WikiLeaks memoir is a coup for Canongate

Rosemary Goring applauds the Edinburgh publisher for cementing a deal with Julian Assange.

Well done Canongate! The news that Scotland’s illustrious publishing house is to publish the memoir of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange brought much-needed good cheer at a dark time of year. Assange’s story is the hottest publishing property in the globe right now, and for it to have been secured by Jamie Byng, below, is nothing less than a triumph. It only adds to one’s pleasure to know that executives in the biggest publishing houses in the world will be eating their pillows at night thinking of the prize that could have been theirs. While Alfred Knopf is to be Assange’s publisher in North America, Canongate has sold the rights to Australia, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, Catalonia and Brazil, for a co-ordinated launch this April….read more

Words to the wise

The holiday break is a great time to put your nose in a book. The Herald’s literary editor, Susan Wyndham, lists 15 Australian classics for your consideration.

 

Don’t tell my editor but I’ve cheated on this assignment. ”Write about the 15 Australian books every Australian should read,” he said. But summer holidays are not a time for ”shoulds”, except that your reading should be a pleasure. And choosing just 15 books is almost impossible. We have moved way beyond the time 70 years ago when Marjorie Barnard wrote of Australian literature that ”there is not yet so much timber that we cannot get a clear view of the bush”.

So let’s call this ”15 Australian books – and some extra suggestions – that every Australian can enjoy if they want to understand our literature, our country and ourselves”. Culture is a conversation and knowing these books enables us to talk to each other….read more

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