Email digest: Monday 27 August 2012

This is a digest of our Twitter feed that we email out most Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Sign up here for free if you’d like it emailed to you.

Events
If you’re a fan of author Chris Cleave then tomorrow he’s starting his NZ tour in Auckland.

From around the internet
HarperCollins: ‘We can’t think of ourselves as book publishers any more‘

Love Your Local: Taupo Bookstore goes Indiebound

Author interviews
The view from here does a great interview with John Boyne and Noel Murphy will be doing one next Mon 

Book Reviews
The Fatkins Diet: Calorific Meals for Serious Eaters by Rhys Mathewson

The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner

River of Destiny by Barbara Erskine

New release books
Scholastic NZ : September titles

Made in NZ by Chris Mirams & Ross Land

Book review: The Fatkins Diet: Calorific Meals for Serious Eaters by Rhys Mathewson

This book is in bookshops now.

Fact: This book may harm your heart.
Fact: Rhys Mathewson is one of the best up and coming comics on the circuit.
Fact: He’s not skinny.
Fact: A tubby comic and a dodgy diet pun might not be the best thing to base a book on.

This is an odd wee book – I can only assume it’s aimed at teenage boys leaving home or, if you’re insensitive, recovering anorexics. Supposedly its Rhys re-imagining kiwi classic meals with the latest craze for horrendously calorific meals like ‘The Double Down’ firmly in mind. What this results in is some of the most revolting sounding and looking dishes imaginable.

Rhys’ wit shines through in places but this just seems a little silly. By the time you’ve read three recipes the joke is old, it’s over.

This feels like a book created quickly without a lot of thought as to why or who or even how. The photography is unappealing, the design is unimpressive and I would much rather have had a book that showcased how funny Mathewson is as opposed to this. Disappointing.

(I’m sure a few copies will sell at Christmas, particularly if Mathewson’s public profile increases.)

Reviewed by Sarah McMullan.

The Fatkins Diet: Calorific Meals for Serious Eaters
by Rhys Mathewson
Published by Penguin Books
ISBN 9780143567943