Orwell Prize won by Afghanistan War Book

A book about the death of a British officer in Afghanistan, once pulped by the Ministry of Defence, has won the Orwell Prize for political writing.

Dead Men Risen, written by Toby Harnden and published by Quercus, took the prize at a ceremony in Westminster and was the judges' unanimous choice.

It focuses on the death of Lt Colonel Rupert Thorneloe in 2009.

It was published in amended form after the first print run was destroyed by the MoD.

Read the full BBC story

Tony Blair to face yet another inquiry

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is to appear before the Leveson Inquiry into media standards

The BBC reports that Mr Blair will be questioned over whether his relationship with News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch and the company's News International subsidiary was too close.

Mr Blair travelled to Hayman Island in Australia to address News Corp executives in 1995, as part of a Labour strategy to communicate with newspapers that had unfavourably portrayed previous leaders Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock.

He is also godfather to one of the media tycoon's children.

He previously gave evidence to the Hutton inquiry into the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly - the source for the controversial BBC report about intelligence being exaggerated to make the case for war.

He told the inquiry in 2003 he would have resigned if the claims about "sexing up" the Iraq dossier were true.

In 2010, he said he had "no regrets" about removing Saddam Hussein from power during the Iraq inquiry, which was set up to investigate the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath.


The Leveson Inquiry is currently examining the relationship between the press and politicians.

Guns with patriotic engravings

Believe it or not, there is a gun manufacturer out there that sells guns engraved with famous quotations from the Bill of Rights.

It is the RMK-9CI Pistol.

It boasts about being "snag-free" -- so that it can be drawn quickly without snagging on fabric.  From wherever you might have concealed it. Fashioned, in fact, for a fast draw.

It is made in America from entirely American materials.

It is engraved with "venerated words."

And it is called "Proudly American."

The quaint rationale for this is explained on the manufacturer's website:

In developing the 9C1 pistol and visiting with gun dealers for feedback, we found these small businessmen and gun enthusiasts patriotic and intensely passionate about American Freedoms, Liberty, and our enviable Rights. We also found this group more knowledgeable of our history and of America’s Constitution than average citizens. So much so we were embarrassed over our own ignorance and endeavored to learn more about our history and that document so meticulously constructed by the brightest minds among America’s Founding generation.

It is this evolution that inspired us to engrave the Bill of Rights on the 9C1 handgun, not as some gimmick, but instead to inspire and encourage others as we were so inspired and encouraged.

It is our intent and hope that FMK products perform over the long haul at a high level, not to do disservice to those venerated words.

Other "venerated words," according to the website, include famous aphorisms, such as Ted Nugent's "I don't like repeat offenders, I like dead offenders."

According to Andrew Rosenthal, in the opinion pages of the New York Times, Tucker Carlson’s news site, The Daily Caller, has announced that it’s giving away a gun a week until Election Day.

Patriotic gun-toters, take note.

New fiction prize

Grace McCleen, Patrick McGuiness, Rachel Joyce

A poet, a radio playwright and a writer who grew up in a Christian sect have made it on to the shortlist for this year's Desmond Elliott Prize.

 

The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen joins Rachel Joyce's The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and Patrick McGuinness' The Last Hundred Days.

The prize for new fiction was set up in memory of the celebrated literary agent to enrich the careers of new writers.

Bookmakers have given Rachel Joyce a narrow lead to take the £10,000 prize.

READ MORE

Sample chapters on facebook

Publishers Lunch  reports that it will soon be possible for authors and publishers to feature sample chapters on facebook.

For a while now (they say) Hachette Book Group has been talking at conferences about their internal work to harness Facebook as a way for readers to sample and share books. Wednesday the company formally launched their ChapterShare Facebook app, which makes good on that promise.

The app lets authors themselves as well as HBG staff post chapters onto Facebook pages from forthcoming books. Facebook friends can read and share the samples, as well as pre-order the titles. The first two excerpts are opening chapters from James Patterson’s forthcoming novel NYPD Red (October 8) and Michael Connelly’s The Black Box (November 26). HBG coo Ken Michaels notes in the announcement, "Publishing is evolving from a B2B business to a B2C business, and apps like ChapterShare allow us to connect directly with consumers. Publishers need to become application developers in order to connect writers and readers more closely. We saw a need for an application that could unlock more of Facebook’s power for writers and used our unique publishing expertise and systems to build it." (Michaels will expand in this theme in a presentation at Publishers Launch BEA on June 4.)

The Spirit of 1812

FEW Americans remember the War of 1812, and if they do they are likely to forget that it marked the coming of age of their navy. “The Star-Spangled Banner”, written by an amateur poet on the back of an envelope during its battle of Baltimore, makes a bigger impression these days. But it was the heroic performance of America’s frigates against the world’s most powerful fleet that saved the young republic from possible extinction, despite the burning of the White House by the British in 1814.

Two centuries on, the navy is hoping to reclaim the memory of its greatest glory, and to polish its own reputation in the process. While the war (which lasted till 1815) may not feature prominently in a potted history of America, the service sees the conflict as a reminder of its enduring importance. It has spent some $12m on a three-year-long bicentennial celebration, to promote stirring events and exhibitions across the country.

READ THE FULL STORY

Berries that go moldy...

From summertime Martha's Vineyard

(Accompanied by a really awful pun)

Berries are delicious, but they're also rather delicate. Raspberries in particular seem to mold before you even get them home from the market. There's nothing more tragic than paying $4 for a pint of local raspberries, only to look in the fridge the next day and find that little luxury inedible.

Well, with fresh berries just starting to hit farmers markets, we can tell you that how to keep them fresh! Here’s a tip I’m sharing on how to prevent them from getting there in the first place:

Wash them with vinegar.

When you get your berries home, prepare a mixture of one part vinegar (white or apple cider probably work best) and ten parts water. (1/4 c. vinegar in 2-1/2 c. water)

Dump the berries into the mixture and swirl around. Drain, rinse if you want (though the mixture is so diluted you can't taste the vinegar,) and pop in the fridge. The vinegar kills any mold spores and other bacteria that might be on the surface of the fruit, and voila! Raspberries will last a week or more, and strawberries go almost two weeks without getting moldy and soft. So go forth and stock up on those pricey little gems, knowing they'll stay fresh as long as it takes you to eat them.

You're so berry velcome!

Breaking in a Kindle

The Internet is so Convoluted ...

I succumbed to the eBook revolution (after all, I write about it all the time) and bought a Kindle Touch.  It's a nice gadget, light to hold, and surprisingly responsive for a six-inch (diagonally) rectangle of plastic and mysterious innards. The only problem was that I could not get it to work.

Kindles work with WiFi. "Whispernet," they call it.  They are also supposed to work with the supplied USB cable, but while my new purchase charged very efficiently when connected by USB cable to my desktop, it wouldn't buy or download books.  Or even recognize my presence.

The problem, it seemed, was that my Kindle had to be registered via WiFi.  There is an option on "My Amazon" to register online, which I took, but it didn't make any difference.

Perhaps the Kindle and/or the USB cable were faulty?  Working on that theory, I took both back to the supplier, Dick Smith Electronics.  The kid who had sold it to me (and they are always earnest kids) tried both out on a store computer, and managed to "buy" a free Kindle book, load it to the store computer, and then transfer it to my Kindle via the USB cable.  Well, this seemed too complicated and ponderous, so I bought the cheapest router in the store, a D-Link 600 for 59 bucks (NZD).  The young man warned me that it could be "tricky" configuring it with my ISP's coordinates, but I was up to the challenge.

Or so I thought.

The D-Link 600 comes with a CD that runs a manual and a wizard.  Of course I tried the wizard first.  Worked through it, hit manual configuring and phoned my ISP (Telstra) to make sure the internet protocol 4 numbers for my modem connection were the same for the router.  The nice techie said yes, and we went through it together.  Then we both gave up.  It was too tricky even for the expert on the other end of the phone.

So, after a long pause for contemplation, I had another go, this time reading the manual.  It barely made sense, but I did gather that I had to configure a "static" connection.  So I loaded the CD into my laptop (giving the desktop a break), and had another go.  Same negative result, so I hit networking on the laptop, and lo, it passed me onto a D-Link site.  How it did it, I do not know, but I scanned through the paragraphs until I came to "static."  Ticked the box, and lo again, a page came up asking for my ISP's figures.  I typed them in, there was a pause, and then it said the router would reboot.  It didn't.  So I pulled its plug for a minute, reconnected, and it worked! 

Amazon's verifier tends to be slow.  It took three attempts to get them to recognize my wireless password, but then -- and lo yet again -- it allowed me to register and purchase.

So miracles do happen.  Now for the eBook universe.

Orange ends sponsorship of women's fiction

This is the end of an era but no arts project should stand still and we are now looking forward to developing the prize with a new partner.  --  Kate Mosse Orange Prize co-founder

From the BBC
The mobile services company, which has sponsored the prize since it was established 17 years ago, is to focus its brand on the film industry.

Novelist Kate Mosse, the prize's honorary director, said she was in "active discussions with a number of potential new sponsors".

The £30,000 prize recognises English language fiction written by women.

The announcement comes a week before the winner of this year's Orange Prize is to be announced in London.

Mosse, who co-founded the prize in 1996, said: "Our partnership has delivered everything - and more - than we hoped for. A celebration of international writing by women, one of the most significant arts awards in the UK and also a major force in education, literacy and research.

"This is the end of an era but no arts project should stand still and we are now looking forward to developing the prize with a new partner," she said.

She added: "These are very challenging but also exciting times in publishing and we hope that the Prize for Fiction will continue to make as significant a contribution going forward as it has over the last 17 years. To that end, we are in active discussions with a number of potential new sponsors and look forward to the start of another exciting chapter for the prize."

In an open letter on the Orange Prize website, Mosse invites potential sponsors to get in contact.

Another migrant voyage

To Auckland by the Ganges

While I will probably wait until the book arrives in New Zealand libraries, it sounds very interesting.  Migrant accounts abound, but this one was written by a journalist of the time, so while it might not be as honest and candid as a personal diary, it should command the attention of the reader.

Herewith the blurb from the publisher, Whittle (UK), which despite an odd last sentence warning you that you are not going to find out what happened to this bloke after he settled in war-torn New Zealand, makes the book look an attractive buy.

In 1863 there was only one method of travelling from Britain to the other side of the world by sailing ship, on a journey that could take up to four months, and when the vagaries of wind and weather could put travellers in peril during long voyages. The offer of grants of land in New Zealand was a means of enticing emigrants to the fledgling colony, particularly people who had a skill to offer.

One such emigrant was David Buchanan, a journalist and editor of several prominent Scottish newspapers, who opted for a new life in the hope that the health and fortunes of his family would improve. He travelled with his surviving son and three daughters, having lost his wife giving birth to their ninth child.

Using his journalistic skills, Buchanan maintained a daily journal of the voyage which was published twice-weekly in his former newspaper, the Glasgow Herald. His account blended accurate details of the vessel and its handling with anecdotal tales and experiences providing interesting snapshots of mid-nineteenth century life. His devotion to detail suggests a passenger's keen eye upon the operation and progress of the vessel by the ship's crew. Of especial interest is the description of daily life aboard a mid-19th century sailing ship, and the interaction between passengers and crew. The clear class distinction between cabin and steerage class passengers, as well as the many pitfalls and potential injuries to passengers and crew that are described make illuminating reading.

Upon reaching New Zealand Buchanan and his fellow passengers had stepped into the unrest of the Maori Wars, which were closely reported in British newspapers such as the Glasgow Herald. David Buchanan and his family may have settled and led a prosperous life but whatever befell him, he is due our gratification for providing an interesting and valued account of experiences on a voyage during the dominant era of sailing ships.