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Three Famines by Tom Keneally

"In his new book, Three Famines, Tom Keneally investigates mass starvations in Ireland in the mid-19th century and in Bengal and Ethiopia in the mid and late 20th century. Here he considers just how far hungry people will go to stay alive."

Extract in The Australian

May 2010 sees the hardback publication of The Ambassador's Mission, the beginning of the Traitor Spy Trilogy, which takes up the action a generation after the events in The High Lord.

Genevieve, of the "reeling and writhing" weblog, alerts us to the publication of The Pilo Family Circus in the US. This is indicated by a review of the book by Maud Newton, and the publication of an extract from the novel.

The book was first published in Australia in 2006 and won the inaugural ABC fiction award (sponsored by ABC Books). It then went on to win the Aurealis Award (co-winner: Best Horror novel, plus the Golden Aurealis Award), the Australian Shadows Award, the Ditmar Award (Best Novel), and the Sydney Morning Herald's "Best Young Novelist Award" for 2007. It was also short-listed for the 2007 International Horror Guild Award for Best Novel. Not bad going for a first novel by an unknown author.

The cover of the US edition

All of this is good fun as it allows me to go look up "Coulrophobia" on Wikipedia. That's the morbid or exaggerated fear of clowns by the way.

As Chloe Hooper's book, Tall Man, is released in the USA, Alison McCullough reviews it for "The New York Times", which also makes available the full first chapter.

Note: you may need to set up an account to access this. For more information on the book you can go to the book's website.

Virginia Lloyd's novel, The Young Widow's Book of Home Improvement, has been chosen as one of five books on the Borders Shortlist. Along with an interview with the author you can read
the first chapter of the novel. [PDF file.]

Penguin books have published a novel based on the sacking of Channel Nine Today show co-host Jessica Rowe. Eddie Maguire, CEO at the time, famously discussed "boning" or sacking Rowe, and it is this terminology that has resulted in Boned; the author "Anonymous". Television presenter Tracey Spicer takes a look at the book, and the Courier-Mail has now published an extract.

I first saw Jimmy Barnes fronting the Australian pub-rock band Cold Chisel in Adelaide in November 1974 - they were the support act for touring British heavy metal outfit Uriah Heep. I didn't know who the band was at the time but they certainly went on to make an impression over the next ten years or so. Barnes's "biography", Icons of Australian Music: Jimmy Barnes, has now hit the stands, and you can read the first chapter, [PDF file]. The book - if this chapter is anything to go by - isn't a "straight" biography in the usual sense. But interesting nevertheless.

In my first list of forthcoming books for 2008, I listed a new "what-if" novel from John Birmingham, due in October. I didn't give it a title because, frankly, there didn't seem to be one. Never mind, you can now read an extract from the novel on John's weblog, "Cheeseburger Gothic". Be aware though, the author supplies a number of caveats:

It's unedited raw copy. It does contain errors which will be fixed up. Some ranks will change. The cam scene will change. And there are some narrative details which will definitely be different in the finished product. But it will give you an idea where I'm going. And yes, the Caitlin opener is a direct homage to the sleeping assassin genre. But she wakes up.

D.M. Cornish has made available the first chapter of the second volume of his Monster Blood Tattoo series. Please note that this is a PDF file and may take some time to download.

Shaun Tan has href="http://www.middlemiss.org/weblog/archives/matilda/2007/08/childrens_book_1.html">received a fair bit of attention this year due to his latest work, The Arrival. If you've been wondering what all the fuss is about, you can now check out some excerpts from the book in "The New York Magazine" entertainment pages.

"The Australian" newspaper has published an target=new>extract of this year's The Australian/Vogel Award winning novel, I Dream of Magda by Stefan Laszczuk. And, yes, the Madga of the title does refer to actress Magda Szubanski.

You may have wondered in some idle moment why I haven't reprinted any of Clive James's poetry on this weblog. Simple answer: copyright. All of the poems reprinted here are old, necessitated by the fact that the works have to be in the public domain, which only happens in Australia 50 years after the author's death. Last time I looked, James was still kicking pretty hard so it'll be a while before Matilda can safely get round to highlighting his work. Not so "The New York Times" though. They have the clout to contact the poet directly and request reprint rights to his poem "The Book of My Enemy". The work has appeared as a lead-in to the upcoming publication of Opal Sunset: Selected Poems 1958-2007 by Clive James.

"The New York Times" has made the first chapter of Richard Flanagan's novel, The Unknown Terrorist, available for reading on the web.

Quercus, Peter Temple's UK publisher, have made available extracts from his novels, The Broken Shore and In the Evil Day. In order to access the extracts it looks like you'll have to register at the site. It doesn't look too onerous. If you're not keen on that then you can try the BugMeNot website for a useable login and password.

"The New York Review of Books" has published an extract from J.M. Coetzee's next novel, Diary of a Bad Year, which is due to be published in the US in January 2008. Not sure of the Australian release date at this time.

[Update: I've been reliably informed that the novel will be published in Australia by Text on September 3.]

"The Age" has published an extract from Sonya Hartnett's new novel, The Ghost's Child, which has just been released.

Brenda Niall, mainly known for her literary biography of author Martin Boyd, and a further biography of the others in the Boyd clan, has released a memoir of her writing life, Life Class: The Education of a Biographer. "The Age", this weekend, published an extract from that memoir, in which Niall details the problems that can arise when attempting to interview a reluctant subject; in this case Archbishop Mannix. "The archbishop's inquiries made me conscious of the difficulty of my role. There was a certain weariness in the courtesies; and no sign that he was ready to talk about himself. Sitting opposite him, with my blank notepad open, I tried awkwardly to reverse our roles. I was naive enough to have thought that we would begin at the beginning, and from there the words would flow. There was no tape recorder. Someone who refused to speak on the telephone was not likely to allow this more recent form of technology. Recording would not have helped much; the words came so slowly and quietly that I had plenty of time to transcribe. My halting questions about his childhood drew a sentence or two, before an unmistakable full stop."

The "Courier-Mail" has published an extract from A New Tomorrow - The Silverchair Story by Jeff Apter. If you saw the Andrew Denton interview with Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns a couple of years back, then there's not a lot new here.

With its shortlisting for the "Guardian" first book award, the newspaper has published an extract from Carrie Tiffany's novel Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living.

With the publication of Theft by Peter Carey in the US, "The New York Times" has published the first chapter of the novel.

You can read the first chapter of Markus Zusak's novel The Book Thief, courtesy of "The New York Times". Then go back and read the paper's review of the book.

[You'll probably need to be registered to get access. Try bugmenot for an anonymous userid and password.]

Peter Carey's new novel Theft is to be published by Faber in the UK on June 1st, and this week "The Guardian" publishes an extract.