A Guilty Pleasure

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Becca on Book Stack blog.

My friend and I were discussing guilt earlier today.

Specifically, guilt about reading.
My friend just celebrated her 70th birthday, and has been retired from her high school teaching position for about five years. But since that time she’s (1) resurrected a choir program at her church; (2) written a classroom guide to integrative concert planning for music teachers; and (3) created a program of arts classes for senior citizens. She is now in the process of starting a local community theater group, and is kicking it off with a musical theater summer camp for middle school students.

Today, I was telling her that I had visited my former office today to pick up some “homework” for next week, and that I was feeling a bit guilty about all the stress my replacement was feeling.
“I still feel guilty about having so much free time,” she told me. “I feel guilty about being able to sit all afternoon and just read, even though that was something I dreamed about having time to do when I was working all those years.”
I laughed, because I feel guilty about reading too – at least during the day. I “allow myself” reading time first thing in the morning, and last thing at night. But to just sit down during the day and read for a while – never do it. I want to do it, but whenever I do, I immediately start thinking about all the other things I should be doing instead. Like laundry, or cooking, or working on my basement cleaning project, or pulling the weeds in the garden, or catching up with friends I’ve neglected, or practicing piano.
I still remember the years when my son was a baby and I was home full time with him – he was a good napper until he was about three years old, and I had long blocks of time each afternoon when he was sleeping. But I was always leery of making noise in the house, so I’d sit and read while he napped. I justified this without feeling guilty because I was making sure I didn’t disturb his nap.
Short of having another baby – which certainly isn’t happening – I don’t have any good reason to just sit and read anymore.
Other than that I want to.
And shouldn’t that be reason enough?

Image above - Getty Images.

YA Author John Green to Sign All Preorders of Next Novel

John Green.

By Claire Kirch in Publishers Weekly
Jun 29, 2011

After revealing Tuesday on a YouTube video that the title of his next novel is The Fault in Our Stars, YA author John Green made a second announcement that has some of his 1,140,780 Twitter followers, 61,714 Facebook friends, 525,676 YouTube subscribers, and other fans buzzing today. Not only buzzing, but also rushing to preorder The Fault in Our Stars, even though its tentative pub date isn't until May 2012, and the cover art hasn’t designed yet. Within hours of the announcement, the book shot to #1 on Amazon.com and bn.com, where it remains on both sites as of press time.

The sudden burst of excitement about a book that’s still in manuscript format is because Green promises that every single preordered copy of The Fault in Our Stars that’s published by Penguin’s Dutton imprint will be personally signed by him, using a Sharpie pen.

“No matter where you buy it,” he wrote on Twitter, suggesting that readers preorder it from either Amazon.com, bn.com, or their local booksellers, “even if you order it a week before it comes out.” Green explained, first on YouTube, and then on Twitter, that he is going to accomplish this feat by signing the sheets of paper before the books in the first print run of the U.S. edition are even bound. In an interview, Green told PW that the sheets of paper will be delivered to his home in Indianapolis, and he will sign them. The signed sheets will then be transferred to a Penguin warehouse for storage before they are delivered to the printer.

He promises to document the process in a series of live videos, which he will post on YouTube. Within the past five years, Green has taped and posted 800 three-minute videos of him discussing the writing and editorial process. Since 2008, many of the videos he’s posted have been of him explaining the writing and revising process around The Fault in Our Stars. He’s committed, he said, to using social media to share the entire process of creating his books with his fans, in order to better connect with them.

In his official announcement, posted on Tumblr on Tuesday, Green gave several reasons for deciding to sign all preordered copies of The Fault in Our Stars: he likes his fans and want to thank them for reading his books in “this media-saturated world”; he can’t tour everywhere, and “it seems weird to preference readers who live near big metropolitan areas of the U.S. over other readers”; and “I think it will be kind of fun unless my hand falls off.”

It was an idea inspired by a conversation with his editor, Dutton publisher Julie Strauss-Gabel, in which they brainstormed how to “provide something special,” Strauss-Gabel said, for those of his fans who can’t avail themselves of an opportunity to see him in person when he’s on tour.

Green expressed confidence that he’ll be able to sign however many copies he has to, no matter how large the print run. He enjoys signing his name, he insisted, disclosing that he’s not joking when he says he enjoys meditation and “repetitive work” as well.

While Penguin has never performed this feat on such a grand scale before, associate publicity director Elyse Marshall doesn’t anticipate any logistical problems in transferring large quantities of sheets of paper around the country in a timely fashion to fulfill Green’s promise to his fans. “It’s great to know that readers are so excited about print books that they are jumping on this so quickly,” she said.

The title, The Fault in Our Stars, is a reference to the famous line in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars/But in ourselves, that we are underlings.” The Fault in Our Stars, a novel about teens dealing with terminal illnesses, features Green’s first female narrator, 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster, who is battling thyroid cancer.

Whitcoulls will 'evaluate' Kahui book before deciding

Friday July 1, 2011

Macsyna King - the mother of the Kahui twins - will tell her story in 'Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case,' written by journalist Ian Wishart. File photo / Dean Purcell

Whitcoulls, New Zealand biggest book retailer, says it will make a decision on whether to stock an upcoming book about the deaths of the Kahui twins after it is finished and the company has a chance to read it.
Two major book retailers, Paper Plus and the Warehouse, have already announced they will not stock the book.

The book, Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case, was written by journalist Ian Wishart and the twins' mother Macsyna King.
Whitcoulls acknowledged there was a great deal of interest in the book but until it was finished it would be "premature to make any further comment".

Full story at New Zealand Herald

And here also on the Herald website is the full text of Brian Rudman's column yesterday'
Shopkeepers cave in to a new generation of book burners

Page & Blackmore bookstore not stocking King's book

Footnote:
I applaud Whitcoulls stance to at least read the book before making a decision as to whether or not to stock it ! 

Tennis by the Book

Literary entertainment at the New York Times

Illustration by Stephen Savage

Published NYT: July 1, 2011  - By TOURÉ - 


Link here.

Why You Should Own Your Domain Name

By Maryann Yin on Galley Cat. July 1, 2011 1:23 PM

Having an online presence is critical for writers to market their work. In a recent blog post, author John Scalzi urged writers to purchase their own domain name online.
Scalzi (pictured, via) reminded readers that before Facebook, Internet users migrated between AOL, Friendster, MySpace and other sites. He encouraged writers to use trendy tools to connect with readers, but stressed the importance of owning a steady domain like “www.yourname.com.”

Here’s an excerpt from his blog post: “If you’re going to be online, it’s best to have a site that isn’t at the whims of stock evaluation, or a corporate merger, or an ambitious executive’s ‘content strategy,’ or whatever. Ultimately, your online home should be something you control, and something you can point the people at Facebook (or MySpace, or Friendster, etc) to. Having one’s own domain isn’t always simple and has its own share of headaches (as you will find if you ever have the need to change your ISP), but at the end of the day what it has is stability.”

Go ask Alice

Very Short List -  JULY 1, 2011

FILM Alice in Wonderland

W. W. Young’s Alice in Wonderland (1915) is Alice without the magic, or rather with a plodding magic that knows nothing of the uncanny.  “Things we do and things we see shortly before we fall asleep are most apt to influence our dreams,” the first title card explains. In case you are not clear, when the ghost of the lanky but nicely pert Alice arises from her flesh-and-blood bored-to-sleep self to see a pantomime White Rabbit, she skips along past a large arrowed sign: TO WONDERLAND. It’s an early exercise in trick photography (trick photography, where are you now?), but the static camera and literalism make for a very long 52 minutes.  This is an Alice to keep the kids from having bad dreams, not one to shake you awake with a new, dangerous look at the world. Try Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow’s even earlier version, 8 minutes of which has been salvaged by the British Film Institute (1903). It has an Alice who, though she may be in her thirties, has as sour and sullen a face as you might hope for. She is all stubborn resistance to the strangeness going on in the back of her mind. There are no signposts here, and when Alice gets too big for her boots, or rather the house she alarmingly outgrows, it is genuinely disturbing. It helps that this is a fragment, burned out at the edges, barely salvaged. Justlike Wonderland ought to be. —Jenny Diski is the author of What I Don’t Know About Animals, The Sixties, and many other books, and a frequent contributor to the London Review of Books. She’s currently writing a book about melancholy. Very Short List

When is a writer not a writer?

Simon Acland - BookBrunch


When he or she publishes her own book, it seems. Or at least it seems that way to some of those in the literary establishment who run book prizes and organise writers' associations, writes Simon Acland

Self-published books are excluded from most literary awards, and the Historical Writers Association will accept you as a member only if your novel has been published by a third party commercial publisher, as I found out when my own application was turned down.

Marcel Proust, James Joyce, DH Lawrence, and Mark Twain are among the literary giants who might have fallen foul of these rules. Would Sir Walter Scott have been excluded from entering the historical novel prize that now bears his name as a result of being a partner in the publishing house that brought out his books (and nearly crushed him when it crashed)?

My writing lies leagues below those giants'. And of course the people who run awards and associations are entitled to set whatever rules they wish. But drawing an arbitrary quality line between "published" and "self-published" displays a quaint misunderstanding of the state of the publishing industry today.

Nothing Like a Dame

From Mike Ripley's blog - Getting Away with Murder

I am rarely asked to be a judge for anything these days, as most judging positions in the crime fiction field are now stipendiary or even hereditary, so it was a distinct honour to be asked to represent the UK – nay, Europe – on an international panel to decide the 2011 Dame Ngaio Marsh Award for best crime novel by a New Zealander.

In fact it is a double honour, for I have been invited back as a judge after serving last year for the inaugural award and despite the fact that I totally failed to predict the winner and discovering that the time difference between Ripster Hall and New Zealand does not work in my favour when it comes to putting a bet on after hearing the result.

The judging panel for this year’s ‘Ngaio’ comprises: myself, a Canadian, an American and a clutch of New Zealanders including the ace crime fiction blogger Craig Sanderson, who masterminded the creation of this award with its splendid trophy and indeed has set up an interweb page dedicated to the Award at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ngaio-Marsh-Award-for-Best-Crime-Novel/233991183282311

Cheetham leaves Atlantic Books

The Bookseller -01.07.11 |

Philip Jones

Anthony Cheetham has left Atlantic Books and resigned as a director of the company. It is understood that Cheetham left the publisher yesterday (30th June) with a memo circulated internally announcing his departure. His role has been under discussion for weeks, and rumours of the split have been circulating for some time.
Cheetham described his resignation as a "joint decision" made with Atlantic chief executive Toby Mundy. Cheetham told The Bookseller: "There wasn't a huge amount for me to do at Atlantic, and the projects that I had envisaged working on were not really happening because it has been a difficult year for the company."


Speaking from his home near Evesham, Cheetham said that having overseen the launch of Corvus, run by his son Nicolas Cheetham, he felt it was time to move on and take those projects elsewhere. "I could have stayed on in some kind of non-executive role, but I thought there would then end up being a conflict of interest."


Cheetham joined Atlantic Books on 1st September 2009 as an associate publisher and director on the board, taking on executive responsibility for Corvus, having left Quercus in February that year. In April last year, the company announced that Cheetham would head up a new international contract co-edition imprint.


Cheetham said he now planned to launch his own venture with an announcement expected in the autumn. He declined to give full details, but said that there was an opportunity to develop a "specialist publishing list" using e-books and the web.


Mundy declined to comment when approached by The Bookseller.
In March Atlantic Books made five positions redundant—a cut of around 15% to the 34-strong staff. At that time, Mundy told The Bookseller, "2010 isn't going to be one of our strongest years," citing "poor backlist and export sales" in the second half of the year. However he continued that in the first two months of 2011 Atlantic was "trading ahead of our profit budget".


Cheetham owns 7.5% of Atlantic Books, and indicated that he would not be looking to dispose of his shares in the short term, and was confident that the company would get over its bump. "The shares are a mid to long term investment and I hope they do as well for me as the Quercus shares did."

‘The Swinger’

By MICHAEL BAMBERGER and ALAN SHIPNUCK

Reviewed by JANET MASLIN at The New York Times

In this novel about a very famous golfer whose extracurricular kinks become a public embarrassment, the authors Michael Bamberger and Alan Shipnuck know their man and know their game.

Patricia Wall/The New York Times

Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year Shortlist - PD James Awarded

Press Release

WILL THE HOLY THIEF STEAL THE 2011 THEAKSTONS OLD PECULIER CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR AWARD?

P.D. JAMES RECEIVES OUTSTANDING CONTRIBUTION TO CRIME FICTION AWARD


Debut novelist William Ryan has been given the public's seal of approval today, as one of the chosen few to make this year's shortlist for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. One of the most prestigious crime writing prizes in the country, the newcomer will be battling for the coveted prize amongst five crime fiction stalwarts.

Also on the shortlist is Mark Billingham, looking to make this year a hat-trick after winning the prize in 2005 and 2009 (for Lazy Bones and Death Message respectively). Lee Child, meanwhile, will be hoping that this will be his lucky year; the bestselling author has yet to win the prize, despite the fact that one of his Jack Reacher novels sells somewhere in the world every few seconds. Both authors will go head to head with last year's Festival Chair Stuart MacBride, and Andrew Taylor, whose Cambridge-set historical chiller Anatomy of Ghosts won much critical praise upon publication.

Lancashire-born SJ Bolton is the only woman to have made the cut with Blood Harvest. Having burst onto the crime scene in 2008, she has been hailed the "high priestess of rural gothic crime".


The shortlist in full:

· From The Dead by Mark Billingham (Sphere)
· Blood Harvest by SJ Bolton (Corgi Books)
· 61 Hours by Lee Child (Bantam Books)
· Dark Blood by Stuart MacBride (Harper Fiction)
· The Holy Thief by William Ryan (Pan Books)
· The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor (Michael Joseph)


Now in its seventh year, the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, in partnership with Asda, and this year in association with the Daily Mirror, was created to celebrate the very best in crime writing and is open to British and Irish authors whose novels were published in paperback between 1st January 2010 and 31st May 2011.


The winner of the prize will be announced by radio broadcaster and festival regular Mark Lawson on the opening night of the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate on Thursday 21st July. The winner will receive a £3,000 cash prize, as well as a handmade, engraved beer barrel provided by Theakstons Old Peculier.

On the same night, a special presentation will be made to the winner of the second Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, which this year is presented to P.D. James.

Born in Oxford in 1920, Baroness James of Holland Park began writing in the 1950s. Her debut novel, Cover Her Face, was published in 1962 featuring her now famous investigator, Adam Dalgliesh. Many of her books have been adapted for film and television, including her 1992 novel Children of Men, which in 2006 was adapted for Hollywood, starring Clive Owen and directed by Alfonso Cuarón.

P.D. James said: "It is always a satisfaction and an encouragement for a writer to win a prize, but I am particularly proud to be honoured by the Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award because it comes from Harrogate, a town which it is always a delight to visit and which is the home of one of the most distinguished and pleasurable English literary festivals. I look forward very much to being in this beautiful town again and to receiving an award which, coming in my 91st year, means a great deal to me."

Simon Theakston, Executive Director of T&R Theakston, said:
"I'm delighted to see that the public have recognised the talents of a broad range of authors in this year's shortlist, from a debut novelist to names that have been bestsellers for several years. This list reflects the wealth of crime fiction talent we have within the UK and Ireland that continues to grow each year.

"We are also hugely honoured and excited to welcome the crime fiction grandmaster P.D. James to Harrogate this year, to collect her Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award. Few are as prolific as she, dominating the genre for over 50 years. This award acknowledges that immense achievement."

Borders Accepts $215.1 Offer From Najafi Companies

Book2Book

Borders Group announced this evening that it has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Direct Brands, a portfolio company of Najafi Companies. Under the terms of the agreement, Direct Brands would purchase substantially all of Borders' assets for $215.1 million, as well as assume $220 million of liabilities, subject to the auction and Bankruptcy Court approval.


GalleyCat
Wall Street Journal
Business Week

Bookselling in Denmark: Prioritizing English Over German, Nonfiction Over Novels?

Publishing Perspectives

A visit to bookstores in Copenhagen reveals a bias toward nonfiction over fiction and translations from America and the UK rather than Denmark’s neighbor, Germany. Denmark and Germany are neighbors and their languages are similar, and considering Germany’s powerhouse literary culture, I expected to see tons of German books. While the two countries share the same imported trends (eg. Jane M. Auel; Jonathan Franzen, though Freedom appeared to have arrived later in Denmark and was still at the zenith of its recent-release arc), the only contemporary German title I saw (and it was everywhere) was AxoLotl Roadkill, a flashy 2010 debut novel tainted by plagiarism. READ MORE >>

Brazilian Bestseller List May 2011 Two titles by Brazilian authors deserve some consideration, both published by Record. A riqueza do mundo is bringing Lya Luft back to the bestselling charts. Mrs. Luft has been a very successful author in Brazil, in both fiction and non-fiction. Her main bestseller was Perdas e Ganhos, a collection of memoirs and short essays published in 2003. She is represented by the Riff Agency.

Happy Fourth of July!: What Is In Your Book Bag this Holiday Weekend? Monday is the 4th of July holiday here in the United States — a weekend for cookouts, fireworks, and if you’re lucky, reading. In the spirit of #FridayReads, we’d like to know what you plan to take with you for the long weekend? Do you spend your holiday’s buried in an easy mystery, a light romance, or a great classic (if you want that, I recommend you head over to Project D, where they are working through Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov)? Let us know what’s in your book bag.

The Divergent Worlds of Book World Prague 2011 A book fair has many faces depending on whether you are a local looking to buy books, a foreigner promoting literary culture, or a “Guest of Honor” country that doesn’t really believe in literature.

WALKER BOOKS AUSTRALIA ACQUIRES IMPRINT OF AWARD-WINNING CHILDREN’S PUBLISHER, BLACK DOG BOOKS

Leading Australian independent children’s publisher, Walker Books Australia, is pleased to announce that as of today, Friday 1st July, the book imprint Black Dog Books will be owned and distributed by Walker Books Australia.

Sarah Foster, Managing Director and Publisher for Walker Books in Australia, says the move is a big win for Walker Books, as well as the growing children’s publishing industry.

“We are so thrilled to be welcoming such a wonderfully respected and unique brand into the Walker Books family.

With a stimulating list of titles, and an array of superbly talented authors and illustrators, the inclusion of Black Dog Books under the Walker umbrella is an exciting step in our continuing quest to set the standard of publishing excellence for children and young adults.”

Black Dog Books is a multi-award-winning independent children’s book publisher, with a roster that includes some of Australia’s most highly-regarded authors and illustrators, such as Carole Wilkinson, best known for the five-time award-winning Dragonkeeper series; Robyn Annear’s Fly a Rebel Flag and Elizabeth Vercoe and Kerry Abramowski’s The Grief Book: strategies for young people.

Black Dog Books will be published, marketed and distributed by Walker Books Australia, through TL Distribution (TLD). TLD will supply stock for both Australia and New Zealand.

http://www.walkerbooks.com.au/Black-Dog-Books

Saturday Morning with Kim Hill: 2 July 2011 on Radio NZ National

 8:15 Susan Saladoff: hot coffee and tort law

8:45 Rachel McKee: sign language

9:05 Rob Hammil: brother number one

9:45 Art with Mary Kisler: power animals

10:05 Len Lye Favourites with Tyler Cann

11:05 Anthony Menginie: prodigals and Pagans

11:45 Children’s Books with Kate De Goldi: four new books

Producer: Mark Cubey

Associate producer: Sean McKenna

Wellington engineer: Katrina Batten

Auckland engineer: Ian Gordon

Hamilton engineer: Andrew McRae

8:15 Susan Saladoff

Susan Saladoff spent 25 years practicing law in the U.S. civil justice system, representing injured victims of individual and corporate negligence. She stopped practicing law in 2009 to produce and direct her first feature-length documentary, Hot Coffee, which has its New Zealand premiere at this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival (14-31 July in Auckland, 29 July to 14 August in Wellington; other centres follow).

http://hotcoffeethemovie.com/

http://nzff.co.nz/film/hot-coffee

8:45 Rachel McKee

Dr Rachel McKee is the Programme Director of Deaf Studies, member of the Deaf Studies Research Unit and Senior Lecturer at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language Studies at Victoria University. She was one of the Compilation Editors of the Online Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language, which was launched recently.

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/rachel-mckee.aspx

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/research/projects/dsru.aspx

http://nzsl.vuw.ac.nz/

9:05 Rob Hammil

Marathon rowing champion Rob Hamill has won World Championship silver, Commonwealth gold and a world record on the indoor rowing machine. His book, The Naked Rower, tells how he and the late Phil Stubbs won the grueling and inaugural Atlantic Rowing Race in 41 days. He features in Brother Number One, a documentary by Annie Goldson about the torture and murder of Rob’s eldest brother Kerry by the Khmer Rouge in 1978, and Rob’s journey to Cambodia to find out what happened. Brother Number One has its world premiere at this year’s New Zealand International Film Festival.

http://www.robhamill.com/

http://brothernumberone.co.nz/

http://nzff.co.nz/film/brother-number-one

9:45 Art with Mary Kisler

Mary Kisler is the Senior Curator, Mackelvie Collection, International Art, at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. She will discuss the representation of animals of power. Images under discussion are available for view by clicking on the Mary Kisler Gallery link on the right hand side of the Saturday Morning web page.

www.aucklandartgallery.com/

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/galleries/venice

10:05 Len Lye Favourites with Tyler Cann

Tyler Cann is the Len Lye curator at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth, home to the Len Lye Foundation Collection and Archives for over 30 years. He will curate All Souls Carnival, the largest retrospective of Lye’s work ever presented in New Zealand,  at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery as part of the REAL New Zealand Festival, from 10 September to 27 November.

http://www.govettbrewster.com/Events/EventDetail/e/934/title/len-lye-all-souls-carnival.aspx

http://www.nz2011.govt.nz/experiencerealnz/

11:05 Anthony Menginie

Anthony 'LT' Menginie is the son of Anthony 'Mangy' Menginie, former Philadelphia chapter president of the Pagans Motorcycle Club. With Kerrie Droban, he writes about his life in Prodigal Father, Pagan Son: Growing Up Inside the Dangerous World of the Pagans Motorcycle Club (Allen & Unwin, ISBN: 978-1-742377-56-8).

11:45 Children’s Books with Kate De Goldi

Kate De Goldi will discuss four new books:

A Bigger Digger, by Brett Avison and Craig Smith (Five Mile Press, ISBN: 978-1-74248-410-5);

Marshall Armstrong is New to our School, by David Mackintosh (HarperCollins, ISBN: 978-0-00-736141-0);

The Bear and the Wildcat, by Kazumi Yumoto and Komako Sakai (Gecko Press; ISBN: 978-1-877467-70-7);

My First Car Was Red, by Peter Schossow (Gecko Press; ISBN: 978-1-877467-68-4).

 ***********

Preview: Saturday 9 July

Kim Hill’s guests will include Andrew Rossi on the New York Times, neuroscientist Erin Bigler, and writer Damien Wilkins.

Apple & Tree

by Johanna Emeney

 JULY 2011| RRP: $28.00 | Published By Cape Catley LTD

A first collection from a rising New Zealand poet, runner-up in the prestigious British Hippocrates prize for Poetry and Medicine.  Johanna Emeney, back in New Zealand after time in the UK, brings us a fresh contemporary poetry book – poems to listen to in the car, copy into diaries, stick on fridges and send to friends.

Praise for this first collection:

‘Johanna Emeney’s poems always contain a surprise. They look courageously at difficult subjects, allow abstract and particular to co-exist and balance reality with desire.’ 

Elizabeth Smither

‘Jo Emeney’s poems are the genuine article ... when they are just about to relax, they stand on tiptoe.’                 

Kevin Ireland

'Johanna Emeney has a great ear.’

Matthew Francis, The Guardian, UK  An English teacher, Johanna Emeney currently lives on Auckland’s North Shore after a number of years in the UK where after Cambridge she taught in Norfolk.  On her return she taught English at Kristin School, Albany and is working on her doctoral thesis at the University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences. She tutors workshops for both young and older people, including the Young Writers’ Workshops on behalf of the Michael King Writers’ Centre, Devonport.  Jo has been published in Metro, North & South, Poetry NZ, Takahe, Blackmail Press, Snorkel, English in Aotearoa, the NZ Society of Authors Chapbook, Interliq and The Guardian (UK).

Only a faint knot

betrays the bond:

the scar tissue

of a hard graft,

marrying the best

of shoot and root

to produce good

familiar fruit

from Apple & Tree

T Bone Burnett & Danny Elfman to Create Music for ‘The Hunger Games’

By Maryann Yin on Galley Cat, June 30, 2011 

Oscar-winner T Bone Burnett and Grammy-winner Danny Elfman will create the music for The Hunger Games film adaptation. According to the release, this project is “an unprecedented film music collaboration.”
The two composers will work together on the film score. Additionally, Burnett will serve as the executive music producer for both the score and the soundtrack. Many Hunger Games fans have reacted happily to the announcement on Facebook.

Lionsgate’s head of film music Tracy McKnight explained: “The Hunger Games is such a special property – it has worldwide mass appeal, but it’s also sophisticated, cerebral, soulful, and rebellious. We needed a composer who can translate these qualities musically, and we have not one but two incredible artists in an absolutely thrilling first time ever collaboration.”
Elfman has become well-known for his collaborations with director Tim Burton; he has worked on several literary adaptations including Batman (1989), Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (2005), and Alice in Wonderland (2010). Burnett has also set the music for many literary adaptations including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002), and Crazy Heart (2009).

SHOPKEEPERS CAVE IN TO A NEW GENERATION OF BOOK BURNERS

This is the headline over Brian Rudman's widely read column in the New Zealand Herald this morning.

He begins:

If there was one industry you'd expect to champion the right to free speech it's the book trade. But this week even iconic Auckland bookseller Unity Books succumbed to the baying of the Facebook mob and slapped a ban on the yet-to-be-published book by the mother of the Kahui twins.

This came after a decision by leading booksellers Paper Plus group and The Warehouse not to stock the book, ghostwritten by Ian Wishart.

Both chains say the decision came after significant adverse comment from customers. Tens of thousands have also signed on to a boycott-the-book Facebook page.

He concludes:

Free speech is about publishing and, on occasion, being damned. But for that, you need a willing seller as well.

But this week, the booksellers seem to have just given up, resigned to their growing irrelevancy in the new world of electronic media.

By banning Wishart's book from their shops, they've hastened the day of their own demise by inviting a new exodus of customers to discover the ease of uncensored, online shopping.

It is tough stuff from Rudman but it needed to be said and I hope it is read by booksellers throughout the land. Once the Herald put the column on their website I will provide a link so that readers outside the Herald circulation area can read it in full.

Kahui twins' mum living in fear over book

Stuff.co.nz - 1 July 2011

Macsyna King is said to be living in fear after protesters threatened online to kill her and neighbours took action against the upcoming release of her tell-all book.
The mother of twins Chris and Cru Kahui has written, with journalist Ian Wishart, an expose on the boys' deaths in 2006 called Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case.
The book has sparked the formation of a Facebook group, Boycott the Macsyna King Book, which urges people not to buy it.
Wishart told Campbell Live last night that comments on Facebook had made Ms King feel unsafe. "She has been living in fear for the last 24 hours; there's been some activity in her neighbourhood that has been directed toward her ... she's fearful."
"Looking at the Facebook page, there were threats to burn down bookshops ... put a bullet through Macsyna's head, people have been whipped up into hysteria effectively by a lynch mob."
Paper Plus and The Warehouse said on Wednesday that they would not sell the book. Whitcoulls has not yet made a decision.
Wishart said he was disappointed in the shops. "I think they've gone weak at the knees ... We sell Mein Kampf by Hitler and the Communist Manifesto. You can buy any range of books. People have chosen this one and it's really because of cyber-bullying."
Read full story at Stuff.co.nz

THAT BOOK

Auckland-based author & commentator Gordon McLauchlan writes about the fuss surrounding the Kahui book.

In the early days of the telephone, Oscar Wilde was asked to comment on the social value of the new technology. He replied that it depended what was said on it.

I think we can now claim the same of the online social media --that its value depends entirely on what messages it carries.

It may help rally protestors to gather in Iran, or put pressure on the despots in Burma.

Or it may be used to rally mindless masses in New Zealand to ban a book they’ve not read, thus ensuring it will sell many many thousands more copies than if they had kept quiet.

Booksellers are entitled to stock Ian Wishart’s book on Macsyna King, or not, but the idea that they may be boycotted for doing so should be anathema in a free society.

Given the author and publisher it is almost certainly an appalling, tasteless and intellectually bankrupt book, but as long as it doesn’t break the law that will be for readers to decide. (I hope they’re up to it.)

Television and the print journalists failed for about twenty-four hours to manage solid stories on what was going on – and, more importantly, why. Radio New Zealand did best, as usual, in exploring the issues but why these social media hordes want to block the sale remained obscure this afternoon.

Well, I suppose we can assume they don’t have a reason at all, just a stupid, neurotic seizure.

It is, sadly, a very Kiwi response to dreadful social tragedies like child abuse. Don’t state your case and rationally and determinedly monitor Government and their agencies to explore the true causes and to pour resources into helping us all to curb it; just run around in circles and scream and wring your hands.

Auckland libraries to stock controversial book

By Edward Gay, NZ Herald, Friday Jul 1, 2011

Ian Wishart, author of the controversial book. Photo / APN

Aucklanders will be able to stroll into their local library and borrow a copy of the controversial Macsyna King book but Wellingtonians may have to wait.
Ian Wishart's latest book has attracted outrage in some quarters, with more than 41,000 people signing up to a "Boycott the Macsyna King Book" page on the social networking website Facebook.

Auckland Council Libraries was the only organisation contacted by the Herald yesterday that confirmed it would be stocking Breaking Silence: The Kahui Case.
Libraries manager Allison Dobbie said the organisation upheld the principles of the Library Information Association, which stated that "information and resources should not be excluded because of the opinions expressed, who the author is, or on the grounds of political, social, moral or other views of the author".
Wellington City Council libraries will wait until the book is released.

Council spokesman Richard MacLean said no one was "particularly excited" about it and only a couple of requests had been received.
"We'll check to see how public opinion is going and all that and we're in no hurry to make a decision."
The University of Auckland is also undecided but a spokesman said the decision on which books to buy was always made "entirely on merit and academic relevance".
"We would not boycott a book simply because it was controversial or might offend some people."


Full report at NZ Herald.

Whitcoulls - the next chapter

In an exclusive interview, the book and stationery chain's new owners tell Karyn Scherer about their plans for one of the best-known names in NZ retailing.

By Karyn Scherer, New Zealand Herald, Friday Jul 1, 2011

The very private Anne and David Norman have already built a retail empire. Their next goal: reviving Whitcoulls. Photo / Sarah Ivey

It probably speaks volumes about the type of person she is, but Anne Norman doesn't mind admitting she hates the board game Monopoly. "It's so boring," she grumbles.
The man she has just hired as the new managing director for her family's latest business venture begs to differ. "Every household should have Monopoly," he argues. "It's my favourite game."

Ian Draper is clearly one of those competitive players who gets a little too enthusiastic when it's time to collect the rent for Park Lane. But Norman can't resist teasing him a little more.
It was largely due to Draper's powers of persuasion that she and her husband David ended up buying Whitcoulls, she suggests.
"Someone gave us Ian's name and we thought there might be an opportunity for him in our own firm. But honestly, when he came all he would talk about was jolly Whitcoulls, and we figured the only way to shut this guy up was to buy the damn thing!"
She is, of course, not being entirely serious. Yet the Normans are clearly very serious about the future of Whitcoulls, and so is Draper - so serious that for the second time in two years, they even consent to chatting with the Herald.

Read the full, long, detailed and most interesting, story at the New Zealand Herald.

James Joyce's Passport for sale

Next month at Sotheby’s in London James Joyce’s wartime family passport, recording the writer’s movements across Europe as he penned his masterpiece Ulysses, is to be auctioned.

An arresting aspect of the exclusive literary object, which tracks Joyce’s peripatetic existence between Trieste, Zurich, Paris and London during, and after the First World War, is the fact that Nora Barnacle is stated as Joyce’s wife. In fact, the couple had eloped from Ireland in 1904, and would not get married until 1931.

The passport almost exactly maps, what is perhaps, his most creative period, covering the writing and publication of the book for which he is best known.

The passport, which consists of a double-sided sheet on white and pink paper folded to form 10 panels, was issued to Joyce, Nora, and their two children, Georgio and Lucia, by the British consulate in Zurich on August 10th, 1915. 


From IBook Collector Newsletter.

FLIPBACKS DEBUT IN UK

Yesterday in the UK Hodder launched the first tranche of Flipbacks - "portable, pocket-sized, stylish and unlike anything you've seen before".

We can't afford to lose the John Llewellyn Rhys prize

Free from the backbiting of the Booker, this award is one that makes a real difference to writers beginning their careers

Margaret Drabble, The Guardian, 29 June, 2011

Margaret Drabble in 1966, the year she won the John Llewellyn Rhys prize. Photograph: Guardian

The John Llewellyn Rhys prize is one of the most romantic and distinguished of prizes and its disappearance would be a great loss to hopeful authors and the literary world. Booktrust, which sponsors and administers the prize, and which has suffered severe funding cuts, says it must go. This would be very sad. The prize is awarded to young writers under the age of 35, at the outset of their careers, when a sign of approval means much more than it does in their cynical, competitive, commercial later years. I've often argued that the Booker, although originally well-intentioned, now distorts the market and creates immense spite and ill will, egged on by a malicious press, and enraging novelists and publishers who should be old and wise enough to know better. The John Llewellyn Rhys has no such bad side effects. It comes from the clear blue sky, often completely unexpected, and it brings hope, encouragement, and a little much needed money.


It was created not to increase sales or to enrage losers but to commemorate a writer who died tragically young, killed in action with the RAF in 1940. Rhys was the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry of Britain, and a young pilot like the hero of Yeats's famous poem "An Irish Airman Foresees his Death". Whether Rhys foresaw his own end we do not know, but he loved flying and was passionate about his life in the skies. He published three books and was posthumously awarded the Hawthornden prize, but this success came too late for him to know of it, and his widow determined that other writers should be rewarded young and in his name. The prize has since been supported by other sponsors, and as yet his name lives on.


Read Drabble's full piece at The Guardian.

Bloomsbury opens case on Stellarimington.com

The Bookseller - 30.06.11 | Charlotte Williams

Bloomsbury is breaking cover to create a website supporting the launch of former MI5 chief Stella Rimington's first book with the publisher, intending to build her and her protagonist, Liz Carlyle, as a brand.

The site, Stellarimington.com, which goes live this week, is laid out like a case file, including categories to interact with such as "Counter-Terrorism: The Team" where readers can learn vital statistics about the main characters. Visitors to the site can also see exclusive video interviews with the author and an interactive map plotting where each of Carlyle's cases has taken place. The launch ties in with the release of Rip Tide in hardback on 18th July, which sees MI5 Intelligence Officer Carlyle investigating what led a British-born Pakistani to become a pirate off the coast of Somalia.

Head of adult and specialist marketing Amanda Shipp said the idea was to give Rimington a real platform and strong identity as it is the first time Bloomsbury has published her.
Shipp said: "We really wanted to throw a lot of energy behind her. There wasn't really anything online for Stella. As she is chair of the Man Booker this year, we thought it was a great year to draw it all together." Shipp added it was part of Bloomsbury's aim to "focus our attention" on its crime list. "From 2012, we are trying to publish a crime book a month," she said.
Rimington is set to attend literary lunches and festivals such as the Lowtham Festival, Literary Lunch at Cotswold House Hotel and the Ways with Words Dartington Festival, and the "Latest Intelligence" section on the website will be updated with more events as they are planned.