I’d forgotten that Gleebooks have regular book launch and author speaking events, but Bobbie was perusing the latest catalogue and noticed that Cadel Evans was booked in so I made an effort to reserve a seat. He’s written a book that’s launched in time for the Christmas present season and he’s been doing the rounds of bookstores around the country…. Read more →
So I mentioned a while back that I’ve been following the new adaptation of Pride and Prejudice – The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Since Christmas we’ve seen the start of the story arc with Lydia and George Wickham, which is climaxing this week with the revelation of a sex tape. I’d been wondering for a while what the writers would do… Read more →
A ebook lending website – that linked to Amazon and B&N – offering to connect owners of a book to people who want to borrow, and also containing link to allow people to buy the books from said retailers, has been shuttered by a bunch of illiterate writers who though that they were taking on a case of copyright infringement…. Read more →
Shaun Tan, author of the wonderful The Arrival, has a little story in The Guardian, about a foreign exchange student called Eric, who comes to stay.
I read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – it was ok. They managed to shoehorn horror and romance together without too much of a WTF! factor. Now there’s a new book based on Sense and Sensibility. Danya and I saw copies in Better Read That Dead last night, and I was almost shocked; I’d seen a youtube clip some time… Read more →
Honestly, I did. Having finished Paul of Dune, I decided to go back and read Frank Herbert’s original stories. I found that the first was great, and they gradually slipped into a morass of politics and scheming that take the shine off the heroes of Dune. It’s depressing in a sense, but you see that Frank has some points to… Read more →
I’m currently reading The Man With The Strange Head. To be honest, I didn’t know anything about the book except that it promised science fiction stories from an earlier period, and had a great cover. It’s nice to once again come across stories that make you think. While Miles J. Breuer is not a great writer, he’s the forebear of… Read more →
The Sydney Writers’ Festival is on us again. The program came in Saturday’s SMH, and the only writer I immediately saw as a possibility was Iain M. Banks – I am currently reading Matter, and enjoying it as usual with his sci-fi novels. Then I noticed that he wasn’t actually appearing at the festival. Instead, they were employing the LongPen… Read more →
It’s not often that I stop reading a book after a couple of chapters. Hackers and Painters has the dubious distinction of being in the categories of books that I couldn’t finish. Put mildly, it’s tripe. The book has a basic premise that there is some more worthy class of computer programmers called hackers who are “makers”, typified as painters,… Read more →
Neil Gaiman brought to an interesting article on the Making Light blog to my attention. I was aware, during the week, of the issue, since the SMH published another article on it, which doesn’t contain the detail of the first. Basically, A&R – who’s owners are looking to have it publicly listed – is trying to blackmail small publishing houses… Read more →
A poetry professor from Pennsylvania explains the story behind a call about a suspected terrorist on campus. Basically he (a dark skinned man) was recycling manuscripts and some idiot from the ROTC called the police. It’s a shame that the university didn’t fully support their employee, either. It’s unfortunate that all Americans get tarred with the loony brush these days,… Read more →
Here’s an April Fool’s Day joke that I think a lot of people felt some sympathy for. As Neil stated, it took him by surprise as he, like I, forgot about the date. Still, peoples’ favourite authors are probably more deserving of saint-hood than some priest. At least the writer has actually done something for people.
There’s been some to-and-fro’ing on Neil Gaiman’s journal about [tag]libraries[/tag] deciding what books to stock, the case in point being The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron, which won the Newbery Medal. It contains the word scrotum, and this has caused an uproar. In the case of “Lucky,†some of them take no chances. Wendy Stoll, a librarian at… Read more →
Since I didn’t get this as a birthday present, I went out yesterday and bought myself a copy. Last night I read the first story, A Study in Emerald, which is a wonderful mashup of Arthur Conan Doyle and H.P. Lovecraft. It won a 2003 Hugo Short Story award, and I can see why. The book has only one story… Read more →
The complete first volume of the new Moomin comic strip is available online (as well as local comic stores by now, I think). It’s a cute little read – and now I think I might be up for reading the books again 🙂
I went into town today and ended up spending over $200 at Galaxy. The expense was almost entirely for The Absolute Sandman, which is gorgeous. I know it’s on my wishlist for Christmas, but when I saw it, and the price, I decided that I couldn’t ask anyone to pay that for a present for me. The collection is bound… Read more →
Neil refers in his latest blog entry, about the piece he contributed for the New York Times. It’s a nice little meander through the mind of someone who grew up in England where [tag]Halloween[/tag] was, he assures us, taken much more seriously than the trick-or-treat and parade mentality of America. There’s a little story in the middle of the article… Read more →
Hey, Douglas – I want 20% of my purchase price back. And maybe you could spend the money on learning some new schtick. While what you wrote was occasionally good, when you actually wrote something. I get pissed off from having a character say something like: Everyone listen up. I’ve just emailed you all the first hundred thousand digits of… Read more →
Actually, it’s not my question – it’s Antony Loewenstein’s question – but it’s a good one. To what extent does the extreme [tag]zealotry[/tag] of [tag]zionism[/tag] contribute to the intractability of the conflict in the [tag]middle east[/tag]? For asking it, he’s been called a self-hating jew. This prompted a response in Crikey, in the form of a cute bit of doggerel…. Read more →
I picked up my copy of The Three Incestuous Sisters, today. Since I can’t see any mention of the creation process of the book on Audrey Niffenegger’s site, I thought I’d copy her description here: The Three Incestuous Sisters‘s first incarnation was as an artists’s book, in a handmade collection of ten. I created the story in pictures, sketching page… Read more →
