TRENDY BUT CASUAL by Paula Morris Penguin NZ

Following my enthusiasm for this title last week I was delighted to have my view confirmed when I read the fulsome review by Jolisa Gracewood in the latest issue of the NZ Listener (April 21).

Here is a brief exerpt from the Gracewood's review:

"Perhaps the most compelling element is the location, location, location: Morris vivdly evokes the ur-city in all its hectic glory. I especially like the grimy Lower East Side loft, full of poseurs and performance artists and random wildlife, that is the scene of both Jane's greatest humiliation and her most glorious triumph. And Morris is excellent on the detail of city life. Whether her characters are crossing the street or just coming home to their apartments, you know they're in Manhattan."

I am with Gracewood on this one, and she should know, she lives just to the north of NYC in Connecticut.

This novel is a huge departure in style and content for Morris when compared to her two earlier novels, but I think she is on to a winner.

THE BOOK THAT CHANGED MY LIFE

With the sub-title “ 71 remarkable writers celebrate the books that matter most to them” it was impossible for me not to buy this book when Gillian at the UBS bookstore in Christchurch brought it to my attention.

What a little gem. A smallish hardback with deckle-edged pages, American publishers love deckled edges, (I must say they appeal to me too), and a bargain at NZ $28.00. It is $17.50 in the US and $22 in Canada.

The publisher is Gotham Books which is a Penguin Books US imprint founded by William Shinker in 2001.
Shinker has had a long and distinguished publishing career most latterly at Random House and Harper Collins and this newish imprint of his seeks to publish “ tightly focused, high quality, commercial non-fiction.”

Well he has achieved that with The Book That Changed My Life. Edited by bookseller Roxanne Coady and editor Joy Johannessen. Coady is the energetic founder/owner of R.J.Julia Booksellers in Madison, Connecticut, a store famous for holding over 200 author events each year and was the winner of the Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year in 1995. She is also one of the founders of the Read to Grow Foundation which provides books and literacy information to tens of thousands of newborns and their families each year.
As a fund raiser for that charity she came up with the bright idea of inviting a selection of the many author/speakers who had appeared in her bookstore to write about the book or books that had changed their lives with royalties to go to the Read to Grow Foundation.

Among the authors whose writing is known to me are Kate Atkinson, Graeme Base, Harold Bloom, Tomie De Paola, Frank McCourt, Anne Perry, Ian Rankin and Dominick Dunne.
More interesting though are the books that have been selected and written about. They include some that are perhaps obvious and expected – the Bible, Lord of the Rings, The Catcher in the Rye, various works of Shakespeare, Hiroshima, Jane Eyre and Atlas Shrugged – but also there are many that you might not have ever expected – the Sears catalogue, Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct series, (I’ve read and enjoyed them all but I can’t say they affected me in the slightest!), the Nancy Drew Mysteries, the Dr.Doolittle series, The Little Engine that Could.

However what is most interesting are the number of different ways that people have been changed or affected by particular books.Some when only children but most as adults.
I found it absolutely fascinating.

It is a great book to have beside the bed because each author occupies a couple of pages so you can dip into it easily and spend two minutes or two hours depending on your interest or need for sleep.

Here is a brief example from Claire Cook whose writing I do not know but is described as a bestselling author of three novels including “Must Love Dogs”.

She writes:
I remembered my own daughter’s obsession with The Babysitters Club, my son’s addiction to Goosebumps. They just couldn’t get enough of them. They picked up reading speed. They eventually moved on to other books and became lifelong readers. The truth, as I came to see it, is that once you fall in love, really in love, with that first book, you’ll never be able to stop. There will still be plenty of time to introduce the classics.
I give Nancy Drew full credit for that teaching epihinay.

Another writer, Caroline B.Cooney decided when she turned 50 that she wanted to read Julius Ceasar’s “Gallic Wars” in the original Latin so went back to school to learn the language and did just that.

A great little book, quite inspiring in places, but interesting throughout.
Books certainly can change lives.

Warmly recommended

TRIBUTE TO THE LATE GREAT KURT VONNEGUT

This from the Sunday issue of The New York Times.

Author photo by Jill Krementz, his wife, from same article.

TROLLEY BOOK WINS ODD TITLE PRIZE

Following the previous posting on odd titles the BBC now announces the winner!

ODDER BOOK TITLES MAKE SHORTLIST

This from the BBC.................

THE MARIE CLAY LITERACY TRUST

David Heap, a trustee, has today written as follows:

It is with immense sadness that I am writing to tell you that Marie Clay died in the Mercy Hospice Auckland just before 8.00am this morning after a short illness. Marie and her family chose to keep her illness private, and true to character, Marie continued to actively work, write and plan until very recently. Marie was 81 years but with such tremendous spirit, curiosity and energy she has never been old. She has accomplished so much.

For three decades Marie has been acknowledged as a world leader in research on literacy learning, child development and the prevention of learning disorders. Her early academic work as a child psychologist involved the observation and study of children as they acquire literacy. An outxome of this research was the development of reliable tools for assessing progress with literacy learning and these instruments are being widely used around the world today. Marie's decision to focus on struggling learners and the resultant development of the Reading Recovery early intervention changed how the education community worldwide viewed these children's chances of becoming literate. There have been many accomplishments in the areas of writing, oral language and classroom learning.

Marie is a great New Zealander who has left the world a better place. She exemplified the finest qualities of a scholar, teacher, writer and researcher.

In awarding Marie the first "New Zealander of the Year" award in 1994 the judges described her as "a person who had a dream of improving the lives of others, although never seeking personal reward or recognition".

DAME MARIE CLAY

Several friends have e-mailed to advise that Dame Marie Clay died earlier today.

This link is a tribute written in 1991. A full obituary will follow in a few days. R.I.P Marie, a great New Zealander, a great educator.

GOLDEN HAWKES BAY DAYS

During the time I was bookselling in Napier (1968-78) I was frequently asked to speak to groups of parents about children’s books, the importance of reading aloud to kids from the time they were born until the time came when they no longer wanted you to, the acquisition of language, the importance of controlling TV viewing, and so on.

I used to load up my Hillman Avenger with fabulous books and travel all over Hawkes Bay from as far south as Woodville to Wairoa in the north and all parts in between. Often these gatherings were annual general meetings of Kindergartens and Playcentres. It was often wearying after a full day at the shop, we used to open at 7.30am, but all that was forgotten with the wonderful responses I used to get from the parents (mainly Mums!) to whom I spoke. Looking back I guess I was something of a missionary in the cause of books and reading.

Another missionary in Hawkes Bay was the indomitable Diane Hebley who regularly held book meetings (this was long before the current phenomena of book clubs of course) for mothers at her home and she used to occasionally get me along to talk to these groups - 30 or 40 Mums and loads of very young children. It was a challenge!
Diane was a human dynamo and did so much for the cause of literature and literacy.
I was therefore delighted while reading the Storylines newsletter recently to find that she is still active on the scene down there. Here is an excerpt from the article she wrote for Storylines. If you would like to read the whole story make contact with Storylines via this link.
You can also read more about Diane on the wonderul site provided by Christchurch City Libraries.


Glancing Back with Diane Hebley from Hawke’s Bay

"Books! They were certainly all around me when I was little. But there wasn’t a New Zealand publication among them, apart from tales of the Maori. If the School Journals ever reached our village church school, I have no clear memory of their relationship to New Zealand stories. Nor did novels by writers like Isabel Maud Peacocke or Esther Glen come my way, although Edith Howes’s The Cradle Ship (1916) with no New Zealand reference impressed me. So it was over to my imagination to relocate my otherworld heroes - Anne of Green Gables or the Famous Five or Black Beauty - into my Kiwi world through cajoling friends to help act out scenes in the backyard or, more satisfyingly, through the naming process when my pony produced a black foal. There was one exception to this drought of New Zealand literature, however: Clare Mallory’s The Pen and Pencil Girls (1950). But by the time it appeared on our family bookshelf, I had left primary school.

Meanwhile, spurred on by graduate teachers from England, I revelled in the richness of great English literature, followed later by French, Latin, and Greek writing. And then, one of those same English graduate teachers introduced Katherine Mansfield. At the Bay (1922) was a revelation. This was our world portrayed, here, not somewhere else.

Yet Mansfield, like most writers I knew about, was dead. So it was all the more exciting to encounter among the lecturers at Auckland University real, publishing writers, such as Fairburn, Curnow, Pearson, Joseph, and Musgrove. Moreover, at the memorial service for Fairburn in the University Hall, additional luminaries like Glover and Smithyman came to pay tribute. Finally, at MA level I could include a research paper on New Zealand literature.

As for children’s literature, after living overseas and having been blessed with three children, I was acutely aware that picture books didn’t match the world outside the windows. That set me on a path to find out what New Zealand writing did exist, to run courses for parents and teachers who bemoaned the scarcity of local content, and, ultimately, to publish my findings in Off the Shelf (1980) and to create with my husband Gary books that captured our own experiences."

MORE ON THE STARBUCKS MOVE TO BECOME BOOKSELLERS

This story from The Independent. Might we expect Starbucks in New Zealand and Australia to follow suit?

THE NEW YORKER

Those of you who visit my blog regularly will know that I am a HUGE fan of The New Yorker, it is indeed my favourite magazine.

The last two issues, which arrived here within two days of each other, the vagaries of mail delivery, were both full of gems, e.g. the issue dated April 2 had a hugely, entertaining, eye-opening account of British chef Gordon Ramsay’s opening of his New York restaurant by Bill Buford. Now I do not watch a lot of TV, takes up too much reading time, but I do tend to be addicted to top quality British food programmes – Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and the aforementioned Ramsay being among the front people for some of my favourites. The difference I guess between these four celebrity chefs is that I like three of them and am appalled by the behaviourof the fourth. Yes, Ramsay!

This brilliantly observed 12 page story by Buford had me gasping. If you would like to read the story yourself then use this link to the New Yorker. You will be glad you did. Greatly entertaining.

Then the original fiction piece in ths issue proved to be by one of my most favourite contemporary Irish writers, Roddy Doyle. An arresting, rather sad piece called Teaching, about a teacher in a Catholic boy’s school.

Loads of other stuff too, including a review of Lionel Shriver’s The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver, who is of course going to be a star guest at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival next month.

Then to the issue of April 9. Also full of gems.

Loved the hilarious piece by Henry Alford where in quoting from The Times about the expected tourist invasion of York for the centenary of W.H.Auden’s birth where cab drivers are memorizing some of his poetry he comes up with this:

‘E was me Norf, me Souf. Me East and West
Me working week and me Sund’y rest,
Me noon, me midnight,me talk, me song,
I thought that love would last forever:
I was wrong.

And there is more from the clever Alford.

Then a big piece, 10 pages, on the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its treasured antiquities.

There is much more including fiction by Don DeLillio, all the usual sharp cartoons, and a piece by Adam Gopnik, (remember his marvellous "Paris to the Moon"), called Cooked Books which to summarise in a few words is about cooking sequences within novels.

The New Yorker, what a magazine. I love it! Thanks Mark for the subscription.

KURT VONNEGUT DIES AGE 84

Here is his obituary from The Times.

Author photo from Wikipedia.

And here is the image that appears on his website today, says it all really:

MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE - THE CLASH OF THE TITANS

This report overnight from The Guardian.

15 of the world's best writers......imagine being one of the judges!

Storylines Festival of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators

This release this morning from those good folks at the Storylines Festival.

Top international writers and illustrators have been be confirmed for the 14th annual Storylines Festival, around New Zealand from 5-10 June.

Australian maestro of the graphic novel, Shaun Tan, and talented UK children’s writer Mal Peet, are international special guests in a line-up that includes around 50 of New Zealand’s leading children’s writers, illustrators, storytellers and performers.

Irish writer John Boyne, internationally acclaimed author of best-selling novel The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is the latest big name to be announced. He topped charts last year with a novel about nine-year-old Bruno who knows nothing of the Holocaust or the Final Solution when he befriends a boy in striped pyjamas living on the other side of a wire fence. The novel leapt genres to be published in both a children’s and an adult’s edition. It won two Irish Book Awards and has been shortlisted for many other prestigious literary awards across England, Europe and the United States. It is currently being turned into a film.

The term picture book doesn’t come close to describing the fantasy world of Shaun Tan’s graphic novels. Tan describes his work as ‘picture books for older readers’, with complex visual styles and themes, including colonial imperialism, social apathy and the nature of memory and depression.

Mal Peet recalls a childhood centred on his bike, books and football. He only became a writer once he had children of his own. “I truly believe there are few things more important than sharing stories with your children. Heaped into a big, deep chair, doing the voices, discussing the pictures…You start to understand why certain books work and others don’t.”

The Storylines Festival of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators gives children a chance to meet the people behind some of their favourite books at free Family Days at the Wellington Town Hall, Puke Ariki in New Plymouth, and for the first time ever in Kerikeri, all on Saturday 9 June, and Auckland’s Aotea Centre on Sunday 10 June.

Last year’s free Family Day at the Aotea Centre in Auckland drew more than 20,000 people, with a growing fan base of thousands of children and their families attending events in other centres.

“This is a chance for kids to meet their literary heroes and discover new ones, to hear their favourite writers talking about and reading their work, to have their books signed and to participate in workshops designed to inspire the writers and illustrators of the future,” says festival manager Crissi Blair.

Performers and storytellers add to the excitement, with an illustrator’s gallery providing an opportunity to see first-hand how the professionals create their pictures for children’s books, and to encourage visitors to have a go themselves.

Adult fans and aspiring writers also have their chance to meet and hear Shaun Tan, Mal Peet (and John Boyne in Christchurch) at the Heritage Hotels Seminar Series run in conjunction with the Storylines Festival in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

For more details about the Storylines Festival or to arrange interviews or images of any of our international or New Zealand guests, please contact festival manager Crissi Blair on festival@storylines.org.nz.
Storylines can introduce you to participating children’s book writers and illustrators living in your circulation area, or further afield.

BOOK MAN THROUGH AND THROUGH



Paul Reynolds seems to have been around the Auckland book and media scene for many years. I remember him as a book reviewer for the Sunday Star Times, The Strip and National Radio. I also recall him covering for Murray Gray on his days off at that gorgeous little Parnell bookshop started by the late Adrienne Jarvis, Under Silkwood; alas both the shop and its owner have passed on.

I caught up with Paul earlier this week and learned that these days he runs McGovern Design with his business and personal partner Helen Smith. As an aside Helen hails originally from Napier where she tells me I sold her her first book way back in my Beattie & Forbes Bookshop days.

Of course Paul is a blogger too and I read his postings to keep right up to date with what is happening out there in the techno world.

Paul is that Scotsman you used to hear talking with Kim Hill about the Internet when it was still all a bit of a mystery to most of us and certainly long, long before it was being used by everyone every day. These days I notice he pops up occasionally on Breakfast TV.

He tells me he got into the web space over 12 years ago; in those days he was freelance writing and editing and was also a reader for several NZ publishers including Penguin Books and Tandem Press, as well as writing doco scripts and reviewing books.

He originally got curious about the web as a publishing phenomena. Curious about it he and co-writer David Merritt pitched a book idea to Geoff Walker at Penguin Books. He accepted and “Internet-A New Zealand Guide” went on to sell 10,000 copies. Paul tells me that he and Helen still own the comfy sofa they bought with the royalties!

From there he wrote a column for The Dominion for 10 years on what he calls “this Internet thing,” as well as starting, with Helen, their own web development shop.

Since then they have built sites for legal firms, libraries, art galleries, government departments, the Waitangi Tribunal, Katherine Mansfield House, the Chartwell Collection , the Colin McCahon House and many others.

Both Paul and Helen are passionate readers, book buyers and library users, and as a consequence say they are very happy to sponsor the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival web site, which they see as being a gift to themselves.

This is fine site, designed by Helen and Paul and their small but talented team, and a most generous sponsorship indeed,(my guess is that it has to be worth close to $20,000), they supply all the management tools as well, so on behalf of readers everywhere, and Festival goers in particular, I salute Paul and Helen and Mc Govern Design and extend heartfelt gratitude.

Paula Morris strikes again

The talented New Zealand novelist Paula Morris has had her third novel, Trendy but Casual, published by Penguin Books who describe it as a smart comedy of manners.
I suppose that is a fair description although it may be something of an understatement. I have to say I started laughing on the first page and hardly stopped until I reached the end. In fact I am still smiling several days later.

New Zealand novel writers are not noted for their humour. Our created literary landscape in fact is pretty bloody bleak. With the occasional notable exception, like the wonderful Sarah Kate Lynch, most Kiwi novelists tend to write sombre, dark, brooding novels.

So Paula Morris, and who can forget her wonderful Hibiscus Coast, is like a breath of fresh warm air with her new uproariously funny novel.

The city that I know best, and love the most, outside of New Zealand and Australia, is New York. I visited what was once known as The Big Apple many, many times during my publishing life and for the past 14 years have had family living there so still manage to visit most years for several weeks at a time.

Trendy but Casual has a New York setting so it had a special appeal for me as I recognised many of the settings and locations as well as the language and attitudes of the characters.

The story features 20 something Jane Shore who works in the PR industry, (a field in which Morris has personal experience), and whose life is rather falling apart.
The book really is a send-up of both the PR industry and the phenomenon known as chick-lit. And it is exceptionally well done. And at almost 400 pages it is a big read.
If you are flying to New York sometime soon take it with you to read during the long flights. You will arrive in a happy state of mind.

Paula, endlessly energetic, and a superb self publicist, last week started her own blog, called Trendy but Casual ,(of course), is assistant professor of English at Tulane University, in New Orleans.

I am looking forward to her appearance on the KIWIS FLY panel with Stevan Eldred Grigg, and Rachel King at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival '07 on Friday 25 May at 11.00am at Auckland's Aotea centre.

BANKER SELF PUBLISHES FOUR NOVELS

This from the Financial Times via Galley Cat this morning.

WORDSWORTH RAPPING IN THE DAFFODILS

This story by Martin Wainwright of The Guardian.

By the way in the 31 March issue of The Spectator there is a two page review of the same Martin Wainwright's new book, The Guardian Book of April Fool's Day, published by Aurum, gbp12.99.Read it here.

STARBUCKS TO SELL BOOKS

This story yesterday from mediabistro.com's galley cat.

A BOOK ADDICT’S TREASURY by Julie Rugg and Lynda Murphy
Frances Lincoln Publishers (Bookwise International in NZ & Australia) NZ$35


Now here is a book that no book lover should be without. And every bookseller should have their own copy behind the counter to share with customers. It is a stunner

As it says on the inside cover blurb it “throws before the reader a quirky and engaging catalogue of bookish behaviour”.
It also says, and I’m sure they must have had me in mind when they wrote this, “this collection is intended to please anyone who has ever smelled a book before reading it.”
I would certainly never buy a book before smelling it.
Surely that is just part of the process – look at the cover, read the back cover blurb, read the author bio, read the first paragraph, and then open the book wide and have a jolly good sniff !

The two authors, both based in York, have provided an entertaining and explanatory five page introduction as well as two splendid indices- an index of authors and a subject index, as well as a full list of references and copyright notices. All very good but in between this admirable stuff they have gathered together an absolute treasure trove of excerpts from a vast range of books, from a vast range of authors (there must be at least 500) and of course these excerpts are in every case about some aspect of the book. They describe “ the joys and vices of book love”, it is indeed a book “compiled by addicts for addicts.”

Some of the excerpts run to several pages, some, a minority are only a few lines.
It is much, much more than a book of quotations.

Here are a couple of my favourites to give you a taste:

“I keep novels and detective stories in my bedroom, so that visitors shan’t be tempted to borrow them; the sitting room houses the higher forms of literature (and my jazz books, a far from exhaustive collection), while the hall I reserve for thoroughly worthy items, to speed the parting guest.”
Philip Larkin, “Books”, 1972.

“I need fiction. I’m an addict. This is not a figure of speech. I don’t quite read a novel a day, but I certainly read some of a novel every day, and usually some of several. There is always a heap of opened paperbacks face down near the bed, always something current on the kitchen table to reach for over coffee when I wake up. Colonies of prose have formed in the bathroom and in the dimness of the upstairs landing, so that I don’t go without text even in the leftover spaces of the house where I spend the least time. When I’m tired and therefore indecisive, lasat thing at night, it can take half an hour to choose the book I am going to have with me while I brush my teeth.”
Francis Spufford, “The Child That Books Built,” 2002.
Perhaps my favourite piece, too long to reproduce here, is by W.Somerset Maugham from “the book bag”, 1951.

But there are many hugely appealing pieces.
The chapters are themed and I especially like the excerpts in Chapter 5 – Bookish Behaviour- and those in Chapter 6 – Rapacious Readers.

What a joy. A Book Addict’s Treasury already has a special place here in my office/library where I can reach it anytime I need inspiration or cheering up or diversion or an excuse to pause a while.

Thank you Julie Rugg & Lynda Murphy, and thanks too to Frances Lincoln Publishers, for this gem which I shall always treasure.

Footnote.
Frances Lincoln, founder of the publishing company that bears her name died in 2001 aged 55. I recall meeting her on a number of occasions in the late 80’s and 90’s at the Bologna Book Fair when she was active in publishing children’s picture books. Her Kentish Town, London-based company continues to thrive run by her husband John Nicoll. R.I.P. Frances.

Shhhh...........the one thing you won't hear in a library

This heading and story from the LA Times today.

NEW ZEALAND POST DELIVERS

Each day when I collect my mail from my post office box in Victoria Street, Auckland I hope to find among the letters, bills and magazines one of those little yellow cards that reads:

We couldn't fit everything into your P O Box- we have more items for you to collect. Please present this card at the counter to collect your mail items.

My heart skips a beat when I see this card because it almost certainly means the arrival of one or more books for me to read and review.

Today I struck the jackpot:

*The Book that Changed My Life - 71 remarkable writers celebrate the books that matter most to them - Gotham Books

*Prisoners - a Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide - Jeffrey Goldberg - Picador

*Kauri In MY Blood - Joanna Orwin - Scholastic

*Engleby - Sebastian Faulks - Hutchinson

*Mrs.Beeton's Household Management - Ward Lock -

What excitement !
I will be writing about of all of these over the next few weeks. Please note that the last mentioned title was bought from Murray Gray's Gone West Bookstore in Titirangi which specialises in "slightly used books". More about this later.

The other titles are all forthcoming or recently published.

THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING

This heartbreakingly beautiful story by Joan Didion (4th Estate 2005 NZ$34) probably affected me more than any other book I read in 2005. Our copy has since been loaned to many friends and members of our family and without exception all have been moved by it. I rate it as a truly great piece of writing.

This morning I had an e-mail from my daughter in New York who alerted me to the fact that the book has been made into a play featuring Vanessa Redgrave and that there was a most interesting review in the New York Times Art section of 30 March. If you would like to read the review, and I warmly recommend it then use this link.

The picture of Joan Didion above is by Robert Birnbaum and is taken from her excellent Wikipedia website.

The picture of Vanessa Redgrave, right, is taken from her Wikipedia website.

LONDON BOOK FAIR ATTRACTS KIWIS

Booksellers and publishers from around the world including a team from NZ are in London right now to attend the annual London Book Fair at Earl's Court (pictured) over this coming weekend.

Have a look at what they might expect, this from The Independent..............

FURTHER INTEREST IN BORDERS - IRISH CHAIN THROW HAT IN RING

This story today from The Independent.

BEATTIES BOOK BLOG STATS FOR LAST WEEK

Down a little on last weeks' total of 1198 because of the Easter holidays but still a pleasing number coming from New Zealand 72.1%, USA 9.51%, Australia 6.52%, UK 4.3%, Japan and Canada with 1% each with the remainder spread over 22 countries including a first from Ivory Coast.

an astonishing and most original first novel

The first thing one notices about this novel is the most unlikely title, Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living (Picador). The cover is pretty unusual too, but totally appropriate as it turns out.

Because author Carrie Tiffany is speaking at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival '07 next month, along with the fact that the novel, her first, was shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Fiction Prize I was very keen to read it. And I'm pleased to say I was not disappointed.

Set in the years 1934-1940, and thus taking in the Depression and the beginning of World War Two, this is the story of an unlikely couple who buy land in the impoverished Mallee region of Australia with the aim of proving that a scientific approach to growing wheat will transform the sandy land into a profitable farming venture.

The story opens with the "Better Farming Train", an unusual 1930's government initiative (taken from history) to bring knowledge to farmers by way of a group of scientific experts travelling around Australia by train. Entire towns would turn out to meet the train and to attend the courses and lectures provided.

The story is narrated in the present tense by Jean, a highly talented seamstress, one of the three women on the train who are there to provide tuition to the farmers wives. On the train she meets Robert Pettergree, a soil expert, and they become an unlikely pair, leaving the train to marry and become farmers.

This may not sound promising but I was captivated by the author's superb depiction of the tough country life in drought stricken times and by the marvellous characterisation skills she displays. The two protagonists along with Mary Maloney, lecturer in cooking, Sister Crock who deals with "women's subjects" and Mr.Ohno, the Japanese chicken sexer are all well portrayed and believable.

I'm looking forward to "An Hour with Carrie Tiffany" at 5.00pm on Saturday 26 May at the Festival. She is also one of five writers featured in "Friday Night with the Stars" at 8.00pm on Friday 25 May. All events are being held at the Aotea Centre.

For more visit http://www.writersfestival.co.nz

Postscript- This footnote appears on the back endpaper :

Notes on the typeface- The typeface used in the text throughout this book is New Caledonia (c.1938). The sans serif heads are set in Metro Black (c.1929). Both typefaces were designed by the American typographer William Addison Dwiggins !1880-1956).

I admire publishers who go to this degree of care with selection of typeface and then provide readers with the information. I might add that in my opinion they made a perfect choice of typeface, it feels very 1930's to me.

Final note - author pic from www.theblurb.com.au , a website I recommend for Australian arts and entertainment.

SUPERMAN'S GIRLFRIEND LOIS LANE...in "LOIS LANE'S GUIDE TO LIFE"

Publisher Cider Mill Press(Bookwise International in NZ & Aust) NZ $18.00

When we were kids growing up in Gisborne in the 1950's our parents had a standing order for magazines at Eastwood's Bookstore on the corner of Gladstone Road and Derby Street, (my favourite shop in town). I recall we got The Weekly News, Truth, The English Women's Weekly, the NZ Woman's Weekly and The Daily Mirror. And we kids were occasionally allowed a few comics and among those I remember were Scrooge McDuck, Archie and Veronica, Beano, The Phantom and best of all Superman !

So it was a real nostalgia trip for me reading this fun package from Cider Mill Press. I say package because it comes in an attractive, sturdy box and most excitingly it includes a great set of 16 fridge magnets which each depict classic covers from the original comics.

Here is a peek at them:

The book itself is not, of course, to be taken seriously, it is just a load of fun. Here is a small example:

Take it from Lois, you'll feel a total heel when you bawl out your boyfriend for being late, only to later realise that he was off saving an orphanage full of children from a raging inferno.

As a newspaper reporter Lois knows the importance of getting her facts straight; because nothing rings the death-knell of a relationship like prematurely presuming the worst about your significant other. True, if he didn't call when he said he would, it could mean he's a selfish cad. Then again, it could signify that he has been sidelined by a band of evil marauders.

Great fun, a novel gift for someone?

(the magnets look fabulous on our fridge door!).

MONOCLE ISSUE 2 VOLUME 1

As I mentioned last week Monocle Issue 2 is out and I spent a few happy hours over the Easter break reading it from cover to cover.
The interesting, informative and lively stories are superbly well written by their talented team of writers.

Here are items that especially caught my eye - longish backgrounders on Norway (the world's third largest oil producer), and Ecuador (oil, bananas,flowers and shrimp), and cities, Basel, Bremen and Rotterdam.

And a footnote on page 167 - BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) was once one of the largest small arms and motorcycle manufacturing companies in the UK.
"They used to own Daimler and Triumph and build the motorcycles for Norton with a workforce of 25,000," says Cathal McAteer.
After 30 years of decline, and the end of motorcycle manufacture, BSA currently manufactures spare parts, but McAteer has acquired an umbrella licence that can be applied to anything but motorcycles, and there is even talk of a BSA cosmetics line.

On page172-73 a piece on the La Roma neighbourhood in Mexico City which made me want to rush across for a visit, while pages 176-77 introduce us to Riccardo Illy, industrialist and politician, and President of the Illy family's coffee making empire.

Finally an excerpt from Tyler Brulee's editorial which, refreshingly, appears on the last page of the magazine:

Having just returned from a round-the-world tour to launch Monocle, I'm happiest mixing it up. A little bit of London, a few days in Tokyo, a bi-monthly swing through New York and short stretches in our Zurich office suite me fine. There are many days when I question why I put up with London and its shoddy infrastructure, high cost of living and general quality of life. In the end I usually end up asking myself what the alternatives are.

For a media brand like ours, the options are surprisingly limited. While it would be great to have a Kenga Kuma designed office in Sydney or a tower by Bunzli & Courvoisier on the shore of Lake Geneva, the reality is that London still makes the most sense - at least for now.

The UK government and the mayor's office tell us they are working hard to maintain London's hub status but the hard evidence is tricky to come by. Heathrow is already a national disgrace
and passengers that once swore by BA and LHR are making their connections elsewhere. The city's public transport system has the dubious honour of being the most expensive in the world and perhaps the worst value for money. Young creative talent, one of the city's key economic assets, can no longer afford to line anywhere close to the centre.

There is much more but this will give you a taste of Tyler's theme and the frankness he employs.

Be sure not to miss this issue of MONOCLE. Having said that I have to add for my NZ readers that they will be very lucky to find it anywhere............................

SUITE FRANCAISE - Irene Nemivrosky

600,000 copies sold in French, and another one million in English and other langauages.

Now reports the New York Times another previously undiscoverd novel has been unearthed.

Author and daughter pic taken in 1930 from the same New York Times story.

HARRY POTTER RETURNS FROM BOOKSELLERS LIMITED TO 10%

This story from The Independent, makes sense I guess?

How sad though that booksellers make nothing out of these vast Harry Potter sales because of the rampant, totally unecessary discounting by the chains.

CRIME WRITER MICHAEL DIBDIN DIES AGED 60

I was a great fan of this award winning crime writer whose novels, published by Faber, were set in Italy and featured the somewhat grumpy detective Aurelio Zen. I was sorry to learn of his death from the Guardian overnight. R.I.P. Michael.

For more about this author visit this website from where the photo by Isolde Ohlbaum was taken. Also worth reading is the obituary from the Guardian.

The Amazing Mrs Beeton
By Ross Guy

Some of you may recall the brilliant 1970’s television drama series of Mrs Bridges with her ordering of well-regimented army of servants in “Upstairs, Downstairs”, which captured life in a Victorian household.
You could almost imagine the script came straight from the pages of the book “Mrs Beeton’s Household Management”, a rare find that I picked up in those same years at an Auckland secondhand bookshop. I loved the TV series because of the extraordinary lengths they would go to in the kitchen to produce the most exquisite banquets that to you or me might have been just an ordinary dinner at mealtime. There was no such thing as a meat and three veg as I knew it, but rather a roasted pheasant (Faisan Roti) or Quail, (Cailles Roties) garnished with watercress and accompanied by gravy, breadcrumbs served in nothing less than a fine china or stirling silver sauceboat. Weighing 1.8 kilos that took my arm with it when lifted from the shelf, it filled 1706 pages contained over 4,000 recipes, with 16 plates in colour and around 350 illustrations.
So after all who is Mrs Beeton? Isabella Mary Mayson, usually known as Mrs Beeton, was considered the most famous cookery writer in British history. However, many of the recipes were not her own. You could more say she was an editor rather than a writer. Mrs Beeton was introduced to Samuel Orchard Beeton, a publisher of books and fashionable magazines, and on July 10 1856 they were married. It was then that she began writing articles on cooking and household management for her husband’s publications. Between1859 and 1861, when she was 23, she wrote a monthly supplement to “The English Woman’s Domestic Magazine”. In 1861 this was published in a single volume as “The Book of Household Management”, selling over 60,000 copies in its first year of publication and nearly two million by 1868.
Essentially it was a guide to running a Victorian Household with advice on fashion, child care, animal husbandry, poisons, the management of servants, science, religion, industrialism and an enormous number of recipes you would never get through in one lifetime. It is said that many of the recipes were actually plagiarised from earlier writers, but the Beetons never claimed that the book’s contents were original.
It made absolute fascinating reading and night after night I would find myself completely buried in the pages of this amazing read. Take a point of interest for instance for Burnt Coffee.
Ingredients - Strong coffee, Brandy.
Method. - Allow 3 teaspoonfuls of good coffee to each ½ pint of water, and prepare according to any of the proceeding methods. Sweeten it rather more than originally, and strain it into small cups. Pour a little brandy into each over a spoon, set fire to it, and when the spirit is partly consumed the flame should be blown out, and the coffee drunk immediately.

Isabella couldn’t resist adding an interesting fact or note that often preceded each recipe or chapter. I would find myself completely yielding to late nights as I read her chapters on history, myth, religion, agriculture, animal husbandry, science, sociology and so on. Among other chapters there were pieces on violence and cruelty, illness and death, the birth and rearing of children, and farming. She tells of kitchens in which meat is still roasted on spits over open fires, with sauces and condiments we take so much for granted today were already available. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where many would have come from you see in your local supermarket. Its medical chapters offer advice on the uses of leeches for bloodletting and have opium use for pain.
Sadly Isabella Beeton died very early at the age of 28 after giving birth to her fourth child and contracting puerperal fever. You can still find copies of this wonderful book in secondhand bookshops or via the internet, allowing you a glimpse into a remarkable era in British culinary history.

(Ross Guy, a regular contributor to Café magazine, died in February. This was the last article he wrote.)

Note from Bookman Beattie:

The above story appears in the current issue of CAFE magazine, edited and published by long-time publisher and foodie Michael Guy.
Michael and Ross shared the same surname but in fact were not related, just bosom buddies.

This story is reproduced by kind permission of Michael Guy.

Cafe is a quarterly magazine, (the cover shown is not the cover of the latest edition), and is essential reading for all foodies and coffee lovers.

Coincidentally I am presently reading "The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs.Beeton" by Kathryn Hughes (Fourth Estate) and will be writing about it in the next few weeks. You can find more about the amazing Mrs.Beeton on this website.

DIFFERENT LIKE COCO by Elizabeth Matthews Candlewick Press US$17


Richard & Darrell were in Sydney last weekend and they bought Annie this new title from first-time author/illustrator Elizabeth Matthews for her birthday. What a gift, they couldn’t have done better.

It tells the rags to riches story of designer Coco Chanel and will appeal hugely to “girls” of all ages.
Coco’s story celebrates individuality, encourages the pursuit of dreams and independence. This book is a winner.

THE TEN BEST WINE BOOKS

Just in case you missed it, this list from The Independent.

Not surprising at all that Jancis Robinson with The Oxford Companion to Wine fills the number one spot.

I'm pleased to say that I own the titles that come in at 1, 4 and 5 on the list.

No NZ entries but then the compiler, Williamson Moore, is writing this for a UK market so I guess that is not surprising.

I would definitely include Michael Cooper's The Wines and Vineyards of New Zealand in my top ten. I own all the editions of this book published thus far.

For my money Cooper is the most outstanding wine writer in New Zealand. His judgement and total independence are without peer.

Author photo from the NZ Book Council Michael Cooper website.

Pacific wind blows through Best New Zealand Poems 06

This from the wonderful Newsletter of the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria
University of Wellington. If you do not subscribe to their e-mail Newsletter and would like to then contact them at : ModernLettersNews@lists.vuw.ac.nz

The salt tang of the Pacific Ocean is a pervasive presence in this year’s Best New Zealand Poems (http://www.victoria.ac.nz/bestnzpoems), the annual online survey of the liveliest and best poetry published by New Zealand writers in the preceding year, which is launched today the Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University. The work in Best New Zealand Poems 06 has been selected by poets Anne Kennedy and Robert Sullivan, both of whom currently teach at the University of Hawai’i.

From the Cook Strait gales and Manawatu floods of David Eggleton’s ‘The Weather Bomb’ and the ‘dark snout’ of Kapiti Island in Hinemoana Baker’s ‘One’ to Serie Barford’s siapo-makers of Samoa and Karlo Mila’s Tonga in mourning, Best New Zealand Poems 06 is awash in the ocean where the islands swim together. Powerful poems on illness, mortality and ancestors come from C K Stead, Michele Leggott, Jenny Bornholdt, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell and Andrew Johnston. And for the first time the anthology features digital poetry from Richard von Sturmer and Brian Flaherty.

Each writer has supplied a note on their poem that illuminates the circumstances of its composition, making Best New Zealand Poems a superb entry point for readers unfamiliar with the work of particular writers, and a treasure chest of information for students of New Zealand literature.

Best New Zealand Poems 06 is published with the support of Creative New Zealand, and hosted by the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre at Victoria University.

BIOGRAPHY - THE MOST POPULAR FORM OF NON-FICTION PUBLISHING

This fascinating piece from the Boston Globe via Dennis Dutton's wonderful Arts & Letters Daily (use link in right hand column of my blog).

THE MYERS by Paul Goldsmith & Michael Bassett David Ling Publishers NZ$50

Although this thumping great handsome book covers four generations of the Myers family in New Zealand it is the second half of the book when Douglas Myers enters the scene that really captivated me.

The book has been written with Douglas Myer’s full co-operation but for all that there are no holds barred on the various family battles, the merger of Lion and L.D.Nathan, the Wine-Box affair, and the controversial takeover of Lion Breweries by Kirin of Japan where the directors of Lion Nathan were paid a higher price for their shares than other shareholders.
All these matters are dealt with in great detail and the pages are littered with names from the NBR Rich List. I found it totally riveting.

Both Goldsmith & Bassett are highly experienced historians and authors with Bassett also being a well-known political commentator and newspaper columnist. Not surprisingly then the book proves to be thoroughly researched and well written with some very interesting photos included, many from family albums.

There are more than 22 pages of end notes as well as a most detailed index. I am sure this book will become a valuable source of information for future historians studying New Zealand’s 20th century social history.

But for now it is a real insight into one of NZ's best known families and especially the somewhat increasingly reclusive Doug Myers.

MONOCLE VOL.2 IS OUT

Following my raves about Tyler Brulee’s new magazine Monocle last month I’m pleased to say volume 2 has hit the street.

I hope they are going to get their New Zealand distribution sorted because it would seem that at present only a handful of copies are coming into the country and as a result most Kiwi visitors to my blog have not yet seen it.

A pity as it is a great magazine on world affairs covering many topics that are not yet on the radar screens of the mainstream media.

The Easter holidays are approaching so I’m putting my copy aside to read then but in a sneaky skim through it I notice NZ’s Prime Minister gets two pages under the heading:

Style Leader No.2 – She wears the trousers.

The preface to the story reads:

In the second of our series decoding power dressing we look at NZ’s Prime Minister Helen Clark In an appearance-fixated world, she is a startlingly low-key, practical dresser. But touched-up election campaign photographs and a softer wardrobe hint she knows that sometimes glam sells.

And I like this piece further on in the mainly flattering story:

This superlative politician, with a Clintonian memory and grasp of detail, but none of his smooth charisma, will now work a room where once she could be found in a corner discussing arcane agricultural susidies.
The confidence will be useful in the 2008 election, where she will face the smooth, sharp-suited John Key, who has charisma in spades.


Helen Clark pic from her Wikipedia webite.


More from me about Monocle 2 after Easter.

The new thing - the author pre-publication book tour !!

Get your name known BEFORE publication day, this story from the New York Times. Publishers be sure to read this....................

SONY READER - THE PORTABLE BOOK?

I am grateful to Roger Hall for bringing this article from The Weekly Standard to my attention. Note the comments about Mitch Albom !

HOUSE OF STONE by Christina Lamb Harper Press $27.00


I reviewed House of Stone on Radio New Zealand National earlier today.

I was saddened and distressed by the story which is sub-titled The True Story of a Family Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe.

It is the story of white farmer Nigel Hough and his children's black nanny Aquinata and how their lives were so dramatically changed by the farm invasions that began in 2000 that has since led to the ruin of the agricultural infrastructure of what was once called the breadbasket of Africa so that now most Zimbabweans live in poverty. I read a report in the New Statesman recently that said four million of them rely on food aid while many more subsist on roots and fried termites and the country’s life expectancy has dropped to the lowest in the world – just 34 for women.

And of course while the author provides a concise history of Zimbabwe and its predecessor Rhodesia what the book is really about is the disaster that is Zimbabwe under the repressive rule of Robert Mugabe who deserves no better description that that of a tyrant.

Christina Lamb is the foreign affairs correspondent for the Sunday Times and has reported on Zimbabwe since 1994 having made numerous visits to the country and in recent years these trips have been illegal and highly dangerous since Mugabe banned British journalists from entry.
She has twice been named foreign affairs journalist of the year
And she is also the author of three other books on Pakistan, Afghanistan and Africa. She has a reputation as a courageous and fair reporter so she is very well qualified indeed to write this book.

The way she does it is to follow the lives from birth to the present day of the two protagonists, the white farmer Nigel and black nanny Aquinata who were born only a few miles apart.

She did this by lengthy interviews with both of them over two years.

Their stories are told in alternating chapters with their own words italicized combined with the prose of the author. It is convincing and you have the sense that she gives them their own voices.
It is quite an achievement to describe so well the unfolding drama from both sides. It’s quite a feat of story telling but ultimately it is a distressing story because of the hopelessness of the Zimbabwean people under Mugabe who of course was the first freely elected prime minister back in 1980 and promised so much.

One of the best sections of the book for me comes at the end when she goes back to Zimbawe, illegally and under great danger, she meets up with the Houghs (who still live there even though their farm had been seized) and with Aquinata who still works for them.
She witnesses the destroyed farms and the demolished shanty settlements of the blacks where they had voted against Mugabe. This programme was called Operation Clean Up the Filth and has been widely reported in the international media.

I think the fact that in spite of everything the Houghs are still there, living in Harare and still have a great relationship with Aquinata, does suggest there might still be some hope for Zimbabwe. Once Mugabe has gone of course.

An excellent if at times a somewhat distressing read from a quite remarkable woman.

Her other titles are:

Waiting for Allah

The Africa House

The Sewing Circles of Herat

PHILIP ROTH INAUGURAL RECIPIENT OF SAUL BELLOW AWARD.

Last weekend I read Everyman by Philip Roth (Jonathan Cape) which my brother-in-law had loaned me and urged me to read.

Perhaps most accurately described as a novella as it only runs to 150 pages or so; I read it in one longish, enjoyable sitting.

Roth became the first three-time winner of the Pen/Faulkner prize for this moving and entertaining work which is about a retired New York ad man confronting ilnness and mortality in his retirement.

It is a stunning peice of writing, not without humour, and I warmly recommend it to all.

Author pic from the Wikipedia Philip Roth website.

Associated Press and most US media carry the story of Roth being Awarded the Saul Bellow Award which is made to a "distinguished living American author of fiction whose body of work in English posses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which place him or her in the highest rank of American literature."

Saul Bellow died in April 2005.

POTTER ON PONSONBY

Following my recent various blogs on the movie Miss Potter, and indeed all matters Beatrix Potter, I was delighted to notice while out walking this morning the great window display at the Women's Bookshop at 105 Ponsonby Road here in Auckland.

A garden fence along with a gorgeous large Peter Rabbit stuffed toy (customers go in the draw to win him when they purchase a Beatrix Potter title) and of course all the wonderful books in the Peter Rabbit series make up an arresting display.

The garden fence/gate came from the inorganic rubbish collection held in Ponsonby last week, recycling at its best!

Congratulations to Carole, Tanya and the team.

MORE INTEREST IN BORDERS

This from The Retail Bulletin..........

WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN HARRY POTTER 7 ?

Get the full story now from Mugglenet.com

By Ben Schoen, Emerson Spartz, Andy Gordon,
Gretchen Stull & Jamie Lawrence
Publisher: Ulysses Press - Bookwise represent them in NZ and Australia.
Release Month: May 2007
ISBN: 9781569755839
Paperback, 180pp, AU$23.95, NZ$29.99


Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love
and How Will the Adventure Finally End?

As anticipation of the final Harry Potter book intensifies, a debate is raging among fans about what’s in store for Harry and the rest of the gang at Hogwart's. In this book, the experts at MUGGLENET.com present a wide range of hard facts and bold predictions about the most popular storylines, favourite characters, and final outcome of the Harry Potter saga. They analyse the first six Harry Potter books and search for hidden clues to predict what the final book might reveal. It is well written, and presents the pros and cons to the possible answers to questions such as:
.
Is Dumbledore really dead?
.
Will Harry and Ginny get back together?
.
Who is the mysterious R.A.B.?
.
Can Ron and Hermione’s relationship last?
.
Whose side is Snape truly on?
.
Is Harry a Horcrux?
.
Will Harry defeat Voldemort in the ultimate showdown between good and evil?

Note for my bookseller visitors - I reckon this title could be a real winner but obviously it will have a short life as once HP7 is published the mysteries will be revealed. So stock up with this, bring it to the notice of all your HP fans, all those advance orders you have, and aim to have no unsold copies when HP7 is published.

JAMIE AT HOME

Declaration of interest - Bookman Beattie is probably NZ's greatest fan of Jamie Oliver. I have enjoyed and admired him since he first burst on the scene as The Naked Chef all those years ago when he was just a lad. I have all of his books and regularly cook from them. I even took his jamies italy with me to Italy last year and made several dishes from it while holidaying near Arezzo in Tuscany.

So, of course, just at the moment with his new TV series, Jamie at Home, screening Friday nights, Friday night has become a "stay home to watch Jamie night".

The frustrating thing for me is that there is no tie-in cookbook available and so I am having to make scribbled notes of the recipes as he goes. This is not ideal. So I phoned Jamie's publisher, Penguin Books, and said hey guys I need the book Jamie at Home so I can start making the recipes and not get distracted from the tv programme while trying to take them down long hand!

Sadly I am just going to have to be patient, (patience is not my long suit when it comes to books I want), because Penguin Books advise that publication date in New Zealand is not until 29 October. Bugger!

Pictures featured all from Jamie's website.