OPRAH CHOOSES “A NEW EARTH” BY ECKHART TOLLE
AS HER NEW BOOK CLUB SELECTION

A Live Interactive Worldwide Web Event and Book Club First:
Oprah Joins Author to Teach a 10-Week Webcast Series of Classes on Oprah.com


CHICAGO, IL – “Being able to share this material with you is a gift and a part of the fulfillment of my life’s purpose,” Oprah Winfrey said on Wednesday, January 30, 2008, as she revealed the 61th Oprah’s Book Club selection “A New Earth” by Eckhart Tolle. She added, "It was an awakening for me that I want for you, too."

For the first time ever, readers around the world will be able to participate in a free, live interactive classroom discussion, led by Winfrey and Tolle. Each weekly class will correspond to a chapter from “A New Earth,” with the discussion focusing on the chapter’s themes. The 10 weekly sessions will be webcast every Monday night from March 3 through May 5, at 9:00pm ET/6:00pm PT. To pre-register for the class, log onto www.oprah.com/anewearth.

Published in 2005, “A New Earth” encourages a collective sense of commitment to changing the way we live for people who want to make a difference. With the knowledge that we live in a time desperate for global change, renowned spiritual teacher Tolle’s book answers the question: what can one person do to enact that change? With clarity and in practical terms, he gently leads readers to a new level of consciousness, awakening them to their lives’ purpose and inviting them to envision a new earth where peace and fellowship are the norm.

“A New Earth” is published internationally in the English language by Penguin Group, one of the world’s premier global consumer trade book publishers. The 10-part interactive worldwide web event is a pioneering venture that will have the potential to reach an unprecedented number of readers in all English-language territories far and wide. With key market positions in the United States, the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia, Canada, India, China, New Zealand and Ireland, Penguin Group will be able to share this Oprah’s Book Club selection with a worldwide audience.

John Makinson, Penguin Group Chairman and CEO, commented, "Penguin is one of the world's few truly global publishers and all of us are honored to be working with Ms. Winfrey on this ground-breaking project. ‘A New Earth’ is an unforgettable manifesto for a better way of life. Its message reaches across boundaries to illuminate and enrich the human spirit everywhere. Eckhart Tolle teaches us to change the way we view the world and make connections to each other."

Oprah’s Book Club works with the American Library Association (ALA) to distribute thousands of free Book Club selections donated by each publisher, to school, public, and community college libraries nationwide. The Chicago-based ALA, www.ala.org, is the oldest and largest library association in the world with more than 64,000 members.

As the biggest book club in the world, Oprah's Book Club has approximately one million online members. Each of its selections have skyrocketed to the top of bestsellers lists. Enrollment is free and provides members with access to benefits such as online discussion groups, reading questions, and Q&A sessions with the author. To join, log onto www.oprah.com.

"The Oprah Winfrey Show" has remained the number one talk show for 21 consecutive seasons, winning every sweep since its debut in 1986.* It is produced in Chicago by Harpo Productions, Inc. and syndicated to 212 domestic markets by CBS Television Distribution Group and to 135 countries by CBS Paramount International Television.

Source:
*Nielsen Cassandra Ranking Report - Nov'86 to July '99 and Wrap Sweeps, Nov '99 to July '07. Primary Telecasts Only.

About Eckhart Tolle:
Eckhart Tolle is a contemporary spiritual teacher who is not aligned with any particular religion or tradition. In his writing and seminars, he conveys a simple yet profound message with the timeless and uncomplicated clarity of the ancient spiritual masters: “There is a way out of suffering and into peace.” Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, he travels extensively—taking his teachings throughout the world.

For further information please contact;

Sandra Lees
General Manager Publicity and Promotions
Penguin Group (NZ)
Phone (09) 442 7461
Mob 021 897705
Email sandra.lees@nz.penguingroup.com

BOOK TRADE CELEBRATION - PAUL GREENBERG'S 40 YEARS IN THE BOOK TRADE!

Wednesday 20 February, 6.30pm onwards at The Ponsonby Belgian Beer Cafe (the old Ponsonby Post Office), Three Lamps Corner.

Everyone welcome!

Please feel free to wear your most glamourous waistcoat and your most gorgeous silver jewellery!
And start remembering your Paul Greenberg stories!

Buy your own drinks & food (nibbles or dinner - they do great pots & platters of musssels)

Please RSVP to books@womensbookshop.co.nz

The Women's Bookshop105 Ponsonby RoadAuckland, NZ
Ph: (09) 376 4399Fax: (09) 376 4365http://www.womensbookshop.co.nz/

MURDER IN JERUSALEM

Batya Gur Harper US $14.95

I bought this book at the superb McNally Robinson Bookstore in Soho, NY during our recent visit and have now finally got around to reading it.

Batya Gur (1947-2005) lived in Jerusalem, where she was a literary critic for Haaretz, Israel's most prestigious paper. She earned her master's in Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and she also taught literature for nearly twenty years. She wrote five other Michael Ohayon mysteries.

I hadn't heard of her previously and have to say that I am most impressed with her protagonist Chief Superintendent Michael Ohayon. Sadly this is the final book in the series as the author died in 2005.

In this story, set within Israel 's official television channel, a popular set designer is crushed to death by a marble pillar. It is assumed that this was an accident but when another member of the staff dies suddenly the police Chief Superintendent is called in to investigate. He quickly realises that he has a tangled multiple murder on his hands.

Brilliantly told within the daily chaos of the news division of the television station with great characterisation being a notable feature.

Warmly recommended to those who enjoy detailed and challenging murder mysteries.

IS YOUR BOOK WORTHY OF PUBLISHING?

Aaron Cook is the enthusiastic, optimistic and personable young man who runs

http://www.worthyofpublishing.com/

Among other things he gives visitors to his site the opportunity to read and rate pre published books on line.

THE AUTHOR MURDERS

Here is an interesting site that is worth a visit. http://www.theauthormurders.com/

Thanks to Christchurch man-about-town, bookseller and publisher Brian Phillips for bringing this to my attention.

Huff and puff: 3 little pigs blown away

Paul Bibby writing in the Sydney Morning Herald

The classic children's story Three Little Pigs may appear innocent, but a new children's book based on the tale has been rejected for an award on the grounds that it would offend Muslims and even builders.
A CD book for school children, The Three Little Cowboy Builders , was dismissed by judges from the Bett awards, a competition run by the British Government's technology agency for schools.
The judges' statements, reported on the British technology website, Merlin John Online, included the comment: "Is it true that all builders are cowboys, builders get their work blown down, and builders are like pigs?
"The idea of taking a traditional tale and retelling a story is fine, but it should not alienate parts of the workforce. Judges would not recommend this product to the Muslim community in particular."

Ann Curtis, an author and founder of the company which developed the virtual book, Shoofly Publishing, said the statements themselves were racist.
"I felt disbelief, to be honest. As a small company, we have a strong ethical and moral grounding. We support the rights of all children in the world to have access to education.
"To be told that we cynically set out to alienate minority groups is a very narrow-minded view."
However, the organisers of the awards said that the book was rejected for a range of reasons.
"The reason The Three Little Cowboy Builders was not shortlisted was that it failed to reach the required standard across a number of criteria," they said in a statement.
"The issues highlighted were a small selection from a much broader range of comments ... the product was not sufficiently convincing on curriculum and innovation grounds to be shortlisted."

Footnote:

Surely this is pc gone mad? Here are some reactions....

New Literary Program to Make Its Home Online

By Motoko Rich writing in The New York Times overnight:

Daniel Menaker, who left his post as executive editor in chief of the Random House Publishing Group in June, is moving online in March to be the host of a new Web-based book show.

Photo by Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times

Daniel Menaker is to be the host of “Titlepage,” an online show.
The show, to be called “Titlepage,” will feature a round-table discussion between Mr. Menaker, 66, a former fiction editor at The New Yorker, and a group of four authors. The first episode will be streamed online at titlepage.tv on March 3. The idea is to take advantage of the fact that it’s much easier to post video online than to get a show on television.
“Titlepage” will combine elements of “Apostrophes,” a popular French literary program; “The Charlie Rose Show” on public television; and “Dinner for Five,” in which a group of actors discussed their craft, on the Independent Film Channel.
The show is the brainchild of Odile Isralson and Lina Matta, documentary filmmakers. “It’s not really a brilliant idea in the sense that I grew up with it,” Ms. Isralson, 46, said. “I’m originally from Belgium and I grew up watching ‘Apostrophes.’ I moved to New York in 1983 and always wondered why it didn’t exist.”

Ms. Isralson and Ms. Matta, who is now head of programming for an English-language television channel in Dubai, approached Mr. Menaker last summer with the offer to be the host and to act as editorial producer.
Mr. Menaker said the idea appealed to him immediately because he had always been frustrated that he didn’t have enough opportunities, either as a publisher or an author, to speak directly to readers.
“We’re hoping to let people listen in on the kind of conversation they might like to have themselves if there were a group of three or four people in a room,” said Mr. Menaker, who is married to Katherine Bouton, deputy editor of The New York Times Magazine, and has written a book of humor with Charles McGrath, a writer at large at The Times.

The first episode will feature Richard Price, who wrote “Clockers” and the coming “Lush Life”; Susan Choi, author of “A Person of Interest”; and Charles Bock, whose debut novel, “Beautiful Children,” went on sale last week.
The second, which is to be posted online two weeks after the premiere episode, is to feature all first-time authors: Sloane Crosley and Julie Klam, memoirists, and Ceridwen Dovey and Keith Gessen, novelists.

Ms. Isralson said that initially the program would be financed by private backers, but that it was seeking corporate sponsorship, though probably not, Mr. Menaker said, from publishers, so that the content could be kept independent.

South Bank awards honour Rowling
Author JK Rowling has been given an outstanding achievement prize for her success with the Harry Potter books at the South Bank Show awards.

Arctic Monkeys scooped the award for pop music, while This is England beat Atonement to pick up the film prize.
BBC Three series Gavin and Stacey was awarded best comedy, and Channel 4's The Mark of Cain, about UK troops in Iraq, claimed best TV drama.
The awards will be broadcast on 3 February on ITV1 at 2240 GMT.
Rowling joins a list of previous winners of the top prize at the awards, including Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Helen Mirren, Richard Attenborough and last year's recipients, The Who.

SOUTH BANK SHOW AWARDS WINNERS
TV Drama: The Mark of Cain
Classical Music: Traced Overhead: The Musical World of Thomas Ades
Pop Music: Arctic Monkeys for Favourite Worst Nightmare
Visual Arts: Andy Goldsworthy at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Comedy: Gavin and Stacey
Dance: Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company
Film: This Is England
Literature: Mohsin Hamid for The Reluctant Fundamentalist
Opera: The Turn of The Screw
Theatre: Saint Joan
Arts Council award: Daljit Nagra for Look We Have Coming To Dover!
Breakthrough award: Jennifer Pike

Outstanding achievement: JK Rowling
'Worst break-up'
Accepting the prize, the 42-year-old told the audience that saying goodbye to Harry Potter in her final book was more painful than the ending of a relationship.
"It has been the worst break-up of my life - far worse than splitting up with any man," she said.
"But it has also been wonderful to stop and draw breath and think, 'My God, look what's happened with an idea I had 17 years ago on a train'."
Rowling told the BBC that the final book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was her favourite.
"I think it is the best book that I have written. It was my favourite story and I got to say all the things that really the books have been about all along, but I've never been able to be open about."

The South Bank Show awards, hosted by Melvyn Bragg, recognise British achievement in music, theatre, television and the arts.
The theatre award went to the National Theatre's production of Saint Joan.
Artist Andy Goldsworthy beat Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger in the visual arts category for his work at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
Poet Daljit Nagra won the Arts Council England Decibel award for his debut collection, entitled Look We Have Coming to Dover! and Mohsin Hamid won the literature prize for The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
The Times Breakthrough award, voted by members of the public, was presented to up-and-coming violinist Jennifer Pike.

Books 'most popular online buy'
More books are sold on the internet than any other product and the number is increasing, research suggests.

Pic shows Amazon's UK warehouse, Getty Images.

Story from BBC.

Polling company Nielsen Online surveyed 26,312 people in 48 countries. 41% of internet users had bought books online, it said.
This compares with two years ago when 34% of internet users had done so.
The company said much of the increase was in emerging markets, such as South Korea and India, with British consumers in 10th place.
Nielsen says more than eight out of ten internet users purchased something in the last three months. That is a 40% increase on two years ago, to about 875 million shoppers.

GLOBAL BOOK BUYERS
1. South Korea - 58%
2. Germany - 55%
3. Austria - 54%
4. Vietnam - 54%
5. Brazil - 51%
6. Egypt - 49%
7. China - 48%
8. India - 46%
9. Taiwan - 45%
10. UK - 45%
Percentage of internet users buying books online. Source: Nielsen

The largest percentage of people buying books in any country was South Korea at 58%. Nielsen estimated that equated to 18m people.
In the US, 57.5m customers were estimated to have bought books. But that only equated to 38% of internet users.
In the UK it was calculated to be 14.5m people, or 45% of those online.

The King of Reading

by Nick Paumgarten writing in The New Yorker January 28, 2008

Art Garfunkel (left)

Candidates for political office, and the reporters who cover them, like to believe that a reading list reveals a great deal. In recent years, the cherished-book list has become as compulsory a component of the Presidential campaign as a church affiliation or a health-care plan. Hillary Clinton named “Little Women” and “The Poisonwood Bible.” Mike Huckabee: the Bible and “Mere Christianity.” Barack Obama: “Song of Solomon” and “Moby-Dick.” John McCain: “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” When mishandled, the book thing can lead to grief, as when Mitt Romney cited “Battlefield Earth,” by L. Ron Hubbard, or when John Edwards, four years ago, went with I. F. Stone’s “The Trial of Socrates,” which earned him the skunk eye from Robert Novak. (“Did [Edwards] know of evidence that Stone received secret payments from the Kremlin?”)

Then there is Art Garfunkel, who is not running for President but who has nonetheless provided the world with a list: the Garfunkel Library, a chronological index of the thousand and twenty-three books that he has read since June, 1968. He has been recording their particulars neatly on sheets of loose-leaf paper—forty or so titles to a page—for nearly forty years. About a decade ago, he posted the list on his Web site (which he pays a fan in Levittown to maintain). It begins with Rousseau’s “Confessions” and ends with Booth Tarkington’s “The Magnificent Ambersons,” which he finished before Christmas. In between, the list ticks off, at a rate of 2.16 books a month, a dazzling syllabus that’s a testament to steroidal self-improvement, as well as to the magical time-furnishing powers of royalty checks. Foucault, Balzac, Chesterton, Heidegger, Spinoza, Hazlitt, Milton, Proust: he has slayed them all, and let us know.

Against the temptation to sneer at such ostentation, one may pit an appreciation that a celebrity has so resolutely done his homework, and taken such delight in it. In the winter and spring of 1969, much of which was spent on the set of the film “Catch-22,” where the reading habit really took hold, he got through “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” “Catch-22,” “Candide,” “The Great Gatsby,” “War and Peace,” “Portnoy’s Complaint,” “Down and Out in Paris and London,” and “The Brothers Karamazov.” In September of 1981, the month of his reunion concert with Paul Simon in Central Park, he nailed “Nicholas Nickleby,” and then, in the following months, moved on to Jack London, Henry James, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Rabelais, and Kant, among others. December, 1982: the Book of Job, “The Search for Alexander,” “Stephen Hero,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” “Justine.” September, 2001: “The Waves.”

The list contains just—just—enough low- or middle-brow work to suggest sincerity. In the spring of 1996, between “Flaubert in Egypt” and “I, Claudius,” he took on “You’ll Never Make Love in This Town Again,” by Robin, Liza, Linda, and Tiffany. In February, 2004, he gave Dan Brown a go before returning to Flaubert and Aristophanes. He has read several books by the actress Carrie Fisher, one of Simon’s ex-wives, as well as “Simon and Garfunkel: The Definitive Biography” (in May, 1998, two years after it was published, and just before moving on to Plato and Locke).

“I avoid fluff,” Garfunkel explained last week, on the phone from a Marriott in Florida. “The stuff that men are always reading on planes: I don’t read that.” He also doesn’t read postmodern fiction—the Garfunkel Library contains no Pynchon or Barthelme. “I tried ‘Gravity’s Rainbow,’ and I thought it was fraudulent,” he said.

“I read for the reading pleasure, not for the gold star,” he went on. “Reading is a way to take downtime and make it stimulating. If you’re in the waiting room of a dentist’s office and don’t want to twiddle your thumbs, you turn to Tolstoy.” (“Tolstoy is the king of writing,” he said.) Garfunkel prefers paperbacks, which he shelves in his study when he’s done. He writes vertical lines in the margin next to passages he finds exceptional, arrows next to references to places he’d like to visit, and a little circle next to any word he needs to look up. “I’m anal compulsive,” he explained. He once read the Random House Dictionary, back to front.
Though he has yet to update the Garfunkel Library on the Web, he recently finished reading “The Black Swan,” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, which Simon had recommended. Garfunkel had just left a message on Simon’s answering machine, asking whether he had skipped a chapter that the author had suggested the reader skip: “Did you do that, Paul?”
He hadn’t heard back. If Simon were to reply that he had not, would Garfunkel feel—
“One-upped?” Garfunkel asked. He laughed. “Paul is, after all, one of our greatest writers.” (He did say that while Simon was born three weeks earlier, technically he was older. “I was conceived first. Paul was one month premature.”)

Asked what was on deck, in the Garfunkel Library, Garfunkel sighed and said, “You know, I’m getting tired of reading. I’m thinking of giving it a rest for a couple of months.” ♦

Footnote:

I love The New Yorker covers - this one by Mark Ulriksen is called Winter Pleasures and shows the sun shining in to the main concourse of Grand Central Station, one of my favourite spaces in NY.

READS LIKE A BOOK, LOOKS LIKE A FILM

THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET

Story from The New York Times overnight:

Brian Selznick, the author and illustrator of “The Invention of Hugo Cabret,” uses the word “obsessed” a lot. As in: “I was deeply obsessed with ‘Star Wars’ ” (elaborate pencil drawings of Princess Leia and Darth Vader that he did as a 10-year-old hang on a wall of the art studio in his Brooklyn apartment) or “I remember being really obsessed with the ‘Virgin of the Rocks,’ ” by Leonardo da Vinci (a sketch of the angel from that painting hangs in the hallway).

In someone less genuine, the word might sound affected. But for the irrepressibly curious Mr. Selznick, it merely describes how he feels about so many things.
It is also an obvious source of his talent. His obsessions with old French movies, automatons, clockworks and the filmmaker Georges Méliès inspired “Hugo,” which earlier this month won the Randolph Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children.
At 533 pages it is the longest book ever to win that award, although more than 300 of those pages are pictures that, like movie storyboard frames, propel the story forward. In the novel, a boy who lives in an attic in a Paris train station desperately tries to fix a broken automaton — a kind of robot — that also interests a mysterious toy-stall owner (who turns out to be Méliès) and a young girl.

“The way the illustrations told the story was so exquisite,” said Karen Breen, chairwoman of the Caldecott judges committee and the children’s book review editor at Kirkus Reviews. “It was a favorite right from the start.”

The book, published last year by Scholastic Press, was a finalist for a National Book Award in young people’s literature. It has spent 42 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list for children’s chapter books and sold 130,000 copies in hardcover, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of retail sales.

On a recent tour of the funky duplex apartment that Mr. Selznick, 41, shares with his partner, David Serlin, a professor at the University of California, San Diego (the couple also rent an apartment in La Jolla), he pointed out many treasures on display. In a bathroom, the walls were covered with movie stills and sketches for a puppet theater piece that Mr. Selznick had based on the life of Christine Jorgensen, one of the first people to undergo a sex-change operation. In the studio upstairs, a collection of more than 50 snow globes clustered on shelves beneath a grandfather clock.
Mr. Selznick, who is tall and lean and has wavy brown hair, wears round black-rimmed glasses that make him look like a grown-up Harry Potter. He eagerly excavated items he collected while researching “Hugo”: a small chest of drawers packed with 19th-century pocket watch parts bought at a flea market in Paris; two sketches of Cupid riding in a chariot that had been drawn by an actual automaton housed in a Philadelphia museum.

“While I was working on the book,” Mr. Selznick said, “there were people who said, ‘You’re doing a book about French silent movies and clocks for kids? That sounds like a very bad idea.’ ” But, he said, his editor told him, “If these elements are important to the main character they will be important to the reader.”
Mr. Selznick, whose grandfather was a cousin of the legendary Hollywood producer David O. Selznick, grew up in East Brunswick, N.J., the oldest of three children. He always knew he wanted to do something involving art, but rejected perpetual suggestions that he should illustrate children’s books. At the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, he even skipped a visiting lecture by Maurice Sendak.

“Everyone was clamoring to get in,” Mr. Selznick said. “Now I feel extremely stupid.”
Instead he immersed himself in the theater scene at nearby Brown University, and then applied for a spot in set design at the Yale School of Drama. He was rejected, and he started to think that maybe his family and friends were right about the children’s books.
He took a job at the Eeyore’s Books for Children in Manhattan, now defunct, and began writing and drawing “The Houdini Box,” about a boy who almost meets the great magician. The book was published in 1991.

He started getting commissions to draw for other authors, and attracted the attention of Tracy Mack, a Scholastic editor. They worked together on several titles, including biographies of Walt Whitman and Marian Anderson for children.
Mr. Selznick loved the work, but it started to feel insufficient. “I just suddenly saw myself for the rest of my life illustrating picture-book biographies,” he said. “I didn’t want to be doing the same thing forever.”

A six-month funk followed. Mr. Selznick spent time reading and ruminating. Then a fragment of an old idea resurfaced when he remembered being captivated by “A Trip to the Moon,” one of Méliès’s early movies, and learned that Méliès had once owned — and then discarded — a collection of automatons.

Mr. Selznick wrote a 30-page draft — without pictures — and submitted it to Ms. Mack. The outline of the story was there, including Hugo, the automaton, the old man and the little girl.
He gorged on old French movies like François Truffaut’s “400 Blows” and René Clair’s “Under the Roofs of Paris.” Homages to both appear in the book. As he started to think about how movies told stories, Mr. Selznick said, he realized that he could do something similar with his book.

He stripped out written action scenes and replaced them with drawings. Suddenly, what started as a 150-page book took on a door-stopping heft; a three-page written introduction, for instance, morphed into 46 drawn pages.
Mr. Selznick said he still needed help from Ms. Mack and another editor, Leslie Budnick, to prune the remaining prose.
Because he tended to think in pictures, he just described what he saw in his head. He gave an example: “Hugo turned to the old man and the old man looked at Hugo and Hugo looked up and said ‘Give me back my notebook’ and the old man put his hand on his hips and said ‘I’m not going to give you back your notebook’ and Hugo got really mad and spit on the ground.”
The editors’ suggestion: “Give me back my notebook.” “No.”
“And suddenly,” Mr. Selznick said, “it was a scene.”
Though he didn’t give many details, Mr. Selznick said he has hatched another novel that will, like “Hugo,” be told partly in pictures.
Ms. Mack said that for many authors, a book like “Hugo” would have crowned a career. But, she said, “To me, this is just the beginning for Brian.”

Award winning broadcaster leads Montana New Zealand Book Awards judging panel

Award winning broadcaster Lynn Freeman is the convenor of the 2008 Montana New Zealand Book Awards judging panel.

Freeman is joined by David Elworthy and Tim Corballis.

Freeman, hosts Radio New Zealand National’s The Arts on Sunday show and fills in on Nine to Noon when the main presenter is away, is a theatre critic and a Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards judge. She is also on the board of the Playwriting agency, Playmarket and served on the panel selecting the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Arts Laureates. She resides in Wellington.

Christchurch based David Elworthy, a veteran in the publishing industry, started his career as a New Zealand diplomat with postings in both London and New Delhi. He then joined A.H. & A.W. Reed as an editor, eventually becoming their Editorial Director. He then became the Publishing Director for Collins for 10 years before he and his wife Ros Henry founded Shoal Bay Press, which they ran successfully for 20 years before selling to Longacre Press.

Wellington writer Tim Corballis, brings a young voice to the judging panel.
In 2005/2006 he spent a year in Berlin as the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writer in Residence. In 2002 he was the Randell Cottage Writer in Residence and in 2000 he was awarded the Adam Foundation Prize and a Modern Letters Fellowship for his work towards an MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University in Wellington.

All three judges are looking forward to the challenge of judging.
“As judges, it is our privilege—and our challenge—to engage thoroughly with the full breadth of a year’s writing”.

“We are all anticipating – and looking forward to – many a robust round table discussion over the next few months, as we hone down the pleasingly extensive list of eligible books.”

The judges are very aware of the task ahead of them and the impact their choices will have on the reading public.

“Looking back on the first 12 years of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, one is struck first by the quality of the work submitted by New Zealand
authors and publishers, and secondly by the increasing impact of the
Awards on the New Zealand scene. Betting on the Awards may not yet have been taken up by the TAB, but book sales, let alone the interest expressed by the general media, reflect the keen interest of the New Zealand public,” the judges said.

The judging of New Zealand’s best books published during the 2007 calendar year is carried out across eight categories – Fiction, Poetry, Biography, History, Reference & Anthology, Environment, Illustrative, and Lifestyle & Contemporary Culture – and follows strict guidelines.
This is the 12th year of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards. Judges take into account enduring literary merit and overall authorship; quality of illustration and graphic presentation; production values, general design and the standard of editing and the impact of the book on the community, with emphasis on issues such as topicality, public interest, commercial viability, entertainment, cultural and educational values and lifespan of the book.

Each category has a specialist advisor to assist the judging panel. This year’s advisors also boast strong writing and publishing credentials:

Fiction – Diane Brown is a poet, novelist and memoirist, and the co-ordinator and tutor for the Aoraki Polytechnic Creative Writing Course in Dunedin. Her publications include the collections of poetry Before The Divorce We Go To Disneyland, (winner of the NZSA Best First Book of Poetry at the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 1997); Learning to Lie Together, novels If The Tongue Fits, and Eight Stages of Grace, travel memoirs Liars and Lovers and Here Comes Another Vital Moment. She is currently writing a novel, Hooked.

Poetry – Anna Jackson lectures in English and American literature at Victoria University of Wellington. She has published four books of poetry with Auckland University Press, most recently The Gas Leak. She lives in Island Bay with her jeweller husband Simon Edmonds, and children Johnny (13) and Elvira (11).

History – Jock Phillips is General Editor of Te Ara, the Online Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Previously New Zealand’s Chief Historian, he was also the founding Director of the Stout Research Centre for the study of New Zealand society, history and culture. His ten published books on New Zealand history include collections on the major Maori tribes of New Zealand, and on the settler and immigrant peoples of New Zealand. He is just completing a book on the history of British immigration to New Zealand.

Biography – Julia Millen is a biographer, historian and fiction writer whose works include biographies of New Zealand novelists Guthrie Wilson and Ronald Hugh Morrieson. Her social history works include: Kirkcaldie & Stains and Bell Gully Buddle Weir; about the department store and the legal firm respectively, Salute to Service, on the RNZ Corps of Transport; and Breaking Barriers, on IHC New Zealand. She has an honours degree in music, has compiled and presented programmes for Radio New Zealand Concert and was librettist for two New Zealand operas.

Reference and Anthology – Margie Thomson was a journalist for more than 20 years, working on a variety of publications but mainly for the New Zealand Herald where she wrote features before becoming the Books Editor. Over the past 10 years she has edited books pages for Canvas, Herald on Sunday and Next magazine. Last year she left the media to take up a position as the Books Promotions Manager for Whitcoulls.

Environment – Simon Nathan is an earth scientist, with a long standing interest in environmental history. He has written biographical accounts of several New Zealand scientists, most recently Harold Wellman: a man who moved New Zealand. For the last four years Simon has been Science Editor of Te Ara: Encyclopedia of New Zealand which launched "The Bush" theme in 2007, dealing with New Zealand's natural environment.

Lifestyle and contemporary culture – Ann Packer is a freelance writer who last year won the Montana New Zealand Book Awards Lifestyle and Contemporary Culture category with Stitch, featuring New Zealand textile artists. She lives in Eastbourne and walks to Days Bay each morning before starting work on subjects as diverse as children’s books, homes, gardens, arts, travel and visiting authors. Ann has raised three children and worked as a community arts advisor, International Festival administrator and teacher.

Illustrative – Artist Dick Frizzell, having worked as an animator, commercial artist and illustrator, has no qualms about blurring the categories between his commercial work and art. His paintings are often a pastiche of images drawing on modern art and graphic design. In 2005 Frizzell was invited on the Antarctic artist programme. Frizzell’s works are held in major public and corporate collections and his 1997 retrospective exhibition, Dick Frizzell: Portrait of a Serious Artiste, toured major public art galleries of New Zealand.
(Courtesy Gow Langsford Gallery)

The winner in each category receives a prize of $5,000. Each category winner is eligible for the Montana Medal for non fiction or poetry/fiction, both of which carry a prize of $10,000.

The finalists across all categories will be announced on Tuesday 10 June.

The winner of the poetry category will be announced on Montana Poetry Day on Friday 18 July. All other winners will be advised at the awards ceremony in Wellington on Monday 21 July 2008.

The principal sponsors of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards are Montana and Creative New Zealand. The awards are managed by Booksellers New Zealand and supported by Book Publishers Association of New Zealand, the New Zealand Society of Authors and Book Tokens (NZ) Ltd.

Broken Pencil - January 28, 2008
The Broken Pencil
Indie Writers Deathmatch Has Begun

To witness the carnage go to www.brokenpencil.com/deathmatch

The top eight have been selected! Vote now! The battle begins!
Broken Pencil's first ever winner-takes-all online short story contest begins! The top 8 submissions have been selected from aspiring writers around North America and the world. Now it's time for our readers to vote and our competing writers to do whatever it takes to make it into the top four.
Each week, two stories will be pitted against each other in the online arena. The authors will be in constant communication with their audience through a blog which they can use to hype their story or talk trash their opponent.

The top four vote-getting stories (all of which will be published in the Spring issue of Broken Pencil) will then begin a final battle for victory. The bruised but triumphant writer will have his or her story published in Broken Pencil's upcoming Fiction Issue, and will also receive an Indie Lit Library -- tons of great books from groundbreaking small presses ECW, Conundrum, City Lights, Brindle & Glass, and Arsenal Press -- as well as $250 cash and a Broken Pencil prize pack!
January 28th:
Mustache Story by Michael Sasi (Vancouver, BC)
vs.
Last Winter Here by Emma Healey (Toronto, ON)
February 4th:
Gynecomastia by Janine Fleri (Astoria, NY)
vs.
Panties by Greg Kearney (Toronto, ON)
February 11th:
Amsterdam at Midnight by Graham Parke (Eindhoven, Netherlands)
vs.
The Worst of Us by Sarah Gordon (Winnipeg, MB)
February 18th:
Sickness by Jessica Faulds (Edmonton, AB)
vs.
Spawning by Kimberley Idol (Las Vegas, NV)

http://www.brokenpencil.com/

'Plot to kill' Nobel laureate
Richard Lea writing in The Guardian Monday January 28, 2008

Assassination target? Orhan Pamuk. Photograph: AP

Thirteen people have been arrested in Turkey as part of an investigation into an ultra-nationalist gang reported to be planning the assassination of Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk.
According to reports in the Turkish press, the author of international bestsellers including My Name is Red was targeted as part of a campaign to sow chaos in preparation for a military coup, scheduled for 2009.
The suspects have now been remanded in custody, among them retired military officers and the lawyer Kemal Kerincisz. The latter has been instrumental in the pursuit of a series of writers and intellectuals through the courts, filing cases against Pamuk himself as well as the novelists Elif Shafak and Perihan Magden and the murdered journalist Hrant Dink.

Evidence cited in the Turkish media links the gang with a number of incidents which had been
blamed on Islamist groups or separatist factions, and raises the prospect of
an investigation into long-standing suspicions of illegal activity within the
military and judiciary.

"These groups within the state have always existed," said a spokesperson for Istanbul's Free
Expression Initiative, Sanar Yurdatapan, "but they've never been charged
before. They were protected."
The charges brought against the suspects are not yet known. The investigation is being carried out under the terms of a law restricting media coverage.
"This could be a big development," continued Yurdatapan, suggesting that because figures very
high in the military establishment have been connected with such groups it
remains to be seen whether the cases will be brought to trial. "We are
afraid to have hope."

Amis the £3k an hour professor

Maev Kennedy writing in The Guardian

The annual salary is relatively modest - but it's the hourly rate offered to Martin Amis by Manchester University to be a visiting professor of creative writing which puts the novelist into the Premiership footballer league.
His salary has now been disclosed under Freedom of Information legislation, at £80,000 a year - or £3,000 an hour, according to disgruntled union representatives who have seen the shedding of hundreds of posts, from technicians to lecturers, as the university tries to balance its books.
They claim that although he may put in longer hours, the contract obliges Amis to work only 28 hours of the year: 12 90-minute postgraduate seminars, four public appearances and one session at the summer writing school.

Most other visiting academics are paid between £20 and £50 an hour, but the university has made other celebrity signings, including a brace of Nobel prize winners, the economist Joseph Stiglitz and the scientist John Sulston.

Dave Jones, senior Unite union organiser, said: "We understand why people like Martin Amis are being sought by the university and recruitment is a competitive business.
"But I think those staff who are left after the various redundancies and early retirements need to know that there will also be investment into their careers as well."
Applications for the creative writing course increased by 50% when the news broke of Amis's new role.

BOOKS OF THE TIMES
If You Can’t Win the Case, Buy an Election and Get Your Own Judge

By Janet Maslin writing in The New York Times
January 28, 2008

“The Appeal” is John Grisham’s handy primer on a timely subject: how to rig an election. Blow by blow, this not-very-fictitious-sounding novel depicts the tactics by which political candidates either can be propelled or ambushed and their campaigns can be subverted. Since so much of what happens here involves legal maneuvering in Mississippi, as have many of his other books, Mr. Grisham knows just how these games are played. He has sadly little trouble making such dirty tricks sound real.


THE APPEAL
By John Grisham
Doubleday. $27.95.

(Published by Century in Commonwealth NZ$40)


Building a remarkable degree of suspense into the all too familiar ploys described here, Mr. Grisham delivers his savviest book in years. His extended vacation from hard-hitting fiction is over. However passionately he cared about the nonfiction events he described in “An Innocent Man,” his strong suit remains bluntly manipulative, no-frills storytelling, the kind that brings out his great skill as a puppeteer. It barely matters that the characters in “The Appeal” are essentially stick figures. What works for Mr. Grisham is his patient, lawyerly, inexorable way of dramatizing urgent moral issues.

The jumping-off point for “The Appeal” is that a mom-and-pop law firm wins a big Mississippi verdict, triumphing over a chemical company that has spread carcinogenic pollutants. But this victory could turn out to be hollow, because the deep-pocketed corporate defendant isn’t giving up without a fight. The New York-based Krane Chemical swings into combat mode, first by taking stock of these small-town lawyers. The mom and pop are Wes and Mary Grace Payton: nice people, good parents, nearly broke. Krane’s stealth envoys quickly determine that it wouldn’t take much to push the Paytons over the edge.

But the Paytons themselves are little more than a nuisance to Krane. The precedent created by their case is what matters, and the company’s real objective is to make itself safe from similar attacks in the future. In order to arrange that, Krane needs the Mississippi Supreme Court. Another nuisance: Mississippi Supreme Court justices can’t simply be appointed. They have to be elected.

Now the stakes start to ratchet up. So a corrupt senator puts Krane’s greedy billionaire C.E.O., Carl Trudeau, in contact with Troy-Hogan, a mysterious Boca Raton firm that specializes in elections. There is no Troy. There is no Hogan. There is no record of the nature of the business conducted by this privately owned corporation, which is domiciled in Bermuda. For two separate fees, one acknowledged and the other, larger one delivered quietly to an offshore account, Troy-Hogan will do its magic. “When our clients need help,” says Barry Rinehart, Troy-Hogan’s main power player, who radiates the same expensive sartorial confidence that Trudeau does, “we target a Supreme Court justice who is not particularly friendly, and we take him or her out of the picture.”
This multipart process involves choosing a victim and creating rival candidates from scratch. Soon the stealth saboteurs have trained their sights on a justice named Sheila McCarthy. She is not a liberal ideologue, but she can be made to sound like one (“a feminist who’s soft on crime”).
She’s not an operator or a politician. She is unprepared for a campaign fight. And the only special interest group that ever supported her is suddenly a liability. (Anti-McCarthy mailings will trumpet the question “Why Are the Trial Lawyers Financing Sheila McCarthy?”) As Mr. Grisham points out in one of his book’s many moments of indignation, there’s no need for the architects of a smear campaign to answer such a question. All they have to do is keep on asking it.
Meanwhile the covert operators create their own man: Ron Fisk, a political newcomer. “They picked Fisk because he was just old enough to cross their low threshold of legal experience, but still young enough to have ambitions,” the book explains. Fisk is also new enough to be wowed by perks like private jets, which allow him to make so many more campaign stops than his rivals can, and by all the new attention lavished on him by his backers. He barely has time to wonder why they find him so appealing or where all those campaign funds are coming from.

And for a UK review read this one from The Times.

Populist prejudice
Crime books easier to write than 'serious' novels?

That attitude is, frankly, cobblers

Mark Lawson writing in The Guardian.

Seriously underrated ... John Banville (top) and Michael Dibdin

Ian Rankin, Britain's best-selling mystery writer, often quotes a review suggesting that the latest DI Rebus story "almost transcends the genre of crime fiction". This rudely qualified compliment rankles with Rankin because it typifies the refusal of review pages to break down the wall of condescension which separates the kind of fiction that is set for exams and given prizes from the kind that sells in supermarkets and has clues and a solution.
But, depressingly for Rankin and other practitioners of the genre that he almost
managed to transcend, there now seems to be documented case law for the view
that crime books are easier to write than so-called serious novels.
This week, Joan Brady - a talented American novelist living in Devon, who won the Whitbread prize in 1993 - received £115,000 in an out-of-court settlement from a cobbler close to
her Totnes home. The novelist alleged that fumes from solvents used at the
plant had caused her physical distress and mental distraction.

One example given of her problems - and here we come to the reason that Brady should probably not walk down any dark alleys filled with crime writers - was that she had become so
confused by the fumes that she was forced to abandon a serious novel, Cool
Wind from the Future, and turn instead to mystery fiction, with Bleedout.
So, in the course of a compensation dispute, we have medical and legal support for the traditional
libel against crime writing: that it is done by authors whose brains aren't
fully working. Perhaps, in the way that the dim in showbusiness became known
as airheads, leading crime and thriller writers should in future be designated
fumeheads.

Read the rest of the story, and it is well worth reading..............

Who Is Grady Harp?Amazon's Top Reviewers and the fate of the literary amateur.
By Garth Risk Hallberg Posted Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008 in SLATE

Full disclosure: It was late at night, in a fit of furtive self-Googling, that I discovered the first Amazon customer review of my debut book of fiction. "Superb," wrote Grady Harp of Los Angeles. "Fascinating ... addictive." Not to mention "profound." Such extravagance should have aroused suspicion, but I was too busy basking in the glow of a five-star rave to worry about the finer points of Harp's style. Sure, he'd spelled my name wrong, but hadn't he also judged me "a sensitive observer of human foibles"? Only when I noticed the "Top 10 Reviewer" tag did I wonder whether Grady Harp was more than just a satisfied customer. After a brief e-mail exchange, my publicist confirmed that she'd solicited Grady Harp's review.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised, but I had imagined Amazon's customer reviews as a refuge from the machinations of the publishing industry: "an intelligent and articulate conversation ... conducted by a group of disinterested, disembodied spirits," as James Marcus, a former editor at the company, wrote in his memoir, Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the Dot.Com Juggernaut. Indeed, with customers unseating salaried employees like Marcus as the company's leading content producers, Amazon had been hailed as a harbinger of "Web 2.0"—an ideal realm where user-generated consensus trumps the bankrupt pieties of experts. As I explored the murky understory of Amazon's reviewer rankings, however, I came to see the real Web 2.0 as a tangle of hidden agendas—one in which the disinterested amateur may be an endangered species.

On the surface, Grady Harp seems just the sort of enlightened consumer who might lead us out of Web 1.0's darkness. A 66-year-old gallerist, retired surgeon, and poet, he has reviewed over 3,500 books, CDs, and movies for Amazon. In turn, he has attained a kind of celebrity: a No. 7 ranking; a prominent profile on the Web site; and, apparently, a following. In the week after his endorsement of my work appeared, more than 100 readers clicked on a button that said, "I found this review helpful." His stated mission is to remain "ever on the lookout for the new and promising geniuses of tomorrow." At present, Dr. Harp's vigil runs to about 500,000 words—a critical corpus to rival Dr. Johnson's—and his reviews are clearly the product of a single, effusive sensibility. Jose Saramago's Blindness is "A Searing, Mesmerizing Journey" (five stars); The Queer Men's Erotic Art Workshop's Dirty Little Drawings, "A Surprisingly Rich Treasure Trove" (five stars).
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Such efforts have led a quorum of enthusiasts to hail Harp as a standard-bearer for literary amateurism. "Keep your pen hot, Grady!" one comments. Yet an equally energetic chorus of detractors carps that Harp's Amazon reviews are more self-interested than they might appear. The comment threads accompanying Harp postings devolve into litanies of accusation: GH engages in back-scratching; GH is unduly influenced by publishers; GH has failed to read the book under review.

My own research suggests that GH is no more or less credible than Amazon's other "celebrity reviewers." Harriet Klausner, No. 1 since the inception of the ranking system in 2000, has averaged 45 book reviews per week over the last five years—a pace that seems hard to credit, even from a professed speed-reader. Reviewer No. 3, Donald Mitchell, ceaselessly promotes "the 400 Year Project," which his profile identifies only as "a pro bono, noncommercial project to help the world make improvements at 20 times the normal rate." John "Gunny" Matlock, ranked No. 6 this spring, took a holiday from Amazon, according to Vick Mickunas of the Dayton Daily News, after allegations that 27 different writers had helped generate his reviews.
Absent the institutional standards that govern (however notionally) professional journalists, Web 2.0 stakes its credibility on the transparency of users' motives and their freedom from top-down interference. Amazon, for example, describes its Top Reviewers as "clear-eyed critics [who] provide their fellow shoppers with helpful, honest, tell-it-like-it-is product information."

But beneath the just-us-folks rhetoric lurks an unresolved tension between transparency and opacity; in this respect, Amazon exemplifies the ambiguities of Web 2.0. The Top 10 List promises interactivity—"How do I become a Top Reviewer?"—yet Amazon guards its rankings algorithms closely. A spokeswoman for the company would explain only that a reviewer's standing is based on the number of votes labeling a review "helpful," rather than on the raw number of books reviewed by any one person. The Top Reviewers are those who give "the most trusted feedback," she told me, echoing the copy on the Web site.

Writers' digital row with library - report from BBC.

The National Library of Wales (left) is creating an online archive
Scores of writers are refusing to let their works be scanned for an online archive at the National Library of Wales because they are not being paid.
A year after a near-£1m project was awarded to digitise modern Welsh writing, a dispute between authors and the library has not been resolved.
The library is putting some 3.5m words from 20th Century English and Welsh periodicals and magazines on the web.
But literature promotion agency Academi wants writers to be paid a share.

Academi chief executive Peter Finch said: "It's an extremely exciting programme: what's wrong with it is there is no small sliver in there for paying the writers.
The big issue that is going to face writers everywhere is that certain corporations want to digitise works that are in copyright without paying the authors.

Former national poet Gwyneth Lewis (right) said
"Everybody else in the whole process is getting paid but the writers don't. "We know that in the arts sector, Lottery money is shrinking down to go to the Olympics. A lot of people will be without money."

The library aims to gain permission to digitise the contents of 90 journals, published since 1900, from the publishers. Some 600,000 pages of Welsh literary works, including poetry, translations and reviews, will be put online.
The library has said an offer to take down from its live site material by writers who object is a "reasonable compromise".
Wales' former national poet, Gwyneth Lewis said the issue was a matter of principle.
She said: "This is the thin end of the wedge. The big issue that is going to face writers everywhere is that certain corporations want to digitise works that are in copyright without paying the authors.
"If a writer's work is going to be put on a different platform, rights need to be negotiated with the writer for that extension, and that hasn't happened, therefore they can't have the work."
The National Library of Wales's generous offer to digitalise a selection of Welsh periodicals is a substantial boost to our cultural heritage .

However, some writers are happy for their works to be digitised without a payment.
Writer and publisher Lewis Davies, whose 1993 book Work, Sex and Rugby was voted the best book to describe Wales in the World Book Day campaign in 2003, is in favour.
In a comment on Academi's website, he said: "I feel that the National Library of Wales's generous offer to digitalise a selection of Welsh periodicals is a substantial boost to our cultural heritage and they should be congratulated for securing funding in a competitive world for this project.
"As a writer I've already been paid for my work published in the magazines which are due to be digitalised and the fact that the work which would otherwise be largely lost, unread and scattered is now to be universally available at the National Library of Wales is a significant extra payment in itself."

In an open letter to Academi, national library librarian Andrew Green said: "Since the scope of the project runs back to 1900, much of this research is essentially a historical exercise; the majority of authors involved are dead.
"Our experience has been that 99% of copyright holders are happy to grant consent; the proportion of copyright holders who have not been contacted and would refuse is therefore very small."
The library has been asked to comment.
A spokesman for the Welsh Assembly Government said: "We understand that the National Library of Wales and Academi have been in discussion on this matter and that these discussions continue."

The Wait of the World's on Dan Brown
'Da Vinci Code' Author Has Sluggish Publishing Industry In Suspense Over Follow-Up
By Jeffrey Trachtenberg writing in The Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2008;

Dan Brown's 2003 novel "The Da Vinci Code" was the biggest publishing event in decades, a global best-seller that spawned dozens of literary knockoffs, a cottage industry of explanatory nonfiction titles, and a vast European tourism business focused on sites mentioned in the book.

Now that Harry Potter -- the only bigger publishing phenomenon of the age -- is retired, no book has been as eagerly awaited as Mr. Brown's next novel, purported to be about freemasonry and the Founding Fathers. The problem is, it is still awaited...and awaited...and awaited.
The whole industry is impatient. Book sales are generally sluggish, and one explosive, high-profile title can jump-start sales across the board as customers pour into the stores and walk out with a bagful of titles. When Bertelsmann AG reports 2007 results in March, it will be the first time since 2002 that it didn't get a boost from "The Da Vinci Code."

Meanwhile, the nation's biggest retailers can barely restrain themselves. "We're constantly asking," says Bob Wietrak, vice president of merchandising at Barnes & Noble Inc.
So where is the new novel? It's a mystery worthy of the deepest secrets of the Knights Templar. Mr. Brown, holed up in New Hampshire, isn't saying. His agent, Heide Lange, isn't, either.
"When a major author doesn't deliver, you get down on your knees and pray," says Laurence Kirshbaum, a book agent who heads up LJK Literary Management in New York. "You can't threaten, you can't cajole, you wait."

Back in November 2004, a spokeswoman for Doubleday said the target publishing date for Mr. Brown's next book was 2005, although she noted that "there are no guarantees."
Now, the publisher is hinting that a manuscript is close. "Dan Brown has a very specific release date for the publication of his new book, and when the book is published, his readers will see why," says Stephen Rubin, president of Bertelsmann's Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, whose Doubleday imprint publishes Mr. Brown. Mr. Rubin declined further comment.
What date could that be? Since some of the leaders of the American Revolution were masons, including George Washington, an obvious reference point would be July Fourth. In addition to it being Independence Day, the cornerstone of the Washington Monument was laid on July 4, 1848 in a ceremony hosted by the Freemasons.

There are other more obscure dates that could be significant, however: On Sept. 18, 1793, President Washington led a Masonic parade down Pennsylvania Avenue to lay the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol. It is considered one of the most important events in Masonic history. A third choice? The cornerstone of the White House was laid on Oct. 13, 1792, during a Masonic celebration. (On that date in 1307, the King of France ordered the arrest of Knights Templar. There has been speculation connecting the Knights and the origins of the Masons, although the matter is in question.)

Mr. Brown's publisher said several years ago that the next book is tentatively titled "The Solomon Key." In an undated post on his Web site, Mr. Brown writes that it is "set deep within the oldest fraternity in history...the enigmatic brotherhood of the Masons." Elsewhere on the site, he notes that Robert Langdon, a fictional Harvard symbologist who first appeared in Mr. Brown's second book "Angels & Demons" and was played by Tom Hanks in the movie version of "The Da Vinci Code," will "find himself embroiled in a mystery on U.S. soil. This new novel explores the hidden history of our nation's capital."
Up until now, Mr. Brown wrote his books in quick succession: the first, "Digital Fortress," was published in 1998; followed by "Angels & Demons" in 2000, "Deception Point" in 2001, and "The Da Vinci Code" in 2003.
The first three books sold modestly when first released, but the fourth -- about the search for the real meaning of the Holy Grail and the bloodline of Jesus -- was one of the most remarkable stories in publishing history. There are more than 80 million copies in print world-wide, according to Ms. Lange. It served as the basis of a blockbuster movie of the same name, released in 2006. Mr. Brown's earlier titles subsequently became wildly popular, too, each of them selling millions. "Angels & Demons" has 39 million in print.

Mr. Brown's income from all four books, including "The Da Vinci Code" and revenue from the film, has made him a rich man. Forbes magazine estimated Mr. Brown earned $88 million between June 2005 and June 2006, minus management, agent and attorney fees. Dan Burstein, editor of the best-seller "Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind The Da Vinci Code," thinks Mr. Brown may have earned as much as $250 million to $300 million from all related properties.

Many writers have struggled. Charles Frazier, whose debut Civil War novel, "Cold Mountain," was published in 1997 and won the National Book Award, needed nearly a decade to deliver "Thirteen Moons," published in 2006. Although "Thirteen Moons" generated some good reviews, the book never caught fire with readers. It's estimated that there are 4 million copies of "Cold Mountain" in print in the U.S.
"It's a classic case of an author who has written a phenomenon being reluctant to commit," says David Steinberger, CEO of the Perseus Books Group, a unit of Washington private-equity firm Perseus LLC. "The next book almost always underperforms, because the author is already at his zenith. There is only one way to go."

Mr. Brown's timetable was affected by a plagiarism suit brought in the United Kingdom by two of the three authors of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail." That book, a work of nonfiction published in 1982, explored the possibility that Jesus had not died on the cross but married and fathered a child -- a theme central to "The Da Vinci Code."
Although Mr. Brown was exonerated in early 2006, the matter was time-consuming. At one point, Mr. Brown filed a lengthy personal statement which said of his work habits: "For me, writing is a discipline, much like playing a musical instrument; it requires constant practice and honing of skills. For this reason, I write seven days a week. So, my routine begins at around 4:00 AM every morning, when there are no distractions."

"The Da Vinci Code" was also criticized for factual miscues; this time, he may be taking particular care. "He has toured a number of Masonic temples to get the historical facts correct," says Akram Elias, grand master of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the District of Columbia.
The Masons are a fraternal society dedicated to self-improvement and charitable works. Membership is open to all religions and political parties. Although Mr. Brown portrayed the secretive Roman Catholic group Opus Dei in a negative light in "The Da Vinci Code," Mr. Elias says he isn't worried. "Freemasonry will survive Dan Brown," he says.
Meanwhile, some publishing veterans say the wait is understandable. "When you have that level of success, you feel an obligation," says Mr. Kirshbaum. "He's climbing Everest times 10. He probably wants to make the next book perfect."

Waterstone’s Announces 12 Vibrant New Voices

Some of the best, most energetic new writing from emerging international talent is announced in a list of 12 new writers selected by leading bookseller Waterstone’s for its New Voices promotion.

Chosen from scores of titles submitted by publishers, these are the writers Waterstone’s identified as likely future winners of literary prizes such as the Man Booker, Orange and Costa. Hailing from different continents and now living in as diverse places as India, New York and Glasgow, the 12 New Voices authors are as follows (listed alphabetically):

- Aravind Adiga (The White Tiger, Atlantic)
- Charles Bock (Beautiful Children, John Murray)
- David Downing (Silesian Station, Old Street)
- Zoe Ferraris (The Night of the Mi’raj, Little, Brown)
- Sadie Jones (The Outcast, Chatto & Windus)
- Hillary Jordan (Mudbound, William Heinemann)
- Toni Jordan (Addition, Sceptre)
- Richard T. Kelly (Crusaders, Faber)
- Kei Miller (The Same Earth, Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
- John Niven (Kill Your Friends, William Heinemann)
- Ross Raisin (God’s Own Country, Penguin)
- Willy Vlautin (Northline, Faber)

New Voices is just one of many recent projects Waterstone’s has initiated to show its commitment to emerging new authors, and to celebrate the relationship between readers and writers. The New Voices promotion forms part of the Waterstone’s Writer’s Year campaign which will see unique and ambitious projects unveiled each month, celebrating the writer and coinciding with the National Year of Reading 2008. The monthly events include giving a high-profile author free reign to choose every single title within a major promotion called The Writer’s Table in May, the launch of the Waterstone’s Featured Poet in October, and the introduction of The Bookseller’s Bursary in April, a scheme designed to encourage budding authors within the company by sending two booksellers on an all expenses paid writing course.

All books by the New Voices authors will be available in stores in time for World Book Day 2008 on 6 March.

Toby Bourne, Waterstone’s Fiction Buying Manager commented:
“One of the most exciting things for readers every year is watching new writers appear on the literary scene and discovering their work. Our New Voices demonstrate a real wealth of talent and variety – a completely different collection of novels from all genres and from authors of different nationalities. These twelve authors have written fresh, challenging and convincing stories and we expect to find them shaping the world of fiction for years to come.”

Longlist Announced for
The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008

Arts Council England has today announced the longlist for The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008, in association with Champagne Taittinger.

17 contenders from over 90 entries have been long-listed for the prize, worth £10,000. They are:
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa al Aswany, translated by Humphrey Davies from the Arabic, published by Fourth Estate
Book of Words by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky from the German, published by Portobello Books
The Moon Opera by Bi Feiyu, translated by Howard Goldblatt from the Chinese, published by Telegram Books
Castorp by Pawel Huelle, translated by Antonia Lloyd Jones from the Polish, published by Serpent’s Tail
Agamemnon’s Daughter by Ismail Kadare translated by David Bellos from the French, published by Canongate
Let it be morning by Sayed Kashua, translated by Miraim Shlesinger from the Hebrew, published by Atlantic Books
Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Carol Brown Janeway from the German, published by Quercus
Gregorius by Bengt Ohlsson, translated by Silvester Mazzarella from the Swedish, published by Portobello Books
Shutterspeed by Erwin Morrtimer, translated by Ina Rilke from the Dutch, published by Harvill Secker
The Past by Alan Pauls, translated by Nick Caistor from the Spanish, published by Harvill Secker
Rivers of Babylon by Peter Pist’anek, translated by Peter Petro from the Slovak, published by Garnett Press
Delirium by Laura Restrepo, translated by Natasha Wimmer from the Spanish, published by Harvill Secker
The Model by Lars Saabye Christensen, translated by Don Barlett from the Norwegian, published by Arcadia Books
Bahia Blues by Yasmina Traboulsi, translated by Polly McLean from the French, published by Arcadia Books
The Way of the Women by Marlene van Niekerk, translated by Michiel do Heyns from the Afrikaans, published by Little, Brown
Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen, translated by Paul Verhaeghen from the Dutch, published by Dalkey Archive Press
Montano by Enrique Vilas-Matas, translated by Jonathan Dunne from the Spanish, published by Harvill Secker

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize celebrates an exceptional work of fiction by a living author which has been translated into English from any other language and published in the United Kingdom in the last year. This year’s longlist reflects the international scope of the prize and includes writers working in Hebrew, Afrikaans, Chinese and Arabic. Among the longlisted authors is Ismail Kadare, the inaugural Man Booker International Prize winner.

Antonia Byatt, Director, Literature Strategy, Arts Council England said:

"This year's long list is a fantastic demonstration of the rich range and quality of fiction in translation being published in Britain today. It’s wonderful to see so many languages represented from all round the world: a feast for readers and quite a challenge for the judges in making a decision!"

report from The Guardian.

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM BPANZ

Following the announcement of Michael Moynahan's promotion within Random House, it is with regret that we have to advise his resignation as President of BPANZ.

Since becoming President in 2005, Michael has done a fantastic job for the organisation and the industry as a whole. The organisation has been restructured and the appointment of a full time Association Director, Anne de Lautour, last year has transformed its administration and effectiveness. Externally Michael's ability to network with other agencies including government officers, departments and organisations has ensured that the importance of the publishing sector to the nation's cultural and economic well being has been effectively represented with tangible benefits for all members.

Michael's inclusive management style has ensured that the opinions and views of all members have been taken into full consideration by your Council. He leaves the organisation in a strong financial position and with the path ahead clearly mapped out.

On behalf of all members we thank Michael for his efforts on our behalf and wish him and his family all the very best for their exciting new life in India

On behalf of the BPANZ Council

Tony Fisk
Vice President.

And a further announcement:

BPANZ Council is pleased to announce that an interim appointment for the position of BPANZ President has been made.

Vice President Tony Fisk will take over the role of President of BPANZ until July 2008 when Council elections will take place. Tony Fisk, Managing Director of Harper Collins NZ Ltd has been a Council member for the past 5 years and Vice President for 3 years so BPANZ is delighted he has agreed to undertake this major role in the organisation.

BookExpo America – May 29-June 1 Los Angeles, CA.

BookExpo America (BEA) is one of the world's leading book fairs serving the $35 billion-dollar U.S. publishing industry and is a venue where Literary Rights are bought and sold.

Gain access to over 30,000 industry professionals, 2,000 publishers, 1,000 members of the media, from 100 countries, including rights professionals who will be working, transacting and participating at BEA.

For more information on the International Rights Center please visit http://click.email-publisher.com/maajHeIabErtqaDZvJXeaeQxXH/

or contact Melissa Held: mheld@reedexpo.com

Early-bird rates expire January 31, 2008. To Sign Up Today, go to bookexpoamerica.com

The entire book world awaits!

Powell’s to Expand Flagship in 2010 - From PW.

Starting January 2010, Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. will begin construction to add some 10,000 sq. ft. of retail space to its existing flagship location, Powell’s City of Books, and incorporate the 7,000 sq.-ft. of inventory from Powell’s Technical Books, effectively closing the freestanding store, which operates just two blocks from the flagship.

“We don’t see it as closing a store, since we’re incorporating the inventory into our store and it will be given a dedicated room” said Powell’s CEO for strategic development, Miriam Sontz.
The additional retail space will likely be utilized to expand City of Book’s children’s section, which currently occupies some 5,000 sq.-ft. of 75,000 sq.-ft. flagship store.

Sontz said that the store “may decide to add even more retail space, but no decision has been finalized.” Any expansion, which is likely to take the form of adding additional stories to the existing building, will have to be approved by the city.
“We made the announcement so far in advance,” said Sontz, “in part because we wanted to spend 2008 talking to our staff and surrounding community about what they want to add to the store. This is an opportunity for change. Then in 2009, hopefully we can approve the plans and in 2010 start construction.”

BOOKMAN BEATTIE IS HEADING NORTH

The coming weekend is a holiday weekend in Auckland so I'm taking advantage of that to head off today to the far north to a remote beach to join friends there where I plan to do little except eat, drink, sleep and read! I have five novels from which to choose!

There is no phone or Internet connection up there so this is au revoir until next week.

The picture above is by courtesy of Maryanne Mummery and was actually taken on Great Barrier Island at Christmas but the outlook is quite similar to where we are headed.

All best, back on air after the weekend.

MORE ON THIS ISSUE STIRRED UP BY THE AUSTRALIAN NEWSPAPER.

ISHMAEL BEAH TAKES PUBLIC STAND

By Michael Coffey writing in Publishers Weekly.

Ishmael Beah, whose story of serving as a soldier in war-torn Sierra Leone has been questioned by reports in an Australian newspaper (here is the original story, and an update), has fired back. Beah has issued a frank statement supporting his position that the dates of his service in the conflicts in his home country were correct. Although over the weekend, Beah wrote a Letter to the Editor of the The Australian, defending his book, in today's statement he goes further, quoting two Sierra Leoneans in support of his version of events.

Beah also describes a months-long back-and-forth with a man named Bob Lloyd and reporters for The Australian, which challenged whether or not Beah's parents were dead. "When they were forced to acknowledge that this has been a hoax," says Beah of the reporters, they tried "to raise questions about the dates" in his book. A Long Way Gone has sold close to 700,000 copies in hardover, according to Jeff Seroy, FSG spokesperson, and a trade paperback is due on August 5.

Here is the complete press release from FSG:January 22, 2008

For months I told Bob Lloyd and The Australian’sreporter, Shelley Gare, through my publisher, my agent, and my adoptive mother, that unfortunately they were wrong, that the man they claimed was my father was not my father, and that my mother and brothers were not alive, as Lloyd claimed. Last week, when The Australiansent reporters to my home in Sierra Leone, they were forced to acknowledge that this has been a hoax.

Now The Australian’s reporters are trying to raise questions about the dates in my book, A Long Way Gone, regarding when the war came to my village. They offer as "proof" a man named Mr. Barry who claims to have been the head of the school I attended when I was young. I have never heard of a Mr. Barry. The principal of my school was Mr. Sidiki Brahima.
The war in Sierra Leone began in 1991. My story, as I remember it and wrote it, began in 1993 when rebels “attacked the mining areas” (my words from the book) in my village while I was away with friends. I never saw my family again. The Australian, presumably, is basing their defamation of me on reports that the Sierra Rutile Mine was closed down by rebels in 1995. But there were rebels in my region, my village, and my life in 1993. They attacked throughout 1993 and 1994 before closing down the mine.

Others from Sierra Leone can bear witness to the truth of my story.
Leslie Mboka, National Chairman of the Campaign for Just Mining in Freetown, was a counselor at Benin Home, the rehabilitation center in Freetown, Sierra Leone, I entered in January 1996. He told this to my publisher, Sarah Crichton, on the telephone today:

“A gentleman named Wilson was here investigating regarding Ishmael Beah’s book, and I told him emphatically−emphatically−that Ishmael’s accounts are accurate and correct. Wilson was going to Mogbwemo to find out if Ishmael Beah’s family was alive. When he came back to Freetown, he said he couldn’t find anyone alive, and the man who said he was Ishmael’s father was actually just a relative. But then he asked, what about confusion with the dates?
And I said, there is no problem with the dates. The rebels made sporadic attacks on the mining communities between ’93 and ’94, leading up to and in preparation for the major assault in ’95. In fact, military personnel were deployed to the area because there were these sporadic raids. Ishmael was caught in one of the earlier attacks.

I told all this to Peter Wilson. I told him everything that Ishmael wrote is accurate and completely factual, and I explained to him what was confusing him.
I do not understand what his paper’s agenda is. I do not understand why they are trying to blackmail this brilliant and honest young man.”
Mboka was contacted by The New York Times when they fact-checked the excerpts of my book which they published. His testimony did not appear in The Australian’s reporting.
My publisher also spoke today with Alusine Kamara, former director of Benin Home, who now lives in Boston.

“I have known Ishmael since he was a soldier and he came to our center. I have read his book, and I have no doubt that what he says is true I do not know why anyone would want to question what Ishmael writes about. He did not write a history of the whole war, he wrote about his experiences. And if anyone has any doubts about what Ishmael went through, or what it was like for those soldiers, I refer them to the BBC World—they made many documentaries about our center.”

I was right about my family. I am right about my story. This is not something one gets wrong. The Australian’s reporters have been calling my college professors, asking if I "embellished" my story. They published my adoptive mother’s address, so she now receives ugly threats. They have used innuendo against me when there is no fact. Though apparently, they believe anything they are told–unless it comes from me or supports my account. Sad to say, my story is all true.

Sincerely,
Ishmael Beah

FOOTNOTE.

See also my posting yesterday.

Expat Kiwi returns home to head up NZ Book Month

Expat Kiwi Michele Powles has been appointed Project Director for NZ Book Month.
Currently UK-based, Powles is an arts marketing specialist and she has extensive event and performance management experience.

Most recently, Powles has been the director of Rifleman Productions Ltd, a well-respected performance-touring company in New Zealand and the Asia Pacific region. She has also worked with the Touch Compass Dance Company and the Trash to Fashion annual event.
An LLB (Hons) graduate from Victoria University, Powles also has the legal skills to back her work up.

Powles says she’s thrilled to be given the chance to get more Kiwis reading and head-up this hugely successful and creative book-industry initiative.
She says she’s so impressed with what’s already been achieved for the Book Month brand in its short life and can’t wait to work with the book month team, sponsors and booksellers to get even more Kiwis behind it.
“The team has created a really effective marketing mix and the result — judging by the sales of The Six Pack and website hits — shows that consumers have really embraced the initiative,” enthuses Powles.
The Six Pack publication is the month’s signature and highly successful promotional initiative. Both anthologies have gone straight to the best-seller list and remained there for several months.

Not one to sit back and watch the paint dry, Powles is also a graduate of the University of Auckland Masters of Creative Writing course and she is now a published author. Her first book, Touch Compass, was published by David Ling (who provided her pic and book cover image) and her latest book, Through Darkened Water, has been accepted by Richard’s Literary Agency.

Michele said: “I now know first hand the joy and excitement of seeing your words in print. It gets the heart rate up, it makes smiles sneak up when you weren’t looking, and it’s a feeling which should be encouraged, celebrated and grown among New Zealand writers.”
Now in its third year, and held every September, NZ Book Month has become a firm fixture on the literary calendar.

“The Book Month Trust is delighted with the appointment of Michele who we are sure will lead the event forward building on the success it has already had. I would like to personally thank Phil for all his fantastic work in establishing the event and wish him well for the future,” says Michael Moynahan, NZ Book Month Trust chair.
Michele Powles has taken over the role from Phil Twyford who is standing as a candidate for Labour in this year’s General Elections.

TRADE ME BATTLE WITH BOOIKSELLERS CONTINUES

An interesting listing on Trade me yesterday was from member kelvinm [an Auckland online book dealer] Auction Number: 137409774

RARE NEW ZEALAND BOOKS

No bids

No reserve

Closes: Tue, 29 Jan

Starting bid: $
[ ]
[Place Bid]

[ ]
Auto-bid

Rare, indeed, as New Zealand books have become very hard to find on Trade Me since the removal of the New Zealand category of non-fiction books.
The category was taken from the site suddenly, and without consultation, or notification or explanation, just before Christmas, the major buying and selling season. It was gone in a flash ... just like that!
Good luck if you want to browse for New Zealand books now, because you can't. They're lost among a rag bag of titles in other categories of non-fiction books. Or listed in inappropriate categories, such as the New Zealand-published section of Rare and Collectable books.No wonder buyers and sellers are confused and disgusted, emailing or writing to Trade Me, sending messages to the New Zealand Book Council and approaching National Radio.

You only have to read the 300+ messages in the Books section of the Message Board to see how much of a furore this has caused.Trade Me's reply when asked to explain:Dear .., Thanks for taking the time to contact us about our recent category changes. I've passed it to the appropriate team so they're aware of how this effects you. From time to time we may add, remove or change categories to meet the needs of our sellers and make the site easier for our buyers to navigate. ... I really appreciate your feedback. If you have any further questions or if I can be of any further help please do not hesitate to contact me. Regards, .. Trade Me Support" Interested? No! Evasive? Yes! Sellers and buyers of New Zealand books are asking Trade Me to reinstate the New Zealand sub-category of non-fiction books, perhaps with its own sub-categories. They say it was working well and want to know why it was dropped without warning.They invite you to start your own auction along these lines if you support this cause.
THIS AUCTION WILL BE WITHDRAWN PRIOR TO CLOSING.

48 hours in literary London

I missed this Reuters story when it was published last Wednesday, still here it is in case you missed it too, better late than never! Makes one want to rush over there..........................

Got 48 hours to explore the literary haunts of London? The British capital is a treasure trove of pubs, museums and hotels steeped in booklore. Reuters correspondents with a mix of local knowledge give tips on how to spend a short stay.

FRIDAY
7pm - You'll be thirsty for a drink when you arrive, but don't waste time searching for George Orwell's mythical perfect public-house, the "Moon Under Water". Start your weekend in the world of P.G. Wodehouse's butler Jeeves by drinking and dining in the historic pub "I Am the Only Running Footman" on Charles Street in Mayfair. The 1749 pub, rebuilt in 1937, was once the haunt of servants and is said to have inspired Wodehouse to create the fictional Junior Ganymede, the club for "the gentlemen's gentleman" where Jeeves took his ease. As you head back to your hotel, take a look at Number 48, where Winston Churchill lived as a child.

SATURDAY
9am - Start your day with more than 13 million books! Head to the London haven of book lovers, the British Library at St. Pancras. You can view the 1215 Magna Carta and many manuscripts, including Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.

10:30am - Walk down Upper Woburn Place past the gardened Tavistock and Russell Squares in the heart of Bloomsbury - home to the "Bloomsbury Group", or "Set" as it is also known. See where the Bohemian artists who so influenced Edwardian London lived and exchanged views - as well as lovers. Modernist literary giant Virginia Woolf lived at 46 Gordon Square.

11am - A short walk from Russell Square is the Dickens House Museum at 48 Doughty Street. Tour the rooms where Dickens lived with his young family during a particularly productive period. It was here that he completed "Oliver Twist" and "Pickwick Papers" between 1837 and 1839.

12pm - You've seen where Dickens lived, now why not sip a pint where he did. The Lamb on Lamb's Conduit Street is a pub full of history. Not only a local for Dickens, it was also the meeting place for the Bloomsbury Group. Built in the 1720s and done up in Victorian times it has beautifully preserved and rare "snob screens" - panels of etched glass at head height at the bar to conceal the drinker's identity. After a traditional pub grub lunch take the tube to Leicester Square.

2pm - Exit the tube onto Charing Cross Road, where there are a plethora of bookshops to suit any budget. You can find rare books, first editions, antiquarian sets and modern classics. Be sure not to miss 84 Charing Cross Road, once home to the bookshop in Helen Hanff's book of the same name, later made into a film with Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Lose yourself in the massive independent bookshop Foyles (113-119 Charing Cross Road). If you're lucky you might even meet an author, as they regularly pop in, sometimes unannounced, for signings. If you can't wait to flick through your new purchases, take a breather in the organic Café inside Foyles.
4pm - Take a taxi to the north side of the Millennium Bridge near St. Paul's Cathedral and walk across the River Thames towards Shakespeare's Globe Theatre - a faithful reconstruction of the Elizabethan open-air playhouse for which the Bard wrote many of his greatest plays. Take a tour (last entry 4.30pm) to learn about the painstaking construction of the theatre and original Shakespearean acting techniques, such as what they used for gory scenes in Elizabethan times (real pig's blood - in case you're wondering).

5:30pm - Pop to the Anchor pub just along the path by the side of River Thames where diarist Samuel Pepys was said to have watched the destruction of London in the Great Fire of 1666, describing the dreadful heat and "fire drops". Rebuilt in 1676, the pub's original structure has been added-to over several centuries, creating a maze of odd little rooms featuring old brick fire places and creaking floorboards. One of the bars is named after Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer and writer, who drank here regularly. A copy of his dictionary is on display.
If you're after more modern surroundings you could head for the imposing Tate Modern museum next door to the Globe for a reviving cocktail overlooking the Thames. The restaurant and bar on the 7th floor has some of the best views in London.
7pm - In the summer months, nice weather might encourage you to down a few pints of beer and have some pub food at the wooden tables set out in front of Anchor on the bank of the River Thames. If it's raining, you might consider dining in the restaurant at the Tate Modern before walking back to the Globe to watch an evening play (performances between late April and October only).

9pm - If your visit is outside of these months, head back into central London for dinner at the world famous Café Royal on Park Lane. A favorite haunt of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, where they and their literary chums enjoyed conversational jousting in the opulent dining rooms of frescoed ceilings and gilt-edged mirrors.

SUNDAY
9pm - Wake yourself up with a brisk walk through the parks of north London and a visit to Highgate Cemetery, Karl Marx's resting place. Take the tube to Archway and walk up Highgate Hill to the East Gate of the famous Victorian cemetery. It's a tranquil place to wander, crammed full of gravestones, tombs, catacombs and monuments, all set in magical woodland. Marx's massive granite bust with the inscription "Workers of the world unite" is the most visited, with flowers and wreaths still placed there. But you can also find novelist George Eliot and Victorian poet Christina Rossetti's graves. Just outside the north end of the cemetery is St. Michael's Church, where late 18th century author of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and best friend of William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is buried.

12.30pm - A short walk into Highgate Village will take you to the Flask pub, a historic once-rural establishment with rambling charm. Settle into one of the nooks and crannies and sample one of the many real ales and eat a hearty lunch before heading back to central London by tube to Baker Street.

2.30pm - Coming out of the tube make your way to one of London's most famous addresses 221b Baker Street, where Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional creations Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson lived in the late 19th century. In the Sherlock Holmes Museum you can sit in the super sleuth's armchair by the fire in the study overlooking Baker Street. The deerstalker cap, magnifying glass, Persian slippers and disguises are all on display. But if you'd like a photo taken in character you'll have to bring your own pipe - "Elementary!"
4pm - Time for a quintessentially English Afternoon Tea at a hotel favored by mystery writer Agatha Christie and colonial traveler Rudyard Kipling. Make your way to the 170-year-old Browns Hotel in Mayfair. It boasts that Kipling wrote "Jungle Book" here and that Christie broke off from writing "At Bertram's Hotel" here to enjoy the dainty sandwiches, scones, clotted cream served at tea time.

6pm - If you happen to be leaving London by rail enjoy a glass of champagne at the magnificently restored St. Pancras station, said to rival New York's Grand Central. If you're departing from its grimier neighbor, Kings Cross station, see if you can find J.K. Rowling's platform 9-3/4. Muggles beware though - don't jump aboard the Hogwarts Express, as you may end up somewhere mysteriously magical.

Nestlé book prize put to bed for last time

Michelle Pauli writing with sad news in The Guardian Wednesday January 23, 2008

The Nestlé book prize, which has been honouring children's authors for the past 23 years, is being discontinued by its administrator Booktrust and sponsor Nestlé.
According to Katherine Solomon, press officer at Booktrust, the future of the prize has been in discussion for some time and the decision to end the partnership was "mutual and there was no hostility". It was a "natural time to conclude", she added, as the literacy charity's focus moves increasingly into its national book-giving scheme - the Bookstart and Booked Up programmes that provide free books to babies and year seven schoolchildren.

Nestlé said that it was "moving its community support towards the company strategy of nutrition, health and wellness," in the form of healthy eating plans for primary schools.
Despite some controversy over the prize's sponsorship by Nestlé due to the company's tarnished reputation arising from its promotion of powdered baby milk in developing countries, the prize became one of the most respected in the publishing industry. The judging process included contributions from children - over a million took part during the prize's life - with selected school classes voting on the winners in each category.

Julia Eccleshare, chair of the prize, said "the Nestle children's book prize has played a big part in promoting children's reading in the last twenty years and it will be missed by authors and illustrators who have won it and and by the children around the country who have so enjoyed playing their part in judging it."

The prize was divided into three categories: five and under, six to eight and nine to 11, and the prize helped to launch the careers of some of today's best-known children's writers. JK Rowling and Lauren Child both won the prize three times, while illustrator (and Observer political cartoonist) Chris Riddell won a record-breaking fifth gold medal in the final awards last year.
Previous winners of the award include children's laureates Anne Fine, Quentin Blake, Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Rosen.

Ruses and Daring Escapes by a Jew in Nazi Germany


Review from The New York Times overnight:

In June 1942 a 20-year-old Jew named Cioma Schönhaus stood in front of a Nazi bureaucrat in Berlin for final processing before being deported to a concentration camp in Poland. Asked if he had any money, he replied, “Yes, my lucky penny.” The penny went into the coffers of the Third Reich, duly noted in an account book.

THE FORGER
An Extraordinary Story of Survival in Wartime Berlin
By Cioma Schönhaus
Illustrated. Da Capo Press. 220 pages. $23.

“No further mention of luck,” Mr. Schönhaus recalls tartly in “The Forger,” his stirring account of life on the run in wartime Berlin.
Even without the penny, luck stayed with him, allowing him to beat the odds and survive. A last-minute deferment saved him, but not his parents and other relatives, from the transport trains headed east. As a skilled worker at a munitions factory, he was deemed essential to the war effort. Later, when the noose tightened again, he found work as a document forger for an underground network devoted to helping Jews. He eventually escaped across the border to Switzerland, where he lives today, the founder of a successful advertising and graphic art studio in Basel.

In the vast literature devoted to the Jewish experience under the Nazis, Mr. Schönhaus’s slim book deserves a special place, as much for its tone as for the remarkable events it records: a catalog of hairbreadth escapes, clever ruses and brazen coups. The background is undeniably grim, and his personal circumstance dire, but Mr. Schönhaus relates his experiences with an often joyful bounce and a dry sense of humor.
If the prospect of imminent death concentrates the mind, as Samuel Johnson observed, it can also sharpen wit.

Mr. Schönhaus, the son of Russian immigrants, tells his story in compressed vignettes that shine a brilliant, unfamiliar light on Germany under the Nazis. Among other things “The Forger” provides a fascinating look at the dodges employed by all sorts of Germans coping with wartime scarcity. Through mundane details he exposes some of the complexities of life under a totalitarian regime and the unexpected acts of decency that allowed him to survive, to hope or, at the very least, to enjoy a few moments of civilized human contact.
The owner of an art gallery, sensing that Mr. Schönhaus and his girlfriend might be interested, conducts a private backroom tour of works by banned artists like Emil Nolde and Max Beckmann. The night foreman at the munitions factory whispers instructions into Mr. Schönhaus’s ear on how to sabotage the machine-gun barrels he is filing down.
Mr. Schönhaus, a young graphic design student, has the brash confidence of youth and a trickster’s zest for dangerous games. He and his girlfriend, for example, put snaps on their yellow stars, placing them in their pockets so they can go into shops and restaurants, and putting them back on when Nazi officials or the police loom.

Such subterfuges come in handy when Mr. Schönhaus, sensing danger, leaves his munitions job and goes underground. By chance, he falls in with Dr. Franz Kaufmann, a former government minister who, at great personal risk, supplies false identity papers and other documents to Jews living illegally in Germany.
Mr. Schönhaus applies his artistic training to the duplication of official stamps, turning out fake passes and papers in a secret warehouse in the mornings and enjoying Berlin to the fullest in his off hours. “In spite of the goods trains you must say ‘yes’ to life,” his ever-optimistic father tells him in a dream. “As our representative you have a duty to experience all the pleasures we were denied.”

Bravado, cunning and carelessness are Mr. Schönhaus’s calling cards. When the Gestapo seals off the rooms of family members who had been deported, he and a friend unglue the seals and sell the furniture and other possessions on the black market.
Well paid for his forgery work, Mr. Schönhaus eats at good restaurants, often surrounded by Nazi functionaries, on the theory that the police do not look for a criminal in the station house. To secure a place to sleep, he shows up at a government office, claiming that he had to vacate his apartment to make space for an elderly uncle who had been bombed out of his residence in Cologne.
Supplied with a list of landlords willing to take in boarders, he makes the rounds, arriving at each address in the early evening and promising to register with the police, as required, in the morning. When morning comes, he announces that a letter has arrived at home, summoning him for active duty in the Army. Thus he moves across Berlin in a series of one-night stands. Ingenuity is undermined, however, by his bad habit of constantly losing his own forged identity papers.

The kindness of others, and the unfathomable stupidities of the regime, help him along. Decent Germans hide him. When the Kaufmann ring collapses, exposed by an informer, he simply walks into a well-stocked map store and buys a complete set of guides to areas along the Swiss border.
With a book by Joseph Goebbels in his knapsack for insurance, Mr. Schönhaus hops on his black-market bicycle and, with bombs raining down on Berlin, starts pedaling toward freedom. The reader’s heart lifts. Reason says it is impossible to escape Nazi Germany by bicycle. But by this point it is evident that the impossible is Mr. Schönhaus’s stock in trade.

Penguin closes its Scottish office after four years

Phil Miller writing in The Glasgow Herald
January 23 2008

One of the world's leading publishers, Penguin, is closing its office in Scotland.
For the past four years, Judy Moir, a leading literary editor and former publisher at Canongate books, has found and nurtured writers north of the border for the London-based publisher.
However, Ms Moir is now to leave her post of Scottish editor at Penguin at the end of January after the publisher said it has changed its business model. Last night, she said she was "baffled" by the company's decision and that she still had great faith in the writing talent north of the border.

Ms Moir was appointed as Scottish editor four years ago, and another leading London-based publisher, Hodder Headline, mirrored that decision, appointing Bob McDevitt, the former manager of Ottakar's bookshops in Scotland, as its publisher for Hodder Headline Scotland, responsible for identifying a number of fiction and non- fiction writers in Scotland.

Ms Moir currently has 15 writers on her books for Penguin in Scotland and last night she admitted the removal of her post would be "difficult" for them.
"They are closing the Scottish office after four years," she said last night, "and I am still a little bit baffled. My remit was to find Penguin Scottish writers and ideas and feed them back to Penguin, and of course I am disappointed it has come to an end.
"I still feel enormously positive about the future of Scottish writing. I have been involved in Scottish publishing for more than 20 years and I have a great relationship with the writers I work with.
"Why they would want to do this in Scotland, I don't know. Last year was a really rewarding year, so from my own point of view I know I did a good job for them."

In her time in Scotland for Penguin, Ms Moir has helped publish James Robertson's The Testament of Gideon Mack, which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize, two Scottish awards - the Saltire and Scottish Arts Council awards - longlisted for the Booker Prize, as well as being selected for the Richard and Judy Bookclub in 2006.
She also worked on the critically successful Scotland: The Autobiography by Rosemary Goring, the literary editor of The Herald.

Last night, a spokeswoman for Penguin said they still had great faith in Scottish writing, and would be commissioning Scottish writers from London.
The spokeswoman said it "made more business sense" to revert to the London-based model and added that new books by Scottish writers James Robertson, James Kelman and Ali Smith had already been commissioned.
Tom Weldon, managing director of Penguin General Books, said: "Judy has a terrific editorial eye and an unrivalled network of contacts in Scotland. We are very grateful to her for bringing some wonderful new Scottish writers to Penguin's publishing lists over the last four years."

New Zealand Post Writers and Readers week launched

From the Festival organisers:

Yesterday we launched the largest Writers and Readers programme so far at New Zealand Post House in Wellington. Twenty international and 34 New Zealand writers, photographers and artists make up this week which celebrates the power of the printed page and revel in exploring in-depth issues that are constant challenges within today's society.

New international additions to the programme are American Patrick McGrath (pic above) , Australian-born Craig Sherborne and Sia Figiel is oft-described as Samoa's first woman novelist and her book, Where We Once Belonged, has been adapted for the stage in a starkly honest and wildly funny play making its debut at the Festival. Read more

Beah and publisher stand by book - From The Australian

BEST-SELLING author Ishmael Beah and his US publisher have stood by his claim to have spent three years as a refugee and then child soldier in Sierra Leone's civil war despite The Australian finding evidence that his ordeal lasted one year, not three.
"I am right about the dates. This is not something one gets wrong," he said in a letter to the editor of The Australian released through his publisher yesterday.

Beah's publisher, Sarah Crichton, also stood by the accuracy of his book, A Long Way Gone, in which he says he hid from brutal rebels for nine to 10 months and then spent more than two years as a child soldier who was fed drugs and trained to kill.

"I have met many people who knew Mr Beah in Sierra Leone, and who have corroborated his story," Ms Crichton said in her own letter. "When Mr Beah says, as he adamantly does, that the dates in his book are correct, we have absolutely every reason to believe that this is the case."
Contacted later by telephone in New York, Ms Crichton said she could not discuss the issue until after the Martin Luther King long weekend in the US, and that Beah was unavailable because he was travelling in Europe.

The Weekend Australian reported that while Beah, now 27, clearly went through a terrible ordeal in the war, inquiries in Sierra Leone had found that his best-selling version of events was seriously flawed.
The Australian found many witnesses in Beah's home region in Sierra Leone who said the attacks he claims happened in January 1993 actually took place two years later. Beah, who was born in November 1980, was handed over by the army to a UNICEF-backed rehabilitation camp in January 1996.

Some 650,000 copies of his book are in print and Beah, who lives in New York, has become the world's most prominent spokesman for child soldiers.
The Australian investigated the dates and confirmed the discrepancy while at the same time disproving claims by a man in Beah's home village of Mogbwemo that he was Beah's father.
Beah's parents and two brothers were killed in the war.
In his statement yesterday, Beah challenged one of the witnesses quoted by The Australian, Abdul A. Barry, who was a teacher at the Centennial Secondary School in Mattru Jong when Beah went there in the early 1990s.

Mr Barry and his wife, Martha, identified Beah from a photograph shown to them by The Australian and independently named his parents and brother before insisting that he had been at school throughout 1993 and 1994 and that the attacks happened in 1995. Beah said he had never heard of Mr Barry.
Contacted again by The Australian yesterday, Mr Barry said he had no idea why Beah would deny knowing him because "I know him very well".
"He was boarding and I was the boarding master. I also knew his brother Mohamed and their parents. His mother came from Kabati," said Mr Barry, accurately volunteering the mother's home village.

Interviewed at the school in Mattru Jong last week, Mr Barry said rebels did not take over the town until 1995, a version of events confirmed by many other adult witnesses, including the town's acting paramount chief Sylvester Basopan Goba and numerous historical records and published accounts of the war.

Creative writing professor Dan Chaon, who helped Beah produce the book, told The Australian: "If it turns out there are factual errors, I wouldn't necessarily be all that concerned about it."
In his book, Beah says his home town, the mine where his father worked and his mother's town were all attacked in January 1993.
He and a group of friends were then waiting in Mattru Jong for news when a Catholic priest was ordered by the rebels to deliver a message telling people inthe town to co-operate with the rebels. Many people fled immediately; two weeks later, the rebels attacked from a surprise inland route, leaving only one unanticipated escape route on a footpath through a nearby swamp.
That is exactly what happened in 1995, according to the adult witnesses, internal records at the mine and numerous published sources.
The 2004 study "Conflict Mapping in Sierra Leone", published by the group No Peace Without Justice, records that a Catholic priest was detained by rebels in December 1994 and ordered to take just such a message into Mattru Jong, prompting the evacuation ahead of the subsequent attack.

Perfect Day for AL Kennedy as she takes Costa book prize
· Versatile Scottish writer gains victory at last· Judges hail postwar novel as a masterpiece

Mark Brown, arts correspondent writing in The Guardian Wednesday January 23,

AL Kennedy last night received the literary recognition many people believe is long overdue when her post-second world war novel Day walked away with one of the UK's most important literary prizes.
The Dundee-born writer is just as likely to be seen on newspaper comment pages as she is on bookshop shelves. If not there, then on stage as a stand-up comedian, or in front of students as an academic.
Last night she was on the stage of a posh London hotel as she picked up the Costa book award and a cheque for £25,000.

After being presented with the award, Kennedy said she felt a sense of impending doom
surrounding British culture and said if she was starting out as a writer today
she probably would not get picked up. "I work all the time. I don't have
a family. I live quite inexpensively."
She said researching the book had increased her fear of flying, although it did not stop her flying in from the US for last night's ceremony and returning the next day.

The chair of the judges, Joanna Trollope, said it had been a passionate 80-minute judging session and Kennedy had won on a 5-3 vote. "It is a perfectly and beautifully written
novel. She is an extraordinary stylist," said Trollope.
Asked whether the novel, which centres on a traumatised second world war tail gunner, was excessively gloomy, Trollope said it was realistic but not gloomy. "I wouldn't
recommend it to anyone who was profoundly, clinically depressed. You need to
work at the novel a little."

She also praised Catherine O'Flynn's first novel What Was Lost which, effectively, was runner up. "It was a very close-run thing," she said.

The Costa prize, formerly the Whitbread prize, pits five category winners against each other - novel, first novel, biography, children's book and poetry.
This is the eighth time a novel has won and it is a victory at last for Kennedy, 42. Day is her fifth novel.

The judges described Kennedy's novel, which looks at the personal damage wreaked by war, as a masterpiece. But critics were not unanimous. Ursula K Le Guin, writing in the
Guardian, praised Kennedy's gift for writing but said the constant shifting
between three narrative modes never quite worked for her.

Much of the novel's action takes place in the head of main character Alfred Day. Day misses the war, misses the crew of the Lancaster bomber he served on and even the
prisoner-of-war camp he was held in. It is 1949 and he has landed a role as an
extra in a PoW film being shot in Germany.

Kennedy, who was last night compared to James Joyce by Trollope, also has a sideline in stand-up comedy, which she has said is an analgesic for her.
She dislikes talking about herself. In an interview with the Observer last year she said: "I have
sex about once every five years. I've lived alone since I was 17. I am
slightly tired. My life is not comfortable to me. But I am philosophical."

Jonathan Ruppin, promotions manager of Foyles bookshops , said Kennedy's win was "long overdue recognition for one of Scotland's outstanding talents".
Aside from the glory which comes from winning the prize there is the undoubted sales boost.
Amazon yesterday highlighted the astonishing sales spike of O'Flynn's novel, which it said was outselling the other books seven to one, and seems to be a hit with book groups across
the UK .

Overall, Simon Sebag Montefiore, winner of the biography category with his work Young Stalin, has enjoyed the biggest sales over the year. Last night's winner can expect even
more sales joy.
The other two works competing unsuccessfully last night were Jean Sprackland's volume of poetry, Tilt, and Ann Kelley's children's novel, The Bower Bird.

BOOKMAN'S BEST BOOKS FOR 2007

Today on Radio New Zealand National's Nine to Noon I talked about my favourite reads from 2007.

Here are the titles discussed:

HEAT - Bill Buford - Random House

MISTER PIP - Lloyd Jones - Penguin

700 PENGUINS - Penguin

THE INDUSTRY OF SOULS - Martin Booth - Dewi Lewis

LOOKING FOR DARWIN - Lloyd Spencer Davis - Longacre Press

PHONE HOME BERLIN - Nigel C0x - VUP

JAMIE AT HOME -Jamie Oliver - Michael Joseph

EAT FRESH - Annabel Langbein - AL Books

If you would like to listed to my comments go to:http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon

Click on book reviews.

I think the audio will be available for the next day or two.

Stiff competition for new Scottish novel prize

Michelle Pauli writing in The Guardian on Tuesday January 22, 2008

If the bookies are proved wrong tonight and AL Kennedy fails to walk off with the Costa book prize, all hope is not yet lost for a gong for Day. Her second world war novel has been shortlisted for a brand new Scottish book award, the Clare Maclean prize.

However, she is up against some stiff competition for the £3,000 purse, given to the Scottish writer who has "written the best novel in the previous year". Former Whitbread award-winner Ali Smith is in the running with Girl Meets Boy, her contemporary retelling of the myth of Iphis and Ianthe, from Ovid's Metamorphoses, along with fellow Whitbread winner Alasdair Gray for Old Men in Love, a collection of fragments purporting to be the posthumously published work of a retired Glaswegian schoolteacher.

One of Scotland's favourite sons, the bestselling author Iain Banks is up for the
prize, too, with The Steep Approach to Garbadale. Set in the Scottish
highlands, the latest mainstream novel from the author of The Wasp Factory
and the Culture science fiction series (as Iain M Banks) is a family saga
with political overtones. John Burnside, meanwhile, may be better known
for his poetry - he has been shortlisted for the Forward and TS Eliot
prizes and is a previous Whitbread poetry award-winner - but is a
contender here with The Devil's Footprints, his lyrical, brooding novel
about memory, guilt and secrets. Finally, Dan Rhodes is in the running
with his Pembrokeshire-set novel Gold, a funny and touching tale of a
young Welsh/Japanese woman and her annual month-long stay in a small
coastal village.

The prize commemorates the life of Glaswegian Clare Maclean, who taught creative writing and was, according to her partner Mike Gonzalez, "an extraordinary reader".
Gonzalez, who is professor of Latin American Studies at Glasgow University
is joined on the judging panel by Rosemary Goring, literary editor of the
Herald, and Rob Maslen, senior lecturer in English literature at Glasgow
University.
The winner will be announced on March 15 at the Aye Write! festival in Glasgow.

Now in its third year, the festival takes place in the city's Mitchell Library and
features over 200 authors, including Hanif Kureishi, Louis de Bernières,
Tony Parsons, Joanne Harris, Blake Morrison and Hollywood star Kathleen
Turner.

The London Book Fair, Earls Court, London, UK Monday 14th – Wednesday 16th April 2008.

The London Book Fair is the world's leading spring publishing event for the trading of rights, bookselling and book production services and brings together over 23,000 authors, agents, scouts, editors, publishers, wholesalers, booksellers and librarians from over 115 countries over its 3 day duration.

The London Book Fair is the ideal location to learn about the global publishing industry and London - an international publishing hub and cultural centre in itself.It is a place to do business, network with peers and clients, meet new contacts, learn about latest developments and have an enjoyable experience.

To register as a visitor, and for more information on The London Book Fair go to http://click.email-publisher.com/maajEwoabEnyQaDZvJXeaeQxXH/

DOES THE WORLD NEED BOOK PRIZES

John Sutherland, writing in The Daliy Telegraph suggests a way of narrowing the gap between book prizes and readers.

The book prize jamborees never stop.

The first major literary gong of the New Year - the Costa award - will be doled out on the 22nd and the panel of judges for the 2008 Man Booker Prize has recently been announced, with Michael Portillo at the helm.
While the Costa selects the winner from various categories - debut fiction, fiction, poetry, non-fiction and children's books - the Booker is rather less ecumenical. One issue in particular will have caused Ion Trewin's Booker administrative committee concern as they reviewed their lacklustre 2007. 'Does the damned thing matter any more?' was a question asked more than once. So does the world (the reading world) need the Man Booker Prize?
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Howard Davies did not endear himself with his broadside against the reviewing establishment - a comment that will go down in Bookerlore, alongside John Berger's 'stuff your prize money' and Selina Scott's 'have you read them all?'

It may, indeed, be time for an overhaul of the system. Davies's remark about the perceived cosiness of reviewers, although he seemed not to be aware of it, boomerangs on him.
What are reviewers, after all? They are judges, advising readers how to choose among the huge over-supply of fiction barraged every week into the public domain.
And what is the Booker panel? It is exactly the same thing: judges, advising the public where they can best invest their valuable time and energy.
Newspaper reviewers are authorised by literary editors, at an average £250 per 1,000 words. Man Booker judges are authorised by Ion Trewin's committee, at £7,000 for chewing through 120 titles. De te fabula, Howard.

There are alternative judicial systems: systems which draw less on the Old Bailey model than the reality TV show. The Quills Prize, based in New York, has devised an elegant and adventurous judging system which, I think, Trewin and his coadjutors could think about as they review the moth holes in their own.
Why, the Quill governing board (made up of book trade people, editors, authors and TV people) asked, are the judgments that come from below - as reflected in bestseller lists - so different from those on high? 'I rejoice to concur with the common reader,' said Dr Johnson. Why doesn't the literary judging establishment so rejoice?

The Quill Awards are designed to bring juries and judges, bestsellers and 'quality' books closer together. The prize-winners are announced, like Man Booker's, in October - as the long nights come in and fireside reading beckons.
A panel of editors from Publishers Weekly select five nominees across 19 categories of popular book (from classic audio fiction, through graphic novels, science fiction, to three age-categories of young reader's book). Then the 'Quills Voting Board', comprising 6,000 invited booksellers and librarians, cast their votes for the winners. And, at a third stage, any interested reader from the general public can cast their online vote at www.QuillsVote.com. The three polls are then weighted and totted up to decide the winners.

It all climaxes, Man-Booker style, at a gala black-tie event at New York's Lincoln Center. The full list of last year's winners can be found on the Quill website.
In fiction, Debut Author of the Year was won by Diane Setterfield, with The Thirteenth Tale. The General Fiction winner was Cormac McCarthy, with The Road. The Romance category was Angels Fall, by Nora Roberts (which was also 'Book of the Year'). Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, as read by Sissy Spacek, was the best audio book. Laura Lippman and Patrick Rothfuss won Mystery and SF respectively.

The Quill machine may seem over-engineered. But it works. And it is less of a wild turkey shoot than the Man Booker, where winners (as last year) come from nowhere and, all too often, go back there in terms of sales and common reader approval.
It might already be too late for this year but it would be easy for Man Booker to set up something analogous to Quill - and spread its interests across, at least, several fictional categories (do romance, science fiction, or crime novels have any chance? Camels and needles is easy by comparison).
The grand panjandrum panel could make their 'shortlist' and the final judgments thrown open to larger constituencies. Perhaps even Dr Johnson's common reader. Over to you, Ion.

Editing of Frost Notebooks in Dispute

Now a recently published compendium of his personal notebooks is coming under attack from two critics who say that the editor of the volume, Robert Faggen, mistranscribed hundreds, if not thousands, of Frost’s words.
Mr. Faggen, a professor and chairman of the department of English at Claremont McKenna College in California, published his book, “The Notebooks of Robert Frost,” last January. In the 809-page volume from Harvard University Press, Mr. Faggen collected the contents of 47 of Frost’s notebooks as well as some loose pages that are stored in archives at Boston University, Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia.
The volume, which represents the first time the notebooks have been published in their entirety, was widely praised by reviewers. For scholars and fans of Frost’s work, the notebooks, filled with poetry fragments, lists, lecture notes and tangential musings, provide insight into his thinking and creative process. In a review published last February in The New York Times Book Review, David Orr, who writes frequently about poetry, wrote, “Any Frost reader will benefit from Faggen’s thoughtful introduction and be intrigued by the way in which concepts from these largely aphoristic journals animate the poems and vice versa.”
But in a review published in October in Essays and Criticism, a British literary journal, James Sitar, who recently completed his Ph.D. in editorial studies at Boston University and is now the archive editor at poetryfoundation.org, the Web site of the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, said he reviewed four of the original Frost notebooks housed in Boston University’s archives and found “roughly one thousand” errors in Mr. Faggen’s work.
“Broadly speaking, then, publication of this edition is a great occasion, and readers and scholars should be grateful,” Mr. Sitar writes, “but their excitement about this new material may be lessened when they notice, as early reviewers have not, that the transcription is untrustworthy.”
Most other reviewers have not compared Mr. Faggen’s work with the original notebooks and therefore have no way of knowing whether some of the more obscure passages or spelling and grammatical mistakes are Frost’s or Mr. Faggen’s.
But one other critic, William Logan, a poet and English professor at the University of Florida, also compared Mr. Faggen’s transcriptions with about 30 pages from the original notebooks, this time from the Dartmouth archives. Like Mr. Sitar, he concluded that Mr. Faggen’s work is filled with errors.

For rest of story.........

1941 photo of Robert Frost (above) from Wikipedia website.

Borders To Launch Online Book TV Channel With Simply Media
Borders Pres Release 22 Jan 2008

Borders Books is to launch an Internet television channel at www.borders.co.uk featuring interviews with bestselling authors; news on the latest books; and offering readers the chance to upload video of themselves reviewing books. The content will also appear in a daily programme on satellite TV channel, Simply TV (Sky channel 196) as well as being included in a weekly email to 700,000 Borders customers.

The move is in collaboration with Simply Media, owner of www.bookzone.tv, which will now be re-branded as 'Borders Book Zone'. Simply Media will produce weekly programming for Borders fronted by Nina Sebastiane (ex ITV1's 'Loose Women') and Samantha Norman (ex VH1 and LNN's 'London Tonight').

'Borders Book Zone' will launch with an archive of more than 100 interviews with authors such as Ian Rankin, Terry Pratchett, Michael Connelly, Martina Cole, Katie Fforde, Gary Rhodes and Jane Moore. Each week, new content will be added.

Borders is re-launching its website in the spring at the same time it starts doing its own online retailing, currently provided by Amazon.co.uk. When a user searches for a book, relevant videos will also appear, allowing them to watch these in high resolution, on demand, in a Flash media player.

David Kohn, Commercial Director of Borders (UK) Limited said: "The move into video content will clearly differentiate www.borders.co.uk from any other book retailer and make it a destination site for book lovers, as well as offering a new marketing tool to publishers. We are delighted to be working with Simply Media, as they have the experience and knowledge to create something that will stand Borders apart from all other book retailers."
Leon Hawthorne, Chief Executive of Simply Media's channels and production arm (Simply Productions) said: "Borders is in the vanguard of retailers to embrace the power of online video content as a marketing and communication tool and to fully integrate it into their ecommerce. What Borders is doing today, other retailers will find they must follow or be left behind in this digital age."

"From working with other online sites such as ivillage and Boots we know the power of video and how it can engage viewers and drive response to commercial propositions" commented Henry Scott, CEO of Simply Media. "We are delighted to be working with Borders to drive their online presence forward."

SPEND $100 ON BOOKS CHALLENGE

While I was staying with my daughter and her family in NYC over the Christmas/New Year holidays they gave me $100 to spend for them on a selection of books that they should own and that would form the basis of a home library.
This was quite a challenge because they already have an extensive collection of books in their apartment but I was excited by the challenge and set off to the wonderful Strand Books which is not far from their home. Here is what I bought, with the brief reasons I gave them as to why the titles had been selected:

Because you should have it, especially today:

THE ESSENTIAL KORAN: The Heart of Islam, Harper San Francisco (list $14.95, Strand $4.95)
Translated & presented by Thomas Cleary

Because they are Kids classics:
A WRINKLE IN TIME, Square Fish (Holzbrinck
Publishers) (list $6.99, Strand $6.29) Madeleine L'Engle
BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, Harper Collins (list $6.99, Strand $1.95)
Katherine Paterson ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND, Puffin (list $3.99, Strand $1.95) Lewis Carroll

Because they are classics:
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Vintage Classics (list $7.95, Strand $5.95) Jane Austen JANE EYRE, Wordsworth Editions (list $6.95, Strand $3.95), Charlotte Bronte, THE AVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Penguin Classics (list $7.00, Strand $5.25) Mark Twain

Because they are modern classics:
THE GREAT GATSBY, Scribner (list $12.95, strand
$5.95) F. Scott Fitzgerald
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN, Harper Perennial Modern Classics (list $13.95, Strand $4.95) Betty Smith (foreword by Anna Quindlen)
THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA, Scribner (list $12.00, Strand $4.95) Ernest Hemingway
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, Harper Perennial Modern Classics. (list $14.95, Strand $11.21), Gabriel Garcia Marquez
DEATH IN VENICE, Ecco (imprint of Harper Collins) (list $12.95, Strand $5.95) Thomas Mann

Because of the new coffee maker in the apartment:
A GRANDE GUIDE TO STARBUCKIAN ZEN, Innovations Press (list $5.95 Strand $1.00) Tiffany Ivy

Because of Philip Pullman’s superb books and "The Golden Compass" movie that we had just seen:
EXPLORING PHILIP PULLMAN'S HIS DARK MATERIALS, St Martin's Griffin (list $9.95, Strand $5) Lois H.Gresh

Because of your addiction to movies (they sometimes go several times a week!):
CHICK FLICK ROAD KILL: A Behind The Scenes Odyssey Into Movie-Made America, Seal Press (imprint of Avalon Publishing Group), (list $15.95, strand $1.00) Alicia Rebensdorf

Because of your love of cooking fine,fresh food:
OLIVES: Cooking With Olives and Their Oils, Ten Speed Press, (list $17.95, Strand $7.95) Ford Rogers
A MEAL OBSERVED, Knopf (list $23.00, strand
$5.95) Andrew Todhunter
CHEF'S SECRETS: Insider Techniques From Today's Culinary Masters, Quirk Books (list $16.95)Strand $9.50 As told to Francine Maroukian

Because it is election time (and also Isabelle knows who JFK
is and his importance in US history):
HOMEGROWN DEMOCRAT: A Few Plain Thoughts From The Heart of America, Penguin, (list $12.00, Strand $1.00) Garrison Keillor
JOHN F. KENNEDY HANDBOOK, MQP Publications (list $22.50, Strand $5.95), Gareth Jenkins

Because it's a fine hardcover and a superb example of 'crime' fiction:

THE POLISH OFFICER, Weidenfeld & Nicolson (Orion) (list 17.00 pounds, Strand $5.95, Alan Furst.

It was great fun doing this. To make the money go further I bought mainly books that were discounted. As I said to them at the time if I was to go back tomorrow I would probably end up with a completely different set of books. I’m pleased to say though that they were delighted with my choices and that I didn’t double up with any titles they already owned.

Always fun spending other peoples' money!

Nominees for 2008 Edgar Awards Announced in PW

Mystery Writers of American has announced the nominees for the 2008 Edgar Allen Poe Awards, which honor the best mystery books and television productions released in 2007.

The winners will be announced at a banquet on May 1 2008 at the Grand Hyatt in New York.. Here is a list of all the nominees in the books categories.

BEST NOVEL
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black (Henry Holt and Company)

Priest by Ken Bruen (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (HarperCollins)

Soul Patch by Reed Farrel Coleman (Bleak House Books)

Down River by John Hart (St. Martin’s Minotaur)

BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
Missing Witness by Gordon Campbell (HarperCollins – William Morrow)In the Woods by Tana French (Penguin Group – Viking)Snitch Jacket by Christopher Goffard (The Rookery Press)Head Games by Craig McDonald (Bleak House Books)Pyres by Derek Nikitas (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Queenpin by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster)Blood of Paradise by David Corbett (Random House - Mortalis)Cruel Poetry by Vicki Hendricks (Serpent’s Tail)Robbie’s Wife by Russell Hill (Hard Case Crime)Who is Conrad Hirst? by Kevin Wignall (Simon & Schuster)
BEST FACT CRIME
The Birthday Party by Stanley Alpert (Penguin Group – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F.Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi (W.W. Norton and CompanyChasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit by Kerry Max Cook (HarperCollins – William Morrow)Relentless Pursuit: A True Story of Family, Murder, and the Prosecutor Who Wouldn't Quit by Kevin Flynn (Penguin Group – G.P. Putnam’s Sons)Sacco & Vanzetti: The Men, The Murders and the Judgment of Mankind by Bruce Watson (Penguin Group – Viking)
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
The Triumph of the Thriller: How Cops, Crooks and Cannibals Captured Popular Fiction by Patrick Anderson (Random House)A Counter-History of Crime Fiction: Supernatural, Gothic, Sensational by Maurizio Ascari (Palgrave Macmillan)Deviance in Contemporary Crime Fiction by Christiana Gregoriou (Palgrave Macmillan)Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters by Jon Lellenberg, Daniel Stashower and Charles Foley (The Penguin Press)Chester Gould: A Daughter’s Biography of the Creator of Dick Tracy by Jean Gould O’Connell (McFarland & Company)
BEST SHORT STORY
“The Catch” – Still Waters by Mark Ammons (Level Best Books)“Blue Note” – Chicago Blues by Stuart M. Kaminsky (Bleak House Books)“Hardly Knew Her” – Dead Man’s Hand by Laura Lippman (Harcourt Trade Publishers)“The Golden Gopher” – Los Angeles Noir by Susan Straight (Akashic Books“Uncle” – A Hell of a Woman” by Daniel Woodrell (Busted Flush Press)
BEST JUVENILE
The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)Shadows on Society Hill by Evelyn Coleman (American Girl Publications)Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn (Clarion Books)The Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh (Hyperion Books for Young Readers)Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things by Wendelin Van Draanen (Random House Children’s Books – Alfred A. Knopf)
BEST YOUNG ADULT
Rat Life by Tedd Arnold (Penguin – Dial Books for Young Readers)Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney(Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)Touching Snow by M. Sindy Felin (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing – Atheneum Books for Young eaders)Blood Brothers by S.A. Harazin (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte Press)Fragments by Jeffry W. Johnston (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing – Simon Pulse)

MR.MUGGS THE LIBRARY CAT

Dave Gunson Scholastic $17

Here is a fun picture book for kids up to the age of eight and for librarians of all ages!

Mr.Muggs has life organised and is allowed to live in the library so long as he keeps the rats at bay.But Mr.Muggs has a secret.............

Well done Dave Gunson, and Scholastic.

Can’t Tell a Book by Its Cover, or Even Its Title, It Turns Out

By Joanne Kaufman writing in The New York Times

When Missy Chase Lapine, author of the cookbook “The Sneaky Chef” that suggests ways to hide fruit and vegetables in dishes for finicky children, was angered by the publication of “Deceptively Delicious,” a similar book by Jessica Seinfeld (a k a Mrs. Jerry Seinfeld), she had recourse. This month, she sued for copyright infringement and defamation.

But when Raymond Sokolov, the restaurant columnist for The Wall Street Journal, saw that a new food book was coming out with the same title as the cookbook he had published more than 30 years ago, all he could do was stew because book titles cannot be copyrighted.
In 1976, Mr. Sokolov wrote “The Saucier’s Apprentice: A Modern Guide to Classic French Sauces for the Home.” Published by Knopf, the book is now in its 16th printing and Mr. Sokolov, who is also food and wine columnist for the magazine Smart Money, continues to get modest royalty checks.

A few months ago, courtesy of a friend in the publishing industry, Mr. Sokolov learned that W. W. Norton had on its spring list “The Saucier’s Apprentice: One Long Strange Trip Though the Great Cooking Schools of Europe,” by Bob Spitz, author of the highly regarded “The Beatles: The Biography.” (For the record, the humorist S. J. Perelman published an essay called “The Saucier’s Apprentice” in The New Yorker about two decades before Mr. Sokolov’s book).
There are many instances of books with the same titles: “March” by Geraldine Brooks and “The March” by E. L. Doctorow; “Gone” by the mystery writer Lisa Gardner and “Gone” by the mystery writer Jonathan Kellerman; “Leap of Faith” by Danielle Steel and “Leap of Faith” by Queen Noor of Jordan, to name a few.

But in Mr. Sokolov’s view, it’s one thing to duplicate another author’s use of a common phrase or expression and quite another to echo a play on words, particularly when both books are in the same genre. “I think it’s just in bad taste,” he said. “I looked into it, and I’m certain that this was not a blunder, that Norton knew about the existence of my book.”
Mr. Spitz said that he came up with the title when he was working on the proposal for his “Saucier’s Apprentice.” He added that until recently, he had no knowledge of Mr. Sokolov’s title, which is listed on Amazon.com. “I interviewed a lot of people in the food industry for my book,” Mr. Spitz said, “and not one of them mentioned there was already something else with that title. I thought it was a stroke of genius, but as it turns out it was Ray Sokolov’s stroke of genius.”
Nach Waxman, the owner of Kitchen Arts & Letters, a shop on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, said Norton was wrong to keep Mr. Spitz’s title. “It’s derivative of a book that is still in print in the same field and that has 30 years’ standing,” he said.

Mr. Sokolov said he hoped Norton would “promote the hell out of the book and that a confused buying public will buy my ‘Saucier’s Apprentice’ instead of Spitz’s.”
Although he is not now working on a book, he said, “I am thinking about one, and maybe I should call it ‘The Da Vinci Code.’ ”

DEATH NOTICE IN NZ HERALD Tuesday 22 January, 2008

Judith Ann BARNES

On Saturday 19 January 2008, as the result of an accident.
Greatly missed by her family including the late Paul Barnes, and Daniel, Felicity and Katie, Victoria & Michael, Jake, Patti, Charlotte,, Hope and Piper.
We are grateful for the love and support of her many friends.

A service will be held at St,Matthew-in-the-City, Hobson Street on Thursday 24 January at 3.00pm followed by a celebration of her life at 14 Horoeka Ave., Mt.Eden.
All communications to Daniel phone 09 360 7552.

The CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger 2008
Winner: Sue Grafton

Sue Grafton; photo: Steven Hum

The twenty-third Cartier Diamond Dagger for sustained excellence in the genre of crime writing, has been awarded to the best-selling American novelist, Sue Grafton.

The presentation of the award, made for sustained excellence in the genre of crime writing, will be made by M. Arnaud Bamberger of Cartier and will take place at a champagne reception at the Gore Hotel, Kensington, London SW7 on May 7th 2008. Tickets will be available nearer the date.
SUE GRAFTON was born in Kentucky in 1940, the daughter of mystery writer CW Grafton. After receiving a bachelors degree in English Literature from the University of Louisville, she worked as a TV scriptwriter before her Kinsey Millhone alphabet series of PI mystery novels found success. The first in the series, A is for Alibi was famously inspired by her own divorce. “For months I lay in bed and plotted to kill my ex-husband, but I knew I’d bungle it and get caught so I wrote it in a book instead.”

Three of Ms Grafton’s novels have won the Anthony Award at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention; she has won three Shamus Awards, and in 2004 received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award given to a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary excellence.

All the books in the Kinsey Millhone series are set in the fictional Santa Teresa, CA, which Ross Macdonald used as an alternative name for Santa Barbara in his novels. Ms Grafton plans to carry the series all the way through to Z. The latest number one best-seller, T is for Trespass, was published in the US in December 2007 and will be out in Macmillan hardback in the UK in April 2008. Ms Grafton’s novels are published in 28 countries and in 26 languages, including Bulgarian and Indonesian, although she has consistently refused to sell the film and television rights, claiming her experience as a screenwriter “cured” her of the desire to work with Hollywood.

On hearing of the award, Ms Grafton said: “News of my being named the 2008 recipient of the CWA's Cartier Diamond Dagger so astonished me that I thought at first it was a practical joke. The note from my British publisher, Macmillan, was typically understated: 'I have some good news from the Crime Writers' Association. They would very much like to award you the 2008 Cartier Diamond Dagger at a ceremony in London on 7th May in Kensington.' Good news !?! I read the message three times and then checked the e-mail address just to verify that it had been intended for me. The publicity director was gently inquiring if I might attend the ceremony. I am absolutely delighted to respond that I'll be there with bells on, as they say over here. I'm thrilled with the news and honored at the prospect. I confess I'm still slightly worried there's an error in the works, but I'll be there nonetheless.”
Sue Grafton's website is http://www.suegrafton.com/

The Cartier Diamond Dagger
As the name suggests, this coveted award is sponsored by Cartier, who have done so since its inception in 1986. The CWA committee selects writers nominated by the membership. Nominees have to meet two essential criteria: first, their careers must be marked by sustained excellence, and second, they must have made a significant contribution to crime fiction published in the English language, whether originally or in translation. The award is made purely on merit without reference to age, gender or nationality.

The first winner, in 1986, was Eric Ambler. Subsequent recipients have been P.D. James, John le Carré, Dick Francis, Julian Symons, Ruth Rendell, Leslie Charteris, Ellis Peters, Michael Gilbert, Reginald Hill, H.R.F. Keating, Colin Dexter, Ed McBain, Margaret Yorke, Peter Lovesey, Lionel Davidson, Sara Paretsky, Robert Barnard, Lawrence Block, Ian Rankin and Elmore Leonard.
Last year's winner was John Harvey.

Footnote:

Bookman Beattie, a huge fan of Sue Grafton and her protagonist Kinsey Millhone is thrilled with this win and offers Sue Grafton warmest congratulations. Well done Sue.

By the way T is for Trespass is available in NZ from Macmillan , RRP $38.00

Headhunters line up for Guinness records

James Ashton writing in The Times:

AN American leisure group that boasts the world’s largest collection of shrunken human heads is vying to buy Guinness World Records, the bestselling book of record-breakers.
Florida-based Ripley Entertainment which grew out of a newspaper cartoon strip of fascinating facts entitled Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! is among a field of four for the publication.
Guinness World Records is being sold by Hit Entertainment, home to children’s characters Bob the Builder and Barney the Dinosaur.

Ripley already licenses the Guinness World Records brand from Hit to operate seven tourist attractions under its banner, mainly in America.
Sources say that leaves it well placed to meet the asking price of up to £60m.
The company is better known at home for its 30 Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! attractions, which house weird and wonderful exhibits such as shrunken heads, 16th-century torture devices and African masks. It will open one in London’s Trocadero this summer.

Guinness World Records makes an annual profit of about £5m.

See Wikipedia website for history.

Publisher buys bookshop in bid to beat big chains

ONE OF Scotland's largest publishers has bought the first in a series of independent bookshops in a bid to thwart the big chain domination.
Hugh Andrew, managing director of Birlinn Press, rescued Elgin bookshop Yeadons from closure and is keen to open other shops as he attempts to revive the once thriving independent industry.

Birlinn Press, which publishes best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, believes the previous Executive turned its back on the book sector, allowing out-of-town shopping centres and faceless chains to crush the Scottish independently run shops.

The small Elgin store, scheduled to open in the autumn, is considered the last independent Scottish bookshop with the exception of John Smith, which now runs university bookshops.
Andrew, who started his career in book retail with James Thin, will run the shop as a separate business, with discounted titles and "cross fertilisation" with his publishing company.
"I had been thinking about this for some time and when the final closing signs went up we just got straight in, as it was now or never," said Andrew.

"There is a reaction now against everything being done through giant chains, shopping centres and done on price. But you only have to see the success of farmers markets and look down south, where the independents are flourishing. There is no reason why this can't happen in Scotland. In the 19th century, Edinburgh was the biggest publishing centre in the world, and we have just gone so far backwards and no-one seems to have cared or noticed."

Andrew described working with the previous Scottish government as "like wandering into a swamp", their "stagnant disinterest" most recently allowing home-grown retailers Bargain Books to close.
He added: "It is going to take a lot of money to turn it round and that's what I really intend to do - make it a flagship shop. If other possible sites come up we will look to invest, but retail isn't in a happy state at the moment."
Scottish author Alasdair Gray welcomed any possible revival, describing it a "queer state of affairs" when Scottish universities are flourishing yet the country has "hardly a publisher or bookshop to call its own".

Gray said: "Independent publishers and independent bookshops are necessary for any country in a healthy state. It is a question of getting variety."
Moray MSP Richard Lochhead expressed his delight that the bookshop in his constituency is to remain. The secretary for rural affairs and the environment said: "Yeadons is an institution in Elgin. Bookshops are of both economic and cultural importance to the local community."
The SNP government points to plans to cut business rates to ensure smaller stores can compete with large chains and out-of-town shopping centres.

Waterstone's welcome Yeadon's survival. A spokesperson said they wanted to see a vibrant high street where they co-exist with independents.

NEW STEPHEN KING NOVEL

King finds fright on Florida's coast

By Erica Noonan in The Boston Globe
January 19, 2008

DUMA KEY By Stephen King, Scribner, 611 pp., $28 -

US publication date Jan.22

Stephen King has built a literary genre of putting ordinary people in the most terrifying situations. Aside from some recent tedious diversions into Gothic westerns and B-movie cellphone zombies, he's the author who can always make the improbable so scary you'll feel compelled to check the locks on the front door. His latest novel, "Duma Key," is a welcome return to that kind of narrative.

Edgar Freemantle - who thanks to a terrible accident and a faithless wife has already had a pretty awful year - is badly in need of some R&R in Florida and a healthy dose of art therapy. But instead of peace and quiet, he gets an evil force channeling itself into some menacing paintings and a downright spooky oceanfront rental.
Edgar is not your prototypical King hero (usually a nice-guy teacher or writer from Maine). He's a bit edgier, a self-made construction entrepreneur in Minnesota whose prosperous life comes to a crashing halt - literally - when a crane smashes into his pickup truck at a job site. He suffers brain and body damage, loses his right arm, and endures months of agonizing rehab just to learn to speak normally again. Controlling his rage is another problem, less easily solved, and his wife abruptly ends their marriage after 25 years.
Adrift and heartbroken, Edgar takes his psychiatrist's advice and gets a fresh start on a remote area of the Florida coast called Duma Key. He returns to a long-abandoned hobby of sketching and painting, something he can do even with his recent injuries. He's a southpaw, King reminds us, a detail that will prove crucial later. Edgar's art soon attracts enough notice to earn him a gallery showing and critical acclaim, and he makes some friends along the way. Recovery, and a new chapter of life, actually seem possible.
This being a King story, we have to start wondering where the fright factor is lurking. It comes at us in several ways, fueled by the creepy, sad history of Elizabeth Eastlake, a lifelong Duma Key resident now in the throes of Alzheimer's. Then Edgar's art takes a turn for the strange: He's transported into a trance-like premonition state in which he produces macabre pictures, waking up with only the fuzziest memory of who - or what - held the paintbrush.
The book centers on the themes of unleashed creativity and the degeneration of body and mind, a topic that King, 60, who suffered devastating injuries after being hit by a van in 1999, mines with hard-won insight.
Edgar's band of misfit friends, and his two loyal adult daughters, prove to be both salvation and emotional Achilles heel, as the story rushes to a surprisingly uplifting conclusion with shades of "The Shawshank Redemption."

"Duma Key" is an interesting contrast to King's previous novel, "Lisey's Story," a character-driven tale about the widow of a famous writer. In pre-publication interviews, King's editor, Chuck Verrill, has said "Duma Key" was an expansion of a 2006 short story called "Memory," intended as a divorce-centered bookend to that story of marriage. But readers will find that the new novel leaves its comparatively ponderous predecessor far behind. At its core it's a horror story, but with enough emotional complications to keep you turning the pages.

Potter creates memorial sculpture for historian & author Michael King

Story in New Zealand Herald Monday January 21, 2008 By Shenagh Gleeson

The memorial to Michael King is in a reserve at Opoutere, near Whangamata. Photo / Sarah Ivey

Coromandel potter Barry Brickell knew the writer Michael King only fleetingly.
But his esteem for King, who died in a car crash nearly four years ago, was enormous.
Now a memorial sculpture created by Brickell has been erected on a reserve overlooking Wharekawa Harbour, a favourite spot of King's and his wife, Maria Jungowska.
The couple were killed when their car crashed and burst into flames off SH2 at Maramarua on March 30, 2004.

They lived at Opoutere, just north of Whangamata, for about 10 years.
Brickell, who operates his pottery alongside his Driving Creek Railway in Coromandel, said he wanted to create a memorial to King to acknowledge his great contribution to New Zealand literature.
"I regard him as an extremely important literary person. I think he's the most important literary figure since Janet Frame. His History of New Zealand is beautifully written and a great indigenous history."
The renowned potter spent two years corresponding with King's daughter, Rachael, discussing the idea and its implementation. He came up with a form that met the family's approval.

There are four separate tiles, one bearing a quote about Opoutere from King's 1999 book, Being Pakeha Now:
"In the rise of mist from the estuary and the fall of rain, in the movements of the incoming and outgoing tides, I see a reflection on the deepest mystery and most sustaining pattern in all of life. That of arrival and departure, of death and regeneration."

Brickell hand-modelled the tiles out of Driving Creek clay and used "a lovely old-fashioned stamp letter set" for the words, which were in-filled with white slip.
The second tile features a dinghy with a fish on the bottom, reflecting King's love of rowing out into the estuary for a quiet spot of fishing.
The tiles were fired in one of the Driving Creek wood-burning kilns and then set into a concrete plinth.
Brickell says he brushed the concrete to expose the aggregate and give it a stone-like texture. On the back are two bird tiles. The plinth was installed at the reserve on a hill under a tree just over a week ago by a group of family and friends.
Brickell said the group had a picnic and it was a relaxed and jovial occasion - as King would have wanted.

Xiaolu Guo's cultured revolution

The author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers tells Helen Rumbelow in The Times that her journey far from home is typical of the new generation in her country

She looks like a film star: red tights, high heels, hair down to here, just off the train from Paris. And yet you find her three flights up in an East End tower block, a flat filled with African prints, photographs, drawings and a baby crying in a neighbour's bedroom.
The mix is typical of Xiaolu Guo. If you had met her at the age of 8, you might have thought “of course that girl will become one of the most successful and fashionable of the new expat Chinese authors”.
She's been on the edge of East and West all her life. She grew up on an island off China, a fishing village with no running water or electricity, where the only reading matter was Mao's little red book. “When I was young I would stand on the beach, hearing political messages broadcast from Taiwan, to leave China. Now, of course, the pull is the other way.”

She's more than 5,000 miles away from all that, but the distance seems farther. In fact, even squashed together on her small sofa, sharing tea and her “daily dose” of Ferrero Rocher chocolate, I feel a long way from Guo. She's stuck, she says, between the siren call of ambition, artistic freedom, Western selfishness, call it what you will; and the sadness that comes with it, the loneliness.

This is her theme. Her first novel in English, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for its tale of a sassy young Chinese girl arriving in London, quick to fall in love. Her new book, 20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth, tells of a similar character, Fenfang, who, like the author, left a peasant life at the age of 17 to make it big in Beijing.
Her theme is not just China, she says with wryness, it is bigger than that. It's more about how growing up - whether from naivety, or communism - is isolating. No surprise that her next book and film (she pops out both with disconcerting frequency) are about UFOs and aliens, loosely inspired by China's place in the world.

“The Concise Dictionary was nothing to do with immigrant culture. It was a very personal look at two people trying to understand each other. It's my homage to a certain kind of philosophy, how the difficulty is with others. That problem is profoundly represented by two lovers.”
As a teenager, her father rejected the life dictated by the State. Wanting to become an artist in the Cultural Revolution, he was sentenced to years in the camps for being “bourgeois”. She recently showed his work at a London gallery - he made a killing.
At the same age that her father took his stand, she too exiled herself from village life. The difference is, she says, much of her generation feels her sense of not belonging. Typically they, like her, lived with grandparents while their parents worked and, culturally, feel miles from their elders: “My life feels independent of family. I'm more of a drifter, I don't feel like I'm from anywhere.”

Her case is extreme - she lives between London (which she likes because it's “full of foreigners”), Paris, (where she is taking up a fellowship from the Cannes Film Festival), and Beijing. But she feels part of the phenomenon: “We're the first generation to leave what we know out of choice, not for economic reasons, but to think about following our dreams.”
With millions of young Chinese flocking to Beijing or the West comes rootlessness on a huge scale. In 20 Fragments, American friends tell her that the Chinese are “better at being American than America”. Fenfang tells her Western boyfriend that they don't have a word for “romance” in Chinese: “We say Lo Man, copying the English pronunciation”.

“It was a sarcastic way of showing that she is against this sentimentalism in Chinese culture. Since the Chinese Revolution all those traditional things have been abolished. We live in a completely modern, industrial country, more modern than Tokyo, or New York, without those beautiful Chinese ink pictures.” But her heroines are often “very romantic, very melancholy”. This comes from the pace of change - and loss. Both Fenfang and Beijing are trying to come of age extremely quickly.
“Fenfang is trying to find beauty in an ugly city. Because of that the book becomes quite dark. She's a youthful character, but she has a 60-year-old sorrow. It's from the past... ideology is something very profound that you can't change overnight.”
With her interest in the difficulty of relationships, her work rate and travel schedule, it is no surprise that she is at present single. “I have boyfriends, but I'm alone. My personal life has disappeared, my work is bigger.”

Before I go, she starts to sound optimistic again. It frustrates her that almost the only news British people get about China is about its economic boom, with no sense of people's lives. The Beijing Olympics may help. “For millions of tourists it will be a chance to step into the country, use the shops, eat unfamiliar food, just like us when we come to the West. I'm an old-fashioned humanist. I believe in the power of personal contact.”

20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth by Xiaolu Guo
Chatto, £12.99; 208pp

On the moral high ground - Edward Marriott meets Bernhard Schlink


From The Observer, Sunday 20 January.


German lawyer Bernhard Schlink's bestselling novels tackle the guilt of his own generation in relation to the war. His latest, Homecoming, is intimately linked with his own experience ...

There is a moment at the end of Bernhard Schlink's 1997 bestseller The Reader - shortly to be filmed by Stephen Daldry, starring Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes - where the narrator, Michael Berg, trying to make sense of his teenage love affair with a woman who is later tried for war crimes, picks up Homer's Odyssey. He remembers it 'as the story of a homecoming. But it is not the story of a homecoming ... Odysseus does not return home to stay, but to set off again.'


The same search for an elusive home is central to Schlink's finely tuned new novel,
Homecoming. The protagonist, Peter Debauer, is on the scent of a father he's
never known. As a boy, he comes across an unfinished manuscript that tells the
story of a German soldier's postwar odyssey home. But how does the story end?
Debauer begins a search both for the missing pages of the manuscript and for
his real father.

In common with much of Schlink's fiction, the story of the unfinished manuscript has intimate
connections with his own experience. Like Debauer, Schlink, who was born in
1944, spent his summers in Switzerland, travelling by train from his parents'
home in Heidelberg to his mother's parents in Switzerland. As in Homecoming,
Schlink's real-life grandparents ran their own publishing company reprinting
pulp novels. Schlink would use the reverse of the page proofs for his
homework. Disobeying his grandparents' injunction never to read the other
side, he found himself stumbling on the story of the returning soldier, a tale
that, as in Homecoming, was missing its ending.



The full story.......

LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS

3 January 2008

You really need to take a couple of days off to read the LRB!

This latest issue to reach me has a wonderfully entertaining long piece, 5 pages, by Alan Bennett under the heading What I didn't Do in 2007. Written in diary form it is worth purchasing this issue of the LRB for this story alone.

What surprises me though is the almost total dominance of non-fiction book reviews and commentary, hardly a poetry or fiction title to be seen.

JUDY BARNES, BOOKSELLER, R.I.P.

I am sad to advise that Judy Barnes, who started her distinguished
mid-life bookselling career with the creation of Poppies Bookshop in Remuera, (Auckland, NZ) where she set new and exciting standards for bookshop design and layout, died today after suffering a fall earlier in the week.

A full obituary will follow shortly.

PETER CAREY INTERVIEW

Between two worlds

Peter Carey has lived in New York for 20 years, but has returned repeatedly to his native Australia in his fiction. Both cultures have been the guiding spirit of his work

Nicholas Wroe writing in The Guardian Saturday January 19, 2008

A few years ago Peter Carey had a drink with his friend and fellow adopted New Yorker Patrick McGrath, the only other writer he "really talks to" about the practicalities of writing. Some time during the evening McGrath told Carey about an image he had of a man or woman standing on the edge of an airstrip, and how he knew it was the start of a novel but didn't quite know how to proceed.

"That notion of starting work on a novel from an image played on my mind," recalls
Carey, "and soon enough I had my own picture of a woman and a child
walking along this particular road in Queensland with a storm on the way and
cars driving past. At that stage I thought of them as a hippy mother and her
little boy hitching from here to there. But I didn't really know much more
than that and although I tried to work it out, I ended up getting in a bit of
a tangle about what to do with them."

A few months later Carey met McGrath again and told him about the difficulties he was having with his image of the woman and boy. He asked how McGrath had dealt with his airstrip.
"'Oh that,' he said, 'I dropped that pretty quickly. It was going
nowhere.' So, thanks for that, Patrick!"
But the idea did bear fruit and Carey's new novel, His Illegal Self, published next month, includes a young woman and a boy in rural early 70s Queensland. They are no longer mother
and son and are in Australia having absconded from the upper-class
revolutionary end of the American counter culture. Another starting point for
the book was Carey's memories of his own time in a Queensland commune -
"much hippier and less political than the one in the book" - when it
turned out that someone who lived with them was on the run from the FBI for
conspiracy to import cocaine. "All the things that happened around that
were actually quite comic - driving around with bags of coins trying to call a
lawyer in Texas and so on - but it was also pretty scary and it stuck in my
mind."

Carey has lived in New York for almost 20 years. But long before his move some of his earliest fiction reflected on the relationship between Australia and America with the 1974
story "American Dreams" featuring American tourists arriving in a
small Australian town - "something utterly and surreally unlikely at the
time". However, throughout the rest of his career remarkably little of
his work has been set in the country he now calls home. His early novels Bliss
(1981) and Illywhacker (1985) were set in Australia as were, predominantly,
the Booker prize winning Oscar and Lucinda (1988) and True History of the
Kelly Gang (2000). One of the fictional power blocs competing in The Unusual
Life of Tristran Smith (1994) did evoke America, and his gloss on Great
Expectations, Jack Maggs (1997) inevitably made it to Dickens's England. His
more recent novels My Life as a Fake (2003), Theft: A Love Story (2006) and
now His Illegal Self, have all ventured farther afield, including passages in
America, but Australia has remained his primary location and focus.

For the rest of this intervew..........

From THE BOOKSELLER 18 January

Noble independent booksellers reverse decline

The dramatic decline in the number of independent booksellers was halted in 2007 after a dire 2006, when independents were closing at a rate of almost two a week.

According to figures from the Booksellers Association, 81 new indies opened in 2007, with 72 closing. It is a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for the independent sector: in 2006, 96 stores closed and only 64 opened. Meryl Halls, head of membership services at the BA, said she hoped the sector would build upon this success in 2008.

"Early indications from our independent members are that Christmas, while late in many areas, was strong," she said. "As one of our members has said, 2007 saw the renaissance of the independent bookselling sector, and this story would seem to be borne out by both new shops opening and sales performance."
Research from Book Marketing Limited last year revealed a 6% increase in independents' volume book sales since 2003, compared to a 3% fall at chain retailers. The BA currently has 1,424 independent members.

Michael Neil, m.d. of wholesaler Bertrams, said he felt more people were opening indies because "they like the idea of being a bookseller". "It's seen as a noble thing to do," he said. "As the chain bookstores have consolidated over the past 18 months, there are opportunities for good local indies to step in. I also think there is a thirst for authenticity with consumers, and shopping at an indie bookstore seems to be part of that."

Early signs that indies will continue to build upon last year's success include Foyles' opening of two new high-profile branches in 2008, as well as South London independent Crockatt & Powell's plans for a second store in west London later this year.
However, the past 12 months have also seen some high-profile losses. The Peak Bookshop in Matlock, Derbyshire went into administration in August, two months after its Chesterfield store closed. And Pan Bookshop in west London announced last month that it would be closing in January after 32 years of trading.

Selznick and Schlitz Discuss Their Award-Winning Books
By Diane Roback, Children's Bookshelf -- Publishers Weekly, 1/17/2008

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Brian Selznick
Back in 2002, Brian Selznick, who has some 20 books to his credit, won a Caldecott Honor (for The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins), so he’d had “a small taste” of how it felt. But he says nothing could have prepared him for when the phone rang in his San Diego home on Monday at 3:38 a.m.
“I was aware that the [Newbery and Caldecott] decisions were being made,” he says. “and I was aware it would be happening in the morning. Since I was in California, I was aware that it would be even earlier than if I was on the East Coast. And who knew if either committee was even going to consider [his book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret] for either award?” He had told himself he’d already had such a great year with Hugo, which was a national bestseller, without the phone ringing. And then it rang.
“It was the most incredible sound ever,” Selznick recalls. On the other end of the line was Karen Breen, chair of the Caldecott committee, with the other committee members on speakerphone. Alluding to the fact that they were calling Selznick in the middle of the night, Breen said, “I’ll make this worth your while.” And then she told him he’d won the Caldecott Medal. “It was incredible,” he says. “I was exhilarated, delirious. I think I invited everyone to dinner.”
Just a few hours later, Selznick arrived at the airport, to catch a flight to New York for his Today Show appearance. “Part of me was pleased that I’d be shut off from the world for six hours,” he says. “I thought it would be nice to have this quiet time. But I got on the plane, and I was so hyped up. I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep. I was starving but I couldn’t eat.”

Unable to concentrate, Selznick watched his seatmate pull a few folded sheets of paper out of her bag. He recognized the ASLC seal, and realized she was reading the press release for that morning’s awards. Compelled to remark on the coincidence, Selznick asked her, “Excuse me, are you a librarian?” “No," she replied, “I work for PBS.” She then explained that these big children’s awards had been announced earlier in the day. Selznick’s response: “I know—I won one!”
They both laughed at the unlikelihood of having been seated together. “I couldn’t believe that of all the things in the world she could be reading, she was reading that press release,” he says. “I got a seat next to the only person on the plane who even knew what the awards were!”
Throughout the fall and winter, some posters on listservs and blogs had been predicting that Hugo Cabret might win something, but given the book’s unusual format (533 pages, with more than 300 pages of illustrations), it was mentioned as a possibility for both medals. Selznick said he had heard about the speculation, and was hugely flattered. Was there one or the other he was hoping for? “I did have a hope that if it was going to be one, I hoped it would be the Caldecott,” he admits, “because I’m an illustrator first. Even when I thought it would be a 100-page novel, my thought process always starts visually.” Selznick also observes how both of this year’s picks are untraditional for their category in terms of format. “On the Today Show I had this 550-page book with a Caldecott sticker on my lap, and Laura had this thin book, fully illustrated in color, with the Newbery sticker. We were joking that they’d mixed up the stickers!

After the dust settles a bit, Selznick will do the last few drawings for the third Doll People book, written by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin. Then he’ll begin writing and illustrating his next project—a book of his own, like Hugo. “I have a couple of ideas for it,” he says, but nothing firm. “It will again involve the interplay of text and pictures, but it won’t be about the cinema."
Even winning the Caldecott Medal, Selznick says, doesn’t mean a thing to him, in terms of beginning the next book. “It’s equally terrifying. I’m very lucky to work with an incredible team—Tracy Mack, Leslie Budnick and David Saylor—and we’re going to be working together as closely as we did on Hugo. I have this award today because of the incredible group of people I’ve been lucky enough to work with and be friendly with.”

One of his biggest thrills since Monday morning has been “getting calls and emails from people I’ve known since the beginning of my career. I went out to dinner last night with my first boss, Steve Geck. Steve is the reason I know anything about children’s literature.” Geck, who was once manager of Eeyore’s Books for Children, hired Selznick as a bookseller, where among other things he gave puppet shows and painted window displays. “And I’ve been hearing from the far-flung Eeyore’s group,” Selznick says, “so I’m getting to share this with them. It’s been wonderful.”
To see PW’s profile with Brian Selznick, in which he spoke about the publication of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, click here.

Laura Amy Schlitz
Laura Amy Schlitz, a school librarian in Baltimore and author of Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village, was wide awake when the Newbery call came. But not exactly because she had been expecting it. “I had woken up at 5 and had a stomachache,” she says, “and couldn’t go back to sleep. Finally it was 6:30, when I would have woken up anyway. I told myself, ‘OK, it’s time to be brave, the phone hasn’t rung, you have a good life, it’s time to get up and fix lunch.’ Then the phone rang.”

Schlitz recalls being “thunderstruck” by the news. “I had been trying not to want one of the honors,” she says, “because I knew the chances were very slim. I don’t remember the call very well. It was some time before I remembered to stammer out ‘thank you.’ On the one hand I don’t remember the call but on the other hand I’ll remember it the rest of my life.”
When she got to school that day, some of her students ran up and hugged her. “People were crying. I wore a plastic tiara all day. My school gave me a special ceremony in the gymnasium, the kids had cards, paper flowers and cards. It was overwhelming. I’m completely silly about the whole thing.”

This is the fourth book Schlitz has done with Mary Lee Donovan, executive editor at Candlewick Press, though Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! was the first book of hers Donovan accepted, back in 2000. “Finding the right illustrator for the book was a long journey,” she says. Originally Trina Schart Hyman had been under contract for it, but she fell ill and passed away in 2004, without having turned in the artwork. In the meantime Schlitz’s book The Hero Schliemann had been illustrated by Robert Byrd; since their collaboration had been a happy one, Schlitz suggested Byrd for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! The book finally came out last July.
In the works for Schlitz is a story for younger children, due out from Candlewick in 2009 or 2010. She’s also working on a chapter book. But right now she’s not really focusing on the future. “I’m still back with the phone call,” she says. “I can’t stop running my fingers over the embossed medal. When I was in New York for the Today Show, my editor gave me a copy of the book with the medal on it, and I wouldn’t part with that for anything.”

Bookies pick Kennedy as favourite to win Costa Book of the Year award

Story from The Times:

Author A.L. Kennedy has been picked as the odds-on favourite by bookmakers today to win this year's Costa Book of the Year award.

The latest odds released by William Hill have put Kennedy at 2-1 with her fifth novel Day, a bold story of a former RAF prisoner-of-war returning to Germany to play the part of a British prisoner of war in a film.
The second place favourite is the historian and biographer Simon Sebag Montefiore, with Young Stalin, at 3-1. Catherine O’Flynn, winner of the First Novel prize with her mystery story What Was Lost, shares third place with the poet Jean Sprackland for her collection, Tilt, at 4-1. And the children's book winner Ann Kelley follows closely with odds of 9-2 for her book The Bower Bird.

Kennedy was one of five category winners of the Costa Book Awards — previously known as the Whitbread prize. The “most enjoyable” first novel, novel, biography, poetry and children’s book were chosen from 553 entries and they are now competing for the title Book of the Year and a £25,000 prize, to be announced on January 22. Each category winner received £5,000.

Related Links
Day by A. L. Kennedy
O’Flynn was the focus of attention when the award winners were announced on January 2, after she suffered 20 rejections from agents and publishers before one editor spotted its potential.

The best-selling British author, Joanna Trollope and her fellow judges were unanimous in their praise. They called it “an extraordinary book”, describing it as “a formidable novel blending humour and pathos in a cleverly constructed and absorbing mystery”.
Find out more about the Costa Book Awards

Richard & Judy sales update

BOTH AMAZON.CO.UK AND Play.com reported strong Richard & Judy Book Club sales this week, following the airing of the first book last week, A Thousand Splendid Suns (Bloomsbury), and Random Acts of Heroic Love (Black Swan) this week.

Amy Worth, Amazon Books Manager, said: “All ten titles have seen significant sales uplifts in recent weeks. All reside within the Amazon.co.uk Top 40, while those with the biggest increases include A Quiet Belief in Angels (Orion), and Random Acts of Heroic Love (Black Swan), both now in the Amazon.co.uk Top 10, along with Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns (Bloombsury).

Georgina Stoaling, Books Category Manager at Play.com - which is offering 40% off and free delivery on the ten titles on its homepage - also found that “sales were strong, as expected, and the top-selling title so far is A Thousand Splendid Suns.” This continues to lead the pack, heading for the number one spot this weekend, having sold 43,254 copies through Nielsen Bookscan for the week ending 12 January. Meanwhile Hosseini's first book, The Kite Runner (Bloomsbury), is enjoying a resurgence in sales, with the film tie-in and standard editions selling a combined 25,964 copies last week. Patrick Gale's Notes from an Exhibition (HarperPerennial), which will feature on the Book Club on 6 February, sold over 8,000 copies last week, which its publisher notes is more than Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (HarperPerennial) did at this stage last year, and the latter went on to become “the seventh biggest adult fiction title of the year”.

A spokesman said: “We're very pleased, especially as Notes is being featured slightly earlier in this year's run than Half of a Yellow Sun was.”

Children's books: 'If children are to become readers for life, they must first love stories'


To introduce our guide to the best children's books, author Michael Morpurgo, writing in The Telegraph sets out the case for reading pleasure

.100 books every child should read - Part 1: Early years

· 100 books every child should read - Part 2: Middle years
· 100 books every child should read - Part 3: Early teens

We are in a muddle about literacy. We worry endlessly that children in Britain are not becoming readers. Report after report reveals that we are slipping further and further behind in child literacy levels when compared with other countries. Interesting that Finland finds itself at the top of a recent child happiness table as well as child literacy levels. More of Finland and happiness later.

I'm thinking that education itself is in part to blame. Ironically, it may be responsible both for the great blossoming of our literature, and at the same time for leaving so many with the impression that literature is not for them, but the preserve of a certain educated elite. As a consequence, much of our society has become separated from its own stories. This alienation can happen all too easily. Let me tell you a story.

There was once a boy brought up with books all around him. There were no walls in the house: just books, it seemed. At bedtime his mother would sit on the bed and read to him - Masefield, Kipling, Lear, De la Mare, Shakespeare - and the boy loved it because his mother loved it. He could hear it in her voice, in her laugh, in the tears in her eyes. He loved the fun, shared the sadness. He loved the music in the words. He never wanted storytime to end.
Then "unwillingly to school" he went, trudging the leafy pavements through pea-souper London smogs. From then on the stories were not magical, and they weren't musical either. Words were to be properly spelled, properly punctuated, with neat handwriting. They were not story words any more, but nouns and pronouns and verbs. Later they were used for dictation and comprehension, and all was tested and marked. A multitude of red crosses and slashes covered his exercise books, like bloody cuts.
A fear of words, a fear of failure, banished all the fun, all the magic. Every day more words died, until the evening this boy was taken to see Paul Schofield play Hamlet at the Phoenix Theatre, in London. He heard the music in the poetry and loved it again.

And then as a student at university he had a professor who sat on the corner of his desk and read Gawain and the Green Knight. As the professor read it he lived every word, loved every word. So did the student. Later, as a teacher in a primary school, the young man would read stories to his class at the end of the day, but only stories he loved. When he ran out of these, he made up stories of his own, and he became a story-maker and a writer. Now he cannot imagine a life without stories, reading them, making them.
After many years of teaching and writing he knows the difference stories can make to children's lives, and he has some ideas about how to renew the old association between ourselves and stories.

Our mindset has to change. We have to stop proclaiming reading as a ladder to academic success. Treated simply as an educational commodity, some kind of pill to be taken to aid intellectual development, it is all too often counter-productive and ultimately alienating.

· The best children's audio books
· How do you write about the Holocaust?

Of course we must and should study literature in our schools, but first we have to imbue our children with a love of stories.

And to do that, parents and teachers have to have a passion for stories themselves: they have to pass it on. The children have to know that you mean it, you feel it, you love it. And a teacher needs to find the space - correction, the Government needs to give them the space in the curriculum - so that she or he can read stories to the children for at least half an hour a day.
Our teachers need the chance at college or university to come to know and love books. Let us train our teachers, not blame them. We have to unchain them, and trust them. It's the tests and the targets that inhibit them, that bring fear into the classroom when children are too young to cope with it.

In Finland they do things differently. Finnish children stay at home much longer. They play and tell stories years after ours are sitting down in school to a target-driven curriculum. Maybe that's partly why Finnish children are happier, and maybe that's why they rate higher in the literacy stakes. Maybe they haven't put the cart before the horse as we do. They give their children the time and space to grow up with stories, to enjoy them, so that the association develops slowly, organically, is not imposed.

We get ourselves all hot and bothered about the teaching of reading, about synthetic phonics and the like, and we forget that none of it is much use unless children want to read in the first place. The motivation must come first, horse before cart. We all know that unless a child is motivated to learn, then there will be apathy or resistance in the learning process. They are much more likely to want to deal with the difficulties of learning to read if they know it is these words that give them access to all these wonderful stories. If we really want our children to become readers for life, we would do well to remember that horses are much more fun than carts anyway.

A longer version of this article appears in the new issue of RSL - The Royal Society of Literature Review, published on 31st Jan. To obtain a copy visit http://www.rslit.org/

FOUR ISSUES OF THE NZ LISTENER TO CATCH UP ON

There they were, four of them, sitting tidily in a huge pile of mail that was awaiting me on my return from holiday. I grabbed them eagerly and averaging about an hour on each I had them all read by early afternoon.

In the issue of 12-18 January I was interested in Matt Nippert's interview of the talented Niocla Leggat, publishing director at Random House NZ. For those who missed it or do not have access to The Listener here it is for your interest.

If you’re reading a new New Zealand book this summer, chances are that Nicola Legat (right) has influenced your reading habits. Once a magazine writer and editor of Metro, Legat gave up fast-food journalism for the slow-food world of book publishing when she became publishing director of Random House in 2005.

Hypothetically speaking, why haven’t you printed my unsolicited manuscript yet? Not a lot stops books getting published. If you’re going to write me your memoir, you’re going to make sure it’s well-written. You’re going to write me a good covering letter saying why this is special and unique and why I should race home and read it over the weekend. What you won’t do is send me your manuscript wrapped up in ribbon with glitter on it, won’t use gothic fonts, and won’t email it to us and expect us to print it out – because that makes us really cross.

Given sales averaging in the low four-figures, is it worthwhile writing fiction? You’d have to ask novelists that, because they keep doing it. I remember interviewing Damien Wilkins once, early in his career, and he said wanting to write a novel is like a compulsion, it’s like a disease, and sometimes he wishes that he didn’t have it. I would love to see, per capita, whether we have more novelists than anywhere else in the world, because I suspect we probably do.

How did Louise Nicholas: My Story come about?

Sometimes we go after people and other times they just find their way to us. But, in fact, Louise found her way to us in this case. We had to, obviously, prove to Louise that she could trust us and that she and Phil [Kitchin] could work with us and we could give them the freedom to do what they needed to do and invest in the book. Because there were real risks for us.
Clint Rickards doesn’t seem the sort to back down from a challenge. That was a risk. The Clint Rickards factor was a risk for us, absolutely. But – God’s work, etcetera – we thought we just must press on. It wasn’t without its perils, but we had to do it. And I think that book, for people who perhaps thought “Is she telling the truth? Is she just a troublemaker?”, absolutely sealed public confidence in her.

What’s selling well at the moment?

The sales that we’ve had this Christmas of all our big illustrated books are telling us that people really respond to a beautifully put together package. They will pay a lot of money for a book that looks just right – that isn’t just superficially right, but there’s something inside that’s worthwhile as well. We published The French Café Cookbook, which is $99 – really, really expensive – and we’ve completely sold out the first run.

What is the most important part of a cookbook – beautiful design and photo-graphy, or recipes that actually work?

You could say that books like that are food porn and, initially, there’s just the “wow” impact. But there will be people who are confident and serious cooks who will definitely cook from that book.

Speaking of design, do you judge books by their covers?

Yeah, I do. I think we all do, and as publishers we agonise over them. With a book, you have just one cover and you have to get it right. If you’re looking in front of a bookcase and you’ve got two minutes, the cover is what engages you. If you’re looking for a writer you trust, it might be a bad cover, but as it’s Richard Ford or whatever, then it doesn’t matter.

Our best-seller lists are dominated by cooking and rugby books. Discuss. Those rugby books are a complete phenomenon, and what does that say? That it’s just still so important to us that we do, somehow, need to connect to those rugby heroes. Some of those books are really worthwhile. Anton Oliver’s book was something really significant and different. It lifted the lid on the All Black culture and created a stir.

Aside from Anton – do you think, say, a 22-year-old professional athlete has a lot to say in a memoir? Well, that’s a good question. We don’t publish those, so I guess I don’t need to comment.

FOOTNOTE:

In Denis Welch's Culture Vulture column in the same issue, (his second-last) ,Denis reveals that Random House are publishing memoirs this year from Fiona Kidman, Hamish Keith, and Denise L'Estrange-Corbet. All will be eagerly awaited especially that from Dame Fiona Kidman who has had an illustrious writing career. This will be partone of her memoir and will cover the first half of her life.

FROM THE ORION DIVISION AT HACHETTE LIVRE

NEWS OF TWO MAJOR AUTHOR TOURS

The waiting is over for New Zealand fans of global style experts, Trinny & Susannah, with Westfield announcing it’s bringing the duo to New Zealand for their very first visit 27 February – 1 March 2008. Trinny & Susannah’s latest book is The Body Shape Bible (November 2007).

Bill Frindall, known to cricket fans everywhere as the ‘Bearded Wonder’, will be travelling around New Zealand in February and March to broadcast England's five one dayers and three test matches. His memoir Bearders is a must-have read for cricket lovers everywhere.

SEVEN HUNDRED PENGUINS

A collection of Penguin covers from Britain and around the world, Seven Hundred Penguins is a celebration of 700 Penguin jackets and what a treausre trove it proves to be.

I was absolutely filled with delight for a couple of hours yesterday as I trolled through this big fat 714 page Penguin paperback. Talk about a trip down memory lane............. from the beautiful to the garish, design classics to design oddities.

A full-colour, sensuous delight, with one jacket on every page, the featured jackets represent the personal favourites of Penguin staff from offices all over the world, and run from Penguin's birth in 1935 to the end of the twentieth century.

Throughout this beautiful book there are jackets that bring back a flood of memories of the first time a book was read; there is The Mersey Sound featuring Adrian henri, Roger McGough and Brian Pattent which I remember selling by the score; J.P.Donleavy's Schultz with the protagonist's trousers around his ankles; Summer Cooking by Elizabeth David; the Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten; Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, (remember those King Penguins?); The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald; Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov; I Claudius by Robert Graves (remember the wonderful television adaptation?); Edna O'Brien's A Pagan Place; and of of course Richard Adam's classic, Watership Down. Many many more of course, oh the memories this unique tome invoked. I loved it and it will become a treasure on my bookshelf.

Hey, nearly forgot to mention there is even a Penguin NZ cover! Reconnaissance by Kapka Kassabova. Great..

HONE TUWHARE, R.I.P.

Report from NZ Herald:

Political and cultural leaders have today been paying tribute to Hone Tuwhare, one of New Zealand's most celebrated and prolific poets who died yesterday, aged 86.

Tuwhare's work was renowned for its accessibility to the general reader but his popularity did not come at the expense of critical acclaim.
He was named New Zealand's second Te Mata Poet Laureate in 1999. Tuwhare won two Montana NZ Book Awards for poetry in 1998 and 2002, and was given honorary doctorates by the universities of Auckland and Otago.

Poet Alistair Te Ariki Campbell toured the country with Hone Tuwhare in the 1970s as part of the 'Gang of Four'.
Campbell said Tuwhare "sprung from the raw material of Maori culture" and that was what made him special.
"Most of us - Glover, Curnow, Baxter and I had university education but he had nothing to do with that.
"He was able to write poems that had an immediate appeal, direct poems. Often he wrote poems on political themes but quite often too just lyrical poems, about the women he loved. He was unique in that respect," he said.

Campbell said Tuwhare had a strong reputation and introduced a "genuine, profound Maori dark note" into New Zealand poetry.
"He was a boiler maker by trade from a so-called working class background. He was able to write poetry that appealed widely. He was a strange person in some ways because most New Zealand poets have gone through academic training - high school and university - but I don't think he made it through the high school years," Campbell said.
But although Tuwhare was working class in the Pakeha world, he was revered in the Maori world because of his chieftain family ties, he said.

Yesterday, Prime Minister Helen Clark said Tuwhare had made an outstanding contribution to New Zealand literature.
"Hone Tuwhare was a distinguished poet, playwright, and writer of short fiction. His poetry contained powerful imagery of our land, sea and legends, and often expressed strong views on contemporary issues," Miss Clark said.
"Hone's death will be felt deeply by all who valued his lifetime contribution to New Zealand literature. My thoughts are with his whanau and close friends at this sad time."

Maori Party MP Hone Harawira said Hone Tuwhare was a writer who could "say what people really felt in their bones".
He said Tuwhare was a great artist and philosopher whose real talent was his simplicity.
"He could say what people really felt in their bones," Mr Harawira said.
"You just have to look at his poetry to see his love of people and his deep sadness at the impacts of man on the world," he said.
"And as a son of the north, it's nice to know that he'll be coming home to Kaikohe to rest among his tupuna."

Singer and songwriter Don McGlashan put Hone Tuwhare's poem Rain to music on the album Tuwhare.
"Hone came to our high school in the seventies as part of a travelling poetry show. He was this shambling, surly, larger-than-life bloke not at all like my image of the classic poets we were studying ... He made poetry seem dangerous," said McGlashan.
"When I first heard his poem To A Maori Figure Cast In Bronze Outside the Chief Post Office, Auckland - the one where the statue, dying for a drink, ogles passing miniskirted girls and longs to be up on the marae where he can watch the ships come in, curling their white moustaches - I could feel a light going on.
"Someone was speaking directly to me, about my town - and it made me realise how powerful that could be. It was a great honour to be asked, a couple of years ago, to set a poem of his to music. He was one of my heroes."

The Green Party also paid tribute to "a man of modesty and brilliance".
"While he has gone his work will live on to inspire generations of New Zealanders," Arts and Culture Spokesperson Metiria Turei said.
"Like Sir Edmund Hillary, Hone lived a very ordinary and modest life, despite the fact that he was a kiwi icon," she said.
"It was inspiring to see such an ordinary Maori man of my grandfather's generation become a world class poet. It was certainly unusual in that day and age for men of his generation."
Born in Kaikohe in 1922, since the mid-1990s Tuwhare lived in Kaka Point, about 25km southeast of Balclutha.
He was of Ngapuhi descent.
His father, an accomplished orator and storyteller in Maori, encouraged his son's interest in the written and spoken word.

Tuwhare first began to write in 1939 while working at the Otahuhu Railway Workshops, spurred on by fellow poet and friend RAK Mason.
His first collection, No Ordinary Sun (1964), was the first book of poetry by a Maori writer in English. Now in its 10th impression, it remains one of the most widely read individual collections of poetry in New Zealand literary history.
The collection also signalled Tuwhare's intense and lasting interest in political issues as subject material, with No Ordinary Sun a passionate cry against nuclear weapons, penned in response to the destruction of Hiroshima in 1945.

Tuwhare was also passionate about Maori issues, and during the 1970s became increasingly involved in Maori cultural and political initiatives. He was an organiser of the first Maori Writers and Artists Conference at Te Kaha in 1973 and participated in the Maori Land March of 1975.
Tuwhare was awarded a Robbie Burns Fellowship in 1969 (and again in 1974) and while in Dunedin met painter Ralph Hotere, with whom he formed a lasting partnership. A venture into drama produced the play In the Wilderness Without a Hat, published in 1991.
Tuwhare is survived by three sons.

His tangi will be held in Kaikohe.

Picture of Hone Tuwhare from NZ Book Council website.

JAMIE GETS EGG ON HIS FACE

Jamie Oliver 'sorry' for biting the hand that feeds him
By Amol Rajan writing in The Independent:

The controversy over factory farming methods for British poultry took a new twist yesterday after Jamie Oliver, the celebrity chef leading a campaign for better treatment of chickens, wrote to Sainsbury's praising the retailer's "real leadership" in the industry.

The Channel 4 star and face of Sainsbury's advertising campaign was prompted to write by newspaper reports suggesting he was furious that Sainsbury's officials failed to turn up to a debate on factory farming. The debate was part of Jamie's Fowl Dinners, a one-off documentary to be broadcast at 9pm this evening on Channel 4.

In his letter, Oliver, who is paid £1.2m a year by the supermarket giant, says he is "incredibly upset" with journalists "who misrepresent the programme as a whole", referring specifically to an article in the Daily Mirror on Monday.
The chef, who has campaigned for healthier school dinners, says he wishes he was writing "in different circumstances", adding that his words had been taken out of context and his positive comments about Sainsbury's "have all been ignored somewhat (sic)".

Oliver, 32, had been quoted in several newspapers expressing his anger that despite inviting officials from the four biggest high street retailers (Sainsbury's, Tesco, Morrisons and Asda) to the debate, only people from Waitrose and The Co-operative turned up. He said: "I'm really upset ... why didn't they come? What is there to hide? It's shocking that people I work for didn't turn up on the day. I don't know why.
"Their PR department hasn't even got the confidence to turn up and talk about what they do for millions of people who come through their doors each week. Of course the supermarket should have turned up. How dare they not?"

But in his open letter, addressed to Justin King, Sainsbury's chief executive, and copied to 150,000 staff nationwide, the chef seeks to reassure his colleagues that he is fully behind them.
"I am happy to confirm what I have said on several occasions: that Sainsbury's has the most to be proud of on this important animal welfare issue", he writes. "Indeed I would not have continued working with Sainsbury's for so many years if I did not believe that you were showing real leadership." He goes on to tell Mr King: "Your team have been particularly helpful".
Sainsbury's took out full-page colour advertisements in British newspapers yesterday in an attempt to reassure customers that the company is "working hard to continually improve welfare standards". The ad included a quote from Oliver's letter, as well as complimentary quotes from the RSPCA Freedom Food campaign and Compassion in World Farming (CIWF).

But the CIWF website suggests Oliver's assertion that Sainsbury's "has most to be proud of" on animal welfare may be an exaggeration. In the charity's Compassionate Supermarket Awards, Sainsbury's came fourth after Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, and The Co-operative. But it won a "most improved" award and has promised to upgrade its 72 million standard chickens to RSPCA standards in the next few years.

A spokeswoman for the retailer confirmed that Oliver's letter had been delivered to every Sainsbury's office and store, where it will be displayed on noticeboards.
Tonight's broadcast concludes a week of programmes on Channel 4 in which Oliver and his fellow chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall highlight the miserable conditions in which many intensively farmed British animals live. In the programme, Oliver electrocutes a chicken and drains its blood in front of a studio audience. He also shows how males superfluous to the egg market's needs are suffocated. Oliver's contract with Sainsbury's is up for renewal in April.

THE FACE OF NEW ZEALAND

David Evans Bookwise

$35

David Evans has a love of the big New Zealand landscapes and his passion for them shines through in this stunning collection of photographs from both islands.

Evans shoots exclusively in film which makes him somewhat of a rarity in this digital age.

A sturdy hardback the book is great value at $35.

There are more than 50 scenes, - rural, coastal, mountains - these are new, fresh images which I found highly appealing and to give you a taste I'll show some of my favourites:

Barn on a farm near Gisborne

Oakura, Northland (right)

Nugget Point, South Is.

Okarito Lagoon, West Coast, South Is.(right)

From Times Online
January 16, 2008

Hymn book goes digital

A leading publisher is launching its first online digital hymn book to allow clergy to download song lyrics, sheet music and backing tracks to 1,800 worship songs.

HarperCollins have placed online the entire contents of Mission Praise, the top selling evangelical hymn book first published to coincide with the 1984 campaign of evangelist Billy Graham and which has subseqently sold more than two million copies. It is thought to be the first major hymn book to be made digitally available in the UK.

Of the UK's 47,000 Christian churches, 22,000 have bought licences from Christian Copyright Licensing to allow them to photocopy or project hymns, and of these 15,000 also have a music reproduction licence, giving an indication of the demand for easily-accessible worship material.
Ian Metcalfe, Editorial Director for Collins Bibles, said: “Mission Praise was the first hymnbook to combine traditional hymns with newer worship songs and now it is the first hymnbook to go online, making it as easy as possible for churches to use this great collection of old and new hymns. We know there are thousands of churches out there using it in its printed form."
Graham Kendrick, author of Shine Jesus Shine said: “From its beginnings in Billy Graham's Mission England evangelistic crusade, Mission Praise has become one of the core resources of today's church. I'm excited about missionpraise.com because it combines traditional hymns with modern worship songs in all the electronic formats churches nowadays are after.”

The site will eventually offer Sunday school material, Bible readings, liturgies, background photographs and illustrations as well.

NEWLY RELEASED -

FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

Each book on this month’s newly released list has a secret at its heart, whether it’s one held between lovers, friends, or parents and children. For the characters in these novels, what is hidden is liberating, destructive or, most often, both.

BLEEDING KANSAS By Sara Paretsky 431 pages. G. P. Putnam’s Sons. $25.95.

In “Bleeding Kansas” Sara Paretsky reimagines the violent clashes between pro- and antislavery forces of the 1850s on a contemporary stage. The battleground issues: fundamentalist Christianity, the war in Iraq, homosexuality. The Grelliers and the Schapens have farmed their patches of Douglas County for 150 years, and were allies in the antislavery fight. Now, though, they are deeply divided. When Gina Haring, a New Yorker, a lesbian and a Wiccan, moves into a long empty farmhouse nearby, Susan Grellier is drawn into her orbit — to the dismay of her husband, Jim, and her children, Lara and Chip, but to the gossip-mongering delight of the Schapen matriarch, Myra. Meanwhile the Schapens have bred a “perfect red” heifer that is attracting attention from an ultraorthodox Jewish group intent on rebuilding the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. As the tale spins out, a life is lost, and the Grellier family teeters on the brink. Ms. Paretsky, who grew up in Kansas, is the creator of the fictional private investigator V. I. Warshawski.

BEGINNER’S GREEK By James Collins 441 pages. Little, Brown & Company. $23.99.

James Collins’s chick lit-esque first novel takes its title from a James Merrill poem about those who fear to feel intensely (“What is/Beyond analysis/Is perilous”). Mr. Collins’s protagonist, Peter Russell, a good-looking young banker, feels but has trouble acting. When he meets Holly, the love of his life, on a plane trip from New York to Los Angeles, he gets — and loses — her number. And when she turns up, years later, as the girlfriend, then wife, of his less-than-faithful best friend, he doesn’t let on that his passion for her is as strong as ever. Many coincidences later he ... well, you know what happens.

THE DEAD OF SUMMER By Camilla Way 201 pages. Harcourt. $23.

In the summer of 1986, at 13, Anita Naidu survived a killing spree that left three teenagers dead. Now, at 20, she has returned to tell the full story to the police psychologist who interviewed her in the wake of the killings. As Anita’s tale begins, her mother has recently died, and her family has moved from Leeds to South London. There her father spends his days and night drinking and watching television, while she roams the waterfront with fellow outsiders Denis, an amiable special-education student, and Kyle. The latter boy is “skinny as a stick,” as Anita says. “The sort of kid nobody notices and you wouldn’t remember if you had. Except I did.” Both Kyle and Anita have their secrets, which are revealed as the “dried-up summer of glittering pavements and long black shadows” moves restlessly toward its end. This is Camilla Way’s first novel.

THE SECRET BETWEEN US By Barbara Delinsky343 pages. Doubleday. $25.95.

On a rainy April night, Deborah Monroe and her daughter Grace are driving home when “a flash of movement entered her line of sight on the right. In quick succession came the jolt of a weighty thud against the front of the car, the slam of brakes, the squeal of tires.” The man they have hit is Calvin McKenna, Grace’s history teacher. Deborah and her family are institutions in town: her father is the beloved local doctor with whom she now practices, Grace is an honor student and track star, and Deborah’s sister, Jill, owns the local bakery. When Deborah lies to the police about who was behind the wheel, the accident exposes the fault lines in their lives.

WHAT I WASBy Meg Rosoff209 pages. Viking. $23.95.

The narrator of Meg Rosoff’s “What I Was” is 100 years old, looking back on his schoolboy days in the early 1960s. (Don’t expect Hogwarts: Ms. Rosoff has said that in writing the book she wanted to counter the “warm and fuzzy Harry Potter nostalgia about boarding school.”) He is an outcast at St. Oswald’s — “not an athlete,” as one of his teachers declares, “not a student, either” — the third-rate boarding school on the East Anglia coast to which he’s been sent. When he (his name is not revealed until the book’s end) discovers another child living in a shack by the sea, he is drawn into a hidden world, which is threatened by the forces of nature and conformity. The book was shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Children’s Book Award in Britain but is being published as an adult novel in the United States.

A GOLDEN AGEBy Tahmima Anam276 pages. Harper. $24.95.

Tahmima Anam’s first novel is set during Bangladesh’s 1971 war for independence from Pakistan. Since her husband died 12 years earlier, Rehana Haque has been living her life for her children. Now, Sohail, her 19-year-old son, and Maya, her 17-year-old daughter, have become campus radicals, taking part in protests against the Pakistani government, which has refused to seat in Parliament the opposition majority led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. As rallies give way to the bloody events of the government’s Operation Searchlight crackdown and civil war, Rehana joins her children in support of the insurgency, discovering her own true nature in the process. Ms. Anam was born in Bangladesh.

PROMINENT UK PUBLISHER LIZ CALDER TO VISIT HER NZ HOMELAND

Former English teacher, model and Palmerston North Girls' High alumni, Liz Calder co-founded Bloomsbury Publishing in London in 1986. Best-known for bringing J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series to the public, Liz has published the work of prize-winning authors Julian Barnes, Nadine Gordimer, Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood, among many others. With her husband, children’s author Louis Baum, Liz also established the Groucho Club - London’s literary hangout - and the FLIP festival in Parati, Brazil.

Liz and Louis visit New Zealand in January as part of the ART Venture programme, run by the Arts Regional Trust – Te Taumata Toi-A-Iwi. ART Venture is a customised acceleration programme to develop the artistic projects, industry networks and business skills of a select group of Auckland-based creative entrepreneurs.

Liz and Louis will speak at a publishing industry event in Takapuna, Auckland on Wednesday 30 January, hosted by the British Council and North Shore City Council. The following day, they will help launch ART Venture 2008. Liz and Louis will also meet and work with the 2007 participants as part of a day-long symposium on 1 February.
In the male-dominated publishing world of the ‘80s, Liz seized the chance to move from publicity to editing, and built strong relationships with authors. “You have to believe that the next thing you read is going to be something wonderful. After a while I learnt to trust my instincts... my confidence grew because some of the things that my nose twitched over were pretty successful.”
For more details, please contact Anna Cameron at The British Council in Wellington,

2007 800-CEO-READ Business Book Award Winners Announced Today
The day has finally come to announce the winners of the first annual Business Book Awards! After much reading and careful consideration, the following are the best titles of the year:

The Best Business Book of 2007:

Made to Stick,

Chip and Dan Heath

Random House. US$24.95

For the full list of category winners go here.

BEST BOOKS OF 2007 - BOSTON GLOBE

Culling through the thousands of books published in 2007, Globe critics selected a few fiction and nonfiction titles that broke out of the pack. In each case, the author knows how to tell a story, and the story itself is enthralling. Here are our top picks, along with our reasons why these books sparkle diamond bright.

—Jim Concannon / Globe Staff

Best of fiction Best of nonfiction

NOVELIST SELLS ARCHIVE

From THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: January 16, 2008

The archives of Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, have been bought for $2 million by the Southwestern Writers Collection of Texas State University-San Marcos, The Associated Press reported. The university said the archives included correspondence, notes, drafts and proofs of 11 novels by Mr. McCarthy, 74, who won the Pulitzer for his 2006 novel, “The Road,” and a 1992 National Book Award for “All the Pretty Horses.”

ZAGAT LOOKS FOR POTENTIAL BUYER

Zagat Survey LLC, the well-known restaurant guide publisher, has hired Goldman, Sachs & Co. to look into a potential buyer, the company announced yesterday.

Founded in 1979 by husband and wife team Tim and Nina Zagat, the company has grown from a hobby of collecting ratings for restaurants into a major international publisher of guides on restaurants, travel, nightlife and shopping.

Details about a price range or the company's financial data were not released and the company reported that in February 2000, investors including General Atlantic LLC, Allen & Co. and former Microsoft Corp. executive Nathan Myhrvold all bought stakes of undisclosed size in Zagat.

Zagat's online presence is mostly reserved for subscribers, and the company has had to compete with several free websites offering restaurant information including Yelp.com, Citysearch and MenuPages.com.

BOOK DEALERS AND TRADE ME HAVING A SPAT

Bookman Beattie has learned that the book dealers who trade on Trade Me are currently up in arms over a decision taken about a month ago to remove the "New Zealand' subcategory from Non-Fiction book listings. There appears to be no logic for this decision.

This has caused an uproar on the Trade Me message board [see http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Threads.aspx?topic=20 and find the thread headed Books: Non Fiction NZ.Category removed. WHY? )

- there are 275 messages logged therein and although you may not want to read them all you can quickly get the sense of why everyone is so bloody upset .

Many traders have sent messages of complaint to Trade Me - some have rung the $.1.99 a minute hotline but as yet I gather none has got any substantive response from Trade Me - all get either automated or placatory responses from people in 'Trade Me support' [all of whose emails invite a response if further info is required but also say at the top you can't reply to this email] but no-one in Management has responded to anyone.

Come on Trade Me, give these guys a go. What possible reason can you give for removing the NZ sub-category? Bah humbug!

MICHAEL MOYNAHAN TO BE BASED IN INDIA

Although the earlier Random House pres release did not make this clear I now gather that Micheal will be relocating to India sometime in the first half of 2008.

He will thus presumably be stepping down from his host of trade roles - President BPANZ, Chair Auckland Writers & Readers Festival, Chair NZ Book week etc etc . He is going to be a significant loss to the literary community in New Zealand.

Michael - for all that you have done in and for the NZ book world I extend warm thanks, wish you hearty congratulations on your new responsibilities, travel well.

RANDOM HOUSE GROUP ANNOUNCES KEY MAJOR CHANGES IN NEW ZEALAND LINE-UP

Michael Moynahan promoted to Chairman

Karen Ferns promoted to Managing Director

The following is the press release from Random House NZ:

The Random House Group has promoted Michael Moynahan to
Chairman, Random House New Zealand.

Karen Ferns, currently Sales and Marketing Director, will take on responsibility for the day to day management of the business, replacing Michael in his current role as
Managing Director.

Michael has been Managing Director, Random House New Zealand since 1999,
during which time his achievements have included a 60% increase in the size of the business, driven largely through growth in local publishing; recruitment and retention of a strong senior management team; and implementation of industry-leading customer service standards which have
resulted in a string of industry awards.

In his role as Chairman, Michael will continue to bring a strategic and international perspective to building the business. In addition to his new responsibilities in New Zealand, Michael will also become Managing Director
of Random House India, providing leadership and strategic direction in the Indian market place. Michael will continue to report to Brian Davies, Managing Director, Overseas Companies, The Random House Group UK.

Since joining Random House in 1999, Karen's achievements have included
delivering significant growth in sales of local and international authors.
She has played a major part in both targeting and integrating acquisitions,
as well as the other strategies which have driven the overall growth of the
Company. Karen will continue to report to Michael.

Brian Davies says: "It is a huge testament to Michael and Karen's abilities
that Random House New Zealand has been nominated for every major industry
award since 1999. These changes will enable us to further leverage their
talents to continue to grow and build our New Zealand business."

Michael Moynahan says: "I am delighted both with my new role and with
Karen's appointment. She has achieved an incredible amount since joining
the company and I believe that with the strong support she will have from
Paul Whittaker, our Finance and Operations Director, and Nicola Legat, our
Publishing Director, Karen is in a great position to take the business
forward."

Karen Ferns says: "We have established a very strong position in New Zealand
and I am looking forward to the challenge of taking the business to the next
level and building upon our past achievements and successes."

And this appeared on Publishers Lunch overnight:

Managing director of Random House New Zealand Michael Moynahan steps up to chairman of that unit, and he becomes managing director of Random House India (established in 2005) as well. RH NZ sales and marketing director Karen Ferns will take over day-to-day management of the division as managing director. Moynahan continues to report to Brian Davies, managing director, overseas companies for Random UK.

Sonny Mehta, whose titles include chairman of Random House India, says in the announcement: "Local Publishing is currently a major focus for Random House India, and as titles such as The Music Room and Great Speeches of Modern India demonstrate, the local list is already achieving both critical and commercial success. Given Michael's strong track record in growing local publishing at Random House New Zealand, I am confident he will give even more impetus to this key area of our Indian business."

LOCAL PUBLISHER DUMPS TOM CRUISE BOOK

Report from Sydney Morning Herald:

Pan Macmillan will not print a local edition of the book Tom Cruise, An Unauthorised Biography in Australia due to legal concerns, a move that has been labelled an act of censorship.
But the book, which alleges that Scientology played a major role in the breakdown of the marriage between Hollywood superstar Cruise and Nicole Kidman, will still be imported for sale at independent bookshops.

Scientologists have denied claims by the book's author, Andrew Morton, that Kidman was threatened with blackmail if she spoke out against the controversial religion.

The Cruise book, which is expected to be a best-seller overseas, will be released in a blitz of marketing and publicity in the US overnight.
The Church of Scientology and Cruise's lawyer have said the book is inaccurate.
A manager at Sydney bookshop Kinokuniya said that books were normally printed and stocked on shelves until legal action was taken.
"Basically our brief as a company is to have the best range of books, so until there is an actually legal case put against the book we'll continue stocking it," Sydney store manager, Steve Jones, said.
"I think the legal issues with the book are purely in the hands the author and publisher, it's not up to the retailer to censor the book.
"A company like Kinokuniya will sell what the customers want. We're not dictated by author, publisher community group."

It is understood local publisher Pan Macmillan is fearful of legal claims by Cruise and the Church of Scientology if it publishes a local version.
"We received the pages at the end of last year and we went to our lawyers, who came back and said there were serious legal problems with it so we decided not to publish," Pan Macmillan publicist Jeannine Fowler said.
"As far as I know we are acting on legal advice."
She denied it was an act of censorship and said they decided not to publish because it would have been "breaking the law".

She was unable to provide details with what specific laws were cited by the company's lawyers.
She was also unable to give other examples of when Pan Macmillian had decided to not publish books due to legal reasons.
Ms Fowler said that they book would have sold well locally.
"I imagine there would have been some interest, like with any of these unauthorised biographies, " she said.
Church of Scientology International general counsel Elliot Abelson denied the church was trying to censor the book in an earlier report.
Two major book retailers, Dymocks and Angus & Robertson, have also said they have legal concerns about the book and will not import copies directly from the US publisher, St Martin's Press.

Online Australian book retailer Booktopia sold four copies of the Cruise book within a day of The Sun-Herald breaking the news the book would not be sold through major local retailers, said owner Tony Nash.
"People read the article, then they went online and bought it from us," Mr Nash said.
He compared this to the 150 copies of a book by comedian Jerry Seinfeld's wife, Jessica, Deceptively Delicious, that were sold after US chat-show host Oprah Winfrey praised it on her show.
"Unless the government or lawyers instruct us to to pull it, like we had to do with a euthanasia book last year, we will sell it."
Sydney's Gleebooks will also sell the book.
"Had Pan Macmillan had an injunction slapped on them after they'd released the book, or a legal action had been made, then absolutely, without fail, they would advise all booksellers to remove copies from their shelves," co-owner David Gaunt told ABC News.
A spokeswoman for Borders bookshops blamed the lack of a local edition on its decision not to sell the book.
"Had Pan Macmillian published it in Australia, we would stocking it," said Josy Shaw, marketing manager the Borders Asia-Pacific.

Sean O'Brien wins unprecedented poetry double

Sarah Crown writing in The Guardian

Left -'A major artist' ... Sean O'Brien. Murdo MacLeod

The last 12 months in poetry have definitely belonged to Sean O'Brien. After winning the Forward prize for best collection an unprecedented third time in October, the poet was tonight named the winner of the 2007 TS Eliot prize,

making him the first author ever to take the UK's two top poetry awards in the same year.

Inaugurated in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and honour its founding poet, the TS Eliot prize is awarded annually to the author of the best new single-author collection of poetry published in the UK or Ireland.

In The Drowned Book, O'Brien, who was born in Hull, returns to the industrial-northern
landscape so familiar to his readers, following the paths of clogged and our debased relationship with water in murky and menacing language. He triumphed over a strong shortlist that included Fiona Sampson, the editor of Poetry Review, for Common Prayer, and Scotland's
87-year-old poet laureate, Edwin Morgan, for A Book of Lives. The poet Peter Porter, who chaired the judging panel of WN Herbert and Sujata Bhatt, called
O'Brien "a major artist" and described The Drowned Book as "fierce, funny and deeply melancholy".

O'Brien, who now lives in Newcastle where he is professor of creative writing at Newcastle University, received a cheque for £15,000 at tonight's ceremony, held at the Wallace
Collection in central London. The purse is a £5,000 increase on last year's
award, making the TS Eliot the biggest poetry prize in the UK. For the first
time in the prize's history, the shortlisted poets also received cheques of
£1,000 each, in recognition of their work. The cheques were presented by
Valerie Eliot, widow of TS Eliot, who donates the prize fund. Last year's
prize was won by Seamus Heaney for his collection, District and Circle.

Previous winners include Paul Muldoon, Don Paterson, Ted Hughes, George Szirtes
and Carol Ann Duffy.

Candidate Clinton Scrutinized by Women

By Michiko Kakutani writing in The New York Times, January 15, 2008

For the last week reporters, pundits, bloggers and political operatives have turned all their forensic powers on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s so-called crying moment — the moment in a New Hampshire cafe when her eyes welled with tears in response to some innocuous personal questions from an audience member: “How do you do it?,” “How do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?” That moment is credited with helping Mrs. Clinton stage a remarkable comeback in the New Hampshire primary, with galvanizing the sympathy of female voters and with revealing the candidate’s human side.

THIRTY WAYS OF LOOKING AT HILLARY
Reflections by Women Writers
Edited by Susan Morrison
254 pages. Harper. $23.95.

The 24/7 replaying of that moment on cable television also reminds us how relentlessly Mrs. Clinton has been dissected, deconstructed and decoded over the years: by now her marriage, her hair, her pantsuits, her voice and her laugh have been more minutely anatomized than her voting record on Iraq, her (mis-)handling of health care during her husband’s administration or her stands on Iran, Social Security and immigration.

This willful focus on the personal is underscored by “Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary,” an intriguing but highly uneven anthology of reflections about Mrs. Clinton by a spectrum of well-known female writers.

Few of these contributors address Mrs. Clinton’s record as a senator (why did she vote last year to urge the Bush administration to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization?), practical electoral matters (just how electable is she?) or questions about her managerial style (how would the controlling, poll-driven instincts of her campaign team inform her approach to running the White House?). Instead, like voters and commentators obsessed with the “likability” factor, these writers zero in on vague feelings about Hillary’s karma, her self-presentation or her femininity.

Some of them seem to have wanted to identify with Hillary — or wanted her to embody their own ideals, career paths and views about feminism — and when she’s failed to ratify their own inclinations, they’ve turned on her with the fury of scorned sisterhood. Others point to a double standard in judging female candidates, even as they parse her every move and utterance, seeing in her a fun-house-mirror version of themselves.

Read the rest of the review.......

ROMANTIC NOVEL OF THE YEAR SHORTLIST

Last man ditched in romantic novel race

From The Guardian, 14 January.

Eyebrows were raised in November at an all-female shortlist for the 2007 Costa first novel prize. There will be rather less surprise, one suspects, at news that the shortlist for the Romantic Novel of the Year award is also devoid of Y chromosomes. The only male in the running at longlist stage, Emlyn Rees (albeit writing in partnership with his wife, Josie Lloyd) failed to make it through to the final round.

Whittled down from the 21-strong-shortlist are six contenders for the award.

Of these, two -Pillow Talk by Freya North and Young Wives' Tales by Adele Parks - can be
broadly described as modern chick-lit; three are more traditional
saga/bodice-rippers - The Leaving of Liverpool by Maureen Lee, Silk and Steel
by Catherine King and One Last Summer by Catrin Collier - while the standout
contender is a previous winner, JoJo Moyes, who succeeds in stepping beyond
the constraints of the genre.

Moyes won in 2004 with Foreign Fruit and was shortlisted the following year with Ship of Brides. She is in the running with her fifth novel, Silver Bay, which is set in an
Australian coastal town. It revolves around the romantic attachments of a
London property developer, who arrives in the seaside resort expecting to make
a quick buck and encounters more than he expected with the inhabitants of the
eccentric Silver Bay Hotel.

Up until this stage the prize, now in its 48th year, has been determined by volunteers from the general public. A panel of more than 100 reads the books three times and score the
titles on such criteria as romantic content, readability, dialogue,
characters, plot, style and setting. The books with the highest scores go on
to a longlist and receive a fourth read. When that score has been added, the
six books with the highest combined score form the shortlist for the year.
Only now is the whole shortlist read by all the final judges to select the
outright winner.

This year's judging panel includes the comedian Helen
Lederer, Good Housekeeping books editor Kerry Fowler, and Chris Rushby, buying
director of Bertram Books. The winner will receive the prize at a lunch in
London on February 4.

CALEDCOTT & NEWBERY WINNERS AND OTHER CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARDS ANNOUNCED

Brian Selznick Wins Caldecott; Laura Amy Schlitz Wins Newbery

By Diane Roback -- Publishers Weekly, 1/14/2008

Brian Selznick has won the 2008 Randolph Caldecott Medal for The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic Press), a 533-page novel that he also illustrated. It’s the first time that a novel has won the country’s top prize for illustration, and it’s also Scholastic’s first Caldecott Award.

And Laura Amy Schlitz won the 2008 Newbery Medal for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village, illustrated by Robert Byrd (Candlewick). Schlitz is a school librarian in Baltimore; this is the second year in a row that the Newbery has been won by a librarian.
The awards were announced this morning at the American Library Association's midwinter conference in Philadelphia.

Three Newbery Honor Books were named:

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis (Scholastic Press); The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt (Clarion); and Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson (Putnam).

There were also four Caldecott Honor Books:

Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad, illustrated by Kadir Nelson, written by Ellen Levine (Scholastic Press); First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook/Porter); The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís (FSG/Foster); and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems (Hyperion).

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean (HarperTempest) won the Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in literature for young adults.

Four Printz Honors were given:

Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox (FSG/Foster); One Whole and Perfect Day by Judith Clarke (Front Street); Repossessed by A.M. Jenkins (HarperTeen); and Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill (Knopf).

The Robert F. Sibert Award for the most distinguished informational book was won by Peter Sís’s The Wall.

There were two Sibert Honors:

Nic Bishop Spiders by Nic Bishop (Scholastic Nonfiction) and Lightship by Brian Floca (Atheneum/Jackson).

Christopher Paul Curtis won the Coretta Scott King Author award for Elijah of Buxton, and Ashley Bryan won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award for Let It Shine: Three Favorite Spirituals (Atheneum). The John Steptoe Award for New Talent went to Sundee T. Frazier, author of Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything in It (Delacorte).
There were two King Author Honors:

Sharon M. Draper for November Blues (Atheneum); and Charles R. Smith Jr. for Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali, illustrated by Bryan Collier (Candlewick).

And there were two King Illustrator Honors:

N. Joy for The Secret Olivia Told Me, illus. by Nancy Devard (Just Us Books); and Leo and Diane Dillon, for Jazz on a Saturday Night (Scholastic/Blue Sky).

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award for best work of translation went to Viz Media for Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe, translated by Alexander O. Smith.

There were two Batchelder Honors:

Milkweed Editions, for The Cat: Or, How I Lost Eternity by Jutta Richter, illustrated by Rotraut Susanne Berner, translated by Anna Brailovsky; and Phaidon Press, for Nicholas and the Gang by René Goscinny, illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempé, translated by Anthea Bell.

The Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production was given out for the first time this year. The winner was Jazz by Walter Dean Myers and Christopher Myers, narrated by Vaneese Thomas and James Williams (Live Oak Media).

There were five Odyssey Honor titles:

Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer, narrated by Katherine Kellgren (Listen and Live); Dooby Dooby Moo by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin, narrated by Randy Travis (Scholastic/Weston Woods); Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, narrated by Jim Dale (Listening Library); Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy, narrated by Rupert Degas (HarperChildren’s Audio); and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, narrated by Alfred Molina (Listening Library).

The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for beginning reader books went to There Is a Bird on Your Head! by Mo Willems (Hyperion).

There were four Geisel Award Honors:

First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (Roaring Brook/Porter; Hello, Bumblebee Bat by Darrin Lunde, illustrated by Patricia J. Wynne (Charlesbridge); Jazz Baby by Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie (Harcourt); and Vulture View by April Pulley Sayre, illustrated by Steve Jenkins (Holt).

The Margaret A. Edwards Award for lifetime contribution in writing for young adults was given to Orson Scott Card, and Walter Dean Myers was chosen to deliver the May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture.

Three Schneider Family Book Awards were announced:

Kami and the Yaks by Andrea Stenn Stryer, illustrated by Bert Dodson (Bay Otter) won for best children’s book, Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer (Bloomsbury) won for best middle school book, and Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby (Starscape) won for best teen book.

Yuyi Morales, illustrator of Los Gatos Black on Halloween, written by Marisa Montes (Holt) won the Pura Belpré Illustrator Award. Margarita Engle, author of The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano, illustrated by Sean Qualls (Holt) won the Pura Belpré Author Award.

There were two Pura Belpré Honor Books for illustration:

My Name Is Gabito: The Life of Gabriel García Márquez/Me llamo gabito: La vida de Gabriel García Márquez, illustrated by Raúl Colón, written by Monica Brown (Luna Rising) and My Colors, My World/Mis colores, mi mundo by Maya Christina Gonzalez (Children’s Book Press).

Three Pura Belpré Author Honor books were named:

Frida: ¡Viva la vida! Long Live Life! by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand (Marshall Cavendish); Martina the Beautiful Cockroach: A Cuban Folktale, retold by Carmen Agra Deedy, illustrated by Michael Austin (Peachtree); and Los Gatos Black on Halloween.

And the Andrew Carnegie Medal for excellence in children’s video went to Jump In! Freestyle Edition (Disney).

MATAKANA FEATURED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

North Island Coast of Small Wineries and Big Pleasures

Left- The Saturday organic farmers’ market at the Matakana Village complex.

Story by Debra A Klein writing in The New York Times,January 13, 2008

VISITORS to New Zealand usually plot a trip to the South Island to taste notable wines or glimpse iconic scenery. Yet an hour north of Auckland, on the North Island, you can find an alternative wine destination, on the Matakana Wine Coast, where boutique vineyards and cafes offer specialty wines and sophisticated sustenance at the end of a drive alongside dramatic bays and through sheep-dappled hills.

Photo left by Arno Gasteiger for The New York Times shows Hyperion Wines, near Matakana.

There you’ll find not only wineries, but also an internationally known pottery studio and restaurant, a weekend market, an artisanal bakery and opportunities to explore a rural landscape that shapes and defines this understated enclave.
While Highway 1 isn’t much of a challenge, keeping your gaze on the road is. After 20 minutes, towns melt into that other New Zealand: the leafy paradise where fern trees fan out near shaggy clusters of pandanus trees and placid Hauraki Gulf waters stretch to meet a horizon of island silhouettes.
Since the 1920s, Aucklanders have escaped to this region, known as the Hibiscus Coast, but increasingly weekenders are settling in permanently. The Rodney District, as the area north of Auckland is known administratively, is the fastest growing region on the North Island, and a partly completed highway to handle the influx will eventually bypass some of the stunning coastal views. For now you can still catch a glimpse outside Orewa, a resort town turned bedroom community.

Orewa’s paved beachfront walkway fronting Whangaparaoa Bay makes for a good leg stretch, but just north of town, Hatfield Beach is slam-on-the-brakes serene. Just a five-minute drive north, you can scramble over rounded rocks and pohutukawa tree roots for a solitary amble on flat, tan sands between dramatic headlands.
Swirls of gray, blue and yellowish geothermal waters distract from steep curves into and out of the thermal-spa resort town Waiwera, meaning “hot water” in Maori, a place where centuries of warriors soaked themselves after battle by making natural hot tubs in the sand.

Today, the experience has been tamed at the Disney-like Waiwera Infinity Thermal Resort and Spa complex, where underwater sources heat the pools (21 Main Road, Waiwera; 64-9-427-8800; http://www.waiwera.co.nz/; 22 New Zealand dollars, or about $17 at 1.32 New Zealand dollars to the U.S. dollar). Beyond Waiwera, Route 1 crests, then descends into views of the Mahurangi River and headlands and Te Haupa Island.

On the left, an easy tramp among fern shadows to Pohuehue Reserve’s small waterfall will let you check “hiking in New Zealand” off the list. On the right, the first major turnoff doesn’t mention Matakana; follow the signs — and the sheep bleats — toward Leigh.
The last traffic disappears as Matakana Road bends gently through a landscape of rumpled green hills threaded with fluffy trees. Tiny signs give the names of wineries and artists’ studios. Both rely on the same underlying foundation: Matakana’s rich clay used in pottery and in the soil to grow the region’s grapes.

In the late 1980s, Matakana’s first red wine, the Antipodean, fetched high prices at auction in Europe, measuring up to the best European reds in taste tests, and a boutique industry took root. Acreage at the dozen or so wineries established since is mostly measured in single digits, their yields made into small-batch specialty wines that reflect the terroir.

With a belfry and stained glass windows, the exterior of the Ascension Vineyard (480 Matakana Road; 64-9-422-9601; http://www.ascensionvineyard.co.nz/; tastings 8 New Zealand dollars; with tour, 15 dollars) looks more like a convent than a winery. Inside, its varietals, including the Twelve Apostles (glass, 9.50 dollars ) and the Benediction (glass, 11.50 dollars) merlot-and-cabernet blends, have a nearly messianic following. These are paired at the airy, modern Oak Grill, where elaborate lamb and beef lunches start with breads and dips (26 to 39 New Zealand dollars). Save them — eating before hitting town is a rookie mistake.

Just four minutes up ahead, the modern (but made to look rustic) Matakana Village shopping complex (2 Matakana Valley Road) is ground zero for the region’s slow food movement, evident at Saturday’s popular organic farmers’ market (8 a.m. to 1 p.m.), where local musicians play as serious foodies savor organic coffees, fresh waffles, Dutch cocoa and muffins at communal tables and then haul home fresh eggs, handmade sausages and tubs of dukkah, a Middle Eastern-influenced seed and spice mix. This is no dusty-radishes Birkenstock scene. With uniform chalkboards, resort-style umbrellas and slickly packaged products, it’s more like Dean & DeLuca in a country setting.
Mingle there, or at the Vintry (64-9-423-0251; http://www.thevintry.co.nz/; tastings, 10.50 to 18 New Zealand dollars), a small upstairs tasting bar and wine education center in Matakana Village. Those thirsty for knowledge as well as wine can learn about and sample several varietals by the glass or in blind tasting flights.

At the Stubbs Village Butchery (64-9-422-9650; http://www.stubbsvillagebutchery.co.nz/), also in Matakana Village, you can browse the free-range organic chicken, Taranaki lamb and beef displays and pantry items like flavored Mahurangi Estate extra virgin olive oil (19.50 New Zealand dollars). When ready for dessert, line up for organic blueberry ice cream at the boxcar-slim tween hangout, Blue (64-9-422-7797; http://www.blue.co.nz/; cones 3.50 dollars).
In a country where every corner cafe tempts with flaky pastries and dense desserts, the Matakana Patisserie (70 Matakana Valley Road; 64-9-422-9896; http://www.matakanapatisserie.co.nz/; muffins and loaves, 3.50 to 7.50 New Zealand dollars), has won prizes for some of its breads. Behind a bland exterior you might mistake for a dry cleaner’s, racks hold cushiony yet crisp olive focaccia and the chocolate helmeted cakes the bakery modestly calls muffins.

The Brookview Teahouse (1335 Leigh Road, Matakana; 64-9-423-0390; http://www.brookviewteahouse.co.nz/), a quaint 1920s bungalow on a bend in the Matakana River, offers a bit more atmosphere: a traditional tearoom with finger sandwiches on tiered platters (10 to 18 New Zealand dollars), perched over a tableau that might include a few roosters or a resident mother duck guarding her brood. Or you can backtrack to Heron’s Flight Vineyard Cafe (49 Sharp Road, Matakana; 64-9-422-7915; http://www.heronsflight.co.nz/) to sample flavor combinations like a salad of strawberries and Te Mata blue cheese in a honey yogurt dressing (14.90 New Zealand dollars) and savor vineyard views.
Rural tranquillity comes at a price in Matakana; 5 p.m. might as well be midnight, so you must decide: shopping or tasting next.

Morris & James Pottery and Tileworks (48 Tongue Farm Road; 64-9-422-7116; http://www.morrisandjames.co.nz/; trivets, 47 New Zealand dollars; pots, 215 to 465 dollars; free daily tours at 11:30 a.m.) feels like a winery compound, from the grand entrance to the ceramics for sale in the large warehouse, their popular, understated decorative pieces in earth tones made from the local clay. Within the high walls, you can refuel at Così, a sprawling country garden courtyard cafe (64-9-422-7484; seafood chowder, 10.50 New Zealand dollars; local catch, 27 dollars) serving breads baked from scratch, chowder and fresh locally caught fish.
Roll down the windows to listen to the trees rustle during the two-minute drive down the road to the modest rural Hyperion Wines (188 Tongue Farm Road, 64-9-422-9375, http://www.hyperion-wines.co.nz/), which seems more like a private ranch. A scatter of converted rustic farm buildings and friendly owners are the opposite of the slick, almost corporate image projected on the vineyard’s labels. Grapes from their fields go into Eos pinot noir, Titan cabernet sauvignon and Gaia merlot, which has won medals in national competitions.
IF you’re with kids, head for the red barns at Matakana Country Park (1 Omaha Flats Road; 64-9-422-7437; http://www.matakanacountrypark.co.nz/), where they can pet llama-like guanacos, sheep and goats, and you can finger the wares at the Matakana Craft Co-op, or at Saturday’s other Matakana Market (8 a.m. to 1 p.m.), featuring arts and crafts and family activities.

One way to fill the stretch before dinner is to drive down to the neat, modern bachs (beach houses) scattered between a multihued estuary and two-and-a-half mile-long Omaha Beach.
Return to town for one last meal, perhaps seared salmon or oven-roasted lamb (each 29 New Zealand dollars) at the urban yet cozy Matakana Village Brasserie (2 Matakana Valley Road; 64-9-423-0383).
On the way back to Auckland, you might want to use the back roads to prolong the rural memory. Keep the day’s perishables nearby for snacking en route.

It's Harry Potter and a film of two halves: the final movie will be released in two parts
By JAMES TAPPER writing in The Daily Mail.

Harry Potter fans are set to get a double treat in the film of the final story – and movie makers are set to double their money.
Crew working on the sixth Potter film, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, have been told J.K. Rowling's seventh novel, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, will be released in two halves.
For film-makers Warner Bros, whose first five Potter films have made £2.5billion in box office receipts – more than any other movie series – it could mean a £500million bonus in ticket sales.
But sources insist the reason behind the two-movie plan is artistic rather than financial.

Double feature: Daniel Radcliffe with Alan 'Mad Eye Moody' Gleeson (right)

The books got progressively longer – the first, The Philosopher's Stone, had 223 pages while Deathly Hallows has 776 – and fans have complained chunks of later novels have been left out of films.
A film source said: "There's so much to fit that the view is the last movie should be in two halves. There is a huge battle when Harry, played by Daniel Radcliffe, takes on Voldemort that needs to be done really well."
And Ms Rowling points out on her website: "It is simply impossible to incorporate every storyline into a film under four hours long."
At Warner Bros, who are rumoured to be thinking of Oscars and a big-name director such as Steven Spielberg for the final film, a spokesman said:
"People are discussing all possibilities."

Fans to help sell Cornwell book - From the BBC

Cornwell's book (left) topped The Sunday Times bestseller list

US crime writer Patricia Cornwell is calling on her fans to help create a TV advert for her latest best-seller, Book Of The Dead (Little Brown).
The winning advert, which will be chosen by Cornwell herself, will be broadcast on Five to tie-in with the launch of the paperback in April.

Fans of all ages are being asked to submit either a 20-second short film, a script or storyboard.
Six applicants will be selected and the winner will be announced on 17 March.
Book Of The Dead stayed at number one in The Sunday Times bestseller list for eight weeks following the hardback's publication.

DO YOU NEED TO READ BOOKS TO BE CLEVER?
By Denise Winterman BBC News Magazine (via Library Link of the Day).

It's the National Year of Reading. Just as well, as one in four adults say they haven't read a book in at least a year. With so many other ways to get information these days, do we still need books?

When did you last pick up a book to hunt out a nugget of information instead of Googling it? Or read a novel instead of powering up the PlayStation or the telly?
Some time ago, quite possibly, especially if you're a man and aged 16 to 24 - half haven't read a single book in the past 12 months, making this group the least likely to read books, according to government statistics.
The rest of us aren't much better. And some, including Victoria Beckham, claim never to have read a book at all.

WHERE AND WHEN WE READ
In bed
On holiday
On way to work
In the bath
On the toilet
Source: Bedtime Reading Week

Yet books are hyped as life changing and a way out of crime, poverty and deprivation by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who launched the National Year of Reading on Wednesday. Quite simply, they have the potential to open up new worlds for the reader.
So why don't more of us make use of these repositories of knowledge and, with so much information to be gleaned online and from the TV, do we need to read books any more?
"They're vital to learning. Half the population don't go to football matches but that doesn't make football any less important," says Professor John Sutherland, who has chaired the Booker prize judging panel.
Books are essential because at their very heart is the storage of information, he says.
"The best storage system we have is the book. Few artefacts have lasted as enduringly - and few will. If you dropped Chaucer into the middle of Oxford Street today he wouldn't have a clue what was going on, but if you took him to a bookshop he'd know exactly what they were, even be able to find his own work."

And every book has a part to play in our accumulation of knowledge, right down to autobiographies by the likes of Peter Andre and Kerry Katona.

"Books are an eco-system, the bad ones make the good ones possible," says Prof Sutherland. "Victoria Beckham's autobiography pays for likes of Andrew Motion."
But while books have great cultural value, others argue that you don't have to read them to be intelligent and knowledgeable.
"I didn't read a book last year and don't know when I will read one," says Jamie Sharp, 37. "That doesn't make me illiterate or stupid, I just get my information in other ways.
"I read a paper everyday and use the internet. That probably makes me better informed than a lot of book readers out there. They may read a book but it's just as likely to be David Beckham's autobiography as it is Shakespeare."

And reading involves intellectual snobbery, he says. "It always has to be about certain types of books. Often people just read them because they think they should, not because they want to. Sometimes they pretend to have read them to look intelligent."
He has a point - 40% of people admit to lying about having read certain books, according to a study published last year by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. And half read the classics just because we think it makes us look more intelligent.

Basically, not everyone is a natural reader. Books have also lost their "chic", according to some.
Some books do booming business
"If you try and sell your house, estate agents will tell you to get rid of the books, they are viewed as tired and middle aged," says Prof Sutherland.

Despite this, book sales in the UK are huge and on the rise. Last year we bought an estimated 338 million books, at a cost of £2,478m. This was 13% higher by both volume and value than five years ago, according to the Book Marketing Limited's latest Books and the Consumer survey.
It appears that while books might be disappearing from our homes, they are still a treasured part of our culture.
"Britain produces more titles per person than any other country in the world," says Prof Sutherland. "That's the real measure of how important they are to us."

Being able to read has never been so important.
Books are important, but it's reading itself is an essential skill, says Honor Wilson-Fletcher, project director for the National Year of Reading.
"It's not for nothing that books have been burned over the centuries," she says. "They are repositories of ideas and ideas empower people and broaden their horizons.
"But because the cultural landscape is changing so much we need to recognise every variety of reading and acknowledge being able to read has never been so important.
"No medium is less important than any other, be it a classic novel, Scott's last message from the North Pole, one of Morrissey's lyrics or graffiti on a wall - they can all educate and change lives. This is not a year of worthiness, it's a year of reading."

HIGH ADVENTURE - Edmund Hillary

Due to high demand, Allen & Unwin are reprinting Sir Edmund Hillary's original mountaineering classic, High Adventure, the first-person account of Hillary and Tenzing's conquest of Mount Everest.

High Adventure was Sir Edmund Hillary's first book, originally published in 1955. A fiftieth anniversary edition was published by Allen & Unwin in 2003.

High Adventure: Our Ascent of Everest
By Sir Edmund Hillary
Available late January 2008
ISBN 9781741140989 RRP NZ $30

Published by Allen & Unwin

And read this piece from The New York Times for more.........

Pic left showing Tenzing Norgay & Sir Ed also from The New York Times.

Thanks to NZ author Paul Shannon (Davey Darling, The Totem Hole) for bringing the following story to my attention:

Take a literary tour of unique U.S. bookstores
By BETH J. HARPAZ writing in The Seattle Times

NEW YORK — When is a bookstore worth a tourist's time?
When it's more than just a place to buy books.

A destination bookstore can make you feel like you're part of the community, whether you're grooving on the laid-back vibe at Powell's in Portland, or tuning into the Beltway buzz at Washington's Politics and Prose.

Some bookstores offer literary touchstones, like the wooden chairs signed by writers who've visited That Bookstore in Blytheville, an Arkansas institution frequented by native son John Grisham. City Lights in San Francisco, once a hangout for Beat writers like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, draws tourists from around the world.
"Each one of these stores has a unique, distinct personality and approach," said Meg Smith, chief marketing officer for the American Booksellers Association, a trade group for independent bookstores. "You really do see a snapshot of the town and the region in these kinds of fulsome independent bookstores."

And don't overlook the shopping potential. Most independent bookstores take pride in showcasing regional literature. Quirky handwritten signs with staff recommendations may direct you to writers you've never heard of. The tote bags at the Strand bookstore in Manhattan, which come in more than 30 designs, were voted the No. 1 souvenir to bring home to Japan by New York readers of Nikkei, a Japanese financial newspaper.
Any list of destination bookstores is bound to leave off some favorites. But here are nine noteworthy bookstores around the country that are definitely worth a visit.

The Strand
Corner of 12th Street and Broadway, near Union Square, Manhattan
http://www.strandbooks.com/
Founded in 1927 by the Bass family, which still owns it, The Strand is a New York legend, offering "18 miles of books," including used books for a buck, new best-sellers, rare books and collectibles in every price range, and an entire floor of art books. It's as much a scene as it is a bookstore; customers range from Japanese tourists and East Village hipsters to New York University students and crusty intellectuals who quiz the staff on their literary knowledge. The "treasure hunt" is part of the allure, said Christina Foxley, director of store events. "Our stock is constantly changing. One hour we might have a book, one hour we don't. You never know what you might find."

City Lights Books
261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco; www.citylights.com/

This store, a city landmark, was co-founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who also started City Lights Publishers and was arrested on obscenity charges for publishing Ginsberg's famous poem "Howl." The store continues to serve as a center for counterculture activities and politics. Recommendations from its "Muckraking" section, for example, include titles like "The Fall of the House of Bush" and "What Orwell Didn't Know." Tourists also like to stop in at the bar next door, Vesuvio, to have a drink where Kerouac once bellied up.

Elliott Bay Book Co .
101 S. Main St., Seattle
www.elliottbaybook.com/

Closer to home, the Elliott Bay Book Co., in a historic 1867 building in Pioneer Square, offers 150,000 new and used titles in rooms with exposed brick walls, and one or two readings are held every night. "It can be anyone from a first-time poet to Dave Sedaris returning for his 10th time," said Elliott Bay spokeswoman Tracy Taylor. "We had him here when nobody knew who he was and there were 15 people in the audience. He sang the Oscar Mayer song."

Politics And Prose
5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, D.C.
http://www.politics-prose.com/
. Even people who've never been here feel like they know the place because many of its readings are broadcast on C-SPAN. "We have a lot of people who come here and the first thing they want to know is, 'Where does the author stand'?" said co-owner Barbara Meade. "They want to have the whole setting they see on television explained to them." January events include the authors of titles like "The Nuclear Jihadist" and "The Speculation Economy," but don't let the "Politics" in the store's name fool you. Readers can find books here in any genre; the store's children's section is especially well-regarded.

Powell's City Of Books
1005 W. Burnside, Portland, Ore.
http://www.powells.com/
The Gold Room, the Rose Room, the Purple Room — even with a color-coded map and signs, it's easy to get lost in the labyrinths of Powell's City of Books. And "it's hard to walk out with less than 10 books," said marketing coordinator Kim Sutton. She added that locals love to bring their out-of-town guests in: "They'll say, 'This is my bookstore,' and show them around with a lot of pride and ownership." Powell's claims to be the world's largest independent used and new bookstore; its other locations include three other general bookstores and two specialty stores (Technical and Home and Garden).

Books & Books :
265 Aragon Ave., Coral Gables, Fla.,

http://www.booksandbooks.com/
Some bookstores are crammed with serpentine rows of dusty shelves aching with books — but that's not what you'll find at Books & Books, which has three locations in addition to its Coral Gables flagship. "Our Coral Gables store is built around a courtyard in a Mediterranean-style building and our South Beach store is in a gorgeous Art Deco building," said owner Mitchell Kaplan. The store also has branches in an upscale mall in Bal Harbour and on Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean. Books & Books hosts 70 author events a month, and the stores' specialties include art, architecture and regional literature, including books about Cuba and Latin America. Both the Coral Gables and Miami Beach stores also have full-service restaurants.
Prairie Lights
15 S. Dubuque St., Iowa City, Iowa
http://www.prairielightsbooks.com/
Thanks to the University of Iowa's famed Writers' Workshop, which has given Iowa City a vibrant literary scene, you never know who you're going to see at a Prairie Lights event. Could be a Nobel laureate like J.M. Coetzee; writer Michael Pollan promoting his new best-seller, "In Defense of Food," or even a presidential candidate like John Edwards, who was in town for the caucuses. "Right place, right time," said Jim Harris, the store owner, when asked to explain how the store has attracted so many bigwigs over the years — from Raymond Carver to Toni Morrison to Junot Diaz. Store events also air on WSUI, a National Public Radio affiliate.

Tattered Cover Book Store
1628 16th St., Denver
http://www.tatteredcover.com/
Visitors to Denver often go to 16th Street, a mile-long outdoor mall through the heart of LoDo, historic Lower Denver. There, amid breweries and boutiques, near the arenas where Denver's major league teams play and across from the train station, you'll find the Tattered Cover. "We get a whole lot of tourists, along with people waiting for trains and fans hanging out until game time," said spokeswoman Patty Miller. The store has two other locations, but the LoDo location is especially inviting, with cozy nooks, overstuffed chairs and a gas fireplace.

That Bookstore In Blytheville
316 W. Main, Blytheville, Ark.
http://www.tbib.com/

It's located in an out-of-the-way small town, but That Bookstore in Blytheville has become famous thanks to Grisham, who grew up nearby. "He comes here all the time, every time he has a book," said Mary Gay Shipley, the store's "manager, founder, owner and janitor." While Grisham no longer greets the public during his visits, he does sign books, and his association with the store gave Shipley the clout to get other big names in — from Mary Higgins Clark and "Cold Mountain" author Charles Frazier to Bill and Hillary Clinton.

FOOTNOTE:

Booksellers Phuilip King, Brian Phillips and myself have long talked of doing a world tour of significant bookshops. These postings today suggests we should further our plans!

Thanks to Amber for bringing this story to my notice:



TOP SHELVES

Every booklover has their favourite shop, and while it's true that many independents have been driven out of business by online sales and supermarket bestsellers, you still don't have to look too hard to find one that's thriving.

To prove it, Sean Dodson chooses the 10 bookshops from around the world which he considers to be the fairest of them all. Here is his story from the Friday January 11, 2008 edition of The Guardian.

Shopping around the globe ... left -Livrario Lello in Porto,











1) Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen in Maastricht
What does a city do with an 800-year-old church with no congregation? Well, it could make like the Dutch and convert it into a temple of books. The old Dominican church in Maastricht was being used for bicycle storage not long ago, but thanks to a radical refurbishment by Dutch architects Merkx + Girod it has been turned into what could possibly be the most beautiful bookshop of all time. The Boekhandel Selexyz Dominicanen, which opened just before Christmas, retains the character and charm of the old church, while being fitted with a minimalist and modern interior design that overcomes any suggestion of fustiness. From the images you can find on the web you can see that it is a bookshop made in heaven.

2) El Ateneo in Buenos Aires
ll the world's a page at El Ateneo, a bookshop converted from an old theatre in downtown Buenos Aires.
As you can see from this photomontage the El Ateneo has retained its former
splendour, with high painted ceiling, original balconies and ornate
carvings intact. Even the crimson stage curtains remain part of the show.
Comfy chairs are scattered throughout, the stage is utilised as a reading area
and café, and even better, the former theatre boxes are used as tiny reading
rooms.

3) Livraria Lello in Porto
Proving that purpose-built bookshops can be every bit as beautiful as converted buildings, the divine Livraria Lello in Porto has been selling books in the most salubrious of settings since 1881.
Feat