Fun and games during NZ Book Month

September Treasure Hunt


A 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 five fictitious titles among the genuine NZ published books on our webshop,” said Wrightson.

“All people have to do is spot the phoneys and email them to us with their name. All the correct entries will go in a draw to win all 25 finalists in this year’s Montana Book Awards. This fine library of the best in contemporary publishing is worth more than $1300.”

Wrightson said she is a passionate supporter of NZ publishing and that she is delighted with the quality and the range of NZ books on offer.

“Selling NZ books at home and abroad is a serious business. The competition we are running in support of NZ Book Month gives us a chance to have lots of fun on the side.”

And you can buy books (including Island of the Lost and the Wiki Coffin novels) from their site:
www.nzbooksabroad.com

And even compare the prices with those charged in the US!

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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 of any books, for any of our prizes, from Random House or any of its affiliates."

So bang go the prospects of Random House authors for the $1,000 David J. Langam Prize in American Historical Fiction and the $1,000 David J. Langam Prize in American Legal History or Biography.

It seems more than a little unfair that innocent authors should be penalized for what was basically a tactical decision, rather than outright censorship. As Stanley Fish observed in The New York Times, Jones is free to have the book published elsewhere. Considering the amount of free publicity Medina has received, that seems an absolute certainty.

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3:53 PM | 0 comments

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 representative for Steven Spielberg said that he still intends to direct the film, and a representative for Jackson agreed. Jackson will be a producer on the first film and intends to direct the second one.

Meantime, he somehow has to complete Lovely Bones (in post-production) and write scripts for the two Hobbit movies. (And mow the lawn in his spare time?)

The first Tintin is based on two books, The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure, with a screenplay by "Doctor Who" writer Stephen Moffat.

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1:36 PM | 0 comments

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 Promises To Keep: On Life and Politics arriving in stores by Thursday, August 28. (The hardcover appeared on the NYT bestseller list for one week at No. 15 last August.)

As the publishers describe it, the book "shows us how the guiding principles he learned early in life--the obligation to work to make people's lives better, to honor family and faith, to get up and do the right thing no matter how hard you've been knocked down, to be honest and straightforward, and, above all, to keep your promises--are the foundations on which he has based his life's work."

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1:47 PM | 0 comments

Recent amazing sales

From auction and elsewhere.

Copy of the Magna Carta, made 1297, signed by King Edward: $21,000,000

Pom.com, domain name: $9,500,000

Letter written by Abraham Lincoln, dated April 5, 1864: $3,400,000

Civil War surrender document, signed by Robert E. Lee: $537,750

American pilot chart book, 1794: $408,250

Two-page meditation on God by Albert Einstein: $405,000

Photographic volume of Michelangelo sculptures: $155,000

The Arctic Regions, by William Bradford, illustrated with 141 albumen prints, 1873: $144,000

First edition of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein: $122,000

Original drawing for Peanuts comic: $113,525

The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway, signed pre-publication copy, 1952: $96,000

Inquiry into Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith: $90,000

First Marvel comic, 1939: $89,625

Thomas Jefferson, letter to Lafayette: $84,000

Life of Napoleon (4 vv.), by William M. Sloane, 1896: $50,400

Harry Potter, by J.K. Rowling (first edition): $33,460

The Heart of the Antarctic, by Ernest Shackleton (first edition), 1909: $31,200

Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville (first edition), 1851: $17,925

Dracula, by Bram Stoker (first edition) 1897: $14,690

Voyage to the Pacific, by Capt. James Cook (first edition) 1784: $14,000

A cornflake shaped like the State of Illinois: $1,350

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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 and entirely a renewal of all that Denmark has already been through with the Mohammed cartoon affair."

Jones's agent Natasha Kern wrote to the society, "When you consider what's happened in your country, I admire your readiness to ensure that freedom of expression is not obstructed."

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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 an unexpectedly powerful player: the book.


Obama is the first candidate to have had two bestselling books - not manifestos, but memoirs, which he seems to have written himself - before even gaining the nomination. Unfortunately, the phenomenon has proved to have a nasty aftermath. Currently the top non-fiction slot he held is filled by Obama Nation, a title that is meant to be spat out fast, sounding like"Abomination".


In Britain, the busy schedule of a prime minister has not prevented Gordon Brown from a rate of publication that would have impressed Agatha Christie - Wartime Courage: Stories of Extraordinary Bravery in World War II, due in the autumn, is his third book in little over a year, a successor to Courage: Eight Portraits, and Britain's Everyday Heroes.


As Lawson pithily comments, the fact that Brown has chosen to publish an entire trilogy about guts and courage is typical of this new brand of political literature. John F Kennedy's Portraits in Courage - calculated to establish cold warrior credentials before the 1960 race - remains the model for leaders in search of readers, even though it is now established that JFK did not actually set pen to paper.


McCain has just put out his own effort to entice Soldier of Fortune-reading voters -- Hard Call: Courageous Decisions by Inspiring People: Heroes Who Made Tough Decisions.


Grubby as the ploy might be, it is curiously touching that aspirants to power should wish to garnish their campaigns with nothing less than a good oldfashioned book.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/22/politics.gordonbrown

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6:57 PM | 0 comments