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Check out videos from Whose Muse Is It Anyway?
Posted Thursday September 2nd 2010
by Nikesh ShuklaIf you missed the live stream of our improv poetry event featuring Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Laura Dockrill, Luke Wright, Dizraeli and Doc Brown, never fear for we have two videos from the event (an unfortunate technical error meant we only have the first 10 minutes to share with you)... but here we go... Laura Dockrill and Dizraeli in performance at Whose Muse Is It Anyway?
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Barbara Kingsolver thinks she’s eco-friendly. But we’re making cheese in our fridge...
Posted Thursday September 2nd 2010
by Becky SextonBarbara Kingsolver, award-winning author complete with impressive vegetable garden is one of the people I am slightly in awe of.
As my Granny pulled a jug of congealed milk from the darkest depths of our fridge and asked, ‘Do you intend to keep this for any purpose in particular?’ No joke intended. It reminded me yet again about the amount of food that is wasted in our house even though our recycling bin is continuously over-flowing.
The contents of the jug was spooned chunk by lovely chunk into the bin, yes our very own brand of luxury, crumbling, blue cheese, an organic semi-skimmed delight. I hung my head in shame as I was told that during my Granny’s childhood, our milk was purposefully made into cheese, every little bit eaten, NO WASTE. No need for individually-packaged apples, three recycling bins, or an extra fridge/freezer in the garage because, let’s face it; where else would you store the beers?
Bizarrely, Granny and the cheese somehow seemed highly relevant to the current ecological news: climate change, bikes for London, ‘Save the World.’ Even Clarence House is being kitted out with solar panels.
In company with the Prince, Barbara Kingsolver is also taking…
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Authors we love... Peter Suart
Posted Monday August 16th 2010
by Emmy the GreatFolk musician Emmy the Great's Emma-Lee Moss guest-blogs in our continuing Authors We Love... series with her favourite uncle, the poet Peter Suart.
I’m near the end of the writing process for my second album, and have recently set up an office in my parents’ landing, which doubles as a library. A few weeks ago, I identified a feeling that I wanted to turn into a song: that there is a world somewhere that exists in our intuition, and it is in striving to see the beauty of that world which drives much of our activity in this one.
I didn’t expect to be able to convey everything I wanted in a three-minute, chorus-led piece of indie pop, but I thought that maybe if I crammed enough research into the writing process, I’d have gained something from trying. Knowing that my song was called North, I set my sights on the library. By some coincidence, the first book I found was called North. It was written by my uncle, and the opening quote, from Herman Melville, began 'Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel...'
My uncle’s name is Peter…
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Announcing the shortlist for the 2010 Early Years Award
Posted Thursday August 5th 2010
by Rebecca WilkieThe 2010 Booktrust Early Years Awards shortlist has just been announced and from interactive books for babies, to thought-provoking picture books for older children, there must be something here to appeal to every under-five!
This year’s best emerging illustrator category offers up a host of delights. Distinctive lino-cuts and a limited but striking palette are used in Kazuno Kohara’s wintry tale of Jack Frost. Kohara was last seen with debut picture book, The Haunted House, which was similarly memorable –this illustrator is definitely a name to watch.
Humour prevails in several titles – notably in Dog’s Don’t Do Ballet and The Talent Show, although both contain a more serious message about acceptance and following your dreams too! Jeremiah Jellyfish is another comic tale from John Fardell (previously shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize) with detailed, cartoon-like illustrations to pore over.
Ellie Sandall’s Birdsong, is an imaginatively illustrated fable about make-believe birds, while The Django by Levi Pinfold, is a sophisticated, painterly account of the early years of jazz musician Django Rienhardt – playing some of his music when sharing this book would make it a particularly memorable read.
In the Best Picture Book for Children up to Five-Years-Old category,…
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Monthly Staff Picks: August
Posted Monday August 2nd 2010
by Nikesh ShuklaWhat Booktrust staff have been reading on holiday...
Anna
I have been reading Corpus by Susan Irvine. This brilliantly intelligent collection of short stories interrogates the act of creating art as well as providing a thought-provoking look at the contemporary experience of being in the advertising, publishing and modern art industries. Told in a variety of unusual forms, these stories raise questions about our roles as producers and receivers of art and writing. Fantastic!
Katherine
Early in Beatrice and Virgil, author Henry tries unsuccessfully to provide a clear answer to the question 'What’s your book about?' – an apt beginning for a novel that keeps its readers guessing. Is Beatrice and Virgil really about the holocaust, a strange encounter with an elderly taxidermist, the nature of authorship or the unlikely friendship between a donkey and howler-monkey? Yann Martel offers a multiplicity of possible answers in this original, thought-provoking and unexpected fable, exploring how art struggles to represent and make sense of the chaos of human experience.
Nicola
I’m reading I’m Not Scared by Niccolo Ammaniti a few years ago but whenever the weather is really hot, I can’t help but think back to this amazing book. A hot, breathless novel…
