Boomerang Blog

A familiar street name (to Melbournians at any rate) and now book is atop the Highest New Entries chart this week–Lygon St by Michael Harden. This bustling thoroughfare in the inner-city suburb of Carlton is said to have introduced the first espresso machine to Australia. Cross Country by James Patterson comes in at number one in the Bestsellers and The Private Patient by P D James rules the roost in the Fastest Movers chart–WBN.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10144/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

The YABBAs (Young Australian Best Book Award) were announced this week in Victoria.

Best picture storybook went to Uno’s Garden (Graeme Base, Viking); fiction for younger readers went to Just Shocking (Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, Pan); fiction for older readers went to The Key to Rondo (Emily Rodda, Omnibus); and fiction for years 7-9 went to Mao’s Last Dancer: Young Reader’s Edition (Li Cunxin, Puffin).

Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton also took out the award recently for younger readers in the WAYRBAs (West Australian Young Readers Book Awards), where Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight (Orbit) received the older readers prize; Melina Marchetta’s On the Jellicoe Road (Viking) received the Avis Page Award for the highest ranked Australian author; and Andrew Lansdown’s Red Dragon (Omnibus) received the Hoffman Award for the highest ranked West Australian author.

The BILBYs (Books I Love Best Yearly) in Queensland were also swept by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton in the younger reader’s category. Early readers prize went to Jackie French and Bruce Whatley for Diary of a Wombat (HarperCollins), and older readers liked Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J K Rowling (Bloomsbury) best.

The ACT’s COOL Awards (Canberra’s Own Outstanding List) recently awarded best picture story book to Where is the Green Sheep (Mem Fox and Judy Horacek, Picture Puffin); best fiction for older readers to Spookiest Stories by Paul Jennings (Viking); best fiction for years 7-9 to Dragon Moon by Carole Wilkinson (Black Dog Books); and unsurprisingly–best fiction for younger readers went to Just Shocking, by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton (Pan).

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10163/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

The 2009 New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize has gone to Jenny Pattrick.

The prize is worth NZ$100,000 (A$85,000) and involves travel and accommodation in France for six months, allowing the writer to work at the Villa Isola Bella in Menton, France, where Katherine Mansfield once lived and wrote in the early 20th century.

Pattrick told the New Zealand Post she was ‘hugely honoured’ by the win. ‘I can’t wait to experience the South of France and be inspired by its surroundings in the same way that Katherine Mansfield was,’ she said.

Wellington writer Pattrick believes she may be the first ‘popular writer’ to have been awarded the prize. ‘I hope this is a recognition that good popular writing can be just as demanding to write, just as carefully crafted, just as true in its characterisation, themes and ideas as good literary writing,’ she told The Post. Previous recipients include Janet Frame, Witi Ihimaera and Vincent O’Sullivan.

Pattrick is the author of The Denniston Rose, Heart of Coal, Grace Notes and Catching the Current, published by Black Rose in New Zealand, all of which have been picked up by Scribe Publications in Australia.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10153/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Australian and New Zealand authors are well represented on this year’s International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award longlist.

Among those listed are Steven Carroll; J M Coetzee, Matthew Condon, Nicholas Drayson, Thomas Keneally, Christopher Koch, Alex Miller, Stephen Scourfield, Jessica White, Fiona Farrell, Laurence Fearnley, Ray Kluun, Owen Marshall, Carl Nixon, Peter Wells, Sheridan Hay, and Geraldine Wooller.

These authors are in the running for the prize of $100,000 (A$194,000), to be announced next year. For more information click here.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10146/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Australian author John Hughes is one of 20 authors longlisted for the inaugural Warwick Prize, worth £50,000 (A$115,000).

The prize, run by the University of Warwick, is an ‘international cross-disciplinary biennial award open to substantial pieces of writing in the English language, in any genre or form’. The theme for the 2009 prize was ‘Complexity’.

Hughes has been longlisted for his collection of ‘openly fictional’ essays Someone Else (Giramondo), which includes subjects from Anton Chekhov to Bob Dylan.

Hughes’ The Idea of Home: Autobiographical Essays (Giramondo, 2004) won the 2004 National Biography Award and the 2005 NSW Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction.

The Warwick Prize will announce a shortlist of six authors ahead of the final awards ceremony in February next year.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10148/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Author Brian Matthews spent 10 years writing the authorised biography of Manning Clark–one of Australia’s most treasured intellectuals–and it has just hit bookshelves nationwide. Clark was probably best known for his six-volume history of Australia, which began at the arrival of the First Fleet and culminated at the brink of World War II. But behind the million words of his historical tomes was a tortured soul, as readers discovered this weekend

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By Media Extra contributors

1 Manning Clark: A Life by Brian Matthews
2 Reinvention of Ivy Brown, The by Roberta Taylor
3 Wanting by Richard Flanagan
4 Slap, The by Christos Tsiolkas
5 Vertigo by Amanda Lohrey

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10100/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

The ubiquitous James Patterson has struck again, with novel Cross Country gracing the top of both the Bestsellers and Highest New Entries charts this week. Australian author Di Morrissey who has almost as great a presence on the bookshelves as Patterson, is this week’s ‘fastest mover’ with The Islands. Books involving sport are faring well also, True Colours by cricketer Adam Gilchrist features strongly in the Bestsellers and the Fastest Movers, as does Kevin Sheedy’s Stand your Ground in the Highest New Entries–WBN.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10076/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

On 6 November, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki broke the Guinness World Record for ‘most interviews on radio in 24 hours by an individual’. He discussed his new book Science is Golden with 62 radio stations across the country, raising $10,000 for CanTeen. HarperCollins acting CEO Jim Demetriou said the day was ‘amazing!’ ‘It took from 6am till approximately 9pm. All the interviews had to be more than five minutes in length and everything had to be recorded with adjudicators. The whole event was webcast from Dymocks George Street. Everyone was very supportive.’

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10084/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

The 2008 Ubud Writers’ and Readers’ Festival in Ubud, Bali, ran from 14-19 October with its largest ever program featuring over 150 events, plus 21 Indonesian and 60 international guests and authors. There was a 30% increase in attendances, with many sell-out workshops and special events. Malaysian poet Bernice Chauly said ‘It was truly a meeting of minds and words … It is festivals like these that continue to remind us that the work we do is crucial and integral to defining and re-defining the world around us’. Dates for the 2010 festival, as well as the theme, will soon be released on the festival website: http://www.ubudwritersfestival.com/

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10084/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

The general program for the Perth Arts Festival has been released, with the Perth Writers’ Festival component to follow on January 28.

The writers’ festival will run from 27 February to 2 March, featuring over 100 events on the University of Western Australia campus.

2008 Man Booker nominated author Sebastian Barry (The Secret Scripture, Faber) will be in attendance, as will fiction writers from India, UK, Vietnam, USA, New Zealand, Bosnia/Germany and Scotland including Sana Stanisic, Emily Perkins, Jenny Pattrick, Andrew Nicoll, James McBride, Richard Mason, Rana Dasgupta and thriller writer Stella Rimington.

Other international guests will include authors who approach the environment and world issues from different angles such as Alan Weisman (The World Without Us, Virgin Books), Peter Singer (The Life You Can Save, Text), Mark Kurlansky (The Last Fish Tale, Random House), and Stephan Faris (Forecast, Scribe). Pakistan is related in memoir by Imran Ahmad (Unimagined, Pier 9) and in literary fiction by Nadeem Aslam (The Wasted Vigil, Faber).

Expect to see more environmental, social, political and human rights issues discussed by local writers of both fiction and nonfiction such as John Carroll, Jane Caro, Mark Davis, Monica Dux, Clive Hamilton, Roy Williams, Arnold Zable and James Woodford. Also look forward to intimate memoirists, thriller writers, historians, comedians, poets, and literary novelists, including Kate Grenville, Ian Townsend, Robert Drewe, Tracy Ryan, Alice Pung, David Hill, Louis Nowra, Susan Duncan, James Phelan, Julia Leigh, Sonya Hartnett, Barry Maitland, Joan London, John Kinsella, Robert Dessaix, Mark Dapin, Sophie Cunningham, Graeme Blundell, David Brooks and more.A unique children’s program is part of the festival, expanded this year due to its popularity. ‘Family Day’ runs alongside the adult program on Sunday, and includes Tristan Bancks, Mem Fox, Felice Arena, Libby Gleeson, Leigh Hobbs, Sally Morgan, and Carole Wilkinson, among others. Festival program manager Katherine Dorrington says the hands-on workshops, artistic games, live stories, competitions and activities ‘will dazzle your senses and fire up your imagination!’The full program will be released on 28 January. Register for updates at the Perth Arts Festival website, or by emailing writersfestival@perthfestival.com.au.

Source: http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/11/10082/

This article from Thorpe Bowker’s Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker