RIASS stuff:
Capers, dei ex machina and Christian Jacq's Manhunt'Rating: 
Im not having much luck with my Egyptian mysteries this year
Avoiding shiny things: Scott Bartlett on writing full-time'Ah, what to do with all of those unscheduled hours?
Culling my book collection: a Sisyphean task'Were still sharing book culling tips and anecdotes over here. And youll be proud to know that Ive donated 20 books within the last two days. Yay me!
Giveaway: House at the End of the Street by Lily Blake'(Aus only)
Other bookish stuff:
If youre a romance reader, swing by the Harlequin site for a free daily ebook in the lead-up to Christmas.
Need to brush up on your reading of authors from Australias ACT? Check out the ACT Writers Showcase
Have you been making an effort to read books by female Australian authors this year? If so, take a moment to fill in this survey about how your reading habits have changed over the past year.
On encouraging boys to embrace a female heroine'Male protagonists are seen as the default, and thus provide acceptable reading for all genders. Books about girls are seen as being for girls, with the intrinsic femininity of such stories inevitably drowning out any other worthwhile lesson, theme, or idea a boy could possibly derive from them.'As a woman and a reader, its hard not to feel indignant when books with female protagonists are categorised entirely by the main characters gender while books with male protagonists are seen as universal. Why is Katniss femininity more important to her narrative than Harry Potters masculinity is to his?
On depictions of violence and women in crime fiction (readers of this site will probably notice that I rarely review crime novelsand the violence against women is largely why.) One really depressing thought for me is that publishers / film studios are actively on the lookout for explicit depictions of violence against women (whether in crime fiction or other genres such as horror), because they know that these will sell. What that says about us as a society is pretty bleak.
I love this little comic'about the perspective offered by books.
Thats so random: on the not-so-random evolution of the word random
In the UK? Foyles is looking for suggestions and recommendations from customers and other bookish people regarding the redesign of its flagship shop.
An interview with Tara Moss'I'm fortunate that I work from home as a writer most of the year. My life is very flexible and I get to do what I love for a living. My husband is also a writer, and we live a very productive life in the mountains, writing novels and enjoying being parents to our little girl.'I am not big on guilt. I'm an essentially good person and I provide well for my family. My daughter is happy, adventurous and loved. That is what matters. I think many parents are far too hard on themselves.
Fictions story is far from over, says Robert McCrum'Fiction has always been expressed in many guises, and novels now come in new and different formatsSuddenly a lot of people are taking comic books very seriously indeed. If fiction is no longer king of the castle, its certainly enjoying a vigorous life below stairs.Theres life in the old dog yet.
Are agents the victims of the Penguin Random House merger? (oh dear, I just typed murder there) Agents typically pitch one book to one imprint at one house, although the exact rules differ from publisher to publisher. The rule at Penguin is that agents cannot pitch to multiple imprints within the group; imprints cannot bid against each other for the same manuscript. At Random House, imprints can bid against each other as long as they are not in the same immediate group. After the Penguin Random'House merger, agents'could see pitching options abruptly diminished if'Penguins rules are retained in the new conglomerate.
Can robots write novels?'This is like something out of Vonneguts Player Piano:'Professor Philip Parker, of Insead business school, created software that has generated over 200,000 books, on as varied topics as the 60 milligrams of fat in fromage frais to a Romanian crossword guide.'Amazon currently lists over 100,000 titles under his name.
Unconventional bookmarks: what do you find yourself reaching for when you dont have a bookmark handy? Its often press release slips, business cards and shopping dockets for me!
Re the post about general books and girls books. It drives me mad that theres even a section called womens fiction when theres no correlating section for the blokes. Somehow, 51% of the population became a minority group.
It doesnt help when wayyyyyy back in high school we were given Lord of the Flies (didnt finish it) and The Odessa File (ditto) to read in yr 10. How on earth were a bunch of 15-y-o girls supposed to identify with those titles? But this is how it starts, the early brainfilling notions that girls should read books about boys and men, because books about girls and women werent good enough for the syllabus that year. (ps, teacher was a woman, who urged us to read classics and possibly had her own issues to deal with)
BUT, things did turn around in year 12 Lit, with another strong female teacher who gave us Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant and Pride and Prejudice. I started feeling sorry for the 2 boys in the class (wed just gone co-ed, woooot!) because they had to get their heads around all these female issues.
Geez, I can bang on, cant I? Anyway, its an issue close to my heart, thats for sure.
Oh I agree with you entirely, Ebony. Thats a pet peeve of mine, too, and something that I keep bringing up in interviews because it irks me so much. :)
I do have to give my high school (a girls school) a bit of kudos about the fact that it did try very hard to give us books featuring female protagonists or at least written by female authors. Of course, that meant that we skipped virtually all the classics along the way, but still!
I think these issues are only going to get worse as money-hungry marketers continue to eye the gender divide and do their best to entirely undermine the advances of feminism in the name of a quick buck. Sigh. *gets off soap box*