had done in the 1990’s but rather the phenomenon that is Amazon.com which in the last three months of 2006 had media sales (which included books) in excess of US$1.25 billion. In three months!
Then today over a long lunch break I read the latest issue of The Listener,(cover date March 10-16 2007), from beginning to end and on The Black Page (page 94) I came across this thoughtful piece by Joanne Black:
Well put Joanne."For his birthday, my husband asked for A Tankie’s Travels, the memoirs of a WW11 tank commander. According to the Spectator, “If you want to know what it was really like to fight in tanks in the North African campaign – the noise, the
smells, the flies, the scorpions, the almost surreal horror – you will not find
a better book.”
Conversely, if, like me, you never want to know what it was
really like, you know not to go past the cover. Book reviews are handy like
that.
I asked Unity Books, one of Wellington’s excellent
independent bookshops, if they could order it, but they had never heard of the
publisher and couldn’t guarantee success. They doubted Amazon could either. In
the end I found the UK publisher’s website, ordered it and the book arrived
within a fortnight. This makes me wonder how bookstores, in particular, are
surviving the online revolution.
I will always be a shopper. I love
to browse, to hold books in my hands, to admire the covers, the cut of the pages
and even the smell. I also buy books online.
Borders is about to open in a
prime Lambton Quay location. It is hard to see how the capital’s inner-city
chainstores, and the independents, all of which are good booksellers, will
survive this new arrival as well as the online
competition.
Presumably, if you love your bookshop, the rule is use
it or lose it. "
Here then is my reading of the situation.
Booksellers have at the most 5 years, maybe a lot less, to either digitize or die.
By digitise I simply mean have a sophisticated inter-active website where people can view books and order them online.
This of course requires investment but you either make the investment or you go out of business, sooner rather than later.
Independent booksellers should get together NOW and employ a web designer who could develop the necessary programmes. I guess it might cost somewhere between $15,000-$30,000 to get something with all the bells and whistles but if 30 independents got together it would only cost $1000 each.
Later the system could be on-sold to others so that eventually the investment would be recouped. But more importantly your online business will save you going the way of the blacksmith and more recently the film developer.
Independent booksellers, get together at the upcoming Booksellers New Zealand Conference, and get on to becoming part of the digital world. It might be your last chance.
BEST SELLING NOVELIST JAMES PATTERSON IS A MOST GENEROUS MAN
I say this because Florida-based Patterson sponsors the annual "Page Turner Awards" which honours organisations and individuals who spread the joy and excitement of books.
The full story from last Friday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
I say this because Florida-based Patterson sponsors the annual "Page Turner Awards" which honours organisations and individuals who spread the joy and excitement of books.
The full story from last Friday's Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
What a fabulous gesture of philanthropy, honouring those who spread the joy and excitement of books.
I salute you James Patterson.
Publish or be damned
The President of the U.K. Publishers Association argues in the Guardian on Saturday that in this digital age the realtionship between publishers and authors is more important then ever.
The President of the U.K. Publishers Association argues in the Guardian on Saturday that in this digital age the realtionship between publishers and authors is more important then ever.
AUDIOBOOKS -
Why aren't they more popular in New Zealand?
I don't know the answer to this question but I have noticed when visiting bookstores in both the US and UK the huge displays and wide var
Recently a friend loaned us the Penguin Audiobook "A Short History of Tractors in Ukkrainian" and over the course of three hours while travelling north we were greatly entertained by Sian Thomas' superb reading of this best-seller featuring sisters Vera and Nadezhda and their father's problems with gold-digger Valentina.
Author Marina Lewycka has recently been in New Zealand on holiday and much in the news while promoting her new title, Two Caravans.
I warmly recommend audiobooks in general and this one in particular. We had both read this book at the time of publication but that didn't detract from our great enjoyment of having the story read to us.
CONFESSIONS OF A BOOK ABUSER
This by funny man Ben Schott, (Schott's Almanack), from the New York Times , March 4.
This by funny man Ben Schott, (Schott's Almanack), from the New York Times , March 4.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Friday, March 02, 2007
A RELEASE TODAY FROM NZAMA OF INTEREST TO AUTHORS AND
WOULD-BE AUTHORS
The New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors (NZAMA) is a group
of professional editors and writers who offer authors objective advice
and guidance on how to bring their work closer to publishable standard.
We have all worked in manuscript assessing, editing, and/or the teaching
of writing.
NZAMA has a code of professional practice and strict entry criteria.
Writers need to contact members individually for fees and other details.
Please use email, or write with a stamped self-addressed envelope.
Fleur Beale 22/36 Dee St, Island Bay, Wellington 6023. Phone:
04-977-8737.
Email: fleurbeale@clear.net.nz
Fiction for children and young adults (not picture books or poetry).
Also offers one-on-one workshops at her home.
Norman Bilbrough PO Box 28079, Kelburn, Wellington. Phone: 04-476-5316.
email: norman.b@paradise.net.nz Work for children, fiction, non-fiction
Barbara Else (TFS) PO Box 46-031 Park Avenue Lower Hutt 5044.
Phone: 04-565-4429. Email: barbara@elseware.co.nz www.elseware.co.nz
Fiction, work for children and young adults
Chris Else (TFS) PO Box 46-031 Park Avenue Lower Hutt 5044.
Phone: 04-565-4429. Email: chris@elseware.co.nz www.elseware.co.nz
Fiction, non-fiction
Calum Gilmour P O Box 167 Westpark Village Waitakere Auckland 0661.
Phone: 64-9-416-1437. Email: cgilmour@polygraphianz.com
www.polygrahianz.com Non-fiction, academic work, fiction
Graeme Lay (Write Right) 50 Lake Road Takapuna Auckland.
email:graemelay@xtra.co.nz www.writerightnz.com
Fiction, young adult fiction, non-fiction esp. travel
Jill Marshall (Write Good Stuff) PO Box 46-116 Herne Bay Auckland.
Phone:
09-378-0083. Email: jillmmarshall@ihug.co.nz www.writegoodstuff.co.nz
General fiction, work for children
Lesley Marshall (Editline) 20 Beverley Cres RD 9 Whangarei.
Ph: 09-434-6814 email: editline@xtra.co.nz
Fiction incl. romance, non-fiction incl theses, family history
Barbara Murison (Barbara Murison Assessment Services) PO Box 22-180
Khandallah Wellington. Phone & fax 04-479-5538. email:
barbaram@clear.net.nz
Children's books, young adult, & picture books
Dan Myers (Wordlink, Ltd) PO Box 15-024, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406 USA
Phone 001 (805) 781-0877 / 234-1993 email: Wordlink@ihug.co.nz
www.Myersfiction.com Fiction , non-fiction.
Emma Neale email: ejneale@ihug.co.nz
Fiction incl young adult, poetry. Not currently available
Jane Parkin 48 Nevay Road Seatoun Wellington. Ph & fax: 04-388-4535
email:
janep@paradise.net.nz
Fiction (no work for children or young adults). Not currently available
Anna Rogers 18 Bletsoe Avenue Christchurch 2. Ph: 03-379-6558.
Email: a.rogers@paradise.net.nz Fiction, non-fiction (no work for
children or young adults). Not currently available
Stephen Stratford (Write Right) PO Box 56-112 Dominion Road Auckland.
email: stephen.stratford@xtra.co.nz www.writerightnz.com Fiction and
nonfiction, both adult and teenage
Loren Teague (Pen and Ink Services) PO Box 1200, Nelson. Ph & fax:
03-547-5369 email: pen-ink@netaccess.co.nz www.lorenteague.co.nz Genre
fiction (romance, historical, thriller, crime, fantasy), young adult,
e-publishing
WOULD-BE AUTHORS
The New Zealand Association of Manuscript Assessors (NZAMA) is a group
of professional editors and writers who offer authors objective advice
and guidance on how to bring their work closer to publishable standard.
We have all worked in manuscript assessing, editing, and/or the teaching
of writing.
NZAMA has a code of professional practice and strict entry criteria.
Writers need to contact members individually for fees and other details.
Please use email, or write with a stamped self-addressed envelope.
Fleur Beale 22/36 Dee St, Island Bay, Wellington 6023. Phone:
04-977-8737.
Email: fleurbeale@clear.net.nz
Fiction for children and young adults (not picture books or poetry).
Also offers one-on-one workshops at her home.
Norman Bilbrough PO Box 28079, Kelburn, Wellington. Phone: 04-476-5316.
email: norman.b@paradise.net.nz Work for children, fiction, non-fiction
Barbara Else (TFS) PO Box 46-031 Park Avenue Lower Hutt 5044.
Phone: 04-565-4429. Email: barbara@elseware.co.nz www.elseware.co.nz
Fiction, work for children and young adults
Chris Else (TFS) PO Box 46-031 Park Avenue Lower Hutt 5044.
Phone: 04-565-4429. Email: chris@elseware.co.nz www.elseware.co.nz
Fiction, non-fiction
Calum Gilmour P O Box 167 Westpark Village Waitakere Auckland 0661.
Phone: 64-9-416-1437. Email: cgilmour@polygraphianz.com
www.polygrahianz.com Non-fiction, academic work, fiction
Graeme Lay (Write Right) 50 Lake Road Takapuna Auckland.
email:graemelay@xtra.co.nz www.writerightnz.com
Fiction, young adult fiction, non-fiction esp. travel
Jill Marshall (Write Good Stuff) PO Box 46-116 Herne Bay Auckland.
Phone:
09-378-0083. Email: jillmmarshall@ihug.co.nz www.writegoodstuff.co.nz
General fiction, work for children
Lesley Marshall (Editline) 20 Beverley Cres RD 9 Whangarei.
Ph: 09-434-6814 email: editline@xtra.co.nz
Fiction incl. romance, non-fiction incl theses, family history
Barbara Murison (Barbara Murison Assessment Services) PO Box 22-180
Khandallah Wellington. Phone & fax 04-479-5538. email:
barbaram@clear.net.nz
Children's books, young adult, & picture books
Dan Myers (Wordlink, Ltd) PO Box 15-024, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406 USA
Phone 001 (805) 781-0877 / 234-1993 email: Wordlink@ihug.co.nz
www.Myersfiction.com Fiction , non-fiction.
Emma Neale email: ejneale@ihug.co.nz
Fiction incl young adult, poetry. Not currently available
Jane Parkin 48 Nevay Road Seatoun Wellington. Ph & fax: 04-388-4535
email:
janep@paradise.net.nz
Fiction (no work for children or young adults). Not currently available
Anna Rogers 18 Bletsoe Avenue Christchurch 2. Ph: 03-379-6558.
Email: a.rogers@paradise.net.nz Fiction, non-fiction (no work for
children or young adults). Not currently available
Stephen Stratford (Write Right) PO Box 56-112 Dominion Road Auckland.
email: stephen.stratford@xtra.co.nz www.writerightnz.com Fiction and
nonfiction, both adult and teenage
Loren Teague (Pen and Ink Services) PO Box 1200, Nelson. Ph & fax:
03-547-5369 email: pen-ink@netaccess.co.nz www.lorenteague.co.nz Genre
fiction (romance, historical, thriller, crime, fantasy), young adult,
e-publishing
FINE PIECE OF ANNIVERSARY PUBLISHING
As part of the Reed Books centenary, see my blog yesterday about the history of Reed Books by Dr.Gavin McLean, Reeds have published a “limited edition” of FIRST WALKS IN NEW ZEALAND by A.H.Reed and what a gorgeous piece of publishing it is too.
As Ray Richards, literary agent and former Vice Chairman and longtime employee of A.H. & A.W.Reed, says in his foreword the original book, (for this is a facsimile copy), was written by A.H. in 1917 when he was on leave from Featherston military camp. It was Ray explains “written for his wife, as from a soldier expecting to fight in France, lettered and decorated by his own hand, and never intended for publication”.
As part of the Reed Books centenary, see my blog yesterday about the history of Reed Books by Dr.Gavin McLean, Reeds have published a “limited edition” of FIRST WALKS IN NEW ZEALAND by A.H.Reed and what a gorgeous piece of publishing it is too.
As Ray Richards, literary agent and former Vice Chairman and longtime employee of A.H. & A.W.Reed, says in his foreword the original book, (for this is a facsimile copy), was written by A.H. in 1917 when he was on leave from Featherston military camp. It was Ray explains “written for his wife, as from a soldier expecting to fight in France, lettered and decorated by his own hand, and never intended for publication”.
When Ray left Reeds in December 1976, A.W.(Clif) Reed gave him the book as a retirement gift.
Ray continues , “In this facsimile edition, reproduced to mark 100 years since A.H. founded the House of Reed, you, the reader, can enjoy the first written expression of his love of walking, his , his love of exploring, and his love of New Zealand and its people.”
This is an utterly delightful, charming and very special little book. A great friend of mine very generously gave me a copy and I’m thrilled to own it.
My computer cannot do justice to the artwork and its colour but the two pages above will serve to give you a feel for the interior and style of the book.
With a RRP of $65.00 its probably pushing its maximum price but I guess with the publisher stating that “this copy is one of a limited edition of 750 copies published in 2007 to commemorate 100 years of Reed books” that the price is justified.
My only grizzle is that where publishers state that a book is a limited edition of a certain number then the books in that edition should all be hand numbered.
Otherwise there is always the danger that a publisher might print for sale say 750 copies but then run on 50 review copies and another hundred or so to give away to important clients and the like so that in fact you end up with many more copies in print than is stated.
Apart from this one, all the limited editions I own, and there are not many (!), are
With a RRP of $65.00 its probably pushing its maximum price but I guess with the publisher stating that “this copy is one of a limited edition of 750 copies published in 2007 to commemorate 100 years of Reed books” that the price is justified.
My only grizzle is that where publishers state that a book is a limited edition of a certain number then the books in that edition should all be hand numbered.
Otherwise there is always the danger that a publisher might print for sale say 750 copies but then run on 50 review copies and another hundred or so to give away to important clients and the like so that in fact you end up with many more copies in print than is stated.
Apart from this one, all the limited editions I own, and there are not many (!), are
hand numbered.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
STUNNING POSTER ADVERTISING BY WHITCOULLS
I came across this is Symonds Street, Auckland today. Contractors have fenced the front of a large commercial buidling that they are renovating and Whitcoulls have decorated the fence with some of the best public advertising I've ever seen.
This fellow was also there admiring the "art".
These pics were taken on my tiny digital camera with the sun in the wrong place but they will suffice to give you an idea of how effective it is, standing beside the fence you could swear you were in a bookshop or library.
And its about 70 metres or so long!
That is my trusty Vespa!
Jonathan and Adele at
COOK THE BOOKS
have just published their first e-mail newsletter for the 2007.
This is a splendid occasional newsletter that alerts one to all the latest cookbooks and other culinary activities taking place so if you are a foodie and you are not already on their mailing list I urge you to sign up, it is free, by sending your e-mail address to them at the address below.
Even better if you live in Auckland or are visiting the City of Sails then call in and see them at their wonderful specialist store in the Mt.Eden shopping village.
The Cookbook Store
Open 7 Days
405 Mt Eden Road, Auckland
Ph:(09) 638 4628 Fax:(09) 638 4627
Email:books@cookthebooks.co.nz
Web-site: www.cookthebooks.co.nz
COOK THE BOOKS
have just published their first e-mail newsletter for the 2007.
This is a splendid occasional newsletter that alerts one to all the latest cookbooks and other culinary activities taking place so if you are a foodie and you are not already on their mailing list I urge you to sign up, it is free, by sending your e-mail address to them at the address below.
Even better if you live in Auckland or are visiting the City of Sails then call in and see them at their wonderful specialist store in the Mt.Eden shopping village.
The Cookbook Store
Open 7 Days
405 Mt Eden Road, Auckland
Ph:(09) 638 4628 Fax:(09) 638 4627
Email:books@cookthebooks.co.nz
Web-site: www.cookthebooks.co.nz
WARNING THIS TITLE IS NOT AVAILABE UNTIL MID-APRIL.
THE PUBLISHERS EXTENDED ME THE PRIVILEGE OF SENDING ME PAGE PROOFS SO I COULD READ IT IN ADVANCE.
YOU CAN HOWEVER, OF COURSE, ORDER IT NOW FROM YOUR BOOKSELLER OR PUT YOUR NAME DOWN FOR IT AT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY.
THE RRP IS $60 AND BELIEVE ME IT IS WELL WORTH EVERY CENT!
THE PUBLISHERS EXTENDED ME THE PRIVILEGE OF SENDING ME PAGE PROOFS SO I COULD READ IT IN ADVANCE.
YOU CAN HOWEVER, OF COURSE, ORDER IT NOW FROM YOUR BOOKSELLER OR PUT YOUR NAME DOWN FOR IT AT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY.
THE RRP IS $60 AND BELIEVE ME IT IS WELL WORTH EVERY CENT!
WHARE RAUPO – The Reed Book Story
by Gavin McLean
Publisher - Reed
When I first met Gavin McLean he was a young graduate working in the book publishing arm of the Government Printing Office, a significant New Zealand book publisher with an illustrious history, later destroyed by Graeme Hart when he bought the company at a hugely undervalued price as part of the Labour Government’s state-owned assets sell-off in the 80’s.
It seems most appropriate then that McLean, now Senior Historian for the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, and a much published author with a raft of splendid books to his credit, including one on the writing of local history, should have been given the task of writing the history of the House of Reed.
And what a splendid job he has made of his task. With the assistance of many former Reed staffers, including David Elworthy, Dale Williams, Ray Richards, Graham Stewart and many many others besides, all named in the acknowledgements, and with the total freedom granted to him by Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd. as well as their full assistance he has delivered a full and frank and entertaining history. For someone like me who has been in and around the book trade now for nigh on 40 years it was riveting.
I was bookselling in Napier in the 60’s and 70’s, they were golden days for the House of Reed, with authors like Barry Crump, Mona Anderson, T.P.McLean, and Jim Henderson all delivering best-seller after best-seller. Then there were the many pictorial books aimed at the tourist market which we sold by the hundred.
Russell Pitt was the sales representative from Reeds who called on us and each month he would carry out a stocktake of the Reed titles and replace all those sold the previous month. They were our largest supplier and we had a wonderful relationship with them.
During the time Dale Williams was with them Reeds published quite a few books by Hawkes Bay authors or with Hawkes Bay subjects and we co-hosted many enjoyable book launches.
When I first met Gavin McLean he was a young graduate working in the book publishing arm of the Government Printing Office, a significant New Zealand book publisher with an illustrious history, later destroyed by Graeme Hart when he bought the company at a hugely undervalued price as part of the Labour Government’s state-owned assets sell-off in the 80’s.
It seems most appropriate then that McLean, now Senior Historian for the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, and a much published author with a raft of splendid books to his credit, including one on the writing of local history, should have been given the task of writing the history of the House of Reed.
And what a splendid job he has made of his task. With the assistance of many former Reed staffers, including David Elworthy, Dale Williams, Ray Richards, Graham Stewart and many many others besides, all named in the acknowledgements, and with the total freedom granted to him by Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd. as well as their full assistance he has delivered a full and frank and entertaining history. For someone like me who has been in and around the book trade now for nigh on 40 years it was riveting.
I was bookselling in Napier in the 60’s and 70’s, they were golden days for the House of Reed, with authors like Barry Crump, Mona Anderson, T.P.McLean, and Jim Henderson all delivering best-seller after best-seller. Then there were the many pictorial books aimed at the tourist market which we sold by the hundred.
Russell Pitt was the sales representative from Reeds who called on us and each month he would carry out a stocktake of the Reed titles and replace all those sold the previous month. They were our largest supplier and we had a wonderful relationship with them.
During the time Dale Williams was with them Reeds published quite a few books by Hawkes Bay authors or with Hawkes Bay subjects and we co-hosted many enjoyable book launches.
Occasionally Tom Kennedy, Reed’s national sales director would make a visit, “just to keep my hand in Graham” he would tell me, “don’t want to forget how to sell books”. Fat chance of that happening Tom!
The history is not one though of success stories only. Reeds have had many ups and downs over the years, (a huge understatement), and those problems and disputes and difficulties are dealt with too. Even the recent turmoil with massive staff changes at the most senior level are covered in a fair and unemotional manner by McLean.
The book is profusely illustrated in black and white and colour, it has two indices – one for publications and the other a general index – a bibliography, and very extensive notes providing the most detailed documentation.
It is a work of significant scholarship and if I were in charge at Reeds I would be delighted with it- fascinating, accessible and for me, unputdownable. Everyone who has ever worked in book publishing or bookselling in New Zealand or who has a general interest in books and/or social history must read it. It is a gem.
The history is not one though of success stories only. Reeds have had many ups and downs over the years, (a huge understatement), and those problems and disputes and difficulties are dealt with too. Even the recent turmoil with massive staff changes at the most senior level are covered in a fair and unemotional manner by McLean.
The book is profusely illustrated in black and white and colour, it has two indices – one for publications and the other a general index – a bibliography, and very extensive notes providing the most detailed documentation.
It is a work of significant scholarship and if I were in charge at Reeds I would be delighted with it- fascinating, accessible and for me, unputdownable. Everyone who has ever worked in book publishing or bookselling in New Zealand or who has a general interest in books and/or social history must read it. It is a gem.
Remember though publication is not until mid-April.
The amazing A.H.Reed taking time out for a cup of tea in 1965.
Not just books, but records too ! During the 60's Reeds released folk, novelty and sound effects records.
THE CALL TO SHAKABAZ
by Amy Wachspress Woza Books
This is a fantasy adventure story for kids in the 9-14 age group which has come to my attention via the Internet and which I gave to an educator who specialises in in reading for this age group to to seek her opinion.
Here is a summary of her comments:
*A very good read along the lines of EREGON, the book by the 15 year old author which was self-published after being turned down by many publishers and which confounded them by going on to be a world-wide best-seller and being made into a movie.
*It keeps the readers attention continuously.
*Nice build up of information as plot widens.
*Obviously, and pleasingly, an opening for a second book, nicely open-ended.
*All three readers I gave it to couldn't put the book down.
*Strong characterisation, vivid descriptions.
*Loved the sense of the climactic battle scene and the "peace marchers".
*Timely for the world right now!
Plot summary-
"Newly orphaned, Doshmisi,Denzel,Maia, and Sunjay discover a carefully guarded secret about their family. Travel with them and their pesky parrot to the distant land of Faracadar, where they must attempt to retrieve the powerful Staff of Shakabar and free the land from the clutches of the malevolent enchanter Sissrath. Their dangerous mission takes them over the ocean, underground, and into the deepest dungeons of the FInal Fortress. Only if they discover how to use their individual gifts can the children fulfill their destiny and the ultimate conforntation with Sissrath."
The book has received widespread favourable review comment in the U.S and a visit to the interesting and informative website www.wozabooks.com is recommended.
Unfortunately the book is not available from New Zealand booksellers. Woza Books is a small Califronian publisher without an agent in New Zealand, so any New Zealanders who are interested will need to buy it online at one of the Internet bookstores such as Amazon or you could put it on order at your local library. If you do this be sure to give the library all the information -title,author, publisher or refer them to my blog which is read by many librarians.
Yesterday I received a newsletter e-mail from the author which I reproduce in part below, it will be of special interest to school teachers:
On my adventure as the author of The Call to Shakabaz, I continue to meet terrific people who are working to make a difference in the world through the promotion of children’s literature. Let me share a few of the wonderful things I have discovered this month. And please send me your stories, jokes, internet treasures, and more.
GREAT RESOURCES
At the Reading the World Conference on Multicultural Children’s Literature at the University of San Francisco last weekend I met Craig Wiesner, co-owner of Reach and Teach, a company that promotes educational and parenting materials that inspire young people to work for a better world. Their toys, games, books, and many other resources and products support efforts to advance peace and social
justice. Check them out at www.reachandteach.com. Lots of great resources for teachers and school librarians!
FROM YOUNG READERS
I spent a wonderful day this month with the sixth-graders at Tierra Linda Middle School in San Carlos, California. I asked the children for suggestions about how to fight an evil enchanter, who will stop at nothing to destroy you, without using violence against him. One boy suggested “What if it turns out that he’s under a magic spell and all he needs is a hug and then he won’t be evil anymore?”
Sometimes I think we should just let children rule the world. No war. Ice cream for supper. Could it get any better?
After I read aloud and talked with the Tierra Linda sixth-graders, one young lady came up to me and said, “I want to be a writer when I grow up.” I asked her, “Do you write?” She replied, “Yes.” So I said, “Then you are already a writer, you don’t have to wait until you grow up.” And then I gave her my standard line, “The only difference between writers and everyone else is that writers write.” A few days later I received an email from her telling me that she went home that night
and started writing a book!
Please encourage your children to email me with their ideas for the sequel to The Call to Shakabaz. I am especially interested in their thoughts about how the Four can ultimately make Faracadar safe from Sissrath without killing him.
Visit www.wozabooks.com for more information.
Amy Wachspress and Ron Reed
WOZA Books
Home of "The Call to Shakabaz"
voice (707) 468-4118
fax (501) 325-6763
P.O. Box 635 Talmage, CA 95481
amy@wozabooks.com
ron@wozabooks.com
URL: www.wozabooks.com
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." --Groucho Marx
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