To all BookieMonster friends a very Merry Christmas! We hope your Christmas is filled with fine food, delicious drinks, good cheer and many, many kittehs.
And finally, my personal favourite and especially just for my wonderful husband, the legendary Mr Monster…
21st Century Dodos : A Collection of Endangered Objects (and Other Stuff) by Steve Stack, The Friday Project (Harper Collins NZ), RRP $26.99 or 99p as an ebook from Amazon.co.uk, ISBN 9781906321734, Available now.
You may remember Steve Stack from such guest posts as Guest Post: Steve Stack on Copyright Pages, and uh… that’s it actually. So you know he’s funny. Because you read the post, right?
Lucky little readers are us then, because the funny Mr Stack also writes books! And this is his newest endeavour… an endangered list for inanimate objects (and ideas). Of course, it’s much more than just a list, it’s a pleasant jaunt down memory lane. Particularly if you were a 70s or 80s child.
Mix tapes? BASIC? Computer tapes? Teletext? Intermission? Cap guns? If any of these things mean anything to you, you’ll enjoy 21st Century Dodos’ journey with these stops and more along the way! Being written by a British author, there are some entries that may be a little unfamiliar or downright totally unknown to readers outside the UK but those are in the minority. Otherwise we get little meditations on laser discs, mini discs, smoking sections, handwritten letters, carbon copy paper and Smash Hits, including this tiny detail that had me giggling:
…for many, the main attraction was the inclusion of lyrics from the most popular songs of the day, most of which seemed to end with the legendary bracketed phrase “(ad lib to fade)”.
I can’t help it. I’m a child of the 80s. I love this stuff. Plus Mr Stack agrees with me that the old practice of putting two spaces after a full stop is no longer needed in our digital age. SO STOP IT, PEOPLE.
Divided into sections covering technology, the home, school, the cinema, TV and radio plus more, Stack really does cover many of the changes that have happened in the late 20th century and he does it with nice personal stories and occasional brevity (see “Nougat” and “Nestle”).
A totally fun read and lucky for all you e-reader owners it’s only 99p (that’s around $2 in real money) on the Amazon Kindle store until Christmas.
And if you think that’s a good deal you can also get Steve Stack’s first book It Is Just You, Everything Is Not Shit for only 49p (again, real money = $1)
While writing Mortal Coil, bestselling children’s author, Derek Landy gave his readers around the world the chance to put their powers of imagination to the test and create a character to be written into the book. Of the entries, Derek said ‘it’s been STAGGERING. It’s been MIND-BLOWING. The quality has been immense, the imagination has been startling, and the talent has been undeniable.’
After a great deal of deliberation a winner was chosen and the character of Geoffrey Scrutinous was included in his last new book, Mortal Coil!
Derek is giving his New Zealand and Australian readers another chance to put their imaginations to the test…
About the author: Derek Landy lives in Dublin, where he complains about having to write a blog (dereklandy.blogspot.com). He is far too modest to talk about the numerous awards he has won, such as The Irish Book of the Decade, or the Red House award in the UK, or any of the others that he humbly displays on his mantelpiece. He finds that sort of thing gauche.
New York, NY – December 19, 2011– HarperCollins Publishers, Weta and Moulinsart announced today the release of The Art of the Adventures of Tintin, a new app that allows viewers to immerse themselves into the world created by The Adventures of Tintin filmmakers on their iPad. The app includes the entire text of the book that inspired the film, plus visual, audio and video enhancements.
The Art of The Adventures of Tintin is the beautifully presented app that will accompany the new film from Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures, The Adventures of Tintin, launching in late 2011. This 3D animated film, based on the universally popular series of books The Adventures of Tintin by Hergé, is directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, and produced by Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy.
The Art of The Adventures of Tintin app, now available on the App Store, is the first app of it’s kind, allowing viewers to immerse themselves into the world created by the film makers like never before. The App features 360° Immersive Environments, 360° Turnaround Characters, Video Clips and Exclusive new content, all integrated into the amazing story of how this ground breaking movie was created.
The animation, visual effects and conceptual design for the movie were created by Weta, the multi-Academy Award-winning company based in New Zealand that helped create global blockbusters such as The Lord of the Rings, King Kong and Avatar. The Art of The Adventures of Tintin app has been created by Weta and HarperCollins alongside world leading developers Holopad using many assets produced by the same Weta artists who brought Hergé’s wonderful Tintin characters to the big screen.
“We wanted to invite fans into the world created by the film makers. This App allows fans to step inside our world. Welcome!” Tim Launder, General Manager, Weta Limited.
A leader in the digital space, HarperCollins developed the app with Weta to showcase the book and give users a glimpse into how the story, and Hergé’s original artwork, became a blockbuster 3D performance captured in the film.
“The Art of the Adventures of Tintin app is a stunning visual and immersive experience that will exceed customers’ desires for new and exciting ways to enjoy books,” said Tony Fisk, Managing Director for HarperCollins New Zealand. “Through our partnerships with the filmmakers at Weta and the developers at Holopad, we’ve developed something that will help set the standard for how we approach digital publishing and push the boundaries of what we can create for readers.”
Based on content from the beautifully presented book, the Art of the Adventures of Tintin by Chris Guise ( published by HarperCollins New Zealand), the app takes readers further into Tintin’s story by allowing them to explore and interact with various features throughout the book. Readers can see the transformation of concept illustrations into final shots from the film and listen to the artists and filmmakers, including Oscar Winners Joe Letteri and Richard Taylor, who worked on the film. Tintin fans can also enjoy never before published footage of Hergé working in his studio, as well as never seen before concept art and interactive features.
Moulinsart, the official organisation that looks after the world of Tintin, has contributed an introductory chapter on the comic’s creator Georges Remi, aka Hergé, and has kindly provided video clips and original artwork for reproduction in the app.
The Art of The Adventures of Tintin app is available for the special introductory price of US$5.99 on the iPad or at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-art-adventures-tintin/id489704542?ls=1&mt=8. And will be released in French on 10 Jan, to celebrate Tintin’s birthday.
About Weta
Weta provides a wide range of creative services to the global entertainment community and has a reputation for unsurpassed creativity and dedication to craft. The recipient of multiple Academy Awards, Weta continues to be in high demand by the top studios and content creators around the globe. Weta is based in Wellington, New Zealand. More information about Weta can be found at www.wetaNZ.com
About HarperCollins Publishers
HarperCollins, one of the largest English-language publishers in the world, is a subsidiary of News Corporation. Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups around the world including the HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children’s Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada, HarperCollins Australia and New Zealand and HarperCollins India. HarperCollins is a broad-based publisher with strengths in literary and commercial fiction, business books, children’s books, cookbooks, mystery, romance, reference, religious and spiritual books. With nearly 200 years of history HarperCollins has published some of the world’s foremost authors and has won numerous awards including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott. You can visit HarperCollins Publishers on the Internet at www.harpercollins.com, www.harpercollins.co.uk, www.harpercollins.com.au and www.harpercollins.co.nz
About Moulinsart
MOULINSART S.A. handles all the derived rights related to the work of HERGE, the creator of The Adventures of Tintin. http://us.tintin.com/
About The Adventures Of Tintin
Paramount Pictures and Columbia Pictures Present, in Association with Hemisphere Media Capital, “The Adventures of Tintin” directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright & Joe Cornish. Starring Jamie Bell (“Billy Elliot,” “Defiance”) as Tintin, the young reporter whose relentless pursuit of a good story thrusts him into a world of high adventure, Andy Serkis and Daniel Craig.
Based on “The Adventures of Tintin” by Hergé, the film is produced by Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy.
About Holopad
Holopad is a New York based technology company that works with publishers to use the Holopad Publishing platform to efficiently convert their visual books into compelling interactive apps. The Holopad platform facilitates taking books into the next dimension of interactivity for the tablet age. Learn more at: www.holopad.com
Holopad is a subsidiary of New York based bMuse with the mission of re-imagining media across all different mediums Learn more at: www.bmuse.com
Washday at the Pa, photographs by Ans Westra, with text by Mark Amery, Suite Gallery, RRP $24.95, ISBN 9780473198466, Available now.
Any photography lover, any NZ photography lover and any NZ School Journal lover will have to get themselves a copy of Washday at the Pa. Originally a series of photographs taken by Ans Westra of a Maori family in Ruatoria, made into a booklet by the Ministry of Education with accompanying “story” by Ans Westra, controversially published and withdrawn due to a complaint by the Maori Women’s Welfare League, republished the next year… the history and story of Washday at the Pa (both photographs and the previously accompanying text) is a fascinating one, revealing much about using photos to capture moments… and then compiling those moments into the story you wish to tell.
Suite Gallery have published this beautiful new edition to accompany their exhibition of the original photographs and as well as including all the original photos, they’ve also added a full history of the images and books, their reception at various times and the shifts in opinion regarding the meaning of the images. Or, as Mark Amery puts it:
Washday will always be like that – a barometer of cultural outlooks at any particular time in history.
To see the photos in isolation from any “story text” is to come to the realisation that we don’t know the story, either of the photo setup or the subjects pictured, but that the images evoke a strong feeling of family life, family affection – it’s an experience akin to leafing through your own family album and remembering the stories behind each snapshot.
In our world of almost constant images, both self-portraits and media portraits, Washday at the Pa is a timely reminder that “a picture is worth a thousand words” – and a thousands stories.
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