Leslye Headland to direct The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo film adaptation

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Leslye Headland to direct The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo film adaptation

4 July 2023

Well over a year after a screen adaptation of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2017 novel The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo was announced, American filmmaker and screenwriter Leslye Headland has been named as director. Reid’s work of historical fiction spent over a year on The New York Times best seller list, after becoming a TikTok sensation in 2021.

The story recounts the life and times of Hollywood Golden Age star Evelyn Hugo, who, at age 79, grants a rare interview to an unknown journalist, Monique Grant. The now reclusive Hugo promises to reveal all to Grant, much to the chagrin, and envy, of Grant’s better known contemporaries. While Grant is as surprised as anyone else at being chosen, Hugo has a reason for selecting her.

So far there is no word on who will be cast, but earlier this year fans of the novel were clamouring for Jessica Chastain to take the role of redhead Celia St. James, Hugo’s foil and friend.

Rare Harry Potter first edition book might sell for £5000

3 July 2023

A first edition print of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first book in the Harry Potter series, published in 1997, will be auctioned later this week and may fetch up to five thousand pounds. A British collector of books and memorabilia, who died recently, had purchased the title, which was one of a print run of five-hundred copies, from a library for thirty pence.

First edition books, as the term suggests, are the first published copies of a book, and as such are often of interest to book collectors.

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books, Harry Potter, publishing

Vale British actor Julian Sands, star of A Room with a View

29 June 2023

Julian Sands, Helena Bonham Carter, A Room with a View film scene

Julian Sands and Helena Bonham Carter, in a still from A Room with a View.

The remains of British actor Julian Sands, who had been missing since January this year, after setting off on a hike on Mount Baldy, in California, were located earlier this week. Sands’ disappearance sparked a large search effort, which was hampered by dangerous storms in the region.

Sands was a prolific film and television actor. His credits include The Killing Fields, The Phantom of the Opera, Ocean’s Thirteen, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, to name a few. His breakthrough role however is considered to be that of George Emerson, in the 1985 film adaptation of late British author E. M. Forster’s 1908 novel, A Room with a View.

Made close to forty years ago now, the romance drama, set in Italy and England, was the intersection of an amazing array of acting and production talent. Acclaimed producers James Ivory and the late Ismail Merchant, who collaborated under the banner of Merchant Ivory, produced and directed. Late German novelist Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, wrote the screenplay.

As George Emerson, Sands played a love interest of protagonist Lucy Honeychurch, portrayed by compatriot actor Helena Bonham Carter, which was likewise seen as her breakout role. George was pitched against another of Lucy’s suitors, Cecil Vyse, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, in what was also one of his earlier film performances.

Veteran British actor Maggie Smith portrayed Charlotte Bartlett, Lucy’s older cousin, and chaperon during their trip to Italy. Smith and Bonham Carter would later work together in some of the Harry Potter films. Judy Dench featured in a supporting role as a novelist called Eleanor Lavish.

Denholm Elliott as George’s father, Rupert Graves as Lucy’s brother Freddy, and Simon Callow, as a vicar, Mr Beebe, also featured. New Zealand opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa sang O mio babbino caro, an aria from Italian composer Giacomo Puccini’s 1917 comic opera Gianni Schicchi, on the soundtrack.

While Sands appeared to not be nominated for any awards for his performance in A Room with a View, the film won in three categories in the 1987 Oscars, and four in the British Academy Film Awards in the same year. For anyone wishing to learn more about Sands’ work and career though, A Room with a View, is an essential, and excellent, starting point.

Entries open for 2023 Australian Prime Minister Literary Awards

27 June 2023

The awards span six categories fiction, non-fiction, young adult literature, children’s literature, poetry, and Australian history, with prizes of up to one hundred thousand dollars awarded per category. Entries are open to citizens or permanent residents of Australia, for titles published or released in 2022, and close on the afternoon of Tuesday 25 July 2023.

Winners will be announced later in the year. Read more here.

The best self-help book advice distilled into one blog post

25 June 2023

There are a million self-help books in the world, all filled to the brim with suggestions and methods to somehow make your life easier, better, or happier. But if you’re looking for the type of self-help these titles offer, which one — of the multitudes — do you choose?

Chris Taylor, writing for Mashable, may have saved you a lot of time. Time, you know, that can be invested in making desired improvements, instead of being wasted reading novel length books *.

Taylor has put in the hard yards on your behalf, by reading dozens of such books, and distilling the best of their often overlapping wisdom into a single blog post. Talk about breaking the job down into those much lauded baby-steps.

* this also leaves time to read actual novels instead.

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books, psychology

The Man Who Invented Vegemite, a book by Jamie Callister

21 June 2023

The Man Who Invented Vegemite, by Jamie Callister, book cover

Book cover of The Man Who Invented Vegemite, written by >Jamie Callister.

Strewth, it’s been one hundred years since Australia’s favourite yeast extract, Vegemite, hit the shelves of grocery shops. Although similar (sort of…) to Marmite, which came along in 1902, Vegemite was developed by Cyril Callister, a Melbourne chemist and food technologist in 1922.

In 2012, Jamie Callister, the grandson of Cyril wrote a book, The Man Who Invented Vegemite, to mark what would have been the ninetieth anniversary of Vegemite. And now, ten years later, it looks like the book has been republished to commemorate a century of the viscous, dark brown — and might I add — delicious, spread’s presence in the world.

The Voice to Parliament Handbook, what an Indigenous voice means

21 June 2023

Australians will be participating in a referendum sometime in the next six months to decide whether a change should be made to the constitution, to create an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Such a Voice would take the form of an independent body made up of Indigenous Australians.

Delegates of this body, who would not be elected members of parliament, would be tasked with advising the Australian government and parliament on matters pertaining to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Their input however would not be binding.

Changes to the Australian constitution are never simple or straightforward. The process, and discussion, involved in making amendments, can be confusing and unsettling. To better understand the purpose of the Voice, and what it means, Hardie Grant have published a book called The Voice to Parliament Handbook.

Written by Thomas Mayo, a Torres Strait Islander, and Uluṟu Statement advocate, and journalist Kerry O’Brien, with illustrations by cartoonist Cathy Wilcox, the handbook aims to answer some of the more commonly asked questions about an Indigenous Voice to the Australian parliament:

A handy tool for people inclined to support a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum, The Voice to Parliament Handbook reflects on this historic opportunity for genuine reconciliation, to right the wrongs and heal the ruptured soul of a nation. This guide offers simple explanations, useful anecdotes, historic analogies and visual representations, so you can share it among friends, family and community networks in the build-up to the referendum.

The 2023 Miles Franklin Australian literary award shortlist

20 June 2023

Book cover of The Lovers, by Yumna Kassab, named on the 2023 Miles Franklin shortlist.

The shortlist of the 2023 Miles Franklin literary award was announced this morning. The following six books have advanced to the next stage of the prestigious Australian literary award:

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran
Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
Hopeless Kingdom by Kgshak Akec
Iris by Fiona Kelly McGregor
Limberlost by Robbie Arnott
The Lovers by Yumna Kassab

More good news for Jessica Au and Robbie Arnott who continue to not only win literary awards, but be nominated for them. And good to see some not so often seen writers make the shortlist. In a statement, the judges said the shortlisted titles all represent fresh and bold fiction writing:

The 2023 Miles shortlist celebrates six works that delve deeply into archives and memory, play confidently with style and structure and strike new grounds in language and form. From deeply immersive tales to polished jewels of craft, from lyrical mappings of land to convention-breaking chronicles, this is novel-writing at its freshest and boldest.

The winner will be named on Tuesday 25 July 2023.

Self-publishing a book is no walk in the park: Helen Moody

16 June 2023

On the subject of self-publishing, retired Australian horticulturist journalist and foreign aid researcher Helen Moody recently published her own book, South Coast Islands NSW. While Moody’s title is selling well, six-hundred copies from a print run of seven-hundred have sold, Moody was surprised at the difficultly entailed by self-publishing:

However, Moody says if she’d known how difficult it was to self-publish, she would have never started. “I’ve had to be author, administrator, finance officer, event organiser, delivery driver, marketing and promotion officer,” she said.

An overview of the book publishing industry in Australia

16 June 2023

A fascinating overview of the book publishing industry in Australia, and probably globally, by Dave Gow, who recently went through the process of self-publishing a book:

Traditional book publishers are essentially operating like startup investors or venture capitalists. They make a string of bets on authors and hope that one or two out of ten pays off big. This way, they make enough to cover the losses on others and come out with a reasonable profit.

From what I can gather, Gow enjoyed some success by taking the self-publishing route.

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