new haven review

Paper Cuts reports on the New Haven Review, an interesting journal based around a small community. The editor’s hand-deliver editions to New Haven residents, and they post a book review of a ‘great book nobody’s heard of’ on the NHR website weekly.

The Huffington Post talks about how the local, small scale of the review journal can be a fantastic idea for promoting books on a smaller scale than national newspapers and journals:

Wouldn’t it be cool if other small- and medium-sized towns — Austin, Des Moines, Albany, etc. — decided they wanted local book reviews, too? Maybe such reviews would feature local writers doing the reviewing, the way ours does, or maybe they would feature reviews of books by local authors. Either way, they would be reminders that major urban publications do not have to be the sole instruments for book reviewing.

Those comments remind me of Bit o’Lit, and I still think it’s a fabulous idea.

L.

ON books

Susan Wyndham at SMH has written about a new series of essay-books coming from Melbourne Uni Publishing later in the year. Called ON books, they are ‘little 10,000 word hardbacks’. With Germaine Greer on rage, David Malouf on experience and other authors tackling interesting topics, they sound like a very cool idea. (I love little books!)

Also, if you click the MUP link you will see that they are running a competition to win every book they publish for a year.

L.

the plastic age

Two new publications are available from my favourite web comic artist, who also happens to be the amazing illustrator behind the covers of this year’s Mini Shots series - Rhys McDonald.

Pioneering Mediocrity
Self deprecating name? Check. 36 page b&w mini comic with full colour cover? Check. What more do you need to know? Never before has so little been on offer from a webcomic! Hi jinx, boob jokes, actual boobs, nude men, it really is a book for the family to enjoy. If mediocrity makes your mouth water, you’d better hold a bucket under your face because this will have you salivating like a fat man at the buffet line!

Can’t Even Tell - The Art of Rhys McDonald
74 pages of wall to wall art, 38 full colour pages and 36 b&w. Collects various work from 2007-08, including sketches which have never seen the light of day, TPA comic strips of the highest (and crudest) calibre, pinups, robots, mexican wrestlers, girls….you get the idea. The book is perfect bound A5 size.

The comic will only set you back a coupla bucks and is well worth it if you have a sense of humour. If not, well - there’s always the art book. Availabubble to buy from the-plastic-age.com store.

L.

soup for all seasons launch

What: Launch of aduki’s second vegan cookbook, Soup for all Seaons by Las Vegan cooks Lia Vandersant and Liam Davies

When: Thursday 8 May @ 6.30pm

Where: Caz Reitop’s Dirty Secrets, 80 Smith Street, Collingwood

Vegan food and drinks provided

E.

emily maguire @ swf

I’m mentioning Emily Maguire here so anyone going to the Sydney Writers’ Festival will check out her panels. Seriously. You need to.

I read Princesses & Pronstars in (then-)steamy Adelaide recently. Yep, on my first night in town I said no to the pub, relaxed in air-conditioned comfort and read P&P cover to cover. I’ve since bought the book myself (high praise indeed for something that costs over $30 paperback, ahem) and barely know where to start in my praise of the writing and discussion of issues.

If you’re a woman of a certain age - say, my age and emily’s - this book will have you gasping ‘I know!’ and ‘yes! yes!’ - often. It’s basically a summation so many things I’ve ever thought about feminism, but much more articulate and (let’s face it) much more honest. I don’t agree with everything that Emily has said, but the book doesn’t demand that I do; it’s an honest and intelligent dialogue (it’s listed under ‘biography’ in Collins’ bookstores) rather than dogma.

It’s so hard to be excited about something without being a total nerdy fangirl, but Emily’s praises are worth singing. Her piece in The Sex Mook was awesome and her book expands on those thoughts times a million. You should read it, everyone should read it.

And go to her SWF panels! I would if I could.

L.

aduki book release

It’s launch day! Oh, You Beautiful Doll and other essays is officially unleased on the world today.

Details:

Oh, You Beautiful Doll and other essays
Paperback | ISBN 978-0-9803351-3-2 | RRP: $14 | 112 pp
Christina Louise Dicker, Sue Jackson, Simone Mackinnon, J.C. Nicholls

When engaging in a discussion about altruism it becomes clear that it is certainly a complicated subject. The four essays contained in this collection examine altruism from very different angles. One essay challenges the notion that reproduction and motherhood are innately selfless acts while another essay explores the author’s struggle with the concept of altruism. One goes into detail about certain altruistic people, with a look at the dark side of giving yourself over to others. And lastly, the title essay, examines the use of sex dolls and whether or not a damaged person’s behaviour can be altruistic if they remove themselves from influencing others. Much scientific research and human study has been conducted in this area however these essays come at the topic from a non-scientific perspective. The authors bring up as many questions as they answer. The writings are controversial, humbling, humorous, serious, hopeful and cynical and the perfect start to the task of bridging the gaps in our knowledge and the gaps in the conversation.

Buy your copy here. Locus readers can get a 25% discount by using this coupon code at the online shop checkout: locus

E.

indie books in the mail

In the last two weeks or so I ordered three books from different independent publishers online, and thought that it might be interesting to blog about them.

Strawberry Hills Forever, Vanessa Berry: Local Consumption Publications

I’ve been meaning to buy this book since I met Vanessa at the National Young Writer’s Festival last year, and Sticky had sold out when I asked about it last time I was in. The book is a collection of writings from Vanessa’s zines.

The LCP site is very pretty, with minimal information and some very cool ‘atmospherics’. They have two titles listed, and for a moment I hesitated about which to buy because they both look awesome, but went with Vanessa’s. To buy, the site has a downloadable order form or you can click through to paypal. LCP sent an email pretty much straight away confirming the order and the book arrived a few days later.

I love the old-fashioned wallpaper look of the cover, it’s very cute. The type is small and typesetting particularly attractive. With the book divided into sections with little zine-like drawings at the start of each one, I wanted to start reading immediately. I’m halfway through and it’s a fascinating read and surprisingly weighty (I guess I thought it would be a little lighter). Good stuff.

This book was $24.95 including postage which is a pretty typical price and well worth it. I would definitely buy more from LCP if this is representative of the quality of their list.

Swallow the Sound, Krissy Kneen: Eatbooks

Another book I’ve been meaning to buy for a while. The Eatbooks site is kinda functional and groovy-looking and is also home to an Eatbooks online journal. The buying is one-click, hit the paypal button and get directly transferred to that site. The book arrived in a few days and I was surprised by what a slim volume it is. It contains three stories, a foreword and an afterword. I can’t decide whether I like the cover or not, but it is very handsome.

The margins on the page are very wide and a little distracting, but the writing soon blocks out any intrusions. I was on the tram when I opened this and started reading immediately. It’s seriously good erotic writing.

Author Krissy Kneen and Christopher Currie are the publishers at Eatbooks, and I’ll be directing anyone who argues that self-publishing is daggy or badly-written to this book: its beautiful writing and polished presentation is very professional. Krissy also notes in her foreword that: “This is just the beginning. There will be more… Like Nin, I want to sell my fantasies to a select group of collectors.” A series of little books, yay - one of my favourite things.

This book cost $14.95 with $1 postage, which seems a little expensive given how small it is, but after reading Krissy’s words I do think it’s worth it. I would buy the next one, and would give one as a gift.

The Black Stone of Moto/The Argyle Star, Marlow: Pocket Book Publishing

I found these little books via this blog and have spoken about the publisher’s model here.

I’m not uptight about internet security but even I found the process of buying this book a bit intrusive. Rather than link directly to paypal, I was required to register for the Pocket Books site first, including giving compulsory personal details like phone number and date of birth - which seems like a bit of a palaver just to buy a single book. After registering with the site you get transferred to paypal after all. The order was confirmed by email quickly and arrived the quickest of the books, in two days.

My thoughts on the pocket book is that it’s unfortunately not very attractive, but of course that’s a matter of taste. My understanding is that each book will have the same design but different title so they’ll all match; something prettier would feel more collectable. Also, it seems a bit lazy to have all the books completely identical. The book does, however, have two stories opening up on different sides, a snazzy feature that I’m very much into.

The stories are genre fic of the adventure-romance ilk, something I’d probably flick through if I was on a tram or stuck somewhere. I’ve not read it yet so I can’t comment on the quality of story. Both stories were written by ‘Marlow’, but credit wasn’t given on the front of the book or the imprint page, but printed on the title page.

The cost was $12 including postage which is an ok price, though I probably wouldn’t buy another one because of its look and because genre fic short stories aren’t really my bag.

L.

falcon vs monkey

There’s a new fiction offering out - Torpedo, out under the imprint Falcon vs Monkey.

Available online only, 50% of the $20 cover price goes towards paying the contributors, which is an ace idea for a small press. It means that the amount contributors get paid would be theoretically limitless! But mainly I bet the contributors feel that they have an active role in the publication, because if they promote it and get it out they will get paid more. It also makes the author payment process transparent to buyers.

Anyway, Torpedo. The spiel:

Volume One features fiction from Jim Shepard, Aniruddha Bahal, Clancy Martin, Josephine Rowe, Jon Bauer, Amelia Walker, Ronnie Scott, Chris Flynn, Ruby Murray, Luke May, Neil Boyack and Bryce Wolfgang Joiner. Illustrations by Eirian Chapman, Pat Dalton & Tim Molloy.
A wraparound cover by Chris Ede! Buy it now in the FvM store. $20.

I haven’t seen one yet but I’ve heard it’s a great-looking publications.

There’s a little note at the bottom of their site to ‘watch out for other curious publications’… I’m intrigued.

L.

acquired reading

In the past month or so I’ve acquired a goodly amount of reading materials, even more than normal. Zine fairs and launch party madness weeks are good like that. I was going to do a round-up of the last month’s purchases but the task is just too massive. So here is the reading matter I acquired in the last week:

The Lifted Brow
I’ve heard great things about these guys and they are a lovely bunch, too. I haven’t read it yet but I can’t wait to dip in. It looks hot (I love text-based design) and it comes with a cd of music. I’m listening to it now and it sounds good. I love that the mag has a recipe for dahl, I’m hoping I’ll be finally able to lift my own attempts from ‘grey muck’ to ‘tasty soup’. A steal at $15.

Happy Family
A ‘boring ass literary supplement’ that is actually not boring at all. And while any zine - or ‘magazine sampler’ as it’s titled - with a story called Dildo Story will automatically become a firm favourite of mine, the writing is good and there is nice drawings and even a joke (one). There is also a Medical Dissection Diary Entry that is equal parts gross and fascinating. The author described himself to me as ’surly’ at one stage at TINA; I think ’slightly odd in a very nice way’ would be more apt. $5 cheap and very much worth the effort. (No website unfortunately but you can email Happy Family Publishing at the above email address.)

Nanoworks
This is the anthology put together in 3 days at the NYWF in Newcastle on the weekend, a fact that escaped me until just then, when I was cruising The Program. I went to Open Office a few times to make zines but they always seemed to be shut, or shutting… such is life. It’s an entertaining read and a great idea, a nice memento from a busy festival. It was free and I don’t think it’s available anywhere, unless the nice people at Voiceworks have saved a few copies.

Manic Times
Despite the fact that the Manic Times event held at TINA was a massive, stinky sweatbox that I didn’t attend due to aforementioned smell and heat, I like the Manic Times. It’s my kinda reading and it’s nice to have an ‘alternate view’ that’s so accessible. Not sure where/how it’s getting distro’d but it’s a steal at $3, though I do wonder if it’s quirky content would appeal enough for me to buy it every week… after all, isn’t that what the internerd is for? Cruising the site just now, I notice that you can subscribe and that in doing so… ‘you’ll receive free access to special subscriber-only parts of the Manic Times website, including the ability to download a PDF of the entire edition each week. That’s a $19,000 value! Free!’ Is this for real (one never can tell)? What’s the value in being able to download a full pdf if you’re getting the paper copy in the mail? Why not make a seperate ‘online only’ subscription to save paper for those people that are just subscribing to get the pdf? *cough* Anyway… do check it out.

mother [has words]
A Perth zine, with messy pop-inspired style illustration that I like (after all, Vignette and Kill Design have been having a visual affair for some time now)… but in places I find it too messy to understand. This from a person who often skips over too-heavily-italicised text (more than two sentences and I go a bit cross-eyed), mind you… you may find it easily digestible. It’s a mish-mash of words and interviews and pictures and some other stuff. It also comes with a recipe - for ’sticking stuff to things’ and a quite-random crossword. I have no idea how much it costs because I traded.

aim to Disappoint
As I think I mentioned earlier, this was my favourite grab from the TINA zine fair. I’m not really into comics but this one got me. I started with a simple flick-through in the festival club and ended up reading the whole thing through from cover to cover and guffawing a-plenty. It looks great too (oooh, glossy cover) and even has a LIST. Few things excite me more than a well-executed list. Its author (is that the right word for a comic artist?) seems like a great guy too. I highly recommend it. $6 from The Plastic Age. At the very least check out the site. Go on.

Ghoti Intro
Another comic! But one that I feel may be too geek for me. At any rate, it has an alien doing the finger sign which made me snigger lots. It’s a compilation of a few different artists from what I can gather and I reckon it’d be worth checking out if you’re into that kinda thing, especially as it’s free. It was given to me by a lovely guy with a t-shirt that I really dug, and that’s a sterling recommendation if I’ve ever heard one. Their web address isn’t working as far as I can tell, or maybe it’s just me. It looks like www.ghotidz.com or www.ghotids.com on the back cover if you’d like to investigate. (I did find this pic while I was looking though. A rooster on a goat, geddit? Lolz.)

Things a Killer Would Know
Paula Doneman’s look at serial killer Leonard Fraser. Not very well written (gushing cliches abound on every page) but I do like a bit of true crime, me. I bought this as a bit of light reading on the way home from TINA. ‘For him, rape, sodomy and murder were like making a cup of coffee - easy, natural and addictive.’ With blurb copy like that, how could one resist?

T-world: the journal of t-shirt culture
I got given two issues of this particular gem by its creator. Now, I’m no sneaker freaker-style t-shirt addict but seeing as they pretty much form the basis of my whole wardrobe I was interested in having a flick through. And it looks awesome. Colourful, excellent design (seriously, hot) and more t-shirt fashion than you could poke a pair of pants at. Makes me want to upgrade my look from ‘plain tees that cost under $10′ to ’something more hip’. And someone in one of the mags called Bape some kind of pretentious moron. Now, I think Bape has nice t-shirts and I have a particular friend who looks hot in Bape, but I say no to a world where a t-shirt can cost several hundred dollars. The brains behind T-world is Melbourne-based and a lovely guy. Another steal at $15.

Also, I won’t review them but I got a copy of The Monthly and the VWC Newsletter in the mail. Rock on.

L.

a mook is a mook

The mook arrived!

It’s weird… this thing that I’ve been working on and dreaming about and fretting over is here. Right here, in my living room. Ok, and in the garage. And it looks kinda different to what I thought it would.

I thought it would look a little more magaziney, but the 152 pages put paid to that - it’s much more book-like than mag-like. Which totally makes sense but… you know when you just have a picture in your head? So that was odd. But it’s TOTALLY A MOOK. Book-like in its construct and magazine-like (but better) in its content… it’s a strange, weird hybrid thing. And it’s awesome. Sexy, even.

Sneak preview:

The arrival of the mook wasn’t the great dance-around-the-garage event that I expected it was going to be. I really, really, really wanted the mook back in time to take a few advance copies up to TINA but due to a stuff-up with the proofs that looked a little in jeopardy. Basically, the proofs came back and all looked fine until about page 129-131 - which were repeated a few pages later. Not cool. I freaked, calmed down, got Jason to check out his files, which were fine. Printer error. It all got sorted and I spent the next week on tenterhooks about the mook actually arriving on time.

So when I got the call that the van was on its way I was relieved, and I raced home on my bike to find the delivery guy already in my driveway. But I had proofs of Mini Shots to check while he was unloading and it was only after he went that I slit open a box and pulled out a mook. Very weird feeling - I could barely even look at it. I didn’t do my customary new-book sniffing. I just kinda thought, ‘oh, well that’s that then,’ and grabbed a copy to post to a journo who needs one asap. The elation, my friends, was not there.

And then my dad called to tell me that my dog died.

And then I went back into the garage (very good at avoidance, me) and finally flicked through a copy. The inside looks incredible, and perfect and wonderful. The outside doesn’t look exactly how I expected. It looks HOT but different… I don’t know, maybe I expected some kind of holy light to shine out of the boxes, or the person on the front to be doing a little animated dance or something. I have been working incredibly hard on this, after all… With all these conflicting emotions I spent last night studiously avoiding going anywhere near the mook.

I woke up this morning and it was a little bit like Christmas - the mook is here! And now I’m sitting here looking at it… and loving it. Talk about a delayed reaction. It’s not perfect, sure, but it was never going to be. As the blurb says, ‘this collection is rough. And more than a little bit messy…’

Go mook!

L.