Latest news with #PenguinRandomHouse
Newsroom
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Newsroom
This week's biggest-selling books at King's Birthday Weekend
FICTION 1 The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 'She [Chidgey] seems to get a ridiculous amount of promotion through your column,' moaned Newsroom reader Louise Bryant in the comments section this week. Oh well! Here we go again, then, paying too much heed to the author widely regarded as the best living New Zealand novelist who appears to be at her peak, with her latest novel settling into its Number 1 bestseller position for the third consecutive week and likely holding onto that status for quite some considerable time to come as word of mouth continues to recommend The Book of Guilt as a scary, literary, absorbing story of children kept as lab rats. A free copy was up for grabs (alongside Delirious by Damien Wilkins) in last week's giveaway contest. The entries were so interesting – readers were asked to make some sort of comment about Chidgey – that I wrote a story about them on Thursday. The winner is Madeleine Setchell, chairperson of Fertility NZ, 'a small but mighty charity that walks alongside all New Zealanders facing infertility'. Huzzah to Madeleine; she wins Delirious by Damien Wilkins, as well as a copy of the cheerfully over-promoted The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey. 2 Delirious by Damien Wilkins (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $38) 3 See How They Fall by Rachel Paris (Hachette, $37.99) 4 1985 by Dominic Hoey (Penguin Random House, $38) A free copy of this tough new tale of Grey Lynn noir is up for grabs in this week's giveaway contest. Hoey is a sort of literary establishment outsider. So, too, is American writer Alex Perez, who posted an apparently controversial rant on Substack this week about one of the themes of Hoey's novel, the crisis of masculinity. He writes, 'The literary man is constantly haunted by the specter of masculinity. This is obviously an elite—and striver—problem, because working-class men, unless they somehow meet a New Yorker staffer on the construction site, haven't been aware that this discourse has been ongoing for a decade. The non-online man, warts and all, just is. He might be misogynist; he might be a brute. But he's just whatever kind of dude he is, and that's that. Most of my time is spent hanging out with regular dudes who aren't obsessed with their masculinity, so the neurotic behavior of the literary man is always jarring …' To enter the draw to win 1985, read Perez's Substack argument, and remark upon it at whatever length in an email to stephen11@ with the subject line in screaming caps A WORKING CLASS HERO IS SOMETHING TO BE by midnight on Sunday, June 1. Good cover. 5 Tea and Cake and Death (The Bookshop Detectives 2) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $38) 6 Black Silk and Buried Secrets (Tatty Crowe 2) by Deborah Challinor (HarperCollins, $37.99) 7 Dead Girl Gone (The Bookshop Detectives 1) by Gareth and Louise Ward (Penguin Random House, $26) 8 The Good Mistress by Anne Tierman (Hachette, $37.99) 9 Sea Change by Jenny Pattrick (David Bateman, $37.99) 10 All That We Know by Shilo Kino (Hachette, $37.99) I very briefly ran into the author at the recent Auckland Writers Festival. I got a bit lost trying to find the correct venue to watch Noelle McCarthy chair a Norwegian author, blundered into a room I thought was right, but instead saw Shilo Kino waiting to go onstage with Jeremy Hansen in a session about humour. Shilo said, 'Hi Steve!' I replied, 'Hi Shilo!' Then I turned and fled, pausing to say to Jeremy, 'You look younger every time I see you.' Anyway, it must have been a good session; Shilo's very funny novel was published over a year ago, but sales at the AWF have resurrected it into the top 10. NONFICTION 1 Whānau by Donovan Farnham & Rehua Wilson (Hachette, 29.99) 2 Full Circle by Jenny-May Clarkson (HarperCollins, $39.99) 'Over time,' writes the presenter of Breakfast in her new memoir, 'the scrutiny wears you down. Not just the actual things that people say but the awareness of what they might say. When I started in television, the comments were mostly about my appearance. But, as I settled into my role at Breakfast, that started to change. Of late, a lot of the negative comments I get have been centred on who I am. My Māoritanga. I don't look at them, don't even get the Breakfast inbox emails on my computer, because if I had to read some of what comes in, I just wouldn't ever be able to say anything again. But every now and then, I'll catch something someone's said before I've been able to look away. 'The other day, I spotted a comment where someone was complaining about my use of te reo Māori. 'Don't like watching her, sick of her pushing too much Māori on to people, just speak English.' That sort of thing. Worse, usually. You know the style. I used to get absolutely thrown by comments like that but they don't rock me now. I just think, How bizarre. And how sad. Because it is sad. Sad that someone thinks it's okay to talk about another person like that. Sad that they don't accept that my reo is a big part of who I am as a person and that I am not only selected but endorsed by my employer, TVNZ. Sad that they don't realise te reo Māori is one of the official languages of our country, so there's no such thing as 'too much'. Sad that they don't know how precious and amazing it is that we have our reo.' Striking cover. 3 Everyday Comfort Food by Vanya Insull (Allen & Unwin, $39.99) 4 Three Wee Bookshops at the End of the World by Ruth Shaw (Allen & Unwin, $39.99) 5 No Words for This by Ali Mau (HarperCollins, $39.99) 6 Atua Wāhine by Hana Tapiata (HarperCollins, $36.99) 7 Fix Iron First by Dr Libby (Little Green Frog Publishing, $39.95) Self-helper all about iron. Blurbology: 'When iron levels are low, everything feels harder. Your energy fades. Your mood shifts. Your resilience diminishes … What's not recognised often enough is that low iron doesn't just make you tired. It can alter your brain chemistry, slow your metabolism, impact your thyroid, disturb your sleep and lower your emotional resilience … This book is for anyone who has ever felt persistently tired, anxious, low in mood, or disconnected from their spark – and not known why. It's for parents watching a child struggle with energy or concentration. It's for women navigating the rhythms of their menstrual cycle or the shifts of perimenopause. It's for anyone who feels like they're doing everything right but still doesn't feel like themselves – or who has tried, unsuccessfully, to restore their iron levels and is still searching for answers.' 8 Northbound by Naomi Arnold (HarperCollins, $39.99) Two excellent books about the great New Zealand outdoors have been published in 2025. Northbound is the author's account of walking the Te Araroa track; Fire & Ice: Secrets, histories, treasures and mysteries of Tongariro National Park by Hazel Phillips is an illustrated book about the central plateau, and was reviewed very favourably this week. 9 The Last Secret Agent by Pippa Latour & Jude Dobson (Allen & Unwin, $37.99) 10 Hine Toa by Ngāhuia te Awekōtuku (HarperCollins, $39.99)
IOL News
3 days ago
- Politics
- IOL News
Welcome to the high treason club
Journalist Karin Mitchell has authored The High Treason Club, which delves into the Boeremag trial of a fanatical group driven by nationalism, racism, militancy and fear. After a cross-country manhunt, 23 men were arrested and charged with high treason after the police seized explosives, homemade pipe bombs, weapons and ammunition in arms caches all over the country. On the night of 30 October 2002, eight bomb blasts tore through Soweto, leaving one woman dead and damaging vital infrastructure. The bombs were the work of far-right white Afrikaner separatist group the Boeremag, whose stated aim was to overthrow the ruling ANC government, rid the country of black people and reinstate a new Boer-administered republic. This is an edited extract of The High Treason Club published by Penguin Random House at a suggested retail price of R340. Mitchell also covered the Marikana Massacre, the Oscar Pistorius trial and other significant political events. She has been writing full time since 2016. In what became the longest and most expensive trial in the country's history, told in reporter Karin Mitchell's book The High Treason Club, the public learned of a fanatical group driven by nationalism, racism, militancy and fear. Treason It was 19 May 2003, the first day of the Boeremag treason trial. The early days of the trial were held in the Palace of Justice in Pretoria, ironically in the same courtroom where Nelson Mandela was sentenced in the pivotal Rivonia treason trial in 1964. At that time, capital punishment was in effect, and it was almost certain that Mandela and his co-accused would be executed in the Pretoria gallows if they were found guilty of some of the 200-odd charges against them. Almost 40 years later, the Boeremag accused sat squashed against each other in the same dock where Mandela delivered his famous speech in which, fully aware that he could be sentenced to death, he vowed he was prepared to die for the liberation of black people. The court found Mandela guilty on four charges relating to sabotage against the state. He was not sentenced to death, as had been widely expected, but was instead sentenced to life in prison. He spent many of the next 27 years excavating rock in the dusty white quarries on Robben Island, within sight of Cape Town and the South African mainland. Four decades after Rivonia, the trial of the Boeremag became the first high treason case to be heard in democratic South Africa. After some months, the trial was relocated and the remaining twenty-two accused lined the weighty double-rowed dock in a larger courtroom at the North Gauteng High Court, just across the road from the Palace of Justice. It was here that I first encountered the Boeremag eight years later, in May 2011, as a fledgling journalist for Jacaranda FM. Time drags in court, and on days when it felt particularly stagnant, I would observe each of the men. They'd already spent close to ten years in this courtroom, and over time I became aware of some of their habits to overcome the boredom. Some of them read outdoor magazines or a newspaper would get passed along the line until the pages became worn. Others wrote in notebooks or sketched on pieces of paper. I was often the only journalist in court for weeks on end during the period that I covered the trial. Taking advantage of the empty public gallery, I would sit at the end of the front row where it was easier to hear proceedings in the cavernous space. I had been reporting on the trial for over a year when, on 26 July 2012, in an unusually packed courtroom, Mike du Toit became the first of the Boeremag accused to be found guilty of high treason. Since there were more than twenty accused in the trial, the judgment proceedings spanned several days. The following day, his brother, André Tibert du Toit, was also found guilty. On that day, after Judge Eben Jordaan had left the courtroom, I rushed over to the dock to get a comment from either Mike or André. I wanted to capture their reactions to being convicted. As I was making my way towards them, Mike stood up, shook his brother's hand, laughed and said, 'Welcome to the High Treason Club!' His comment stopped me in my tracks, and I knew that I'd just witnessed something momentous. I was incredibly disappointed that I had not been quick enough to record the exchange between the brothers, as it perfectly encapsulated the comradery that had grown between some of these men over the decade that they had been on trial. Although I'd been attending the court proceedings since the previous year, I'd pretty much kept to myself, popping out into the foyer to report for our hourly radio news bulletins, not really interacting with anyone. So, I had to literally force myself to go up to the man regarded as the 'Boeremag kingpin'. 'Excuse me, sir,' I said with polite hesitation. 'Could I please ask you to repeat what you just said to your brother so that I can record the moment?' Mike looked at me and the rest of the photographers gathered in front of the dock and nodded. He turned to his brother, stretched out his hand and smiled from ear to ear as he re-enacted his initial response. The scene felt somewhat contrived at the time, but I managed to take a photo and got the audio that I needed for the upcoming radio bulletin. Addressing him again as 'sir', I thanked Mike for obliging to my request in such a friendly manner. 'My name is Mike. You can call me Mike,' he replied in a slightly pitched voice. A few days after this brief interaction, I greeted Mike when I went to take pictures of the accused men in the dock, which I would then post to my employer's Twitter feed. I always found it uncomfortable standing in front of accused criminals in court to photograph them, and although Judge Eben Jordaan had granted permission for photographs to be taken and it was my responsibility to do so as a journalist, it never ceased to feel intrusive. 'Is that a phone you are taking pictures with?' Mike suddenly asked, looking at the slim white iPhone in my hand. 'Indeed,' I replied, confused by the question. I carefully observed Mike as he tilted his head and stared at the iPhone. 'But where are the phone's buttons?' he asked. Then it dawned on me. Mike had never seen a phone with a touchscreen before. 'When was the last time you saw a cellphone, Mike?' 'I last used a cellphone in 2002. Mine still had buttons,' he quipped. We both chuckled, and I turned the phone around to show him the touchscreen from a distance, fully aware of the watchful eyes of the authorities in court, and I swiped to show him how one simply tapped the glass screen to make a call. 'That is very interesting,' he said as he examined the slim piece of technology from the dock. I took my seat in the public gallery, feeling as if someone had punched me in the gut. It had dawned on me that the nine years in which Mike had been locked up meant that he had entirely lost touch with the outside world and fast-moving technology. Despite this uncomfortable realisation, I couldn't believe my luck that I had just talked to one of the central Boeremag accused. In our brief exchange, I'd expressed my interest in getting a unique perspective of the trial from inside prison, something that had not been done before in this case. When I went back to the Jacaranda FM office after court, I couldn't help wondering what Mike's life was like in prison and what had led to his decision to become part of the Boeremag. In court a few days later, a lawyer handed me a folded piece of paper over the bench. 'Mike asked that I give this to you.' I looked up and saw Mike watching over his shoulder from the dock. He nodded. Before I had a chance to open the letter, the court clerk bellowed, 'All rise in court!' Judge Jordaan emerged from the door behind his bench wearing a bright red robe. He'd presided over the trial since 2003, and in that time his hair and neatly trimmed beard had changed to a crisp white. Judge Jordaan took a seat in his burgundy leather chair and hunched over the notes before him. I felt as if the letter from Mike was burning a hole in my hand, and I couldn't open it soon enough after adhering to the court etiquette of first giving Judge Jordaan my undivided attention until he took his seat. Finally, I nervously unfolded the handwritten letter: Karin You can visit me this weekend. You can decide whether you want to come on Saturday or Sunday, as long as you are inside the prison between 09:00 and 12:00. You will have to fill out a form. My details are: Name: M.T. du Toit Number: ********* Indicate that the visit will be for one hour. Very important: Don't leave anything in your car, such as phones, cameras or other valuable items. Make sure to leave all these items at home, as they will otherwise only get stolen. Regards, Mike
Scroll.in
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
‘To write in Kannada is to inherit a legacy of cosmic wonder and earthly wisdom': Banu Mushtaq
On May 20, Banu Mushtaq became the first Kannada-language writer to win the International Booker Prize. She shared the £50,000 award with her translator Deepa Bhasthi – the first Indian translator to win the award – for Heart Lamp, a collection of her selected stories. Here are the texts of their acceptance speeches at the award cermony at Tate Modern, London. Banu Mushtaq If I may borrow a phrase from my own culture: this moment feels like a thousand fireflies lighting up a single sky – brief, brilliant, and utterly collective. To even stand among these extraordinary finalists is an honour I'll never forget. And I accept this great honour not as an individual, but as a voice raised in chorus with so many others. I am happy for the entire world which is full of diversity and inclusiveness. I am happy for myself and my translator Deepa Bhasthi. This is more than a personal achievement – it is an affirmation that we, as individuals and as a global community, can thrive when we embrace diversity, celebrate our differences, and uplift one another. Together, we create a world where every voice is heard, every story matters, and every person belongs. First, to the Booker Prize committee – thank you for recognising stories that dare to bridge worlds. To my relentless team: my visionary literary agent, Kanishka Gupta, who believed in this book before it had a heartbeat; my translator, Deepa Bhasthi, who turned my words into bridges; and my publishers – especially Penguin Random House and And Other Stories – who sent these stories sailing across languages and borders. This is your victory too. And to my family, friends, and readers: you are the soil where my stories grow. This book is my love letter to the idea that no story is 'local' – that a tale born under a banyan tree in my village can cast shadows as far as this stage tonight. To every reader who journeyed with me: you've made my Kannada language a shared home. It is a language that sings of resilience and nuance. To write in Kannada is to inherit a legacy of cosmic wonder and earthly wisdom. This book was born from the belief that no story is ever 'small' – that in the tapestry of human experience, every thread holds the weight of the whole. In a world that often tries to divide us, literature remains one of the last sacred spaces where we can live inside each other's minds, if only for a few pages. To every reader who trusted me with their time: thank you for letting my words wander into your heart. Tonight isn't an endpoint – it's a torch passed. May it light the way for more stories from unheard corners, more translations that defy borders, and more voices that remind us: the universe fits inside every 'I'. Thank you, from the depths of my soul. Deepa Bhasthi Ellarigu Namaskara. Hello everyone. The story of the world, if you think about it, is really a history of erasures. It is characterised by the effacement of women's triumphs and the furtive rubbing away from collective memory of how women and those on the many margins of this world live and love. This Prize is a small win in a long, ongoing battle against such violences. Elsewhere, there is erasure, in the media, in people's understanding of works of literature, of translators and the work we do to bring what would otherwise be unread, uncelebrated texts to new and very different sets of readers. Which is why it is so heartening that the International Booker celebrates and places both writers and writer-translators on the same page, so to speak. Thank you first and foremost to the International Booker judges for loving these stories and my translation of them. And what a win this is for my beautiful language: Jenina holeyo, halina maleyo, sudheyo Kannada savi nudiyo, goes a song, calling the Kannada language a river of honey, a rain of milk, and compares it to sweet ambrosia. Kannada is one of the oldest languages on earth and I am ecstatic that this will hopefully lead to a greater interest in reading and writing and translating more from and into the language, and by extension, from and into the other magical languages we have in South Asia. Thank you to my incredible editor Tara Tobler, for sprinkling gold dust over my work. Thank you to the dream team at And Other Stories, to Stefan, Michael, and others. As also to the wonderful people back home, at Penguin Random House India, to Moutushi [Mukhrjee], Milee [Ashwarya], et all. Thank you to my wonderful agent Kanishka Gupta for… absolutely everything. The last few months would have been unmanageable without you. To Priya Mathew, to Farah Ali, friends old and new, thank you for the grace, for the sisterhood. Thank you to my parents Sudha and Prakash, who don't always understand why I do what I do, but cheer me on nonetheless. And most importantly, my husband Nan, the greatest love of my life, I miss you so much here tonight. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for what would I ever do without you! Play
Scientific American
5 days ago
- Science
- Scientific American
Scientific Strategies to Help Kids Meet the Challenges of a Cruel World
Between climate change, economic anxiety and political turmoil, the world can feel like a scary place, especially for kids. Today's young people have already been through a deadly global pandemic, they regularly drill to prepare for school shootings, and they must learn to navigate an age of misinformation and danger online. These stressors seem to be taking a toll; measurements show anxiety and sleep deprivation among adolescents are rising, and even teen suicide attempts are increasing. To parents, the situation can feel overwhelming. The good news is, there's a lot parents can do to help their kids meet the challenges of the world we live in, writes parenting journalist (and frequent Scientific American contributor) Melinda Wenner Moyer. In her new book Hello, Cruel World! Science-Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times (Penguin Random House, May 2025) Moyer surveys scientific research on kids' mental health and ways to improve it. Moyer divides her book into three sections focused on evidence-backed tips for helping young people cope with challenges, connect to others, and cultivate strong characters. Scientific American spoke to her about how to shield kids from online misinformation, nurture self-compassion and get your children to open up with you. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. [ An edited transcript of the interview follows. ] The concept of the book, this 'cruel world,' resonates so much with me as a parent, and I'm sure with so many people. Tell me a bit more about how you started feeling like the world is becoming a really tough place for kids. I have had this growing anxiety and angst as a parent, just thinking about the world that my kids were coming into and that they were going to inherit from us. There are so many things looming, you know, climate change and disinformation. I was also getting so many comments from parents saying, 'I'm just so scared on behalf of my kids, and I don't know what I can do to prepare them and help them get them ready for this world that we're going to hand them.' And I'm always trying to think of solutions and trying to figure out ways to reassure both myself and my readers. We do have some control here. And so I started researching, what are the key skills that we know can help kids get through all this? I was really trying to come up with concrete strategies that I could communicate to parents to help them feel a little less worried, a little more in control, and feel like they really could do something as parents, because I think parenting is a form of activism. We are raising the next generation of kids, and through our parenting, we can change the world. In what specific ways do you think there are challenges that kids are facing today that previous generations haven't really had to face before? We know from the research that there are a lot of tweens and teens who are struggling with mental health issues. Whether or not you think that the statistics are as bad as they seem, there seems to be a signal there that we should pay attention to. And so a big part of the book is about: How can we help kids cope? What are the things we can do to help them manage their emotions in healthy ways, rather than unhealthy ways? Another big one is technology. Every generation panics about technology, and so the question is, well, how much different is our situation today than it was when the TV came out, or the printing press—these were all big changes at the time. But I think this is certainly the first generation where kids have a handheld connection to technology, potentially at all times. That does feel momentous. One message in the book that really spoke to me was that helping our kids is also about helping ourselves—that we can't teach kids things like self-compassion, or balancing work and leisure, or all these other lessons, until we can embody them ourselves. I do think a really overlooked aspect of child health and development is: How are the parents doing? What's their mental health like? What are the skills that they have or don't have? Because we are teaching our kids so much through the choices we make. You know, are we beating ourselves up when we burn dinner? Are we constantly putting ourselves down? Our kids are learning from that and thinking, okay, I should be doing this too. I think we do overlook the role of our own well-being. This is really important because our kids are watching us. I want to be careful too: I'm not saying this to put more pressure on parents. We already have so many expectations of ourselves to ensure that our kids are succeeding at everything they do, that they're comfortable all the time, that they're protected all the time, that they're happy all the time. We have these expectations about what we should be doing as parents that are both unrealistic and unhelpful. When we overprotect, when we over-coddle, that actually undermines the development of key skills for them. Problem solving and resilience and emotional regulation, these are all skills that kids learn through practice. They need to be sad, they need to be disappointed and frustrated. They need to fail and experience what that is and understand that that's part of the process of learning. So a lot of what I'm trying to do is give parents permission to step back a little bit and to relax. You write in the book a lot about connection—how a strong connection between parents and kids is important for their mental health and is protective against some of the things we worry about, such as bad influences from social media. How do you make sure your connection is strong? If you're worried you're not connecting enough with your kids, then there are things you can do. I was really surprised at the power of listening to our kids—like really listening. I think we hear a lot about talking to your kids. And I think sometimes that can be misinterpreted as, lecture to your kids, you know, tell them not to do this and not to do that, and set rules and communicate the rules. But it's also really listening to them in a respectful way, and being willing to consider their perspective, which you may not always agree with. And when they open up to you, drop everything. It's impossible sometimes, but when they are opening up to you, even if it's in a very inconvenient time, try to allow it and stop what you're doing. Kids often like to connect right before bedtime, which is the most frustrating time ever, right? But we should really allow the connection to happen on their terms, because that's a form of giving our kids some autonomy. If you're getting from your kids some willingness to be vulnerable with you, I think that that is a really good sign. There's a relationship between feeling listened to and being willing to be self-reflective and also intellectually humble, which I think is really interesting. So when we feel heard, when we feel safe and not threatened, we're much more willing to consider what we don't know, and to acknowledge uncertainty within ourselves. What can parents do if we're worried about the information, the bad actors, the scary, negative stuff that our kids are coming across online? What can we do to help them tell the difference between misinformation, lies and reality online? There's very little media literacy education happening in schools. It really helps if the parent has some of those skills already, because then they can model media literacy and information literacy a little better for kids. So I encourage parents to try to learn about media literacy. One thing that every media literacy expert said to me was to ask your kids open-ended questions about what they're seeing and hearing in the media. It's such a beautifully simple approach, but apparently it's very, very powerful. So this could be anything, like with little kids, asking: What do you like about this show? Or why do you think that character just did what they did? It could also involve talking about how movies and cartoons are made. And when kids get older, you can ask even bigger questions, like: Who made this? Why was it made? Why is it being presented this way? What or who is missing from this? Who might benefit from this? Who might be harmed by it? Getting kids to think about these big-picture questions about the media can be super helpful in fostering this sort of curiosity and this questioning perspective in kids. These are some really wonderful tips, and I'm going to try to put them into practice. As a parent, I'm always reading and trying to learn how to be the best parent I can be. But sometimes I wonder how much it really matters what we do and how we parent. How much of who our kids are and who they're going to turn out to be, is completely out of our control anyway? People still debate this. We know genetics, of course, really matter. We know that temperament and personality, these are not things that we're probably going to be able to shift in our kids. But we also do know that a lot of what we're passing on to our kids is through the relationships we build with them, through the conversations we're having with them to help them understand how the world works, to help them understand what they can do to build stronger relationships, how they can interact with people. They really do learn a lot from our modeling, in terms of how to behave, how to manage conflict, how to think about different situations. We know that there are a lot of skills that kids learn through observing others, through the conversations they have with others, through the opportunities they're given to develop skills. A big example is resilience. We know that kids who are overprotected, prevented from failing, from experiencing challenges, that those are kids who are going to grow up not knowing how to problem solve and not knowing how to deal with feelings of frustration. They haven't been given opportunities to develop emotional regulation skills and they will really suffer for that when they get older. So I feel like we do have a lot of power in terms of the perspective that we help kids develop about the world, about why it looks the way it does. We can give them the opportunities at a young age to develop skills that will serve them the rest of their lives.
ABC News
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Brooke Bellamy posts first social media video since Nagi Maehashi plagiarism claims
Influencer baker Brooke Bellamy said her recipes are "inspired by somewhere or someone" in her first video blog since cookbook author Nagi Maehashi accused her of plagiarism. "Since opening my bakery three years ago and sharing my life online, I've never had such a long break between videos," the founder of Brooki Bakehouse said in the Instagram reel. Maehashi alleged Bellamy's cookbook plagiarised two of her recipes, which Bellamy has denied. These were recipes for caramel slice and baklava, with Maehashi taking to her social media by posting a side-by-side screenshots of the ingredients, quantities and instructions from the two books. Nearly a month later, Bellamy said in a video blog posted to Brooki Bakehouse's Instagram account that she did not invent the recipes. "While all of these recipes are personal to me, I cannot say that I have invented the cookies, cupcakes, brownies or cakes in the recipe book," Bellamy said. "They are all inspired from somewhere and someone before me. "I never subscribed to be a part of a narrative that pits two women against each other especially in the same industry. "I think there's room for everyone, especially more women in business." Maehashi said the similarities between the recipes amounted to plagiarism but that lawyers for Penguin Random House Australia, which published Bellamy's book, rejected her claim and said all recipes were written by Bellamy. Maehashi posted she had not made the statement "lightly" and did it knowing "it would open the floodgates to haters". Bellamy was dropped as an ambassador for a federally funded program to teach girls to "think like an entrepreneur" after the allegations were made.
