Tuesday, 5 September 2006
The 2006 Beijing International Book Fair wound up on Saturday 2 September, after four days of intense activity, with first reports suggesting the event was a worthwhile one for the...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Mary Drum, formerly sales and marketing director at Hachette Livre, has launched a new publishing company, Drum Publishing, following the end of her contract with Hachette in July. ‘There are...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
The Melbourne Writers Festival wound up on Sunday 3 September with a sold-out debate between Robert Manne and Andrew Bolt on the Stolen Generations. The festival, which ran from 25...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Twenty-one works have been short-listed for the 2006 NSW Premier's History Awards.‘These awards, worth $90,000, honour the achievements of Australian historians and highlight the centrality of history to our daily...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
The winners of the 2006 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards were announced at a dinner in Melbourne on Monday 4 September.In his opening speech, Victorian premier Steve Bracks praised his predecessor...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
The winners of this year's Ned Kelly Awards were announced by the Crime Writers' Association of Australia, in conjunction with the Age and the Age Melbourne Writers' Festival on 30...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Peter FitzSimons' weighty military tome Tobruk holds on to the number one spot for the second week running, but the kids are catching up; Andy Griffith's Dr Seuss-inspired The Cat...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Trade events coming up over the next week, as shown on our events calendar, include: the Book City annual conference, which takes place in Melbourne over the weekend of 9-10...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Nextra Strathpine in Queensland is now owned by Peter Keys, and has joined the Leading Edge Books team.

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Renowned Australian children's author Colin Thiele has died, aged 85, after suffering from heart complications. Thiele published more than 100 books in his lifetime, including the children's classic Storm Boy...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Egypt's most celebrated author Naguib Mahfouz has died from heart failure, aged 94. Mahfouz was the first Arab writer to be awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature. He is best...

Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Australia's famous ‘Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin has died from a stingray attack off the coast of Queensland. Irwin published three books in his career: The Crocodile Hunter: The Birthday Present...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
In our Around the World blog this week: Amazon announces plans to buy back US$500 million of the company's shares of the next two years; the summer reading promotion of...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
With just a few shopping days to go until Father's Day, this week's bestsellers belong to dad. At number one is the classic military book option (Peter FitzSimon's Tobruk in...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Ralph Saubern writes on behalf of ACER Press: On Wednesday last week, Deirdre Morris, general manager of ACER Press, passed away after a short battle with cancer. She will be...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Sue Hines writes on behalf of Allen & Unwin: Actor, writer, obituarist, art critic, bookseller and lover of books, Philip Jones died on Friday 25 August after a long and...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Simon & Schuster (Australia) writes: International thriller writer Colin Forbes died last week at the age of 83. Colin wrote 33 novels, a book a year without fail, well over...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Australian Democrats founder Don Chipp died from pneumonia on Monday, aged 81. Chipp entered federal parliament as a member of the Liberal party, where he delighted libertarians by clearing a...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Further to last week's story about the transition to ISBN-13, WBN has been informed that the DOS-based version of Preswick Data's IBID system--used by Dymocks and a number of independent...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
Friendly Fire, a collection of poetry by Jennifer Maiden (Giramondo), has won the $10,000 Age Book of the Year award, announced on Friday as part of the Melbourne Writers' Festival....

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
The books shortlisted for this year's Queensland Premier's Literary Awards were announced on 24 August. The shortlist is as follows: Fiction Book Award: The Garden Book (Brian Castro, Giramondo); Grace...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
As previously reported in WBN, the Australian newspaper intends to launch a monthly literary supplement in the vein of its now defunct Australian Review of Books. To be called the...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
The Canberra Readers and Writers Festival held from 25 August to 27 August at the National Library of Australia was a success for the ACT Writers Centre, which has organised...

Tuesday, 29 August 2006
The Melbourne Writers' Festival kicked off last Friday 25 August with the announcement of the Age Book of the Year winners, followed by the festival's traditional keynote address, this year...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
Trade events coming up over the next week, as shown on our Events Calendar, include: Children's Book Week, which wraps up on 25 August; the University of Melbourne Publishing & Communications annual...

Tuesday, 22 August 2006
The shortlist of books for this year's Canberra's Own Outstanding List (COOL) awards--the ACT's children's choice book awards--has been announced. Voting begins on 1 September and finishes on 15 September with the winning...