Ron, the creator and co-ordinator of the "Patrick White Readers' Group" weblog, has decided to shut the group down. It seems that a call for a show of interest in another White title returned only two replies. Ron's done a good job with this, and it's a pity to see it go, but we all need to recognise when an idea has run its course.
Sarah Weinman, on the "Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind", points to an interview with Anthony Cheetham on the Bookseller website. Who's he you may well ask? Well, he's the owner of Quercus Publishing, the publishing house that released Peter Temple's novel The Broken Shore in the UK. I can't access the Bookseller site as it is subscription-only, but the short piece on Weinman's weblog puts the Temple publication into some context. It also mentions that Quercus will publish Adrian Hyland's novel Diamond Dove. And if you access the publisher's website and have a wander through the publications list you'll see that they are also publishing In the Evil Day (which my father told me was better than Broken Shore) and a Jack Temple Omnibus, both by Peter Temple. A bit further down we see that the house will also be releasing a Parker Omnibus by Richard Stark. Now we just need someone to send Cheetham a copy of one of Disher's Wyatt novels.
From an email I recently received: "Australian Book Review and the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) have much pleasure in announcing the second Calibre Prize for an Outstanding Essay, one of the world's most lucrative essay prizes. The winner will receive $10,000. "All non-fiction subjects are eligible, from memoir to literary studies to politics to natural history. "The closing date is August 31, and the winner will be announced in December 2007." The competition conditions are available from the ABR website.
