Book news

1. Twilight : The world's richest bloody franchise
   Have you been bitten? If you're over 20, or happen to own a Y chromosome, the answer is probably not. But if you talked to a teenage girl at the weekend, or stepped into the crowded foyer of a cinema, you'll almost certainly have...
2. 'Origin Of Species' found in toilet
   A first edition of Charles Darwin's groundbreaking 'Origin Of Species', which languished for years in a toilet in Britain, will go under the hammer this week, on the 150th anniversary of the book's publication.Christie's auction...
3. Just for laughs
   Jenny Colgan failed at quite a few things before she succeeded at being a novelist. In her quest to find a career that suited her she was an unenthusiastic office worker, a cartoonist who couldn't draw and a really bad comedian."People...
4. Slow down kids, says ultramarathoner Tamati
   Kiwi ultramarathoner Lisa Tamati, now more than half way through her eipc run, says she's now well into the rhythm of daily long-haul running. The New Plymouth woman is running 2,200km in 33 days - the equivalent of 52 marathons,...
5. Novel look at lives of artistic legends
   Successfully fictionalising legendary people isn't easy. Their lives are often extensively charted in memoirs and biographies. They've had films and documentaries made about them. Their existences, relationships and works have been...
6. Kerre Woodham : Twi-ed hard, but romance this is not
   Maybe it's an occupational hazard. Maybe after 10 years of column-writing and 12 years of talk radio, it's only natural you become a dyspeptic curmudgeon.While you're standing on the footpath, waving your stick and ranting at...
7. Four elements for charity
   Mark Ellingham (Profile) and Peter Florence (Hay Festival) have compiled four collections of short stories under the title Ox-Tales to raise money for and draw attention to the work of Oxfam. Thirty-eight British and Irish-based...
8. Shady tale demands much of the living
   It's no surprise that a book that asks us to believe in ghosts and the afterlife snags on the delicate matter of implausibility. Funnily enough, though, it's not the spooks that challenge our powers to suspend disbelief: it's...
9. Travelling to take musical pulse of America
   It seems appropriate to meet Garth Cartwright in a pub near Tin Pan Alley, London's musical instrument district where aspiring rockers have long ventured to buy guitars or drums.Just as bands like the Rolling Stones and the Kinks...
10. Plagiarism only a minor offence, says university
    Auckland University has defended its handling of the Witi Ihimaera plagiarism row, saying it was a relatively small offence.Vice-chancellor Stuart McCutcheon told all students and staff in an email yesterday that much of the public...
11. Michele Hewitson Interview: Sam Hunt
    Sam Hunt writes in his new book, Backroads, that even as an 8-year-old boy, "I always imagined I would live as a poet".When we arrive at his house, on the edge of the Kaipara Harbour, the poet is standing barefoot, in the wind,...
12. Reviewer claims more plagiarism in Ihimaera novel
    The reviewer who detected author Witi Ihimaera's plagiarism thinks the author should re-write the book. Listener reviewer Jolisa Gracewood, who discovered the unattributed material in Ihimaera's novel The Trowenna Sea , said...
13. Plagiarists 'like drug cheats'
    A doyen of New Zealand literature has compared plagiarism to drug cheating in sport because of the unfair advantage it gives over contemporaries.Award-winning author and poet Vincent O'Sullivan, an emeritus professor of English...
14. Twlight: Opening day review and viewer reaction
    Fans of the Twilight saga will not be let down by the adaptation of Stephanie Meyer's second book, New Moon.Awash with vampire vs werewolf action, romance and heartbreak with some awkward displays of teenage sexual tension thrown...
15. Author wept over Vintner's Luck film
    The Vintner's Luck author Elizabeth Knox is upset by Niki Caro's film adaptation of her acclaimed book.Knox, who said she lay in bed and cried for days after seeing the film, is shocked at how much it departed from her story.The...
16. Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
    The adaptation of the sixth book in J.K. Rowling's seven-strong Potter series doesn't let us down. Stunning special effects, performances by a who's who of British acting talent, eccentric new characters, lots of action, plenty...
17. Ihimaera row should be taken seriously - CK Stead
    One of New Zealand's most respected authors has criticised Auckland University for minimising the seriousness of the Witi Ihimaera plagiarism controversy.Ihimaera admitted tracts of his latest novel, The Trowenna Sea , had drawn...
18. A monster project
    Usually the problem with book-to-film adaptations is fitting it all in or knowing what to leave out. Not this time. Maurice Sendak's 1963 classic beloved children's picture book Where the Wild Things Are runs to just 338 words.At...
19. New Moon on the rise
    August 2009: A cinema full of American fans shrieks as a long-haired, dark-skinned, sculpted young man peels off his shirt to blot the blood from Bella's head. They stare into each other's eyes, and lean in."Don't do it!" cries...
20. Cartoon : Come to think of it...
    

Copyright 2009 APN HOLDINGS NZ
Updated at 7:00pm, 24 November 2009