Micheal Jones's book on the Leningrad siege now in softback

Although there are lots of interesting books available on the Eastern Front of Europe during WW2, Michael Jones's account of the blockade of Leningrad (St Petersburg) is one of the most riveting. It was released in hardback two years ago and now a half price paperback is available.

Because of the high casualties suffered by German troops following their capture of Kiev when buildings were mined or timebombed by the retreating Soviets, Hitler resolved that the experience would not be repeated with Leningrad - instead it would be starved into submission. As a result in September 1941 the Wehrmacht and their Finnish allies blockaded the city, bombed and cut off its food supplies while maintaining daily bombardments of the city. The ineptitude of the Red Army whose leading talent had been victims of Stalin's blood purges of the 1930s considerably helped the Germans.

Jones's view, backed with quotes, is that Hitler planned to starve the entire city of 2.5 million to death, no doubt influenced by Stalin's deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians over 1932-33.

For 872 days the blockade lasted, during which over 1 million inhabitants died (as is typical of communist regimes, the official death toll the Soviet government gave of 632,000 is now considered to be less than half the real figure). As well as the course of events, the experiences and anecdotes of inhabitants is presented in stark quotations from diaries and post-war interviews.

The first of the new monster trucks is here

This last week saw the first of the new breed of monster trucks appear - the new 22-metre truck-and-trailer unit with all of 10 axles was launched in Auckland before being driven with its maiden load to the Palmerston North home base of Booths Transport, which has spent about $500,000 on it.

But although it will be capable of carrying up to 53 tonnes under a controversial new permit system introduced by the Government in May, it will be restricted to a standard maximum weight of 44 tonnes on roads where bridges and other structures have yet to be strengthened to take the extra loads. These include Auckland's Southern Motorway, on which the Transport Agency needs to conduct assessments of 11 structures such as bridges over the Tamaki River and Puhinui Stream to see if they need upgrading.

Wait a minute - aren't Auckland and Palmerston North also connected by the North Island Main Trunk railway line? Yes they are. Isn't rail transport 18 times more fuel efficent than road? Right again. So why do we need these road smashing machines then - could it be that there is something wrong with the amount that the trucking industry pays for road use?

The same question arises over the government's plans to close a sizeable proportion of the North Island railway network. Secondary lines such as Napier to Gisborne, Masterton to Woodville, Stratford to Okahukura, and anything north of Helensville will soon be history.

No doubt this will please the trucking industry - no more competition - but motorists won't be so thrilled when they realise how much more congestion, both from the number of trucks and the frequency of roadworks to fix the smashed up roads, they are going to face.

Campaign for Better Transport spokesman Jon Reeves is unimpressed, saying: "Although you can always paint things to look nice ... they are not as efficient as rail and they will be slower going up hills, making it a problem for other motorists."

Mr Booth, however, said the new truck would meet the most modern emission standards and, even before getting permits to carry extra weight, would give greater efficiency by moving 13 per cent more freight by volume than standard length 20 metre truck-and-trailer units.

Apart from the truck drivers' wages, it is quite hard to see how most other costs per truck will diminish as everything else is surely proportional.

Should writers pay for reviews?

This is the intriguing title of this GalleyCat item.

Well, after 25 years in the business we have seen all sorts of press reviews and all sorts of reviewers. They come in three categories:

A. The Good
Objective, impartial, informative, point out positive aspects as well as some shortcomings. Leave the reader with a good sense of the contents.

B. The Bad
Focus on certain things of interest to the reviewer and disregard the rest, leaves the reader knowing the title, the author, the publisher and a little bit about the subject of the book - and that's all.

C. The Ugly
These fall into into two sub-categories:
1. The glowing praise throughout, usually written by someone who is a mate of the author
2. The condemnation, put-down, pan throughout - written by someone who thinks he/she is the expert on the subject and how dare this unworthy author have the temerity to write a book, etc. Sometimes such a reviewer has tried and failed to write a book themselves, usually it is a 'would be if I could be, but never will be'.

Debate has existed in publishing circles about whether there is a such a thing as a bad review. After all the motives of the C category reviewers are fairly transparent, and both will help generate interest in the book. Sometimes in their haste to condemn, category C2 reviewers make mistakes of their own, which you can then write a letter to the editor about - and letters to editor are the most read part of a magazine or newspaper.

If book reviews were paid for, there would probably be more of them - the number that appear in the press has been steadily falling in recent years, but would the editors ensure that their reviewers produced category A work? Somehow one is inclined to doubt it.

that's cold

On this day in 1960 at the Soviet Vostok-Station in the East of Antarctica a temperature of −88,3 °C was recorded, the up to then lowest air temperature recorded on Earth.

New book on vintage tramway art

It will seem quaint to most that the tramways felt the need to advertise for patronage in the 1920 and 1930s - was this not their golden age when few people had cars, buses were elementary, and people needed to use the trams as a routine matter?

This new 128 page hardcover book deals with the advertising by the London County Council over the years from 1922 to 1933, a subject that has hitherto been largely ignored and presents over 200 artwork examples reproduced in full colour, with information about each one. Most of posters concerned places you could go to on the trams, rather than the experience of travelling on them as such, but the cover illustration provides a nice period feel. It is more a book for historic commercial art fans than tramway fans, but both should enjoy it.

5 years from now?

Durable - a contemporary buzzword in France

Durable is French for sustainable, and used in France as it is in New Zealand.

For more "nowisms", see Peter Isaacs' entertaining dictionary The New Gobbledygook, available at good bookshops, and in our online shop.

Comfort for booklovers in Luleå

No, this is not a public library, but the lounge of the Comfort Hotel in Luleå, Sweden, where one of our directors stayed recently. The books covered a complete range of vintages with many from the early part of the 20th century. Most were in Swedish as is to be expected, with some in other languages.

It is good to see hotels like this allocating lounge space for people to read books.

Eric Watson's victims now unlikely to get any further payout

With the news that Allied Nationwide Finance has gone into receivership the likelihood now seems remote that those who were seduced into putting money into Eric Watson's investor scamming vehicle Hanover Finance (co-owned with Mark Hotchin) will receive any further payouts.

Last November Allied Farmers put up a deal to exchange shares in itself for Watson/Hotchin's toxic assets - at the time these were valued at $396 million. The latest valuation puts their worth at only about a quarter this. Allied Farmers shares at the time were selling around 20c on the sharemarket, the last sales have been at 2.5c.

At the time we said it was a case of swapping the crooks for the hopeless and this has sadly proved to be. Most depositors in ANF should get their money back under the Crown deposit guarantee which (fortunately) had yet to reach its expiry on 12 October. However, victims of Watson and Hotchin's Hanover scam won't be so lucky. If the Allied Farmers shares have any residual value at the conclusion of the receivership, it is highly unlikely to be any more than the 2.5 cents mentioned above, and the victims are thus looking at a 90% write-off.

Meantime Watson and Hotchin naturally continue their lavish lifestyles in multi-million dollar mansions around the world, including million dollar parties complete with the usual trappings of glitz and glamorous sex partners.

If you see the person on the left of the above photo, stay clear of him, but inform the business media and the criminal police.

Choices in the Australian election

Australia has long been called the lucky country and to most outside observers that is the case. The Australian outback is full of minerals and elements the world wants, and as few people live in the harsh, sparcely vegetated environment no-one cares if they are strip-mined on the surface. The country represents about 75% of the world's gold production and has abundant iron ore, zinc, lead, bauxite, and coal, not to mention opals.

Politics there is mainly about how the proceeds from the booty is shared among the relatively small population and as usual there is the choice between left and right wing views on that. However, both sides seem to make policy on the hoof, generally in an attempt to outdo each other's promises and bribes. Politicians tend to be more colourful than in NZ and often are good entertainment value.

Australia's first female Prime Minister, red-haired Julia Gillard, who ousted Kevin Rudd in the June coup, wants endorsement from the country and no doubt saw the pugnacious Tony Abbott as an election opponent she could beat. She is probably correct; the fact that Australia has stayed out of recession - despite rather than because of the governments policies - gives her a good chance. The country's third party, the Greens, polled 7.8% in the last election of November 2007 and although this did not translate into any seats under the single member preferential electoral system, their sympathies and thus preferences are with the Labor party and not the Liberal/National coalition.

Update

With 78.1% of votes counted, the Greens had lifted their share of the primary vote to 11.5% at the expense of Labor. Out of 150 seats in the parliament the right wing Coalition is predicted to finish with 70 seats compared to Labor's 72, the Greens 1, and 3 Independents. Labor can count on the support of the Greens but not the Independents.