QUICK FLIPS – RECENT READING


Port Out, Starboard Home – and other language myths – Michael Quinion – Penguin Hardcover RRP NZ$35 UK 13.00 pds. Bought at UBS Christchurch on special at $30

Cut the mustard, the full monty, the real McCoy, curry favour, spitting image, straight and narrow, sling one’s hook, in like Flynn, kibosh, proof of the pudding etc etc etc

The author, a writer on language and researcher for the OED, explains the origins and meanings of these and hundreds of other words and phrases that we use in our every day speech. Fascinating, fun and invaluable for anyone interested in language.

Quinion is famous as the writer and editor of the newsletter and one of my favourite websites both called World Wide Words –
http://www.worldwidewords.org/

Do have a look at this site when you have the time.

Riding with Rilke - Reflections on Motorcycles and Books – Ted Bishop - Norton
NZ $48 US $23.95 Pub.by Penguin in Canada Can$32.00
Bought at Unity Books, Auckland

“Rilke is a German poet, and it is unlikely Ted actually rode with him, ‘cause he was dead by 1926, but if you’re an English professor from oot’ west I guerss you can imagine this sort of stuff….” – this from an online review.

English professor Ted Bishop suffers a fall from his motorbike, in fact breaks his back in two places, and as a result finds himself in an unusual situation, he finally has time to read everything he wants. This is his story, much of it about literature but also much about motorcycle journeys across North America and Europe.
Reminded me somewhat of that 1970’s classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Geography for the Lost– Kapka Kassabova – Auckland University Press NZ$25
Published in the UK by Bloodaxe.
Bought at The Booklover, Takapuna.,Auckland.




This from the remarkably talented Kapka Kassabova who writes, fiction, poetry and travel guides. Born in Bulgaria and living there until she was sixteen, she has since lived in the UK and New Zealand but these days seems a citizen of the world as she travels the globe. Presently in Edinburgh her latest work comprises travelling poems clearly written from the heart, and from her experiences.
KK will be back in NZ for the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival 24-27 May.

An excerpt from “I Want to be a Tourist”

I imagine my life as a city
Somewhere in the third world, or the second.
And I want to be a tourist
In the city of my life.


LITERARY LIVES - Edward Sorel Bloomsbury US US$14.95 NZ $36.00
Bought at Unity Books, Auckland.

Caricaturist Edward Sorel provides hilarious illustrated biographies of ten iconic literary figures – Tolstoy, Rand, Proust, Yeats, Hellman, Jung, Sartre, Eliot, Brecht & Mailer.
Great fun, an extravagance on my part but simply couldn’t resist it when I found it at Unity Books on my most recent visit.

Wild Mary – A Life of Mary Wesley – Patrick Marnham – Vintage NZ $30
Bought at The Booklover, Takapuna, Auckland.

I bought this for Annie. It has been widely and wonderfully reviewed and as she has read most of Wesley’s novels I thought she would find it fascinating. Sure enough she has been buried in it the last two nights. Marnham is a master biographer.He Is a former literary editor of the Spectator.

GOURMET TRAMPING IN NEW ZEALAND John Sawyer & Liz Baker.
Canterbury University Press NZ$29.50
My copy from the publishers.

The\is book is the brainchild of two keen outdoor enthusiasts who both happen to be food lovers and it is a delight. The authors have never been keen on boil-in-the-bag meals or scroggin and so have designed easy-to-make but delicious meals, and not only that but they have matched them with NZ wines!

The book does two things – it provides detailed, and illustrated tramping and direction instructions for 14 of New Zealand’s most spectacular two-day walks (from as far north as Great Barrier Island to Stewart Is in the south) as well as the aforementioned recipes and how to prepare them in the wilderness. Profusely illustrated throughout by superb full-colour photographs, featuring both meals and scenery, this gem of a book may revolutionise the way we Kiwis approach our tramping.


A MAN ABOUT A DOG – Euphemisms& other examples of verbal sqeamishness
Nigel Rees Collins NZ$50
Bought at UBS, Christchurch
Nigel Rees seems to have been writing about language forever. I certainly remember his books from the 1970’s, there was one on the subject of graffiti that was a best-seller back then. This book contains 2467 examples of what he terms “verbal perfume”. He has been writing and publishing on euphemisms since the mid-80’s but I reckon this is his best to date. He says a euphemism “describes the process of mincing words and the tendency that most of us have towards verbal sqeamishness”. Illuminating, entertaining and useful this 400+ page book will have an honoured place on my reference shelves

THE IMPERIAL, NEW DELHI by Andreas Augustin



Friends of ours recently stayed at this beautiful hotel in New Delhi, part of the Most Famous Hotels in the World group and on checking out were given this sumptuous, lavishly illustrated hard back book which is a history of the hotel and all the famous people who have stayed there over the years, Mahatma Ghandi, Nehru, Queen Beartix,Lord Mountbatten and others.


I gather similar titles are published for each property in the group.

www.famoushotels.org

IN GOD, DISTRUST

The new Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great-How Religion Poisons Everything, (Warner Books US$25), sure as hell is going to create a stir.

Michael Kinsley, a columnist for Time magazine,reviews this polemical work in the New York Times Sunday edition.

Author pic (left) by Mike Mahaney and cover image (above)by Christopher Nieman, both from the New York Times.

POTTERMANIA SEES GLUT OF SPIN OFFS

This story about the spin-off phenomenon from The Independent over the weekend.

WHAT HAPPENED TO LITERATURE UNDER BLAIR?

A friendly librarian has pointed out that I missed posting this piece from The Guardian last week. Happy to now oblige.

Photo of Paul Muldoon by Eamonn McCabe.

Perhaps a NZ journalist could investigate what has happened to literature under Clark?I suspect it would be a positive story.

BILL GATES ; Reading to go "completely online".

This from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Bill Gates pic by Andy Rogers, also from Seattlepi.com

HEAD TO HEAD WITH HARRY POTTER -This from The Bookseller 11 May, 2007. "Harry Potter on crack".

Serpent's sting for Harry Potter
11.05.07

Serpent's Tail is going head to head with Bloomsbury by releasing an adult-oriented "anti-Hogwarts" novel at the same time as the final Harry Potter, at midnight on 19th July.

Like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Danny King's School for Scumbags takes place in a boarding school, but instead of learning magic, boys learn thievery. "It's Harry Potter on crack," the publisher said. Inspiration for the midnight launch will be taken from the book and is being kept "under wraps". "The subscription won't be as big, but we expect to outsell HP7 by Christmas," said publisher Pete Ayrton.

Meanwhile, Bloomsbury has rebutted reports that HP7 will be delivered in containers fastened with steel chains, and remains tight-lipped over the company's security plans. "Of course we'll clamp down, we always do, [but] it's just too sensitive to talk about," said project manager Sarah Beal.
She batted away fears that, without the threat of being excluded from a future Potter title, retailers could break the embargo on HP7: "There's always a worry, but we trust our customers and we have a good relationship with them. An embargo is an embargo." Beal added that HP embargoes had never been "deliberately" broken in the UK.

No major retailer would comment on whether it expected the embargo to be broken or further price reductions on HP7, but W H Smith—which is pricing the book at £10.99 instore or £9.97 online—has upped its offer by throwing in two £5 vouchers redeemable on purchases over £12, in addition to a free copy of Garth Nix's Mister Monday.

Amazon.co.uk's pre-orders reached the 250,000 mark this week, after offering the book for £8.99 and guaranteeing release date delivery. The online retailer also promises a pre-order price guarantee so that customers benefit from any further reductions.
Tesco and Asda have both dipped below half price to £8.87, while Waterstone's is charging £8.99, and offering an exclusive Wizardology book free with each purchase. Play.com and Borders are both offering the title for £11.99.

A CHINESE WELSHMAN IN THE US.

Liz Hoggard writing in The Observer on Sunday reviews Peter Ho Davies' "brilliant debut Novel", The Welsh Girl, (Spectre).

CULTURAL AMNESIA – Notes in The Margin of My Time Clive James Picador
NZ RRP $60

I reviewed this book on Radio New Zealand National earlier today. We rather ran out of time so here is a full transcript of my notes in which I say rather more than we had time for while on air.

I suspect that most people know Clive James for his various television shows where he took light-hearted looks at various travel destinations, for his numerous guest appearances on television programmes like Parkinson , David Letterman & Jay Leno, and for his very funny sequence of autobiographies of which there have been 5 so far the latest being North Face of Soho.

So one tends to have an impression of him being a bit of a well-read buffoon constantly off on wild adventures and telling funny stories, a bon vivant, a raconteur extraordinaire, and while he is all of these things he is of course much, much more than that.

He is a highly educated, extremely literate, multi-lingual, deeply intellectual man who has had much poetry and fiction and a great deal of serious criticism published over many years, in addition to his somewhat light-hearted memoirs. He has degrees from Sydney and Cambridge universities, a number of honorary doctors of letters and is a Member of the Order of Australia. He is also married to a scholar and has two exceptionally bright adult daughters.

This new book, which is the size of a brick by the way and shouldn’t be read in bed, is a very serious read indeed. It is a big read, one I think that should be read a chapter at a time, perhaps a chapter a month. I have to confess that so far I have only read about half of the book properly although I have extensively dipped into it

Arranged alphabetically James provides an essay on more than 100 persons whom he considers were the great figures whose ideas helped shape the 20th century. He includes writers, thinkers, artists, musicians, philosophers, politicians, dictators and film makers.

I have to admit that while many of the names were well known to me almost half were people I had not heard of. For example they range in the well-known category from Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis to Beatrix Potter, Norman Mailer to Charlie Chaplin, and Mao Zedong to Margaret Thatcher.
Among the authors are Gustave Flaubert, Jorge Luis Borges, Albert Camus, Alan Moorehead, Mario Vargas LLosa, G.K Chesterton and of course Franz Kafka and Marcel Proust.

Most of the essays comprise thumbnail sketches followed by James’ comments on that individual’s importance , contribution and influence at the time and since and run to ten pages or less. But then every now and again, as in the case say of Georg Christolph Lichtenberg they are much longer with his running to 26 pages. Now Lichtenberg, one of the figures whose name was new to me lived from 1742 to 1799 but James says he “stands at the beginning of German modernity, and right in the centre of the country’s post-World War 2 concern with the recovery of liberal thought from historical catastrophe.”

And here is how his 10 pages of Jean-Paul Sartre opens:

“Radiating contempt for its bourgeois liberal conformity, Sartre (1905-80) looms in the corner of this book like a genius with the evil eye. For the book’s author, Sartre is a devil’s advocate to be despised more than the devil, because the advocate was smarter.”

And he then goes into the whole moral question of Sartre excusing many who while not killing anyone themselves gave orders for their subordinates to do so.

It is by and large pretty heavy and high brow intellectual stuff which I am sure will be cropping up as recommended reading in university philosophy, sociology and political science classes. In the end I guess his thesis is about the fragility of liberal democracy and the beatings it took from fascism and communism last century and that we must learn from this and never take our democratic freedoms for granted.

In conclusion here are the opening two sentences of the author's 14 page Introduction:

In the forty years it took me to write this book, I only gradually realised that the finished work, if it were going to be true to the pattern of my experience, would have no pattern. It would be organised like the top of my desk, from which the last assistant I hired to sort it out has yet to reappear.

Storylines Festival of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators 2007

Storylines Festival seminar tickets now available.
Story is a Place – featuring Shaun Tan (Australia) and John Boyne (Ireland)

The Heritage Hotels Seminar Series are stimulating evening events for adults interested in children’s literature, where you can hear top international authors talk about the thinking that underlies their books, with specific reference this year to how the keynote authors consider place and context in developing their work.

The 2007 seminars are at Heritage Auckland on 6 June, Heritage Christchurch on 7 June and National Library Auditorium in Wellington on 8 June. Tickets are on sale now from The Children’s Bookshop in Christchurch, The Children’s Bookshop in Wellington and Jabberwocky Children’s Bookshop in Auckland for the event in their city.

This year we have a superb author/illustrator from Australia, Shaun Tan, with a particular focus on his new wordless graphic novel The Arrival (currently finalist in the Australian Children’s Book of the Year Awards). Teachers with a focus on visual literacy will particularly find his presentation informative, as will those involved with speakers of English as a second language, for whom The Arrival reaches across the barriers of language to tell a story that is accessible for all. Shaun’s work has fabulous depth and detail and he has a great talent for sharing his work with the audience.

Irish novelist John Boyne is the author of the much-discussed The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – a story of childhood in the time of the Holocaust and winner of the Irish Book Award Children's Book of the Year and Listener's Choice Book of the Year. It is currently number one in the Irish Bestseller Charts, where it has been for 47 weeks so far.

John has written several novels for adults but this was his first for children, and he is currently in Budapest where a film of this powerful book is in production.

Originally, Carnegie medal winner Mal Peet was to have appeared at the seminars with Shaun, but his visit has been cancelled due to serious illness in the family.

Each seminar will be chaired by a different New Zealander – Bill Nagelkerke in Auckland, Mary McCallum in Wellington and Trevor Agnew in Christchurch. All are experts in various aspects of the book world with library, bookshop, reviewing and writing experience making them well qualified to lead these interesting events.

Seminars are preceded by drinks and nibbles and a chance to meet other children’s literature experts and fans. A bookseller will be at each event with time for signing at the end of the evening.

Early booking is recommended, tickets sold out last year. Full details on http://www.storylines.org.nz/

For further information about the seminars and the many other Storylines Festival events, to request photographs or arrange interviews please contact:
Crissi Blair
Storylines Festival Manager
Phone 09 836 1261
Email festival@storylines.org.nz

KEVIN HENKES, A GREAT US CHILDREN'S AUTHOR/ILLUSTRATOR

Bruce Handy writing in The New York Times ranks him a genius.

PRESCRIBED READING

Jerome Groopman writing in the New York Times Book Review this Sunday explains how you can whip up an Audiobook for Podcast.

Photo of Mignon Fogarty (by Andrew Adam Newman) who put an audiobook together in just a few days.

BEATTIE'S BOOK BLOG STATS

The past five days have been a fairly typical week in terms of visitor numbers:

Monday 228
Tuesday 222
Wednesday 224
Thursday 297
Friday 260

Total 1231

The numbers are slightly less on weekends so the full seven days will end up being around 1500 visitors which is pretty much the average. A pleasing feature is that a very high % of my visitors are unique visitors, that is they come directly to the site rather than via Google or other search engines.

The breakdown in terms of where visitors come from for these past five days is:

New Zealand 64%
USA 10%
UK 7%
Australia 6%
Japan 2%
Canada 2%

With the rest coming from all over, including - Columbia, Phillipines, Switzerland, Israel, India, South Africa, Spain, Yemen, Denmark, Argentina, Greece, Lebanon, Netherlands

THIS FROM THE MAY 11 ISSUE OF DUTTON'S BRENTWOOD NEWS & EVENTS

Odds and ends

Awards, awards, awards………It’s a wonder that authors have any time to write their books given the number of award dinners they must attend….

Lucille Clifton has won the 2007 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. The $100,000 award was established in 1986 and is presented by the Poetry Foundation. The prize will be given at a ceremony at the Arts Club of Chicago on May 23. Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine and chair of the selection committee, commented: "Lucille Clifton is a powerful presence and voice in American poetry. Her poems are at once outraged and tender, small and explosive, sassy and devout. She sounds like no one else, and her achievement looks larger with each passing year."

Meanwhile, the James Beard Foundation/KitchenAid Book Awards have gone to:

* Asian Cooking: Cradle of Flavor by James Oseland
* Baking and Dessert: Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie
Greenspan
* Cookbook Hall of Fame: Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen
* Cookbook of the Year: The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt
Lee and Ted Lee
* Cooking from a Professional Point of View: Grand Livre de
Cuisine: Alain Ducasse's Desserts and Pastries by Alain Ducasse
and Frédéric Robert
* Entertaining: The Big Book of Outdoor Cooking and Entertaining
by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison
* Food of the Americas: The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt
Lee and Ted Lee
* General: Tasty: Get Great Food on the Table Every Day by Roy
Finamore
* Healthy Focus: Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way by Lorna Sass
* International: The Soul of a New Cuisine by Marcus Samuelsson
* Photography: Michael Mina, photographed by Karl Petzke
* Reference: What to Eat by Marion Nestle
* Single Subject: The Essence of Chocolate by John Scharffenberger
and Robert Steinberg
* Wine and Spirits: Romancing the Vine by Alan Tardi
* Writing on Food: The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Hungry yet?

Dutton’s Brentwood
11975 San Vicente Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90049
310-476-6263
Duttons@earthlink.net

On the web

http://www.duttonsbrentwood.com/

CURLING UP WITH A GOOD EBOOK

Andrew Marr writing in the Guardian overnight gives the most throrough review I have yet read of an ebook reader.

This is worth reading, it might be the future.........

THE WHOLE STORY OF LIFE ON EARTH TO GO ONLINE

The ambitious plan to chronicle all species of life on earth was published in London's Telegraph newspaper yesterday.

An internet Encyclopedia of Life will list information on all 1.8 million known species of animals, plants and other forms of life.

INDEPENDENT BOOKSELLERS CLOSING AT AN ALARMING RATE IN UK

This story from The Bookseller Thursday:

Indie closures shock
10.05.07 Graeme Neill

Independent bookshops have been closing at a rate of more than one per week over the past 10 months.
The number of independent members of the Booksellers Association fell by 59 to 1,424 stores in the 10 months to April 2007, a drop of almost 4%. The vast majority of these stores have ceased trading over the past 10 months, although a small proportion will have failed to extend their BAmembership.
Last week, the In Other Words independent bookshop in Plymouth announced it was to close after 25 years of trading. Its founder, Prudence de Villier, said that "changing shopping patterns" were at the root of the problem facing independents. "Every time people buy a book from Amazon or Waterstone's or Tesco, they are taking money away from an independent retailer," she said. "So many people said to us when they heard we were closing that they should have shopped with us more."
BA c.e.o. Tim Godfray said he was "very concerned" about the number of independents closing. "Any one member closing is bad news for our organisation." But he pointed to a recent Book Marketing Limited survey, which found that between 2003 and 2006 independent bookshop sales increased 2% by volume and 10% by value. "While I am worried about the pressures on independent bookshops, it is in no way all doom and gloom," he said. "Some independents are flourishing."
The BA's indie membership has fallen by almost a quarter over the past 10 years. In April 1997, there were 1,839 independent bookshop members of the BA, compared to 1,424 in April 2007. While the number of indies has fallen over the past 10 years, the total number of BA member outlets has risen to 4,410 now from 3,281 in April 1997, an increase of more than 34%. However, the total number of member outlets, both independent and chain, fell during the past 12 months by 1.9% from 4,495 to 4,410.

And here is an American slant on the same situation in that country.

Dancing with the Penguin and Reed stars

This from yesterday's Booksellers Brief 2007 # 18:

As announced earlier this week Pearson has signed an agreement to acquire the business of Harcourt Publishing. This is part of a global deal which includes all Harcourt’s educational publishing operations in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It also includes Harcourt’s consumer publishing business in New Zealand, the iconic and multi award-winning Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd. In Australia and New Zealand there are regulatory processes to be gone through by the competition authorities (ACCC and NZCC) before the acquisition can be finalised (This process can take several weeks). In the meantime it is very much business as usual for Pearson and Harcourt.

Image above from Wikipedia ballroom dancing website.

WAR POET'S MEDAL TURNS UP IN ATTIC

I am a fan from way back of Siegfried Sassoon so this headline in The Guardian overnight caught my attention.

I have just pulled off the shelf, The War Poems - Siegfried Sassoon - published by Faber & Faber in 1983 so I'll take some time off now to do some reading.

This collection is arranged and introduced by Rupert Hart-Davis.

Author pic from Wikipedia website.

Here is a poem from the above collection:

SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

COLUMBIA ROAD FLOWER MARKET
When we are in London, sadly only every two or three years, we often stay with our old publishing friend Fiona at her East End home.

One of our great treats is to visit the Columbia Road Flower Market on the Sundays we are there.

So it was with interest that I read a story by Anthony Lane about Julie Christie in the May 7 issue of The New Yorker.


Here is the first para:

Columbia Road, in the East End of London, is thronged at the weekends. Every Sunday, it blooms into a flower market.
Visit on a weekday, however, when the street is noiseless and half the shops are shut, and you may think you have strayed onto a film set.
So it felt appropriate to see Julie Christie arrive on Columbia Street one recent Friday. Her limousine of choice was an old bicycle with a wicker basket, and her entrance, through the doors of the Royal Oak pub, could not have been less grand. Of the two solitary drinkers there, only one looked up.


To read the full interesting piece about Julie Christie, its only three columns, use this link.

TRENDY BUT CASUAL

I reviewed Paula Morris' latest, and most hilarious novel back on 12 April.

Now Annie has laughed her way through it too. Her favourite few lines from right near the end of the book:

".......But Jane Eyre didn't live in New York, and she didn't have all my opportunties and experiences. She never knew the joy of walking down Eighth Avenue and being asked, as I was just last week, if she wanted her shoes shined, soul saved or breasts sucked, all within a three-block stretch. (The shoe shining was five bucks, but the other two were free.)"

Paula Morris appears at The Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, May 24-27,

WWW.READINGIT.COM

A press release yesterday from Fred Stewart of readingit.com read as follows:

www.readingit.com is to extend its range of products to include self published print books. Currently their website markets and distributes a large range of eBooks and audio books locally and internationally. Fred Stewart Managing Director of Readingit Corporation Ltd based in Tauranga stated that his decision to move into printed books was prompted by disappointed authors unable to distribute their self published works through the normal retail channels. The likely event that they were able to break through these barriers left them with a 3% return if they were lucky.
The idea of marketing eBooks as a download through a website came to Fred back in 1999 while working on his first novel. After a considerable amount of research, he decided to purchase a number of .com website addresses relevant to the industry and sell his own book as an eBook. Since then other publishers and authors want to be involved with his business. Within three months readingit expect to have well over 600 titles online and by adding published print books to their site will dramatically increase this number. Their first month online attracted 400 hits and in three months that number has increased to over 50,000. It is forecasted that within 5 – 10 years, eBooks will represent 50% of all fiction sales.
Fred’s first book ‘The Corporate Web’ will be released at the Auckland International Airport on 18th May 2007 as an eBook, audio book and in published print during a joint promotion with Publishme a division of the Zenith Publishing Group. Guests at this function will include the
Hon Maurice Williamson, prominent business persons, representatives from writers groups, authors, news media and readingit business partners Palm Reader and Microsoft.
Readingit promote books through their website for free and retain a small commission on each sale to cover their costs. The sight operates internationally and who knows with international exposure we may yet have another Dan Brown hiding in our midst.
For further information contact
Maurice Smyth ERINZED MEDIA ph 09 292 6228 or thesmyths@ihug.co.nz
Fred Stewart 07 542 0979 or fred@readingit.com

THE BEST FICTION OF 2006

According to The Boston Globe that is....................

AMAZON UK CLOCKS UP 250,000 ADVANCE ORDERS FOR HARRY POTTER

Astonishing story from The Bookseller today.

Amazon.co.uk has seen pre-orders of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, reach the quarter of a million mark. The UK pre-orders, at an initial price of £8.99, make up a quarter of Amazon's worldwide reservations for the final installment in J K Rowling's series.
"The sales of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in the UK and across the globe are eclipsing those of the previous Harry Potter books by a considerable margin," said Christopher North, head of books at Amazon.co.uk. "Although the children's version remains the bestseller, we have seen astrong uplift in sales of the adult version compared to previous years, perhaps illustrating that people who have grown up reading Harry Potter are taking their love of the series of books into adulthood."
Amazon.com said it was confident that sales would outstrip the 1.5 million pre-orders for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ahead of its release in June 2005. It took 174 days after the announcement of the publication date for the retailer to reach the one million order mark with Half-Blood Prince; with Deathly Hallows the milestone has been reached in 94 days.

How to watch a bird

I must say when I first heard that Steve Braunias had written a book on birdwatching I thought someone was having me on.

The fact that Braunias, the sometimes funny, occasionally cynical and often sharp-tongued columnist with the Sunday Star Times, can write is not in question. He did after all win the Best First Book of Non-Fiction at the 2002 Montana NZ Book Awards and he has previously been a feature writer at Metro and deputy editor at the Listener.

But birdwatching? How the hell did that come about?

Well you might say it was something of an epiphany. One night in late January he was visiting Emily in her city apartment and when he stepped out on to her balcony for a cigarette a black-backed gull flew right past only a few feet away.

With that he became hugely interested in feathered birds of all kinds, those in the city, those on the coast and those in the country. He became a birdwatcher. 2006 became his year of birds.

Here he is talking of that year:

I took down names. I saw birds I never knew existed. I became fascinated with
birds that no longer existed, and with the literature of birds, with the social
history of watching birds in New Zealand.
I learned things. I shared pleasures. I saw another New Zealand, a particular geography where its borders and centres were defined by birds – a feathered New Zealand.
And I saw another kind of New Zealander, their lives transformed, consumed, by birds.
I loved seeing what they had seen, that year, and years before. I loved
discovering a simple truth: to watch a bird is to see the world in a completely
different way.

His book is charming and compelling and captivating.

Each of the 17 chapters is fronted by a black & white bird photograph mostly taken in the 1940’s which is a rather nice touch.

And it couldn’t be published in a more appropriate list than in Awa Press’ Ginger Series. It seems right at home there with Kevin Ireland’s How to Catch a Fish, Justin Paton’s How to Look at a Painting, How to Read a Book by Kelly Ann Morey, How to Catch Cricket Match by Harry Ricketts and all the others in this wonderful series of “captivating reads for curious people”.

The Listener described Awa Press as “a specialist non-fiction publisher that has rapidly established itself as one of the most interesting small presses in the country”.
I heartily endorse those sentiments and I offer the author and the publisher my congratulations on this new title.

Heart warming, entertaining and enchanting, it was a real surprise to me.

How to Watch a Bird Steve Braunias Awa Press NZ RRP $25

Village Bookshop at Matakana

Matakana is about an hour’s drive north of Auckland and is fondly referred to by some as the Tuscany of New Zealand because of the extensive plantings of grapes and olives and the general soft appearance of the countryside.

These days increasing numbers of visitors are drawn there by the splendid Farmers Market held every Saturday and the new Village that is growing up around the Market.

The latest, and most welcome addition to the Village is the Village Bookshop, owned and operated by Tracey Lawton. Now open two weeks Tracey is delighted with the crowds the shop is attracting. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are her big days but there has been a pleasing steady flow of customers on week days too.

The shop is well stocked with the latest fiction and non-fiction titles along with a nice range of backlist titles. There is a separate children’s section, “under the tree”, which is proving most popular.

Good luck with your new venture Tracey, the Village Bookshop is a delightful addition to Matakana Village.

LIONEL SHRIVER: WHY SHE'S WORRIED ABOUT THE PUBLICISING OF HER NEW BOOK

One of the starts of the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival (May 24-27) talks to The Independent.

Author pic by Jerry Bauer from the Harper Collins website.

TINTIN'S NEW ADVENTURES

Sacrilegious some might say..............this from The Guardian.

Illustration from Wikipedia.

PENGUIN NEW ZEALAND TO TAKE OVER REED NEW ZEALAND

I am now reliably informed that when Pearson acquired the two US Harcourt educational units (my blog of 5 July) they did indeed also acquire Reed NZ and I gather that the NZ staff of both companies have been informed of that news without any details as to how and when this will all take place.
It would be a reasonable guess though that Pearson's NZ educational publishing arm will take over the various educational pieces of Reed while Penguin NZ will absorb the Reed NZ publishing perhaps maintaining the Reed name as an imprint.
And sooner rather than later.

During my years at Penguin Books NZ the UK parent company acquired a number of publishing houses - Michael Joseph, and Hamish Hamilton are two that spring to mind - and in all cases the staff and lists of the companies were subsumed into Penguin with the company names remaining as imprints.
This is pretty standard practice and is seen at Random House NZ for example where local publisher Godwit was taken over and the name kept as an imprint.

How ironic though that Reed are celebrating their centennial this month with a series of trade parties around the country and have just published the beautiful WHARE RAUPO - The Reed Books Story.

Shades of Borders still opening new stores in NZ while announcing that they are selling up!

Watch this space, more news as it comes to hand.

THE BIBLE

I was reading a back issue of The New Yorker, dated December 18, 2006, and came across a fascinating piece on Bible publishing in the US.

Titled The Good Book Business it was by Daniel Radosh here is a paragraph that amazed me:

The familiar observation that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time
obscures a more startling fact: the Bible is the best-selling book of the year,
every year. Calculating how many Bibles are sold in the US is a virtually
impossible task, but a conservative estimate is that in 2005 Americans purchased
some 25 million Bibles – twice as many as the most recent Harry Potter book. The
amount spent annually on Bibles has been put at more than half a billion
dollars.

And this:

…other research has found that 91% of American households own at least one
Bible – the average household owns four – which means that Bible publishers
manage to sell 25 million copies a year of a book that almost everybody already
has.

If you would like to read the whole, quite remarkable story from The New Yorker click here.

BLOOKER PRIZE TO BE ANNOUNCED 14 May

Nick Cohen writing in The Guardian explains that a blook is a cross betwenn a blog and a book!

PENGUIN AND HARPER COLLINS AT WAR

This story from The Times, 8 May.

Cover illustration from the Wikipedia website.

THE BATTLE OF CRETE 1941

Following the occupation of Greece in World War 2 , German forces invaded Crete by parachuting thousands of troops into the Chania district where they seized the airport on 20 May 1941.

The Battle of Crete that followed lasted 10 days during which time there were huge casualties on both sides. Allied troops were eventually evacuated with the help of locals and four years of German occupation followed.

Last September Annie and I spent a wonderful four days in Chania (pronounced Hania), in the western part of Crete, staying in the old Venetian quarter around the harbour. One day we hired a car and drove about 20 minutes south east of the city to Souda Bay to visit the Commonwealth War Cemetery, the burial ground for more than 1500 British, New Zealand and Australia soldiers killed in the Battle of Crete.

It is a place of tranquility and peace, beautifully and respectfully cared for but it is also a place of unbelievable and overwhelming sorrow and as we walked among the hundreds of headstones and read the names and ages and home locations of the young men we wept uncontrollaby.

We spent three hours there and in the end felt strangely reluctant to leave.I often think of that day and get out the photos we took and ponder on the awfulness and waste and uselessness of war.

It was then, with great anticipation that I opened REMEMBERED:THE HISTORY OF THE WAR GRAVES COMMISSION just published by Merrell Publishers (distributed in NZ & Aust. by Bookwise International).

I was not to be disappointed. This large, sumptuous, hugely appealing book is a very special publication indeed.

The first 40 or so pages deal with the history of the War Graves Commission and then follows 150 pages of beautiful full colour photographs featuring the many war cemeteries that are to be found all over Europe and several in other places too - India, Singapore, Canada.

The book has been published to mark the 90th anniversary of the Commission's establishment by Royal Charter and in its own special way it is a fine tribute to those who died and ensures that they will not be forgotten.

The images are powerful and moving and the book deserves the widest possible readership. As the author says in the conclusion of her interesting and readable history: "It is vital for the future of commemoration that each new generation feels that the work of the Commission is relevant to their today and their children's tomorrow."

I hope that at very least every RSA and RSL club throughout New Zealand and Australia will purchase a copy of this superb book for the benefit of their members. I am sure that many who lost loved ones in battle will want to own a copy of their own. And it goes without saying that every library should have a copy too.

It is a truly beautiful, and very important publication.

Details: Remembered:The History of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Author:Julie Summers Photographer: Brian Harris

Publisher:Merrell (Bookwise International in NZ & Aust.) NZ RRP $99.95

I should also note that Julie Summers is a widely published writer and historian who has previously worked at the Ashmolean Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, while Brian Harris is a highly-awarded photographer and was the foundation chief photographer at The Independent when it launched in 1986. They make a formidable team.

W. H. Auden Centenary Celebration, 23 and 24 June

Poet, playwright, librettist and critic W. H. Auden (1907-1973) was one of the great masters of English literature, with a technical virtuosity bordering on wizardry.

To celebrate the centenary of his birth, Christ Church, Oxford in association with the Festival are offering a programme of events at Christ Church.

Click here for more information, details of the speakers, and the booking form.

Author pic from Wikipedia website.

BEST NEW ZEALAND POEMS SERIES FEATURED ON WIKIPEDIA

New Novel Review

The May/June issue of this appealing 20 page booklet, called The Festival Issue, is out and can be picked up in various bookstores and cafes around Auckland and Wellington.

There are eight major reviews of “fresh fiction that’s worth your time” as well as four mini reviews and four pages on the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival which over a period of four days, May 24- May 27 – offers 65 events featuring 120 writers.

The major reviews cover a most interesting selection of titles from New Zealand and around the world.

They are

What is the What Dave Eggers Hamish Hamilton NZ RRP$50

Wounded Percival Everett Faber and Faber NZ RRP $35

Mr.Allbones’ Ferrets Fiona Farrell Vintage NZ RRP $28

When to Walk Rebecca Gowers Canongate NZ RRP $35

On Chesil Beach Ian McEwan Cape NZ RRP $35

After Dark Haruki Murakami Harvill NZ RRP $50

Divisadero Michael Ondaatje Bloomsbury NZ RRP $50

The Post-Birthday World Lionel Shriver Harper Collins NZ RRP $37

New Novel Review is designed to help serious readers select new fiction from the vast array that confronts one on entering a bookstore. It is an attractive and invaluable tool with a talented and experienced bunch of reviewers.

New Novel Review is free from selected outlets but in response to demand from readers it can now be obtained on mailed subscriptions so if you would like to be assured of getting each issue on publication then you can do so for a mere $20 a year (within NZ) and support this excellent publication at the same time. There are 5 bi-monthly issues per year.

Send your cheque for $20 with postal details and phone number (optional) to:

New Novel Review
P.O.Box 68 817,
Newton,
Auckland 1145.

THE GUARDIAN HAY FESTIVAL TO GET DAILY TV COVERAGE

This excellent news from the Scotsman.

More details on the Festival being held

24 May-3 June from their website.

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN WINS BOLLINGER PRIZE

The accolades continue for this remarkable first novel which I reviewed on Radio New Zealand National and blogged back on 14 February.

This report from the Guardian on the Bollinger prize for humorous fiction winner .

HARRY TO BE SOLD AT HALF PRICE

From the Guardian today...................