Books Alive releases ‘Bombproof' cover
The cover for Michael Robotham's Bombproof, the giveaway title for this year's Books Alive campaign '50 Books You Can't Put Down', has been released.

Queens birthday honours for Altman, Birch
Further to last week's report on the Queens Birthday honours list, WBN is happy to learn that Charles Birch, academic and author (Science and Soul, UNSW Press), and Dennis Altman, author of 51st State (Scribe) were also among those honoured.

Bookseller of the year urges support for Indigenous Literacy Day
David Gaunt, co-owner with Roger Mackell of this year's independent bookseller of the year, Gleebooks, used a presentation at this year's 84th Annual Booksellers Dinner to urge the industry to pledge its support for Indigenous Literacy Day. He was helped in his cause by a video presentation by book of the year author Geraldine Brooks. This year's Indigenous Literacy Day takes place on Wednesday 3 September. To find out more or pledge your support click here. 

SWF 2008 attracts record crowds, regional events suffer
The introduction of two new venues at Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay helped attract an additional 13,000 people to this year's Sydney Writers' Festival, say organisers. The 2008 festival, which ran in late May, attracted 80,000, 73,000 of them in Sydney, compared to the 60,000 that attended Sydney events in 2007. ‘Ticket sales and book sales were also the highest ever recorded,' said an SWF statement. However, there was a drop in regional attendances ‘which was expected', according to festival director Wendy Were. ‘Developing two major venues at Walsh Bay without additional funding or staffing meant that we were unable to resource an increase in regional events at the same time,' she said.

http://www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au/articles/2008/06/08567/

This article from Thorpe Bowker's Weekly Book Newsletter and Media Extra is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2008, Thorpe-Bowker

Tags: books alive, indigenous literacy project, queens birthday honours, sydney writers festival