In Fine Print

Sarah Palin

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History lessens

SPELLCHECK IS useful, if only for guiding the most errant spellers back to the fold. But it's the equivalent of a power drill in your intellectual toolbox: you need wider understanding. Hence these very real examples from local school test-takers: "Lear's daughter, Godzilla, ..."; "Lear's two daughters, Gorgonzola and Regan, ..."; "Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world in a twenty foot clipper". Delightful.

A rogue well travelled

SARAH PALIN'S memoir, Going Rogue, racked up 300,000 sales on its first day in US shops, November 17, and is heading for the 1 million mark. HarperCollins said it will print an extra 300,000 copies of the former vice-presidential candidate's thoughts after an initial print run of 1.5m. Going Rogue has tipped out Stephenie Meyer, Dan Brown and Stephen King from Amazon's bestseller lists. Bill Clinton's My Life sold more in its first 24 hours on sale, and the latest Harry Potter and Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol trounced Palin's figures, but then they are fiction, unlike Palin's (and ghostwriter Lynn Vincent's) effort. Or is that the case? The Huffington Post points to the 18 biggest "falsehoods" in the book, which Palin says is written for "Patriots who love this country".

Selling books together, apart

BOOKSELLERS WILL go it alone from next April. Since 1992, membership of Booksellers NZ has been open to booksellers and publishers. Both the Publishers Associations of NZ and Booksellers NZ are painting the intended split as a positive move, each being able to focus on their parts of the books trade. During the transition period, PANZ and Booksellers NZ will work on the idea of a new forum for discussing "matters of mutual interest".

Len Lye celebrated

LEN LYE'S life and work have become Roger Horrocks', emeritus professor at the University of Auckland, and a writer and film-maker. In the wake of his 2001 bio of Lye, a kinetic sculptor who strode a world stage, Horrocks (an assistant to Lye in the last year of his life) has produced Art That Moves: The Work of Len Lye (AUP, $59.99, DVD included). The launch coincides with an exhibition of Lye's work at the Gus Fisher Gallery in Auckland (www.gusfishergallery.auckland.ac.nz) and kicks off a calendar of Lye events around the country through December and January.

The write stuff

ROGER AVARY, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Pulp Fiction, apparently still enjoys writing about the underbelly of American culture – despite being in jail – by way of 140-character tweets. It's not confirmed it is Avary, but he was sent to Ventura County Jail in October for a year for his role in a fatal car crash, and avary.com links to the Twitter site. "#34's new roomie, EZ, takes Yeyo's old bunk, locker, AND number. He regales awesome tales about his former life as an Oxnard gangbanger."

– Mark Broatch

- © Fairfax NZ News