This has been a book worth waiting for.

One of the first true rock and roll wives has held onto her story until now, and finally gives us a glimpse into the magic and mayhem of surviving the 60’s, rock & roll and extraordinary marriages.

Being a Beatle nerd, I knew the basics before reading Wonderful Today by Pattie Boyd. I knew she was a model who met and married George Harrison (he of Beatle fame), and consequentially fell for and married his friend Eric Clapton. Somehow she survived the Beatlemania, Clapton’s addiction problems and came out the other end. Much has been made of this story, however not a lot has been told from her point of view. Wonderful Today focuses on that. Boyd is given a chance to voice her experiences and manages to keep the dirt and tabloid style gossip out of her recollections. It would be easy to do an expose on behind the scenes details, and dramatise her divorces and nervous breakdown, but all is kept on a sensible and classy level- much respect for that.

This book is a great collection of memories and experiences. It makes for great reading through the highs and lows, and finishes on a heartwarming note.

After a number of customer requests, we have now launched pre-ordering on selected upcoming big release titles.  Customers will now be able to place an order well in advance of the release of a title. We are initially only offering this on a small range of titles, but are working on expanding this out to eventually cover thousands of new releases.

The first two big titles that are available for pre-ordering are:

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

I think this is the big one for 2008. The first release from J.K. Rowling since the last Harry Potter, we expect this to trump most other releases. This is a book referred to in the Harry Potter series and comprises five fairy tales. Release date is the 4th of December, making this an easy Christmas gift for any Harry Potter fan.

Inheritance #3: Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

This one is going to be interesting. I got a call the other day from a marketing person at the publisher of this title, who enthusiastically told me this was going to be the biggest release since Harry Potter. I’m always a tad sceptical when wild statements like this are presented, but I do think there is a large following of the Eragon series that will be eagerly anticipating the release of this title, the third installment in the series.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, this is a huge fantasy series with a film-tie in, written by Christopher Paolini, who is only 24 years of age. The first two books have been big movers: Eragon and Eldest. Release date is just over a month away.

A friend asked me ‘What was the most interesting book you have read in the past year?’

The past year was a big one in regards to books. I had been living in London, engaging in European travels, recording various notes to myself eg, ‘Iceland in early spring- take more than one jumper, what were you thinking?’, and racing through two books a week. How much of my budget went into the buying of books and the mailing of books home to Sydney does not bare thinking about. I break into a sweat trying to figure out a ballpark figure.

However, one book stuck in my mind for months after reading it, and I still find myself thinking about it. Escape by Carolyn Jessop is a true story about life in the polygamous sect of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS), and her lucky escape.

I have always been interested in stories behind such sects and cults. I suppose it is the psychology and effects of brainwashing vulnerable people that fascinates me (from a distance, mind you). I was aware that the FLDS existed but I didn’t know many details beside the fact that they were ‘one of those weird polygamous communities somewhere in America’. I didn’t think they were as extreme as I found out.

So imagine this: You are raised in a community where men are viewed as Gods, that the duty of a woman is to serve her husband (and thus serve God), that to obtain the highest level in heaven a man must have as many wives as possible who give him as many children as possible- and in the background a constant fear of the evil, outside world. Members of this community strive towards this ideal of a large family working towards God and salvation but the reality is strikingly different. This is a community filled with fear, abuse, underage marriage, lack of education and daily survival in conditions of extreme poverty.

Carolyn Jessop found herself at 18, married to one of the most powerful men in the cult and her story is an amazing and honest account of her life in this hidden community. It is hard to believe that this can happen in modern day America. I can’t do the impact of this book justice in a simple review. If you need a book that gets you thinking, that lets you look into a different world, let it be this one.

Claiming flashbacks to school exams, I’ve delayed reading The Scarlet Letter this week and spent most of my spare time cooking. Well, they don’t call me the Queen of Procrastination for nothing.

(Actually they don’t call me that at all- the most I’ve been able to conjure up for myself has been a tie between ‘Hey You’ and ‘Do You Know The Time?’)

Anyway, I like cooking. Let’s talk about cookbooks.

Being winter I’ve spent most of my time cooking homely, comforting meals like stews, soups and buttery cakes. The stews and soups have been immensely delicious and warming. The buttery cakes I blame on my recent blood test results that showed my cholesterol was brilliant and obviously giving me a license leap head first into my favourite food group: Baked Goods.

I’ve found the following cookbooks to be reliable in the above departments:

Jamie’s Dinners, Jamie Oliver- Great for family cooking, even better for the Pesto recipe which goes with everything. I have used it for flavour in soups, I’ve put it on roasted veg, I’ve had it on plain toast. I cannot fault this one.

The Return of the Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver- I love Jamie, I’m happy to admit it. I’ve even converted staunch non-foodies into fans with his recipes. The tried and tested in this one is his Chocolate Twister Bread. It’s even better than it sounds, especially straight from the oven.  Especially with marshmallows. No, no, don’t lose me here. Give it a chance.

Everyday, Bill Granger- When you want simple comfort food without the heaviness, Bill always has the answer. His delicious Tomato and Lentil Soup is easy, delish and makes enough that you can freeze the rest for later in the week. Ahh, cooking in batches. Eating the same meal for a month. Simple pleasures.

Apples For Jam, Tessa Kiros- I was really surprised by the recipe for Honey Cake in this book. I only picked it up for a casual read- the book is a feast in itself. When I saw this recipe I couldn’t not make it. It’s a traditional honey cake, with cinnamon and rosemary. Try it, you’ll be surprised.

How To Be a Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson- I’m going to recommend the entire book. Even recipes I haven’t tried. This is the best book for baking, it hasn’t failed me yet and it will turn you into a domestic goddess. Even if you’re of the male persuasion.

And now, back to the kitchen.

Without a huge amount of fanfare and pomp, the paperback editions of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (the final installment of the Harry Potter series) have been released.

Seeing the familiar red and black covers again (as with the hardback editions, the paperbacks have been issued in separate Children’s and Adult versions) took me back to July of last year, when our whole team at The Nile was consumed by the massive publicity and logistics effort for the hardback release.  Good times!

The scale of this promotional effort was huge, and it turned out to be a massive learning curve. I must admit, I felt more than a tinge of giddiness when we signed the embargo agreement with the publisher that allowed us to take on the advance stock for the global release day on 21 July.  The books arrived in special Harry Potter boxes sealed with tamper-proof red tape.  They could not be opened until exactly 9.30am on the release day, and prior to that we had to store them in a secure room.

Millions around the world were itching to discover the ultimate fate of beloved characters Harry, Ron and Hermione.  It felt like we were sitting on gold!

All hands were on deck for release day itself (a Saturday).  Even our accounts team were there to roll up their sleeves and hastily pack the pre-orders for shipment before the couriers arrived.

All in all, I think we did pretty well…there were scores of satisfied customers and to this day, it remains the book we have sold most copies of at The Nile.

I am often asked which are our biggest sellers, and for the most part this a very hard question to answer.  Following the modern retail trend of the “Long Tail”, we sell many books only once or twice, many catering to very niche interests.

Harry Potter 7 was something different—a true superstar among books!  Will the paperback editions find their way into the Top 10? Let’s wait and see…

Happy Reading!

A very creepy thing has just happened. There is a copy of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne on my bookshelf. In itself not such a random occurence. It’s exactly the spot I would expect a book to be. However I threw this book out years ago after a painful Year 11 English exam (”I never want to see this book again!” etc). Now I don’t want to get all paranormal on you guys but I have been watching Lisa Williams ‘Life Beyond the Dead’ on Foxtel and I am slowly becoming aware of the scary shit going on when my back is turned. (A few nights ago I thought I was about to have an encounter by the spirit of my angry hissing grandfather but it was just the possums fighting on the roof and weeing on each other so that was a relief of sorts…)

But this book. I know the The Scarlet Letter provokes extremes: you either hate it or you love it. Simple as that. I also know the people who love it say to be patient, and give it another go as it’s better the second time around. I don’t know how anyone came up with ’second time around’ for this one, I barely handled the first. I am partly to blame as I remember having read The Acid House by Irvine Welsh just before The Scarlet Letter was given to us at school. I know, talk about from one extreme to another.

The Scarlet Letter was the only book studied in school that I didn’t adore.  Shelley’s Frankenstein satisfied my need to over-symbolise everything.  Lord of the Flies sat in my imagination for months (and still does).  But The Scarlet Letter just didn’t cut it.  Was sixteen too young to appreciate certain subtleties?

All I know is this book has reappeared on my shelf and all this Second Time Around peer pressure is making me think I should give it another chance. Perhaps it will read more easily without the stress of exams and over analysing every paragraph. Maybe there was underlying tension, hidden symbolism and themes beyond my wildest imagination. At the very least I’m secretly hoping it’ll be less dry and I can get through the other side with my ‘I read The Scarlet Letter and enjoyed it’ literary badge of honour.

Clearly Lisa Williams heard me (she loves those literary badges) and got someone/thing to make the book appear and now I think I’ll give it another go because I might be missing out. It might not have been as bad as Year 11 English classes wanted me to think. And I suspect if I don’t give it another go, I might get hissed and weed on, so I’LL DO IT.

Over the next few weeks (yes, I’m pacing myself) I’ll read it and let you know how I’m getting on. We’ll see if it indeed is better The Second Time Round.

Hi folks.  My name is Reenah and I have been recruited for my deep insight, supreme grasp of linguistics and vast knowledge of everything book related on the planet.

Or, because I have an addiction to blogging, and I read books sometimes.

Draw your own conclusions and feel free to join in, leave comments or simply trade biscuit recipes (just baked some Orange Zest ones, lovely)…

I love Jane Austen. I remember reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time when I was in seventh grade, sleeping over at a friend’s house and staying up late by myself with a flashlight to finish the novel, quietly gleeful when Elizabeth finally accepted Mr Darcy’s proposal.

I have since read and re-read Pride and Prejudice, and have gradually devoured all of Austen’s other novels with almost as much pleasure.

You would think an avid fan of Austen’s writing, herself a member of a book club, would find a book entitled The Jane Austen Book Club enthralling. Instead, I am sorry to say, I just didn’t like it.

By all means, if you are a hardcore Austen fan and hunger for anything even mildly related to Austen or her books, give it a go. The writing is not bad. It is simply contrived. What is it with this tide of books using motifs from the classics to infuse what would be plain and mundane stories with something that might pass for a touch of high-brow? I must admit, though, that I really enjoyed Bridget Jones’s Diary. Because the writing itself is amusing and Fielding doesn’t take herself or her characters too seriously, I found the parallels in the framework of Bridget Jones to Pride and Prejudice to be entertaining rather than distracting or just plain irritating, as they become in The Jane Austen Book Club. Similarly, I confess to having greatly enjoyed Sophie Gee’s The Scandal of the Season (not Austen but Alexander Pope is emulated here) – again because it was a little tongue in cheek, a little original in and of itself before borrowing substantially from the English Canon. In order for a writer to be permitted to improvise from the springboard of the Canon I think it is essential that they first earn the right through innovation, creativity, great writing or – at the very least - a sense of humour wittily expressed through the written word.

Many people have given Fowler’s most recent novel stunning reviews. The Washington Post, for example, ends its stellar review of the book with this line:

“That it is wonderful will soon be widely recognized, indeed, a truth universally acknowledged.”

Again, with the borrowing. It is like the repeated cheapening of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana by their use in pop/techno/dance songs or advertising jingles. The opening line of Pride and Prejudice was once dear to me but now, after so much re-hashing and over-use in the popular media it is beginning to grate. Similarly, when one of the characters in The Jane Austen Book Club persists in referring to Austen as ‘Jane’, it is grating – even if this is intended, even if it is critical to the development of that character, it grates like fingernails on a blackboard.

The Jane Austen Book Club follows the lives of five women and one man over a period during which they meet regularly to discuss Jane Austen’s work. At each book club meeting a different Austen novel becomes the focus of discussion. Each book club member is dealing, in his or her life, with significant issues – separation from a spouse, falling in love, homosexual love, the lure of an adulterous liaison – all of these themes are explored through the characters. And each character, each relationship, is meant to reflect – some with more subtlety than others – a Jane Austen character or plot.

The novel is set in California.

Am I the only reader who feels that an attempt to set a re-hashed version of all of Jane Austen’s novels in modern-day California might be a bit of a stretch? We don’t have the literary equivalent of Baz Luhrmann’s directorial genius to turn a classic into a modern cult icon (as he did with the 1996 film version of Romeo and Juliet). Nor does Fowler have, as Luhrmann did, the excuse of altering aspects of the original text with the liberty permitted by the use of a different medium. Shakespeare never had the medium of film at his fingertips.

Fowler’s novel is accompanied, at the end, by various appendices – synopses of all of Jane Austen’s novels (so you don’t actually have to read them), an admittedly riveting collection of comments by Jane Austen’s family, friends, colleagues on her novels and her life, and the now ubiquitous set of Questions for Discussion. Like that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer creates a coffee table book about coffee tables that actually becomes a coffee table, here is a novel about a book club created especially for book clubs, cheat-tools included. Worse still, the questions are apparently posed by the book’s characters themselves. Questions by the characters about the characters, in which they seek to draw parallels between their lives and the lives and characters in Jane Austen’s novels.

I understand the concept. And yes, the novel is diverting – I was absorbed and read it very quickly – but it is certainly contrived. And the notion of the book, what it is meant to do, the discussions Fowler envisions her readers having across America (and the world?) is, to me, a kind of Austen equivalent to the science fiction convention, science fiction being a genre which does also feature in this book (in the Pride and Prejudice themed relationship, no less – along with Rhodesian Redbacks and an age gap – a Demi Moore/Ashton Kutcher age gap, not the traditional Elizabeth Bennet/Mr Darcy age gap).

Fowler says towards the beginning of the book that each of her characters has his or her own ‘private Austen’ – an image or an understanding of Austen (the person, not the books) of his or her own making. This continued emphasis by Fowler and her characters on the author rather than the literature is another annoyance. But I suppose that Fowler is partly right – I too have a private Austen. And she is just that – private.

By all means, if you are an Austen fan who is not troubled by the increasing popularization of her novels amongst people who have seen the BBC series and the Keira Knightley movie but have not read the books, read this novel and enjoy. For those of you who prefer to remember Austen as you read her, stay away.

Some of the most powerful books I have read over the past years surf the uneasy line between fiction and fact. These are books whose fame results precisely from their ambiguous trajectory. Books around which controversy has spun a web of intrigue so thick that the authors involved have been lucky to emerge relatively unscathed, personal and professional lives irrevocably changed but nonetheless intact.

Not long ago a strange thing happened in my workplace. Out of nowhere a pile of dog-eared paperbacks appeared in our ‘break-out’ space, lining the windowsills of our law firm in a decidedly non-legal manner. Correctly surmising that these were on their way out, headed for the tip unless someone rescued them, I pounced immediately, picking from the rabble at least one treasure – a well-thumbed copy of James Frey’s A Million Little Pieces.

I had heard of this book. Notably, in an earlier life, a freer life, a life in which I had the time and inclination to watch daytime TV, I had watched an Oprah episode during which James Frey appeared to promote his memoir. I have since learnt that the Oprah episode I watched was the first of two featuring Frey. The second would be very different from the first.

On the episode I watched, Oprah – and her audience – purported to be blown away by the raw authenticity of Frey’s writing. A Million Little Pieces is the story of a 23-year-old man whose out-of-control drug and alcohol addictions have destroyed his life and his body, potentially irrevocably. He enters a rehab centre in the knowledge that a relapse will mean almost certain death. His journey towards redemption is fraught with gut-wrenching pain, the development of intense personal relationships, and an unflinching honesty which draws the readers in, totally absorbed. And part of the book’s drawcard is the fact that the protagonist is Frey himself.

I couldn’t put the book down. Apparently, neither could Oprah.

Frey won great accolades for his book. The editors at Amazon.com picked it as their favourite book of 2003. The New York Times gave it a rave review. Readers all over America and the globe spoke in awe of this most truthful account of drug addiction and rehabilitation. Frey’s genuine confrontation with pain lent awareness to an issue affecting thousands, millions of people the world over.

In late 2005 / early 2006 investigators discovered that significant elements of Frey’s memoir were untrue. Controversy erupted like wildfire. Readers felt duped. Frey’s literary manager dropped him. Oprah invited him back on her show in order to ask him a series of accusatorial questions. During the show she told him – point blank – that she felt betrayed. In front of a live-TV audience and hundreds of thousands of at-home viewers, Frey was forced to list the inaccuracies in his book, and to justify every departure from the truth.

Readers subsequently launched a lawsuit against Frey’s publishing house, seeking a refund because the book was not what it had claimed to be. They were outraged.

I knew all of this when I started reading A Million Little Pieces, and I picked up the book as a result of the controversy, not in spite of it. What blew me away while I was reading it was Frey’s ability to write in a manner so honest that the story appeared to be unerringly true. Had I not known of the controversy, I would have been utterly convinced the book was indeed a memoir. Surely, I thought to myself, the power of writing so convincing is itself an extraordinary gift to the literary community? The book is fast-paced, gripping, exciting – the alteration of various facts makes no difference to the authenticity of Frey’s writing. I was 100% hooked. There can be no question that Frey is a great writer.

A couple of years ago I read another book, equally honest, equally controversial. Nikki Gemmel’s The Bride Stripped Bare is erotic fiction at its best. A bored housewife turns to adulterous liaisons with various strangers - including a beautiful virgin - in an effort to re-invigorate her monotonous (but outwardly satisfactory) suburban life.

The novel was published anonymously. Only after publication did the British press unearth Nikki Gemmel as the author. The frankness of her treatise on women’s sexuality became, with her identification, all at once a controversy of the strangest kind – readers across the world were convinced, once she was found out, that Gemmel’s book was not, after all, a novel, but a memoir. Surely, critics reasoned, there would be no need for anonymity unless Gemmel had something real to hide. And she was, after all, married, a housewife, a mother. Just like her protagonist.

The authenticity sought by Frey’s readers, Gemmel’s readers projected onto her writing, even though her book was classified as fiction. Such perversity. Are we so much more willing to believe the worst of our writers, our entertainers?

In explaining her wish to write anonymously, Gemmel has said that it is very difficult for women to write honestly about sexuality, even in our post-feminist world. She says she views anonymity as liberation, particularly for women writers, and cites Virginia Woolf as saying about women that “anonymity runs in their blood – the desire to be veiled still possesses them.” Gemmel has also said that honesty is the most shocking thing of all – a truth she has experienced first-hand since her own unveiling as author of The Bride.

If honesty is so shocking, why was it more shocking for readers to discover that James Frey was not entirely honest? Why is it so astonishing to find that writers – whose role, one could argue, is precisely to spark controversy, discussion, debate in society – have subverted traditional notions of genre, blurring the line between fact and fiction, in order to provoke? Isn’t that precisely what we should be asking of them?

After my mother recommended it particularly highly, I read Run by Ann Patchett earlier this year and loved it. I adore Ian McEwan’s writing, and after Run I became sure I had found a female counterpart for McEwan to add to my list of favourite writers.

Then I was given Bel Canto, and my suspicions were confirmed.

It is a book like no other. I was asked to describe it while reading in bed the other night.

‘Well… it’s about a famous opera singer who comes to sing at the vice-president’s house in a poor third-world country on an occasion which marks the birthday of a prominent Japanese businessman… but during the concert the house is stormed by a terrorist group - revolutionaries, really - who capture everyone present in an attempt to overthrow the government.’

‘Wow!’ My partner said, immediately intrigued. ‘I should read it! It sounds so exciting!’

The thing is… the description I gave is a little misleading. It is exciting – certainly at the beginning. But anyone who picks it up in the belief that they will be getting a thrilling adventure story, all colourful revolution and political drama, will be disappointed.

This is so much more than a thriller.

Ann Patchett, like Ian McEwan, is a master at dreaming up situations in which the ordinary and the extraordinary collide. Like the legendary Christmas Eve during World War One in which German and British soldiers momentarily put down arms, crawled out of the trenches and played a game of soccer with one another, the occupied vice-president’s house in Bel Canto becomes a space where human relationships, through the intensity of circumstances, develop faster and stronger than they do in the real world.

The vice-president of a Latin American country learns humility, and to love an impoverished young boy who once held a gun to his head. A famous American opera singer falls in love with a man whose language she cannot speak. A French diplomat, through separation from his wife and anxiety over the potential imminent death of one or both of them, remembers how much he truly loves her, even after so many years. A voice more beautiful than any of us will ever hear is born, grows and disappears before its time, like a firefly in darkness.

The love, the fear, the joy that is felt during the occupation – each of these emotions is heightened by the strangeness of the situation. Imagine life stopped – for once the treadmill ceases turning. You are still. There is a foreign beauty to be had in such stillness. After many days inside, when the hostages are allowed into the garden of the vice-president’s mansion, the feel of the grass beneath their feet, the sight and smell of the flowers, the warmth of the sun on their hair – these things are glorious beyond their wildest dreams. Yet we pass them by each day without noticing.

Ann Patchett creates a mythical world where we least expect it – in an ordinary house, in an ordinary garden. The magic emerges through the interactions between people who would never otherwise meet – revolutionary and politician, poverty-struck adolescents and highly educated translators and businessmen, Swiss aid workers and opera singers. Patchett weaves the tales of these people together with intricate blossoms of simple words.

The result is literary beauty that you will never forget. Read it.