"The book business as we know it will not be living happily ever after. With sales stagnating, CEO heads rolling, big-name authors playing musical chairs, and Amazon looming as the new boogeyman, publishing might have to look for its future outside the corporate world".

The UK Sunday Times has an interesting perspective on Nicole Kidman/Baz Luhrmann and the new movie 'Australia'

"In his enormous new movie Baz Luhrmann is not only bringing the actress back home, he’s redefining an entire country. Whichever way you cut it, the land down under is huge. The state of Western Australia alone - the left-hand third - unfolds nonchalantly at 11 times the size of the UK. The difference is, it’s home to a mere 2m people, dwelling largely in southern Perth. Up here, in tiny Kununurram, a thousand miles to the north (the “Top End”, as the locals call it), there’s plenty of legroom. Bar the odd Aboriginal settlement and remote dots like this one, God’s country remains decidedly empty.

When Luhrmann titled his movie, he was laying down a marker. “Why Australia? Well, first of all, to get people all uppity about it, so there’s a lot of comment,” he explains. “I think about films like Lawrence of Arabia, Out of Africa, Casablanca, Hawaii, by James A Michener : epics that use one word to describe a place. The film can’t be definitive about Australia, but ‘What does it mean?’ is not a bad place to start when you’re creating a story.” Sixty years ago, Casablanca meant “faraway, exotic”, he adds. “I think even now, to the rest of the world, ‘Australia’ just means big, somewhat mysterious, somewhat misunderstood. This is a land far, far away. It has a sense of fairy tale about it.”

Doctor Who's secrets revealed, by Russell T. Davies

Russell T. Davies and Benjamin Cook have cooperated on a whopping book released here in early November entitled "Dr Who: The Writer's Tale" (BBC Books). I'll review it for the Canberra Times. Their e-mail exchange, published in the UK Times, provides a unique insight into the show - and reveals some of its most closely-guarded secrets.

10 Books Not To Read Before You Die

Richard Wilson comments in the UK Times, "Lists of physical achievements or magical holiday destinations or wonderful restaurants or fabulous hotels make you feel like your life has been wasted; a list of great books you should have read makes you feel like your brain has been wasted.

The best way to fight the massed ranks of recommended books is with an offensively glib and, if possible, ill-informed reason for not bothering with them. Wilson begins with number 10, Ulysses by James Joyce, with the words:

"There’s a brilliant scene in the much-underrated sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum, when Sergeant Major Williams (Windsor Davies) snatches a book from Mr La-di-dah Gunner Graham and says:

‘What’s this you’re reading? Useless?’

‘Ulysses, Sergeant Major.’

At school I remember my English teacher saying that he knew no one who had managed to get to the end of it. It does sound rubbish, doesn’t it? I’d have thought it was the duty of a great book to drag you along to the last page. But in a way, that’s good to know: if it’s famously hard going you have the perfect excuse not to bother with it.

9: Lord of the Rings - J R R Tolkien

The best I can say about this book is that it was a very useful tool at school for helping to choose your friends. Carrying a copy of Tolkien’s monstrous tome was the equivalent of a leper’s bell: ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ I knew I would have nothing in common with anyone who had read it. Their taste in music, clothes, television, everything was predetermined by their devotion to Gandalf. Without a shadow of a doubt, in a few years, these people would be going to Peter Gabriel gigs and reading Dune.

8: For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway

The Hemingway style is impressive at first. Simple sentences with few descriptions. They avoid adverbs and adjectives and, as a change from the over-elaborate works of Dickens and Austen, it’s OK for a while. Then you realise it’s a bit dry and boring and the more you find out about Hemingway, the more you realise he was a bore too: a terrible macho bore obsessed with bullfighting, guns, boxing and trying to catch big fish; really quite a tiresome bloke you wouldn’t want to spend time with...."

Wilson's number 1 is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, on which they comment "From what I can gather it’s Mills and Boon from the olden days, and really boring Mills and Boon at that. I did try reading a Jane Austen novel once, but it hadn’t got going by fifty pages so I guiltily gave up; the characters spoke in a very oblique way and it seemed to be all about hypocrisy and manners and convention; worse than that, it was really difficult to find the doing word in a sentence".

Businesses Can't Hide from 2.0: A Look at 2.0's Impact Across Industries

From Web 2.0 to Office 2.0 to Enterprise 2.0. Check out this comprehensive listing of 2.0 tools and technologies that can help boost productivity and keep you connected to your various online communities. There's something here for everyone.

U. of Michigan Library Installs 'ATM of Books'

The Chronicle of Higher Education's 'Wired Campus' reports that library users "at the University of Michigan will soon be able to order print-on-demand copies of books from the university's collection--and get them in about the time it takes for a barista to whip up a latte. The Espresso Book Machine, a book-printing machine described as "the ATM of books," goes online at Michigan's library Oct. 1. Michigan says it's the first university to install the machine. Just about any digitized, out-of-copyright book from Michigan's collection can be printed and bound on the spot. Printing takes five to seven minutes, and the cost is about $10 per book. Users will also be able to print books from online sources such as the Open Content Alliance. The Espresso's manufacturer, On Demand Books, wants to create a network of machines in libraries and bookshops around the world, allowing users to print books from collections anywhere. "This is a significant moment in the history of book publishing and distribution," Paul Courant, dean of libraries at the University of Michigan, said in a press release announcing the Espresso's arrival on campus. "It's a great step toward the democratization of information, getting information to readers when and where they need it." Watch a wee video of the Espresso doing its thing here".

It will be interesting to see which University Library is first off the mark in this country. This might be something that the University Co-op Chain could pursue as Angus & Robertson, Central Book Services and On Demand Books last week announced the launch of the first Espresso Book Machine in Australia to be installed in a retail environment. They described as the “ATM of books” the Espresso Book Machine automatically prints and binds a paperback book on demand, at the point of sale; The Espresso Book Machine will give Angus & Robertson customers access to a large selection of Australian books which were previously out-of-print or difficult to get hold of. Angus & Robertson’s parent company, A&R Whitcoulls, plans to install up to 50 Espresso Book Machines throughout its Australian and New Zealand network of bookstores over the next 12 months".

Professor Given $100,000 to Study World of Warcraft

A researcher at University of California at Irvine has received $US100,000 from the National Science Foundation to study how Americans play the popular online game World of Warcraft.

The Orange County Register reports, "A hundred thousand dollars to study a video game that pits ax-wielding ogres against a cast of other fanciful characters? That would buy about 50,000 cans of Red Bull to support those late-night gaming, er, "research" sessions. As it turns out, the informatics professor, Bonnie Nardi, has already studied how the Chinese play the video game, which is used by 10 million people worldwide. In China she worked to debunk the notion that gamers there are interested only in turning World of Warcraft's fake currency into real money. Now she is out to determine why American players, who number just half of those in China, make more modifications to the game, she wrote in an e-mail message to Gary Robbins, the ScienceDude columnist for the Register. "We are examining the many reasons for this disparity, including cultural and institutional factors," Ms. Nardi said. Maybe a budget line for 3,000 Red Bulls will do. That leaves $94,000 for any additional expenses".

E-Resources Delivered to Your Desktop by the National Library

The National Library now offers enhanced access to a selected range of full-text journal articles, ebooks and reference resources to all registered users. Once registered, any Australian can access this rich collection of information 24 hours a day, seven days a week, regardless of location. Just follow the eResources link located on the National Library homepage and log in using your National Library card number and last name to take advantage of this new service. Resources available from offsite are clearly identified on the eResources page on the National Library website.

Is book signing a curse?

The Los Angeles Times asks is book signing a curse? "Prompted by a U.S. Craigslist ad for sweatshop-style autograph forgers, the U.K. has been abuzz with the legendarily traumatic author signings: James Ellroy taking down a stack of 65,000 first editions, Stephen King signing until his fingers cracked, the autograph line demanding their autographs in blood. David Sedaris admits that after seven hours he loses his decorum, writing a cheerful "Abortions, $13!" in one woman's book".

Ten of the best murders in fiction

John Mullan in The UK Guardian, provides his list of Ten of the best murders in fiction. He begins chronologically as follows:

"Agamemnon, by Aeschylus

A-level examiners with anxieties about the lessons taught by literature would find their worries here confirmed. The murder of Agamemnon by his wife Clytemnestra, who has taken a lover, begins the great tradition of western tragedy. We hear Agamemnon's cries as he is killed, and then his wife describes it for us: "Violent driven rain of bitter savoured blood / To make me glad".

Macbeth, by Shakespeare

You don't actually see the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, but you do witness the later subcontracted killing of Banquo by the nameless "three Murderers". Most chilling is the scene where they get their instructions from Macbeth, and confess themselves so battered by "the vile blows and buffets of the world" that they are willing to do anything terrible.

Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens

Probably the most famous killing in Victorian fiction, the murder of the kindly prostitute Nancy by her erstwhile beau Bill Sikes is both melodramatic and genuinely horrific. Dickens's performance of it was the climax of his famous live show. Female spectators sometimes fainted".

Authors and their audience

Anne Enright in the UK Guardian writes on the sort of questions a writer has to face. "The writer's confidence in the face of the reader ebbs and flows - in the face of the real reader that is; the one who is made of flesh and blood, also eyes and teeth. The ideal reader, that mythical creature who resides in some writer's heads, is nothing but an understanding smile, a gently nodding head, a bosom that is soft but not overblown. The real, physical reader, on the other hand, walks up to you in all physical shapes and sizes. There is nothing vague about her. She may, indeed, sink into your sentences, but when she surfaces, she is casting a keen eye over your shoes. There is a perfect mixture of the internal and the external in a reader's gaze. She carries the inner world of her reading experience, but she holds it at an ironic distance.

No one is about to confuse this intimacy of the imagination with a relationship in the real world - and yet there is very great pleasure, for both parties, in a small overlap; a joke or comment, a word in passing. These words are always well-intentioned and kind, and this is the strange thing: there is such a difference between what a reader says privately to a writer and the questions they ask in front of a crowd.

Get it out there, that's what I say.

"Please note that there will be no questions after this reading." Only old farts put that on the programme. You're there to meet the readers, after all, and if you're not, then stay at home. But the Q&A comes at a vulnerable moment for the writer - it happens after you have given your all, and before you are allowed to get away with it. ...

"Why are you so bitter?" says the woman in the front row, before they can fumble a mike across to her. She is sitting very straight. She seems to be wearing a hat with flowers and a pheasant in it, but of course she is not - that is just your imagination. "Why are you so bitter?" she says again, louder, just in case you are trying to slither out of it - your bitterness, she means, in case you are trying to wriggle off your own, horrible hook. And it takes you six months to answer her, in your head. "Chekhov wasn't cheerful. Beckett wasn't a barrel of laughs. Why do you want women to be nice, when they write?"

It is, in fact, years before you realise that the real answer is: "Straight back atcha, Missus." Long experience tells you that it is the angry people who ask about anger, the depressed about depression, the tender-hearted about love. This is the writer as mirror, and a dark mirror at that. "How do you get away with saying what I only feel?"

Not that all questions are accusations (though a surprising number are), it is just, perhaps, that after reading, all writers are sad. So as the lights go up and your story dies, the answer to any query - about the style, intention, genesis or your books; about the characters, or plots; about your mother, your country, your desk, your self-discipline, your comic timing or your tragic muse - is the same: "I'm really sorry about that. I'll try to do better next time."

The best questions I got this year were in Edinburgh. I can't remember what they were. You sort of wipe them afterwards, as though everyone was talking gobbledegook.

"Where did you get that necklace? Have you ever tried Pilates?"

"No, but I do try to hold my stomach in, when I write."

Seamus Heaney gave a wonderful reading at Listowel at the end of May, and when the mike was offered it was grabbed by people who had no questions, only speeches: "I would like to recite an eight-verse poem for you that I wrote in the Kalahari desert on the night you were awarded the Nobel prize," said one, and the audience booed and groaned. But I suppose when people dream about meeting the Queen, they tell her all about themselves and she finds what they have to say completely interesting. She doesn't answer back, poor woman - that is not what she is for".

The Booker prizewinners that never were

Olivia Laing's blog in The UK Guardian focuses on the "gems" ignored by Booker Prize panels.

"Unucky 13

The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles (1969)

We said: 'Fowles's stress on the value of love ... gives a personal urgency to what is certainly a remarkable performance.'

The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury (1975)

'An elegant display of comic determinism, as smart as they come.'

Money by Martin Amis (1984)

'A brilliant, frightening novel ... devoid of such outworn properties as charm.'

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks (1984)

'Sinisterly powerful, stylish and authoritative.'

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter (1984)

'A lavish, sumptuous invention.'

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson (1985)

'Something imposing in Jeanette Winterson's originality ensures that each of her themes will emerge without the least touch of staleness.'

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)

'The ultimate feminist nightmare.'

The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (1988)

'There is about this massive undertaking, a folie de grandeur which sends its brilliant comic energy, its fierce satiric powers, and its unmatchable, demonic inventiveness plunging down, on melting wings, toward unreadability.'

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi (1990)

'Kureishi's picaresque coming-of-age saga makes the Seventies seem like the fin de siècle arriving 20 years early.'

Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks (1993)

'Ripping yarns and serious thought rarely disturb each other in modern fiction, but Sebastian Faulks works the trick with alchemic guile.'

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (1993)

'Manages to draw great wit and energy from its wasted souls.'

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth (1994)

'Seth courts his readers with all the charms of his heroine's three suitors: with vigour and gallantry, with wit, intelligence and occasional frivolity... Without question, it works.'

White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000)

'Audaciously assured ... White Teeth squares up to the two questions which gnaw at the very roots of our modern condition: Who are we? Why are we here?'

The UK Observer's Columnist 'The Browser' notes that he is "staggered to learn that eminent literary critic John Sutherland has reneged on his promise to eat Salman Rushdie's The Enchantress of Florence if it didn't win the Booker prize. Startled by news that the 368-page novel hadn't even made the shortlist, he yelped: 'I vowed - publicly - to curry and eat my proof copy if it didn't win. It won't. And I won't. So there.' But Sutherland shouldn't be put off by the unpalatability of his proposed snack. After all, film director Werner Herzog once ate his shoe - albeit boiled - to honour a bet. Not that the Browser's calling Rushdie indigestible, of course.

News reaches the Browser that everybody's favourite mustachioed rocker, Nick Cave, has finally produced a follow-up to his 1989 novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel. 'The Death of Bunny Munro is a modern Faustus of sorts,' gushed Canongate's Jamie Byng. 'Nick is one of the great forces in contemporary culture. This new novel of his is going to shock a lot of people and we are thrilled to be publishing it.' Shocking, huh? The Browser wonders how Cave is going to trump the pop video in which he brutally murders Kylie Minogue".

The Times Higher Education Supplement, in its last "week in books" includes the following two titles and their short reviews.

Britain Since 1918 by David Marquand, visiting fellow in the department of politics, University of Oxford. Weidenfeld and Nicholson, £25.00, ISBN 9780297643203

"Many historians have seen 20th-century Britain as relatively stable compared with every other major European country. Marquand's book, by contrast, suggests an inherently unstable polity which needs a new settlement. He seeks a republican constitutional democracy to transcend managed populism. Meanwhile, he inclines towards the Whiggism of one-nation Tories like Macmillan and Edward Heath. He is relaxed towards Cameronian 'toffs'."

Kenneth O. Morgan, The Independent

When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge by K. David Harrison, assistant professor of linguistics, Swarthmore College. Oxford University Press, £9.99, ISBN 9780195372069

"Harrison explains why language death matters ... As one of Harrison's colleagues puts it, the loss of a language is 'like dropping a bomb on a museum, the Louvre'. In this scholarly yet very readable study, Harrison writes powerfully of the value and beauty of these vanishing knowledge systems."

P. D. Smith, The Guardian

ODD BOOK TITLE

Sexual analysis of Dickens' Props by Arthur Washburn Brown. Emerson Books.1971.

Debbie Campell from the National Library reports that Libraries Australia is on the job with two copies in Canberra at ANU and the National Library and two more copies elsewhere in Australia.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"You can lead a whore to culture but you cannot make her think." Dorothy Parker's definition of horticulture.