"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
~ Douglas Adams
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
~ Anton Chekhov
"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
~ Dr. Suess
While this year’s 11th of November is special because of the year and the resulting number palindrome, it has long been a day of remembrance for fallen soldiers. According to the Wikipedia article, Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries to remember the members of their armed forces who have died […]
The creator of the popular Discworld series, Terry Pratchett, was diagnosed with dementia last year. He has just released his latest book Snuff. Is Snuff the last of the Discworld series? Or will Pratchett fight against dementia for another novel? The Daily Mail has discussed his health here: When author Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with dementia, he was […]
There can be no doubt that writing a Sherlock Holmes novel, as endorsed by the Conan Doyle estate, must be accompanied by the kind of pressure and expectations that only first term American presidents must be familiar with. Not only is it a series with over a hundred years of uninterrupted popularity, but it also […]
Where to start when discussing the most played character in English literature? For now (and to stop this blog post from turning into the thesis it could so easily be), I’d like to share my undying love of the last two reinventions of Sherlock Holmes on the big screen and the latest novel as endorsed […]
Besides having a charming cover (the paperback one is nowhere near as good as the trade paperback), My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece by Annabel Pitcher may be one of the best books of this year, an especially noteworthy achievement since it is ostensibly geared towards teens. The story starts with the line ‘My sister lives on […]
I blogged about the National Book Awards over here, and since then it turns out there’s been a slightly ugly mix-up about the Young People’s writing category. To sum it up, Lauren Myracle‘s book Shine was mistakenly made a finalist instead of the novel Chime by Franny Billingsley. The problem is that she was asked to step out of the awards so […]
In a parallel argument to the ‘No Gays Please’ attitude to most YA texts, this week the Guardian discussed the whitewashing of book covers in order to prevent the cover harming the book sales. But Larbalestier believes the issues of “whitewashing” of covers, ghettoising of books by people of colour, and low expectations for these books are industry-wide. […]
Every month on the NOMU blog Paul and Tracy review one of our stunning cookbooks. This month they took a look at Donna Hay’s Modern Classics 2. What we loved about this cookbook is its effortlessly unfussy layout, everything is so clearly presented, each recipe detailed in perfect precision and the uncomplicated photography […]
Who will turn out to be The Devil In The Detail? President Jacob Zuma has given a team of senior retired judges two years in which to get to the bottom of the allegations that hundreds of millions of rands were paid in bribes related to the R70-billion arms deal. For more on this article […]
