cread | read & see

The Very Hungry Caterpillar author Eric Carle will release his 68th book, Friends , later this year and The Huffington Post is reporting an exclusive look at the cover.  Meanwhile, Eric Carle's colourful and sprightly blog continues to feature his current book, The Artist Who Painted A Blue Horse, which is "an homage to the Expressionist painter Franz Marc. In WW11 Germany, my high school teacher Herr Krauss introduced me to abstract and Expressionist art during a time when works such as these had been banned. he so-called “degenerate art,” paintings of modern and expressionistic art my teacher showed me were unlike anything I had been exposed to before. And really this experience changed my life, though I didn't know it at the time." Regarding the upcoming book, Friends, by the 83-year-old author, a Penguin media statement says it is about: "...the love that binds people and the obstacles they will overcome in order to be together... Friends dates bac

'Jane Austen was my first experience of grown-up literature. But as I read and re-read her books, I began to become aware that if I’d been living at the time, I wouldn’t have got to go to the ball; I would have been stuck at home with the sewing. Just a few generations back, my family were in service. Aware of that English class thing, Pride and Prejudice begins to read a little differently.' Author Jo Baker explains her motivation for writing Longbourn* , a novel  to be published later this year that tells Pride and Prejudice from the servants point of view, giving it a resonance with Downtown Abbey 'While Longbourn brings to life a different side of the world Austen first created, I was impressed even more by the way this novel stands as a transporting, fully realised work of fiction in its own right,' Diane Coglianese, an editor at publisher Alfred K Knopf, said in a statement. Alfred A. Knopf is the flagship imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing G

The opening chapter of Forged With Flames seems as timeless as our continent's contention with bushfire and as immediate as this summer's smoky ruins. It doesn't matter that it tells the events of Ash Wednesday, 1983, because it could be happening to someone, somewhere - today. I read this chapter in the midst of a busy day and at the end had to take a few moments to collect myself. Ann Fogarty, with the assistance of Anne Crawford, tells what happens when "a massive fireball" leaping ahead of a raging bushfire heads straight toward her and her children. I could see an entire movie being made from this one chapter. Perhaps it is the kind of telling only possible so many years later and that is true of much of the rest of the book which is intensely personal and would not be easy to write without the passing of time. It is a well-written book that ensures not only the compelling action scenes, but also the ebb and flow of an entire life, are engaging an

"This is indeed a work of fiction, and more so than usual." So begins an 'Author's Note' at the end of John Grisham's latest bestseller, The Racketeer . Grisham goes on to say that 'Research, hardly a priority, was rarely called upon. Accuracy was not deemed crucial. Long paragraphs of fiction were used to avoid looking up facts." It's an unusual dsiclaimer for a writer of fiction - surely we expect them to make things up - and it is hard to tell if it is an attempt to distant the book from any accidental brushes with reality or a sign of a tiring author. Grisham has made his name with tightly written, believable legal fiction which poses possible or even probable legal twists, corruptions, disasters and mysteries. The Racketeer is in the same vein and will be enjoyed by fans, although probably not as much as some of his better books, such as The Runaway Jury . Grisham spends a lot of time building the character of small-town, black la

Er Ist Wieder Da ( He's Back ) - a comedy about Adolf Hitler returning to Berlin in the summer of 2011 - is topping bestseller lists but creating controversy in Germany and soon the world no doubt with translations coming in more than 15 languages. Author Timur Vermes, defending his book against criticism that Germans too often absolve themselves by blaming Hitler for everything, says this is why he wrote the book. "Often, we tell ourselves that if a new Hitler came along, it would be easy to stop him. I tried to show the opposite – that even today, Hitler might be successful. Just in a different way.” "To present him as a monster is to call those who voted for him idiots. And that reassures us. We tell ourselves that today we are smarter. We would never elect a monster or a clown. But at the time, people where just as smart as us – this is what is so painful." Many Germans, including book critics, are enjoying the humour of Er Ist Wieder Da . "This

When Stephen King became aware his early book Rage , about a school shooting, may have become an 'accelerant' for copycat crimes, he demanded his publisher remove it from sale. It is as just as well he has that story of righteous action to draw on otherwise his fiction laced with horror and violence may be seen by some as discrediting his just released Kindle Single, Guns . Described by The Washington Post as a 'passionate call for greater gun control' Guns is a fascinating entry into the US gun control debate by one of the world's most popular author and in an innovative new form of publishing. The idea of 'singles' being short stories or in this case, an essay, that can be read in one sitting is making a comeback thanks to digital publishing. That King could release so quickly a 'book' length response to a current issue and for just 99c is one of the first main stream examples of how the changing face of writing and publishing might impact

The reason I have found first Wolf Hall and then Bring Up The Bodies so compelling is that I really like Thomas Cromwell. That's not the only reason, of course. There's also the 'speaking picture' of Mantel's text, transporting readers to Henry VIII's Tudor England so completely that to read almost any other novel in close proximity is to feel you have been reduced to the Sunday comics. But from the moment we are introduced to Thomas, the brawling, suffering blacksmith's son, we come to believe in his intrinsic goodness and more, his undefeatable strength. Perhaps he is the superman of literary historical fiction, a character we find comfort in because what ever happens, he will keep evil from his door. Of course, evil closes in during Wolf Hall with the death of his beloved wife and daughters but still he runs a cheery house of wit and curiosity. He still seems the better person, even when he allows himself to sacrifice further lives in his quest