https://simplecast.com/e/33838?style=light With just a basic mixing desk, a few microphones and some open-source software, I have created something of my very own, with some help from good friends. Here’s to my very first podcast, and the first of many, I hope! Ad-free, and free to you. Please stream or download and enjoy! Available on…
Tag: books
Podcast: Catalogues, Books and Writing
So I wandered into a lovely office in a nursery in Johannesburg to speak at Radio Today, a community radio station, to talk about the Exclusive Books catalogue that took four months to produce and is now a glorious, bountiful collection of books. We also talk about publishing, books as objects of lust and untapped…
Review of the Book Thief Movie
This is blatant Oscar bait without being Oscar-worthy. It takes superb source material, one of the most important books written for children in the last twenty years, and turns it into a white bread cucumber sandwich with the crusts cut off.
Review of “Two Brothers” by Ben Elton
Two Brothers by Ben Elton I don’t usually dip into historical fiction, as the writers often hide poor character-building behind supposed historical accuracy instead. Often the books are unreadable due to their saturation of research and lack of coherent plot or technical ability. But Two Brothers is not ruined by either of these things: instead…
The Price of Books
Everyone loves to complain about the price of things without really thinking about what it costs to make it happen. How can a book cost R200, wails the consumer (nearly always while spending the same amount on silly cocktails). How dare the bookstore charge this! How disgusting, knowledge and stories should be free to all!…
Amazon.com is eating up the book world
As someone who works between the publisher, author and reader, articles like this bode poorly for my industry. The article discusses how Amazon is directly snapping up authors instead of sourcing their books from the publishers, and how this might affect the publishing industry. It has set up a flagship line run by a publishing veteran,…
Forbes Top Ten Authors and the South African Top Ten
It is a slightly old article, but the results of the Forbes Top Ten authors list is as interesting as the authors are (in my opinion) mostly mainstream. The list taken from this page includes a surprising number of authors who write for children or YA markets. The list encourages one to draw the following…
Delicious Books, and the Reading Thereof
In the land of books the reader is king, or so it is said. I know there are hundreds of blogs out there about books, whether it is writing or reading them. But I have begun this blog alongside my other because I feel that there are hundreds of books that deserve recognition, and many…
Geeks, Nerds and Wizards
Sometimes, I wonder if it isn’t all just godawful semantics and hairsplitting. A Diagram Created By A Geek Let’s look at various meanings of the words geek and nerd. I apologise for the lack of serious academic reference, but alas real dictionary websites require expensive subscriptions. Merriam-Webster: Geek 1: a carnival performer often billed as…
