Books+Publishing magazine Issue 1 2016
Books+Publishing magazine’s first issue for 2016 is out now! Inside you’ll find 30 reviews of adult and children’s books publishing in April to June.
Three adult books scored five stars in this issue. Reviewer Mark Rubbo predicts Dominic Smith’s novel The Last Painting of Sara de Vos (A&U, May) ‘will be one of the big books for 2016’. ‘It will appeal to a wide range of readers, accessible yet complex in the manner of Geraldine Brooks or Anthony Doerr,’ he writes.
David Gaunt admits he’d ‘probably give Helen Garner five stars for her shopping list’. He writes of her new nonfiction collection Everywhere I Look (Text, April): ‘Garner observes, intuits, shares and cares about the lives she writes about like no-one else.’
Cosima McGrath describes Julia Leigh’s memoir of IVF treatment Avalanche: A Love Story (Hamish Hamilton, May) as ‘a brave and candid account of her desire to have a child’, which is punctuated with ‘moments of light and humour that lift the story’.
Among the features in this issue, Portia Lindsay explores professional development opportunities in the book industry and Brad Jefferies searches for the secret to successfully crowdfunded books.
Booktopia’s Christopher Cahill reflects on his career in bricks-and-mortar and online book merchandising; Anica Boulanger-Mashberg pens a bookseller’s diary for the Hobart Bookshop; and we ask two booksellers for their views on penalty rates.
We also introduce two regular columns: UWA Publishing director Terri-ann White on the state of the book industry, and Nielsen Book Australia general manager Shaun Symonds on book data trends.
Junior Term 1
Jeannie Baker’s picture book Circle (Walker Books, June) and David Metzenthen’s YA novel Dreaming the Enemy (A&U, April) both scored five stars in our Junior magazine.
Reviewer Margaret Hamilton said Circle, about the migration of bar-tailed godwits, was ‘yet another masterpiece from the creator of the award-winning Where the Forest Meets the Sea and Mirror’. Hamilton interviews the author here.
Dreaming the Enemy tells the story of a young man who returns from the Vietnam War and embarks on a road trip to visit the families of his mates who didn’t make it. Dani Solomon describes it as ‘an important book’.
This issue also contains Jackie Tang’s interview with the new Australian Children’s Laureate Leigh Hobbs; Carody Culver’s profile of Australia’s first children’s publishing consultancy Stories Inc.; and Danielle Binks’ investigation of how publishers, authors and event organisers can better engage teens.
Don’t miss all our regular features: retailing, editor’s picks, shelf talk, book bites and Gladys’ gossip column.
Category: In the magazine
