Perrotta's new book, The Abstinence Teacher, will be great on the big screen. For now it's just a mediocre book.

Bookman Beattie read the US edition of the October issue of Esquire over the weekend, (thanks Deb), and there were several book reviews that caught his eye. This is one of them:

The movies have been very, very good to Tom Perrotta. His novel Election went unpublished until Alexander Payne adapted it into a film. The adaptation of Little Children garnered Perrotta an Oscar nomination. And his latest satire, The Abstinence Teacher (St. Martin's Press, $25), is set for a 2008 release. What a movie it will be: Divorced suburban mother of two fights the Tabernacle crazies who have taken over her school.

The problem is that while Perrotta's novels may make for good movies, they don't make for very good books. The Abstinence Teacher is not very good for many of the same reasons that Little Children disappointed. The characters are a collection of easy sociological cues: Rich people live in McMansions, evangelical Christians dress badly. This is a world where women indicate sexual interest by donning sweaters with plunging necklines. And yet Perrotta remains that rarest of creatures, a genuinely successful literary novelist. His books sell, and critics often hold him as an heir to Cheever and Updike -- a comparison that is unfair to all involved.

I'd argue instead that Tom Perrotta is engaged in a more complicated and paradoxical project, one well suited to a postliterary age. He's writing books for people who don't much like books -- satires for nice people, fuck books for prudes. The problem with this approach is that it's not really satire at all. It's situational comedy. Perrotta's not gunning for laughs so much as light chuckles, perfect for a compassionate and confident grin. But less good for readers who'd be better served checking out David Gates or Stephen Dixon or simply giving up on books altogether and going to the movies.

Here is the second review:

The Illustrated Ronald Reagan
An Esquire editor and a seven-year-old review the new graphic biography of Ronald Reagan. Needless to say, the kid's got some questions about Iran-Contra.
By Tyler Cabot

There's no room for analysis in the stripped-down visuals and dialogue of Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography (Hill and Wang, $17), by Andrew Helfer. It's a life told in tiny pictures. We see Reagan run for governor, then president. His former national-security advisor attempts suicide, the Berlin Wall comes down. It's an abbreviated narrative, for sure. But it's also as compelling as it is serious and objective. There's no pretense, postulating, or setting up. Just the essential plot points. Just the story.

And from the 7 year old:
I didn't know that Ronald Reagan existed before I read this book. I learned that Ronald Reagan at first was a boy without hope. Then he started going to church. At the beginning, I couldn't follow who the main character was. But the pictures were good. The most interesting thing was that he got shot and survived. The writer really should tell us where he got shot, in what part of the body. I wanted to know. I think Ronald Reagan was a good man, except when he traded 21 guns for a hostage. And at the end of the book he had a nasty expression on his face, so I didn't think he was up to any good. -- Zeke Warren-Weigmann, age 7

And the third, and is this the shortest book review you have ever read?

Tomorrow by Graham Swift - sixteen word review

Mother agonises over kids.Bad Oprah? No. Think good Wonder Years reruns - nostalgic yet compulsively compelling.

Enough, I like Esquire.

Strapped into their bodices and bound by the social mores of the 19th century, Jane Austen's heroines bear their misfortunes with unfailing dignity.

Germaine Greer charts an emotional terrain still all too familiar.

JANE AUSTEN WOULD NOT have been best pleased to know that her novels were destined to found the genre of pulp literature known in our own time as "chick-lit". The staple plot that is reworked by romantic novels thousands of times over is the seduction of the stern, distant father-figure by the passive, helpless daughter-figure.

The story that turns women on is not the story of girl meets boy or even boy meets girl; it is junior female gets alpha male into her power and into her bed. In real-life daughter-father incest is unmentionable; where it can be shown to have occurred the father is invariably seen as a rapist. Yet in Mills and Boon and Harlequin novels, hundreds of them year on year, childish young women seduce masterful, silent men who are usually older, of higher social standing, richer and much more powerful than they — just as Elizabeth Bennet captivates strong, silent Fitzwilliam Darcy in Pride and Prejudice.

Bridget Jones came into being in 1995 when Helen Fielding went to interview Colin Firth after he had played Mr Darcy in the BBC TV series of Pride and Prejudice, wet shirt and all.

When the interview was published in The Independent Fielding used the byline "Bridget Jones" and when she was working the series "Bridget Jones's Diary" into a novel she wrote Mark Darcy into it as the older, richer, smarter guy whom ditsy Bridget would eventually end up with.
And just in case anyone missed the connection with Pride and Prejudice, Firth played Mark Darcy in the movie of Bridget Jones's Diary.

After more than 10 million sales of the book the trade certainly knows the relevance of Austen as the virgin mother of chick-lit.
In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet has a real father, but he's a bit of a bumbler who has made a foolish marriage and is incapable of governing his unruly gang of daughters. When Lydia runs off with the worthless Wickham it is Mr Darcy who fulfils the father role, by saving the family from disgrace and seeing that Lydia is properly provided for.

Mr Darcy is tall, haughty, unbending, unsmiling and master of Pemberley, while Mr Bennet is not even master of his own household. In Emma, Mr Knightley has been in love with Emma Woodhouse since she was 13 and he was 30. For seven years he has blamed her and lectured her and she has "borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it", so her reward is consummation with him.

Edmund Bertram is the nearest thing Mansfield Park's Fanny Price has to a father. He formed her, directed her reading, instructed her moral sense; it's a long wait but she gets him in the end. Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland rang the changes on the same pattern.
The man who groans with passion and rips the heroine's bodice is still senior, stern, unapproachable. In the '30s, his kisses had to scorch through whalebone; now he has to acquit himself of "great sex".

If there was no more to Austen than the little-girl-gets-big-man theme, we would have only escapism to thank her for. What makes Austen great is her awareness of the minefield that is ordinary life. At any point the Austen heroine can be brought low.
Even as we applaud the achievement of the sexual relationship at the end of any Austen novel, we should be aware not only that the heroine has had a tough time but that she could be facing an even tougher one. If to be a spinster in Austen's world is to be exploited by one's family whenever the need arises and otherwise completely overlooked and ignored, the role of wife-and-mother is so difficult that most of Austen's wives-and-mothers are hopeless at it.
The best mothers are the dead ones, like Emma's mother or Anne Elliot's mother. Fanny Price's mother, with an unemployed husband, nine children, inadequate housing, no money and a sweet nature, makes no attempt to regulate her household. Lady Bertram likes her pugs better than her children and can't rouse herself to anything. Mrs Bennet is a raucous vulgarian, avoided and ridiculed by her husband, who has nevertheless fathered five children on her. What's to say Elizabeth Bennet won't one day be as sore an embarrassment to Fitzwilliam Darcy as her mother is to her father?

Her intelligence, for one thing. All Austen's heroines are sharp; some are of quicker wit than others but all see through the pretence and pretension around them, even when it involves members of their own immediate family. Only Emma is unusually beautiful but even she is loved not for her looks but for her nature: her wit, her good humour and her readiness to learn.

The Austen hero's intelligence is not simply quickness; it is grounded in moral insight and emotional truth. Even within the family, only where the Austen heroine esteems does she allow herself to love and and her love is unshakeable. Elizabeth Bennet loves Jane better than her other sisters; Fanny Price loves William better than any other of her eight siblings. When it comes to falling in love the Austen heroine will not allow herself to fall for a man she cannot respect.
This is but the first piece of a long article by Germaine Greer that appeared in The Age last weekend. To read the rest go here.

Literary champion made books her life

R.I.P. Andrea Stretton

Born March 11, 1952, Melbourne. Died November 16, Sydney.

A fitting tribute from The Australian.

WHOEVER you talk to, the message is the same: literary and arts journalist Andrea Stretton was a warm and generous woman who poured hard work, intellectual rigour, a passion for life and integrity into the arts, particularly in the world of books and Australian literature.
"Her interview techniques and preparation were beyond compare," says Melbourne theatrical producer and literary agent John Timlin, who represented her at one stage of her career. The Books Show, which Stretton co-hosted on SBS with Dinny O'Hearn, greatly lifted Australians' appreciation of books, he says. "It gave books a national prominence that they had not had before. Whenever I think of her interviewing people I think of how brilliantly she got them to talk about their lives, not just their books. Her interests were so eclectic and she had a simpatico personality."
Stretton was born in Melbourne, the youngest of three siblings: she had two older brothers, John and Peter. Her father, also John, was a banker with an interest in history. Her mother, Dulcie, was a great reader who championed libraries, later in her life school libraries in particular.
Stretton received a BA from La Trobe University and joined SBS in 1985. She was heard on SBS Radio before being seen on The Book Show and, subsequently, on other arts programs, including Masterpiece. She had on-camera and behind-the-scenes roles.
In 1998 she moved to ABC Television to present the Sunday Afternoon arts program. While at the ABC, she acted as artistic director of two of the arts festivals held in the lead-up to the 2000 Olympic Games.
"I think it was a very enriching experience for Andrea because it took her beyond literature and the media," says Donald McDonald, director of the Office of Film and Literature Classification, who was then chairman of the Cultural Commission for the Sydney Organising Committee of the Olympic Games.
"She was wonderful to work with and she was exactly the same as her public persona. I think it was one of the keys to her success as a broadcaster: she really was being herself."
It was during Stretton's first arts festival in 1998 that she commissioned David Handley to create the annual Sculpture by the Sea exhibition in five locations around Australia.
"She took a punt on me," says Handley. "I know a lot of people thought she was mad giving the commission to a 31-year-old guy who had only produced a one-day event in Bondi, and the knives were being sharpened in case I failed. But we got 200,000 people to those exhibitions."
On Sunday, the closing day of the 11th Sculpture by the Sea, the staff wore black armbands in honour of one of their biggest supporters and their MC for the past eight years. "Mistress of Ceremonies was the title she loved. She was so laid-back and had such a cheeky humour," says Handley.
After leaving the ABC in 2001 - a tumultuous period at the national broadcaster and for her when it didn't renew her contract - Stretton presented seminars and conducted interviews with writers for festivals, cultural groups and libraries, and wrote reviews for various newspapers and journals, including Art & Australia.
She combined her passion for and knowledge of the visual arts with her love of literature through lectures at galleries.
For several years she gave short courses on writing and literary appreciation at Daku Resort in Fiji. She was there in October when she became ill.
"She did so much for writing and writers in this country and so much of it was unsung," says Lyn Tranter, proprietor of Australian Literary Management. Tranter says today some literary interviewers fail to read the books of the authors they are interviewing; this would never have happened in Stretton's interviews.
"She was utterly wasted and abandoned by our two national broadcasters and I think they should be held accountable for that," Tranter says.
The French were less remiss. They made her a Chevalier des Arts et Lettres, the country's highest award for the arts in 2002. Two years previously, Stretton had made Bouillon de Culture, a co-production between the ABC and France Television. Showcasing well-known Australian arts figures, it was shown in French-speaking countries around the world as well as in Australia.
In presenting her with the award in Sydney, then French ambassador, Pierre Viaux, called Stretton "a wonderful advocate of cultural diversity and a powerful ambassador for Australian culture in this country and around the world".
While her friends and colleagues comment on her warmth, they also leave no doubt that she was not soft as an interviewer.
Says Sydney bookshop owner Lesley McKay: "She would draw them out on subjects that they did not want to talk about. I have seen her really challenge a lot of people. If she had a point she wanted to get out of them she would. But she was not aggressive. She was feisty, talented and gorgeous."
Stretton worked part-time in McKay's bookshop after leaving the ABC. While there she and McKay cooked up a scheme to hold monthly literary interviews at the Woollahra Library. They have been running for the past four years.
"She had such a fan club," says McKay. "She really was the most gifted interviewer. She made guests so relaxed and drew authors out on all sorts of issues whether it was Kate Grenville, a writer who had just been published for the first time, or an academic. We are all completely devastated. The whole book trade is."
Stretton died in Sydney's Prince of Wales Hospital on Friday from lung cancer after a brief illness. She was 55.
She is survived by her partner Alan Krell, son Jake, and a granddaughter.

And from the Sydney Morning Herald from wheree the above pic was taken.

By Peter Kemp - From The Sunday Times
November 25, 2007

THE GLITTERING LITERARY PRIZES OF THE YEAR

From hidden secrets to sizzling suspense, our reviewer kicks off the Sunday Times Christmas books selection by revealing the fiction that gripped him in 2007

NOVEL OF THE YEAR
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan Chatto £12.99
Focusing with high-fidelity acuteness on a fateful couple of hours in the honeymoon suite of a genteel Dorset hotel in 1962, this brilliant short novel is a triumph of finesse and nuance. Capturing with unerring authenticity the look and sound of a buttoned-up era about to be swept aside by the liberties of a gaudier time, McEwan shows how its ethos of verbal, physical and emotional restraint stifles a relationship. Where damage in his previous works was wreaked by violence, malice or disturbance, here it is brought about by decency, consideration and responsibility. As a period piece, the book shimmers with semi-satiric irony. As a story of two admirable young adults kept apart by inhibitions and the pressure of their pasts, it is deeply affecting: elegantly structured, subtly written and brimming with imaginative sympathy.

FIRE IN THE BLOOD by Irène Némirovsky. Translated by Sandra Smith Interactive Fiction Archive

A superlative novella that, like Némirovsky’s masterpiece, Suite Française, has recently been retrieved from the miraculously surviving manuscripts of this prodigiously gifted author who died in Auschwitz in 1942. Set deep in the Burgundy countryside among acquisitive, distrustful landowners, it chronicles the unrolling of a terrible nemesis as hidden secrets come to light. Seasonal and agricultural rhythms governing its characters’ lives are atmospherically conveyed. Sensuous, tense and resonant, the book endows its closed-in community with wider significance, too, by turning it into a memorable emblem of time’s inexorable deadening of youth and vitality.
MISTER PIP by Lloyd Jones J Murray £12.99

Initially, this seems a charming curiosity. On a tropic island in Papua New Guinea in the early 1990s, schoolchildren (and their families) listen enthralled as their village’s only white man retells the story of Great Expectations. When the civil war that has been raging in the distance closes in, Jones’s novel expertly clenches into something more fearful, and Dickens’s themes – orphanhood, loss of home, patronage, deceptiveness – take on urgent relevance. A haunting tour de force.

Footnote: this cover is the John Murray edition, published by Penguin in NZ, and Text in Australia all with different covers.

See my story from September 18 on the Mr.Pip covers.

THE YACOUBIAN BUILDING by Alaa Al Aswany. Translated by Humphrey Davies HarperPerennial £7.99

A controversial bestseller in the Arab world after its publication there in 2002, Al Aswany’s swarming, colourful account of people living in and around a once swanky, now dilipidated apartment block in Cairo scathingly indicts a society riddled with corruption and torn between state brutality and Islamist fanaticism. As chockablock with vivid characters, diverse storylines and moral and social indignation as a Victorian novel, it is as readable as it is courageous.

LIFE CLASS by Pat Barker Hamish Hamilton £16.99

In this first novel of a projected sequence that looks likely to parallel her acclaimed Regeneration trilogy, Barker returns to fictional territory she has made her own: the first world war. This time, her central figures are young artists studying at the Slade. The impact of the western front and its abbatoir atrocities on them, their work and their relationships is explored with veteran expertise in a work alive with informed intelligence, psychological acuteness and a fascinated and fascinating concern with the ethics and aesthetics of depicting war damage.

For the others go here they include:

The Ghost by Robert Harris (Hutchinson)

The Dig by Jon Preston (Viking)

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris (Viking)

End Games by Michael Dibdin (Faber)

Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka (Fig Tree)

TREADING WATER – Rob Hewitt’s Survival Story
Rob Hewitt with Aaron Smale $30

Rob Hewitt’s survival for 75 hours in the water off the west coast north of Wellington, New Zealand in February last year made headlines at home and around the world. Now for the first time the full story is told and what an amazing, inspiring almost unbelievable story it proves to be. A story of epic endurance, about the limits of human endurance, the strength of love and family ties, a story of mental toughness. It is a truly inspiring tale and one is not surprised to learn that Hewitt has become an inspirational speaker working with the Step Up youth programme, Water Safety NZ, maritime NZ and the Junior Kiwis rugby league team.

But the book is more than just his remarkable tale of survival, it is a memoir in which Hewitt speaks frankly about his childhood, growing up in a Pakeha world, the trials of boarding school, being the brother of an All Black and his 20 year navy career.

Contains an interesting selection of family and career photographs
Rob Hewitt is a remarkable New Zealander.

That's the best thing we've read all year -

Harry Potter's finale, the lives of Stalin, Brian Clough and Graham Greene, Ted Hughes's letters, a history of teenagers and not forgetting a tome on Welsh furniture ... writers and other cultural figures choose their favourite books of 2007

David Hare writing on Sunday November 25, 2007 in The Observer

Nicola Barker

My book iof the year?

It's a no-brainer: Jon Savage's pre-history of youth culture, Teenage
(Chatto & Windus). It's a proper book - it has heft. And not only
that, it's also fascinating and coherent and witty and challenging and
perplexing and poetic and awe-inspiringly intelligent. Even just holding
it in my hands makes me feel like a small child carrying a large birthday
cake with all the candles lit.

Margaret Drabble

My book of the year is Hermione Lee's superb biography, Edith Wharton (Chatto & Windus). It
is finely researched, finely narrated, moving and perceptive - a major
book about a major writer.

Toby Litt

In February I finally got hold of Paul Celan's Breathturn (Green Integer Press) as translated by
Pierre Joris. Breathturn is the earliest of Celan's final three books of
poetry. The other two, Threadsuns and Lightduress, had already been
published and I had been waiting to complete the trilogy. Although Celan
has a reputation for obscurity, I find him more moving than any other
20th-century poet. These editions - with English and German on facing
pages - could not be bettered.

Alain de Botton

I was very touched and impressed by Sukhdev Sandhu's Night Haunts (Verso), a series of essays about London at night. There are chapters on the lives of minicab drivers,
police helicopter pilots, Samaritans, cleaners and sewage maintenance
people. The book reads like a novel but has the immediacy of good
reportage, the sort of stuff that used to appear in Granta. You come away in awe at all that goes on in the capital on an average evening - and full of respect for an author who has left the study to discover how things really work.

Michael Chabon

Against the Day (Vintage) by Thomas Pynchon: sentence for sentence, scene for scene, idea
for idea, it gave me more pure reading pleasure than any book I've read in
the past few years. I only wished it were a thousand pages longer.

Jan Morris

Unexpectedly pre-eminent among my books of 2007 was Richard Bebb's sumptuously learned two-volume Welsh Furniture 1250-1950 (Saer Books), which really amounts to a grand
domestic history of Wales. Half a lifetime in the making, with 1,500
pictures, it should be, as they say, in every Welsh library (though in
view of its price, I share my copy with my son Twm, who fortunately lives
next door).

Shere Hite

Alice in Wonderland (Penguin Classics) by Lewis Carroll is a great book, an allegory for women
today, still not fitting in 'quite', either too big or too small or
growing too fast! It is amusing to read fiction as a satire, not as a
simple story, and has been my favourite book all year. I have also been
reading Judy Chicago, edited by Elizabeth A Sackler (Watson-Guptill
Publications). This book is interesting in that the long verbatim
interviews show Chicago's awareness of gender as an issue in art.

Read the choices of MJ Hyland, Ian Hislop, Peter Carey, Charlotte Mendelson, John Banville,
Anne Tyler, Michael Ondaatje, Hanif Kureishi, Irvine Welsh, JG Ballard, Simon Callow, Hari Kunzru, Oliver Sacks. Beryl Bainbridge and others here.

Footnote: I must say it is incredibly difficult to select one title as the best you have read in the year but shortly I'm goiung to give it a go and invite readers of this blog to write in with their choice.

HARPER COLLINS NEW ZEALAND ON A ROLL

Coincidentally three of the last four books I have read have all come from Harper Collins and they are all very New Zealand in content.
It occurred to me that the Harper Collins profile on the NZ book publishing scene has become more prominent in the last few years, they seem to me to be publishing more books than previously, so I asked their NZ publishing manager, Lorain Day, if this was the case. Here is her response:

Some time ago a decision was made to limit the number of titles we publish each year, in order to concentrate our resources so that each title received more marketing, publicity, design and editorial input. As a result, we have seen our average print runs increase, and by concentrating our publishing focus on those areas where we feel we can do the best job, we have been delighted to see our authors continue to raise their sales and increase their profile. While it may appear that we are publishing more titles, it is in fact more accurate to say that we are publishing our titles more successfully, as we are now publishing less titles annually than say five years ago.


FOOD FROM THE SEA – How to catch them and how to cook them
Daryl Crimp & Norman Holtzhausen $20

This paperback is one that all fisherfolk should have, on the boat and at the bach.
The first part of the book illustrates and describes, in alphabetical order, the huge variety of seafood caught on and around our coast starting with Albacore Tuna all the way through to Yellowfin Tuna with everything else in between from Kina and Kingfish to Trevally and Whiting.
In the second part of the book we find all the recipes that come into play once you have caught your fish. And a really clever feature is that at the bottom of the page describing each fish is the name and page number for the recipe.

Darryl Crimp, an irrepressible Nelson-based fisherman has the reputation of making the world’s best whitebait omelette, it must be sensational, and when not out fishing produces his own newspaper, The Fishing Paper. Norman Holtzhausen is the fishing editor of Trade-a-Boat magazine and also a keen seafood afficianado. They make a great team and I can see a lot of guys getting this book in their Christmas stocking. Later they will wonder how they ever lived without it!


SAVVY – Fresh, inspired New Zealand Cuisine
Jason Dell $40

Continuing on the food theme here is a knockout of a hardback book with loads of recipes from the award-winning executive chef at the luxury hotel Blanket Bay Lodge in Glenorchy. Most of us will never get the chance to eat at this internationally acclaimed lodge but this book provides the opportunity to try some of Dell’s fabulous dishes.
My trial dish, signature lamb with hummus, tabbouleh and sticky tamarind. Sounds a bit complicated but it isn’t and the end result, superb! Even if I say so myself.
The book is divided into handy sections – soups, vegetarian dishes and salads, fish & seafood, meats, desserts and baking, brunch, and accompaniments. Dishes accompanied by superb photographs by Fredrick Larsson who surprisingly doesn’t get a mention on the cover or title page.
Other features include wine recommendations, some gorgeous photographs of spectacular southern landscapes, along with personal stories about special industry personalities he has met and worked with in his culinary career.
Dell, of Ngai Tahu descent, is a regular writer & food stylist for Te Karaka magazine, has represented New Zealand in various international culinary events and is actively involved in mentoring young chefs. Married with four children he lives at Glenorchy.

An attractive, appealing and useful addition to the kitchen library.

Congratulations to the author, photographer and publisher. The local publishing industry can compete on any international stage when it comes to cookbooks.

Pic shows Asian-inspired twice-cooked pork belly with soy caramel jus, spinach, roast pumpkin and ocean scallops which I am planning to cook this week.

Each recipe has wine suggestion with it. For this pork belly dish a Central Ortago Pinot Noir is suggested "with flashes of sweet cherries and berries, and just enough acidity for the perfect balance."



REMEMBER ME
Derek Hansen $35

Derek Hansen, born in England, raised in New Zealand and now living in Australia, had an illustrious career in the advertising world before turning his hand to writing novels.
His first, Lunch with the Generals, was an enormous success around the world and he has since written a further seven novel as well as three collections of short stories.

This latest title set largely in the Auckland suburbs of Grey Lynn and Ponsonby in 1956 is quite different to anything he has done before as it is told in the voice of a twelve year old school boy. This a boy is exceptionally talented at writing essays and it is one of these essays in which he inadvertently reveals a wartime secret regarding the sighting of a German U Boat that provides the plot for Remember Me.

This was a great read for me as I related very strongly to the mores and language of the time and came across metaphors and other expressions I hadn’t heard in years.
Some examples:
As black as the lining of a mullet’s gut
As still as a shag drying it’s wings
You could have knocked me down with a feather
Harder to catch that a snapper in shallow water
Hells bells !
They couldn’t stand in line & kick the bum in front of them without missing

These and the escapades the boys get up to after school, remember this is the pre-tv, pre-electronic age, gave me a real burst of nostalgia. At one stage early in the story the boys are nearly caught “raiding an orchard” and on reading this I had such powerful recollections of such experiences from my own childhood in Gisborne in the 1950’s.

All these years later I live in Ponsonby and so can picture the streets and places in which Hansen sets his story.
One assumes there is a fair degree of autobiography or at least memoir in the novel as the author did grow up in the same area during the 1950’s.

Great cover featuring the former Ponsonby POst Office!

Derek Hansen is touring this week to promote Remember Me:

26/27 Nov – Auckland
28 Nov – Thames/Tauranga
29 Nov – Te Puke/Gisborne
30 Nov – Napier/Waipukurau/Masterton
1 Dec – Wellington

Further details on the tour from Sandra Noakes or Lise Taylor at Harper Collins
Sandra Noakes (09) 443 8954; Lise Taylor (09) 443 9246;

INSIDE THE TOMB OF TOMES

This warehouse is being built to house the books and journals that no one
wants. With the British Library's UK collection growing at a rate of
12.5km of shelf space a year, is the notion of the copyright library really sustainable?

Stuart Jeffries reports in the Weekend Guardian .

We used to build cathedrals.
Now we build warehouses. One of the most extraordinary examples of our
costly new dalliance with warehouse technology is rising on an industrial
estate in West Yorkshire. As I drive past Leeds United's training ground
and past HM Prison Wealstun, an epic grey corrugated temple looms
ominously. It dominates the landscape around Boston Spa, just as Ely
Cathedral commands the Fens or as Chartres Cathedral surmounts the
countryside for miles around. All it needs is a spire.

The warehouse is extraordinary because, unlike all those monstrous Tesco and
Amazon depositories that litter the fringes of the motorways of the
Midlands, it is being meticulously constructed to house things that no
one wants. When it is complete next year, this warehouse will be
state-of-the-art, containing 262 linear kilometres of high-density, fully
automated storage in a low-oxygen environment. It will house books,
journals and magazines that many of us have forgotten about or have never
heard of in the first place.

Chris Fletcher, the warehouse's project manager for the past 11 months, is extremely proud of
it. "Normal atmosphere consists 20% oxygen. This will regulate
oxygen in the warehouse to between 15.8 and 16.2%, with a mean of 16%,
which will ensure minimal damage to the books in store. The
air-conditioning will ensure 52.5% humidity plus or minus 5%. It will
ensure a steady state temperature. The whole building will be sealed to
protect the contents. It will," he says puffing his chest a little, "comply
with British Standard 5454. Amazing, isn't it?"

It certainly is. We're standing in hard hats and wellies inside the warehouse, which at present
is a huge shell. It reminds me of visiting an empty power station in
south London before they started filling it with art galleries and
calling it Tate Modern: the scale induces awe. This will be the £20
million new depository at the British Library's Yorkshire complex in
Boston Spa near Leeds. It is where, before this century reaches its
teens, copies of books spared a quick death at the pulping plant - thanks
to the grace of the provisions of the 1911 Copyright Act and later
government legislation - will go to serve their life sentences in a
secure environment. "We need this warehouse," says Steve
Morris, the British Library's head of finance, "not just because it
is cheaper than existing rented warehouses we use in London, but also
because we are statutorily obliged to house more and more material. Seven
million items, many of them books, will go there. The death of the book
has been grossly exaggerated, you see."

Indeed, the problem for our great libraries is that books won't stop coming. The British
Library's UK national collection is currently expanding at the rate of
12.5 kilometres of shelf space a year, and somewhere has to be found to
put it all. In 1911, the notion of the copyright library was born, when
Parliament decided that the British Library along with five others in
Great Britain and Ireland would be entitled to receive a free copy of
every item published.

But, while the other five - the Bodleian at Oxford,
Cambridge University Library, Trinity College Library in Dublin, and the
National Libraries of Scotland and Wales - have a right to claim any book
published in the UK, in practice not all are. Cambridge University
Library, for example, estimates that only between 70% and 80% of
everything published in the UK are deposited there (they can also request
anything within one year of publication). By contrast, the British
Library must receive a copy of everything published in the UK each year.

The rest of the story........

Jane Blonde Spies Trouble- Jill Marshall

Macmillan

Reviewed by guest reviewer Isabelle Bigio (age 11)

Jane Blonde is back from her last mission and gets sucked into her second adventure when she learns that some scientists believe that they have found the secret to a cat’s nine lives- and need Trouble, her spy cat to confirm their beliefs. This mission takes Janey places where she never thought of being when she started her spy life. With the help of her godmother G-mamma, her friend and fellow spylet Alfie Halliday and his mum Mrs Halliday and her Uncle Sol, Jane Blonde is ready for anything that comes her way.

Jill Marshall moved from the UK to New Zealand with her daughter and dog. In 2001 Jill stopped working at a big international company to concentrate on her childhood ambition and write books for children. When Jill isn’t juggling a busy life that includes working, writing and being a mother she lets out her musical talent by playing guitar, having singing lessons and learning to play her drum kit which she assembled herself in her garage.

This book by Jill Marshall is another great story to add to the bookshelf! Perfect for you if you like some action and a few laughs.

The other books in the Jane Blonde series are Jane Blonde Sensational Spylet, Jane Blonde Twice the Spylet and Jane Blonde Spylet on Ice. What I like about the Jane Blonde series is that it’s really just about a normal school girl living a hectic double life and that should appeal to many young girls everywhere.

Dutton's News and Events

an excerpt from their weekly newsletter of what's going on at Dutton's Brentwood.

Odds and ends

Bad news for the book world............

A study released November 19 by the National Endowment for the Arts had some troubling news: Americans are doing less pleasure reading, and that decline is mirrored by a decline in reading skills. In studying reading skills at several different levels, the report found that proficiency scores have only risen for elementary school children. Middle school children's scores were flat and high school scores were declining.

The trend seems to continue through college and even into adulthood as the percentage of adults proficient in reading has declined. Concurrent with these declines is a drop in the percentage of Americans who report they regularly read for pleasure.

It is unclear whether the decline in proficiency is a result of a decline in pleasure reading or vice versa; but the trend was clearly troubling the report's authors - and not just because the book business may be headed for trouble. The study also found a significant correlation between pleasure reading and scores in other academic areas - including math. Culprits for the decline in reading were numerous - chief among them television and the growing digital culture; however, society's relative failure to celebrate and promote literary culture was also identified as a cause. For a good summary of the report, check out the New York Times article.

A million little lawsuits.............is what Random House must have feared when it decided to offer refunds to anyone who purchased the wildly popular memoir A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. Trouble began when it was discovered that some of the book was in fact nothing more than literary invention. While its author was busy making a heartfelt apology to Oprah - who had championed the book on her on-the-air book club - the publisher was busy trying to deal with lawsuits that were popping up from readers who claimed they were duped.

A settlement agreement was finally reached in which Random House would offer refunds to anyone who had purchased the book before it was exposed as primarily a work of fiction.

Additionally, Random House would contribute $180,000 to be divided among three charities. Though the publisher ending up spending an additional $1.2 million in legal fees and costs associated with publicizing the settlement, in the end only 1,729 readers claimed refunds. Ironically, despite the hefty lawyer fees and settlement costs, Random House probably still came out ahead since the controversy only stoked interest in the book - A Million Little Pieces remained on the best-seller list for 26 weeks after it had been revealed as a fraud.

Lawsuits, part II..................Random House isn't the only publisher who has dealt with lawsuits recently - Regnery Publishing has recently found itself in court. However, whereas readers were suing Random House, Regnery is being sued by its own authors.

At issue is, not surprisingly, the structure of royalty payments. Regnery, a publisher of such conversative bestsellers as Unfit for Command and William F. Buckley's Miles Gone By, is being accused by five of its authors of cheating them out of royalties by selling their books through various book clubs and other channels that the publisher's parent company, Eagle Publishing, owns.

Rather than receiving the fifteen percent of the cover price that the authors would receive if the books were sold at a retail store, the authors receive a smaller percentage of a discounted price - a difference, they argue, that can reduce a $4 per book royalty to mere pennies.

Moreover, many of these sales are not tracked as part the official industry counts, meaning that future contract calculations, which are usually based on prior sales, can be affected. In its defense, Regnery argues that these practices are standard in the industry and the the alternative outlets help to promote the books, ultimately benefitting the authors.

Move over Harry Potter - latest teenage hero is insolent, rebellious veggie from broken home

This story from The Scostman.

FOR adults, the world of teenagers can seem a strange place: volcanic outbursts over the most minor problems; bands and clothes that go in and out of fashion on a weekly basis and friendships that end for the slightest reason.
But any parent looking for insight into this difficult-to-comprehend segment of society could do worse than pick up the novel voted by Scottish teenagers as the best children's book of the year.
However, those hoping to find their children enjoying a latter-day Famous Five or the successor to Harry Potter might be horrified to learn that its heroine is a portrait of teenage rebellion.
Scarlett by Cathy Cassidy tells the story of a red-headed anti-hero who is viewed by all in authority as a "problem child". She flouts her school's dress code, hates rules or authority, spouts insolence to parents and teachers alike, starts an anti-meat riot in the canteen and get herself expelled.

And that's just the first five pages.
Packed off to Ireland to stay with her father, who has separated from her mother, Scarlett believes it will be a repeat of her previous school record, but does not count on meeting a boy.
The novel was yesterday voted as the winning book for 12 to 16-year-olds in the 2007 Royal Mail Awards for Scottish Children's Books.

Anna Gibbons, the children's programme manager for the Scottish Book Trust, said:
"The book has been marketed in a girly way, such as in the cover design, but it is a riveting story and has very believable characters. Cathy Cassidy gets inside the head of a teenager and Scarlett really sounds like one."

Ms Cassidy believes teenagers may have been attracted to her book because many had experienced parents splitting up either personally or through their friends.
She said: "Since her parents split up, Scarlett has felt very rejected and abandoned. Her mother does not know how to cope, and Scarlett does not feel loved."
Ms Cassidy, who was born in the Midlands but now lives in Galloway, said she had drawn on her experience as an art teacher and mother of two teenagers to tune in to their thinking. She is also the agony aunt for teenage magazine Shout.

In a vote of hundreds of pupils from across Scotland, Scarlett narrowly triumphed over the two other short-listed entries, The Medici Seal by Theresa Breslin, a historical novel about Leonardo da Vinci, and Nemesis: Into the Shadows by Catherine MacPhail, a mystery story. Chill, by Alex Nye, won the 8 to 11 years category - a ghostly story set in a remote house near Stirling.

The 0 to 7 years category won by a picture book in Scots, Katie's Moose, by Matthew Fitt and James Robertson, and illustrated by Karen Sutherland. It involves a girl looking for her animals, which young readers can find by lifting flaps on the pages.
Mr Fitt said the book would help more young Scots to become familiar with their own tongue from an early age.

The winning books won £3,000 each as part of the total prize money of £15,000.

The full story from The Scotsman here.

And Cathy Cassidy's website.

Join the debate as World Book Day 2008 launches search for The Book to Talk About

A new campaign – Spread the Word, Books to Talk About – has today been launched by World Book Day, inviting UK and Irish readers to vote for The Book to Talk About for 2008.

The Spread the Word website will invite book-lovers to join the debate, share thoughts and comments, as well as recommend titles which have genuine word of mouth appeal and discussion potential. Reading groups and individuals will be asked to vote for their favourite title from a long-list of 100 ‘hidden gems’ selected by an industry panel. The site will also be a great resource for new and existing book groups, with downloadable toolkits, discussion topics, and the chance to win books and £100 of National Book Tokens each week.

The ten most popular titles will be announced at the beginning of February 2008, and will be the focus when the online discussions move into libraries and bookshops around the UK, with the launch of the Spread The Word: Books to Talk about Reading Groups. These will be held on or around World Book Day 2008, and will also be a great opportunity for anyone new to book clubs to get involved, with ‘taster’ groups as well as appearances from short-listed authors.

Voting will continue throughout February for the title which readers think will best spark discussion in reading groups and amongst friends The winning author of The Book to Talk about 2008 – and recipient of a £5,000 prize – is then set to be announced on World Book Day, Thursday 6th March.

The selection of 100 titles features several established authors such as David Mitchell and Jonathan Coe as well as some of the rising stars of contemporary fiction today, including Hari Kunzru, Helon Habila, winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing and acclaimed US authors Sara Gruen and Dara Horn. A range of genres are also represented from science fiction, crime and comedy to romance, adventure and historical novels.

Readers can join the discussion and cast their vote at the dedicated Spread the Word: Books to Talk About website: www.worldbookday.com/spreadtheword

For more information about World Book Day, please contact
Truda Spruyt, Helen Wharton or Kate Wright-Morris at Colman Getty
Tel: 020 7631 2666
Fax: 020 7631 2699
Email: truda@colmangetty.co.uk / kate@colmangetty.co.uk

Footnote:

Bookman Beattie suggests that this UK/Ireland event should be taken worldwide.

Contest heats up for Bad Sex awards

From The Guardian Thursday.

Ian McEwan may have been passed over for the Booker, but he may yet end the year with a gong in his hand. Although the climax of On Chesil Beach revolves around the fact that it is, in fact, an anti-climax, it is enough to garner him a nomination for the Literary Review's Bad Sex award.

He is joined on the longlist of what the organisers call Britain's "most dreaded literary prize" by Jeanette Winterson with a passage about robotic sex from The Stone Gods; Ali Smith for Girl Meets Boy, and Gary Shteyngart with an athletic description of his crass hero from Absurdistan bedding one of his many conquests ("Her vagina was all that, as they say in the urban media - a powerful ethnic muscle scented by bitter melon, the breezes of the local sea, and the sweaty needs of a tiny nation trying to breed itself into a future").

The late Norman Mailer makes a posthumous appearance with a passage from The Castle in
the Forest in which the male protagonist's "Hound" is described as "soft as a coil of excrement". More poetic bawdiness is on offer
from Christopher Rush's Life of Shakespeare, told in the Bard's "own
words", and his maritime-themed description of coitus with Anne Hathaway,
in which "I clung like a mariner to her heaving haunches, the deep keel
of her backbone dipping and lifting through July, through the green surge of
growth ... Our vessel ran shuddering onto the rocks, a wave of wetness ran through
us, the air was rent with screams and I became aware that the bank on which we
lay drenched and grounded was journey's end, love's end, the very sea-mark of
our utmost sail."
Now in its 15th year, the prize, which only targets literary fiction, aims "to draw attention to
the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual
description in the modern novel, and to discourage it." The winner, who
will be announced on November 27 at the In & Out Club in London, is awarded
a semi-abstract statue representing sex in the 1950s and a bottle of
champagne, if he or she turns up.

In 2005, Tom Wolfe was one of the very few recipients to fail to attend; he later criticised the judges for failing to recognise the irony contained in the winning passage from I Am
Charlotte Simmons. Last year's winner was Iain Hollingshead, whose award was
presented by the rock singer Courtney Love. Previous presenters have included
Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Sting and Germaine Greer.

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE INSTITUTE OF MODERN LETTERS

DAMIEN WILKINS RECEIVES EXPANDED MANSFIELD PRIZE

Our heartiest congratulations – laced with just a touch of envy – go to Damien Wilkins, who was named the winner of the inaugural New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize at a ceremony in Wellington earlier this week. New Zealand Post has significantly increased the size of the cash prize from previous sponsors’ contributions: the new $100,000 dollar prize consists of return airfares for two to London and the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship, making it the most valuable New Zealand international writer’s residency programme.

In accepting the Award, Damien described Mansfield as ‘a kind of patron saint of New Zealand Post’, given that during about eight months in Menton in 1920, she wrote 110,000 words of letters — ‘more than her Collected Stories, and the equivalent of about a 350-page novel.’

The Katherine Mansfield Fellowship has supported many authors over the last 37 years, including Janet Frame, Witi Ihimaera, Vincent O’Sullivan, Dame Fiona Kidman and recent Man Booker prize shortlister, Lloyd Jones. It enables a New Zealand author to work at the Villa Isola Bella, where Mansfield lived and wrote. As Nigel Cox put it (in an essay from his newly released non-fiction collection Phone Home Berlin, quoted by NZ Post Chief Executive John Allen at the award ceremony), ‘the Fellow tries to ignore the ghosts (did Janet Frame sit facing this window or that one?) and get on with justifying the grant.’
When Cox went to Menton in 1991 the grant was ‘$36,000 to cover travel, accommodation and living’.Today the annual mean income of a New Zealand author as a result of writing is still less than $15,500 a year, according to a recent NZSA survey, so the grant must have seemed a princely sum even then. Damien gave an idea of what it might mean to him in this caveat to his admiration of Mansfield ‘the great artist’:

I've always felt more warmly towards the person who gave Mansfield's life a human scale — I'm talking about her companion, her friend, her slave, Ida Baker. When Mansfield was sick — and even when she wasn't — she'd order Ida off to the local stores to buy provisions. And when they were living just across the Italian border from Menton, Ida, without a word of the local language and quite a timid person, would be forced to do battle, to do the shopping, which she'd often get wrong. She was known in the village as 'the one who never counts her change'. And when I read that I thought, 'that'll be me! I won't be Katherine Mansfield. I'll be Ida Baker. The one who never counts his change.'

While Damien is busy ‘justifying the grant’ next year, novelist Kate Duignan (http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/duignankate.html) will teach one of the IIML’s two 2008 MA (Page) workshops in his place.

Bill Manhire will be back from classroom leave to teach the other workshop. We’ll leave it until next year to wish Damien bon voyage.

BOOKS, BOOKS & MORE BOOKS

Today I had lunch in the city, an unusual event for me, and on the way back to my Vespa at the motorcycle park, I had to pass the small but beautifully formed Unity Books in High Street. I thought to myself I’ll just pop in for a moment but I won’t buy any books as my office and bedroom are starting to look like a public library stack toom!
Ha, some chance. Half an hour later and out I went with three books.

The Best American Travel Writing 2007 – Susan Orlean
The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007– Dave Eggers

Two of the eight titles in this celebrated annual series from Houghton Miflin.
Someone recently recommended these to me but I now can’t recall the name of that person, so if it was you and you happen to read this could you remind me it was you.
These look like wonderful plane reads, or to have beside the bed for dipping into before falling asleep.
I must say I had to exercis great restraint in not buying all eight in the series. The Best American Comics in particular was extremely hard to leave there.
Check out the Houghton Miflin website for full details on the series.

The third title purchased was something entirely different.

A NEST OF SINGING BIRDS – 100 years of the New Zealand School Journal
Gregory O’Brien Learning Media $40

This is a real walk down memory lane and from a quick glance I can see that anthologist/historian/artist/curator/critic/author/essayist/everywhere man Gregory O’Brien has done a superb job. Can’t wait to get into this one. Real nostalgua stuff,

Holiday Books
100 Notable Books of the Year

Greg Clarke in the New York Times overnight.

The Book Review has selected this list from books reviewed since the Holiday Books issue of Dec. 3, 2006

This list will run in the Dec. 2 print edition of the Book Review.

Fiction & Poetry

THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER. By Tom Perrotta. (St. Martin’s, $24.95.) In this new novel by the author of “Little Children,” a sex-ed teacher faces off against a church bent on ridding her town of “moral decay.”
AFTER DARK. By Haruki Murakami. Translated by Jay Rubin. (Knopf, $22.95.) A tale of two sisters, one awake all night, one asleep for months.
THE BAD GIRL. By Mario Vargas Llosa. Translated by Edith Grossman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) This suspenseful novel transforms “Madame Bovary” into a vibrant exploration of the urban mores of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.
BEARING THE BODY. By Ehud Havazelet. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24.) In this daring first novel, a man travels to California after his brother is killed in what may have been a drug transaction.
THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS THAT HEAVEN BEARS. By Dinaw Mengestu. (Riverhead, $22.95.) A first novel about an Ethiopian exile in Washington, D.C., evokes loss, hope, memory and the solace of friendship.
BRIDGE OF SIGHS. By Richard Russo. (Knopf, $26.95.) In his first novel since “Empire Falls,” Russo writes of a small town in New York riven by class differences and racial hatred.
THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO. By Junot Díaz. (Riverhead, $24.95.) A nerdy Dominican-American yearns to write and fall in love.
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME. By André Aciman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $23.) Aciman’s novel of love, desire, time and memory describes a passionate affair between two young men in Italy.
CHEATING AT CANASTA. By William Trevor. (Viking, $24.95.) Trevor’s dark, worldly short stories linger in the mind long after they’re finished.
THE COLLECTED POEMS, 1956-1998. By Zbigniew Herbert. Translated by Alissa Valles. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $34.95.) Herbert’s poetry echoes the quiet insubordination of his public life.
DANCING TO “ALMENDRA.” By Mayra Montero. Translated by Edith Grossman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) Fact and fiction rub together in this rhythmic story of a reporter on the trail of the Mafia, set mainly in 1950s Cuba.
EXIT GHOST. By Philip Roth. (Houghton Mifflin, $26.) In his latest novel Roth brings back Nathan Zuckerman, a protagonist whom we have known since his potent youth and who now must face his inevitable decline.
FALLING MAN. By Don DeLillo. (Scribner, $26.) Through the story of a lawyer and his estranged wife, DeLillo resurrects the world as it was on 9/11, in all its mortal dread, high anxiety and mass confusion.
FELLOW TRAVELERS. By Thomas Mallon. (Pantheon, $25.) In Mallon’s seventh novel, a State Department official navigates the anti-gay purges of the McCarthy era.
A FREE LIFE. By Ha Jin. (Pantheon, $26.) The Chinese-born author spins a tale of bravery and nobility in an American system built on risk and mutual exploitation. (Review will be available Friday evening, Nov. 23.)
THE GATHERING. By Anne Enright. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14.) An Irishwoman searches for clues to what set her brother on the path to suicide.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS. By J. K. Rowling. (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, $34.99.) Rowling ties up all the loose ends in this conclusion to her grand wizarding saga.
HOUSE LIGHTS. By Leah Hager Cohen. (Norton, $24.95.) The heroine of Cohen’s third novel abandons her tarnished parents for the seductions of her grand-mother’s life in theater.
HOUSE OF MEETINGS. By Martin Amis. (Knopf, $23.) A Russian World War II veteran posthumously acquaints his stepdaughter with his grim past of rape and violence.
IN THE COUNTRY OF MEN. By Hisham Matar. (Dial, $22.) The boy narrator of this novel, set in Libya in 1979, learns about the convoluted roots of betrayal in a totalitarian society.
THE INDIAN CLERK. By David Leavitt. (Bloomsbury, $24.95.) Leavitt explores the intricate relationship between the Cambridge mathematician G. H. Hardy and a poor, self-taught genius from Madras, stranded in England during World War I.
KNOTS. By Nuruddin Farah. (Riverhead, $25.95.) After 20 years, a Somali woman returns home to Mogadishu from Canada, intent on reclaiming a family house from a warlord.
LATER, AT THE BAR: A Novel in Stories. By Rebecca Barry. (Simon & Schuster, $22.) The small-town regulars at Lucy’s Tavern carry their loneliness in “rough and beautiful” ways.
LET THE NORTHERN LIGHTS ERASE YOUR NAME. By Vendela Veda. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $23.95.) A young woman searches for the truth about her parentage amid the snow and ice of Lapland in this bleakly comic yet sad tale of a child’s futile struggle to be loved.
LIKE YOU’D UNDERSTAND, ANYWAY: Stories. By Jim Shepard. (Knopf, $23.) Shepard’s surprising tales feature such diverse characters as a Parisian executioner, a woman in space and two Nazi scientists searching for the yeti.
MAN GONE DOWN. By Michael Thomas. (Black Cat/Grove/Atlantic, paper, $14.) This first novel explores the fragmented personal histories behind four desperate days in a black writer’s life.
MATRIMONY. By Joshua Henkin. (Pantheon, $23.95.) Henkin follows a couple from college to their mid-30s, through crises of love and mortality.
THE MAYTREES. By Annie Dillard. (HarperCollins, $24.95.) A married couple find their way back to each other under unusual circumstances.
THE MINISTRY OF SPECIAL CASES. By Nathan Englander. (Knopf, $25.) A Jewish family is caught up in Argentina’s “Dirty War.”
MOTHERS AND SONS: Stories. By Colm Toibin. (Scribner, $24.) In this collection by the author of “The Master,” families are not so much reassuring and warm as they are settings for secrets, suspicion and missed connections.
NEXT LIFE. By Rae Armantrout. (Wesleyan University, $22.95.) Poetry that conveys the invention, the wit and the force of mind that contests all assumptions.
ON CHESIL BEACH. By Ian McEwan. (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, $22.) Consisting largely of a single sex scene played out on a couple’s wedding night, this seeming novel of manners is as much a horror story as any McEwan has written.
OUT STEALING HORSES. By Per Petterson. Translated by Anne Born. (Graywolf Press, $22.) In this short yet spacious Norwegian novel, an Oslo professional hopes to cure his loneliness with a plunge into solitude.
THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST. By Mohsin Hamid. (Harcourt, $22.) Hamid’s chilling second novel is narrated by a Pakistani who tells his life story to an unnamed American after the attacks of 9/11.
REMAINDER. By Tom McCarthy. (Vintage, paper, $13.95.) In this debut, a Londoner emerges from a coma and seeks to reassure himself of the genuineness of his existence.
THE SAVAGE DETECTIVES. By Roberto Bolaño. Translated by Natasha Wimmer. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) A craftily autobiographical novel about a band of literary guerrillas.
SELECTED POEMS. By Derek Walcott. Edited by Edward Baugh. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) The Nobel Prize winner Walcott, who was born on St. Lucia, is a long-serving poet of exile, caught between two races and two worlds.
THE SEPTEMBERS OF SHIRAZ. By Dalia Sofer. (Ecco/HarperCollins, $24.95.) In this powerful first novel, the father of a prosperous Jewish family in Tehran is arrested shortly after the Iranian revolution.
SHORTCOMINGS. By Adrian Tomine. (Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95.) The Asian-American characters in this meticulously observed comic-book novella explicitly address the way in which they handle being in a minority.
SUNSTROKE: And Other Stories. By Tessa Hadley. (Picador, paper, $13.) These resonant tales encapsulate moments of hope and humiliation in a kind of shorthand of different lives lived.
THEN WE CAME TO THE END. By Joshua Ferris. (Little, Brown, $23.99.) Layoff notices fly in Ferris’s acidly funny first novel, set in a white-collar office in the wake of the dot-com debacle.
THROW LIKE A GIRL: Stories. By Jean Thompson. (Simon & Schuster, paper, $13.) The women here are smart and strong but drawn to losers.
TIME AND MATERIALS: Poems, 1997-2005. By Robert Hass. (Ecco/Harper-Collins, $22.95.) What Hass, a former poet laureate, has lost in Californian ease he has gained in stern self-restraint.
TREE OF SMOKE. By Denis Johnson. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $27.) The author of “Jesus’ Son” offers a soulful novel about the travails of a large cast of characters during the Vietnam War.
TWENTY GRAND: And Other Tales of Love and Money. By Rebecca Curtis. (Harper Perennial, paper, $13.95.) In this debut collection, a crisp, blunt tone propels stories both surreal and realistic.
VARIETIES OF DISTURBANCE: Stories. By Lydia Davis. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paper, $13.) Dispensing with straight narrative, Davis microscopically examines language and thought.
THE VIEW FROM CASTLE ROCK: Stories. By Alice Munro. (Knopf, $25.95.) This collection offers unusually explicit reflections of Munro’s life.
WHAT IS THE WHAT. The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng: A Novel. By Dave Eggers. (McSweeney’s, $26.) The horrors, injustices and follies in this novel are based on the experiences of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.
WINTERTON BLUE. By Trezza Azzopardi. (Grove, $24.) An unhappy young woman meets an even unhappier drifter.
THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION. By Michael Chabon. (HarperCollins, $26.95.) Cops, thugs, schemers, rabbis, chess fanatics and obsessives of every stripe populate this screwball, hard-boiled murder mystery set in an imagined Jewish settlement in Alaska.

To read the nonfiction list go here.

Mansfield fellowship boosted to $100,000

One of New Zealand's major literary prizes has been boosted.

Wellington author Damien Wilkins will spend a year in France at the villa in Menton where Katherine Mansfield lived and wrote in the 1920s.

New sponsorship by New Zealand Post this year means the prize is now $100,000.
The chairman of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Trust, Richard Cathie, says the prize has now been taken to a new level.
He predicts it will strengthen New Zealand's body of literary work.

Previous winners have included Janet Fame, Witi Ihimaera and Lloyd Jones.

Bookman Beattie extends warm thanks to NZ Post for their generous sponsorship.

NZ Post also sponsors the NZ Post NZ Chil;dren's Book Awards.

Hats off to them. They are wonderful corporate citizens.

Mr Pip author to receive honorary doctorate

One of Victoria University's best-known graduates – author Lloyd Jones – is to receive an Honorary Doctorate for his contribution to literature.

Mr Jones completed his BA studies at Victoria in 1976 before working as a journalist, consultant and writer.
Crowning his literary achievements over a number of years, his most recent work Mister Pip was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best Book Award 2007, the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry, and Readers' Choice 2007, and was on the final shortlist – as well as bookies' favourite – for the 2007 Man Booker Prize.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Pat Walsh, says Mr Jones has taken New Zealand literature to new heights, both here and internationally and will inevitably take it further still.
“Lloyd has established himself on a global stage, bringing positive attention to all New Zealand writing.”

Mr Jones' writing career has produced an important body of work, including numerous articles, short stories and editing work. His bibliography includes Gilmour's Dairy (1985), Splinter (1988), Swimming to Australia (1991), Into the Field of Play: New Zealand Writers on the Theme of Sport (1992), Last Saturday (1994), Biografi (1993), This House has Three Walls (1997) and Choo Woo (1998). The Book of Fame, published in 2000 and currently being made into a film, won the Deutz Medal for Fiction in 2001 and the Tasmania Pacific Fiction Prize in 2003, when it was also presented as a stage play at Downstage Theatre in Wellington.

These works were followed by a further series of award nominated or winning writings, including Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance (2002), shortlisted in the 2002 Montana New Zealand Book Awards; Napoleon and the Chicken Farmer (2003), Honour Award, New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults; Paint Your Wife (2004), Commended Title of the 2005 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for South East Asia and South Pacific Region; and Everything You Need To Know About The World By Simon Eliot (2004), finalist in the non-fiction category of the New Zealand Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults.

Mr Jones has contributed more widely to New Zealand literature through his establishment of the Four Winds Press, a publishing house which aims to encourage and develop creative non-fiction, to revive the essay as a literary form, and to facilitate publication by New Zealand writers who work in the non-fiction/essay field.

Professor Walsh says Mr Jones has an ongoing and supportive connection with Victoria University, visiting the International Institute of Modern Letters workshops as a guest writer, and taking part in the Are Angels OK? art-science collaboration. Victoria University Press had published a number of his books, including the novel Choo Woo and his breakthrough short story collection, Swimming to Australia.

He was a Katherine Mansfield Fellow in 1989, and has recently taken up the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers' Residency.
His Honorary Doctorate in Literature will be conferred in 2008.

INTERESTING EVENT COORDINATOR POSITION AT I.I.M.L

The International Institute of Modern Letters is seeking an experienced, motivated and multi-skilled coordinator for our National Schools Writing Festival and Poetry Awards. This is a fixed term, part time position between mid-January and mid-September 2008.

The coordinator will take primary responsibility for most aspects of the Festival and Awards including: communication with schools, sponsors and partners; creating and editing written and web resources; web-maintenance; administration, budgeting and logistics.

The position would suit a part-time or freelance arts/event worker with flexible availability. Minimum weekly hours will be arranged, with additional hours varying but gradually increasing throughout the term of employment. Payment will be on an hourly basis with workload assessed at regular intervals.

Please contact Clare Moleta or Katie Hardwick-Smith for a role description: modernletters@vuw.ac.nz or (04) 463 6854.

Application closing date: Wednesday 5 December 2007