Showing all posts about books
Sarah Holland-Batt writing new book related to The Jaguar
18 July 2023
Brisbane based Australian author Sarah Holland-Batt, winner of the 2023 Stella Prize, is working on a new book, which will published in Australia and New Zealand by the University of Queensland Press (UQP). A work of creative nonfiction, the new title will be a follow up of sorts to Holland-Batt’s award winning collection of poetry, The Jaguar, which explored her late father’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease, and subsequent death.
In my new work of creative nonfiction, I consider the unsettling question of what a personality is, if it can be changed as profoundly and completely as my father’s was after his brain surgery for Parkinson’s Disease… I am deeply interested in the question of who we are when we are in cognitive decline, and what it means to become other to ourselves.
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Australian literature, books, Sarah Holland-Batt
Short interviews with the 2023 Miles Franklin shortlisted authors
17 July 2023
The winner of the 2023 Miles Franklin literary award will be announced in just over a week, on Tuesday 25 July 2023. Ahead of the presentation, The Bookshelf and Book Show have recorded interviews with all six shortlisted Australian authors. View the shortlist here.
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Australian literature, books, literary awards, Miles Franklin, podcasts
#BookThreads, a name for the book community on Threads?
15 July 2023
Threads banner image, by Meta.
If Threads, Meta’s recently launched micro-blogging app, takes off and becomes as popular as the likes of Twitter and Instagram, a community of book readers and fans is bound to form. As was the case on Instagram, Threads’ Meta owned stablemate, where a thriving and lively book community interacts under the #Bookstagram hashtag.
But where there’s a social network, there’ll be an active community of book lovers. On rival micro-blogging network, Twitter, the bookish use the #BookTwitter hashtag to label their tweets, making them visible and searchable for fellow literary mavens, while on while on TikTok, BookTokers share book content using the #BookTok tag.
Presently hashtags are not functional on Threads, but they, along with a bevy of other features, are on the way. It’s therefore only a matter of time before book readers will be able to connect with bookworms on Threads. That’s good though, it gives the bookish time to devise a community name and hashtag to use on Threads. But that’s hardly going to be difficult.
The hashtags used by the book reading communities on Twitter, Instagram, and BookTok, are simple and to the point, and the same will doubtless apply on Threads. Which makes BookThreads the logical choice. I first saw the term used by Australian book publisher Pan Macmillan Australia on their Instagram page, though someone else may well have used the moniker before.
So #BookThreads it is, at least if you ask me. And just because hashtags still aren’t functional on Threads doesn’t mean you can’t use them. I’ve sporadically been including them on posts, probably through habit, as I imagine others have to, and I’ve used #BookThreads on at least one of my Threads posts. But by adding #BookThreads to your bookish Threads posts now, means you’ll be immediately be visible to the Threads book community, when hashtags become operational.
But what are your thoughts on a hashtag and title for a potential Threads book community? Does BookThreads make sense, or is it a terrible idea? Do you have alternative suggestion? Let me know in the comments below, which will be open for a week or so after this article is posted.
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books, social media, social networks, Threads
First edition of The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien sells for £10000
14 July 2023
News articles mentioning first edition publications of well-known books have been featuring in the news feeds I read recently, and here’s another one.
This time, a first edition copy of The Hobbit, the 1937 novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien, sold for ten-thousand British pounds on eBay last year, after being donated to a charity shop in Dundee, a city in Scotland. The book had been sitting in a back room at the shop, and despite being well looked after, the store manager was at first doubtful it could be offered for sale.
The price realised is not the highest figure a first edition copy of The Hobbit has fetched in an auction sale before, but it says a lot about what might be quietly lurking on the shelves of charity shops.
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books, J. R. R. Tolkien, literature
Books owned by Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones to be auctioned
14 July 2023
Some of the books belonging to Charlie Watts, the late drummer of British rock act the Rolling Stones, will be auctioned later this year. Watts was no casual book reader though. Some of the items in his book collection include first edition publications of titles including The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle.
Christie’s describes the cache, which includes rare editions of books by George Orwell, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Graham Greene, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, among others, as “an unparalleled library of modern first edition books, the finest and highest value collection of its kind to come to auction in over twenty years.”
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The AIGA best book and cover designs of 2022 unveiled
8 July 2023
The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) has announced the winners of the 2022 50 Books | 50 Covers competition. Almost five-hundred covers, from twenty-seven countries, were submitted for consideration in the annual contest, which commenced one hundred years ago, in 1923. The fifty winning entries can be seen here.
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Mona Awad, Paul Tremblay claim ChatGPT learned from their books without permission
7 July 2023
Canadian novelist Mona Awad, and American author Paul Tremblay, have filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT, alleging breach of copyright. Both writers believe their works were used to assist “train” the artificial intelligence chatbot, after discovering ChatGPT is capable of crafting intricately detailed summaries of their books.
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artificial intelligence, books, Mona Awad, Paul Tremblay, technology
Everyone and Everything, the debut novel of Nadine J. Cohen
4 July 2023
Book cover of Everyone and Everything, written by Nadine J. Cohen.
Just as well I still check in on Twitter. If not, I’d have not found what I found out about Sydney based refugee advocate, and Australian writer, Nadine J. Cohen. First up her Twitter account has been suspended, and second, her debut novel, Everyone and Everything, is being published later this year.
The Twitter ban came after an apparently off-colour joke on her page was brought to the notice of the powers that be at the social networking service. I saw a screen capture of the tweet in question, and yes, strictly speaking, the comment could be deemed inappropriate. However its tone has been taken completely out of context.
I’m surprised Twitter even looked sideways at Cohen’s tweet. Compared to some of what I see there now, it’s hardly offensive. Fingers crossed sense that prevails, and her account is reinstated, though that might be asking a lot. But back to Everyone and Everything, which arrives in bookshops on Tuesday 5 September 2023.
According to the book’s Sydney based publisher Pantera Press, Cohen’s debut will make you laugh, cry and call your sister:
When Yael Silver’s world comes crashing down, she looks to the past for answers and finds solace in surprising places. An unconventional new friendship, a seaside safe space and an unsettling amount of dairy help her to heal, as she wrestles with her demons — and some truly terrible erotic literature.
Early reviews sound promising. John Birmingham, he of He Died with a Felafel in His Hand fame, said “this book gave me all the feelings.” I read He Died with a Felafel in His Hand years ago, and have the film adaptation queued for viewing on my streaming service.
Australian radio and TV host, Myf Warhurst, whom I mentioned yesterday, was also approving of Cohen’s first novel:
This brilliant book doesn’t shy away from the rough stuff, exploring the complexity and brutality of life, all the while maintaining a grip on to the occasional simple joy and beauty of it all. I was cackling away at Nadine’s unique perspectives one minute, and sobbing the next. A magnificent debut!
That’ll do me. I’ve added Everyone and Everything to my TBR list.
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Australian literature, books, literary fiction, Nadine J. Cohen
One in three Britons would rather read a book this summer
4 July 2023
Who said no one reads books anymore?
While television remains the preferred method of summertime “escape” in Britain, with just over one in two people tuning in, reading comes in as the next best means of putting the worries of the world aside. This according to data released by the London based Publishers Association:
Second only to watching TV (54%), 33% of respondents say that books offer them the best form of escapism when they are having a bad day. This is ahead of streaming TV (32%), looking at social media (27%), listening to radio (24%), going to the pub (21%), going to the cinema (16%) and listening to a podcast (14%).
In other good news for authors in Britain, 2022 was a bumper year for book sales, with a record six-hundred and sixty nine million physical books being sold, an increase of four percent on 2021.
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Love & Pain, Ben Gillies, Chris Joannou tell their Silverchair story
4 July 2023
Book cover of Love & Pain, written by Ben Gillies and Chris Joannou.
Wednesday 27 September 2023 will be a red letter day for fans of erstwhile Australian indie rock act Silverchair. That’s the day Love & Pain, a book co-written by Ben Gillies, the band’s drummer, and bass player Chris Joannou, is set to be published by Hachette Australia. That Gillies and Joannou are behind this book is what makes it so compelling, as, to date, not a lot has been heard from former members about their time in the band.
So much has been written about Silverchair over the years but very little has been said by the band’s members. In Love & Pain, childhood friends Ben Gillies (drummer) and Chris Joannou (bass player) tell us tales about growing up across the road from each other and starting in Silverchair, wild stories from the peak of their days in the spotlight, and the ups and downs of how their lives have panned out since.
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Australian literature, Australian music, Ben Gillies, books, Chris Joannou, music