The National Year of Reading 2012 (NYR2012) initiative will be officially launched on 14 February. The year-long campaign is about teaching children to read, helping readers rediscover the joys of reading, and creating a national reading culture.

The initiative was founded by various libraries and library associations, and brings together government, media, and the bookselling and publishing communities as well as community groups, with more than 100 organisations signed on as partners. Funding partners include the federal Office for the Arts, the federal Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, the Copyright Agency Limited, the Australia Council for the Arts and the Sidney Myer Fund. Dymocks, Walker Books, Scholastic, Creative Kids Tales and Disney are also official partners.

Author and actor William McInnes is the NYR2012 patron, and is joined by 18 national ambassadors. State and territory ambassadors have so far been announced for New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, the Australian Capital Territory, Western Australia and the Northern Territory, with more expected to be announced soon.  A complete list of ambassadors can be seen here.

So how can you get involved?

Our Story

NYR2012 is searching for eight books that represent Australia – one from each state and territory. You can vote on shortlists for each state and territory at your local library or bookshop, or by visiting the ABC website here. But be quick – voting closes on 6 January. The winning books will be announced on 14 February.

The Reading Hour

The Reading Hour will take place on Saturday 25 August 2012 between 6-7pm, and is designed to promote the idea that everyone can benefit from reading for at least an hour a week. Special events will be held in bookshops, libraries and schools to mark the occasion and the Disney Channel will run a dedicated NYR2012 program. More information about the event will be announced on 14 February.

Are We There Yet?

Starting in the Northern Territory in February, primary school children will be able to enter a competition by creating postcards, letters, drawings and photos about their home town or a special place they have visited in Australia. The competition is based on Alison Lester’s book Are We There Yet? (Viking).

Creative Reading Prize

Teenagers can get involved by participating in the National Year of Reading Creative Prize, an extension of the Creative Reading Prize run by the Centre for Youth Literature at the State Library of Victoria. Participants nominate one book they think their peers should read in 2012 and then provide an argument about why the book should be read in the form of a creative response. Visit Inside A Dog to see how the competition has been run in previous years.

As well as these new projects, NYR2012 will also be showcasing existing projects and organisations that promote reading and literacy across Australia, including the Indigenous Literacy Foundation, the Australian Literacy & Numeracy Foundation, and the Smith Family. For more ways to get involved, visit www.love2read.org.au.

Tis the season for ‘best of’ lists, and whether you get your tips from the New York Times, Goodreads or local booksellers/tastemakers such as Jon Page and David Gaunt, this year there are plenty to choose from.

From the local booksellers:

The good folk at Readings have devised multiple ‘best of’ lists, including the intriguingly titled ‘best overlooked books of 2011’, as well as the ‘bestselling ebooks of 2011‘; Pages & Pages’ has compiled its best books of 2011 (owner Jon Page has also nominated his top five reads for 2011 – if you follow him on Twitter these should be self-evident); Gleebooks’ David Gaunt has shared his favourite titles of the past year; Oscar & Friends has announced its staff picks for 2011; several Shearer’s booksellers have blogged about their top picks; and The Women’s Bookshop in New Zealand has compiled its favourite titles for 2011.

From the overseas booksellers:

Barnes and Noble has named its best books for 2011, including a category for ‘quirky, beautiful, different’ titles.

From the media:

The New York Times has released its annual ‘100 notable books’ and ‘10 best books’ lists; Flavourwire has compiled a list of ‘the most criminally overlooked books of 2011′; and there are more ‘best of’ lists from the Guardian, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Salon, NPR and Kirkus Reviews. In local media, the SMH/Age has asked a selection of writers to name their favourite reads of the past year; as has the New Zealand Listener. The Australian has released its Books of the Year over five pages starting here (paywall). The Huffington Post compiled a list of the best food books of 2011 as did the blog Brain Pickings.

From social media:

The winners of the 2011 Goodreads Choice Awards have also been announced, with over 600,000 votes cast.

In May this year, the Sydney Story Factory was officially launched. The factory is a not-for-profit centre designed to help children and young adults, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with writing.

The centre is getting ready to open its writing centre and shop—the Martian Embassy—in Redfern in 2012. Pilot programs are being held in local schools in this area, and this week the factory is holding an art exhibition and auction called Judge a book, buy its cover.

The exhibition showcases work by local artists who have recreated the covers of books selected from a list of Sydney’s 50 favourite books (as voted by readers of the Sydney Morning Herald). There’s 25 new book covers: from classics such as Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, to contemporary favourites like Tim Winton’s Dirt Music and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. To see the artworks, click here. To see the complete list of 50 books, click here.

The Sydney Story Factory was founded by Sydney Morning Herald journalists Catherine Keenan and Tim Dick, and is inspired by similar projects in the United States. A number of Australian writers support the centre, including Geraldine Brooks, Markus Zusak, Peter FitzSimons, Anna Funder, Leigh Sales, James Bradley, Tom Keneally, Malcolm Knox, Gail Jones, Mardi McConnochie, Debra Adelaide and Michael Robothom.

To find out more about the Sydney Story Factory, visit www.sydneystoryfactory.org.au.

Man of mystery.

Some say he is an exiled royal of the Russian Empire, living an anonymous life of wealth and good taste in the states of South East Australia.

Some say he is the real-life inspiration for Ian Fleming’s James Bond—an international man of mystery with a penchant for classic cars and even more classic watches.

Some say he is a lover of the simple life, happiest with a good book in one hand, an (Irish) coffee in the other and a cat on his lap.

Some say he speaks twelve languages.

Some say he is the publicity-shy author behind such hits as the Twilight series and the Four Ingredients cook books.

Man of intrigue.

Some say he is the fiendish puppet master controlling Prince Philip and the international drug trade.

Some say he can tweet in his sleep.

Some say he suffers apoplectic fits at the misuse of the word decimate, sentences containing ‘myriad’ followed by ‘of’, the use of impact as a verb and the phrase ‘predominantly comprised of’.

Some say he once impacted a stakeholder meeting intended to incentivise participants to leverage synergies going forward.

Some say he wears the hell out of tweed.

Man of many hairstyles.

Some say his filing technique is as mysterious as he is.

Some say he was the moody guitarist for a rock band composed entirely of librarians.

Some say they were called The Leptons.

Some say he taste-tests gin and tonic for a living.

Man of means.

Some say he likes hats.

All we know is that he’s been an exceedingly excellent publisher, a quiz-answerer extraordinaire, stylish to a fault and we’ll miss him dreadfully.

That said, we doubt he’ll be going too far afield.

Bless you Tim Coronel, it’s been a lot of fun.

All five books on the most mentioned chart received equal mentions this week. Gillian Mears’ Foal’s Bread (A&U) appeared on the Most Mentioned list again, as it continues to generate interest among reviewers. Cambridge University Press has released its Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture, which includes over 1000 entries from 200 contributors, and 500 photographs and drawings for all those curious about the built environment. Jessica Rudd’s Ruby Blues (Text) has made an appearance on the Most Mentioned list again. Steven Amsterdam’s What the Family Needed (Sleepers) is the tale of a family finding itself, told by each of its members as they discover powers they never thought possible. Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs (Little, Brown) also received a number of mentions this week–Media Extra.