cread | read & see

The Man Booker Prize is one of the world's most important literary awards, with a very straight forward goal– to honour the very best book of the year by a British, Irish or Commonwealth author. Beginning in 1969, the Man Booker Prize is now in its 44th year and today the shortlist of six books was announced, cutting in half the longlist announced in July. The panel of judges is chaired by Peter Stothard, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement, the six authors/titles to be shortlisted are: Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books)
 Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber) Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (Fourth Estate)
 Alison Moore, The Lighthouse (Salt) Will Self, Umbrella (Bloomsbury)
 Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis (Faber & Faber) Check out an examination of the shortlisted books Peter Stothard commented: “After re-reading an extraordinary longlist of twelve, it was the pure power of prose that settled most debates

A new Bryce Courtenay novel and writing masterclass have taken special significance after the celebrated author's revelation last week that he may only have months to live. The South African born Australian made public the news that he is suffering from terminal gastric cancer  in an interview with Channel 9's A Current Affair . Courtenay told Tracy Grimshaw that his novel Jack of Diamonds – to be released in November this year – will be his last. He also discussed the impact of his prognosis on his own state of mind and that of his family. The sometimes controversial Courtenay has written 21 books in his impressive career, but when asked what he was most proud of his answer was “having a family.” He also gave some insight into his writing and critics' claims he had not always been straight-forward with the facts of his own life. “...you bet I exaggerate!... I do a Fred Astaire with a fact, but I never ruin a fact... I just give it life.” The last hands-on masterc

The Brisbane Writers Festival got off to a controversial start with guest speaker Germaine Greer saying that, “The ABS reports that 47 per cent of Queenslanders cannot read a newspaper, follow a recipe, make sense of time tables or understand instructions on a medicine bottle.” She argued that a "good time" could not be had at a writers festival with such statistics being an underlying truth. Apparently Greer misrepresented the ABS' findings - according to State Library of Queensland representative Jane Cowell. But she certainly got the job done of getting BWF on the national agenda, if briefly, by being the "provocative discussion-starter" that the festival's director Jane O'Hara had wanted. Greer's comments have, not surprisingly, upset a lot of people (mainly Queenslanders), but there is a serious side. Concerns have been raised that her comments only deepen the shame for people who do have literacy problems. Author Nick Earls, however, wh

Forty nine leading British writer have written to The Daily Telegraph in London condemning the proliferation of false book reviews. This follows revelations that several authors, the most recent being award-winning crime writer RJ Ellory, have posted flattering reviews of their own work while criticisng the work of other authors. The group, including bestselling writers Ian Rankin, Lee Child, Karin Slaughter, Val McDermid and Helen FitzGerald, say widespread use of “fake identities” was causing untold damage to the publishing world. They urge the reading public to "take possession" of the online review process with free and honest reviews that will drown out "phoney voices". The online review capacity of sites such as Amazon has suffered a credibility issue in the past with the widespread practise of authors and publishers purchasing positive reviews. One example was American Todd Rutherford's now defunct gettingbookreviews.com where he offered 50 po

Welcome back to Creaview, as we take a look at the weekend's book reviews from major publications across the globe. This week we'll drop in on the book sections of The Washington Post , Christianity Today and The Canberra Times . 500 Days by Kurt Eichenwald was reviewed by Dina Temple-Raston of The Washington Post . The book looks at the Bush administration's handling of the 18 months following September 11, 2001. Temple-Raston thought most of what the book covered was familiar ground, but she was won over and 500 Days compelling due to Eichenwald's “journalistic attention to detail.” The Book of Mormon Girl: A Memoir of an American Faith by Joanna Brooks was reviewed by John G Turner of the Post , who simply summarises the book, an autobiography by Morman Joanna Brook. Turner gives little indication as to his thoughts regarding the content or the quality of the book until the conclusion of his review: “Brooks’s sprightly yet thoughtful prose, her carefully con

As Australia mourns the loss of five defence force personnel in Afghanistan, it feels almost irreverent to join the discussion about a former US Navy Seal's book about the killing of bin Laden. Our collective grief is much closer to home. But the author Matt Bissonnette (briefly known by the pseudonym Mark Owens) is adamant he chose to write the book No Easy Day to remember the fallen of 9/11. The war in Afghanistan is almost a direct consequence and there are many fallen there too. The book is top of Amazon's best-seller list well before its hardcover release on September 4 and paperback release on September 7. Author wears disguise for 60 Minutes interview In a US 60 Minutes interview to be screened on September 11 (portion above), Bissonnette was disguised by Hollywood make-up artists to conceal his identity, although CBS said he had been willing to appear without disguise. Now that his name and identity have been revealed - first by Fox News - the disguise is a waste

After participating in one of the biggest celebratory events in recent history, you can't blame Pippa Middleton for riding a Royal wave and releasing a book on events and celebrations. Celebrate: A Year of Festivities for Families is to be published by Penguin's Michael Joseph imprint on October 30 but is already available for on-line pre-order . Penguin describe Celebrate as "a useful, practical and inspiring journey into British-themed occasions, focusing on tradition and ritual and the importance of bringing friends and family together." Imprint Michael Joseph is known for handling Penguin's "highly commercial" authors and books and there are reports that Middleton negotiated a six figure sum for the book. And in defence of the claim that she is cashing in on her royal connections, her family does run a party business, Party Pieces , and the 28-year-old is reported to have delayed the release of the book to avoid the Queen's Jubilee cel

New media, in the hand of entrepreneurial tech-savvy individuals, is finding its way into every avenue of life and reading is no exception. ReadCloud was founded in 2009 by Jeremy LeBard and is “the world's first social eReading software.” It recently signed with publisher, Macmillan, lifting its tally of eBooks to 75,000. It offers three products globally: Social eReading software for schools and book clubs which allows for sharing of annotations directly inside eBooks as well as easy distribution of eBooks to school laptops and tablets A white-label eBooks platform with tablet applications allowing physical bookstores to hacve their own digital bookstore selling eBooks from major international and Australian publishers. Course material encryption and distribution for corporate training and university course notes. The social platform syncs all connected ReadCloud apps (PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android) such as within an educational institution, to the cloud – internet data

Just in time for late night shopping, Cread is entering the books for Father's Day fray with its very own list of top gift ideas. Tall tales at number 8: every dad secretly wants to be a bushranger, at least for a few minutes while queueing for the bus in the morning. So what better book to read than Wild Colonial Boys by Geoff Hocking from The Five Mile Press.  Promising a bold and exciting look at Australian bushrangers, dads will not only release their inner bushranger but learn a bit of Australian history, all for under $30. Buy here. Number 7 with a touch of heaven: It might seem a bit grim for Father's Day but actually Jim Stynes' My Journey is a celebration of making the most of every moment of life. Including Jim's touching revelations of how much he loved the simple moments playing with his kids, it will do every dad's heart good - and remind them how lucky they are. There's a fair bit of footy going on as well, so that's a bonus. My Journ

With nearly half the Australian population struggling with basic literacy for every day life, 2012 has been declared a National Year of Reading by Australia's libraries and library associations. They are promoting all things books and reading-related in 2012 with programs and events taking place across the country and online with the aim of helping people discover or rediscover the joy of reading. In the spirit of National Year of Reading 2012, here's a look at some of the activities going on in the near future. Reading and counting It is Literacy and Numeracy week, and nationwide events include: Read for Australia – which occurred today at 2pm - a synchronised national reading of Aaron Blabey's Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley; The Dorothea McKellar Poetry Awards, the winners of which will be announced at Gunnedah in NSW on August 31. Feast of festivals Turning the page, other events in the NYOR12 include the Melbourne Writers Festival which continues this week. Mo

Impoverished pop-fiction with "flat characters" such as in Fifty Shade of Grey was cheating young women of a dignified view of themselves, according to the author of a new book, Unseduced and Unshaken: The Place of Dignity in a Young Woman's Choices . Dr Rosalie de Rosset says the success of books like Fifty Shades and the Twilight series represents a frustrating trend among today’s women, but she is no less complimentary of Christian writing. Of the vast array of Christian books targetting women, Dr de Rosset says much of it consists of "Jesus fixes everything” scenarios that do not reflect anything like the complexity and depth of real life. “They are not well written and they are not theological.” she says.  Dr de Rosset is a Professor of Literature, English and Homiletics with a 42-year connection with Moody Bible Institute and a PhD in Language, Literacy, and Rhetoric from The University of Illinois,  Chicago. In an interview published on the Chr

The Melbourne Writers Festival is nearly through its first weekend and already the inspiration, ideas and social media praise are flowing freely. Cread, sadly not at the Festival in the flesh, is like many others following by social media. Here's a Storify wrap-up of what's happened in the first few days... Presumably the tweets and posts will be highly literary. [ View the story "Melbourne Writers Festival" on Storify ] Melbourne Writers Festival Check out the social media buzz so far from MWF - featuring a selection of the world's best novelists, playwrights, poets, screenwriters, journalists, songwriters, bloggers – anyone who's part of the world of words. The 27th Melbourne Writers Festival runs from August 23 to September 2. Storified by Cread · Sun, Aug 26 2012 02:57:03 Cheers #mwf opening night. http://instagr.am/p/Ov1p3YOd_W/Bronwen Clune At Melbourne writers festival to see Rober Forster @ Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) http:

"As long as there are history books, Neil Armstrong will be included in them, remembered for taking humankind's first small step on a world beyond our own." NASA chief Charles Bolden on the death of Neil Armstrong. Neil Armstrong has taken another giant leap into a world beyond this, but we'll have to wait for our turn to see what he discovers. Not so with his other small step/giant leap - his Apollo 11 moon landing on July 20, 1969 - which was broadcast live around the world and has been chronicle in hundreds of books ever since. Like many Australian families, my parents owned an Apollo 11 photo book which I recall reading again and again in the early 70s. It was a large format photo book, with brief accounts of each phase of the Apollo mission including the moon landing. My next mission will be to see if we still own the book! In the meantime, the somewhat reclusive Armstrong authorised only one biography, First Man: The Life of Neil A Armstrong , written by

I began reading Thomas Keneally's The Daughters of Mars while travelling in Europe, a deliberate plan to bring alive both the landscape and text. In a very Australian way, this is one of the attractions of the many world war books that we consume - they reflect back to us the experiences our parents and grandparents and our own pilgrimages to those distant shores. Just as sisters Sally and Naomi Durance walk the narrow streets of Rouen, wondering at the cathedral and the place where Joan was martyred, or travel to Paris through Gare du Nord, or feel afraid in Amiens, so too countless Australians will be instantly drawn back to their own moments in these locations. And all the more along the shores of Gallipoli where the sisters from the Macleay Valley, NSW, begin their WWI nursing services on the hospital ship Archimedes. It's not just a tourist's "I've been there", it's more the feeling that we share a common legacy and longing in these far-from-ho

On Tuesday, November 28, 1786 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge presented the First Fleet chaplain, Rev Richard Johnson, with about 4000 books and tracts, effectively establishing the first library on Australian shores. It's unclear what the original Australians would have made of this collection of white pages and humans, with their very different approach to collating knowledge and ideas. Now the story has come full circle (some painful detours along the way) with the biography of an Aboriginal leader winning the 2012 Australian Christian Book of the Year, presented this month by SPCKA at the Australian Christian Literature Awards in Melbourne. Murray Seiffert's Gumbuli of Ngukurr: Aboriginal elder in Arnhem Land ( Acorn Press ) was announced the winner ahead of 40 titles and was joined by runner-up A Short History of Christianity ( Viking-Penguin ) by Geoffrey Blainey and third placed Love, Tears and Autism: An Australian mother's journey from heart

At Cread we are just getting started in our attempt to be a lively, accessible and interesting website about everything books and reading. Our latest addition is a slight nod to that other medium, video. On our page Creadeo (sorry, we cant help ourselves squeezing every last drop from the whole play on words thing) you'll find regularly updated, bookish videos - author interview, book readings, literary lunches and the like. First up, Samantha Shannon who is being touted, prematurely she feels, as the next JK Rowlings. See what she has to say and what she likes to read

It's book launchin' season - books are being launched willy-nilly with Father's Day closing in and Christmas only 123 sleeps away - so here's a few to look out for. MasterChef 2011 contestant Billy Law has – would you believe – written a cookbook. Have You Eaten? will hit book stores on September 1. Billy is a food-blogger at atablefortwo.com, where he details a competition and a couple of events surrounding the book's launch. Check it out at A Table for Two . Mistaken Identity: The Trials of Joe Windred by Stephen Dando-Collins launches tomorrow. The book details the adventures of bush identity Joe Windred, from twice being mistaken for a bushranger to becoming Orange City mayor while technically still a fugitive from American justice. The book is being launched at Orange Library tomorrow . Herman and Rosie by Gus Gordon became available yesterday. “Set in New York, this gorgeous picture book by Gus Gordon is a story about friendship, life in the big city,