Possession of psychic anomalies prohibited

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Two Scotsmen take a balloon ride in China

Contains NSFW language.

YouTube link.

Two killed by flying black bear in freak accident

A young Ottawa woman and her friend were killed on Monday night in a bizarre collision involving two vehicles and a bear on Highway 148 in the Pontiac. Police say a vehicle travelling eastbound near Luskville, Que. hit the 300-pound black bear at about 10:30, sending the animal into the opposite lane.



The bear was then struck by an oncoming car, sending the animal through the windshield and out the back window. "Add the weight of the bear, about a 300-pound bear, plus the speed of the vehicle, it's a deadly impact," said Const. Martin Fournel, spokesperson for MRC-des-Collines-de-l'Outaouais.

The two occupants of the first car escaped injury. However, two people in the second vehicle were killed instantly - those victims have been identified as a 25-year-old female driver from Ottawa and her friend, 40-year-old Steven Leon from Gatineau, who was riding in the back seat. The bear was also killed.


YouTube link.

The woman's boyfriend, a 28-year-old man from the Pontiac-area, was sitting in the front passenger seat at the time of the collision. He was taken to hospital in Hull to be treated for not life-threatening upper body injuries. The woman's name will not be released at the request of her family. Police say the crash is extremely unusual, and investigators believe it's the first time a person in the area has died in a collision involving a bear.

Tranquilized bear gets stuck in tree

A 200 pound black bear climbed up a tree in downtown Collbran, Colorado, and wouldn't come down.

Traffic had to be ushered along as drivers slowed down to catch a glimpse.



It took six tranquilizer darts from the Division of Wildlife to knock out the bear after a nearly four hour stand-off, but then it got stuck.

A wildlife officer had to climb the tree to dislodge the bear's leg. The bear was later re-located.

With news video.

Bottle of urine poker bet leads to assault conviction

The trouble started with a bet over a bottle of urine.

Brian Hamedl was playing poker in an all-night game with Kyle Tarboro at a Bethlehem Township home on April 1, 2010, when he told Tarboro he had urine stored in his vehicle that Tarboro could use to cheat on a drug test.



They bet $300 on whether Hamedl actually had the urine, and when the poker game wrapped up, Tarboro demanded the money or the urine.

When Hamedl told him the bet was absurd, Tarboro allegedly delivered a beating that left Hamedl in the hospital for four days. A Northampton County jury found Tarboro guilty of simple assault.

Elephant rampage causes terror in Indian city

Two wild elephants have killed a man after rampaging through the streets of the southern Indian city of Mysore, in the state of Karnataka.



One of the elephants charged into a cow and smashed a car before goring and trampling a security guard to death.

Local people managed to trap one of the animals inside a farm and tranquilize the other.

Contains graphic content.

LiveLeak link.

Several people were injured by the stampeding animals, which locals said were provoked into a frenzy by terrified townspeople throwing stones at the animal.

Contortionist hid in suitcase to steal from tourists' luggage on bus

Police have arrested a contortionist who hid in a suitcase to steal from tourists' luggage in a bus locker. The flexible thief stole valuables including laptop computers from the baggage compartment during an hour-long journey. He then clambered back inside his case, and was later collected at his destination by his partner in crime.

Holidaymakers only realised their things were missing when they arrived at their hotels and opened their bags. For weeks detectives were baffled as to how so many items were being regularly stolen on the bus route between Girona airport and Barcelona, in Catalonia, north east Spain. Last Friday they were alerted by a suspicious member of the public to a large suitcase of 90cm by 50cm that had just been loaded on the bus.


Photo from here.

When they opened it up the shocked officers found the 1.78m man curled up inside. The Catalan police force, the Mossos d'Esquadra, said yesterday in a statement: 'It was a very unusual modus operandi. One of the men bought a bus ticket from Girona airport to Barcelona, then put a large suitcase in the baggage hold with the other passengers' luggage. A second person had hidden inside the suitcase, and when the bus set off he got out of the suitcase and, using a torch, looked for valuable objects in the rest of the bags, which he then hid inside a smaller bag.

'After stealing those goods he hid back in the large suitcase for the rest of the journey. Last Friday the officers went to inspect a suspect suitcase and they found a man hidden inside, in the style of a contortionist.' Police said they had arrested the contortionist and his partner, and named them as Krzysztof Grzegorz, 29, and Jouoastaw K, 31.

Chinese scientists modify cows to produce human breast milk

Chinese scientists have genetically modified dairy cows to produce human breast milk, and hope to be selling it in supermarkets within three years.



The milk produced by the transgenic cows is identical to the human variety and has the same immune-boosting and antibacterial qualities as breast milk, scientists at China's Agricultural University in Beijing say.

The transgenic herd of 300 was bred by inserting human genes into cloned cow embryos which were then implanted into surrogate cows. The milk is still undergoing safety tests but with government permission it will be sold to consumers as a more nutritious dairy drink than cow's milk.


YouTube link. Original video.

Workers at the university's dairy farm have already tasted the milk, and say it is sweeter and stronger than the usual bovine variety. "It's good," said worker Jiang Yao. "It's better for you because it's genetically modified."

Woman arrested after setting half acre of brush on fire to get help unlocking car

A Fresno woman was arrested early on Friday after she set a half acre of brush on fire to attract help getting inside her locked car north of Santa Clarita, according to the sheriff's office.

Jena Liberty, 48, had locked her keys in the car at about 4 a.m., said Lt. Joe Efflandt of the Santa Clarita Sheriff's Station.



She tried to use a freeway callbox, but said it was disconnected. "To get attention, she decided to set the hillside on fire," Efflandt said. "And she got our attention."

The fire burned about a half-acre of brush before it was quickly put out by firefighters. No injuries were reported. Liberty, who was on her way to Manhattan Beach, was arrested and booked on suspicion of arson.

Firefighters rescue joyful little fella trapped in toy vending machine

One way or another, little Tyler Bussier was going to get his hands on that tiger.



The three-year-old was with his mother Catherine at Greystanes in Australia last week while she waited for the shops to open at 9am.

Then he saw the toy machine behind them. “Tyler was saying ‘can I have a tiger?’ I said ‘no, I don’t have any coins’,” Mrs Bussier said.


YouTube link.

She turned back to the shop and after a few minutes looked around for her son again. Incredibly, Tyler had somehow wriggled inside the machine.

Fire chief’s amazing escape caught on CCTV

Manchester Fire Service has released amazing video showing a firefighter's narrow escape from a building that crashes to the ground just inches away from him. The Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service attended a blaze at a derelict building in Rochdale when the incident occurred last year.



The footage, filmed from a nearby passing fire engine, shows Paul Anderson walking away from the scene of the fire. As he turns to glance behind him the upper wall of the building bulges outwards and collapses to the ground just inches for him. As the clouds of dust billow around him Anderson is seen walking nonchalantly away from the scene before finally turning to look behind him.

Anderson, a Watch Manager at the Lyne Fire Station said: "I had checked the house next door, which was also empty. I came out, walked five paces past the two houses then it dropped. There is a little bit of a Chuck Berry skip in my walk as it goes. I could sense in the periphery of my vision that there was something not quite right.


YouTube link.

"But there had been nothing at the incident that gave us cause for concern regarding a possible collapse of the property. It emerged later that the roof timbers at the back of the property had dropped and the wall ties in the property had not been replaced." The incident occurred last September and has been released as part of a health and safety training programme for its staff and other fire and rescue services in the UK.

Offenders prefer short stays in jail to community sentences

Offenders prefer short stays in prison to community sentences because they are easier to complete, according to prison reform campaigners. A study also found that some offenders said they preferred short sentences in prison because it was like being at school and they could meet with “people who are like me”.



Homeless offenders liked to use short prison terms to ensure they had a roof over their heads in winter. The report from the Howard League for Penal Reform No Winners will raise concerns about whether prison is offering any real deterrent to short term offenders.

It found that “for some men their quality of life was better in prison than it was the community”, although for most it was “boring, leading to disillusionment and demotivation”. Frances Crook, director of the Howard League, said the report showed that short term sentences were a "soft option" compared with community terms.

David Charlton regularly enjoys the home comforts of Strangeways prison in Manchester. NSFW.

LiveLeak link.

She said: “Spending all day lounging on a cell bunk, particularly for those on short sentences, is the real ‘soft’ option. The report demonstrated that many criminals were not afraid of prison, and were able to treat it as a break from their chaotic lives.

Deadly black widow spider found in Kent

Its venom is 15 times more deadly than a rattlesnake, it devours males after mating - and it's looking for a new home ... in Kent. A black widow spider was discovered by workers importing cars from the United States at Chatham Docks at the weekend. It was trapped and taken to a Maidstone veterinary surgery in a Chinese takeaway carton.



Mark Rowland, the owner of Trinity Vet Centre and an expert in zoological medicine says he has never had to deal with something like this before. He said: "The first thing we thought when it was brought in was: 'Thank god there are not any holes in this'. At least it was secure. The thing about Chinese takeaway cartons is that they have got firm lids you can put on.

"We just had to transfer it to a more secure container and double box it so it would not cause any problems." A bite from a black widow spider can cause muscle pain and spasms, nausea, vomiting, a coma and even death. Now he is searching for somewhere, or someone, to take the spider.


YouTube link. Original video.

"I have started with the local zoological collections - I have contacted London Zoo. I have got quite a few contacts in the zoological world so we should be able to find somewhere for her. Wherever she goes they will have to have a dangerous wild animal licence because she is a potentially dangerous animal."

NINE IS NALINI’S LUCKY NUMBER

New Zealand author Nalini Singh’s latest book, Kiss of Snow ($34.99 RRP, Gollancz), has debuted at number nine on the New York Times Bestseller List for Hardcover Fiction .Author photo above by Deborah Hillman.

The paranormal romance writer is no stranger to the list with all her most recent novels featuring on the New York Times Bestseller List for Paperback Fiction. What makes this achievement extra special is that it’s the first time she has been published in hardback in the US market, a format commonly used for the top tier of bestselling authors.

It’s a sign of just how successful the Auckland-based writer has become in the United States.

Nalini, who is currently on a nationwide book signing tour of America, is thrilled with the book’s position, which sees her featured alongside household names like Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson and Jean Auel.

Kiss of Snow was published simultaneously here and it has also debuted in the number nine position on New Zealand’s International Fiction Bestsellers Chart.

BULL CANYON - A Boatbuilder, a Writer and other Wildlife

Lin Pardey
Paradise Cay Publications - NZ$40.00

In 1980 - fresh from an eleven year journey, where Lin & Larry forged the early years of their marriage on high seas and in exotic locales - they came to California looking for a good spot to build a boat, test Lin's skills as a writer, and taste the apparent security life ashore could offer.
Nestled in a rocky outcrop of sparsely populated dirt roads, sixty miles from the sea and fifty miles from Los Angeles, Bull Canyon would seem an unlikely place for boat-building. Yet when Lin and Larry set eyes on the abandoned stone cottage at the top of a rutted, dusty lane, it was love at first sight. The house was certainly a fixer-upper, but there was plenty of room to build a boat, peace, quiet, and an abundance of natural beauty. They knew they'd come home.

Lin and Larry now live on Kawau Island, near Auckalnd.
New Zealand has been their home for the past 26 years and Bull Canyon tells of their life before settling here. Lin has written ten successful nautical books (several translated into four languages) prior to this new title which she says was written at the urging of the enthusiastic members of the Kawau Island Bookworms Reading group.
It is a charming story told with humour and candour, it is part memoir, part adventure, part love story, a story of victories and failures, all told in a heart warming style.

Bull Canyon is being launched in Auckland this evening.
The distributors for the book in this part of the world are Boat Books Ltd., 22 Westhaven Drive, Auckland.
crew@boatbooks.co.nz
www.boatbooks.co.nz

Because It's My Blog And I Like This Song

Take five, Jack, and enjoy some Nat K C.

Phantom Billstickers Poetry Poster launch

MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK

Addington Coffee Co-op, Christchurch, NZ -  17th June 2011 - 5.30pm

This event is being organised by Jeffrey Paparoa Holman and the programme  will be announced shortly, watch this space and note the above date in your diary.

Michele Leggott  will be the MC for the event and a big line-up of poets is promised.

Comment :
Actually Graham, Michele is doing all the work, but I am helping. It will kick off at 5.30pm, with new posters that include Baxter and Tuwhare poems to get stickered all over the world.Cheers. Jeffrey.           

Orange prize 2011 goes to Téa Obreht

Surprise victory for The Tiger's Wife makes Obreht the award's youngest ever winner

Mark Brown, arts correspondent, guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 8 June 2011 

Orange prize winner Tea Obreht. Photograph: Beowulf Sheehan

Not only is the newly announced winner of this year's Orange prize for fiction a first time novelist, she's also strikingly, surprisingly young – only 25 – making Téa Obreht the youngest ever author to be given the award in its 16-year history.

The Belgrade-born and New York-based Obreht was given what is the most prestigious prize for women's writing at a ceremony in London's Royal Festival Hall.

Something of an unexpected winner, judges praised her debut novel The Tiger's Wife as evidence of a "truly exciting" new literary talent.


The historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes, who chaired the judging panel, said the novel more than fulfilled the Orange prize criteria of being original, accessible and excellent. "It is a very brave book," she said. "We were looking for a book that had some kind of alchemy, that changed us as readers and changed the way we thought about the world and The Tiger's Wife certainly does that. It is a very special book."

To have that effect is all the more remarkable, given Obreht's age. She is 25 now, but the publishers have had the manuscript, written while she was on Cornell University's creative writing course, since 2008. Last year her literary wunderkind status was cemented when she was the youngest member of New Yorker magazine's top 20 writers under 40.


Obreht's victory meant defeat for better established writers Emma Donoghue – the bookies' favourite for the best selling Room – and Nicole Krauss for Great House. Many had also fancied the chances of Aminatta Forna for her rich and engrossing The Memory of Love.


Hughes said it had been a difficult decision – the final Tuesday-night judging panel session lasted more than four hours – and it was not unanimous. "It was an incredibly exhilarating and very positive meeting and although judges were arguing very passionately for particular books, without exception everyone was delighted that The Tiger's Wife won."


Obreht picked up £30,000 and follows in some imposing footsteps. The last two winners have been US novelists Barbara Kingsolver (for The Lacuna) and Marilynne Robinson (for Home) while others include Zadie Smith, Lionel Shriver and Andrea Levy.

The other judges for this year's prize were publisher Liz Calder; novelist Tracy Chevalier; actor Helen Lederer and broadcaster Susanna Reid.


There are some who believe there's no need for a separate, specific prize for women novelists but not Hughes. "In a funny way it's a non-question," she said. "I know as a historian that around 3,500 years ago there was a genuine equality between men and women and we've pretty much being playing catch-up since then. There is still some way to go and the Orange prize does an immensely important job."

Full piece at The Guardian.

Footnote:
Obrecht was of course last month a guest at both the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival and then the Sydney Writers Festival. This past week she has been in London on promotional work including an evening session at the London Review Bookshop which was chaired by Claire Armistead, literary editor of the Guardian.
Warmest congratulations to this young and impressive author.
The Tiger’s Wife (NZ$36.99 RRP, Weidenfeld & Nicolson). 

Waiting, Hoping, Praying

WOW...it has been a long time since I posted. It's been very busy around here! With the end of school paper work, meetings, conferences, cleaning up my classroom, redoing bulletin boards...I have honestly only wanted to relax whenever I am at home. Luckily it is summer now, so I'll have plenty of time to keep you up to date.

As you know Jeremy and I have had a lot of trouble trying to have a baby. This has been an ongoing battle for the last few years.  Back in December, a fertility doctor told us our best chances to conceive were by doing invitrofertilization (IVF). Whenever he told us we already had a pretty idea that this is the road we would have to venture down. When the decision was finally made I knew that I wanted to wait until summer. Jeremy was on board with the decision, so we waited....

That brings us up to the present. May 24th we meet with our IVF nurse to go over many things. One of the most important topics was shot training. On May 29th I started a series of injections to stimulate my ovaries. I started off with two injections, one in the morning and one at night. Once my ovaries were stimulated, they but me on another injection to suppress my ovaries. Luckily, I responded VERY well to the injections. After a series of blood work and sonograms, Dr. G told me on Monday (6/6) that my egg retrieval would be today (6/8). This morning we woke up at 5:45 to get ready. We had to be at the Dr. G's office by 6:45 to get prepped and ready to go. At 7:45 I walked into the operating room and then woke up to great news. Dr. G was able to retrieve 20 eggs....yes you read that right 20!!!

After the retrieval the embryologist fertilized my eggs with Jeremy's sperm. He will call us tomorrow and report how many eggs fertilized. Now we have to wait! Dr. G said that we will have our embryo transfer on Saturday or Monday, just depends on how well our embryos progress. Ideally, he would like for it to be on Monday because he prefers to do a 5 day transfer.

Today I'm at home resting and taking it easy. So glad Jeremy has been able to work from home today. Please pray that we have good embryos that grow strong!!

I have set up my Blog

I officially started to get excited about my trip to Bali. Did a search on Google "Things to do in Bali" and got so many suggestions. My sister in law send me pictures from her visit few years ago.

I officially started to get excited about my trip to Bali. Did a search on Google

Facing Down Revolutionaries

... may mean acceding to their demands.

Here at home, I cook about half our meals. Maybe a shade more than that as my wife spends a few nights a week taking care of others at Hospice or our church. It's my job to feed the troops and I'm facing a palace revolution.

My preferred cuisine is Southern and my preferred method is experimental. Last night, I made blackened catfish (good!), cornbread (good!) and mixed greens with tasso (bad!). This was not just an isolated foray into culinary territory unfamiliar to the youthful savages in our house, it was one of a steady stream of them. One of our sons has taken to asking who is cooking that night before deciding whether to come home for dinner.

It looks as if the Arab Spring has come to San Diego. Our own Street Arabs are gathering in the market square, waving their arms and chanting for regime change. As the local dictator, I'm being forced to acquiesce to their demands. It's going to be harder than it looks.

A scene from our dining room.
We have four children. Here are their gustatory limitations.

1. Child A - no onions or mushrooms.


2. Child B - all food must be the sort one can find at a county fair - spaghetti, quesadillas, hot dogs or sausages, hamburgers.


3. Child C - no shrimp or shellfish.


4. Child D - no peppers, green or otherwise.

Each of them, taken individually, cuts out a substantial number of recipes. Taken en toto, even assuming you find some substitute meal for Child B, eliminates about 80% of all recipes. (No onions? Impossible!)

Add to that the fact that some of my favorite recipes that fit all of these restrictions, Cuban Pecadillo, Chicken Country Captain and Moroccan Chicken with Olives have been banned for various reasons, I'm left with ... grilling sausages every night? Simply dreadful for the experimental cook. I had considered forays into Greek and Indian cuisine, but the rioters outside the kitchen would surely burn the place down and lynch the kitchen staff in short order should I do that.

Heaven help me, but I may be forced to open the Betty Crocker cookbook and work my way through it's bland and boring recipes, one at a time. Sigh. It's like Van Gogh having to give up the canvas and paint bathrooms instead.

Suggestions are welcome.

New Zealand Books Winter Issue 2011

The next issue of New Zealand Books, Issue 94, Winter 2011. It will be posted out to subscribers on 13 June and should reach the bookshops on 19 June.

And here to whet your appetite is the list of contents:

2         Obituary: Judith Binney

3         Janet Hunt: Alison Ballance, Kakapo: Rescued from the Brink of Extinction; Neville Peat, The Tasman: Biography of an Ocean

4         Hugh Roberts: Janet Wilson (ed), Frank Sargeson’s Stories

6         Murray Bramwell: Mike Johnson (graphic art, Darren Sheehan), Travesty; Emma Neale, Fosterling; Hamish Clayton, Wulf

7         Elizabeth Caffin: Mike Doyle: Collected Poems 1951-2009

           Peter Bland: “Naked Ladies” (poem)

8         Letters

           Vincent O’Sullivan: “Plane People” (poem)

9         Isa Moynihan: “A failure of trust” (Byline)

10      Michael Hulse: Paula Green and Harry Ricketts, 99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry

11      Chris Else: Jim Flynn, The Torchlight List

12      Liv Macassey: Vincent Ward, The Past Awaits: People, Film, Images

13      Lois Daish: Perrin Rowland, Dining Out: A History of the Restaurant in New Zealand

14      Melissa Laing: Peter Simpson, Fantastica: The World of Leo Bensemann

15      Stella Ramage: Gregory O’Brien: A Micronaut in the Wide World: The Imaginative Life and Times of Graham Percy

16      Diane Hebley: Adele Broadbent, Just Jack; Des Hunt, The Peco Incident; Barbara Else, The Travelling Restaurant: Jasper’s Voyage in Three Parts; Ken Catran, Nina Questor: The Battle Has Begun

17      Ruth Nichol: Charlotte Randall, Hokitika Town; Laurence Fearnley, The Hut Builder

19      Ashleigh Young: Ian Mune, Mune: An Autobiography; Joy Cowley, Navigation: A Memoir; Carol Henderson and Heather Tovey, Searching for Grace: A Woman’s Quest for Her True Identity; Cath Tizard, Cat Amongst the Pigeons: A Memoir

20      John McCrystal: Peter Butler, Gravel Roads; Nicholas Edlin, The Widow’s Daughter; Carl Nixon, Settlers’ Creek; Kelly Ana Morey, Quinine

21      Nicholas Reid: Craig Cliff, A Man Melting; Pip Adam, Everything We Hoped For; Tina Makereti, Once upon a Time in Aotearoa

22      Peter Russell: Sarah Gaitanos, The Violinist: Clare Galambos Winter, Holocaust Survivor

23      Les Cleveland: Alison Parr, Home: Civilian New Zealanders Remember the Second World War

           Lindsay Pope: “Wounds” (poem)

24      Robin Skinner: Julia Gatley (ed), Group Architects: Towards a New Zealand Architecture; John Walsh and Patrick Reynolds, Home Work: Leading New Zealand Architects’ Own Houses

25      Christine Dann: Margaret Sparrow, Abortion Then and Now: New Zealand Abortion Stories from 1940 to 1980

26      Hilary Stace: Julia Millen, Te Rau Herenga: A Century of Library Life in New Zealand: The New Zealand Library Association and LIANZA 1910-2010

27      Simon Upton: Raymond Richards, Palmer: The Parliamentary Years

28      Prize cryptic crossword

In advance of the Orange Prize winner announcement this evening, Foyles bookshop has supplied quotes about the prize and each of the shortlisted titles

Jonathan Ruppin from Foyles bookshops comments on the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011 winner announcement. 

Overall comment on the prize:

“The Orange Prize continues to reveal the exciting diversity of fiction available in good bookshops, going against the widespread misconception that publishers are deeply conservative in their output, only backing the proven and the familiar.  The shortlist was one of the strongest for years and the judges' debate to narrow their choices must have been fascinating. Even opponents of this women-only prize must acknowledge that it proves its worth on the quality of its choices alone.”

Individual comments on each of the shortlisted titles :

ROOM - EMMA DONOGHUE

“The hype is, for once, thoroughly justified, as thousands of readers have already discovered. This is a real literary page-turner, gripping in its depiction on enforced domestic horror seen through innocent eyes.”

THE MEMORY OF LOVE - AMINATTA FORNA

“It's a profoundly affecting novel that will leave the reader quietly stunned. It combines a portrait of a country tearing itself apart with a reminder that love can transcend and the most painful of circumstances. It's a book to place alongside Chinua Achebe's Anthills of the Savannah or The Redundancy of Courage by Timothy Mo.”

GRACE WILLIAMS SAYS IT LOUD - EMMA HENDERSON

“It's a book that has slowly developed a devoted following, giving voice to a disenfranchised minority, a group whose human rights and rights to happiness often seem lost amidst the clamour from more vocal interests. It's unflinching yet compassionate, a book that reminds us how much further our society has still to develop.”

GREAT HOUSE - NICOLE KRAUSS

“Vast and ingenious in scope yet deeply intimate in its characterisations, this is a first-rate example of why some stories can only really be told in novel form. The linking motif of the desk might have been a gimmick in lesser hands, but Krauss' writing elevates these interwoven tales of despair to ethereal beauty.”

THE TIGER'S WIFE - TEA OBREHT

“It's very rare to encounter a debut of such accomplishment. The commercial potential of this is huge - it could match the enduring popularity of a book like Yann Martel's Life of Pi. It's a fable, a thriller, a war story and much more all combined into one extraordinary journey.”

ANNABEL - KATHLEEN WINTER

“Very much the dark horse on the shortlist, but perhaps the most elegantly written, this is quite unique. She manages to make a deeply individual story resonate with universality: Middlesex meets The Tenderness of Wolves.”

Graham Swift on 'contemporary' novels

• Graham Swift

• The Guardian, Saturday 4 June 2011

Iraq 2006 - the year in which Graham Swift's latest novel is set. Photograph: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

There's no such thing as the contemporary novel. Before I seem the complete reactionary, let me add that I've happily joined in many discussions about "the contemporary novel" where what that usually, unproblematically means is novels that have appeared recently or may appear soon. But the novel that's contemporary in the sense of being wholly "of now" is an impossibility, if only because novels may take years to write, so the "now" with which they begin will be defunct by the time they're finished. Nonetheless, the idea of the novel that's wholly of now persists. There's an undeniable thrill in seeing what's most current in our lives offered back to us in fictional guise, but it soon dates and it's never enough.

When we read novels of the past we're apt to think that they depict a world contemporary to them – that what is Dickensian about Dickens involved his constantly keeping abreast of his times. In fact his novels often look back a decade or more. War and Peace, was written in the 1860s but set during the Napoleonic wars. Since one of his themes was war, Tolstoy might have chosen the Crimean war of the mid-1850s, of which he had direct experience, and he did write about the Crimea in his book Sebastopol, but that's a work of brilliant reportage. He clearly wanted some distance and he knew the difference between a novel and a brilliant report. When Tolstoy died Proust was beginning a novel-sequence which would take the rest of his life and so was never going to be "of now", and its title proclaims one of the things that the novel as a form is inherently about: the passage of time.

The proper medium for what is of now is not the novel but journalism. When we say "the papers" the point gets missed, but the French word "journal" spells it out: what belongs to the day. I lived once in Greece where the word for newspaper is "ephemeritha", an exact equivalent of the French, though to an English ear rather odd. Every time I bought a newspaper there was the subliminal joke that I was buying an "ephemeral". But the joke catches a truth about journalism and about any attempt to capture the "now". Today's news, which may be yesterday's anyway, will be eclipsed tomorrow.

One of the principal things novels can do is depict and explore this very transitoriness. They're there to take the long view, to show change and evolution, human behaviour worked on by time. But none of this means that novels, which can never be strictly of now, cannot have their own kind of "nowness" or have something which actually out-thrills the thrill of the merely contemporary. They can have immediacy.
Why read a novel written 150 years ago and set 50 years before then, why make that double historical leap, if there's not something in Tolstoy's writing that makes us livingly feel that "then" has become "now", that as it is for us so it was for "them" – that provides an instant human connection which actually liberates us from being pathetic creatures of the contemporary? Why undertake the journey of any novel of any period unless to encounter that uncanny, arresting sensation: "I've been here too"?

The word story means something different for journalists from its meaning for novelists. It really means "report", and when journalists favour "story" perhaps they betray a wish to be more than reporters. Conversely, when some big event occurs in the world, something that may even be called world-changing, it's the task of journalists to relay it to us and analyse it, though some novelists may also feel impelled hastily to address such events from a variety of motives, pure and impure. One of them may be envy of the prerogative of journalists and of the genuine powers of reportage, another may be the desire to appear momentously "of now".

Full piece at The Guardian.

Richard Stallman's list of physical book advantages:

• You can buy one with cash, anonymously.
• Then you own it.
• You are not required to sign a license that restricts your use of it.
• The format is known, and no proprietary technology is needed to read the book.
• You can, physically, scan and copy the book, and it's sometimes lawful under copyright.
• Nobody has the power to destroy your book.

That list contrasts with his list of e-book drawbacks, including Stallman's preferred derogatory term for digital rights management (DRM), using Amazon as the example:

• Amazon requires users to identify themselves to get an e-book.
• In some countries, Amazon says the user does not own the e-book.
• Amazon requires the user to accept a restrictive license on use of the e-book.
• The format is secret, and only proprietary user-restricting software can read it at all.
• To copy the e-book is impossible due to Digital Restrictions Management in the player and prohibited by the license, which is more restrictive than copyright law.
• Amazon can remotely delete the e-book using a back door. It used this back door in 2009 to delete thousands of copies of George Orwell's 1984.

Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20069648-264/richard-stallman-break-free-of-e-book-chains/#ixzz1Oi3vt7F0

A C Grayling Foyles event disrupted by protest

The Bookseller - 08.06.11 | Charlotte Williams

Staff at Foyles on Charing Cross Road evacuated about 115 people from its events space, The Gallery, last night after protestors set off a red smoke bomb. The protest in the shop's third floor room is believed to have been against philosopher A C Grayling, who was speaking, alongside Sir Christopher Frayling and Mick Gordon, at the "The Arts in Britain—Death by a Thousand Cuts" event organised by Oberon Books as part of their Oberon Masters series. Philosopher Grayling this week announced he is founding a private university in London, charging £18,000 a year in fees.

Events manager Sion Hamilton said Grayling had been booked, alongside Frayling and Gordon, "some months ago" but that the shop had been aware there could be a protest. Hamilton added: "We were aware of the proposed protest today, but chose not to cancel the event because Foyles bookshop is a space for the free exchange of ideas and intelligent debate."
It is understood it was through messages exchanged on Twitter that Foyles had become aware of the possibility of a protest. Raszpodnik posted: "If you’re at Foyles today to protest against Grayling’s appearance please egg him—or worse". Francesgrahl tweeted: "AC Grayling at Foyles tomorrow Free entry. Protest anyone?"

Activist and New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny tweeted after the disruption: "Grayling's #NCH is an act of monstrous vandalism at the heart of the academy. Smoke bomb in a bookshop not a bad metaphor. But a silly idea." A video of the protest has been posted on YouTube.

Hamilton said: "Professor Grayling offered to answer students' questions for 20 minutes after the scheduled event, we regret that one individual decided to curtail this opportunity for further discussion by letting off a smoke bomb at the end. We evacuated the room swiftly and safely."


Fuller report at The Telegraph.

The Serious Business of 21st-Century Book Publishing

The Atlantic - By Peter Osnos, June 7, 2011

Editors have dropped wasteful galas and expenses of old as they focus more than ever on how to reach the readers of the future

Reuters/Brian Snyder

In June 1990, at the annual book industry trade show in Las Vegas, Random House hosted a lavish bash in the grand ballroom of the new Mirage Hotel for the forthcoming publication of Donald Trump's Surviving at the Top. 

The next morning, as Trump highlighted a breakfast for 3,000 booksellers, the Wall Street Journal reported that his business and personal empire was on the verge of bankruptcy. Trump hustled back to his 737 (with his paramour, Marla Maples). As a guest on that flight to New York, I half-expected Trump to throw open the door and jump. But "the Donald" was upbeat and disappeared with Maples into his private cabin for part of the trip. A few weeks later, a bank bailout saved Trump. Still around in 2011, and after a tease about running for president, Trump has announced a "policy" book that will be available this fall from Regnery Publishing. Surviving at the Top was published in late summer and disappeared so fast that I'm guessing Random House's bills for the champagne reception--let's say $100,000--had barely been paid.

The point of revisiting that Trump episode is to show how different publishing is these days. No more Las Vegas. This year's trade show was again at New York's Javits Center. All of the parties hosted by publishers put together probably cost a fraction of the Random House fete for Trump. Instead, there were long days of education sessions and panels, mainly and understandably focused on the digital transformation of the book business. The big issues--the roll-out of e-readers, digital rights, self-publishing, and the future of the traditional bookstore--were discussed, over and over.

One of the biggest stories of the fair was the announcement that Amazon had hired Laurence Kirshbaum, an enormously popular and successful former industry CEO who had become an agent, to run its fledgling New York publishing operation. This was a signal that the online behemoth had determined to become a major player in the acquisition of books to supply its Kindle and print-on-demand business and to compete directly with publishers that now depend on Amazon as a principal retailer. Kirshbaum's move followed by a few weeks the news that Scott Moyers was giving up his lucrative job as an agent with Andrew Wylie's firm to return to Penguin Press as publisher. 

The decision by these two stars that the action in publishing now is in the creation of books rather than selling the rights to them is a meaningful indicator of the excitement in the industry about the digital potential. After a day-long International Digital Publishing Forum, Publishers Weekly headlined this as "The Year of the E-Book"--while hardly a revelation, this still is an unequivocal declaration. 

Full piece at The Atlantic.

Literacy encourages success

The Bookseller - 08.06.11 | Graeme Neill

An early engagement with books in the home is a core function of a child's future success, the former director of Ofsted has said. Speaking at a parliamentary reception for the children's literacy charity Volunteer Reading Help, Sir Jim Rose said the work the charity did was crucial for developing children's reading skills. It has a team of volunteers who read to primary school children with poor literacy skills across England.

The reception, which was sponsored by HarperCollins, follows extensive coverage in the Evening Standard about the problems of literacy within London. Volunteer Reading Help's c.e.o. Sue Porto said children without crucial literacy skills could become highly disenfranchised in later life. She said: "They may become one of the statistics of the prison population of 85,000. Of those, 48% have a reading age of below a seven year old and 80% are functionally illiterate."

Sir Jim said it was crucial to ensure children were confident readers, who not only read for learning but read for pleasure. He said: "Early engagement with books in the home is a core function for success."

Victoria Barnsley, c.e.o. and publisher of HarperCollins, said: “As a publisher, encouraging a love of reading, a passion for books and a thirst for knowledge is a cause close to our hearts. Volunteer Reading Help carries out vital work inspiring thousands of children to achieve their true potential and HarperCollins is proud to sponsor them

Najafi Said to Join Borders Hunt

PublishersLunch

The Wall Street Journal says that private-equity firm Najafi--the company willing to take Bookspan/Direct Brands off of Bertelsmann's hands--has joined negotiations as a potential acquirer of some significant portion of Borders 265 superstores.

A prospective buyer would acquire Borders' web site and customer lists, reaffirming our initial inference that a buyer for the superstores would take all of the significant operations, leaving the remaining superstores and Waldenbooks outlets unable to function. The Journal's source adds that "Borders hopes to soon select one of the suitors as a so-called stalking-horse bidder that would make an offer others must top in the bankruptcy auction," with an auction expected for later this summer.

The article does not contain any update on sums being considered by the bidders, so it's still possible that the bids are worth less than the inventory already owned by Borders.

WSJ 

Hello dream bike!

My Pashley took a bit of a beating when it was shipped over to New York. She's currently in a friends bike shop for some R&R, but we fear she will never be the same again (cycling in a straight line is a bit of an issue). So I've started to cast my eye around for suitable replacements... this would be my blow the budget, very naughty, dream-a-rama choice number one. Fluro-green, apple bright and with a choice of sharp accessories (like a leather Scout bag that fits over your handle bars, $425). Its the result of a collaboration between my favorite NYC bike shop Adeline Adeline and Kate Spade. I would say RIP Pashely! but this one is erm $1,100. Sob!

Kate Spade for Adeline Adeline Bike in New York Green

Wisdom Wednesday

I wanted to share with you some verses I have been studying this week with my Good Morning Girls group. I hope they are a blessing to you as they have been to all of us this week!

John 14:27 - Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 16:27 - For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God.

James 3:10 - Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things out not to be so.