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My picks for the best books I’ve read this year (in order of “how I found the links on the site”):

Snuff by Terry Pratchett and I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett: I’ll get these out of the way first. Read the reviews. ‘Nuff said.

The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman: So much whimsy in such a little, beautiful, wonderful book.

The Fly Papers Book One: The Flytrap Snaps by Johanna Knox, Illustrated by Sabrina Malcolm: Great NZ writing for kids, with an original story and a sense of fun.

Tupaia: The Remarkable Story of Captain Cook’s Polynesian Navigator by Joan Druett: Highly readable history combined with serious non-fiction and a load of research.

La Rochelle’s Road by Tanya Moir: Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. NZ to its core with a fascinating story.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan: Literature with blood and guts. Funny and immensely well-written.

Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done by Oliver Burkeman: Self help that’s actually helpful.

August by Bernard Beckett: So ambitious and thoughtful, AND with a great plot.

Wulf by Hamish Clayton: Lyrical and mythical.

The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey: Slow and steady and fascinating. Just like gastropods.

A Waltz for Matilda by Jackie French: The perfect read for any young girl, empowering and thrilling (with a dash of romance).

Like lists? You must love this time of year! Here’s a couple more for reading inspiration:

The Listener’s 100 Best Books of 2011

The Alternative, The Underground, The Oh-Yes-That-One List of Favorite Books of 2011 from The Millions

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

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…

Exclusive ‘Down-Under’ create a character competition from Derek Landy!

Derek Landy will be touring New Zealand to promote his exciting new book, Skulduggery Pleasant: The End of the World, in August 2012!

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.

Weta, HarperCollins and Moulinsart are excited to announce a breakthrough book app for The Art of The Adventures of Tintin

with forewords by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson

Available Now on the App Store

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
Moulinsart

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

Book Depository is the best dang place to buy books that are hard to find in your local book store. I find it hard to believe that everyone doesn’t know about it, but it’s true there are still some folk out there who had no idea.

One chap I know was so excited to hear about the very existence of Book Depository – we were talking about Our Favourite Books – that he extricated himself from my embrace, demanded I boot up my Lappy and proceeded to buy a bunch of books right there and then.

Picture for a moment my expression. It ranged from: “How adorable! The chap READS!” to growing disillusionment and finally utter boredom as I saw what he was searching for. (I’m not going to tell you what it was. You’ll probably be the world’s biggest fan of [series] and you’ll never talk to me again.)

We can gather from this little anecdote a few things. Firstly, I am pretty bad at pillow talk. Secondly, that Internet Book Reviewers are a judgemental lot. You wouldn’t read my reviews if I wasn’t. Can you imagine, they’d all be like, “Novel, 315 pages. Typo on page 259. Read it in four hours after putting it off for three weeks”. Thirdly, fellas, it does pay to have a carefully rehearsed “favourite book” to roll out to the ladies if you want to stay in their lives longer than Mr Never-Heard-Of-Book-Depository stayed in mine. And video games aren’t books. Yes, both experiences are immersive but - immersive, it means an experience which is absorbing. Your vocabulary would be bigger if you read a damn book. I said, your vocabulary could be bigger. Jeeze. So go click this link, and go read a book. A good book, mind you, or we can’t hang out anymore.