Saturday 25th May is Towel Day
If you are a fan of the late Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, you’ll know that the 25th May is Towel Day in his honour. It’s a simple concept, wear a towel around your neck all day in Adams’ honour.
Other things you can do are
- upload a picture on Facebook
- use the above graphic as your facebook cover – it was created by Oren Mashovski. Get it here!
- post on Flickr (tag it “#towelday” and add it to the group)
- post a video on YouTube.
There are more ideas on the Towel Day website
Locally, (well in Sydney), the Kinokuniya bookstore is offering customers who wear a towel on Towel Day 20% off on their full price book purchase. But you must have your towel around your neck when you approach the cashier staff, your towel should preferably be a bathroom towel or large hand towel, and there is only one discount per towel and one discount per person.
Facebook event
NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2013 announced
The winners of this year’s New South Wales Premier’s Literary Award were announced in Sydney on 19 May, on the eve of the 2013 Sydney Writers’ Festival.
Categories and winners:
Christina Stead Prize (Fiction)
Mateship with Birds, Carrie Tiffany
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UTS Glenda Adams Award for New Writing
The Last Thread, Michael Sala
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Douglas Stewart Prize (Non‐fiction)
The Office: A Hardworking History, Gideon Haigh
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Kenneth Slessor Prize (Poetry)
Ruby Moonlight, Ali Cobby‐Eckermann
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PatriciaWrightson Prize (Children’s Literature)
The Ghost of Miss Annabel Spoon, Aaron Blabey
The Miles Franklin Award 2013 – shortlist
The Miles Franklin Award is Australia’s most prestigious literary award and is awarded for the best novel representing Australian life. On the shortlist for the Miles Franklin Award this year are six wonderful novels:
Floundering by Romy Ash
The Beloved by Annah Faulkner
Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser
The Mountain by Drusilla Modjeska
Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany
The winner of the $60,000 prize will be announced on June 19 at The National Library of Australia in Canberra. The other five shortlisted authors will receive $5,000 from Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund.
You can read a synopsis and Judges notes for each shortlisted book here.
Fun with Books
Now librarians put themselves in the videos with this tea trolley dance from the bMoSo Academy of Song & Dance presents The Library Tea Trolley Dance filmed and edited by Simon Battersby. Music played by John White. Choreography by Tanya, Frankie and Sally. Performed by the Tea Set in 2010
National Simultaneous Storytime TODAY @ 10:30am
National Simultaneous Storytime is an annual campaign that aims to encourage more young Australians to read and enjoy books. Now in its 13th successful year, it is a colourful, vibrant and FUN event that aims to promote the value of reading and literacy using an Australian children’s book that explores age appropriate themes and addresses key learning areas of the National Curriculum for Grades 1 to 6. The title for 2013 is “The Wrong Book” by Nick Bland which is about Nicholas Ickle who is trying to tell a story, but keeps getting interupted by characters from other stories.
Read Watch Play Twitter Reading Group – May : Indigiread
So, have you tried a new Indigenous author? We Librarians were very lucky last year with the smart, funny, interesting Dr Anita Heiss attending at least two Library conferences. And Kim Scott has become a favourite of mine.
This is a reminder for the live twitter discussion next Tuesday 28 May starting at 8pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. Use the tags #indigiread and #rwpchat as you discuss the reading, watching, playing that is your experience of indigenous reading, so others can join in the conversation too.
The Twitter book group meets on the last Tuesday of every month so pop that in your diary, smartphone, MS Outlook, or tattoo it on your arm. Just remember and join in!
