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PANZ News: Outstanding shortlist announced for PANZ... Outstanding shortlist announced for PANZ Book Design Awards AUCKLAND, 3 May 2010. New Zealand’s exceptional book design talent is showcased in the shortlist announced today for the 2010 Publishers Association...

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Ask BookieMonster a question I thought I'd give you a chance to ask me a question - about pretty much anything I write about! Want to know why I hate Ian McEwan? Want to know something about Trade Me? Want to know why I started...

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Winter, begone! Hello sunshine... I really need to work on my headline writing. Aaaaaanyway, spring will be here tomorrow! Officially, though looking outside at grey skies I am not entirely sure spring knows that it is expected. Traditionally...

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What's BookieMonster Reading? The Scandal of the Season... Oh, but reading has been a hard road recently. Why? I don't really know but I was in one of those "good book" slumps. As in, I couldn't find one to just latch on to and absorb without having to think too...

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BookieMonster’s Father’s Day Gift Generator! Father's Day is almost here! And aren't Dads just great to shop for? They're always so easy, right, you know exactly what to get them, there's always something they need... Ahem. Sorry, I was lost in...

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Press Release: The Future is A Foreign Country

Category : Book Trade News, New Releases

Imagine worlds where strange creatures roam the hills of Miramar, desperate survivors cling to the remains of a submerged country, and the residents of Gisborne reluctantly serve alien masters.

A Foreign CountryThose are just some of the visions painted in a new volume of speculative fiction by kiwi writers to be launched later this month. Published by Wellington-based small press Random Static, A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction features work by best-selling author Juliet Marillier; poet, musician, and writer Bill Direen; and several Sir Julius Vogel Award winners, prominent writers, and talented newcomers.

Popular and award-winning Australian author Sean Williams, who will be in Wellington at the time of the launch, was impressed by his sneak preview, describing the anthology as “richly populated with the frightening and the fabulous, the thrilling and the thoughtful, the inspiring and the inspired.”

Co-editor Anna Caro hopes the works in the collection will both provide points of familiarity to readers, and take their imagination to new places. “Many of the stories are set in New Zealand, present or future, and portray worlds which are both instantly recognisable and nothing like the country we currently live in. This anthology showcases some of the remarkable range of New Zealand’s world-class speculative fiction writers.”

A Foreign Country will be launched at 6pm on Friday 27 August at Au Contraire, the 31st National Science Fiction Convention (Quality Hotel, Cuba St, Wellington).

A Foreign Country can be ordered online from http://www.randomstatic.net.

ISBN: 978-0-473-16916-9

RRP: $24.95

Fun with Dick and Fanny

1

Category : Book Trade News, Fun Stuff

It’s not “whorish self-promotion” if I link to it… :)

From Public Address Radio, 180 Seconds with Craig Ranapia:

This week, Craig investigates the Mystery of the Dumbed Down Childrens Books. Call the Famous Five!

http://publicaddress.net/system/topic,2638,180-seconds-with-craig-ranapia-1-august.sm

P.S. Thanks K Hulme for reminding me that I wanted to post this! Bookie commenters are full of win!

The Booker goes bonkers

7

Category : Book Trade News, BookieMonster News, New Releases

No, it doesn’t really. I was just trying to get your attention. Mean Bookie!

So, the 2010 Man Booker Prize longlist of 13 titles has been announced and the … nominees… are (dundahdahDAH!):

Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America (Faber and Faber)

Emma Donoghue Room (Pan MacMillan – Picador)

Helen Dunmore The Betrayal (Penguin – Fig Tree)

Damon Galgut In a Strange Room (Grove Atlantic – Atlantic Books)

Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question (Bloomsbury)

Andrea Levy The Long Song
(Headline Publishing Group – Headline Review)

Tom McCarthy C (Random House – Jonathan Cape)

David Mitchell The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet  (Hodder & Stoughton – Sceptre)

Lisa Moore February (Random House – Chatto & Windus)

Paul Murray Skippy Dies (Penguin – Hamish Hamilton)

Rose Tremain Trespass (Random House – Chatto & Windus)

Christos Tsiolkas The Slap (Grove Atlantic – Tuskar Rock)

Alan Warner The Stars in the Bright Sky
(Random House – Jonathan Cape)

Oh my! I haven’t read any of these! And I call myself a book reviewer … PAH! Though, in my saving grace, I do have a copy of the book that should win and yes I’m saying that even though I haven’t read it yet, but come on y’all it’s David Mitchell and that man is a fricken genius writer and one of the best of our time, and I have no problems stating that categorically, at all.

Inhale.

I have been holding off on reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet because I know it’s going to be brilliant and once you’ve read it… you’ve read it. You can’t ever read it for the first time again. Ever! And I’m waiting for just the right moment when I can sink into it and splash around like a duckling in a rain puddle on a summer’s day.

Plus the cover of the edition I have – she is gorgeous. I have reproduced it below in all it’s colour glory, but, oh! I cannot reproduce the way it feels, the slight gloss on the blue, the smell, the anticipation! I love this book like it’s an actual living, breathing thing… and that’s before I’ve read it. (Get that, e-book pushers? Yeah, you heard me.)

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet cover

The “Humans are Amazing” edition : The Humane Reader

Category : Book Trade News, Fun Stuff

Humans can be strange, mad, bad creatures but the best thing about them is they can also come up with some amazing things in the name of helping fellow humans, like this Humane Reader, from the same people who make the Humane PC.

Something about these really appeals to me. I think this is an amazing project – I love that technology can be used to reach people and that we can change our way of thinking about “obsolescence”.

Today’s wide world of books (with added commentary)

11

Category : Book Trade News

In the Telegraph, Ian McEwan says Americans are ‘profoundly bored’ by climate change.

He added, with a laugh: “Or maybe it was no good, there was always that possibility.”

Yes, Mr McEwan there is always that possibility.

Okay, so maybe I should have called this Today’s narrow world of Snark… :D

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