Melbourne Writers Festival expect a 50,000 attendence at Federation Square

by Corrie Perkin, writing in The Australian, August 22, 2008

WHAT'S a City of Literature without a vibrant and dynamic writers festival?
It's a question that's been doing the rounds since the Victorian Government announced on Wednesday that Melbourne's bid for UNESCO's City of Literature title had been successful.
Four years ago, the Melbourne Writers Festival was in financial strife and its program was lacklustre. Although the 10-day event has clawed its way back from oblivion, a number of publishing and literary identities still consider it the poor relation to its Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane cousins.
Festival director Rosemary Cameron, who was appointed in late 2005 after a stint as Brisbane Writers Festival director, disagrees. "I don't think it's the case any more, and we are stronger than we used to be," she said yesterday.
"Adelaide and Sydney are still bigger festivals, but we are on a very steady growth curve and I'm optimistic this year we will improve on last year."

The 2007 event was the festival's final one in its quirky home at the Malthouse Theatre, Southbank. About 40,000 people attended, the most in 22 years.
This year it has a new home -- Federation Square near the city's centre.

To read Corrie Perkin's full piece link to The Australian online.

Germaine Greer, pic left, is one of the Festival's big name

attractions.

Go to the Melbourne Writers Festival website for full details.

English Lessons

By MATT WEILAND writing in the New York Times

Published: August 22, 2008

It may be a truism that Britain and America are two nations divided by a common language, but it’s truer to say that the two nations are united by language and divided by everything else. These differences — of manners, mores, assumptions, expectations — are the subject of “The Anglo Files,” by Sarah Lyall, (pic left by Lisa Wolfe), a re­porter for The New York Times. A New Yorker by origin and temperament, Lyall married an Englishman (the editor and writer Robert McCrum) and moved to London in the mid-1990s. “The Anglo Files” collects and expands on Lyall’s dispatches from her adopted home in the decade and a half since then. The result is what she calls a “field guide to the British.”

THE ANGLO FILES
A Field Guide to the British
By Sarah Lyall
289 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $24.95

Lyall is a first-rate reporter, and her book has all the hallmarks of her journalism: it is warm, blunt, confessional, companionable. Which is to say: it is very American. The country she describes, “that oldest and most charismatic of nation-states,” as the writer Jan Morris once called it, is cold, private, oblique to the point of opacity and reticent to the point of silence. Which is to say: it is very British. The book’s charm lies in the collision of these two facts.

Lyall organizes “The Anglo Files” around lean case studies of British institutions (Parliament, cricket, drink) and traits (love of liberty and animals, obsession with the weather). She recounts, for example, the 2003 battle on the Hebridean island of North Uist between hedgehog lovers and wading-bird enthusiasts over an invasion of hedgehogs, which eat the birds’ eggs. Lyall makes plain not just the passion of British animal lovers, but their organizational zeal: Scottish Natural Heritage, the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, Uist Hedgehog Rescue and the Uist Wader Project fought for years before agreeing the alien hedgehogs should be airlifted back to the mainland rather than killed.

Read the full picee at the NYT online.

Title inflation: for books, the more words the better in the era of Google
Thanks to internet search engines, pithy book titles are being ruined by ever longer, keyword-heavy subtitles

Ian Williams writing in guardian.co.uk, Friday August 22 2008

In a hotel in Louisville once, I overheard the guests in the lift. They were attending the Kentucky state convention of colonic hydrotherapists. At the time, I wondered: What do they do in their hotel rooms between sessions?

Last week I wondered if I could get them into joint session with the American Publishers' Association, whose members definitely need their colons washed out.

I had been writing an essay for the Common Review in Chicago on second world war revisionism and had just finished the bibliography.Check out some of the titles I cited. Clive Ponting's Armageddon: The Reality Behind the Distortions, Myths, Lies and Illusion of World War II; Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilisation; Patrick Buchanan's Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost its Empire and the West Lost the World.

You will note: Notwithstanding the fall of empire, there is a rampant high tide of colonisation. You will also detect an agenda. These books are trying to tell or warn potential buyers that they will not be getting the conventional "good war" fought by the "greatest generation".

David McCullough's publishers felt no need to rename his book 1776: The War in Which the Brits May Not Have Been Quite as Evil and King George Not Quite as Tyrannical as Our School Histories and Walt Disney Told Us.

To read William's full essay link here.

MY DIRTY LAUNDRETTE

By ERICA WAGNER writing in The New York Times Book review, August 22, 2008

How startling to realize that it’s nearly a quarter-century since “My Beautiful Laundrette” — the film that kicked off Hanif Kureishi’s literary career with such daring and panache — brilliantly toyed with our perceptions of Thatcherite Britain. Kureishi’s screenplay, with its portrait of Pakistani immigrant society and an unlikely love affair between one of its members and a former member of the National Front — the United Kingdom’s own fascists — was both subversion and celebration, and heralded the arrival of a writer with a truly fresh eye.

SOMETHING TO TELL YOU
By Hanif Kureishi
Scribner (US) Faber (UK) US$26

But in later years, as Kureishi has turned toward the form of the novel, a certain staleness has crept in. His new novel, “Something to Tell You,” is set in Kureishi’s home turf of West London — but a West London that’s a pallid echo of the one depicted in his first novel, “The Buddha of Suburbia” (1990). That book won the Whitbread Award for best first novel, and deservedly so — its energy and humor are apparent even in its title. Now, a kind of terminal exhaustion seems to have set in. “Something to Tell You”? It could be about anything, couldn’t it?

To read Wagner's full review go to the New York Times online.

And to read an earlier review on this blog link here.

Books: The jealous life of Catherine M
Lizzy Davies writing in The Guardian,
Friday August 22 2008

When Catherine Millet first strutted salaciously onto the world's literary stage, it was as a free-thinking libertarian whose sex life was as indiscriminate as her book proved incendiary.
Seven years later the woman who became known as the icon of highbrow erotica is back, but this time as a wife ravaged only by envy and suspicion.
With the author's characteristic frankness, Day of Suffering, the first book by Millet since her explosive literary debut The Sexual Life of Catherine M, charts her descent into the psychological "hell" of keeping check on her errant husband.
It was written in part, she said, as a reality check for her devoted readers who had come to see her way of life as the ultimate in empowered sexual hedonism and regard her as immune from the emotional troubles that beset others.

Read the full story online at the Guardian.

Swearing removed from kids' book

A children's book by Dame Jacqueline Wilson is to be altered after parents complained it was inappropriate.
Publisher Random House says it received three complaints about a vulgar term used in My Sister Jodie, which is aimed at children aged 10 and over.
In future editions, the offending word will be altered by one letter and replaced with "twit".
Dame Jacqueline, creator of Tracy Beaker and a former Children's Laureate, has sold more than 30m books.
She is known for tackling gritty social subjects such as teenage pregancy, domestic violence and failed suicides.

For the full BBC News story link here to their online site.

Globe-Tripping Again With a Vagabond Scribbler

By JENNIFER SCHUESSLER writing in the New York Times overnight:
Published: August 21, 2008

Like any conscientious traveler, Paul Theroux begins his latest voyage with a thorough round of inoculations. Travel, he’s well aware, is “an elaborate bumming evasion, allowing us to call attention to ourselves with our conspicuous absence while we intrude upon other people’s privacy.” Travel writing is “a license to bore,” “the lowest form of literary self-indulgence.” Yes, yes, he knows: “It’s much harder to stay at home and be polite to people and face things, but where’s the book in that? Better the boastful charade of pretending to be an adventurer.”

GHOST TRAIN TO THE EASTERN STAR
On the Tracks of the Great Railway Bazaar
By Paul Theroux
496 pages. Houghton Mifflin. $28. (NZ Hamish Hamilton $37)

Besides, what is a professional vagabond to do? More than three decades ago, Mr. Theroux helped kick off the boom in modern travel writing with “The Great Railway Bazaar,” his rollicking and hugely successful account of a 25,000-mile overland journey through Asia. Since then, it seems, even the diviest parts of the world have filled up with backpackers and “opportunistic punks” trying to get a piece of the literary action. But retracing one’s own youthful steps, as he does in “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star,” is still, he assures us, quite original.

For the full NYT review link here.

Mentioned previously on this blog.

The Hollywood Librarian

A documentary about librarians in the movies

The documentary maker Ann Seidl will talk about her movie 'The Hollywood Librarian' after the screening being held at AUT on Thursday 28th August.
The venue is Lecture Theatre WE 240. 27 St Pauls Street, AUT City Campus, Auckland , NZ from 5.30pm to 7.30pm
Entry cost is $10 adults and $5 for students (with ID) and includes light refreshments.
Please RSVP by 26 August to peter.mellow@aut.ac.nz

'The Hollywood Librarian' trailer is available to view at: http://www.hollywoodlibrarian.com/

THIS PLEA FROM TECHNO WIZARD PAUL REYNOLDS OF MCGOVERN ONLINE:

Okay - this is my final Friday afternoon attempt to drum up interest in the Read While Waiting project which is happening at 3pm tomorrow , Saturday, 23rd August, 2008

Basically its easy - at 3pm tomorrow , wherever you are in the world, or closer to home, New Zealand, you stop what you are doing - head to a public space, either alone or with friends and start reading for 15 minutes.
The idea being to celebrate and participate in the world wide happening, Read While Waiting project, being organised globally by the lovely people at Random Alphabets in Malaysia.

The detail - Auckland - Wellington - Christchurch - You can do this anywhere - either alone or with friends. However, if you live in Auckland , Christchurch or Wellington and want to make it more of a group happening thing - then head to either Aotea Square - Cathedral Square or Civic Square -- i.e outside the City Gallery.

FaceBook - The guys from Random alphabets have also set up FaceBook pages for each location, here . As well as KL,Sydney, Melbourne, Perth etc, there are pages for Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch

Random Alphabets

There are also a whole bunch of new videos and other news at the Random Alphabets site. check them out afterwards for photos etc. Even better take a camera and take some photos/videos of your own.

There you go - spread the love!! I will be at the Aotea Square one. Hope people join in. Here is one of the new videos ... www.peoplepoints.co.nz

paul reynolds
mcgovern online
http://www.mcgovern.co.nz/

Over the past couple of weeks I have carried The Jewel of Medina story several times so today I was a little surprised (I am in the US at present to attend a friend's wedding) to find The Washington Post carrying it as a news story. It is however a good summary of the story thus far so if you missed my earlier postings then check out the following.

A Book Too Hot Off The Presses
Random House Feared Radical Muslim Backlash

By Michelle Boorstein
Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 21, 2008;

Once upon a time, Sherry Jones was a Montana newspaper reporter who dreamed she could contribute to world peace with a novel about the prophet Muhammad and his feminist leanings. Then she wrote it. Today? She's the target of a Serbian mufti and a Middle Eastern studies professor with a lawyer.
Life has been a roller coaster lately for Jones, 46, who went from being a Book-of-the-Month Club pick to seeing her novel dropped by Random House, which said in a statement it had received "cautionary advice" that the fictionalized story of one of Muhammad's wives might "incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."
A Random House spokeswoman said she could not think of any other time the company had canceled a book because of such fears.
Jones and her novel, "The Jewel of Medina," are subjects of debate from Egypt to Italy to Serbia, where 1,000 Serbian-language copies were printed before the local publisher backed out, too.
For the rest go to the Washington Post online.

THE WORLD IN SIX SONGS

In his 2006 book This Is Your Brain on Music, Daniel J. Levitin explained the evolutionary necessity of songs in shaping human identity. Now he’s back to reveal how that evolutionary work was accomplished through just six categories of song: Friendship, Joy, Comfort, Knowledge, Religion, and Love. In The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature (available now), each category gets a chapter to prove how its unique properties transformed the human brain.

To read the full piece go to the Very Short List.

Authors admit 'falsehoods' in Rushdie memoir
Alison Flood writing in the guardian.co.uk,
Thursday August 21 2008

The authors of a book which claimed that Salman Rushdie was nicknamed "Scruffy" by his police protection officers have admitted there were falsehoods in the manuscript and have made amendments accordingly, according to Rushdie's lawyer. The publisher of On Her Majesty's Service hopes to release a revised version of the book next week.

On Her Majesty's Service by Ron Evans with Douglas Thompson was originally due to be published on August 4 but was delayed after Rushdie threatened legal action following the publication of extracts in the weekend papers. Rushdie said these portrayed him as "mean and arrogant"; one claimed that during the fatwa against him, Rushdie's guards "got so fed up with his attitude that they locked him in a cupboard under the stairs and all went to the local pub for a pint or two".

Full story at Guardian online.

Nokia takes 'Lonely Planet' mobile
Posted by Marguerite Reardon on C/Net News.

Tired of lugging a big travel book on vacation? Some Nokia phone users won't have to. They'll be able to download Lonely Planet travel guides directly onto their mobile handsets.

On Tuesday Nokia announced a deal with the travel book publisher Lonely Planet to sell maps and city guides to Nokia Maps 2.0 users. The service will initially allow users to download information for more than 100 cities, with more destinations to be added.
Each download, which costs 7.99 euros, or about $11.75, provides maps with directions and some background on important sites.
Nokia first announced city guides for Nokia Maps users in February when it upgraded the maps service and launched new phones that take advantage of the service. When the service first launched it included city guides from other travel publishers, such as Berlitz. But now Nokia is expanding the guides and has included Lonely Planet, whose travel guides were initially geared toward low-budget travelers and backpackers.
The city guide downloads are available in the Extras menu on select Nokia phones. The maps used in the Nokia Maps 2.0 service are provided by Navteq, which Nokia bought earlier this year, and TeleAtlas.

A MAN BOOKER FIRST-
FREE MOBILE DOWNLOADS

For four decades the Man Booker Prize has been at the forefront of all that’s best in literary fiction. This year, for the first time in its history, the prize is embracing new technology with extracts from the shortlisted books being made immediately available upon the shortlist announcement via the latest mobile phone technology.

This is the first time that any book prize has used mobile technology to promote its shortlist. The Man Booker Prize has exclusively partnered with mobile site GoSpoken, launched this April at the London International Book Fair, to make the shortlist extracts available to download for free.

This year’s shortlist will be announced on 9th September, at which point the public will be able to text MBP to 60300 in order to download a free extract either to read as text or listen to as audio. If the reader enjoys the extract, they can then use their mobile phone to either purchase a hard copy of the book, to be delivered directly to their door, or download the full audio version, if available. The cost will be added to the reader’s mobile phone bill.

GoSpoken.com is a unique mobile platform which can be accessed by anybody with a mobile phone or Internet access. It allows you to search, try, buy and enjoy books in audio and text.

Bestselling author Andy McNab, a partner in GoSpoken, comments: “I’m a great fan of audiobooks and passionate about bringing them to a wider audience. The immediacy of the spoken word really transports you to another world through your headphones. GoSpoken will revolutionise audiobooks - being able to download them to your mobile, wherever you are, means you will never be bored again.”

Jonathan Taylor, Chairman of The Booker Prize Foundation, comments: “After forty years making the headlines in the literary world, it is good that the Man Booker Prize is now also taking a lead in the world of new technology.”

The extracts will also be available via: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/.

JOAN MCKENZIE LEAVES WHITCOULLS

The book trade in New Zealand has been stunned this week to learn that one of the veterans of the industry, Joan McKenzie, finished at Whitcoulls on Monday after a long and distinguished career. Before becoming a bookseller she worked in publishing, first as a sales rep for Collins Publishers and later as NZ Manager for Pan Books.
I have had no official word from Whitcoulls on the background to Joan's departure but if I hear anything further I will let you know.

TWO BOOKS ESPECIALLY VALUABLE FOR VISITORS TO NEW ZEALAND’S NORTH – Note publication 1 September

LANDMARKS OF THE BAY OF ISLANDS – Past & Present
Marios Gavalas – Penguin Books - $45.00

As established guide and outdoors writer Marios Galavos points out in his introduction, The Bay of Islands can rightly claim to be the cradle of European and Maori connection. Within the shores of the fantastically beautiful bay, studded with its complement of serene islands, may of the first interactions between these cultures took place.

In his book, prolifically illustrated with both contemporary and historical photographs, the author describes these early contacts which were often rife with cultural misunderstandings, along with the establishment of the mission stations, the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the Cape Brett lighthouse construction, the whaling station at Whangamumu, the visit in the 1920’s by legendary fisherman Zane Grey and much more.

The Bay of Islands is one of New Zealand’s greatest draw cards, it is up there with Queenstown and Rotorua, and reading this book will greatly enhance the value of any visit.
Glossary, bibliography and index complete an attractive and useful book. There is no acknowledgement given for the beautiful whole page contemporary colour photos so I assume they were taken by the author.

KAURI
Keith Stewart – Viking - $60

This large, lush hardback title is an appropriate tribute to a magnificent tree and its turbulent history.
At first I was somewhat surprised that a book on this subject would be written by Keith Stewart who is well known in New Zealand for his many books and magazine columns on the subject of wine.
However it transpires that his family worked in the Northland bush for 140 years, his generation being the first to be employed elsewhere. And now I come to think of it he has also written extensively on many subjects from art and architecture to roses and beer. In this book he proves to an historian as well and a researcher with an eye for detail.

Illustrated with loads of appealing contemporary colour photographs supplemented by numerous historical illustrations this book is going to be a valuable addition to our knowledge of the great New Zealand tree that once covered 1.2 million hectares but is now reduced to 80,000 hectares today which as Stewart points out has been devastating for NZ’s endemic insect species and native bird life.
Every school and public library in the land will want multiple copies of this book.

City Lights: 50 years on the cutting edge of publishing

Megan Walsh writing in The Times visits the defiantly independent San Francisco bookstore and publisher that has its roots in the beatnik 1950s and a promising future in baiting the establishment.

City Lights, San Francisco’s indie publisher and bookshop, may sit on a fault line but over the years it has created a few shock waves of its own. More than 50 years on, authors, readers, booksellers and publishers are still squeezing into this cake slice of a bookshop in North Beach for a taste of what’s next.

It was established in 1953 by poet and ‘beatnik’ Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin to provide a progressive, all-paperback alternative to books available at the time. It’s where the Beat Generation laid their hats and where publishing and selling Allen Ginsberg’s Howl got Ferlinghetti and bookseller, Shigeyoshi Murao, arrested in 1957 on obscenity charges. Their victory in court guaranteed the sale of other previously banned books – including D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. (Three years later British readers achieved similar rights after the failed prosecution of Penguin for publishing Lady Chatterley’s Lover.)

Read the full Times piece online.

Judging the Booker by its covers (again)
There's a lot to get through and not much time, but I'll do my best to read everything. In the meantime, here's what I'm expecting to think
August 19, 2008 - This from Guardian blogger Sam Jordison

Following the recent announcement of the Booker longlist, I'm pleased to say that The Booker Club is up and running again. My first read will be Aravind Adiga and I'll do my best to maintain alphabetical order and a steady rate of just over a book a week from then on. I hope you'll join me.

Already the idea of reading the entire Booker dozen before the September 9 shortlist announcement is looking rather optimistic, while I'm not sure I'll have even got through them by the final announcement on October 9. No matter, the books look interesting and I'm game for the challenge. Going on what happened last year, when many of the books I liked best didn't make the shortlist last time, I'm also happy to overrun in the hope of catching some missed gems.

I'm also pleased to report that, just like last year, I don't know much about most of the books on this year's long list at this early stage. Although that's partly thanks to my ignorance, it's also a good sign that - whatever you think about literary prizes - the Booker is at least doing a good job of promoting some previously unsung talent.

It also presents me the opportunity to judge the books on offer almost entirely on the basis of their covers. I've got no preconceptions, no background knowledge and in several cases no books (since they aren't yet published). So it is that I can here present a very literally superficial,

surface only view of the long list:

Read his comments about each here.

Early Sales of a Book on Obama Anger Stores

By JULIE BOSMAN writing in the New York Times, August 18, 2008

Barnes & Noble has substantially reduced its 10,000-copy order of “Obama’s Challenge,” by Robert Kuttner, after Chelsea Green, the book’s publisher, announced it would initially be sold exclusively on Amazon.com.

Mary Ellen Keating, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble, said in a statement on Monday evening that the initial order “was based on the book being available to all booksellers simultaneously — an even playing field — which is common practice in book publishing.”
She declined to say how many copies the retailer ordered.

The complete story at the NYT online.

How utterly, splendidly ripping
Enid Blyton has been voted Britain's best- loved writer. Lucy Mangan says hurrah for the 'nanny-narrator' who introduced her and countless others to the joys of reading

Lucy Mangan writing in The Guardian,
Wednesday August 20 2008

"I say, old chap, she's done it again!"
"What's that, old thing?"
"Enid Blyton. She's topped the latest poll - by the 2008 Costa Book Awards, I believe - to find the nation's best-loved writer."
"I say - that's most awfully splendidly ripping!"
"It's jolly, jolly good. Hurrah - and doubtless not for the last time - for Blyton!"

Forty years after her death, Enid Blyton continues to exert her mesmerising influence over child readers - even if, as Costa polled not the current generation of children but 2,000 adults - many of them have now technically grown up.

For the full story go to the Guardian online.

READ WHILE WAITING PROJECT


This is very cool and happening THIS weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh8I67xbGuM

http://randomalphabets.com/?p=492

MARTIN BOSLEY COOKS
Martin Bosley - Random House - $45

The cover is the plainest I have seen in a while, especially for a cook book, but don’t let that put you off because it is a big handsome book and inside is a riot of glorious colour with Jane Ussher’s gorgeous photographs beautifully complementing Martin Bosley’s mouth watering recipes..

Wellingtonians have known about Bosley for a while, at least since 2001 when he opened his eponymous restaurant in the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, but it wasn’t until he won the Cuisine Restaurant of the Year Award and took over from Lois Daish as the Listener food writer last during 2007 that many of us got to hear of him.

In this truly beautiful pictorial book chef Bosley shares favourite recipes from his popular Listener columns. In his introduction he says that the most frequent question he is aked is whether he cooks at home. The answer is yes, he does cook at home both for family and friends and what he cooks is the sort of food that he has included in his book. He claims that the best advice he can give to us when we are cooking is to relax. “It’s only food, not rocket science”.

I was planning to make something from the book before writing this but ran out of time. However I have two dishes chosen to make next week, Cauliflower Risotto, and Fish Braised with Tomatoes, Mussels and Cockles.Yummy.

WH Smith to scrap plastic bags
Exclusive by Ruki Sayid, Consumer Editor, The Mirror

The death of the free plastic bag came a step closer yesterday as WH Smith became the latest store to scrap them.
It has already started charging for them at more than 80 shops in the North.
There are now plans to extend the ban across the South over the next fortnight - a busy time in the school shopping calendar.
Outlets in the Midlands and North West are charging a penny for carrier bags, with South Wales and the South West to follow.
But it is seen as a step towards axing the one-use bags in all 500 high street stores and 400 WH Smith travel outlets.
It is the latest big name to jump on the green bandwagon and joins Woolworths, which has also scrapped free bags in trials.

The full story at The Mirror online.

Mosse and Rankin write for World Book Day
Bestselling authors compose stories for struggling readers
Alison Flood writing in guardian.co.uk,

Kate Mosse and Ian Rankin are among the authors who have written books for struggling adult readers, it was announced today. The short, simply-written books will be published next spring as part of the Quick Reads initiative, to coincide with World Book Day.

"It's one of the hardest things I've ever done but it's been very, very interesting," Mosse told the Guardian. She explained that writing the book in line with the Quick Reads guidelines, which demand very short sentences and no words longer than two syllables, was an "enormous challenge … it might be called a Quick Read but it's been far from a quick write for me."

Crime author Ian Rankin has also written a new book for Quick Reads: his A Cool Head is the story of a young man Gravy who finds himself caught in the middle of a robbery gone wrong. Other contributors include John Boyne with The Dare, told from the perspective of a 12-year-old boy whose mother hits a child with her car, and a book from the Dragons' Den entrepreneurs about finding success. Jacqueline Wilson has written an introduction for a title about getting your child to read, while Murder Most Famous winner and Coronation Street actress Sherrie Hewson has contributed her debut thriller, The Tannery.

Read the full story here.

THIS YEAR’S GROUNDBREAKING CHILDREN’S BOOK SERIES – THE 39 CLUES – LAUNCHES GLOBALLY ON 9 SEPTEMBER 2008

Interactive format combines reading, gaming, and card collecting with first book by best-selling author Rick Riordan

Scholastic begins the hunt for The 39 Clues TM, an interactive multi-media adventure series, on September 9, 2008. The first book, The Maze of Bones, written by multi-award winning and Number 1 New York Times bestselling author Rick Riordan, is scheduled for simultaneous worldwide publication in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The official 39 Clues online game will also launch on September 9, 2008, on http://www.the39clues.com/. Combining reading with online gaming and card collecting, this much-anticipated interactive series for children ages 8-12 spans will include 10 adrenaline-charged books, collectable cards, and a dynamic online game where readers uncover information beyond what is revealed in the books and cards and compete for amazing prizes against children around the globe.

There will be hundreds of collectible game cards created for The 39 Clues – each marked with a unique code. Six cards are included with each book, and randomly assorted card packs of sixteen will be available for purchase separately. Readers can register their cards online and manage their card collections through The 39 Clues website, http://www.the39clues.com/ and win prizes. Worldwide, Scholastic will be giving away more than US$100,000 in prizes in a variety of ways throughout the duration of the series.

All rights for The 39 Clues are controlled by Scholastic.

Scholastic Media, the company’s entertainment, licensing and consumer products division, will simultaneously release the audiobook and will be extending the print and internet components by developing the property across other media and consumer products. Dreamworks Studios has acquired the screen rights to The 39 Clues – and Deborah Forte, President of Scholastic Media will produce and Steven Spielberg is eyeing to direct.

Elaine McQuade, Managing Director, Scholastic Children’s Books added: “It is particularly pleasing to be able to publish such a ground-breaking new series during the UK’s 2008 National Year of Reading. There is the whole The 39 Clues experience for committed readers to enjoy, while the collectible cards and the continuously unfolding online game may well bring children who are not so keen on reading back to books.”

Rick Riordan, who authored The Maze of Bones and also outlined the programme’s 10-book story arc, will be followed by a team of best-selling and acclaimed authors. The second book, One False Note, by Gordon Korman will be published on December 2, 2008. The third book by Peter Lerangis and the fourth book by Jude Watson will follow in 2009. Additional authors and publication dates for subsequent titles will be announced at a later date.

The 39 Clues centres around the Cahills – the most powerful family the world has ever known. But the source of the family’s power has been lost. Grace Cahill, the last matriarch of the Cahills, changed her will minutes before she died, leaving her descendants an impossible decision: receive a million dollars or a clue. The first Cahill to assemble all 39 clues hidden around the world will discover what makes the family so powerful – a reward beyond measure. It’s Cahill versus Cahill in a race to finish, with readers hot on the heels of the main characters, fourteen-year-old Amy Cahill and her eleven-year-old brother, Dan. Let the hunt begin!

Stonehenge Aotearoa much more interesting than the original!

Fans of Stonehenge Aotearoa, New Zealand’s outdoor observatory and astronomy attraction, think the Lonely Planet 2008 guide is way off the astral beam.

Publisher Mary Varnham says the astronomy centre, which sits on a dark sky site in the Wairarapa, does an outstanding job of inspiring and educating people of all ages about astronomy and science.

Varnham’s company Awa Press is the publisher of the best-seller How to Gaze at the Southern Stars by the centre’s founder, Richard Hall, and Stonehenge Aotearoa: The Complete Guide.

‘Lonely Planet seems to think that Stonehenge Aotearoa is an imitation of Stonehenge in Britain, but this is completely wrong. It’s a unique outdoor observatory designed to inspire people young and old about astronomy, the southern stars and humankind’s place in the universe,’ Varnham said.

‘I’ve been to both it and the original Stonehenge in Britain and there’s no contest: Stonehenge Aotearoa is by far the most interesting experience,’ Varnham said today. ‘If you want to learn about astronomy, and how ancient civilisations used the movements of the stars, planets and constellations for virtually everything, from planting crops to navigating vast oceans, Stonehenge Aotearoa is the place to go.’

‘Richard Hall is not only a passionate astronomer but a brilliant communicator,’ Varnham said. ‘The tour starts with a short video and then a one-hour talk about the henge. I have seen people listening spellbound, hardly moving. At the end they don’t want to leave.’

Stonehenge Aotearoa has the backing of the Royal Society of New Zealand, and was opened in 2005 by New Zealand’s Nobel prize-winning physicist Alan MacDiarmid.

For more information, contact Richard Hall, Stonehenge Aotearoa, phone 027-230-5191, or Mary Varnham,
Awa Press.
PO Box 11-416,
Wellington 6142, New Zealand
Telephone and Fax - Tel: (04) 385-0740 (international callers +64-4-385-0740)
Fax: (04) 382-9032 (international callers +64-4-382-9032)
Emailinfo@awapress.co.nz
Websitehttp://www.awapress.com

30 DAYS TO GO !!A MESSAGE FROM MICHAEL CAMPBELL, THE FESTIVAL'S DIRECTOR:

The Brisbane Writers Festival is more than a Festival for writers, it's for everyone who reads. From the world's headlines, climate change, China or the US Elections, BWF is an event that has meaning and relevance to every single one of us, in every aspect of our lives. This year, there are strong personal voices emanating from the pages of the Festival's books.

The 2008 festival will bring together approximately 220 writers from around the world including some of the world's leading authors including the winners of some of the world's most prestigious literary awards including the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize as well as the winners of the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, the Queensland Premier's Literary Award and the Miles Franklin Literary Award.

We welcome many fine writers including, for the first time to Australia, Yann Martel (Life of Pi), the winner of the Reuters Foundation Best Environmental Reporter in the World, Alanna Mitchell, Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip), pic left, Kate Grenville with the world exclusive release of her new novel The Lieutenant, Robert Drewe, Simon Winchester, biographer Richard Holmes, Chris Abani, Lawrence Hill, Gwynne Dyer, the controversial James Frey, Mahvish Khan - an interpreter at Guantanamo Bay, and many more to excite, challenge and entertain you.

This years' festival contains a number of program strands that sit alongside the main program.

Haloing the main festival week are the Festival Bookends. We are thrilled to be able to hold events with the legendary stage and screen Director, Jim Sharman in conversation with Richard Fidler (see below), Tim Flannery, Peter Costello, and David Marr on the Bill Henson case. We are also running a comprehensive series of masterclass and workshops with writers including classes given by Yann Martel, Lawrence Hill, Debra Adelaide, Margo Lanagan, Michael Robotham, Steven Galloway, Lloyd Jones, Chris Cleave amongst others.

I look forward to you joining us for a feast of ideas, books and passions. 17-21 September, 2008

JOY COWLEY ON GETTING STARTED
AS A CHILDREN'S BOOK AUTHOR

Ever thought about writing for children? Never tried to publish before-but have always wanted to? Want to join the knowledge economy? Or perhaps you're a published writer who has never tried writing for children before?

On August 25, award-winning children's book writer Joy Cowley explains what' s involved in getting started as a children's book author.

Writing for children, including writing educational resources, accounts for half of all the books published in New Zealand every year. Wellington, with its growing number of children's book and educational publishers, is right at the heart of this.
This is a unique opportunity to get involved in an exciting and innovative
field of creative writing.

One of New Zealand's best-know children's book authors author with over a
hundred published children's books, Joy Cowley's awards include the New
Zealand Order of Merit, the AW Reed Montana Book Award, the Children's Book
of the Year Award, the Commonwealth Medal, and an OBE for services to
children's literature.

Upper Chamber, Arts Centre
61-69 Abel Smith Street
7.30 pm
25 August 2008
Entry - $5

Organised by the NZ Society of Authors, Wellington branch.

Prize-winning children's author on a roll

Rosemary Neill writing in The Weekend Australian, August 16, 2008

BY any measure, it was an unglamorous start to a literary career. Two years ago, Aaron Blabey, who had just turned his back on a flourishing acting career, started work on his first children's book -- writing on a toilet roll.

Blabey was staying at a friend's house in Adelaide and scribbled down his ideas on toilet paper, the only paper he could find, as the rest of the household had gone to bed. "I was getting frustrated and I thought, 'Well, that will have to do'," he recalls sheepishly.

Yesterday, with a theatrical flourish, the former actor unfurled the same roll of loo paper as he accepted his Book of the Year: Early Childhood prize at the Children's Book Council of Australia awards in Melbourne. The CBCA awards are the country's most prestigious for children's literature, and this year attracted 453 entries.
"It was delightful news. You never expect that sort of stuff," Blabey, 34, said of the win by his book Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley, adding that he avoided thinking about the prize once he was short-listed.

Read the full story at The Australian online.

WANDS AND WORLDS
Fantasy & science fiction for children & teens

Here is a heart-warming story from the blog world.

Antiquarius is an Auckland, NZ-based firm of numismatists and antiquarians who have a treasure trove of gorgeous ancient things that they source from around the world.

I noticed in their latest catalogue an item I thught might be of interest to some of my visitors, a Roman pen nib from the 1st century AD. Here is the catalogue copy:

The importance of bronze in the Roman world is indicated by its numerous uses - various items used in everyday life for the home; belts, armour etc. for the army; brooches for fastening clothes; bronze figurines and statuary for official and religious purposes. There must have been thousands of bronzesmiths throughout the Roman Empire, and the knowledge of the ways of working bronze would have been widespread.

Roman bronze pen nib, c.1st Century A.D. The nib would have fitted into a wooden shaft.
Complete, good condition, length 8 cm

Visit the Antiquarius website here.

Click on the New Items link to see the latest arrivals including the Roman pen nib.

Under ‘Kafkaesque’ Pressure, Heir to Kafka Papers May Yield Them

By ETHAN BRONNER writing in the New York Ties over the weekend.

TEL AVIV — Franz Kafka’s final wish before his death in 1924 — that his papers be burned — was famously defied by his friend, the writer Max Brod. The world got “The Trial,” “The Castle” and the adjective Kafkaesque; Mr. Brod got the papers.

When Mr. Brod fled to Tel Aviv from Prague on the last train out in 1939 as the Nazis rolled in, he had with him a suitcase full of Kafka’s documents.
Here, he took up with his secretary, and when he died in 1968, he bequeathed to her the remaining Kafka papers, as well as his own from a rich cultural career.

For nearly 40 years, the secretary, Esther Hoffe, held the world of Kafka scholarship on tenterhooks, keeping the documents in her ground-floor apartment on Spinoza Street, some of them piled high on her desk (it was originally Mr. Brod’s), where she typed all day and took her meals.
The last time a scholar was permitted into the apartment was in the 1980s. Later, Ms. Hoffe sold the manuscript for “The Trial” for $2 million. No one knows what remains.

Read the full story at the NYT online.

He Blurbed, She Blurbed

By RACHEL DONADIO writing in the Weekend New Yorker

A new company recently emerged on the publishing scene, offering writers the chance to buy and sell book endorsements. Aimed at self-published authors, Blurbings LLC traffics in “blurbs,” the often hyperbolic declamations on book covers alerting readers that they’re holding the greatest single work of literature since the Bible — or perhaps since “The Da Vinci Code.”

At least one writer was so affronted by the idea of blurbs for cash that he complained to the Authors Guild. But the more jaundiced might say that asking one unknown writer to endorse another unknown writer hardly helps to make one of those writers known. Besides, some might argue, what the company appears to have done is simply put a price — starting at $19.95 for 10 blurbs — on the logrolling and back-scratching that have long marked the process by which mainstream publishers or agents ask authors to blurb a book.

The full story here.

New Zealand , Germany and the (Post) Colonial Pacific
The 16th annual conference of the New Zealand Studies Association together with the Centre for New Zealand Studies, Birkbeck, University of London,
and the Institute for English and American Studies, Goethe University

Frankfurt, Germany 3 - 5 July 2009

Following the success of the 2006 conference in Paris and the 2008 conference in Florence, this event will be located in Frankfurt at Goethe University, within walking distance of the downtown district, with its vibrant historical centre and outstanding museums and art galleries. The university offers superb conference facilities, and the nearby airport is a major hub for international flights. On the Saturday, there will be an excursion with a boat trip on the Rhine, followed by wine tasting and a conference dinner at Vollrads Castle.



Keynote speakers confirmed are: Dr James Bade, Professor Werner Kreisel, Cilla McQueen, Professor Hermann Mueckler, Dr Chris Pugsley, Dr Sarah Quigley, Professor Dieter Riemenschneider, Professor Dame Anne Salmond, Robert Sullivan, and Professor Albert Wendt, (pic right).

Proposals for 20 minute papers must be sent by 8 December to Dr Ian Conrich, Centre for New Zealand Studies, Birkbeck, University of London (email: ian@ianconrich.co.uk), or Professor Frank Schulze-Engler, Goethe University (email: schulze-engler@nelk.uni-frankfurt.de), or Dr Claudia Duppé (email: Duppe.NZ@online.de), or Dr Dominic Alessio, Richmond The American International University in London . The conference will accept papers within 3 key strands: New Zealand and Germany, New Zealand and the Pacific, and Germany and the Pacific. Abstracts need to be 250-300 words and accompanied by a bio sketch of 100-150 words. A decision on proposals received will be made by 5 January. Initial enquiries pre-proposal are welcomed and we will give priority to proposals received from members of NZSA.

Conference enquiries to Dr Ian Conrich or Professor Frank Schulze-Engler (at the above addresses).


The conference will accept proposals on a range of subjects including the following:
New Zealand and Germany - migration and diasporas, refugees, voyaging, and tourism; German cultural influence on New Zealand, the reception and exposure of New Zealand culture in Germany; the New Zealand writers James Bertram, Charles Brasch, Nigel Cox, Mary Creswell, Cathie Dunsford, Katherine Mansfield, James McNeish, Cilla McQueen, Sarah Quigley, William Satchell, and Hone Tuwhare in Germany; New Zealand writers Dan Davin, M. K. Joseph, and John Mulgan, and World War II; the New Zealand painter and German refugee Margot Phillips; German writers in New Zealand, such as Gerhard Köpf, and Karl Wolfskehl; the New Zealand filmmaker Gerd Pohlmann; New Zealand-German co-productions Among the Cinders, Te Rua, and Flight of the Albatross; New Zealand images of Germany and German images of New Zealand; the First World War and World War II, such as the battles at the Somme, Passchendaele, Le Quesnoy, Crete, Tobruk, El Alamein, and Trieste; New Zealand and Germany in relation to Samoa.
New Zealand and the Pacific - as well as papers on the Maori, we are keen to receive papers on any subject in relation to New Zealand and the Pacific, in particular regards the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, Tokelau, Fiji, East Timor, and the Solomon Islands.
Germany and the Pacific - any subject in relation to Germany and the Pacific, in particular regards the Solomon Islands, the Caroline Islands, Marshall Islands, Palau, the Marianas, Nauru, German New Guinea, and Samoa.


Papers can address subjects such as culture, identity, sociology, history, travel and migration, conflict, trade, imperialism, colonialism, postcolonialism, political economy, geography and the environment, missionaries and religion.

Novel pulled from bookshops after Muslim protest
Alison Flood writing in guardian.co.uk,
Monday August 18 2008

The Serbian publisher of Sherry Jones's controversial novel about the child bride of Muhammad has been withdrawn the book following protests from an Islamic pressure group. Publisher BeoBook yesterday pulled 1,000 copies of Jones's The Jewel of Medina from bookshops across Serbia and apologised for its publication.

Last week Random House US dropped the book from its schedule after being warned by academics and security experts that it posed a potential threat worse than the publication of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses and the Danish publication of cartoons of Muhammad.

Serbia was the first country in the world to publish the book, bringing it out on August 1. BeoBook director Aleksandar Jasic has now confirmed that the novel was withdrawn from bookshops on Sunday August 17. "We have apologised and they [the group] have told me they accept the apology," he said. At a press conference today the group, known as The Islamic Community in Serbia, said it accepted Jasic's apology and that it would therefore cancel its plans for public protests over the book.

Read the full story from the Guardian online.

THIS SECRET GARDEN – Oxford Revisited
Justin Cartwright – Bloomsbury - $35

Somehow back in May I missed publication of this the latest title in Bloomsbury’s superb The Writer & The City series. That oversight corrected I can now happily report that The Secret Garden maintains the high standard set by the six titles in the series already published.

Cartwright, born in South Africa but lives in London, is a highly acclaimed novelist having been shortlisted for the Booker Prize with In Every face I Meet, winning the Whitbread Novel Award in 1999 for Leading the Cheers, while in 2007 he won the Hawthornden Prize for The Promise of Happiness.

He is a graduate of Trinity College Oxford in the late 60’s and in this utterly charming and beautifully written book he returns to Oxford where he “tried to understand what Oxford is, was, and might be. It’s a personal account, an essay handed in late”.

Bloomsbury claim that “this is an enchanting and intelligent look at Oxford, indispensable reading for anyone interested in the myth and reality of this famed city”. And I must agree with them.
They might have added that the book is also a reflection on youth and age. Remember Cartwright was there as a young man and now returns aged 63 with much pondering about the Oxford of his youth. Not surprisingly then it is something of an emotional landscape and at times quite sad. And it is really more about gown than town.
A worthy addition to the series.

1001 WINES YOU MUST TRY BEFORE YOU DIE
Neil Beckett – Penguin - $50.00

Well I have counted them and I still have almost 900 left to try so I may have left my run a little late!
What a gorgeous book, (understatement), with truly brilliant full colour photographs at every opening. (Sorry about the colour on the cover image, it is meant to be a rich burgundy red!)

This is a book that I am going to pick up often and browse for an hour or so and then put back on the shelf. For purposes of this review I have not read every page (there are almost thousand after all!) but I have browsed the entire book in order to count the wines I have tried. There are 25 New Zealand wineries and I am pleased to say that I have tried all of them. I am especially pleased that my two favourite Chardonnays are both featured – Kumeu River Mates Chardonnay and Neudorf Moutere Chardonnay. A surprising number of the NZ wines selected are red wines with the whites showing up mainly, unsurprisingly, with Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

Although edited by English wine judge/journalist Neil Beckett there are over 40 other contributors from around the world. The NZ selections and comments are made by wine writer Bob Campbell MW.
Among the NZ wineries are Kumeu River, Goldwater, Stony ridge, Felton Road, Mount Difficulty, Millton, Craggy Range, Cloudy Bay, Seresin, Dry River, Ata Rangi and Neudorf.
This book needs to be on the shelf of all serious wine buffs. It is a gem.

For the record the other subjects covered in this 1001 series include: Books, Buildings, Gardens, Paintings, Historic Sites, Natural Wonders, Classical Recordings.
They represent a wonderful concept, brilliantly executed.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
By Radhika Jones writing in Time magazine, August 18.


I met Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn at his home in Vermont in 1993, through his eldest son, with whom I went to college. It was snowing hard, and he came in from the small separate house he used as his study to join the family for dinner. He looked a bit gruff, but his eyes were kind. He asked me what my major was, and I told him it was literature. "What kind?" he asked. "English," I said. He said, "There are other kinds of literature, you know."

We were standing in the living room, and I looked at the shelves full of foreign editions of The Gulag Archipelago and at the writer with the biblical beard and piercing gaze and thought perhaps I should consider studying Russian.
Read the full story at Time online.

DOUBTLESS – New and Selected Poems
Sam Hunt – Craig Potton Publishing - $29.99

Sam seemed to have disappeared off the radar in recent years so what a joy to come across a new book of poems, his first in a decade. And what a handsome, cleanly designed hardcover publication it is too.
There are a lot of new poems here alongside a selection of his older poems, many now out of print. The title poem runs to 24 pages but most of the new work is short and spare and very much vintage Hunt.

I know Sam of old. In my bookselling days in Napier he called on me several times selling books (out of the back of his vehicle, a former ambulance guarded by trusty dog Minstrel) for that innovative publisher Alister Taylor.

Then in 1980 at Penguin Books I had the great pleasure of publishing his SAM HUNT – COLLECTED POEMS 1963 – 1980. It sold by the van load, many of them sold by Sam himself as he travelled around the country performing gigs in pubs and schools and countless other locations. He was for me, probably still is, the ultimate performance poet, and the punters loved him.
I wonder if he will ever be the Poet Laureate? He is certainly the most popular New Zealand poet in my lifetime in terms of being able to pull crowds and entertain them non-stop for hours at a time.
And that amazing capacity he has for total recall of everything he has ever written.

When he visited Auckland in those days he stayed with his Mum at Milford and after work I would go around and collect him and we’d wander down to the Mon Desir on Takapuna Beach, gone now sadly, and have a few pints. He was great company, a wonderful raconteur, but also of course a celebrity and people were always buying him drinks and asking him for a poem or an autograph.
So it is great to see his new book, to know that his talents have not faded; how wonderful too to see him featured in a four page story by Diana Wichtel in The Listener of August 16. Along with some great pics by jane Ussher.
Well done Sam, my greetings to you old friend wherever you are.

Richard and Judy 'treat their readers as stupid'
Novelist Andrew O' Hagan accuses stars' book club of coarsening culture
Senay Boztas writing in The Observer,
Sunday August 17 2008

The novelist Andrew O'Hagan has accused television presenters Richard and Judy's book club of treating their readers as stupid.
The attack was made at an Edinburgh International Book Festival event where O' Hagan criticised the presenters' limited selection of titles and accused them of missing a unique opportunity to promote good writing to a vast audience. Read O'Hagan's full comments at The Observer online.

THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE LONG LIST
Five down, eight to go

THE WHITE TIGER
Aravind Adiga – Atlantic - $38

Perhaps the most astonishing feature of this year’s long list of thirteen titles is that five of them are debut novels. Even weeks after the list’s announcement I still find myself disbelieving that this could be so.

The White Tiger is the second of the five first books that I have read and I have to say that this is another remarkable piece of fiction. The author’s approach is not new or unusual, telling his story by way of a series of letters written over a period of one week. What is surprising is the person to whom our narrator and anti-hero, Balram Halwai, is writing. None less than the Premier of China who next week is visiting the city where Balram lives, Bangalore, India. The letters are a confession of sorts as Balram recounts his life story culminating in the present when he is a successful entrepreneur but he has blood on his hands.

It is pretty brutal stuff at times, darkly comic in places and one gets the sense that the author is keen to show the real India with its enormous gulf between the haves and have-nots. These days one hears much about the new India with its dynamic, burgeoning economy and while that is no doubt an accurate picture there is also a giant under belly of society where advancement can only be achieved by patronage, corruption and thuggery. There is a lot of injustice about and there are definitely two Indias and this is what the author portrays.

One can only imagine the confusion the Premier of China would have experienced had he received these seven long letters!

Now on to Child 44. Yet another first novel.

From The Times
August 15, 2008
Interview with Michael Holroyd
Britain's top biographer disusses his new book A Strange Eventful History, about Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and the Victorian theatre world, with Jane Wheatley

THERE IS A RUG - a large kilim possibly - in the upstairs drawing room of Michael Holroyd's London house; it is the blue of summer sky in a hot country, with a border of deep, dark red and I am struck by its loveliness. “It's a wishing carpet,” he says, “Go ahead, make a wish.” He steps back, leaving me in sole possession of its magic, so I close my eyes obediently and utter a silent petition.

“Well done,” he says, folding his long frame into an armchair, dressed like a schoolboy in dark grey trousers and a navy V-neck jumper. I don't ask him what he has wished for in the past - these things are private - or if his wishes were granted, but I'd guess they were. Because here he is on the cusp of 73, alive and apparently well, after an arduous skirmish with bowel cancer involving chemotherapy, radiotherapy and four bouts of surgery - the most recent of which saved his life.

The remorseless round of hospital visits punctuated work on his new book, a whopping 600 pages, seven years in the making: “It was a way of escaping illness, having something else to think about,” he says. A Strange and Eventful History started out with modest ambitions as a biography of Ellen Terry, the actress and Shakespearean heroine, as much a queen of hearts for her adoring Victorian public as Diana, Princess of Wales, would be a century later. But equally admired, though not so well loved, was Henry Irving, her leading man and impresario of the Lyceum Theatre: “Henry elbowed his way into the book,” Holroyd says. “Then their two families were all clamouring to be let in too.”

Read the full piece from The Times online.

Entering the Scrum

By Bil Keller, writing in the New York Times

Published: August 15, 2008

PLAYING THE ENEMY
Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation
By John Carlin
Illustrated. 274 pp. The Penguin Press. US$24.95

The heart-lifting spectacle of South Africa’s first free election in April 1994 was, for Nelson Mandela and his followers, a triumph unimaginably sweet, but perilously incomplete. Mandela was keenly aware that his party’s victory, secured by a landslide of black votes, lacked the endorsement of alienated whites, and that whites retained sufficient wealth and weaponry to endanger his new democracy if they felt threatened. As John Carlin puts it in “Playing the Enemy,” paraphrasing Garibaldi on the birth of Italy, the election had created a new South Africa; now Mandela’s task was to create South Africans. This wonderful book describes Mandela’s methodical, improbable and brilliant campaign to reconcile resentful blacks and fearful whites around a sporting event, a game of rugby.

Read the full story in the New York Times online.

UNITY BOOKS

Unity Books has two branches, in Auckland at 19 High Street and in Wellington at 57 Willis Street. They are superb bookstores by world standards, have helpful, knowledgeable staff and have several times won the NZ Best Independent Bookshop Award.
Their quarterly newsletter arrived in my post box today and I spent the next hour perusing the 58 titles they are promoting by way of brief reviews.
I like Jo McColl’s introduction which starts:

Books for Brainy Blokes is the general theme of the first half of this newsletter. With Father’s Day fast approaching, lots of great ideas couldn’t be more perfectly timed. I’m picking that Greg McGee and Hamish Keith will be winners with everyone – with Murakami not far behind.

Nice to see Unity promoting titles with a bit of intellectual grunt such as these rather than the usual sports biographies.
The three titles Jo McColl is referring to are:

TALL TALES (SOME TRUE)
Greg McGee – Penguin - $37

McGee was a Junior All Black while at Otago University and after completing his lawe degree went on to write the acclaimed stage play Foreskin’s Lament in 1980. Since then he’s travelled the world , worked at a variety of jobs and met a great variety of well-known characters. His book is a subjective account of some of that journey and it is hugely entertaining.

NATIVE WIT
Hamish Keith – Random House - $45

Legendary art commentator, and straight shooting guy, Hamish Keith gives us a witty revealing insight into his immensely varied life. Note publication not until September. I reckon this book will cause quite a stir in art and literary circles and will be a big seller right through to Christmas.

WHAT I TALK ABOUT WHEN I TALK ABOUT RUNNING
Haruki Murakami – Harvill Secker - $37

I haven’t seen this title but here is the Unity Books comment:
Masterful, brilliant novelist Murakami reflects upon the influence that running has had on his life, and more importantly on his running. Equal parts training log, travelogue and reminiscence, this revealing memoir covers his preparation for the 2005 New York Marathon and races in Tokyo, Athens and Boston. Funny, sobering, playful, and philosophical – genius actually.

Unity Books Auckland,
19 High Street.
Tel.(09) 307 0731
unitybooks@xtra.co.nz

Unity Books Wellington.
57 Willis Street.
Tel. (04) 499 4245
books@unity.co.nz

And if you would like to receive Unity’s newsletter in full colour send them an e-mail. Put “Newsletter” in the subject line, write your name and address in the body of the e-mail and prepare to receive.