CATEGORIES

Family holidays are the stuff many childhood memories are forged from. With just a couple more weeks of summer holidays left, I revisited an old favourite and evoked some happy would-be memories (if mine had been the type of family to embark on seaside camping trips). The excitement is palpable as Susie’s family head to [...]

Darius Bell, the irrepressibly divine hero of Darius Bell and the Crystal Pool (CBCA Book of the Year 2010 winner) is back in this second installment by well-loved Australian author Odo Hirsch. The bees are dying. And not only the bees from Mr and Mrs Deaver’s hives. All the bees in the region are carking [...]

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 [...]

Vulture’s Gate is a compelling novel for teen readers by Kirsty Murray set in the future. It has a spellbinding plot, and strong themes that reflect on our modern day world and the repercussions of how we currently interact with our environment. Kirsty Murray depicts a frightening but very real world in which girls are [...]

Remember the days when we called Santa ‘Father Christmas’. Not too long ago, that’s for sure. It’s also not too long ago that Santa saturation and adulation was a far less commercial thing. There was an inherent mystery and innocence about our connection with this most historical of creatures. Sadly, the fate of Father Christmas [...]

Anh Do – Vietnamese refugee, comedian, Australian, and all round lovely guy has a powerful tale to tell. His best-selling autobiography – The Happiest Refugee – has won numerous awards, including Best Non-Fiction Book of the Year at the 2011 Indie Awards, and tells the tale of his original voyage to Australia aboard a crowded [...]

When US book industry blogger Kassia Kroszer told me she’d been writing about digital publishing since 1998, I got to thinking about when I’d first contemplated, and written about, the ebook concept. Reading the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as a teenager no doubt helped my thinking on the subject along. What a tragedy that [...]

Great suspense, quirky characters, action and humour are features of the six mind twisting stories in Head Spinners by Thalia Kalkipsakis. Thalia is best known for her Go Girls and Girlfriend Fiction, but she’s really hit the boy’s market running with her new short story collection. In Head Spinners, There are six engrossing tales featuring [...]

Go online and vote now for what is the greatest idea anyone ever had. The final result of this site will be a book, The World?s Greatest Idea, to be published by Icon Books. In the book John Farndon will attempt to argue each case for exactly why each idea could be considered the greatest [...]

Today’s release of Apple’s iPad in the United States and the absolutely hysterical reaction to it is as good a time as any to take a moment and think about the impact of devices like the iPad on publishing.