A DINNER WITH: PETER BAILEY - SEPTEMBER 22ND, 2012

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE an American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom will be the focus of a talk by Philip Bailey, who was personal assistant to Menuhin for 22 years. Philip will be giving a lecture entitled Yehudi Menuhin - Prodigy and Phenomenon at the Foster War Memorial Arts Centre, Toora Road, Foster.

Bookings are essential and you'll find a flyer with details of the event here, plus a booking sheet here.

THE NAKED MAN FROM GIPPY

Some say he was a businessman
Some say he was a hippy
But I know best than all the rest
The man stood tall and passed the test
Then chucked away his shorts and vest
The Naked Man from Gippy.
His best mate was once on TV
A kangaroo called Skippy
He had cows in droves and sheep in flocks
He tended to his hens and cock
Wearing nothing but his boots and socks
The Naked Man from Gippy.

He walked bare-arsed throughout the world
From Melbourne to the Mississippi
And everywhere got thrown in jail
Where he'd sit for weeks cold and pale
'Cos nobody would post the bail of
The Naked Man from Gippy.

Then in a bar in Canberra, he
Bought a beer and took a sip, he
Thought, life's going past, I'm not so fast
Don't think this nudie lark will last.
The bowsprit's now a broken mast
Christ, I'm fifty, shifty and not too nifty,
Said the Naked Man from Gippy.

One fine day he hitched his way
Back home, whistling, feeling chippy
Kept his trousers on

Tucked in his shlong
Got a lift to Foster, and beyond
He'd found his role
To cut the fatal toll
Of Bass Strait's souls in distressed shipping.
The Naked Man from Gippy.

On the darkest night,
When there's no moonlight,
And the winter's getting nippy
Despite the rain and lashing hail
Australian ships can safely sail
No longer fearing rocks or gales
From Wilsons Prom to the Great Bight
His bell-end shines like a guiding light,
And sailors, passengers, bless the sight
Of the Naked Lighthouse Man from Gippy.

(With hugest apologies to Banjo Paterson)

Thank you to Jonathan Sims a Brit who, with his wife Sue, keeps returning to South Gippsland because they just love the place!

NATIONAL BOOK SHOP DAY - SATURDAY AUGUST 11TH 2012

We're looking forward to Saturday, August 11th because we will have a moveable feast in authors, and they will be at Foster's Little Bookshop, 4 Station Road, Foster from 10.30 am until 3.30 pm book busking and raising funds for the Foster Primary School. Plus the Lions Club are setting up a BBQ for sausage sizzling, so come along have a snag and listen to these talented authors read from their work. You will hear Liz Porter, Mary Broadhurst, Stephen Ormsby, Jillian Durance, Yvette Stubbs and Paul Hendry. There may even more writers/authors by the time the day comes around.

HARRY POTTER COMPETITION - JULY 2012

To celebrate the 15th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Bloomsbury is launching a competition to find the biggest HARRY POTTER fan in Australia and New Zealand.

Bloomsbury is inviting fans to write a letter of no more than 50 words explaining why they love HARRY POTTER. We are looking for the most creative, clever and entertaining reasons and, while the word limit is set to a strict 50 words, entrants are encouraged to draw, doodle and make their letters as elaborate as possible.

HARRY POTTER fans can only enter by visiting a local bookshop and posting their letter in the specially designed postboxes. Over 400 bookshops have already signed up to take part. The competition will run from Tuesday 26th June to Tuesday 31st July 2012 after which we will name the biggest HARRY POTTER fan in Australia and New Zealand. The winner and runners up will be announced on Saturday 1st September.

We have one of the special postboxes in our bookshop, plus we can provide an application for. Take a look at this flyer for more information on the competition. Click here.

MILES FRANKLIN AWARD 2012 - ANNA FUNDER

All That I Am by Anna Funder was awarded the Miles Franklin for 2012. Here is an excerpt from her acceptance speech.

Tonight we celebrate fiction. We celebrate our joy and wonder at the inner workings of our nation, and ourselves. We celebrate by holding our mirror – all our disparate mirrors – up to this world; to its beauty, its mysteries, its cruelties:
To babies who besott us and one-armed bandits who fleece us,
To fat mining magnates and fleet-footed Opposition leaders,
To floor-crossers and cross-dressers,
To re-tried Dingos.
To photographers and pornographers,
To streetpeople and shockjocks;
To footballers – and fading, fork-tongued feminists;
To stolen children and newly discovered planets;
To Pygmy people and human mules;
To cloud-seeding, to coke-snorting racehorses;
To islands drowning and children being born;
To being left, to being found;
To stopping time.
Writing is a work of ingenious empathy. It is work of compassion as holy as any we are likely to find. We can’t afford not to have it.

Congratulations Anna Funder.

THE READING WAVE

The Australian Booksellers Association frequently send out interesting information on events that are happening in Australian and internationally................this event was in Sydney a few months ago............bless these young ones for their love of reading. Catch The Reading Wave at Cronulla. Four schools in the Shire participated in the Mob Flash Dance. Woolooware, Bundeena, Kurnell and Cronulla South Public School. Watch the video here.

2012 TWILIGHT AUTHOR TALKS

These are the authors who will be our guests each Friday evening in July for our 2012 Twilight Author Talks. Let me introduce them to you.

July 6th Jennifer Scoullar
Jennifer's first novel 'Wasp Season' was launched at one of the first Twilight Author talks we ran, it is with very great pleasure that we also launch Jennifer's second book 'Brumby's Run'. Jennifer is an author of rural and environmental fiction. She lives on a property overlooking the Bunyip State Forest in West Gippsland and has always harboured a deep appreciation and respect for the natural world. Her first novel 'Wasp Season', an environmental thriller was officially launched at the Melbourne Writer's Festival in 2008. In May of this year she was writer-in-residence at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland. 'Brumby's Run', her second novel will be released by Penguin July 2nd.

July 13th Helene Young
As an airline pilot with twenty-two years flying experience, Helene finds inspiration for her romantic suspense stories in the most unlikely places She's a senior Captain with Australia's largest regional airline and lives in Cairnes with her husband and a slightly obsessive staffie, Zeus. Her work takes her throughout the eastern states of Australia. Her first novel 'Wings of Fear', won the Australian Romantic Book of the Year award 2011 awarded by Romance writers of Australia. 'Wings of Fear' also won the Favourite Australian Romantic Suspence Novel 2010. As an unpublished manuscript it was a finalist in the prestigious American RWA Golden Heart in 2008. Her third novel 'Burning Lies' will be released by Penguin in July 2012. It is the final book in the 'Border Watch' series.

July 20th Margareta Osborn
As a fifth generation farmer from East Gippsland in Victoria, Margareta draws her inspiration from the land and life which she loves. Her great-great grandfather selected their family property in the Macalister Valley in 1862, her children will be the sixth generation to have lived there. For this reason her books take their stories from the heart and soul of the bush she loves and endeavours to convey a sense of coming home. Having lived and worked on a broad-acre cattle station in the north to dairy cropping and grazing properties in south eastern Australia, she writes from the heart about life on the land and its wonderful and resilient people. Her recently published book is 'Bella's Run'. Margareta was in Foster in March participating in her first Book Busking Event.

July 27th Sydney Smith
Sydney was born and grew up in Wellington. She is a former winner of The Age Short Story Competition and has had her short fiction, short memoirs and essays published in Griffith REVIEW, Island, Imago and New England Review. At present she is the co-ordinator of the Victorian Mentoring Service for Writer's, which she founded in 2008. Sydney's book 'The Lost Woman' is published by Text and is a memoir describing her difficult relationship with her mother, who had a mental illness. While much of the content is disturbing, Sydney attempts to humanise her mother and bring some comedy and understanding to the, at times, bizarre world she describes.




These are the stories you can expect to hear at each of the sessions, plus all of the authors will spend time telling the most important stories about how they worked their way to the point they are now, what the hurdles were and how they over came them.

Bookings can be made at Foster's Little Bookshop by phone 5682 2089 or by email flb@virtual.net.au . Cost for each session is $22 per head which includes a glass of wine and finger food. The sessions are held at the Stockyard Gallery from 5.30pm to 7.00pm each Friday evening in July. Numbers will be limited so book early.

LOCAL AUTHOR HONOURED - DAVID ARNAULT

Gippsland resident David Arnault has won a major gong from the Independent Publisher Book Awards for his novel "The Koan of the Fisherman's Wife". More than 5,200 entrants were submitted to the US-based organisation and David's book took out the bronze medal in the "Visionary Fiction" category. The "Koan of the Fisherman's Wife" has two themes running through it. One is concerned with the environmental degradation of the world's oceans. The second theme is about the indomitability of the human spirit.

Launched in 1996, the Independent Publishers awards were the first unaffiliated awards program open exclusively to independent publishers, including universities and self-published works.

We are delighted to have almost all of David Arnault's work on our shelves, so come and take a look at the book that won the award and his other titles.

VALE MAURICE SENDAK 1928 - 2012

This month we lost a great children's book author and illustrator. Maurice Sendak was probably best known for Where the Wild Things Are which won him the Caldecott Medal in 1964. Before he began writing and illustrating his own children's books, he was mostly known for the illustrations he did for other publications, and a compilation of these was published in 1947.

Another well know children's book In the Night Kitchen was published in 1970 and was subjected to censorship for its drawings of a young boy prancing naked throughout the story. All together Maurice Sendak wrote and illustrated 22 children's story books and illustrated more that 70 books and publications for other authors. He won many awards for his books and his illustrations.

In 1975 he produced an animated television production based on his work titled Really Rosie this featured the voice of Carole King. He designed sets for many operas and ballets including Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, Mosart's The Magic Flute and Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. He also created the children's television series Seven Little Monsters.

Maurice Sendak has gone home.

SHORT STORY AND POETRY COMPETITION

Yarram Community Learning Centre are holding a short story and poetry competition which runs until 23rd July with the winners being notified by September 7th. If you'd like an entry form you could click here or get one from the bookshop. So all you budding authors and poets here's the chance to let everyone see what you can do. The Centre can be contacted on (03) 5182 6294.

SUPPER CLOTH COMPETITION - MAY/JUNE 2012

Do you remember when your grandmother would bring out a beautifully decorated supper cloth to set up cups and saucers, cakes and sandwichs for afternoon tea, or for supper? We'd like to recreate that elegance with our competition this year and if you look at the flyer you'll see the details.

As in the past we'll be raising funds for cancer research and this time for the Relay for Life organisation. It's a bit of fun and we do get some wonderful entries to our competition each year, you'll be able to look at each of the entries on our blog as they are submitted.

HISTORY IN AN HOUR - HARPER COLLINS

From Henry VIII's Wives to Afghan Wars, History in an Hour ebooks do just that, you can read about times in history as you commute to work, or over lunch. Priced well at $2.99 look at the history you can catch up on.

EBOOK PUBLISHER'S SPECIALS - APRIL/MAY 2012

A number of publishers have special deals for ebooks over the next couple of months and I suspect this will happen throughout the year. We will establish a 'special deals' section on our ebook website so you don't miss out. Keep looking and buying!!

CHILDREN'S BOOK COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA - AWARDS 2012

Congratulations to all the Allen & Unwin authors and illustrators whose books have been shortlisted in the Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards. There are nine in the list from this publisher and they are:

The Dead I Know by Scott Gardner a well known young adult author, click here for the story.

Ship Kings: The Coming of the Whirlpool by Andrew McGahan, you can read some of the story here.

A Straight Line to My Heart by Bill Condon, there are notes for teachers and it's available as an ebook. Look!

The Golden Day by Ursula Dubosarsky, from an Australian author who has alread been recognised by the CBCA. Click here.

Crow Country by Kate Constable, another Australian author who is no stranger to these awards.
That's Not a Daffodil! by Elizabeth Honey, will this be another picture book success for Elizabeth?

The Dream of the Thylacine by Margaret Wild and Rob Brooks, there's a pdf here if you'd like a preview of this picture book.

Playground by Nadia Wheatley and Ken Searle, there are teacher's notes and reviews by teachers here.

The Little Refugee by Anh Do, Suzanne Do and Bruce Whatley, this title is also shortlisted for Notable Picture Book of the Year. Teacher's notes here.

TEXT PUBLISHING - APRIL 2012

This is an example of the wonders of technology, we can offer our customers a print copy of a title at the same time as an ebook. Text Publishing will be releasing print and digital copies of books simultaneously. See details of this title by Johan Lehrer here and a video interview with the author here.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Kid's Day March 2012

We had a great time last Saturday with the enthusiasm of the kids making their version of the well known Very Hungry Caterpillar. Jennifer was reading stories and keeping the little ones entertained when they got a little tired of sticking and colouring. Many brightly coloured balloons went home as well as their artistic endeavours. Thanks to the mums and grandmums who helped out.

BOOK BUSKING - MARCH 10TH

Whist Margareta might look a little lonely in this photo I can assure you she had plenty of people talking with her about the book, getting signatures and just simply chatting. There is a long seat just in front of where Margareta is sitting and there were groups of people there off an on throughout the morning. Our thanks to Margareta for being the first author to 'give it crack'.

AUSTRALIAN WOMEN WRITERS - 2012

To help celebrate International Women's Day 2012 on March 8th, join the Australian Women Writers Challenge. Go to the AWWC website here and join up to read and review some of the worlds best writers.

We have established a separate category for Australian women writers on our ebook website, go here and click on the Australian Women Writers tab . There are writers who have won the Man Booker prize, the Miles Franklin Award, Australian Romance Readers Assoc. Award, the Aurealis Award, the Ditmar Award, Ned Kelly Award, Christina Stead Award, The Age Book of the Year, West Australian Premiers Award, the Barbara Jefferies Award, the Indie Award and many more. The are authors who have been short and longlisted for all of the above awards. It is quite an impressive list.

You could determine your next book club list for 12months or more just from the list of women writers. Wouldn't that be an interesting year of reading.

FLYING BOOKS

Every now and then a special treat comes along and it's great to be able to share it on our blog. This is a short film called the Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Please click and enjoy.

MARGARETA OSBORN - BOOKBUSKING

This is Margareta Osborn and you will meet her outside Foster's Little Bookshop on Saturday, March 10th. Margareta will be reading from her debut novel "Bella's Run" and she will be very pleased to talk with budding authors about her experience in getting her book published.

We currently have copies of "Bella's Run" on the shelves, perhaps you would like to have read Margareta's book before you meet her, I'm sure she'd love to sign it for you.

WHEN: SATURDAY, MARCH 10th, 10.30 am to 12 noon
WHERE: Outside Foster's Little Bookshop, 4 Station Road, Foster

Come and join the fun of book busking!!

BOOK OF THE YEAR - 2012 - R. J. PALACIO

"WONDER" by R. J. Palacio

I know it's early in 2012 to call any book 'the book of the year', and yet I really don't think any other story is going to move and affect me as much as this one did. R. J. Palacio has written a book for young adults; this is also a book for adults. There are so many ways this story can touch the reader. Here is an interview with the author, she gives the background to how the story came into being and that is a story in itself.

Click on the title above and read the story description, then please buy the book (or borrow from the library or a friend) and when you've enjoyed the story, it would be wonderful if you would put a review on our website, please. This is a title that will be on our shelves in the bookshop and on my bookshelves at home. I will even buy a copy to loan out! It's a story I think everyone should read.

NATIONAL YEAR OF READING - 2012 AUSTRALIA'S BOOK CHOICE

Between November 2011 and January 2012, more than 16,200 readers voted online to choose eight titles, one for each state and territory, which would provide the basis for Australia's biggest book group for 2012. The winners were announced on February 14th at the National Library of Australia in Canberra. The books are:

Well Done Those Men by Barry Heard for Victoria

Jasper Jones By Graig Silvey for Western Australia

Wanting by Richard Flanagan for Tasmania

Time's Long Ruin by Stephen Orr for South Australia

TheWhite Earth by Andrew McGahan for Queensland

Listening to Country by Ros Moriarty for the Northern Territory

The Idea of Home by John Hughes for New South Wales

Smoke & Mirrors by Kel Robertson for the Australian Capital Territory

What a great list of books for any book club's list for 2012. If you decide to add these titles to your club's list please send us a review on all or any of them for our website.

NATIONAL YEAR OF READING - 2012

Nearly half the Australian population struggles through their life without the literacy skills to meet the most basic demands of everyday life and work. There are 46% of Australians who can't read newspapers; follow a recipe; make sense of timetables, or understand the instructions on a medicine bottle.

This National Year of Reading is about children learning to read and keen readers finding new sources of inspiration. It's about supporting reading initiatives while respecting the oral tradition of storytelling. It's about helping people discover and rediscover the magic of books. And most of all, it's about Australians becoming a nation of readers.

The National Year of Reading is supported by some familiar names. William McInnes is the Patron and the list of Ambasadors covers authors, booksellers, politicians, sports women and men, professors, radio and television identities. The children's authors include Felice Arena, Graeme Base, Alison Lester, Andy Griffiths, Jackie French and Shaun Tan. To read more about the National Year of Reading visit the official website here. We are pleased to be involved in this Australia wide movement.

Happy New Year 2012

Alison Lester and Boori Monty Pryor are the first Australian Children's Laureates, this was announced early in December 2011 as the first project for the National Year of Reading. For more information on the Australian Childrens Laureate visit the website here. And to follow the National Year of Reading visit their website here.

The Patron for the National Year of Reading is William McInnes and the list of Ambasadors reads like a 'who's who' of celebraties and politicians. The children's authors who are on this list include Hazel Edwards, Andy Griffiths, Jackie French, Shaun Tan, Alison Lester, Graeme Base and Felice Arena.

This is going to be an interesting year for books and readers, watch this space for more information on these two great initiatives.