Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Topp Twins Release New Children’s Book

Yee-haa! The Topp Twins are back with a brand-new children’s country sing-along, The Farmer in the Dell.

Sing along to The Topp Twins’ rollicking rendition of the song, complete with yodels and square-dancing calls, and watch illustrator Jenny Cooper’s colourful characters bring the story to life.

The Topp Twins and Jenny Cooper are building quite a collection of toe-tapping picture book and CD packages: The Farmer in the Dell follows the success of the three previous titles, There’s a Hole in My Bucket (2011), Do Your Ears Hang Low? (2012) and last year’s She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain. More than 100,000 copies have been sold across the series.

This year Lynda and Jools spent a full day in the studio recording The Farmer in the Dell, utilizing a vast range of different instruments and even putting members of the Scholastic publishing team to work as backing vocalists!

Senior Editor Penny Scown says that Scholastic New Zealand is very proud to produce these high-energy hits. “The Topp Twins are so well loved in New Zealand, and these rollicking sing-alongs will be enjoyed across the generations. Yee-haa!”

The Farmer in the Dell is released just in time for the Topps’ long-awaited Grand Ole Topp’ry national tour.

The 13-centre tour begins in Invercargill on Wednesday 1st October before heading to Dunedin, Oamaru, Timaru, Ashburton, Christchurch, Napier, Hamilton, Auckland, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Wellington and Palmerston North.

To find out more about The Farmer in the Dell, visit www.scholastic.co.nz/publishing

ShameJoy - a collection of smart, darkly comic short stories from new Wellington publisher

ShameJoy is a collection of smart, darkly comic short stories about pop psychology, pop music, politics and Germans by Julie Hill, published by new Wellington publisher Giant Sparrow Press.

Julie is a playwright, journalist, screenwriter and Germanophile, whose plays include ‘Stories Told To Me By Girls’ and ‘Whistle Solo’, and whose documentary ‘Broke But Sexy’ has screened around New Zealand and on Maori TV. Julie also makes documentaries about music for Radio New Zealand.

ShameJoy's motley crew of characters include O’Gradient, who wants to lose one of her legs; Maus, who ends the Cold War; and Caramel, whose dead uncle starts a horrific war between New Zealand and Australia.

Several of the stories in ShameJoy have been remoulded into plays and Julie has performed some of the collection in Berlin, where she lived on and off for several years.

ShameJoy is the first publication from Wellington publisher, Giant Sparrow Press, managed by Clare Needham, who co-edits the national literary magazine JAAM.

Says Clare, “JAAM showcases new, New Zealand writing, especially work that is edgy and fresh like Julie’s. Giant Sparrow Press is an extension of that approach.”

“I love Julie’s characters.” Clare continues. “They are unique and often a bit nutty. You sympathise with them, even when you see them making dreadful mistakes or getting themselves into situations you hope you never would, yet secretly suspect you might.”

“Julie’s writing is sharp and it’s dark, but it’s also very funny. While some shocking things happen in her stories, you find yourself smiling – even when you know you shouldn’t. It’s there in the title, ShameJoy is a translation of schaudenfreude, the German word for taking pleasure in misfortune.”

ShameJoy is available from good bookshops

ISBN: 978-0-473-28406-0. Format: Paperback, 130 pages. RRP: $24.95.

FIELDS OF BLOOD Religion and the History of Violence by Karen Armstrong

Countering the atheist claim that believers are by default violent fanatics and religion is the cause of all major wars, Karen Armstrong demonstrates that religious faith is not inherently violent. In fact, the world's major religions have throughout their history displayed ambivalent attitudes towards aggression and warfare. At times they have allied themselves with states and empires for protection or to further their influence; at others they have tried to curb state oppression and aggression and worked for peace and justice.

Taking us on a journey from prehistoric times to the present, Karen Armstrong contrasts medieval crusaders and modern-day jihadists with the pacifism of the Buddha and Jesus' vision of a just and peaceful society; moreover, she demonstrates that the underlying reasons – social, economic, political – for war and violence in our history often had very little to do with religion.

Vast in scope, impeccably researched and passionately argued, Fields of Blood is more than a corrective to the prevailing view that religion is to blame for most of the bloodshed throughout human history: it is a celebration of those religious ideas and movements that have opposed war and aggression and promoted peace and reconciliation

About the author:

Karen Armstrong is one of the world's leading commentators on religious affairs. She spent seven years as a Roman Catholic nun, but left her teaching order in 1969 to read English at St Anne's College, Oxford. In 1982, she became a full time writer and broadcaster. She is a best-selling author of over 16 books. An accomplished writer and passionate campaigner for religious liberty, Armstrong has addressed members of the United States Congress and the Senate and has participated in the World Economic Forum.

Trade Paperback

ISBN: 9781847921871

Published: 03/10/2014

Imprint: Bodley Head

Extent: 512 pages - $37.99 RRP

Review in The Observer

11 Fast Reads

- Posted: 09/26/2014

Jonathan Franzen’s Biography Will Be Titled Jonathan Franzen: The Comedy of Rage

By E. Alex Jung - Vulture

He was also careful to note that this isn't going to gossipy: "It’s not an exposé of Jonathan Franzen ... It doesn’t pretend to be a full-scale biography. It’s too early for that. He’s in full career mode. Someone later, a generation from now, will do that biography. It’s a report on who he is." Everyone should tweet about this, because that'll make Franzen, like, so peeved.

The Comic Con Experience that Changed My Opinion of Graphic Novels Forever

By Sarah Jane Abbott |

Monday, September 29, 2014- Off the Shelf

Early this year, I was reading a Joe Hill novel and I noticed a back-ad for his graphic novel collaboration with artist Gabriel Rodriguez, Locke & Key. I had never read a graphic novel or had much desire to, but the concept was intriguing—and it was Joe Hill, so that in and of itself was interesting to me. At that time, though, I really only gave it a passing thought. Then, in July, I was working at the Simon & Schuster booth at San Diego Comic Con, handing out promotional items, answering questions, and escorting authors. I was flipping through the show program during a slow moment and noticed that Joe Hill would be having a signing in the booth right next to ours later that morning. I figured I would have him sign a copy of his novel Heart Shaped Box, but then it hit me – this was Comic Con! I had been interested in that Joe Hill graphic novel, so…when in Rome! I weaved through the throngs of cosplayers to the IDW booth and purchased my very first graphic novel: Locke & Key #1: Welcome to Lovecraft.

As I waited in the ridiculously long line of Hill aficionados, I flipped through and started reading. If you’ve ever looked through a graphic novel, you’ll know that the dialogue is laid out in speech bubbles, generally meant to be read left to right and top to bottom. Well, I did not know this. So I ended up reading conversations multiple times, trying to put the bubbles in an order that made sense. When it was my turn, I was literally quivering with excitement (I can’t hold a candle to hard-core Comic Con fangirls, but I for sure have some fangirl in me). Naturally, since I was meeting a famous person that I admire, I said the most awkward and embarrassing thing possible as I handed him my new graphic book: “Hi! This is my first graphic novel. I’m so excited! I’m having trouble figuring out which speech bubbles to read first!” I let out a crazily high-pitched giggle and froze on the spot with instant mortification. Joe Hill (bless him) just smiled and said I would get the hang of it

-More

Julia Gillard - My Story

‘I was the prime minister for three years and three days. Three years and three days of resilience. Three years and three days of changing the nation. Three years and three days for you to judge.’

My Story is Julia Gillard’s account of her time as Australia’s first female prime minister.

It details her rise in the Labor Party and taking on the role of Prime Minister, what propelled her and what sustained her during that time. The book looks at all aspects of governing a country and of the difficult and complex decisions that have to be made. My Story discusses the leadership issues, the political campaigns, and all the domestic and foreign policy issues that Julia Gillard faced as Prime Minister. As well, it’s a chronicle of her life, growing up in Wales, moving to Adelaide and her time in politics. She discusses her family and the personal choices she has made. Julia Gillard shares her thoughts on the Labor Party, its future, and important choices and issues facing the country. My Story is also Julia Gillard’s story about being a woman at the highest levels of Australian political and public life.

This is a memoir that is both frank and candid which I found most interesting. And yes some nice warm mentions and photos of her NZ prime Ministerial meetings.

But the book not only looks at the high points of Julia Gillard’s life but examines the challenging times. It shows where she erred and where she triumphed. Above all it’s the story of her political and personal journey during those turbulent times for Australia and the meaning they hold for the future.

About the author:

Julia Gillard was sworn in as the 27th Prime Minister of Australia on 24 June 2010 and served in that office until June 2013. Previously, following the Australian Labor Party’s victory at the 2007 Federal Election, Ms Gillard served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations and Social Inclusion. Ms Gillard was born in Barry, Wales in 1961. She is the daughter of a nurse and an aged care worker. Her family migrated to Australia in 1966 and she grew up in Adelaide.

In March 2014 Ms Gillard was appointed as chair of a global education program that aims to get the world’s poorest children into school. The Global Partnership for Education is an international initiative made up of 66 developing countries, donor governments, international organisations, the private sector and civil society groups.

Julia Gillard will be touring New Zealand 18th-20th November - details soon on the blog.

Knopf Australia (Random House NZ)

26 Sept 2014

NZ RRP $54.99, Hardback

Faber to launch Modern Classics imprint

29.09.14 | Joshua Farrington - The Bookseller

Faber is launching a new imprint of modern classics, including titles from T S Eliot, Kazuo Ishiguro and Hanif Kureishi.

The list will begin with 10 titles in April 2015, with a further six books following in June. Associate fiction publisher Hannah Griffiths will lead the in-house publishing team for the list, which will cover Faber's entire publishing history, including novels, non-fiction, poetry and drama.

The paperback Faber Modern Classics list will have its own livery, designed by Faber art director Donna Payne, using Faber's own font and colours from its design palette. To celebrate the launch of the list, 100 postcards featuring jackets from the Faber archive will be released.

Griffiths said all selected books would have to be published at least 25 years ago before being considered for inclusion. She said: "We wanted to create an enduring picture of this great contribution to literature -- and to curate a catalogue for the next generation of readers out of the vast backlist. It’s been a hugely pleasurable task, like visiting a second hand bookshop and following your nose, seeing covers you like or a name you’ve always meant to read. The criteria we’ve applied to the title selection are simple: the books have to have been originally published by Faber, at least 25 years ago. This was to give us a real sense that these are books that can justify the term ‘modern classic’."

C.e.o. Stephen Page added: "Throughout its 85 year history Faber & Faber's reputation has been as a publisher of important literary work. This Modern Classics list is a new showcase for these often brave choices, to draw attention to them again for a new generation of readers. This is not a list of our bestsellers but of books we sincerely believe have classic status, a status relating to all the forms of literature embracing poetry, drama, fiction and non-fiction."

Some of the titles will feature newly commissioned material, such as readers' notes and introductions, as well as facsimile material from the Faber archives. Contemporary writers have also helped with the selection process for titles.

The launch list of made up of:

Nightwood by Djuna Barnes with introductions from Jeannette Winterson and T S Eliot
Ariel by Sylvia Plath (chosen by Edna O’Brien)
Pincher Martin by William Golding with an afterword by Phillipa Gregory
The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi with an introduction by Zadie Smith
Self-Help by Lorrie Moore
Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (selected by Barbara Kingsolver)
Venice by Jan Morris
Selected Poems by T S Eliot featuring an essay by Seamus Heaney
Look Back in Anger by John Osborne with an introduction from Michael Billington and an afterword by David Hare
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

The Tuesday Poem

The Tuesday Poem this week is "Fauverie - Emmanuel" by Pascale Petit, selected by Kathleen Jones:

http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.co.nz/2014/09/pascale-petit-fauverie-emmanuel.html

Kathleen says about this poem:

This is one of the poems from Pascale Petit's newly published collection Fauverie, from Seren Books. Emmanuel is the big bell that hangs in the south tower of Notre Dame in Paris and the poem, like others in this collection, concerns the death of a father and the powerful pull of a great city, as well as memories that are going to 'reverberate through a life'. But things are not exactly as they seem.

New poetry release by Jack Ross, Auckland

A Clearer View of the Hinterland:

Poems & Sequences 1981-2014

Author: Jack Ross

ISBN: 978-0-473-29640-7

Price: $30.00

Extent: 192 pages

Format: paperback

Publisher: HeadworX

Cover image: Painting by Graham Fletcher

A Clearer View of the Hinterland

The first of the 33 poems and sequences reprinted here was written in 1981, the latest in 2014 – a time-lapse of thirty-three years. As Paula Green put it in 99 Ways into NZ Poetry: “Jack Ross writes poetry like an inquisitive magpie, a scholar, a linguist and a hot-air balloonist … The end result, in contrast to some experimental work, promotes heart as much as it does cerebral talk.”

A Clearer View of the Hinterland is Jack Ross’s fifth full-length poetry collection, and his most substantial to date. It reprints four complete poetry chapbooks, as well as including extracts from numerous others. The poems on offer here include love lyrics, experimental texts, and translations from a variety of languages.

Critical comments:

Thought-provoking and challenging, a tantalizing maze, clashing ideas and images, mixing old and new forms, with wit, candour and self-mockery. – Harvey McQueen, JAAM

It’s hard to imagine a writer better equipped to give context through paratext than Ross, for whom form and format are always expressive. – Jen Crawford, brief

About the Author

Jack Ross’s publications include four full-length collections of poetry, three novels, and three volumes of short fiction. He has also edited numerous books and literary magazines, including – with Jan Kemp – the trilogy of audio / text anthologies Classic,

Poem of the week: Caracal by Pascale Petit

A desert lynx in a zoo prompts an elegiac reflection on death and nature’s carnivorous cycle

Carol Rumens - theguardian.com, Monday 29 September 2014

The big-cat house at the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in Paris is the focus of Pascale Petit’s new collection, Fauverie.
Previewing the collection on her blog last year, Petit explained that the word “fauverie” also conjures “a ‘fauve’ wild beast painting, a habitat of primal colour and encagement”. This week’s poem, Caracal, comes late in the collection and forms a moment of reflection, a cool breathing space, where quiet earth colours predominate and match the elegiac tone.
More

Dannie Abse, Welsh Poet And Author, Dies Aged 91

Book2Book Monday 29 Sept 2014

Welsh poet and author Dr Dannie Abse, the one-time winner of the Wales Book of the Year award, has died at 91.
The writer, who recently lived in north London, was once hailed as being "at the top of the Welsh tree" by the country's literary body and named a CBE for his talents in the 2012 New Year honours.

Guardian

When A Poet On The Page Is Also An Award-Winning Slam Poet

Arts Journal - WORDS Posted: September 28, 2014

“His ambivalence cut to the heart of the poetry world’s own resistance to performance poetry, which Miller described as ‘a fight between the poet who does his best work standing up, who finds his greatest eloquence on stage, and the poet who does his best work sitting down, who finds his greatest eloquence on the page.'”

Read the story at The Guardian (UK) Published: 09.28.14

4 Ways Amazon's Ruthless Practices Are Crushing Local Economies

Book2Book Saturday 27 Sep 2014

The price of Amazon's success is worker exploitation, the destruction of local enterprise and the creation of a corporate oligarch.

Alternet.org

Frankfurt Book Fair's 2017 Guest of Honor Is France

France will be guest of honor at the 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair. Prime Minister Manuel Valls officially accepted the invitation last week. The last time France was guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair was 1989.

According to a joint statement by Laurent Fabius, minister of foreign affairs, and Fleur Pellerin, minister delegate for small and medium-sized enterprises, innovation and the digital economy, the invitation "represents an outstanding opportunity for the French book industry to increase its international visibility and standing. Exporting our culture presents many challenges, from changes in the French-speaking community which now has 230 million members to the priority that should be given to the assignment of copyrights for works in the literary and humanities fields in emerging countries."

Finland is this year's guest of honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair, and will be followed by Indonesia in 2015, Netherlands and Flanders in 2016, France in 2017 and Georgia in 2018.

Shelf Awareness

Amazon & the 'End of Literary Culture in America'

Shelf Awareness

"It's very clear to me, and to those I represent, that what Amazon is doing is very detrimental to the publishing industry and the interests of authors. If Amazon is not stopped, we are facing the end of literary culture in America."

--Agent Andrew Wylie, who told the New York Times he was asking all the writers on his extensive list to join Authors United. Thus far, "Every single response without exception has been positive," he said.

Is The Google Library Project Fair Use (And Is It Hurting Authors)?

WORDS Posted: September 28, 2014

“Regarding the effect on potential market value — you think that might be something that would vary from book to book, but the court really did not consider it that way. It treated the books in the aggregate.”

The Crowd, Editing Books Before They’re Published

WORDS Posted: September 28, 2014

“With the author and other readers encouraged to respond to suggestions, the editing turns into a group conversation, potentially creating a real buzz in the runup to publication.”

"No Writer is an Island" - self-publishing vs. traditional publishing

Today's Feature Story:

"No Writer is an Island"

Self-publishing pros observed that the self-publishing vs. traditional publishing debate may be moot: it's all publishing. But what you want from it depends on you.

Discussion:

Introducing Albertine, NYC's Newest Bookstore...and It's French

A new bookstore has opened inside the French Embassy in New York promising to be a catalyst for a French-American dialogue of ideas.

More News:

The 29 Errors a Publisher Can Make...And Counting

Colleen Higgs of South Africa's Mondjaji Books recounts the myriad ways a publisher can screw up.

Self-Publishing:

2014 International Self-Publishing & Author Program at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Join the global publishing community at the Frankfurt Book Fair for this two-day, debut event for international authors, agents, and other industry professionals who want to learn more about global opportunities in self-publishing in the English-language market.

Get 10% off tickets with code Self-Publishing14Discount10 when you register at www.book-fair.com/selfpublishing.

Ursula K. Le Guin and Other Literary Heavyweights Call Amazon/Hachette “Censorship”

By Elisabeth Donnelly on Sep 29, 2014 - Flavorwire

In this morning’s New York Times, Ursula K. Le Guin has some strong words against Amazon, regarding the… Read More

The Roundup with PW

Literary Lions Unite Against Amazon : Hundreds of writers, including some of the world’s most distinguished, are joining the coalition against Amazon. Few if any are published by Hachette. And they have goals far broader than freeing up the Hachette titles.

Amazon's Effect on Local Economies : Jeff Bezos has forged an empire by exploiting low-wage workers and extracting billions in government subsidies, says Jim Hightower at AlterNet.

When a Book Tour Becomes a Circus : In an era when author tours and splashy book parties have grown increasingly rare, Lena Dunham has organized a traveling circus of sorts that seems more like a roving Burning Man festival than a sober, meet-the-author literary event.

Student Authors Who Pubbed Blockbusters: These authors wrote bestsellers before getting their bachelor’s degree — so prepare to feel either inspired or very, very lazy.

Guessing the Book from the First Line: A Buzzfeed quiz to test your knowledge on the first lines of famous books.

VIEW ALL »

Publishers Lunch

In author news, the NYT features Lena Dunham's upcoming book tour, "a traveling circus of sorts" offering a "carefully curated cast of artists, along with live music, poetry readings and, naturally, food trucks." Dunham says: "I found the idea of a traditional author tour, where you go and stand behind the lectern and talk about yourself, I found it a little bit embarrassing, a little blatantly self-promotional and a little boring." She adds, "I wanted it to have an arts festival feel, which is why we now have all these remarkable, special weirdos who I found on the Internet."

Another New York newspaper reporter continues to write at length about Authors United, as new writers -- including Ursula K. Le Guin, Philip Roth, Orhan Pamuk, Salman Rushdie, V. S. Naipaul and Milan Kundera -- are said to be signing on to the group's efforts.

In imprint news, the UK's Faber will start a paper line of Faber Modern Classics, set to launch in April 2015, with 10 titles to start and another 6 planned for June. The line will be overseen by associate fiction publisher Hannah Griffiths. CEO Stephen Page says: "Throughout its 85 year history Faber & Faber's reputation has been as a publisher or important literary work. This Modern Classics list is a new showcase for these often brave choices, to draw attention to them again for a new generation of readers."

In distribution news, IPG will distribute Wild Iris Publishing as of October 1, and Garlic Press as of November 1. Trafalgar Square will distribute Far Far Away Books, Pimpernel Press, Legend Times, Spineless Wonders, and Urbane Publications in the US and Canada, and is adding Canadian distribution for Canongate, Atlantic Books and Head of Zeus as of January 1. River North Editions will distribute Otago University Press, Enitharmon Press, Wolask and Wynn Publishers, and Gomer Press as of January 1. Finally, IPG's Spanish Language distribution arm has added Linkgua and Titiris effective immediately, and Cute Ediciones & P�ginas Libros de Magia as of January 1.

Monday, September 29, 2014

GIVE US THIS DAY A Memoir of Family and Exile - Book Launch Invitation

UNITY BOOKS & VICTORIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
WARMLY INVITE YOU TO THE LAUNCH OF

GIVE US THIS DAY

by Helena Wisniewska Brow

Monday 13 October, 6pm

Unity Books Wellington
57 Willis Street

About Give Us This Day: In June 1944, when 14-year-old Stefan Wiśniewski stood by his mother’s dusty Tehran grave, he knew his world was about to change again, forever.

Give Us This Day: a Memoir of Family and Exile explores the story of one of the 732 Polish child survivors of wartime Soviet deportation offered unlikely refuge in New Zealand. Seventy years later, and no closer to a longed-for Polish homecoming, Stefan’s New Zealand-born daughter revisits his past. What is the burden her father has carried all these years? And why is he unable – or unwilling – to let it go?

With an aging father and the ghost of a namesake aunt as her guides, Helena Wiśniewska Brow searches for meaning in the family lives shaped by exile: her father’s, her mother’s and her own.

Give Us This Day will be launched by Harry Ricketts. Refreshments will be served. Helena will be available to sign copies, hardback, $40.

All Welcome!

More Fool Me - Stephen Fry

NATIONAL treasure and everyone's favourite dinner guest, Stephen Fry is poised to take the world stage in one of the largest ever global book launches, with the hotly anticipated memoir, More Fool Me.

Cinemas from Oslo to Auckland will stream Fry's 90-minute comic tour de force solo performance, marking the launch of his third autobiography, and embracing the planet with trademark charm.

A heady tale of his scandalous life in the '80s and '90s, the award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and director burned bright and partied hard, enjoying everything high society and celebrity had to offer.

In his early thirties, Stephen Fry had, as they say, 'made it'. Much loved in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster, author of a critically acclaimed and bestselling first novel, The Liar, with a glamorous and glittering cast of friends, he had more work than was perhaps good for him.

Taking to excess like a duck to breadcrumbs, Fry wrote and recorded by day; while at night he haunted a never-ending series of parties, drinking dens and poker games, in a ludicrous and impressive act of bravado. He fooled all those except his inner circle, some of whom were most enjoyably engaged in the same dance.

He was - to all intents and purposes - a high functioning addict. At the turn of the '80s, AIDS became an epidemic and politics turned really nasty, he was so busy, so distracted by the high life, that he could hardly see the inevitable, headlong tumble that must surely follow . . .

'Oh dear I am an arse. I expect there'll be what I believe is called an "intervention" soon. I keep picturing it. All my friends bearing down on me and me denying everything until my pockets are emptied. Oh the shame.'

Containing raw, electric extracts from his diaries of the time, More Fool Me is a brilliant, eloquent account by someone driven to create and to entertain - revealing a side to him he has long kept hidden.

Equal parts humour and humility, readers can expect sterling prose and superlative name dropping by a man regarded as one of the most influential cultural forces ever known.

Regular host of QI and the BAFTAs, and star of The Hobbit, Fry has millions of followers on Twitter and plans to break boundaries with the launch of his book, utilising the latest in technology to celebrate. The Fry Chronicles was the biggest selling autobiography of 2010 in the UK, with sales topping the million mark.

Fry’s solo performance will screen in Rialto cinemas nationwide from November 1.

More Fool Me by Stephen Fry | Penguin Group (NZ) | Published September 25, 2014 | Hardback - rrp $55

How to be both - Ali Smith's Man Booker shortlisted novel has a unique structure

How to be both has a unique structure and is printed with the same ISBN but as two stories. Story/Version 1 and Story/Version 2. Both versions start with Page 1, but the order of the two main characters stories are reversed. The cover will be the same on both and it doesn’t matter which version the reader picks up, they still have the full reading experience.

A bonus for book reviewers as we are sent two copies of the same, but slightly different book !

How to be both is a novel all about art’s versatility. Borrowing from painting’s fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, it’s a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There’s a renaissance artist of the 1460s. There’s a child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real - and all life’s givens get given a second chance.

Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith’s novels are like nothing else.

How to be both has been shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

About the author:

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962 and lives in Cambridge. She is the author of Artful, There but for the, Free Love, Like, Hotel World, Other Stories and Other Stories, The Whole Story and Other Stories, The Accidental, Girl Meets Boy and The First Person and Other Stories. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize and The Accidental was shortlisted for the Man Booker and the Orange Prize.

Book Ends by Roger Hall

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/thedramahour/collections/drama-online/book-ends

The Great Rogatus by Stephen Oliver

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6lJ24iskxA&feature=youtu.be

The Great Rogatus written and read (above link) by Stephen Oliver is taken from:

8 / PROSE POEMS – handset in 12 pt Rockwell Light and printed individually on Conqueror laid card using an ARAB platen printing press. Each set is presented within a 7 inch, brown record cover board, and comes in a limited edition of 75 sets. Published and produced by Rob Lamb at Mirrorcity Letterpress, 9 Harbour Street, Victorian Precinct, Oamaru, NZ (2014).

https://www.facebook.com/MirrorcityLetterpress

email: mirrorcityletterpress@gmail.com

Stephen Oliver is the author of 17 volumes of poetry. Travelled extensively. Signed on with the radio ship The Voice of Peace broadcasting in the Mediterranean out of Jaffa, Israel. Free-lanced in Australia/New Zealand as production voice, narrator, newsreader, radio producer, columnist, copy and feature writer, etc. Lived in Australia for the last two decades. Currently in NZ. His latest volume, Intercolonial, a book length poem, published by Puriri Press, Auckland, NZ (2013). The poem is as much about Australia as it is New Zealand. A transtasman narrative.

The closing image (below) is of the Mexican painter Tomás Mondragón's Alegoría de la Muerte (Allegory of Death) from 1856.

The Rosie Effect

The Rosie Project was an international publishing phenomenon, with more than a million copies sold in over forty countries around the world. Now Graeme Simsion returns with the highly anticipated sequel, The Rosie Effect.

Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman are now married and living in New York. Don has been teaching while Rosie completes her second year at Columbia Medical School. Just as Don is about to announce that Gene, his philandering best friend from Australia, is coming to stay, Rosie drops a bombshell: she’s pregnant.

In true Tillman style, Don instantly becomes an expert on all things obstetric. But in between immersing himself in a new research study on parenting and implementing the Standardised Meal System (pregnancy version), Don’s old weaknesses resurface. And while he strives to get the technicalities right, he gets the emotions all wrong—and risks losing Rosie when she needs him most.

While it is both charming & humorous I don't rate it as highly as the first book - a hard act to follow of course.

Text Publishing - NZ$37.00 - 410 pages.

New Zealand book scores major international design award

Flatmate’s Handbook, produced by Massey University graphic design student Lauren Earl under the supervision of senior lecturer Annette O’Sullivan, was awarded a prestigious Red Dot Design Concept Award at a glittering ceremony in Singapore on Friday.

The book, a highly original combination of witty photographs and drawings with sage advice for flatters, was published by Awa Press last November under the title Flatter’s Survival Guide, with Whitcoulls snapping up the entire first print run.

The Booksellers Association blog described the book as ‘a gorgeous object – a luxurious hardback, printed on heavy card and exquisitely designed ... with the information being presented in a hilarious and informative way that is easy to read and a pleasure to the eye’.

Mary De Ruyter in North & South called Lauren Earl ‘the Gen-Y voice of house-sharing and dishes-avoiding experience ... and she knows her audience – the swish hardback can also be followed on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter’.

Kia Ora magazine said, ‘Forget giving them your old china as a going-away gift: this book is what they need. It’s funny, useful and handsome to boot – just like the very best flatmates.’

Despite the plaudits the book failed to make the shortlist of the 2014 Publishers Association book design awards.

Awa Press publisher Mary Varnham said, ‘We are thrilled that Lauren’s stunning book has caught the eye of one of the world’s top judging panels – we have had huge faith in this book from the beginning.’

The international Red Dot awards are given annually for products that show exceptional design qualities and innovation. This year’s award was judged by a 22-person panel