Melville House launch Moby Awards for Best and Worst Book Trailers – Love ‘em or hate ‘em book trailers are becoming more and more a common feature of our literary landscape these days. So much so that indy New York publisher Melville House have taken it upon themselves to host the world’s first Moby Awards for the Best and Worst Book Trailers. Yesterday (Monday 17th), ahead of the official award ceremony on Thursday, MH announced the book trailer shortlists in five different categories, and today they’ve begun a run down on posting those trailers, beginning with the five in the category Best Low Budget/Indie Book Trailer.
Now, while the Moby Awards for the Best and Worst Book Trailers is all a bit tongue-in-cheek (what literary award wouldn’t be with a category entitled, Least Likely Trailer to Sell the Book?), it does offer a platform for showcasing some of the finest book trailers out there. And if nothing else, it shows just how creative the book industry can be when it puts its mind to it.
‘How books saved me from the German bombers’ – If you have a moment or two to spare then I urge you to head on over to the Bookshop Blog where Brian W. Webster gives an account of the time that his books saved him from the German bombers. Not only does Brian tell us what happened during that fateful night when the ‘Jerries’ turned up over his head, he goes on to share a few other bookish highlights from his lifelong love affair with books. Excellent stuff!
Hemingway caught on tape – It’s not often that we get to hear the literary greats from our glorious past but thanks to Harper Audio we can listen to a reading from one of the biggest, Ernest Hemingway. Captured on a portable recorder during the 1950s the extract (available in .au format, .gsm format, .ra format) is of Hemingway talking about his short story In Harry’s Bar in Venice. OK, so as Dan Coleman at the Open Culture website points out, Hemingway wasn’t the best at reading literature out aloud, but it’s still wonderful to hear his voice.
If you listened to that and you loved it then you may want to check out some of the other Hemingway-flavoured recordings that HarperAudio have kindly offered up for our delight and delectation. What a nice bunch of generous folks!
About Rob
Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul" - 
