What’s BookieMonster reading? More graphic novels, it turns out

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Jun 222010
 
What’s BookieMonster reading? More graphic novels, it turns out

So I thought my graphic novel phase was coming to a close but no! I wanted more! A totally chance sighting at the library meant I came home on Saturday afternoon with 3 Terry Moore books – two Strangers in Paradise and one Echo (Moon Lake). Don’t be horrified by this but I had never heard of Terry Moore. What can I say, I just don’t know a lot about comic authors. I loved Strangers in Paradise. And I’m even reading them out of order – I had volume 1, and volume 5 and 6. I’ve just finished 5. This is like the best long running TV series or soap opera – the characters are a bit weird and everything gets a lot bigger than you imagined and if you think back to the beginning it doesn’t really make sense where they end up – but you just want more [...read more...]

Book News Flash! – And VUP to release New Zealand e-books

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Jun 222010
 

Isn’t it a busy book news day today? The finalists in the 2010 NZ Post Book Awards have been announced. The Kindle is now a measly US$189! And still not available to ship to NZ!  It’s not like we have electricity or the interwebs down here, anyway, right? And last, but most certainly not least, Victoria University Press is starting to release titles as e-books – which is quite frankly one of the most interesting pieces of e-book news for a long time! Victoria University Press is delighted to congratulate Anna Taylor winner of the (NZSA) Best First Book Award for her book of short stories Relief. To celebrate, we are excited to announce the release of Relief as our first e-book, along with praised new author Pip Adam’s short stories, Everything We Hoped For.   We are also thrilled to congratulate Bernadette Hall and Brian Turner, poetry finalists, who will [...read more...]

A History of English in 100 Words : Ask, axe

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Jun 212010
 

I’ve mentioned how one of my favourite podcasts is A History of the World in 100 Objects, and I thought imagine if there was a similar language podcast! There isn’t (as far as I know, please let me know if I’m wrong) so I thought I could take matters into my own hands and start at least a blog post version. To be honest, what really got me thinking was a passage in The Hundred & Ninety-nine Steps by Michel Faber where a historical figure used the word “axe” in place of ask. A bugbear of mine is prescriptive language enthusiasts who insist that the use of axe or aks in place of ask is a terrible crime in English which goes to prove how we’re all going to hell in a handbasket. Having studied English, history and linguistics I know that the notion that language change is always language degradation is [...read more...]

Link love and library lure

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Jun 212010
 
Link love and library lure

I loved, loved, loved reading this post this morning from @catatonichic. This woman can write and she’s so genuine and smart and she works in a library. BookieMonster Idol – I voted for her. Speaking of libraries whilst visiting my library yesterday I became rather sad at the thought of the many, many library books that are probably neglected within libraries. Some books never get taken out, some get taken out once. I feel bad for them and am hatching a scheme to take every book out of my local library at least once. Just so their system shows a checkout against each book.

Geoff Walker leaving Penguin NZ

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Jun 192010
 

News from yesterday that Geoff Walker is leaving his position as publishing director with Penguin NZ – after 25 years. A pretty amazing length of service to New Zealand publishing and he’s overseen some amazing authors and some interesting times. He will certainly be leaving some pretty big shoes to fill. In other publishing news, if you’re an aspiring debut novelist here’s your chance to be rated by one of the best writers of our time – The Terry Pratchett Anywhere but Here, Anywhen but Now Prize! This has to be bigger than the Booker, quite frankly. Full details here.

E-Books : “Hope rather than reality”

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Jun 182010
 

Or, How to Get My Dander Up “Of course, you don’t have to buy a book to read it, but the act of giving someone a book of his or her own has an undeniable, totemic power. As much as we love libraries, there is something in possessing a book that’s significantly different from borrowing it, especially for a child. You can write your name in it and keep it always. It transforms you into the kind of person who owns books, a member of the club, as well as part of a family that has them around the house. You’re no longer just a visitor to the realm of the written word: You’ve got a passport.” –Laura Miller in her Salon essay, “Book owners have smarter kids.” I love it that I saw this quote on Beattie’s Book Blog right next to a reproduced article about e-books (written by Bachelor of [...read more...]

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