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Toddlers aplenty know and love Anna Walker’s gorgeous Ollie books, featuring a zebra-like softie and his charming friends, resplendently illustrated in Walker’s inimitable style that remind me of a soft shoe shuffle – gentle, heartwarming and so sweet to watch. In these new board books for toddlers, released tomorrow, Ollie takes little ones through their [...]

Earlier this year, Donna M Smith from Jelli-beanz Publishing visited Literary Clutter to tell us about her publishing venture and about the yearly Packed Lunch anthologies (see “Jelli-Beanz“). She’s back again — this time as part of her blog tour for Billy Cart Derby… Character Development in Billy Cart Derby By Donna M Smith Hi [...]

I feel a little odd writing about a piece I’ve writing I haven’t 100% read, but there’s not a lot I can do about it. The topic is so hard for me to read that, without having someone redact the bits that would push me over the edge, I had to read until I though [...]

The iconic little red is given the avant-garde treatment in this stunning book by author/illustrator Marjolaine Leray. Originally published in French under the title un petit chaperon rouge, this striking book packs a visual punch – but its clever, minimalist text is the perfect nest for a series of scratchy illustrations that can be – [...]

Once or twice a year, esteemed radio show This American Life (TAL) transforms itself into a show that you can not just see with your ears, but one you can see with your eyes: they put on a live show in a theatre. That live show is then broadcast to other theatres—live in the US [...]

HarperCollins has moved swiftly to sign up a new erotic fiction author, Indigo Bloome, in a bid to cash in on the Fifty Shades phenomenon. HarperCollins paid the author a six figure sum in a three-book deal, brokered by literary agent Selwa Anthony with Harper’s publishing director Shona Martyn. The first title, due out July [...]

I should preface this blog with the disclaimer that I’ve never really liked reading travel-writing books. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that I prefer to experience travel firsthand rather than vicariously. So it’s testament to a writer’s storytelling skills that I actually went out and bought and read his book. [...]

I’d never considered watching The Good Wife because, well, the title put me off. I figured it was some housewife melodrama for which I wasn’t the target audience. Then life dished up some lemons and in my effort to escape them I scanned my Foxtel guide for anything at all—honestly, I’d have probably pressed the [...]

“Hey, did you finish that book I gave you?” “…um. No, not yet.” “That’s okay, I won’t spoil the ending for you. Are you enjoying it?” “…um. No. Not really. I don’t think I’ll finish it.” Ouch. It’s a trivial thing but I always feel bad when someone doesn’t like a book I gave them, [...]

Which genre of children’s books do you like most and why? It’s hard to say as an adult, but as a child I loved time travel stories the best. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge was one I really loved, and The Ghosts by Antonia Barber. The first children’s book I wrote was a time [...]

To find The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary, I did what I swore I’d never do: put out a vague question about if anyone knew of a book by a guy who’d spent time at a retirement home of sorts for chimps rescued from animal testing labs. Surprisingly, the first and correct response came back with [...]

‘Woohoo! I’m going to Antarctica!’ Can you imagine? Hang the snow-white ice, I’m turning jungle green that this nine-year-old is in for the experience of a lifetime – something many adults would knock polar bears over for. Oh wait – make that penguins – because there are no polar bears in Antarctica, you see. Only [...]

It took me reading less than a sentence to give myself a metaphorical headslap today. As in the kind of headslap you give yourself when you find someone’s done something you’ve kind of, almost, could have, should have thought of yourself: Julie Wilson has followed in the tradition of turning a good idea into a [...]

Guess what? I’m Tayend in Trudi Canavan’s Black Magician trilogy. No, really… I am! I’m not making this up. I really am him. Well… sort of. Let me explain. You see, as well as being a world famous, best-selling author, Trudi also happens to be an artist — and a rather good one at that. [...]

Which genre of children’s books do you like most and why? Picture books are my favourite genre because there is so much going on. There are so many layers of story – in the visuals and the narrative and I enjoy the challenge of making it work in order to marry the two as seamlessly [...]

Jennifer Miller’s novel, The Year of the Gadfly, is a hard to pin down. With a teenage protagonist who chats with the chain-smoking ghost of Edward R. Murrow, prep-school rules and secret societies, love stories and mysteries, and asides into extreme micro-biology and the personal and public ethics of journalism, it’s an unusual read. And that was just how she intended [...]

Print newspapers’ decline has been well documented, as has their mad scramble to replicate and monetise the model online. That’s not to say that many people beyond the industry have been losing sleep over the digitisation-meets-modernisation-meets-monetisation issue. In fact, (and I’m paraphrasing here) a Twitter retort to Rupert Murdoch’s tweet that bemoaned why he received [...]

Fortunate is the author who happens to have a book illustrated by the über talented Sue deGennaro. What I love about Sue’s work is that she takes risks and uses so many varying styles and mediums – it’s like opening a beautifully-wrapped present every time you spy her name on a cover. These striking illustrations [...]

Having not known that the ultimate book in Amanda Hocking’s self-published, now-publisher-published best-selling trilogy wasn’t yet available, I awaited its release with postman-stalking obsession. I wasn’t sure who was more relieved when it finally arrived—me or the postman I’d been shaking down for days—so I’m a little disappointed to say that although Ascend was good, [...]

As winter draws in and the evenings get colder I find cooking more alluring. Slaving over a hot stove – so very unappealing in Sydney’s sticky-hot summers – becomes much more enticing as a way both to keep warm and to get a good meal in. And, having just discovered the farmer’s markets up the road, [...]

Last year I finally got around to reading and reviewing the first book in Michael Pryor’s The Laws of Magic — a rather splendid YA blend of steampunk and magic called Blaze of Glory. Earlier this year I read the second book, Heart of Gold, and now it’s time to tell you about it. Heart [...]

So lovely to see classic characters from a classic Aussie author, consistently revised and updated and brought into the current kid consciousness. And how can anyone resist these adorable May Gibbs icons – let alone kids? This large format, hard cover book opens with a wallpaper of character endpapers, then introduces the reader to Snugglepot [...]

It’s Friday night and you know what that means – it’s book club night! Well, book and wine club. As I discovered last time, the first rule of book club is that you are totally allowed to talk about book club, provided you bring some wine. So while I might not be donning a micro-mini [...]

Top 10 lists are controversial, guaranteed to please some people and attract the ire of others, while ultimately proving utterly irresistible. I don’t know why we need to come up with top-10 lists. Try as I might to refuse to click on links to them, my twitching mouse finger and my need to know overcome [...]

Which genre of children’s books do you like most and why? I just love children’s picture books. I love the way the words and pictures are read together to tell the story. Every word must count and not be there merely for decoration. Love it! One of my favourite picture books is Where the Wild [...]

You may remember me blogging about the Harry Potter books and telling you how I read them all out loud to my wife (see “Life after Harry, part 1”). Ever since then, I have looked forward to the day I could share these books with my daughters. And now that time has come… at least [...]

The internet is for porn—there’s even a song about it. Sung, no less, than by child-like puppets disconcertingly addressing extremely adult themes. There is, of course, Bookshelf Porn, which I’ve blogged about previously and obsess over daily. But I’ve now stumbled on a site that will enable me to get a double dose: Book Cover [...]

Once there was a coat, stuffed with straw and languishing in a field all alone. The coat is a proud coat – and it’s also angry. Angry to be nothing more than a quasi-scarecrow in a field. “What a waste of me!” it cries to the sun and the sky. Soon, a man walks by. [...]

While I have been cocooned away in chilly Canberra studying, Allen & Unwin has been busily launching two new digital lists, mirroring recent developments at fellow digital pioneer Pan Macmillan where Momentum’s titles are already making waves on bestseller lists. First up, early this month, Allen & Unwin shorts arrived. The Australian publisher has just [...]

With a house move imminent it has become apparent that I own far too many books. Normally I can hide the overflow with a little creativity. Packing the shelves so there is two rows of books, not one, and more on top if there’s space ? Normal practice here at Casa De Libros. Persuading myself [...]

Which genre of children’s books do you like most and why? This is so hard! I love different things about different genres. And reading and writing probably give me different favourites too. Oh man, what to say? I have to lean towards picture books I think, but still, oh, I can’t decide! Can I say [...]

A couple of posts ago I told you about Books Actually (see: “Bookish Adventures in Singapore, part 3: Books Actually”) a bookstore I visited in Singapore, which is also a small press publisher under the imprint name of Math Paper Press. While there I bought a couple of their publications — a chapbook called My [...]

Loving any book set in Paris, but even better when an adorable little puppy dog named Pom Pom is involved. Pom Pom lives in a tall building in the heart of Paris. Every day, Henriette and her parents, walk him down the Rue Sainte-Geneviève to the post office. Keen to see ‘more of the world’, [...]