BookieMonster made the NZ Herald Sideswipe column today for punny business names! Okay so you have to read to the bottom and look very closely, but still. There we are. In black and white glory, weehee! This is appropriate because we are quite fond of a wee pun. Also have you seen the NZ Book Council Going West video? It is quite the little gem of awesomeness. Kindle-shmindle, I say.
Cakes Galore by Valerie Barrett Description: The cake is back. In a mouthwatering selection of different flavours, shapes, designs and decorations, there’s a recipe to suit every taste and occasion. 120 delicious recipes with gorgeous colour photographs for decorating inspirations. Classic cake recipes include Fruit Tea Loaf, Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, Strawberry Shortcake, New York Cheesecake and Chocolate and Raspberry Torte. Unique cake recipes include Lavender Madeira Cake, Pistachio, Yoghurt and Cardamom Cake, White Chocolate and Amaretto Cheesecake as well as a variety of low-fat and gluten-free recipes. Comprehensive introduction to baking cates, including notes on essential equipment and ingredients and troubleshooting for all your cake-making dilemmas. Helpful tips and serving suggestions are included for foolproof baking. BookieMonster says: Yum. Yum with cherries on top, and hopefully chocolate icing in the middle. Purchase Cakes Galore from BookieMonster for just $18.95! and check out our other wonderful cookbooks for sale too!
Plenty more opinion pieces over the weekend regarding Witi Ihimaera and The Trowenna Sea, but the continuing debate is starting to look like a bun-fight. The backlash against the backlash has begun, and will not doubt continue until you can add another “against the backlash” into that phrase. A simple explanation, it seems, is not to be ours. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe I’m owed anything by the author as a person. As I said in my second post on this, this is a professional matter, in a profession that asks me to be an audience (and to which I willingly agree), but when it goes wrong wants me to treat it like a personal issue and pretend it’s none of my business. And I know the whole plagiarism in art thing is fraught with many grey areas and terrible arty issues of owwwwnership (I’ve long repressed my Billy [...read more...]
Cor, the NZ book scene has become a place of scandale in the last week, hasn’t it? Still, at least it’s all still “rows” rather than “b*tchfights”. (sorry, I’m still a nana) The Ihimaera plagiarism row continues apace, with an excellent radio interview with Jolisa Gracewood on Morning Report – a link to the download here. – HIGHLY recommend a listen, it’s a sane and calm interview and Gracewood makes her many excellent points again. Plus she brings it back to the basic problem here, you can waffle on about ”new forms of fiction” all you want, this is a case of cut and paste (as she says). If you don’t want to listen, Stuff has a report here. As well as all this there’s also a bit of a kerfuffle over the movie version of The Vintner’s Luck. Stuff (amongst others) reported yesterday that Elizabeth Knox (the author) wasn’t a fan. Niki Caro (the [...read more...]
And 101 Other Unsettling, Witty Answers to Questions You Never Thought You Wanted to Ask Description: How fat do you have to be to become bulletproof? Why do people have eyebrows? Why do pineapples have spines? How much does a head weigh? What affects the color of earwax? How quickly could I turn into a fossil? Have you ever thought up a question so completely off-the-wall, so seemingly ridiculous, that you couldn’t even find the courage to ask it? Maybe at the sports bar you were transported by the beauty of your beer to wonder, “How long could I live on beer alone?” Or, cycling through the park, you mused, “Did nature invent any wheels?” Or looking up at the night sky, you had a moment of angst, “What would happen if the moon suddenly disappeared — if it were vaporized or stolen by aliens?” Full of fun factlets, Does [...read more...]
With much anticipation built by reading tweets from fellow bookies, plus a few reviews, I decided to start reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. I’ve never been totally convinced about Victorian writing – I find the Brontes “okay” (which seems terribly dismissive, but truthful), I love Vanity Fair, Dracula (which is admittedly quite late) and Lewis Carroll, I’ve made my way through Middlemarch, I’ve been thoroughly bored by Charles Dickens (oh god, my library membership is going to be revoked, isn’t it?) – in short, I love some, I hate some, so I thought I could happily tackle Collins and at least give it a go. Except, it turns out, I can’t. Total and utter non-interest. I just cannot rouse myself to go further and I’m so ashamed! Not enough to keep reading, but still. Please don’t throw me out of the club. On a better note though I started [...read more...]