Six hours of book cover design in a minute and a half!

• James Cameron gives disgraced (?) author Charles Pellegrino some free (?) celebrity endorsement.

• And speaking of celebrity endorsement, Sean Penn has stated that all journalists who criticize Hugo Chavez should be locked up. Spit-take?

• Thirty years of back breaking labour produces a ‘more comprehensible’ Finnegans Wake. Key word: ‘more’.

• Could you spend a week without books?

• In the New Russia, newspaper read you!

• Is Penguin rewriting history with its Popular Penguins range?

• Ever wondered how much money goes towards cheese platters at those lavish book launches? Well, here’s a graph of the economics of book publishing!

• Karl Rove has decided to take a break from doing whatever it is a Karl Rove does (eating babies, I imagine) to produce a new book. Here are the ten biggest scoops, as revealed within.

• And on that topic, Bush has permitted his former speechwriter (whom he nicknamed ‘Junior Bird Man’) to ghost write his memoir. Here is Christopher Michel’s strange story…

• Call me old fashioned, but if you are an adult, you should probably read a book written for adults. No?

• For books, it is the best of times. But also the worst of times.

Jordan – TheNile.co.nz

Back in February, we reported that our stall at Auckland University was forcibly dismantled after a certain university bookstore complained to the student union about our on-campus presence.   This news came as a shock to us, as there was essentially no justification for our ostracism other than to protect the bookstore’s lucrative monopoly over the local student market.

While we received a heartening reaction from our customers, we are displeased to report that a near flawless rerun of the Auckland Uni situation occurred late last week – this time at AUT.   Once again, the student union bowed to the wishes of the university bookstore and had our stall removed.

As saddening as this news might be, we have not been deterred by these minor setbacks. Our textbook campaign has already been a resounding success, with more and more people discovering the speed and ease which comes with buying textbooks online.  Please stay tuned for further correspondence from us in the not-too-distant future as the textbook season winds down.  In the meantime, be assured that we will persist against in our quest to provide an inexpensive alternative to the university bookstore, regardless of their anti-competitive practices.

To celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday, here’s a clip of Jesse Jackson reading from Green Eggs and Ham. Did you know that the book came about due to a bit of a wager? Publisher Bennet Cerf bet the good doctor $50 that he couldn’t write an entire book using less than fifty words – and Ol’ Seussy proved him wrong!

• Editor fails to adequately edit poorly written story about needing editors.

• Abraham Lincoln. Vampire Hunter.

• The Ten Most Underrated Lesbian Books.

• Another week, another vintage comic selling for more than a million bucks. Hot damn.

• Charles Pellegrino, author of Last Train to Hiroshima, revealed to be an even bigger phoney than first anticipated.

• The Guardian interviews Sharon Osbourne about her upcoming book, smashes the world record for swear words per sentence.

• Shakespeare and Company: The second best bookshop in the world!

• “Portrayed… as Japan’s last action hero, ex-prime minister Junchiro Koizumi settles matters of international diplomacy with slavering, corrupt world leaders (from Kim Jong-Il to “Papa Bush”) over histrionic, blood-spattered sessions of the ancient game of mahjong – often while bleeding himself, and occasionally stopping to singlehandedly shoot down nuclear missiles over the Japan Sea.”

• An antique dealer wearing a $5,000 pair of sunglasses walks into a library carrying a stolen Shakespeare folio worth $6 million. And then things get weird.

• What’s the point of a dust jacket, anyway?

Jordan – TheNile.co.nz

As you might have heard, we are currently running an on-campus campaign across the nation to celebrate O-week.  And while our promotion has so far been a great success, there has been a shocking revelation over at Auckland University.

It seems our presence on campus has irked those in charge of a certain campus bookstore.  So much so that the General Manager yesterday saw fit to storm over to our stall, abuse our staff and tear up our promotional material.

Our only crime: offering an inexpensive alternative to their bookstore.

To make things perfectly clear, we followed all the necessary guidelines and received permission from all the necessary parties before setting up our stall.  Our presence was (and still is) perfectly justified.  This, however, did little to placate the General Manager.  He continued his tirade, this time directly to the representatives of the student body.  The result of which was that our staff were bluntly asked to leave and our stall quietly dismantled.

To see the campus bookstore acting in such an unprofessional and irrational manner is more than disheartening.  But what is sadder is that the university has resorted to such uncivil tactics in order to protect the cosy monopoly that their cohorts currently enjoy over the student textbook market.  You see, the on-campus bookstore is generally assumed to be the only place where students can purchase their required texts.  This, however, couldn’t be farther from the truth.  Online retailers (e.g. Yours Truly) can often offer textbooks much cheaper than our bricks’n’mortar competitors.  But the campus bookstore doesn’t want their customers to know this.

In any event, the secret is out.

Onion to recent the report rules on changes grammar

• Perfectly reasonable article gets mauled by scores of angry commenters.

• I don’t care if you wrote it. You’re still not getting an invite.

• This week’s “Martin Amis pisses someone off” article is brought to you by Anna Ford.

• The incredible true story behind Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped.

• First ever Superman comic fetches a cool million bucks at auction.

• 2010 is a good year to be a writer.

• 2010 is a good year to be a writer.  So, if you’re thinking about putting pen to paper, how about 122 tips to better your writing?

• Digested Read – Lee Child Edition.

• One of the most critically acclaimed titles of last year, The Last Train to Hiroshima, found to be riddled with shamefaced lies.

• “CHILLAX BLOGOSPHERE, THE RUMORS ARE TRUE! PETSWHOWANTTOKILLTHEMSELVES: THE BLOG WILL SOON BE PETSWHOWANTTOKILLTHEMSELVES: THE BOOK. IN A RELATED STORY, LITERATURE IS DEAD.”

Jordan – TheNile.co.nz

Universities around the nation are celebrating their annual orientation weeks.  And to help spread the good word of TheNile.co.nz, we are pleased to announce that we’ve launched a huge on-campus promotional campaign.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll have staff at five universities across New Zealand introducing students to the benefits of buying their texts online.  So if you see us, make sure you come over and say ‘hi’!

Tired of long lines and high prices at the university bookstore?

Jump the queue and buy your textbooks online!

With a huge range, great prices and fast shipping, it’s easy to see why more students are turning to TheNile.co.nz for their tertiary texts.

But did you know that we’ve recently implemented some innovative improvements to make your buying experience quicker, easier and all-round better? If not, we have some news…

Our Textbook Centre has been revamped! You can now navigate through our many millions of listings via category, popularity or keyword – making it simpler to find and buy your titles than ever before.

But that’s not all!

If you’ve got used textbooks lying around, you’ll be delighted to hear that TheNile.co.nz is offering you yet another way to save. Our new Textbook Buyback program means that you can convert last semester’s books into either store credit or cold, hard cash. If this interests you, please head on over to our official Buyback page for further information and details.

So, if you or anyone you know is struggling under the weight of textbooks this season, make sure to remember that your favourite online bookstore is here to fulfill your broader learning needs.

Save yourself time, effort and money this semester. Buy online with TheNile.co.nz!

Hunter S. Thompson just bought a new AV system. And he’s not happy. Really… not… happy…

• “Literary biopics usually cater to the fantasy that writers are drunk, mad, sex-obsessed geniuses inspired by the holy spirit (50% proof)…. (But) the problem is, writers’ lives don’t always make for great cinema. If writers are any good, it’s usually because they spend weeks alone, in a room…”

• The top ten unreliable narrators… OF ALL TIME!

• Q: How much literary merit is there in your garden variety Mills & Boon novel? A: …

• George R.R. Martin has got his fans salivating with news that he’s part-way through the fourth novel in his epic Song of Ice and Fire series. BONUS: It’s over 1200 pages.

• Salinger fans, too, are foaming at the mouth after letters reveal the late author was likely in possession of two completed manuscripts.

• The first big plagiarism row of 2010 has begun! A seventeen year-old German author has recently been generating both critical claim and immense commercial success off the back of her debut novel. Unfortunately, large passages of the book are directly lifted from the blog of a different Berliner – albeit in a pseudo-reverential fashion. Is it plagiarism? Is it homage? Is it legal? Who knows? Not me! BONUS: The novel is called ‘Axolotl Roadkill’.

• Russian writers: “…They’re profound and all that. But they’re also incredibly hard. I mean, there’s Pushkin: died in a duel. Lermontov: died in a duel. Tolstoy: fought in the Caucasus. Dostoevsky: sentenced to death, exiled to a Siberian prison camp. Solzhenitsyn: fought in the second world war, sent to the Gulag, survived cancer, defied the USSR …”

• The sinister truth about Calvin and Hobbes. (Actually there is nothing sinister about it - I just thought that sentence was lacking panache.)

• E-Readers Cause iStrain!

• Think people screwing with intellectual property is a new thing? Think again!

Jordan – TheNile.co.nz

Ricky Gervais suspects ‘Flanimal Rights’ movement of stealing thousands of copies of his latest book – thankfully leading to this hilarious interview!

• The nominees for the 1970 Booker Prize have been announced. No, that isn’t a typo.

• “Abandon all hope ye who enter the secret code to Level 9.” Dante’s Inferno is now a video game.

• Unicorns vs. Zombies. You know who my money’s on.

• Vapid reality TV star and sometime author Lauren Conrad has released a list of her all time favourite books. Gawker provides commentary.

• “The group’s passion for Salinger was achingly sincere. They loved his books and claimed to have been saved by his stories. They signed their plea “the young people”. But instead of accepting Salinger’s published works as gifts, they sought his unpublished writings as their due, like ungrateful children. Surely art is not an obligation. It must always be a choice.”

• Just about every man and his dog has had a go at poor Elizabeth Gilbert and her maddeningly popular pseudo-intellectual essays. Isn’t it time someone stood up against the backlash?

• Nick Hornby might get an Oscar! But then again, he might not.

• Jurgen Habermas is not on Twitter! Jurgen Habermas is not on Twitter! Jurgen Habermas is not on Twitter!

• Just because you’ve written a masterpiece doesn’t mean anyone is going to remember you. Sad, but true.

• And finally, a list of literature’s greatest fictional drugs. Enjoy!

Jordan – TheNile.co.nz

Yesterday, Jobs handed down the Tablet from on high. That’s great. But I think that there is a certain piece of technology that already makes the iPad seem, well, a little lacklustre. Introducing BOOK!

• J.D. Salinger, Dead at 91.

• They say everyone has a book in them. Saying that, the simple truth is that most of us will never see their literary dreams come to fruition due to careers, family and the countless other distractions of everyday life. But with the GFC and all those lay-offs, thousands of corporate types have finally had the chance to put pen to paper – and at last their work is filtering through to bookstores. I present to you: ‘lay-off lit!’

• Lick the back of Tim Winton’s head for… oh, about 55c, I guess.

• Will the iPad change publishing as we know it? Short answer: no.

• I just like this poem.

• Never gets old.

• Psychic writes autobiography fifteen years after her death.

• You remember that long, rambling article about recent trends in sex and fiction? I posted it last week. No? You know, the one with those cool pink diagrams? Still nothing? Geez. Well anyway, here’s the rebuttal to that article.

• Fiction is dead. No really. Super dead.

• And to cap things off, how about a study of boredom? ‘“Bliss — a second-by-¬second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious — lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom,” Wallace wrote in a note left with the manuscript. “Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you’ve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it’s like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.”’

Jordan – TheNile.co.nz