Thursday, June 2, 2011

More book news

Guy Somerset weighs in with his opinions on the 2011 NZ Post Book Awards here at the Listener. I am not going to comment on any of this, as it’s unseemly for previous judges to do so, but Guy certainly has a view. And, as always, what’s of interest is which books didn’t make the cut.

The judges explain themselves here. Whatever one thinks of their decisions, they have actually read every book entered, so they are in a better position than the rest of us to make a judgement.

The good book news recently was that Whitcoulls has a new owner that understands retail. But the best news was this: it has lured back Joan Mackenzie, its former chief book buyer, who defected to PaperPlus when Whitcoulls got silly. This tells us that the new owner is serious about quality.

No comments: