The X factor
We know the Coalition is keen that the Productivity Commission's recommendations to scrap parallel importation restrictions on books be enacted. We know that the Greens want them kept. We know that Labor has yet to firmly make up its collective mind. This week Nick Xenophon and his Team came out strongly in favour of retaining the restrictions. He said cheaper books at the cost of 20,000 jobs did not make sense and flew in the face of both the Coalition's mantra for "jobs and growth" and "innovation". He said: "The Turnbull Government keeps talking about 'jobs and growth' and innovation yet ... this plan will hinder creativity and innovation and cost jobs."
Gold standard award
People always get muddled up with what is the oldest literary prize in Australia. There is an assumption – perhaps not unreasonable given the publicity it gets – that the Miles Franklin has that claim to fame. But it is in fact the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, which was first awarded in 1928 by an organisation established in 1899. It has at times been referred to as the Crouch Gold Medal after its principal benefactor, the Victorian Colonel R. A. Crouch, author of one novel, The Prime Minister, which was published in 1937 under the pseudonym Richard Greenhill. Martin Boyd won the first Gold Medal for The Montforts (also published under a pseudonym, Martin Mills). This year's shortlist is: James Bradley (Clade), Tegan Bennett Daylight (Six Bedrooms), Drusilla Modjeska (Second Half First), and Brenda Niall (Mannix). It was originally awarded for best novel, but more forms are now eligible. Last year's winner was poet Jennifer Maiden for Drones and Phantoms; this year's will be announced on July 6.
Heading to MWF
There are a couple of guests appearing at this year's Melbourne Writers Festival whose names have emerged before the official launch. One is American novelist Angela Flournoy, whose The Turner House was shortlisted for last year's National Book Award. The Age review described it as a "masterly domestic drama" and went on: "This tale of a black family haunted (literally) by the past and each other is enlivened by perceptive and musical prose." Also heading to Melbourne is philosopher A. C. Grayling, whose The Age of Genius, was described by Steven Carroll in these pages as "an eminently readable, informative and informed study of a pivotal moment in the evolution of western thinking". The festival begins on August 26. mwf.com.au
Britain's dystopian nightmare
British novelist Robert Harris summed up the feelings of many in the British publishing industry with his comment about the result of last week's EU referendum: "Feel as if I'm living in a bad dystopian political thriller."
