Christmas Gift Guide

Books make the best Christmas gifts – everyone knows that. We’ve published some wonderful titles this year that are just perfect for the book worm, political junkie or history buff in your family.

And remember – support your local bookshop this Christmas! Don’t have a bookshop nearby? Then buy online from a great Australian bookseller such as Readings (free shipping and gift wrapping!)

Here are our gift ideas (for more Black Inc. books, visit our website):

An interview with the editors of The Best Australian Stories, Essays and Poems 2011

Each year the Best Australian collections – essays, stories and poems – bring together the best and brightest that has been written across the country. We talk to the current editors about the 2011 editions.

Ramona Koval is the editor of The Best Australian Essays 2011. 

What was the selection process like for The Best Australians Essays?

My kitchen table was covered with journals, magazines, newspapers and submissions and I moved these around to the yes, no and maybe piles. Then I would redistribute these and some maybes would go to the yes pile and vice versa. When a new essay was being considered, the rubic's cube process began again.

10 Myths About Language

Robert Lane Greene, author of You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Power of Words, reveals 10 myths about language.

1. In English, there are always clear rules; violate them and you’re wrong.

Who says? English has no committee that sets the rules; it never has. (France does, by contrast. More on them below.) The “rules” are frequently laid down in books intended to be authoritative; such books have often perpetuated non-rules that have been violated by great writers and speakers throughout history. The test of whether a rule is a Rule is not whether your English teacher told you so. It’s whether the body of speakers and writers observe it, establishing it as the de facto spoken and written standard by their use of English, not by their proclamations about rules.

An interview with Robert Lane Greene

We interview Robert Lane Greene, author of You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Power of Words. 

Robert is an international correspondent for the Economist and his writing has also appeared in the New York Times, Slate, the New Republic, the Daily Beast and other publications. He speaks nine languages.

What's your new book You Are What You Speak about?

One reviewer put it well: it’s about language, but it’s also in large part about what we say and think about language. Why is every generation of parents worried the teenagers are ruining the language? Why do we think that some languages are more sophisticated, logical or powerful than others? Why do some countries ban or restrict the use of foreign or even native minority languages?

Our picks for Father's Day

The best present you can give your Dad this Father’s Day is a book! Here are some of our suggestions:

'A first-class piece of historical writing. Boyce is a graceful and robust stylist and a fine storyteller.' – Sunday Age

Acclaimed historian James Boyce brings the founding of Melbourne to life. In 1835 an illegal squatter camp was established on the banks of the Yarra River. In defiance of authorities in London and Sydney, Tasmanian speculators began sending men and sheep across Bass Strait – and so changed the shape of Australian history.

Read more.