Late News: Coffee, Cookbooks and Controversy

Seems there's a bug creeping around; several colleagues came down with symptoms like mine: hangover-ish headache, listlessness and a touch of fever and the sniffles. Hoping it blows over soon.


Coffee...
A publisher's coffee-and-books initiative has the whiff of a good cuppa. The Bee @ Jaya One, PJ sells music CDs and one or two book titles on occasion, but why is this model not being adopted elsewhere? Sounds like a good idea. "Coffice romance"? COFF.

Seems a study lists fifteen of the most caffeinated professions, with added trivia. Mine's ranked fourth and yes, I do tend to add flavours to my coffee.

And the most caffeinated profession, according to these scientists? Scientists. Maybe research's more fun with caffeine.


...cookbooks...
Some genuine Italian mammas are, to say the least, not impressed with Nigellissima. Nor is John Crace, from the looks of it. I think handing this book to these critics was a practical joke.

Meanwhile, the myth of Jamie's 15-minute meals seems to have been ... busted. But Jamie doesn't seem to be perturbed. With regards to complaints that his "30-minute meals" took longer than that to make: "I could give you a lot of defensive sh** and say they didn't do the recipes exactly from the book or didn't use a food processor for chopping – which is an absolute must, unless you have knife skills like me. ... I look on Twitter and somebody says it took them 45 minutes and I think, 'God bless you, keep trying and you'll speed up next time.'"

Okayyy....


...and a bit of controversy
As last week was Banned Books Week, here are some 'funny' author responses to their books being banned.

Sikhs were up in arms over the self-harming Sikh character Sukhvinder Jawanda in JK Rowling's The Casual Vacancy. Did they finish reading it?

Haruki Murakami tells Japan and China to chill the heck out over the island spat, which has appeared to spill over to China banning or blocking books (including Murakami-san's), articles, racers, etc that have anything to do with the Land of the Rising Sun.


In other news

• Google and US publishers reach a settlement in the former's ambition to digitise books. But, somebody asks, what about the authors?
• Scott Pack shares some numbers and suggests how e-publishing can help raise the sales of 'dead' books.
• RIP Eric Hobsbawm, historian. His posthumous collection, Fractured Spring, is scheduled for release next March.
• Jason Kottke unpacks the rants of Obama-hating ultra-rich in The New Yorker. Probably too pissed off to continue.
• How to self-publish on Amazon Kindle. Go on, you know you want to.
• Manufactured: the making of K-pop.
• Eleven things to avoid before launching your book.