reeling and writhing

news to me (that it is June tomorrow? aaargh)

So many books, only one life...I thought at first Mr Deaver was a serial killer, which is why I clicked on this when it came up in my reader. Got him confused with someone else....It is, after all, a fine name for a crime thriller writer .

From last week, there are five book reviews up on the blog at Overland. What a great platform for blog reviews - good to see this.

Included is a review of Lisa Dempster's Neon Pilgrim, Alec Patric's poetry collection which has been released as an e-book, and Emmett Stinson's short fiction collection, Known Unknowns, from Affirm Press.

Academic librarian Constance evaluates the Kobo reader, recently sold out at Borders stores across Australia.

Maud noticed this, and I thank her for it.

Not in a book group? try this one on for size. If you're not in the States, you might like to use it as a reading list later on. With notes.

The Duck has found us all something really good and silly to finish on.

news to me 27.05.10

Alice has been walking and taking photographs at her mother's command. The results are bewitching.

Writing at Desktop, Australian blogger Gerard Edelson calls Banksy's film, Exit Through The Gift Shop,

'that rarest of things in the internet age: a cinematic Trojan horse.'

His full review will be posted on his own blog, Celluloid Tongue, in good time, in good time.

One of my favourite short story writers is putting one up a month as a podcast, and selling the print version from her website as a zine (and Jen makes pretty ones.) We are lucky punters. Get over there and listen, and send off for a bundle when she has a few more up. I will be.

Polari's first issue features an interview with Edmund White, poetry by Pam Brown, the short fiction of Dallas Angguish and the writing of Staceyann Chin. This new international journal is is currently holding an open call for submissions from LGBT and queer writers for its second issue, with a publication date of October 1st 2010.

And finally this link from John Williams at The Second Pass, to an interview with US historian Jill Lepore, carries a very sweet tale of an inspiring letter with it. What an interesting idea for a teacher to have, taking letters every year from 15 year old pupils and posting them back five years later. I wonder if he ever got any of them mixed up...(yes, that would be me if I was that teacher.)

there will be one week in September we want to remember

It is a busy busy town we live in now, with our centre on wheels of books and writing.

I saw the great man, Colm Toibin, last week, and thoroughly enjoyed all he had to say about writing in general - not so much what he politely supplied in answer to questions on his latest book, as I had read an awful lot of that kind of thing already. (Keep an eye on this link as there will be a video of the evening at some point (YES, THERE IT IS now).  Also keep a very keen eye on LiteraryMinded for Angela's upcoming interview.)

However, as anyone who listened to La Throsby last Friday can attest, whatever he has to say about writing is like gold. I have been thinking all weekend why that might be so - he is very quick, I think, to respond concisely to any questions about craft and clearly has plenty of insight into his own work, which is not always something available to writers, or something they are happy to share . I was interested to hear that it was reading the work of Alistair McLeod that brought him to the realisation that it would be good to revisit Ireland as a subject for his fiction.

News that came to hand with Throsby's interview is that Toibin's limited editions press, Tuskar Press, picked up The Slap and is running hot with it in the UK at present. If you start listening to the Throsby interview at the 48-49 minute mark, you will find out why.

Meanwhile I am insanely jealous that the Sydney crowd got to hear a whole Catalan song from him at SWF (thanks to Charlotte Wood for that news), but it serves me right for being too mean to go up there.

I am very close to rocking up to hear Louise Swinn, indie publisher extraordinaire, interview Peter Carey (Le Carey?). So I guess this rambling introduction is a way of letting you all know that the Wheeler Centre's second programme for the year is up on the site, in the email box, et cetera. The coverage the Centre is aiming at is impressive - not all things I would necessarily attend, but still, something for everyone there, as Michael Veitch used to tell us so long ago.

Things of note include Richard Flanagan's mix tape (though I am being a bit silly there as of course I'd rather hear him talk about writing), a night of erotic fan fiction which has been borrowed from SWF (worth seeing just to hear Marieke H.'s contribution really), Kate Jennings in conversation with Hilary McPhee, a night celebrating Chekhov, conversation between Jennifer Byrne and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a lecture from no less a personage than Jonathan Mills on the state of the arts, a visit from Fatima Bhutto and, finally, the promise of a week in September where the judges of art get well and truly rolled.

A WHOLE WEEK. The critics must be nervous already.

writers are emerging all over Melbourne this weekend...so be there

The Emerging Writers' Festival is kicking off in Melbourne this weekend, with the official opening tomorrow night at BMW Edge (at time of writing, there were a couple of tickets left to this.)

The First Word is …
A celebration of writing, writers and the word.

A night of performance, comedy, spoken word and burlesque.

The official opening of the 7th Emerging Writers’ Festival.

The First Word is …

Dance, comedy, readings and…

The Call to Arms – the Emerging Writers’ Festival’s unique keynote address, this year delivered by romantic fiction writer Toni Jordan.

The Glory of Love – Craig Schuftan.

Love Vs Angst, what makes a better writer? – top writers Josh Earl, Kate Mclennan and Michaela McGuire battle for supremacy in our 2 Sides of the Coin debate.

For a bunch of fascinating events this weekend, scroll down that page, or click here for the full and burgeoning program of festival events over the next nine days.

If you're struggling to get to everything you want to, check out the EWF Online program to see what you can do via your modem. The festival events are, as usual, very moderately priced - and of course, the online program is completely free.

Let the games begin...

it's news to me 10.05.10

At the recent W3 conference, self-publishing platform Lulu was not only a Gold Sponsor, but just look where their exhibition booth was.

Jane Ciabattari of the Critical Mass blog enjoyed Patti Smith's address at the PEN World Voices conference last week. There is a link to audio of the event at the end of her post.

As they say on Dumbfoundry, the seventeenth issue of Otoliths is...fresh.

Older news, but still worthy - last year a POD publisher issued 272,930 titles. Publishers' Weekly tells you how BiblioBazaar did it.

Last week Ramona Koval interviewed Nicholas Birns, the editor of the scholarly journal on American studies of Australian writing, Antipodes, and the podcast is here. 

Two remarkable collections of poetry are available this month at a reduced price at Giramondo Publishing. For a limited time you can purchase the latest collections by Jennifer Maiden and Judith Beveridge together, for $35, at a saving of 20%.

FInally - I really enjoyed watching Hanif Kureishi talking on the Guardian website last week to mark the publication of his Collected Stories (at 688 pages, I'd be wanting that in hardback). Some great photographs, and I never tire of listening to him. It is great, too, to hear him say that while the idea of a collection 'rather horrified' him at first, feeling it was 'some kind of tombstone', he also now feels moved to write more. YESSS.

who listens to paper radio

A radio of paper. A fine new thing of audio podcasts on a monthly basis, of new writing.

After mountainous hours of pixel shifting and finger tapping – and countless more wrestling sound waves – we are extremely relieved and excited to announce that Paper Radio has now arrived. For those of you visiting for the first time we should explain that Paper Radio is a sonic interpretation of the unique culture of Australasia – in the shape of a podcast.

The first episode from the FM (fiction) channel, Chris Somerville’s The Drowning Man, is the story of an aloof teacher whose life is defined and dominated by the irascible temperament of water. In our next edition, a documentary for the AM (non-fiction) channel, Georgia Moodie rewinds to the 1920s and tails the experiences of the first African American jazz musicians to tour Australia.

The near future holds audio productions from Rachel O’Neill, Benjamin Law and Thomasin Sleigh.

Paper Radio has been created by a team headed by Jessie Borrelle and Jon Tjhia, working out of Melbourne.

I'm subscribed.

srsly beautiful Island and surrounding territories

Thanks to Thuy Linh Nguyen for reminding me of the new online mag, Islet, from literary journal Island, and their blog, Conversation. And thanks to all of you for requiring me to visit the website and remind myself what a beautiful cover shot this is.

On the Island website also is news of a new national poetry prize, worth  two grand.

it's (all) news to me 27.04.10

The Emerging Writers' Festival program for 2010 is up and at 'em, so go and see what you will be attending towards the end of this month. Thanks to a website revamp under the eagle eye of new director Lisa Dempster, it's a lot easier to see what's going on this year at this incredibly well-priced festival, and I will be posting later on the week on events that have caught my eye.

This is now fairly old news, but... the graffiti artist Banksy had a film opening in the US on the 16th of this month. 

Fresher news comes via Bob Stein of a new article by CraigMod on e-readers, Embracing The Digital Book, following up on his widely read piece on books and the iPad last month.

Most of the news this Tuesday centres on that celebrated member of the linkerati, George Dunford. George has very graciously blogged his Big Issue profile of Anna Dusk at Hackpacker, and has a few remarks on the future of graphic novels up at Readings, where I found out that Paul Auster's City Of Glass also exists as a graphic novel. By the time this is posted I reckon a copy will be on its way to me, thanks to Visa.

George ran a couple of panels at the Wheeler Centre's graphic novels events on the weekend. And introduced me to Oslo Davis last Thursday at the Emerging Writers' Festival launch, to which I swear I went to support my blog friend-the-director, not to meet graphic arts heroes. It is not news, either, that Oslo's Sunday cartoon for the Age, Overheard, will soon appear as a book. One of the finest Christmas presents you could buy.

The calendar at the Wheeler Centre now includes full details of the Deakin Lectures for 2010, focussed fairly and squarely on climate change (there was a splendid two -page spread on this in the Saturday paper as well):

Curated by Professor Tim Flannery, we’ve gathered 30 of the best people addressing the climate problem now. These aren’t the usual suspects spouting fixed positions. At the Deakins you’ll hear from practitioners, from fresh informed voices with practical experience of achieving emissions reduction. These are people working to innovate in policy, business, finance and new technologies to help create a brave, new, low emissions world.

Finally, for those of us who haven't already seen Curious Pages,  here's what John Williams at the Second Pass had to say about the blog on 'recommended inappropriate children's books' earlier and later this year.

it's news to me 19.04.10

I am  just wondering if anyone can shed some light on this. I bookmarked it a while ago and have been wondering whether it stalled or no.

Something of Clive's about Les that I must read.

As reported by Darcy Moore a couple of weeks ago, the first trailer of the film of John Marsden's excellent novel, Tomorrow When The War Began, is now available.

This film of a talk by Richard Nash on book publishing comes thoroughly recommended by Chris Anderson, Wired editor and author of the seminal text The Long Tail. He was very effusive about it on Twitter the other day, calling it the 'best post on the future of books and publishing I've ever seen'.

The Dublin Impac shortlist is out. And speaking of shortlists, it is nice to see Karen Hitchcock's tight and edgy first collection of stories on this one, in some good company.

Kerryn informs us that the latest issue of JASAL is a special issue dedicated to the memory of Australian poet Vincent Buckley.

Finally, I was delighted by the snippets of this interview I heard last week with recently deceased Scottish tenor Kenneth McKellar on Margaret Throsby's morning interview show, and am looking forward to listening to the lot today. Aaah technology, iz waking up the dead.

it's news to me 12.04.10

The good folk at Mobylives have covered this report from Wired magazine that book artists are claiming their rights in the Google Books Settlement fracas too. At the time of the Mobylives post, Google was denying the charges. We'll see how that pans out.

Thanks to US bloggers Matthew Tiffany and Bud Parr for this link to audio of Faulkner reading from As I Lay Dying. 

Not only am I delighted for the good folk at Three Percent that they are on this list, but I am looking forward to studying it closely.

This article from the Vancouver Sun about Yann Martel's efforts to get his Prime Minister to read more books was spotted by Mark Sarvas, who also has some news for families on the future of the iPad, I believe.

As recommended in the latest Boldtype, where you can read an interview with the blog authors, here is a link to the blog on 'recommended inappropriate books for kids', Curious Pages.

Finally, Darcy Moore has spotted the first trailer for the film version of John Marsden's very popular YA (and well beyond) novel, Tomorrow When The War Began.

cross words, hop to them

Cryptic or straight stories over at Meanjin, with prizes, to celebrate the literary mag's 70th. What a grand old lady.

to yeu and yeu and yeu

Wellll....it's time for a longer break, for a lot of good reasons (which is, of course, a far, far better thing than taking it for bad ones.) Think 'talking 25 year old son with autism' for starters. I will be flashing intermittently here like a sick modem till June, if at all, and then taking stock again.

For now, the Internet's going to continue as a fine distraction, taken neat, rather than an enthralling one, diluted with mixers (for example, if I see one more post on e-readers in my feeds I will probably mutate into an iTablet myself). I will lurk on my friends' blogs - that's a given, and there might be a review, or two at some stage - but only general maintenance will be undertaken here.

You might like to follow* LiteraryMinded, the Wheeler Centre, SPUNC news (yes, that's the feed to the whole site down in the lefthand corner of the homepage), the engaging blogs of the book artist known as Ampersand Duck , Emerging Writers Festival director Lisa Dempster, and artist Fifi at Strange Fruit, and keep an eye on this page, and things magazine, while I'm gone.
Till June, adieu.

*apologies to those left off this list earlier today....what was I thinking?

you will be distracted by all the dazzling activity, and buy books

SOOOO much going on in the City of Books that my head reels. I told my son I wasn't buying any more books, except for him, and it was an awful lie.  For just look at these nice new things:

1. Puncher and Wattman's latest anthology of poetry, Out Of The Box, a contemporary collection by gay and lesbian writers edited by Michael Farrell and Jill Jones, is to be launched at Hares and Hyenas on February 2 by Christos Tsiolkas and Kathleen Fallon. Jill has details on her blog, Ruby Street, and links to an interview with Scott Patrick Mitchell at OutinPerth.

The new anthology Out of the Box is the brainchild of Michael Farrell and Jill Jones, arguably two of our nation’s most exciting queer voices. Together this poetic duo have brought together an impressive number of poets, among them the likes of David Malouf and Dorothy Porter.

‘We wanted a book that presented poetry being written now which is why, by-and-large, the poets are represented by relatively recent work, explained Jones of the process behind creating Out of the Box. ‘It is quite consciously not historical, nor even a survey of the last 20 or 30 years. We hope much of it is fresh, with just a dash of older work.

You can buy Out Of The Box at bookshops, or online here and here.

2. Karen Andrews is busy putting the finishing touches to a fine anthology of blog writing over at Miscellaneous Press, with a stellar lineup of contributors. That makes three, not two, books I will soon buy (see no.6). I am indeed a God-awful liar about my bookbuying.

And there's more, as they say when selling steak knives, though not all of it for sale.

3. The Wheeler Centre has put more programming online, some of it as far ahead as May.

4. Submissions are being accepted for the sixth Sleepers Almanac, until February 12. And it will also be released as an iPhone app.!

5. There is an impressive stream of independent publishing news from the Australian small press cooperative, SPUNC, whose membership is growing steadily. Their RSS feed is a very good thing to be keeping your eye on, you know you want to.

6. The latest Lifted Brow, no. 6, which looks fabulous, was launched with a themed party last week at the Bella Bar at Trades Hall. I didn't quite make it there, but I believe it was a hoot.

On top of this, it is nice to know, isn't it, that Tom Keneally thinks it is just as well that the new writers' stamps are self adhesive or else he would be licking David Malouf's and Peter Carey's arses. I feel much wiser now, myself. (Going to buy the stamps too, for sure. The early Carey one has a great retro feel about it.)

All a bit too much for this blogger - I am looking forward to quieter distractions, but more anon.

sun comes up today on a city of books (live here on RW)

The Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas website is well and truly alive today: from Twitter there is news of the media launch this morning, and some programming is already up on the website, as well as a NAME, "The Wheeler Centre" - which is not as clunky as CBGBWI, I know - news of their opening for the masses in February, and other great things in the associated pipelines, including a Reading The City program next March.

I am hardly surprised to read that such a program is in the waters, as the State Library's Summer Read program has downsized itself for a snugger fit with local libraries (it's going online in early December, so keep an eye on that here.)

On first glance, this is a really nice looking website - I like the site map down the bottom. There will be news posted daily on the site from the "Dailies" section, which has an RSS feed? yes. You can also subscribe to Events from that page. Excuse me now, I've liveblogged a website (not the media event, I hasten to add - there are pics of that on Twitter) and I'm off to play.

*Later today - Michael Orthofer has heard the news, and spread the word, but also speaks of ANOTHER Wheeler Center, in Montana. Zut alors.

all the news that's left before Santa comes

This story is astonishing. Some entrepreneurs are just whitewater rafters, through and through, aren't they?

Ramona snaffled Peter Stothard, the editor of the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) and had a chat to him about newspaper book reviews a couple of weeks ago.

Lynne is a brave, brave person and I hope podcasting will enable me to listen to her broadcast on teh Beeb when it happens in a week or so, and drink champagne.
If there is anyone out there who wouldn't mind translating that Latin from the BBC's head office in the picture for me, I'd be most grateful.

As Jessamyn West says, will these books get all messed up? Via librarian.net, from Vogue Italia.

And if there are librarians out there looking for a testdrive of things to do with the library's new Kindle before it's released to the users, Kathryn Greenhill has a ripper list here.

Finally - Anne Beilby reports on the Text website that the French rights to Gerald Murnane's The Plains were sold to P.O.L. just before he won the Melbourne Prize. One more country besides Sweden in which Murnane can be enjoyed.

reading this week at Collected Works Bookshop: Susan M. Schultz

Kris Hemensley welcomes all to a reading by Susan M. Schultz, the editor of Tinfish poetry journal, at  Collected Works Bookshop on Wednesday evening this week. (Issue 17 of the journal is available free here from Tinfish Press , and 'centerfold' artworks from the last eight issues may also be viewed online.)

As is usual with the events at the most specialised literary bookshop in this city of books, a gang of other poets will accompany this distinguished visitor, including Michael Farrell. Here are the necessary details. Susan Schultz has a blog on her editing, academic writing and poetry, here.

the seventh 'page' from Page Seventeen is out today

Issue 7 of the evergreen anthology, Page Seventeen, will be launched today at Burrinja Cafe (part of the gallery) in Upwey from 1 pm.

Work from seventeen (heh) new writers is featured, along with stories and poems by Sean M Whelan, Emilie Zoey Baker, Graham Nunn, Maxine Clarke, Amelia Walker, Ashley Capes, Peter Farrar, Christopher Currie, and David McLaren. There will be a regular poetry gig, The Word Tree, to follow, and an invite with some cover art can be found here. Just so you can find it easily in the shops (scroll down), if you don't get along today.

a library of news made by many hands

Peta Hopkins reports at the LINT blog that the digitisation 'crowdsourcing' project the NLA has been conducting in recent times, in order to edit enormous quantities of scanned text from Australia's newspapers, has received its most recent review, which can be read here. 

There are pictures on the Australian Newspapers Digitisation Program website which give a visual account of the scanning process by which NLA staff have been adding more and more early newspapers to the database, which now holds 4.3 million fulltext, searchable articles. There are, regrettably, no pictures of library users editing scanned text in the comfort of their own homes, but that's not to say that the program is not receiving support from the punters - as Rose Holley says,

Users have demonstrated a willingness to work towards the ‘common good’, to volunteer their time, energy, skill, knowledge and ideas and to be involved long term in a program of national historic significance. The collaborative activity from this new community is enhancing the quality of the data and therefore the accuracy of full‐text searching in a way that the National Library of Australia could never have achieved using its own resources alone.

The Project details page where this report is published also carries a document of comments from those who volunteered to correct text.

Not only can Australians assist the library by going online, registering and helping to correct scanned text of old, often poorly printed newspapers - if you are aware of old papers that are missing from the library's collection, you can assist the work of the Australian Newspaper Plan by checking them against the list of titles, here. (Lists and shots of found titles, here.) The online documenting of both projects make for interesting reading.

weekend news 3: come see the magic theatre

This beautiful exhibition (click on the image for details) is running at Craft Victoria from October 23rd to November 28th.

Taking its cue from Hesse’s surrealistic landscape (in Der Steppenwolf), A Key to Help Make Your Own World Visible presents a series of hidden interior topographies; worlds existing somewhere between the pain and beauty of things past.

Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison have worked collaboratively for the past ten years, chiefly using paper as their medium. From carefully constructed limited edition artists’ books to works on paper, they record, deconstruct and rebuild miniature worlds.

Do please check it out. Louise Jennison's fine blog is elsewhere (so to speak) and you can see more of their work there.

weekend news 2: neighbour wins Bristol short story prize

It is not every week that I go out for bread and bump into a neighbour who has won the Bristol Short Story prize. Saves me a bit of feed-reading!! and makes our little shopping square a larger place to be, all of a sudden.

'Beyond The Blackout Curtain', by Elizabeth Jane, took first prize of 500 pounds, publication and a Waterstones' gift card, and sits first in the 2009 prize anthology, which can be purchased at several UK outlets. The prize is awarded with the aim of finding stories to publish in a 'vibrant, original short story anthology' to be stocked in as many bookshops as possible, including high street chains, and to promote the profile of the Bristol Review of Books.

It was awarded way back in July (yes, my neighbour is modest and did not email me about this. I hope she keeps in better touch next time she does something astonishing) and entries for next year's prize will be accepted between December 2009 and March 2010.

Belated and heartfelt congratulations, Liz. BRAVA!!!

weekend news 1, with a remark on Gerald Murnane

HEH. What I said I would not do any more.

But I cannot resist notifying you of these podcasts of treasure  from Radio National - has the programming there been sensational this week or what?

CAN HAZ Gerald Murnane, the writer of Tamarisk Row, The Plains and his latest book Barley Patch, on fiction for an hour (PURE GOLD) and Sonu Shamdasani, the editor of Jung's Red Book for twenty minutes? THOSE BASES BELONG TO US thanks to the national broadcaster and Team Koval. Thanks to Peter Mares for both interviews  - regrettably the Shamdasani interview has doubtful sound quality, so it will be easier to deal with when the transcript is up in a week or so.

Thanks to Giramondo I have already read Barley Patch, and what can I say? so much more to digest and think about regarding this thing we call fiction. I bought two volumes of his stories (out of print) from AbeBooks for myself for an extra birthday present. Velvet waters, indeed.  And he mentions in the radio show that he has completed a novella, A History of Books, so I hope we will see that sometime soon as well.

Barley Patch is provocative, teasing, bracing, all sorts of good things. Suffice it to say that upon finishing it, I started in on Vikram Seth's An Equal Music with the sense that I was seeing everything through the cleanest of clear windows. The Seth felt baroquely messy, and I was hearing all kinds of annoying things, including pastiche, even after I realigned my ears and eyes. So I know what to go back to in the future if my reading aids need tuning up. It's unlikely I'll have more to say on this, I have too much to learn.

from my email...

For it is true, some of us live in an Internet world. And isn't "Internet Tendency" just the best name ever for a service delivering an i-Phone app from indie publishers? How 'hubbly jubbly'.

Mc Sweeney's email newsletter promises great things for its new iPhone app, The Small Chair:

No longer will T-Pain be your only salvation on trains, during lunch, and through all the other empty gaps in a day. Allow McSweeney's to fill your moments of solitude, moments of togetherness, moments of intolerable boredom.'

Und so weiter. There's a review making extravagant claims about sales of The Small Chair, here at Boldtype.

Random House Australia to allow publishing at random

Australian Bookseller and Publisher Online announced this afternoon that Random House Australia (RHA) has launched a print on demand (POD) program that will allow it to produce single copies of out-of-print titles:

The program, which has been 18 months in the planning, is in partnership with Sydney-based SOS Print+Media and will cover out-of-print in-copyright Random House titles that sell nine or less copies per year. (Books which sell in small quantities of 10 or more fall into the publisher's short-run program.)

Random House sales director Gavin Schwarcz told WBN the program would ensure the publisher's books stayed in print, but that it was as much about meeting customer expectations as making a profit.

‘It's a reduced margin for us,' he admitted. ‘The author will make the same [royalties on these books], but it's all about service. I think with the world the way it is, the consumer nowadays just thinks if they want something they don't understand why they can't get it.'

Schwarcz said the POD initiative would mean booksellers could satisfy customer requests and added that such a program could even help to promote some out-of-print titles.

countdown

The Millions has a nifty countdown of post-millenium best reads on, compiled after extensive consultation with a large and impressive panel of writers/bloggers/writer-bloggers, with thoughtful reviews of each title provided. Via John Williams at Second Pass.

long may you run

Well, there are prizes. And then, there are prizes.

And speaking of the other kind of prize, three hearty cheers for Sleepers and Steve Amsterdam's win. Not bad for the first novel out of their blocks, is it now. Not too shabby at all.

Someone after Pav's heart.

As noted on Twitter by Jason Ensor, Damien Broderick has published a new story, here.

Want to record and send a 5 min video through Twitter? YES YOU CAN.

Congratulations are due to Jennifer Mills for a nomination for the Blake Poetry Prize. GO JEN.

What would Oscar have wanted to say about Twitter if he was here? something like this, I think.
(In other news, Fry has discovered what he calls Goldilocks Miniblogging using his iPhone.

And congratulations to Mark Rubbo and his crew for the good ship Readings' happy birthday. Many pictures here, long may she sail.