The prolific, talented Jackie French has won Book of the Year for her gorgeous children’s book, Diary of a Wombat, published by HarperCollins. Jackie, who is the gardening writer for The Australian Women’s Weekly, won against some impressive titles, including Recollection of a Bleeding Heart, Across The Nightingale Floor, Holy Cow and Almost French. The award is voted for annually by the Australian Booksellers’ Association, who nominate the Australian book they most enjoyed selling and working with in their bookshops.
In the “I don’t know how she does it” category: Colleen McCullough, whose next book, The Touch (Century), marks a return to the romance genre for the Thornbird author, still types her books on a manual typewriter! For every one of her Roman books, she wrote a million words and then edited it back to 280,000 – all done manually!
One of the UK’s best known female war correspondents, Kate Adie, is touring Australia at the end of February. Kate, whose terrific autobiography, The Kindness of Strangers, was released earlier this year, is visiting to promote her latest, Corsets to Camouflage, which looks at the image of uniformed women in conflict and civilian roles throughout the 20th century. Kate will attend the Perth Writers’ Festival from February 18-21 and will be in Melbourne February 23-24, in Sydney February 25-27 and Canberra on February 26.
Madonna is in talks to play the gypsy in the movie version of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist.
Caroline Carver, winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award for Blood Junction, is touring in November to promote her latest crime thriller, Dead Heat (Orion). The UK writer, who once lived here for 10 years, is a mad rally car driver and blames her spirit of adventure on her parents – her father was a jet fighter pilot and her mother set the land speed record in Australia.
The movie version of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger, is scheduled to open here late December.
Ali Bashir, Saddam Hussein’s personal physician for 10 years, is writing an account of his experiences in Saddam’s inner circle, according to Publishers Weekly.
A memoir by Deborah Santana, wife of Carlos Santana has been bought in the US.
The authors of the TV hit about to screen here, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, have made a book deal for a companion volume.
Oprah favourite House of Sand and Fog has been turned into a movie starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly.
Over 50, local, national and international authors will converge on the apple isle October 2-5, when The Australian School Library Association and The Children’s Book Council of Australia hold their national conference in Hobart.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez has written his autobiography, Living to Tell the Tale, and Muhammad Ali tells his own story in The Soul of a Butterfly. According to press reports, the boom in sales of television cookbooks may be over in the UK. Nigella Lawson’s and Jamie Oliver’s most recent books did not match the success of previous ones. Publicity for Shirley MacLaine’s new book, Out On A Leash, has been held up as the actress has hurt her back. No-one’s saying how.
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