Breaking news: Regulatory regime for books to remain unchanged.

This just in from Competition Minister Dr Craig Emerson:

The Government has not accepted the Productivity Commission's recommendation to remove the parallel importation restrictions on books.

A victory indeed!
Thanks to the fantastic array of talent on the boat for keeping their nerve, for backing their judgement, for their sure and steady sailing.

We've had a lot to say about this issue. All that remains to be said is...

Magic beach

Melbourne is currently... well, unseasonably warm is a gentle way to put it.

Our big old terrace copes reasonably well with the heat, but some of the rest of us do not.

One Onion spent a large portion of yesterday teasing us with photos of the cool rippling water lapping quietly at the beach where she was, and we weren't.

But she's back in the office now, so sucks to her ass-mar.*

Now we are all gazing longingly at the beach where she was and now isn't, and where we never were - and we want to infect you all with that longing.

Don't you wish you were here...?








* Apparently, unseasonal heat brings out the mean and begrudging in us.

Friday stuff and items

Here are some things that are going on around the House of Onion today:

1) A blurb is being written for Lord Sunday, the last book in the epic Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix. But how to whip up a frenzy of excitement without GIVING ANYTHING AWAY?

2) The covers of the Little Else series are being tweaked to get the colours of the three books in balance so they have the same ‘weight’ next to each-other on the shelf.

3) Huge and unwieldy (but exciting) test proofs are being checked for The City, a new picture book by Armin Greder. To varnish or not to varnish? That is the question.

4) Our 2010 publishing list is being discussed with our Rights & International Sales Director in preparation for the Bologna Children's Book Fair (Just quietly: it's awesome, she's awesome, and we are geniuses). On the other hand, piles of manuscript submissions from the Frankfurt Bookfair are threatening to swamp us.*

5) Our February New Books brochure is being sent to Booksellers. February, already!

6) A picture-book text is being wrangled into shape with an author who's roaming the country (last week in Western Australia, next week Queensland), a co-author, an editor and a designer in Melbourne, an artist in London, and a ticking clock...

7) And, it seems, the passive voice is being revelled in.



Here are some things going on in the wider world today:

1) There seem to be a lot of gluttons for punishment out there participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Lili Wilkinson is, for one. And Justine, Scott and Maureen are offering tips. Good luck one and all!

2) Ang Lee’s taking on another sort of crouching tiger. **

3) Bookshelves of Doom uncovered something too disturbing for words. Seriously, go here at your peril.

4) In the same theme, Cakewrecks has discovered a whole new genre of birthday cake. Some good and some oh so very bad.

5) Karen Healey is revealing the secret to being published. As workshopped by a distinguished panel of authors, editors, publishers and experts.

6) And Kate Constable is sharing the love for ballet books. Hitch up your tutu, tighten the ribbons on your pointe shoes, pull your hair into a bun and pirouette on over to tell her which ones were your favourites.




* Oh no - that publisher is drowning, not waving!
** Richard Parker may well be slouching at his end of the little boat, but will there be dragons?

My kingdom for a horse

Whether or not the Melbourne Cup is really the race that stops a nation is up for debate.

But one thing that's guaranteed is that a large portion of the population of Melbourne came into contact with at least one of these things yesterday:

• champagne
• sour glances from old timers at the TAB
• chicken sandwiches
• sunburn
• sore feet
• barbequed meat
• fascinators
• Bart Cummings's eyebrows

So in celebration here is a list of horsey books*:

1) My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara

All the horsey girls in school raved about this one, which was an immediate turn-off for at least one Onion. But contrary to expectation, it turned out to be not insipid at all. It's all about boys and ranching and the big Wyoming sky. And barbed wire. Barbed wire is bad. But all's well that ends well (after almost ending very badly).

2) The Billabong books by Mary Grant Bruce

Everyone on Billabong station eats, sleeps and breathes horses. They are the lifeblood of the big Victorian cattle farm, and anyone who can't ride gets scornful looks and very short shrift. (Unless, of course, they are brave and quick learners.) But of all the horsiness in all the many books, the moment burned in our memories is when Norah's beloved grey pony Bobs dies in her arms - having been ridden literally to death by the hateful city cousin Cyril (boo, hiss). Oh, Bobs, faithful and valiant to the end.**

3) The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell

This and Black Beauty are the only books actually from the point of view of the horse on this list. (Although the Silver Brumby's not in the first person... snort, whinny.) Who didn't want to be a wild brumby running free in the mountains? Although, come to think about it, maybe not so much with all the fighting to protect your mares and foals from other scary stallions.

4) These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder

When Laura becomes engaged to Almonzo Wilder, her ma asks her if it's really Almonzo that Laura loves and not his beautiful horses (particularly the matching brown Morgans, Prince and Lady). To which Laura responds that she couldn't have one without the other. There are sleigh rides and buggy rides and taming of wild colts aplenty in this the last of the Little House on the Praire books. (Can we also just point out that this is the cheesiest cover of this book we've ever seen. Where is the one with the horse and sleigh?)

5) Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

Surely nobody needs a reminder about this one. Suffice it to say: *Sob* Ginger *Sob sob* (What is it about horses and dying?)

6) The Good Master by Kate Seredy

Cousin Kate from Budapest is headstrong and disobedient and has a desperate love of sausages. But there's nothing like a bit of responsibility and the love of a good horse to tame a wild child. The scene when Kate is given the beautiful and spirited Milky for her very own (after she'd learned to ride on 'Old Armchair'), is funny and warm and touching and... and... I can't tell you how much I love this book.

7) Horse Crazy! The Complete Adventures of Bonnie & Sam by Alison Lester & Roland Harvey

Horses! Best friends! Adventures! Who could resist? Alison Lester knows all these horses personally, which is why they feel so real. There is an unconfirmed report that the editor of this book keeps a bucket of chaff under her desk, just in case.







Are there any horsey books you love (or hate) that we've missed?

*Caution there are spoilers, but most of these are classics and we reckon there's a statute of limitation on spoilers.

** And here we pause to remember Tamburlaine, ridden to death by Dominic, the intense, proud boy who loved him (confirming to his family that he was indeed A Difficult Young Man).

Fictions on the Field II

Oo look, we're instituting a tradition. It counts as a tradition if you've done it once before, right?


Horses you would bet on if the 2009 Melbourne Cup were...

a Sherlock Holmes mystery:

• Harris Tweed

a Wordsworth poem:

• Daffodil

an AA Milne poem:

• Changingoftheguard

a biography of the Kennedy clan:

• Newport

a Melvin Burgess novel:

• Shocked

an episode of CSI/Bones/Law & Order/City Homicide etc etc etc ad infinitum:

• Crime Scene

a piece of government legislation:

• Alcopop

a Dodgem Car ride:

• Leica Ding

an ancient civilization characterised by an autocratic ruler with a yen for the arts, engineering and military-led expansion:*

• Roman Emperor

May your bets be fruitful, your sweep-draws be lucky, your champagne be chilled and your fascinator firmly attached.




*If it were an Asterix comic on the other hand, you certainly WOULDN'T be betting on poor old Roman Emperor.

This is beginning to get ridiculous

You know how this happened?


Well, now THIS has happened...

Open Letters: Episode 6

Greetings Gerund,

Performing is such a tough job. I admire how you throw yourself into it. Your acting is truly method. Though you do have a tendency to make those around you possessive.

Air-kisses,
PP (aka Present Participle)

---------------------------------------

Dear Dangling Modifier,

Please keep this on the QT. I am secretly envious of you. You're such a carefree spirit, a reckless prince. After causing mayhem, the kingdom awaits your next crazy dance-step.

Yours covertly,
HRH

---------------------------------------

Mr Stress Ball

If I throw you at the window, will my colleague know it's a summons? Or will the window break?

Ms Identity Crisis

---------------------------------------

This is a public announcement for all in-trays,

It has come to our attention that many of you are overflowing in a most haphazard and unappealing manner. As part of our new management strategy we request that you take some initiative and archive yourself.

Seriously,
Senior Streamliner

---------------------------------------

Attention i, t, s & apostrophe,

Please stop misbehaving. I understand that you are all extremely close and want to be together on every occasion, but you KNOW that is not always appropriate and you can't be possessive. I'm very sorry apostrophe, but sometimes you just have to let the letters play by themselves.

With stern regards,
Coach Crackdown

---------------------------------------

Dear Spring Winds,

It's true that you help dry the washing, but you are frazzling our nerves. Also, we have it on good authority that you're planning to disappear for a while before returning disguised as the baking-hot North wind. Please reconsider.

Regards,
Autumnal Sympathiser

Everybody likes you.

Over at Spike, Jess has mounted a spirited defence of the second person point of view. It's a POV that does tend to divide opinion, and if maintained for a whole novel can drive the reader to throw the book across the room, but used sparingly it can be a very powerful device.

I was definitely disconcerted the first time I opened a novel written in the second person. It was a male character and as a female reader I was confronted, and simultaneously drawn in. The book was Snake by Kate Jennings.

Snake is not written entirely in second person, but that's how it begins (and ends) and consequently it insists we inhabit the role of the character, Rex. We are bound to him. So we are immediately thrust into a major theme of the novel: disappointment - the failure to fulfil desires or expectations.

The first chapter opens:

"Everybody likes you. A good man. Decent. But disappointed. Who wouldn't be? That wife. Those children."

And Snake prepares us early. You know what you are in for.
The first chapter ends:

"Every reason to be disappointed, although that word implies expectations, and you never had many of them."

This is not simply disappointment. This is an absence of hope. This is despair. And the second person narration drenches us in disenchantment.

And when it hits the mark for a reader, second person hits hard. The second chapter begins:

"You grew up on a farm, a thousand acres of chalky soil, a rainfall to break the strongest spirit. The days always began with your father, shoulders hunched against the half-light of dawn, trekking across the yard, past the clothesline, to the rainfall gauge."

I grew up on a farm. The days began with my father at dawn. The rain gauge was an object of worship.

Jennings captured a part my life here. Her use of second-person connected me to the book in a way I had never been connected before, and in response I found myself whispering: "Yes".

The second-person parts (One and Four) are short, and this judicious use is extremely effective. It is such a relief to shrug off Rex's despair and settle in to a more conventional narrative.

Not that the despair is ever entirely shrugged off. Snake is a small-town book. It traces the lives of Rex, a farmer seeking the simple pleasures of farming life, and Irene, a woman plagued by discontent and dreams of escape. It is not a good match. It is an anxious, despairing tale, but beautifully written and enhanced by being book-ended by a second-person narrator.

It remains on my list of all-time favourite novels.

The spring has sprung, The grass is riz... or is it?

For all of my life - for my whole, entire life up until a week ago - I thought that 'riz' was an adjective that meant something along the lines of 'awesome'. You know, like 'It's springtime and the grass is so totally riz right now.'

Although, to say I thought that is perhaps a bit of an overstatement. I'd never actually stopped to consider it; I'd never defined it to myself. I just sort of felt it. It was the vibe of the thing.

Then, just the other day, I was walking around the back streets of North Fitzroy hoping to find a lemon tree hanging over a fence so I could nick a lemon or two, when it came to me in a blinding white flash. I had an epiphany: Riz actually means 'has risen'. The grass has risen. Oh, it makes such sense. It's in theme. It's a real word (sort of).

And yet, it's also disappointing. I feel robbed that 'riz' is just a comic version of a mildly pedestrian word.

I want MY riz back. But, alas, the magic's gone. It's not as if I ever used riz anywhere else ('You should definitely buy that dress, it's really riz on you.'*), but it was just there in that specific context, being riz. And now it's not.

We've explored words that sound as though they ought to mean something else, and words and phrases that often get mixed up, but have you ever been a little bit heartbroken to discover that a word wasn't what you thought it was? Do you ever intentionally misuse words because you like them better the way you thought they were? In short, have you ever been betrayed by a word?

*Although, with its real meaning, riz in a dress could be rather fetching on a lady with the right kind of legs.

In the spirit of spring racing

This is the winners post!

Wooh! Wooh! Wooh! for Kate Constable whose book Winter of Grace (part of the Girlfriend Fiction series) is in a photo-finish with Christine Harris's Audrey Goes to Town in the biennial Children's Peace Literature Award.*

And Wooh! Wooh! Wooh! for Shaun Tan whose Tales From Outer Suburbia was first past the post for the Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis for Best Picture Book, at the Frankfurt Book Fair.**

*Congratulations to all short-listed authors (which includes Kate's co-rider-in-a-forthcoming-Girlfriend-Fiction Penni Russon and Girlfriend Fiction stablemate Barry Jonsberg).

** The Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis had a distinctly Australian flavour to it this year with Marcus Zusak getting his nose in front for the Youth Jury prize.

Mischief of one kind and another, aka Friday Stuff and Items

It's only 49 sleeps until the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers Where the Wild Things Are is released in Oz.*

1) Speaking of Dave Eggers (and we could for days...), McSweeney's as a daily broadsheet? Where do we subscribe?

2) Speaking of McSweeney's, here is a list for your enjoyment.

3) Speaking of lists, the Guardian is compiling an awesome one about fairytales.

4) Speaking of the Guardian, David Barnett is lovely on sewing a wolf suit**

5) Speaking of wolf suits, it may be a month and a bit until WTWTA is released here - but it's 'tonight' in the US.

Let the wild rumpus start!



See More Where the Wild Things Are Movie Still at IGN.com



*Almost better than Christmas!

**Warning: this article links to images of a range of full-sized costumes inspired by the story. Yes, dear reader, full-sized wolf suits. That is all.

Maralinga - The Aṉangu Story on Our ABC

We're having a quietly proud moment, because this Sunday at 1 pm* the first of two documentaries based on Maralinga -The Aṉangu Story will be shown on ABC Message Stick.

The documentaries were filmed in August at Oak Valley and Yalata communities and at Maralinga. And they should be really worth watching.

'I was worried about my country. I grieved. I was upset about what the bombs would do to the land... The people who have done the damage should take it away. They should please clean up the place properly. My birthplace got bombed down. The bomb ruined my country, they spoiled all my country. People died north side and west side. Fell down and died. I am sad.' -- Myra Watson

Sad man by Yvonne Edwards

Do tune in if you get a chance.

Go here for more about Message Stick
And here for more about Maralinga - The Aṉangu Story



* 1st film
SUNDAY 18 OCTOBER 1.30 pm, Channel 2
(repeated Friday 23 October, 6pm)

2nd film
SUNDAY 25 OCTOBER 1.30 pm, Channel 2
(repeated Friday 30 OCTOBER 6pm)