Fun and games during NZ Book Month

September Treasure HuntA quirky competition has been launched to support NZ Book Month.Louise Wrightson, and her company New Zealand Books Abroad, is promoting a book lovers’ treasure hunt as her contribution to the event.“ On 1 September we are planting...

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11:54 PM | 0 comments

Problems over Medina mount for Random House

The Langam Charitable Trust has issued a statement deploring Random House's cancellation of Sherry Jones's novel. They feel so strongly about it, they have decided that "until The Jewel of Medina is actually published, [we] will not consider submissions...

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Peter Jackson involved in yet another film project

Brussels' Herge Studios confused the world yesterday by announcing that Peter Jackson would direct the first film in a planned Tintin trilogy for Dreamworks.A...

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Biden book rushed into paperback

Random House will have a 100,000-copy first printing of a new paperback edition of Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Joseph Biden's book...

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Recent amazing sales

From auction and elsewhere.Copy of the Magna Carta, made 1297, signed by King Edward: $21,000,000Pom.com, domain name: $9,500,000Letter written by Abraham Lincoln, dated April 5, 1864: $3,400,000Civil War surrender document, signed by Robert E. Lee:...

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6:29 PM | 0 comments

Medina to be published in Denmark

Danish publishers association Trykkeselskabet has approved the publication of Sherry Jones's novel The Jewel Of Medina in Denmark.A spokesperson told a Danish newspaper, "Fear or threats should not keep a book from being published. It would be principally...

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6:27 PM | 0 comments

Leaders seeking readers

Mark Lawson meditates in The Guardian that with candidates posting videos on YouTube and Barack Obama pledging to tell supporters his vice-presidential choice by text, Campaign 2008 has been a new-tech election. But one piece of old technology has proved...

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6:57 PM | 0 comments

It was a dark and stormy night

Writing in The Guardian, Alison Flood reports that the great-great-great grandson of the much-maligned author Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton is to take part in a debate to defend his ancestor's writing.The Honourable Henry Lytton Cobbold, of Knebworth House...

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8:50 PM | 0 comments

Are you moral enough to write books for young adults?

Apparently, Random House UK includes a morality clause in contracts with children's book authors. Guardian blogger Sian Pettenden drew attention to the insertion, which caused an alert to be distributed by a UK-based support group for writers and illustrators....

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8:35 PM | 0 comments

Book sales fall in the US

Barnes & Noble report falling sales, with actual bookstores the hardest hit.Even with the success of Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn, David Wroblewski's Story of Edgar Sawtelle, and Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture, the lack of a mega-seller on the...

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Atoms, dinosaurs & DNA

Atoms, dinosaurs & DNA: 68 Great New Zealand Scientists, compiled by Veronika Meduna & Rebecca Priestley. Auckland: Random House New Zealand,...

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8:56 PM | 0 comments

Yesterday is another country

Yesterday is another country, by Somasiri Devendra. Sri Lanka: Sridevi Publications, 27 Pepiliyana Road, Nedimala, Dehiwala. First published 2008. ISBN 978-955-9419-28-0This charming collection of 16 short stories, part reminiscence, part intriguing...

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Bob Dylan poems discovered.

Julie Bosman, in the International Herald Tribune, writes that Barry Feinstein, the rock 'n' roll photographer, when digging idly through his archives,...

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11:30 PM | 0 comments

New Woodward tell-all announced

Simon & Schuster has announced the title of Bob Woodward's new book: The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008--along with the release date of September 8, in what they say will be a 900,000-copy first printing.Editor Alice Mayhew says:...

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1:43 PM | 0 comments

Amazon Obama Book Exclusive Backfires

Publisher Chelsea Green's plan to offer Robert Kuttner's Obama's Challenge exclusively through Amazon for the first two weeks of publication, further driven by coupons for a 25-percent discount to be distributed at the Democratic convention, has backfired...

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1:38 PM | 0 comments

Terry Pratchett has Altzheimer's but still his imagination is vivid

Last year the bestselling author of the Discworld fantasies was finally diagnosed with Altzheimer's: Terry Pratchett, 59, was convinced something was...

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1:28 PM | 0 comments

Enid Blyton best-loved author

Website of the Telegraph Media GroupAnita Singh reports that Enid Blyton has been voted Britain's best-loved author in a survey which proves that the stories we read as children retain a special place in our affections.Blyton was first and Roald Dahl...

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They have book festivals in Ireland, too

The Irish Independent on Sunday features "A fizzy festival to put Dublin on the literary map."Well, not quite. The fare at Sunday Independent's Books...

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2009 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

Random House New Zealand has proudly announced that five of their books are included in the nominations for the 2009 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.These are:Drybread by Owen MarshallRocking Horse Road, by Carl NixonLucky Bastard, by Peter...

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3:25 PM | 0 comments

Are the feminists losing their teenaged audience?

In an op-ed in the Washington Post today, Leonard Sax claims convincingly that the ultra-bestselling Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer "sinks its teeth...

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Want to write a children's book?

Recent changes in the educational and children's book publishing industry is seeing Wellington emerge as the centre for this kind of publishing in New...

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Wellington needs a sonnet

The Wellington branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors has decided that Wellington needs a sonnet. So -- have you got what it takes to write fourteen...

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8:41 PM | 0 comments

Can a book be a weapon of political assassination?

Four years after Unfit for Command helped derail John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, Jerome Corsi makes another sally with Obama Nation: Leftist...

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8:50 PM | 0 comments

Fantasies and miracles

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, a writer for young adults, Clare Bell, produced a four-book fantasty series about sentient big cats in the prehistoric Miocene...

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