It’s Book Week– a great time to celebrate books, writing and reading – in paper or digital form!
The winning children’s books have been announced by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. Books for Older Readers are very suitable for college students and other titles are used in Children’s Literature classes. We buy several each year. You might also be interested if you have young children.
Winners: http://cbca.org.au/winners2013.htm
Notable books: http://cbca.org.au/Notables2013.htm
In the library we are running a daily Trivia Quiz with 10 questions posted daily and prizes given to the first correct answers. We are continuing with the Sci-ku poetry writing competition so send us your haiku poems on a science theme.
Looking for good reads? Try these sites:
Dymocks’ best 101 books of all time: 2013 list
Looking for a good read? Try something from this list, as voted by 7000 readers. The Harry Potter series has regained top spot, followed by Pride and prejudice.
http://www.dymocks.com.au/Booklovers/101club.aspx
Australian Independent Bookseller
Weekly Top 10 bestsellers; book news, Indie Awards chosen annually. Winner of this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award: Questions of travel by Michelle de Kretser. http://www.indies.com.au/
Indie Book of the Year: The light between oceans by M.L. Stedman.
Winners: http://www.readings.com.au/news/the-2013-indie-award-winners
Get Reading!
http://www.getreading.com.au/
Formerly known as Books Alive, this is Australia’s largest annual celebration of books and reading, held in September each year. On 1 Sept, the 2013 list of the Top 50 Books You Can’t Put Down will be announced, as well as a list of Australia’s favourite books. The free guide will be available in bookstores and online.
Some great book suggestions – book lists from 2007-2012: http://www.getreading.com.au/50-books-you-cant-put-down/
Banned books
Various banned book lists – interesting and well presented: http://www.goodreads.com/list/tag/banned
Read about the secret history of Australian censorship and prohibited publications….Peyton Place, Brave new world, The catcher in the rye….intriguing! http://blog.naa.gov.au/banned/
Twentieth-century Australia had the strictest censorship of any democratic nation. Publications of all kinds were kept under surveillance and thousands of books were banned as seditious, blasphemous or obscene. Read more: http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/special/exhibitions/bannedbooks/exhibition/
List of banned books in Australia: http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/special/exhibitions/bannedbooks/exhibition/australia.html
More links: http://www.lib.unimelb.edu.au/collections/special/exhibitions/bannedbooks/
The best 100 opening lines from books: Click on the book covers to reveal the lines from excellent books, old and new.
http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/the-best-100-opening-lines-from-books/
100 best closing lines from books: http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/the-best-100-closing-lines-from-books
100 best films based on books: http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/top-100-films-based-on-books
The 8 darkest fairy tales: http://www.stylist.co.uk/books/the-eight-darkest-fairy-tales#image-rotator-1
Arts and Letters Daily
http://www.aldaily.com/
Highly regarded website with dailyreport of news in literature, language, philosophy, ideas, criticism, history, music, art, culture – includes reviews of new books, essays and articles. Excellent links to other cultural websites and blogs. Something for everyone! eg. A brief history of applause, the Big Data of the ancient world: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/a-brief-history-of-applause-the-big-data-of-the-ancient-world/274014/
AustLit: the Australian literature resource
http://www.austlit.edu.au/
AustLit aims to be the definitive virtual information resource for Australian literary, print and narrative culture. It includes information about fiction, poetry, theatre & film writing, biographical & travel writing and reviews. Some full text creative and critical works are also available. All Aust. teachers have free access.
What’s in AustLit: http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/5961903
Full text collections: Poems, novels, criticism, reviews, children’s literature and early Aust. science fiction. http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/5960585
Full text search: http://www.austlit.edu.au/?ex=FullTextSearch
AustLit includes the BlackWords database. BlackWords provides searchable information about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers, storytellers and their published and unpublished books, stories, plays, poems and criticism. It includes works in English and in Indigenous Australian languages. http://www.austlit.edu.au/specialistDatasets/BlackWords
Sydney Review of Books
http://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/
“Sparked by concerns about the dwindling space for literary criticism in Australian media, the Sydney Review of Books is an online review site focusing on Australian writers and writing”. It has reviews and articles about fiction, non fiction, poetry & other feature articles.
Happy Book Week!