The Well Read Kitty tagged me to name 15 books that will always stick with me! The rules are simple: Don’t take too long to think about it, just list 15 books you’ve read that will always stick with you. They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Then tag 15 friends – or be like me and ask people to leave a comment with their books or write their own 15 books post and link back here! So here’s mine: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Nation by Terry Pratchett Guards Guards by Terry Pratchett When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro Ghostwritten by David Mitchell The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna [...read more...]
Since I have done a good job so far of enumerating my Do Not Likes I thought perhaps I should stop with the negative and add a bit of positive, and start my Do Likes. First up I will introduce you (if you need it) to my very favourite author. Terry Pratchett Well, what can I say? If you don’t read Sir Terence David John Pratchett, why on earth not? And if you do read Pterry you already know how brilliant he is. Pratchett’s work is usually lumped into the fantasy genre but it is so much more than that – a pastiche of satire, popular culture, fantasy writing, historical writing, fairytale and humour with some deep philosophical ideas thrown in. If (for some crazy reason) you don’t want to think about any of that his books can simply be taken as brilliantly fun reads. His most popular books are the [...read more...]
Booker Prize 2009 longlist announced
The Man Booker Prize 2009 longlist has been announced with many of the usual suspects – J.M Coetzee, A.S. Byatt, Colm Tóibín, Sarah Waters, et al. So far there doesn’t seem to be a clear frontrunner – however Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall has been a reader and critic favourite, according to the Guardian. The shortlist will be released in about a month’s time, and the winner announced on 6 October. See the full longlist here.
I’ve just listened to an excellent podcast from Engadget (always a good listen by the way!) with some great discussion on e-books and particularly the newly announced Barnes & Noble/Plastic Logic e-book reader. It was really interesting to hear some technical discussion as well as comments on the deeper problems with and implications of e-books, and they do talk about what often seems to be the elephant in the room with e-books – physical books! There is also some pertinent points regarding textbooks as e-books and e-book formats and platforms. Engadget podcasts are always entertaining as well as informative - if you aren’t an Engadget fan I’d definitely recommend becoming one! Engadget Podcast 156 – 07.24.2009 - the e-books discussion starts at 00:30:50.
And especially to Emily Perkins who won the Montana Medal for Novel About My Wife. The 2009 Montana Book Awards winners were announced last night at a gala dinner in Auckland. Deserved winners all! TVNZ’s news story has the list of winners here.
Book Spotlight : Weird Ideas that Work : How to Build a Creative Company by Robert Sutton
Description: A breakthrough in management thinking, “weird ideas” can help every organization achieve a balance between sustaining performance and fostering new ideas. To succeed, you need to be both conventional and weird. Hire misfits Pursue the impractical Find happy people and encourage them to fight Reward failure but punish inaction Forget your own successes These and other counterintuitive strategies will unlock ideas you never knew you had. From the author of The No Asshole Rule (yes really!) BookieMonster says: There is literally a heap of business books in the world, a lot with titles that are designed to catch the eye but with a lack of content to match. With consistently good customer reviews on sites like Amazon this is one to actually own AND read. The author has a good blog to read too: http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/ Want to purchase this book from BookieMonster for just $17.95? Click here to find [...read more...]
Extra BookieMonster Blathery Goodness!