Coral's Christchurch chronicle

Coral Atkinson authors novels, short stories and non-fiction; she anthologises, and teaches writing and publishing. She comes through earthquakes, and in her slightly peculiar story writes poignantly of love's sorrow.

Here she shares an article that was published in The Press a week ago.

Prone

Click for bigger.

Baby elephant throws rocks at pesky tourists

YouTube link.

Valerie Taylor hand feeds a great white shark

YouTube link.

Spider kittens

YouTube link.

New Zealand prisons trial carrot sticks ahead of smoking ban

As New Zealand prisons prepare to become smoke free from July 1, some units have already made the move and are trialling a healthy initiative to help prisoners kick the habit – carrot sticks. In an Invercargill Prison internal communication, Corrections Inmate Employment is said to be supporting a national directive to supply two carrot sticks a day to each prisoner as part of the smoking cessation policy.

The costings and size had been trialled, the memo said, with one jumbo carrot providing 16 carrot sticks, which would be cut into uniform sizes "to the best of our ability". A Department of Corrections spokeswoman confirmed Invercargill Prison and the Otago Corrections Facility were among prisons that had already started giving out the healthy snack to help with smoking withdrawal.



Corrections Association of New Zealand president Beven Hanlon said when he first heard about giving prisoners carrot sticks as a replacement for cigarettes he thought it was a joke. While the prison memo says the carrots are to be trialled for about a month, Mr Hanlon said he would be surprised if it was still going in a couple of weeks.

"I don't think it is one of [the Department of Corrections'] best ideas but it is worth a try," he said. The reasoning behind carrot sticks, he said, was they were healthier than other options, such as hard lollies, and should take the prisoners' minds off smoking. "It's the whole oral thing ... if they have got something in their mouth, they won't be looking for a cigarette to put in it."

Nuns on the run rob bank

Wearing nun masks and habits, an armed man and woman staged a brazen bank robbery on Sunday at TCF Bank in Chicago.



Forcing a bank employee into the vault with a pistol aimed at her head, the robbers made off with a duffel bag full of cash.

No one was injured in the robbery. The robbers drove away in a silver, four-door Chevrolet.



Palos Heights are looking for a black man, about 5 feet, 7 inches tall, wearing black-and-white gym shoes, black-coloured gloves and armed with a revolver and a black woman, about 5 feet, 5 inches tall, wearing black boots, white gloves and armed with a semi-automatic pistol.

Man shot parked plane

A gunman opened fire on a private airplane parked at the Deer Valley Airport, Arizona, early on Sunday morning, according to Phoenix police. No one was on board and no one was hurt.



Two Phoenix police officers were on routine patrol near the airport when they heard shots fired at around 1:30 a.m. The officers spotted a vehicle speeding away, but the driver refused to stop when officers attempted to pull him over.

Shell casings were found at the scene along with a small airplane that was damaged by gunfire. Investigators said they found two weapons believed to be used during the shooting.


YouTube link.

Randon Reid, 26, was arrested at his home a short time later, and charged with aggravated DUI, two outstanding warrants and felony flight. A motive has yet to be determined.

Female flasher avoids prosecution as police can't prove she gets sexually aroused

German police are powerless to prosecute a female flasher because local laws say it is only possible to take legal action against those that expose themselves "for sexual satisfaction." Annette Kaiser, 34, who works as a civil servant in the capital's main tax office, has been spotted naked or wearing just suspenders and a fur coat on the streets of Berlin.

But police who were alerted to the naked exhibitionism said the law only allowed them to punish someone who they could prove was sexually aroused by the act. A spokesman said: "If a man drops his trousers he could be prosecuted for exhibitionism if there was a sexual motive - which with a man is usually easy to see.



"If he is clearly not excited then it is regarded as simply expressing a personal preference for nudity that is not illegal. For a woman of course that is not possible top prove - so we can't really do anything unless she is actually caught in a sex act. Effectively it means we can only prosecute male flashers - who will get a fine of around €1,150 (£1,000)."

Kaiser said: "I like to show off my body - I am rather proud of it - I prefer being either completely naked or in underwear, it's a kick. I used to go to nudists beaches but it is more fun to be naked in Berlin streets and parks." She added: "I don't walk around naked all the time - I strip off and let men get an eyeful - they usually act stunned - and then I'm quickly gone again before they get any ideas."

Man charged with assault by forklift on girlfriend

Springfield Police have arrested a man who they say lifted his girlfriend’s car with a forklift and dropped it while she was still inside.

Police Sergeant John Delaney said that Brian Hurley, 41, of Springfield, was arguing with his girlfriend after she had dropped him off at his workplace on Saturday morning. The two were reportedly arguing over financial issues, when Hurley slapped the woman across the face, got out of the car, and began kicking it.



Delaney says Hurley then got into a forklift, drove it toward her car, and picked it up while she was still inside. Using the forklift, he moved the car several feet away before putting it down and running away.

Officers found him hours later after receiving a report that he was banging on the door of his Dayton Street residence. Hurley has been charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (the forklift), assault and battery (open hand slap), and malicious damage to a motor vehicle.

Artist faces prosecution for painting beer cans

Artist Michał Ogiński has been warned he could prosecuted after painting cans of beer. Police in Cieszyn, Poland, have seized canvasses claiming they breach the country's tough alcohol advertising laws and could encourage young people to take up drinking.


Photo from here.

The 25-year-old said: "I was told by police that my work corrupts youth and promotes alcoholism. But it’s just paintings of some beer cans. It’s part of a series of paintings depicting supermarket products. I’ve got others of washing powder and sugar. There’s nothing sinister or corrupting about it."

His lawyer Beata Lejman said: "This is absurd and I’ve never heard of such a ridiculous law. Are they going to confiscate Rembrandt’s pictures which show casks of wine?"



Now officials are waiting for prosecutors to say if Ogiński has a case to answer. Local police chief Kazmierz Plus said: "I don’t make up the law - I just uphold it. And these paintings break the Act of Upbringing in Sobriety and Couteracting Alcoholism law, which is universally binding."

There's a news video in Polish here.

Safe 'stolen under woman's skirt'

Police in Doncaster are appealing for information after an alleged burglary at an off licence on Bentley Road, Doncaster on Sunday, 10 May.

A group of around four women and two men entered the shop around 3.30pm. Some of the group began distracting the shop assistants whilst one of the women entered the private residential area at the back of the shop.



She is seen on CCTV going into the area wearing trousers but returns a short while later wearing a long skirt and looks to be struggling to walk.

It is later discovered that a safe containing a large amount of Indian jewellery and cash has been stolen. It is believed that the woman may have had the safe between her legs under the skirt.

National Trust introduce talking benches

Benches that can 'talk' are being set up at eight beauty spots across the UK, voiced by celebrities including Stephen Fry and Miranda Hart.



The National Trust project will give listeners the chance to hear five-minute monologues inspired by nature. Other famous names involved include broadcaster John Sergeant, philosopher Alain de Botton, cricket commentator David Gower, and presenter Claudia Winkleman.

The benches have taken more than six months to make and each one is engraved with three words their celebrity has used to describe their setting.


YouTube link.

The talking benches will be at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk, Castle Ward in County Down, Craigside, Northumberland, Quarry Mill Bank in Cheshire, Petworth House and Park, West Sussex, Cotehele, Cornwall, Derbyshire's Calke Abbey and Dinefwr Park and Castle, Carmarthenshire.

New Zealand Post Book Awards -= Read all about em. Somewhere? Anywhere

By Guy Somerset | (the NZ Listener's book man) - Published on his blog June 1, 2011 |

“The New Zealand Post Book Awards,” according to the Booksellers New Zealand website where you’ll find the finalists and Best First Book Award winners announced this morning, “are the highlight of the literary calendar, eagerly awaited by writers, publishers, booksellers and the media, and recognised by the New Zealand public as the gold standard; honouring the cream of this country’s literary talent.”

Eagerly awaited by the media? That’s why you’ll find no report of the announcement in the print editions of this morning’s New Zealand Herald, Dominion Post or Press newspapers, nor on their websites that I could see at the time of writing (11am). There was zilch on the Stuff and Otago Daily Times websites, too. (I can, however, read: “Kate Moss snaps up acclaimed photographer for wedding”; “DC Comics ‘retooling’ super heroes”; “Cone craze spreads over Kapiti”; “Misplaced feline flies north to new home”; and, although I have some sympathy for this one, “Bieber, Pippa to work together”).

There was me worrying yesterday that by not having time to write this post until this morning there would be nothing fresh to say on the subject because it would all have been amply covered elsewhere. What kind of fantasy world do I sometimes drift into?

Perhaps the papers have book fatigue, the adult book awards coming so soon after the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards. They never seem to have sport fatigue, though. Perhaps in the case of the Dominion Post they were following the award announcement’s 6am embargo to the letter (or second), lest some copy of their paper be delivered to a reader at 5.59am. After all, the Dominion Post must be acutely aware of these things after inadvertently breaching an embargo and printing the winners of the children’s book awards the morning before their announcement.

Read Somerset's full comment plus his thoughtful look at the shortlist and those surprise omissions on his blog.

AUP are mightily pleased with themselves !

Auckland University Press’s Record in NZ National Book Awards Continues

This is the fourth year that Auckland University Press, a small publisher of scholarly non-fiction and poetry for the general market, has appeared at the top of the list in New Zealand’s national book awards.

Auckland University Press has three finalist books and two best first book winners in the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards (NZPBA) lists announced today. That puts AUP equal with much larger publishers Penguin and Random House on the NZPBA shortlist and top of the NZ Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book winners list, having taken out two of the three categories.

This is the fourth consecutive year since 2008 that an Auckland University Press book has won the NZSA award for Best First Book of Poetry.

NZSA Best First Book Award Winners

 Dunedin academic Poia Rewi (Tuhoe, Ngati Manawa, Te Arawa, Ngati Whare, Ngati Tuwharetoa) has won the NZSA E H McCormick Award for the Best First Book of Non-Fiction for his book Whaikorero: The World of Maori Oratory.

“Poia Rewi is set to become one of this country’s leading Maori scholars and we feel very lucky to have worked with Poia on his first book, a work of deep insight into Maori language, history and culture,” said AUP Director Sam Elworthy.

The NZPBA judges found Rewi’s book “managed the difficult feat of being both a valuable record and manual of Maori oratory for practitioners, and an accessible overview for anyone interested in this ubiquitous cultural practice.”

Wellington poet Lynn Jenner has won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry for her Dear Sweet Harry, the manuscript of which also won the Adam Prize in Creative Writing.

“Lynn Jenner’s first collection Dear Sweet Harry grabbed us by the throat on first reading and never let go,” said AUP’s poetry editor Anna Hodge.

“Her poems and pieces are as impressive and death-defying and gratifying as the feats of her hero Houdini and his co-protagonists. And – for the fourth year in a row – AUP’s commitment to publishing new poets has been rewarded.

“Thanks to the New Zealand Society of Authors for this continuing tribute to the memory of Jessie Mackay.”

The judging panel described Lynn Jenner’s collection as a “fascinating and quite original miscellany of lyric poems, short prose texts, historical-documentary material, and autobiographical personae – all gathered together around the historical figure of 'Dear Sweet Harry' Houdini, the exemplary escape artist and masterful illusionist.”

NZ Post Book Awards Finalists

The Auckland University Press finalists in the New Zealand Post Book Awards are spread across two of the four of the award categories:

1. Poetry – Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English, Whetu Moana II edited by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan; and

2. General Non-Fiction – Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of New Zealand Popular Music 1918–1964 by Chris Bourke and No Fretful Sleeper: A Life of Bill Pearson by Paul Millar.

“The team at Auckland University Press are really thrilled to lead the field once more in the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards,” Sam Elworthy said.

“Each of our finalists was a big, ambitious book for the Press to take on: the many voices from across the Pacific gathered together in Mauri Ola; a big, revealing biography of a private and public man in No Fretful Sleeper; a decade of research and a photographic goldmine coming together in Blue Smoke.

“Working with great authors on such big ideas is what we like to do best at Auckland University Press and we congratulate our authors on their achievement.”

The winners of the NZ Post Book Awards will be announced at an awards ceremony in Wellington on Wednesday 27 July 2011. The awards for Best First Books of Poetry, Fiction and Non-Fiction will be also be presented at that event.

There will be a NZ Post Book Awards “Meet the Winners” lunchtime event the following day, Thursday 28 July, at Te Papa Tongarewa / The Museum of New Zealand.

Cheezburger of the Day

see more Lolcats and funny pictures, and check out our Socially Awkward Penguin lolz!

VORACIOUS

BEST NEW AUSTRALIAN FOOD WRITING

Hardie Grant

NZRRP: $39.99

Paperback

  

This is the first volume of what is to become an annual series celebrating the best in newly commissioned food writing. The first of its kind in Australia, the publishers aim is for the series aims to be bold and unique – and to start the conversation about food in the wider community. With 20 contributors – from food professionals to journalists, the twitteratti and stars of the blogosphere – Voracious: New Australian Food Writing has great writing at its core.

It is a divine little book filled with delicious reading. A must-have for all foodies.

And what an impressive array of food writers have made contributions including two of my favourites Jill Dupleix and Lucy Malouf. The publishers have given me permission to publish an edited extract from both these writers and they appear below.

The first volume contains contributions from:

• Matthew Evans

• Marieke Hardy

• Benjamin Law

• Romy Ash

• Kate Gibbs

• Helen Greenwood

• Lucy Malouf

• Greg Duncan Powell

• Gay Bilson

• Alan Saunders

• Simon Thomsen

• Cherry Ripe

• Campbell Mattinson

• Anna Krien

• Michael Harden

• Veronica Ridge

• Jill Dupleix

• Matt Preston

voices from an australian kitchen

Jill Dupleix

  

Some visitors have a terrible habit of heading straight to your cookbook shelf for a stickybeak, in an effort to find out what you cook and, therefore, who you are. All right, so it might only be me. But invariably I learn much from what is there, and just as much from what isn’t there. So I inverted the idea: I explored my own six metres of floor-to-ceiling cookery books and discovered that not only do they tell the story of my generation, but they also trace the voices of Australian cookery for over one hundred years, from invalid cookery to molecular gastronomy.

Our cookery books tell us more about ourselves than we care to acknowledge. They don’t just answer the eternal question, ‘What’s for dinner?’, they inspire, educate, guide, intimidate, frustrate, impress, depress and occasionally
send us running from the kitchen in raging, impotent fury. They become the songlines of our lives, charting the
country’s history: its wars, droughts, immigration patterns, industrialisation and urbanisation. They reveal our politics, our personal growth, our health and the changing roles of men and women in the kitchen. They reflect our greatest influences, from community groups to food writers, television celebrities and professional chefs. And grandmothers.

  

a repertoire of acceptable dishes

Lucy Malouf

Here is our house in a leafy, inner-city Melbourne street. And here are family and friends, gathered to celebrate a birthday. As is usually the case on such occasions, most of the fun is taking place at the dinner table, which today is laden with my stepson’s favourite dishes. There are too many of us to fit comfortably, really, but this adds to the sense of excitement, and the atmosphere is convivial, noisy, charged. My husband, sitting at the head of the table, is flushed, proud. I am flushed and a little frazzled, ducking back and forth to the kitchen with a succession of spoons, bowls and plates. Even my stepson’s usually pale, narrow face glows with a pink pleasure that makes him look softer and younger than his nineteen years.

Piling up on the table are platters of the nearly effortless food I love; it’s a menu that’s been honed over time for ease of preparation and sharing. The lamb is the main event — butterflied, bathed in a garlicky herb marinade and grilled over coals on our back-deck barbecue by my husband. There are also spicy Italian sausages, crunchy roast potatoes and a salad of squeaky green beans, tossed in a hazelnut oil dressing. This is the eleventh such birthday menu — or variation of it — that I’ve prepared, and the years have imbued it with a soothing predictability.

Hardie Grant Books are distributed in New Zealand by Random House. 

What’s the Use of Literature?

RSL and King’s College London presents

What’s the Use of Literature?

with Aminatta Forna, Priyamvada Gopal, Clare Lees, Andrew Motion,

Ross Raisin, Polly Toynbee, Michael Wood

Monday 20 June; Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre, King’s College London, Strand Campus; 6.30pm.

As the numbers applying to read English Literature at university rise, financial support for the arts falls, and higher education faces fundamental changes to its funding, King’s College London and the Royal Society of Literature ask: What’s The Use Of Literature?

Programme details

Polly Toynbee chairs a panel of three – Priyamvada Gopal, Clare Lees and Michael Wood – to address the following questions:

-         Does a degree in English Literature equip you for life?

-         How can public funding for the study of arts subjects be justified when there is a shortage of funding for the study of the sciences?

-         Do those wanting to study English Literature beyond A level really need to go to university to do so?

-         

The discussion is interspersed with personal reflections from Andrew Motion and Ross Raisin on what studying English Literature at university meant to them, and from Aminatta Forna on how literature helps her understand the world. The event will be held in the Edmond J. Safra Lecture Theatre, King’s College London, Strand Campus, from 6.30 to 8.30pm. From 5.30pm, there will be a drinks reception in Chapters, King’s College London (first floor), to which the audience is warmly invited.

Booking details

To reserve seats, please call Hazel Tsoi-Wiles on 020 7845 4676, or email hazel@rslit.org. Fellows and Members of the RSL can book online via the website – www.rslit.org. There will be a limited number of tickets available for members of the public on the door.

Speakers biographies

POLLY TOYNBEE, broadcaster and Guardian columnist, dropped out of Oxford University after 18 months, and went to work in a factory. She wrote about her experiences in A Working Life. Her subsequent books include Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain, and Unjust Rewards: Exposing Greed and Inequality in Britain Today.

PRIYAMVADA GOPAL is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and has written on literature from Shakespeare to Salman Rushdie. In recent months, she has written forcefully in the media about her opposition to the rise in university tuition fees, and her fears for the future of the arts and humanities in this country.

CLARE LEES is Professor of Medieval English Literature and Director of the Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies at King’s College London, where she teaches Old and Middle English Literature. She is currently editing The Cambridge History of Earlier Medieval Literature.

MICHAEL WOOD is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Princeton University, and former Professor of English at the University of Exeter. He has written books on Nabokov, Kafka and Gabriel García Márquez, and on oracles, contemporary fiction and film. He writes regularly for the LRB and New York Review of Books.

AMINATTA FORNA grew up in Scotland and Sierra Leone, and, after studying Law at University College London, worked for the BBC. The Devil that Danced on the Water, a memoir of her dissident father, was

runner-up for the Samuel Johnson Prize, 2003. Her second novel, The Memory of Love, was shortlisted for this year’s Orange Prize.

ANDREW MOTION, former Poet Laureate, read English at Oxford. As well as writing poetry, novels and biographies, he has worked as editorial director at Chatto & Windus, editor of Poetry Review, and Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. He is now Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway.

ROSS RAISIN went on from Bradford Grammar to study English at King’s College London. His debut novel, God’s Own Country, made him Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2009. His second novel,

Waterline, is published this month. He has worked as

Railway Maps of the World

from The Very Short List

Mark Ovenden’s Railway Maps of the World is an amazing assortment of charts, timetables, stats, photos, and posters—as well as a great many railway maps. 


It kicks off with the world’s first railroad (which the Corinthians built, in 600 B.C.) and ends with a 50-page atlas (“the first of its kind”) that “aims to present the official current national railroad map of every country where rail service is operating at the time of the book’s preparation (fall 2010).” 

The images are spectacular. But this is the kind of coffee-table book in which the captions really do matter.

Take page 46, which sets Amtrak’s national network (down to 500 stations and 34,000 kilometers of track) against the 40,000 stations and 408,933 kilometers of track that once made America’s railway system the largest in the world.

 Ovenden calls the current system “a testament to the power of the automotive industry and the triumph of lost opportunities over common sense”—and he has equally intelligent things to say about the other 119 countries surveyed here. 

It all adds up to a shadow history of the modern world itself.


Publisher - Viking - US$35.00 

“Giant Slugs invade!” imagines Chicago novelist for NZ launch

AD Jameson’s Giant Slugs, a largely silly, slightly filthy, pun-laden Epicurean retelling of the ages-old Epic of Gilgamesh, is to be released tomorrow by Lawrence & Gibson.

When first approached with the Giant Slugs, MJ Stevens, project manager for Giant Slugs with Lawrence & Gibson, asked himself why on earth they would even consider releasing a book by Jameson, an unknown author who lives six time zones to the wind in Chicago.

The answer: “I am thrilled by the opportunity to launch a book against the tide of popular marketing wisdom. We believe in Giant Slugs. It is an astounding book. I, and the collective, are thrilled at the opportunity to be the first to release it, to create the first edition.”

Michael Kelly, author of Ulrich Haarbürste's Novel of Roy Orbison in Cling Film had more praise for the novel:

“Told in a style unlike any other—a dazzling prose-poetry-comedy like some jackdaw Professor of Everything colliding fragments of ancient myth, world culture and modern ephemera into a multi-coloured verbal collage—Giant Slugs is startlingly, refreshingly original and more than a mere novelty."

While Giant Slugs is his debut, Mutable Sound , based in Oregon, released Jameson’s short story collection Amazing Adult Fantasy earlier in the year. Jameson is also a contributor to the blog ‘Big Other’ and is the non-fiction and reviews editor of literary journal Requited.

In addition to Giant Slugs, and in keeping with their dual releases, Lawrence and Gibson will also launch the most novelistic of Richard Meros’ books thus far, Zebulon: a cautionary tale.

Youth, Zebulon warns, are wholly incautious in action and in thought. They spit polemic in the same manner as their quieter elders hock chewing tobacco and betel nut loogies. But when adolescent beliefs fade, how do the no-longer younger deal with the stains left by their pubescence?

Through Zebulon, a keen­­ing recollection of his sunflower youth, Richard Meros provides his own answer to this perennial question.

“This is the closest that I’ve come to writing a proper novel,” Meros muses. “There are intertwined plots, lessons to be learnt and character development: the whole kit and caboodle.”

Giant Slugs and Zebulon are to be released Thursday, 2 June. As part of the eLaunch, videos of Meros and Jameson reading from their new novels will be streamed on the Lawrence & Gibson website along with the posting of as an essay by Meros on the possibilities afforded by artist-oriented collectives in the internet age, photos of the production process and a live question and answer forum.

Contrary to rumours, there will be no "e's", "eckies", "ecstacy" nor "MDMA" at the launch party. In fact, an eLaunch is a relatively BYO affair.

Surf on over to www.lawrenceandgibson.org from 6pm, Thursday, 2 June for the eLaunch.

NZ POST BOOK AWARDS - FICTION SHORTLIST

I have had a dozen or so  comments by phone and e-mail about this list from people in the industry who do not want to be named for obvious reasons but here are comments from bookseller Carole Beu and myself which sum up what most of those who have contacted me are saying.

 Carole Beu said...

It is so disappointing that Lola by Elizabeth Smither and Gifted by Patrick Evans are not on the Fiction shortlist. We need to have FIVE fiction finalists, not three! Carole Beu, The Women's Bookshop.

10:26 AM

 Bookman Beattie said...

Yes I totally agree regarding the need for 5 fiction finalists. Reducing the number to three was an appalling cock-up when the awards were reviewed. The organisers should admit they have made a colossal mistake and reinstate the number to five.

We have 10 non-fiction finalists and only three fiction finalists? How stupid is that?
And of course the title omitted that everyone is talking about is Craig Cliff's A Man Melting. It cleaned up tough international competition to win the Commonwealth Writers Prize for best first book and yet doesn't even get short-listed in our local awards?
What were the judges thinking about?

11:39 AM

Romance Novels Compared To Pornography; Spawns #RomanceKills Hashtag

By Jason Boog on Galley Cat,  May 31, 2011 3:23 PM

In an article at Utah’s KSL.com,  psychologist and author Dr. Juli Slattery compared romance novels to pornography. As the article stirred controversy on Twitter, author Jason Pinter started a satirical “romance kills” hashtag (examples follow below).

Here is an excerpt from the article: “Men are very visual, and viewing pornography produces a euphoric drug in the body. This drug is the reason pornography becomes addictive. When the natural high wears off, a man will crash and feel depressed (as happens with any drug) and crave another hit. Women are more stimulated by romance than sex, so when they read romantic stories (and they don’t have to be explicit to work) they can experience the same addicting chemical release as men do.”

What do you think? The article explored Slattery’s book, Finding the Hero in your Husband, ultimately offering tips for avoiding romance novel addiction. Step one was simple: “commit to stop reading any books that are contributing to this problem.” (Image via)

Amy Boggs: “The Titanic hit that iceberg because the lookouts were too busy reading romance novels.”

Rachel Grant: “Fleas carrying black death were imported into Europe in romance novels.”

Michaela Basham: “2/3 of car wrecks are caused by drivers jackknifing when realizing they forgot to buy the new Nora Roberts.”

Kiwi writer's sexy second novel

by KATARINA FILIPE - 01/06/2011 - Timaru Herald - stuff.co.nz

 Geraldine author's second novel has been dubbed the Penguin Group's most sexually explicit book ever published in New Zealand.

Leigh Marsden's fiction novel Scarlet will be released today.

Marsden moved to Geraldine last year with her husband Ryan, who grew up in Geraldine, and the couple now have a three-week-old daughter.
Marsden said she was initially embarrassed by Penguin's description of her book.
"It was a bit embarrassing telling people about it because people have an idea of you [and then after hearing about the book] they think the characters are you.
"While [the sexual aspect] is a big part of the story, it's not porn, it's not erotica."
Penguin has asked Marsden to write another book of the same genre. That one, Crush, is due for release next year.

Scarlet was the first book Marsden wrote after completing a creative writing course. She said it took two years to write, as she would write after work and whenever she had spare time.
The novel follows George and Cass and their relationship as it evolves from co-workers at an Auckland restaurant to partners in sexually explicit activity all over town. It flashes back to George's tumultuous childhood in Taupo, which reveals the reasons behind her risky behaviour.
Marsden said Cass was inspired by a waitress she worked with in her university days, but George was purely fictional.

At Auckland University, Marsden studied English and linguistics, followed by a masters in speech and language therapy.
Her first book, Beauty, was inspired by her work as a stewardess on board a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean, where she worked for 18 months with her husband. Beauty was about a woman named Mena who joins a luxury motor yacht in the Mediterranean and sees the yacht's crew and guests battle with illicit affairs, closet addictions and the pressure of maintaining a slender waistline.

Their Faces Were Shining

Author Tim Wilson,his first novel short-listed for the NZ Post Book Awards announced this am has belatedly organised himself a website.

Better late than never Tim, well done! And congratulations too on making that short-list.

http://www.facesshining.com/

‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ Trailer Leaked Online

By Maryann Yin on Galley Cat , May 31, 2011 

An apparently pirated copy of the trailer for David Fincher‘s adaptation of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has materialized on YouTube. Above, we’ve embedded the shaky video. UPDATE: The trailer contains some mature content. Read speculations about its origins here.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the trailer features Trent Reznor and Karen O’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” in the background. We also see glimpses of Daniel Craig as Mikael Blomkvist and Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander.

Check it at Galley Cat.

QUEEN STREET WHITCOULLS STORE TIPPED TO BECOME FARMERS

According to a story by Anne Gibson in the NZ Herald today Whitcoulls Auckland flagship store on the corner of Queen and Victoria Streets could become a Farmers store.

This makes sense to The Bookman. After all they have a large Borders store a block or so up the road which could be converted to the Whitcoulls brand thus maintaining a high profile Queen Street location for that brand while gaining a prime spot for Farmers.

LATEST : NZ POST BOOK AWARDS SHORTLISTS ANNOUNCED

This year’s New Zealand Post Book Awards finalists provide a feast of Kiwi experience, reflecting a growing and confident awareness of our unique place in the world, says Judging panel convenor and Te Reo Māori Advisor for the New Zealand Post Book Awards, Paul Diamond.

‘All the finalists enable us to see our world differently.  They tell great stories with pride, brightening our lives in this time of dark days.’

The four finalist categories announced in the New Zealand Post Book Awards today are: Fiction, Poetry, General Non-fiction and Illustrated Non-fiction.

The New Zealand Post Book Awards are the highlight of the literary calendar, eagerly awaited by writers, publishers, booksellers and the media, and recognised by the New Zealand public as the gold standard; honouring the cream of this country’s literary talent.

Diamond, (photo left by Bruce Foster),a past judge of the New Zealand Post Book Awards, broadcaster, writer and historian, said that all four categories were strong this year. 

‘The Māori World was also significant in the work of many finalists, reflecting the reality of life in 21st century New Zealand.’

The judges commented on the large number of books entered in the Poetry category – nearly as many as for Fiction – illustrating the strength of poetry-writing and publishing in New Zealand. However, Diamond said, ‘entries in General Non-fiction were significantly down on the previous year, perhaps reflecting tougher times in the New Zealand publishing industry’.

Joining Diamond on the Awards’ judging panel are writer, educationalist and broadcaster, Charmaine Pountney; former mayor, ad man, environmentalist and lobbyist, Bob Harvey QSO; award-winning author and broadcaster, Emily Perkins; and acclaimed poet and editor, Michael Harlow.

The full list of finalists in the 2011 New Zealand Post Book Awards by category are:

FICTION:

The Hut Builder by Laurence Fearnley (Penguin Group NZ)

The Night Book by Charlotte Grimshaw (Vintage, Random House NZ)

Their Faces Were Shining by Tim Wilson (Victoria University Press)

POETRY:

The Mirror of Simple Annihilated Souls by Kate Camp (Victoria University Press)

The Radio Room by Cilla McQueen (Otago University Press)

Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English – Whetu Moana II by Albert Wendt, Reina Whaitiri and Robert Sullivan (Auckland University Press)

GENERAL NON-FICTION:

99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry by Paula Green and Harry Ricketts (Vintage, Random House NZ)

Blue Smoke: The Lost Dawn of NZ Popular Music 1918-1964 by Chris Bourke (Auckland University Press)

Mune: An Autobiography by Ian Mune (Craig Potton Publishing)

No Fretful Sleeper: A Life of Bill Pearson by Paul Millar (Auckland University Press)

The Tasman: Biography of an Ocean by Neville Peat (Penguin Group NZ)

ILLUSTRATED NON-FICTION:

Brian Brake: Lens on the World by Athol McCredie (Te Papa Press)

Pounamu by Russell Beck, Maika Mason and Andris Apse (Viking, Penguin Group NZ)

Still Life: Inside the Antarctic Huts of Scott and Shackleton by Nigel Watson and Jane Ussher (Murdoch Books)

The Dress Circle by Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Claire Regnault and Lucy Hammonds (Godwit, Random House NZ)

The Passing World: The Passage of Life: John Hovell and the Art of Kowhaiwhai by Dr. Damian Skinner (Rim Books)

The Category Award winners and the overall New Zealand Post Book of the Year winner will be announced at an awards ceremony to be held in Wellington on 27 July 2011.

With fewer categories than in previous years, the Awards’ prize pool has been substantially increased, with the overall New Zealand Post Book of the Year Award winner receiving $15,000.

Winners of the four Category Awards will each receive $10,000 and the People’s Choice Award winner $5,000. The People’s Choice Award is hotly contested each year and gives New Zealanders a unique opportunity to vote for their favourite book.

Also announced today are the three New Zealand Society of Authors (NZSA) Best First Book Awards Winners

The Best First Book Awards for Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Fiction were established by the New Zealand Society of Authors with the aim of encouraging new writers and their publishers. Again this year, they are announced simultaneously with the New Zealand Post Book Awards category finalists.

Wellington writer, Pip Adam wins the 2011 NZSA Hubert Church Best First Book Award for Fiction with her short story collection, Everything We Hoped for (Victoria University Press).

Diamond summarised Adam’s work as a powerful debut collection, taking the reader into often harrowing places where they are compelled to stay on account of the author’s lucid, controlled story-telling.

'The judges believe this new writer has a striking artistic vision, and the chops to carry off her unsentimental stories with humour and humanity.'

The 2011 NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for Poetry goes to Kapiti Coast writer, former psychologist and counsellor, Lynn Jenner, for her collection, Dear Sweet Harry (Auckland University Press).

Diamond said that the judging panel found Jenner’s work to be a fascinating and quite original miscellany of lyric poems, short prose texts, historical-documentary material, and autobiographical personae – all gathered together around the historical figure of 'Dear Sweet Harry' Houdini, the exemplary escape artist and masterful illusionist.

Dunedin-based, Māori academic, Dr. Poia Rewi, wins the 2011 NZSA E.H. McCormick Best First Book Award for Non-Fiction for Whaikorero: The World of Māori  Oratory (Auckland University Press).

The judges felt that Rewi’s book ‘managed the difficult feat of being both a valuable record and manual of Māori oratory for practitioners, and an accessible overview for anyone interested in this ubiquitous cultural practice.’

Each NZSA Best First Book Awards category winner receives $2,500.

New Zealand Post Group’s sponsorship of the country’s national book awards is symbolic of their strong and active support of the country’s literature. As sponsor of the New Zealand Post Children’s Book Awards for 15 years, their sponsorship of these Awards highlights the company’s commitment to promoting literary excellence. 


Footnote:
Here is author/poet/bookseller/blogger Mary McCallum's take on the Awards.