SHORT EASY BIKE RIDES 52 of New Zealand’s best

SHORT EASY BIKE RIDES

52 of New Zealand’s best

Kennett Brothers

Published 01 November 2015; RRP: $24.90

Cycling in New Zealand is booming again thanks to the many safe, easy, off-road cycle paths which have been created in recent years. This will be further boosted by the more than $300 million the government plans to spend on urban cycle ways over the next three years, as they create 250 kilometres of additional cycle paths and lanes. The end result is many more traffic-free paths for Kiwis to enjoy – time to get on your bike!

Short Easy Bike Rides showcases 52 of New Zealand’s newest, most picturesque and leisurely bike journeys – from the Bay of Islands to Auckland, the Waikato, Tauranga, Taranaki, Wairarapa, Nelson, the West Coast, Christchurch, Central Otago, Dunedin, Invercargill, and all points in-between.

These rides are all off-road and away from traffic, along wide, smooth paths, appropriate for any type of bike. Most are between one and two hours duration (although some longer, more challenging rides have also been included) on flat terrain. Suitable for all ages, levels of fitness and ability, each ride has been carefully chosen for its closeness to popular local attractions and major centres. Think delectable cafes, state of the art playgrounds, art galleries, local beaches, areas of outstanding natural beauty and iconic tourist destinations.

Short Easy Bike Rides makes bike riding a total experience; one which engages all the senses and makes being outdoors fun. Comprehensive and informative, the book features must-see destinations; makes recommendations about hiring bikes, where to eat, drink and stay; and contains maps and altitude graphs. There is also invaluable advice about family biking, what to wear, take and do along the way.

The Kennett Brothers (left) are passionate about optimising the public use and enjoyment of cycle trails and mountain bike tracks throughout New Zealand. They are the bestselling authors of many cycling books, design cycling/walking trails and mountain bike tracks, have been heavily involved with the government’s cycle ways initiative and, since 2009, have been working on the New Zealand Cycle Trail project.

Publisher:
Kennett Brothers Ltd.,
P.O.Box 11 310, Wellington
www.kennett.co.nz
info@kennett.co.nz

I Think That I Shall Never See / A Password As Secure As ... Poetry?

October 25, 2015

Camila Domonoske -  npr

i

Researchers at the University of Southern California have developed a system to create poems as secure passwords. 

Researchers at the University of Southern California have developed a system to create poems as secure passwords.

We all know "password" is no good, and "1234567" is asking for trouble.
But the more we try to strengthen our passwords, the harder we make them to remember.
It's a thoroughly modern problem — but researchers at the University of Southern California have found a very old solution. Instead of passwords, consider the passpoem:

The tiny villagers explore
a speaker company rapport

Turning random strings of characters into rhymed, metered verse was the brainchild of Kevin Knight, a senior research scientist at USC's Information Sciences Institute and a professor in their Computer Science Department, and Marjan Ghazvininejad, a Ph.D. student at the institute.
More

How the New York Public Library Is Reinventing Itself

The purpose is the same—but the technology is different.

By Tim Carmody  - Slate

The New York Public Library building, 1910.

Photo by Detroit Publishing Co./Library of Congress

This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. On Thursday, Nov. 12, Future Tense will host an event in Washington, D.C., on the future of the library. For more information and to RSVP, visit the New America website.

The future of libraries now has a very long history. Like all futures, it’s a moving target, changing as new experiences, expectations, and technologies change our sense of what’s possible. When the main branch of the New York Public Library opened on Fifth Avenue in 1911, it was a state-of-the-art futurist landmark, with pneumatic tubes zipping call slips to librarians who retrieved bound titles from enormous steel stacks and placed them on Ferris-wheel conveyor belts. Today, the building has been a historical landmark for 50 years, the tubes retired, the stacks empty. Yesterday’s futures become today’s nostalgic baseline

More

Sometimes All You Need Is Nora Ephron and Blueberry Pie

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Off the Shelf By Leora Bernstein    |   Friday, October 30, 2015 When I was seven years old, I became obsessed with New York City. You see, I had just watched my first Nora Ephron movie (You’ve Got Mail), and I knew I’d found the place where I belonged. But that’s just it: it wasn’t New York I loved. It was Nora Ephron’s version of New York. She knew how to make you laugh, make you cry, and most of all, make you adore the city she called her own through a strange mixture of elegance, charm, and self-deprecation. And that is what makes you adore Heartburn. READ MORE

The Roundup with PW

Random House Acquires First Book By Pope Francis
'The Name of God Is Mercy: A Conversation with Andrea Tornielli' will be published in January 2016. more » »

Adrian Lyne Joins 'Silent Wife': The Oscar-nominated director of 'Fatal Attraction' will oversee Nicole Kidman in the new thriller 'The Silent Wife.'

24 Tweets For Grammar Nerds: Spelling sticklers will enjoy reading tweets that correct grammatical errors with a splash of humor.

Honoring Ruth Rendell's Legacy: The memorial service for the 'respected and loved' crime writer took place on Thursday, October 29.

Sally Abbott Wins Richell Prize: The 'Closing Down' manuscript writer won Australia's literary award including a $10,000 prize.

2015's Technology Device Ownership: The Pew Research Center revealed new findings that indicate 68% of Americans have smartphones; 45% have tablet computers.

VIEW ALL »

Australian Lit Mag “Writer’s Edit” Launches Books, Builds Careers

 by Guest Contributor  October 30, 2015

Writer’s Edit, a Sydney-based literary magazine, has branched into books and is winning industry accolades and launching new careers.

By Bree Turner

Helen Scheuerer

Based in Sydney, Australia, Writer’s Edit was launched in July 2013 as a literary magazine featuring essays, writing prompts, author interviews and writing advice. Then in 2014 Writer’s Edit added publishing to its repertoire with Kindling, their annual anthology of creative writing.
Helen Scheuerer, founder of Writer’s Edit, started the magazine as a way of “testing the waters for starting a small press.” She knew that if Writer’s Edit could be maintained over time then she would commit to publishing books. It took just a year for their first book to be published: Kindling Volume I.  More

Latest news from The Bookseller including First book by Pope Francis

First book by Pope Francis to Bluebird Pan Macmillan has acquired the first book by His Holiness Pope Francis.

Blloon subscription service on brink of closure Another e-book subscription service is teetering on the brink of collapse after finding the business model unsustainable. Blloon, developed by the founders of e-reader Txtr, has stopped taking on news users and will make a decision as to whether to close for good today, its c.e.o Thomas Leliveld has told The Bookseller.

Nativity story re-told for War Child Nosy Crow is publishing a retelling of the nativity story by Anne Booth to raise money for War Child, a charity that supports Syrian refugee children.

Futurebook Audiobook Awards shortlist revealed Audiobooks from Canongate, Hachette, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan, Whole Story Audiobooks, Penguin Random House, Naxos, and Audible Studios have been shortlisted for the inaugural FutureBook Audiobook Awards, to be presented at the end of The Bookseller’s FutureBook Conference.

Ruth Rendell's 'remarkable legacy' remembered The ardent crescendos of the opera that Ruth Rendell delighted in scaled the heights of All Saints Margaret Street, W1, yesterday at the memorial service for the "respected and loved" crime writer.

Fry to join Canongate as comms director Canongate has appointed Jenny Fry, currently deputy communications director at Penguin General, as communications director.

Corbyn colouring book to be released Old Street Publishing is to release The Corbyn Colouring Book, an "adult colouring book with a sense of humour" inspired by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, in time for Christmas.

US survey finds decline in e-reader ownership E-reader ownership among US adults has declined by 13%, according to newly released survey data from the Pew Research Centre.

Stephen Hayward dies Stephen Hayward, who ran London independent publisher Serif Books, has died.

Jürgen Klopp biography to Ebury Ebury has acquired a biography of Liverpool Football Club's new manager, Jürgen Klopp.

Shah appointed at Scottish Book Trust SLIC c.e.o Amina Shah has been appointed as Scottish Book Trust’s new director of programme.

Mahal to chair FutureBook Conference Sandeep Mahal is to chair the FutureBook Conference 2015. Mahal, most recently director of The Space, will preside over the event, which takes place on 4th December at the Mermaid Theatre in central London. The full programme and preview of FutureBook 2015 has now been released by The Bookseller, with more than 500 delegates expected to attend what is Europe’s largest digital publishing conference.

There's A Jeremy Corbyn Colouring Books For Adults

Book2Book Friday 30 Oct 2015

It's the item we've all been waiting for: Someone's created a Jeremy Corbyn colouring book for adults, featuring dozens of drawings of the Labour leader ready to be coloured in.


buzzfeed.com

NZ Bookshop Day: 'Your Place, Your Bookshop'

Shelf Awareness - Friday October 30.

"A new wave of optimism among New Zealand's booksellers underpins the inaugural NZ Bookshop Day--Your Place, Your Bookshop," which is being held in 180 bookstores nationwide tomorrow, Booksellers NZ reported.

"The last few years have been tough for the book trade, but book sales are rising again and there's a positive outlook amongst booksellers. We're definitely thriving, rather than just surviving," said Booksellers NZ chair Mary Sangster, adding that NZ Bookshop Day "celebrates the unique place bookshops have in New Zealand life and their place in our communities. More than almost any other retail store, bookshops truly reflect the literary passions and personal styles of their owners. This inaugural NZ Bookshop Day is abrim with authors reading in bookshop windows, dress up events, quirky quizzes and competitions."

At Auckland's Time Out Bookshop, award-winning author Ted Dawe "will become an honorary staff member and serve behind the counter," Booksellers NZ wrote, adding that he "will now even be able to sell Into the River thanks to the decision made in mid-October by the Film & Literature Board of Review."

NZ Bookshop Day Ambassador Sir Bob Harvey observed: "All my life I've loved bookshops. Good bookshops are gems, they're such a treasure for us all. Making friends with bookshop staff means they know what you like, the authors you enjoy and they challenge you to read new works--and I always end up loving those too, and I learn so much! I challenge all Kiwis to get out on Saturday to enjoy their local bookshop events."

Shakespeare & Company's Paris Café Debuts

Shelf Awareness

"Fancy a Flapjack Kerouac?" asked the Guardian in showcasing the new café that opened recently next door to the legendary Shakespeare and Company bookshop in Paris, which had announced the development earlier this year. David Delannet, co-manager of the store, said the neighborhood has been excited and encouraging, with many remarking that it feels as if the café has always been there.

"Despite its small size, the café has a lighter and more modern atmosphere than the cramped bookshop next door, a famous hub for influential writers," the Guardian wrote. "Yet it shares the bookstore's signature eccentric charm. Dishes have names like 'the Flapjack Kerouac' or 'the Bun Also Rises,' and a version of the Proust Questionnaire lines the trays."

Penelope Todd on her memoir.................

'… a book to live by…'

Although, like most authors, I'm uncomfortable promoting my own work, I think of my memoir Digging for Spain as a good friend I'm prepared (even proud) to stand alongside and re-introduce. It's the book with which I've shocked family and made friends, and for which I've received the most fervent gratitude and my most disparaging (albeit anonymous) review. In 2005 I spent a month at the mildly chaotic artists' community of Can Serrat in Spain. There I collated notes, journals and written exchanges from the previous seven years, in which I'd observed with slow astonishment the reorientation of my inner world through the process of writing fiction and of taking stock. Interposed with these reflections, are the more immediate notes from Spain: on my fellow writers, on Montserrat where I roamed, on spiders, dreams and Barcelona.                                     Longacre Press published the memoir in 2006.  My daughter Alex Huber made the new cover image. I present it here as an ebook.  A few hard copies are available too, by reply to this email.  From the early pages:  I like to think there’s a story already sealed within each of us. Some of us take a long time to uncover, decipher and assent to it. We start our search when we find that the stories we’ve attached ourselves to prove no longer accurate, their themes too limited … I’m talking about the midlife  quest we’re invited on when all we’ve abandoned or ignored of our earlier impulses towards life begin to clamour for attention. … I knew I was in some kind of trouble the day my finger started jumping. From the original cover: Here is a portrait of the growth of a writer, of the challenges of faith, and the route one woman takes to reach a better accommodation with herself, and her family. It's a heartfelt and lyrical narrative — as the author questions her closest relationships, and some of the stifling patterns she has fallen into. Yet it will be instantly recognisable to anyone who has ever tried to juggle relationships, the craving for solitude, and the urge to write or to devote oneself to a career which demands total focus. Delicately written, yet tough at the core, Digging for Spain explores an intensely personal yet common rite of passage: that of a woman learning to separate her identity from motherhood, marriage, and beliefs formed in youthful inexperience. Buy Digging for Spain for NZD 8

30 of the Scariest Moments From Western Literature

By Jonathon Sturgeon October 29, 2015  Flavorwire

Here are 30 of the scariest moments I know of from the ever- controversial “canon” of Western literature — a surely fraught construction that should be perpetually revised, placed in check, and, in some cases, mocked.
…Read More

Slight delay to Ockham New Zealand Book Awards Longlist Announcement

The 2015 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards judges have requested an additional 24 hours to make their longlist decisions. They report being overwhelmed, due to the 18 month’s worth of entries received, and are anxious to  give each book careful attention.

The 2015 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards longlist will be announced publicly on Thursday 26 November.  

Children's Book News with PW

N.Y. Times' Announces Best Illustrated Children's Books
The New York Times has announced its 10 Best Illustrated List for books published in 2015. Maria Russo, children's books editor for the Times, convened this year's panel of three judges: illustrator Frank Viva, teacher Monica Edinger, and journalist

Little, Brown and Lincoln Center 

Shine New Light on Story Hour

On Halloween day, Manhattan's Lincoln Center debuts a new genre of programming, which springs from its first-ever partnership with a children's publisher – Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Called LC Kids Storytime at the Atrium, the collaborative venture offers free monthly events showcasing children’s book authors and illustrators. Headlining the inaugural program are R.L. Stine and Marc Brown, with their picture book The Little Shop of Monsters. more

And to Think That I Saw It at Bank Street: Authors, Illustrators, and Educators Talk Kids' Books

The Bank Street Book Fair, held at Bank Street College in upper Manhattan on October 24, offered a full day of incisive, humorous, and sometimes revelatory discussions. The speakers included middle-grade, YA, and picture book authors and illustrators, whose work spans multiple genres. more

In Brief: October 29, 2015

This week, an author and performer are united against censorship; two award-winning authors share laughter and insights; authors are red carpet-ready at a gala event; authors gather round the campfire; publishing staff get in the spirit of Dia de Los Muertos; and a debut author raises her own readers. more  

IN THE MEDIA

From the Wrap: Selena Gomez's 13 Reasons Why Given Series Order at Netflix. Click here From Forbes: Author Jeff Kinney Has Sold a Lot of Wimpy Kid Books – Can He Run a Bookstore? Click here From Publishing Perspectives: The Latest Trends in YA Publishing. Click here From the Toast: A Harry Potter Where Hermione Doesn’t Do Anyone’s Homework for Them. Click here From NPR: Rinse, Spin, Read to Kids: A Mashup of Laundromat and Library. Click here From the Houston Chronicle: Why Americans Love Little Golden Books. Click here From NPR: A New Alcott Emerges From The Annotated Little Women. Click here From Brightly: Inspiring Books on Autism for Kids, Tweens, and Teens. Click here From the Irish News: Irish children's authors pair up in new friendship tale.

From Deadline: YA Novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda Bought by Fox 2000. Click here From the Associated Press: Laura Bush and Her Daughter Jenna Are Co-Writing a Children's Book. Click here From Time: The 30 Most Influential Teens of 2015. Click here From the Guardian: Frances Hardinge's Cuckoo Song casts a spell over the British Fantasy awards. Click here From Slate: R.L. Stine: How Horror for Adults Is Different from Horror for Kids. Click here From Quill & Quire: The golden age of Canadian picture books. Click here From the Los Angeles Times: A Winnie the Pooh and Piglet illustration comes up for auction. Click here From Kidscreen: DC Super Hero Girls novels line up author, launch date. Click here From BookRiot: Incredible Literary Jack O'Lanterns. Click here