In my post back in April, Perth 2007 – More Brass Than Class, I bemoaned some of the changes this mining-driven boom has brought about in Perth – primarily, the chasm that has opened up between the moneyed and beneficiaries of the boom and the sizeable minority who have been left behind.
At the time of my post, the local media was still gleefully serving up daily stories of wildly escalating real estate prices, as they had been for weeks, months, years. Continue reading Dark Side Of The Boom
Coming into this century, it was widely predicted that literature as we know it was in its death throes. Books were on the way out. The novel of the 21st century would be delivered in electronic form to our desktops. Publishers would have to adapt or go the way of the dinosaurs. Then in 1997, a phoenix arose out of the still-warm ashes of Literature that struck the prophets dumb: Harry Potter. Continue reading The Novel Strikes Back
We’re informed by a gushing press that the seventh and final Harry Potter tome sold 11.4 million copies on the first day, smashing the records set by previous Potter releases to become the fastest selling book in history. Funny that – it was also the most hyped. Continue reading Harry Potter – The Magic Is In The Marketing