5 book-related tweets from book-related tweeps you might want to check out

"The people drawn to Twitter are people on the cutting edge, the real nerds who are resentful of the fact that the general population have found and taken over Facebook."
– Steve Dotto

Follow @joe_hill

Joe Hill
@joe_hill

.@warrenellis's IRON MAN: EXTREMIS is a master-class on the modern superhero story. Knotty ideas, face-shattering action, cultural insight.

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1 day ago via Twitter for iPad · powered by @socialditto

I like Twitter. I'm going to sound nutty (as usual), but the visual cacophany of it, and the range of both deliberate and random conversations, is endlessly fascinating to me. What I really appreciate about it, though, are all of the reading suggestions that come across our work tweetstream. Today's post is in that vein. Unfortunately, I couldn't put anything close to the number I really wanted to link to - something like 27 of them hah! And before you get all uppity and point out that I've made a mistake and added Joe Hill twice to this list, you can settle, petal. I know. And it was deliberate, because the man is truly awesome. Who doesn't appreciate authors who give you sneak peeks at their upcoming book covers AND a Warren Ellis recommendation? Total win. Today, all for you, 5 book-related tweets from book-related tweeps you might want to check out

Review: Private and Confidential by Marion Ripley

"Laura got out the photo of Malcolm. He looked so fit and happy in the picture, it was hard to imagine him being ill in hospital. The she had an idea. She would send him a Get Well card, and she would do it in braille!"
- Private and confidential by Marion Ripley

Review submitted by: Sonja
Title: Private and confidential
Author: Marion Ripley
ISBN: 0711220972
Publisher: Frances Lincoln
Published: 2003
Genre: Picture books
Age group: Children
Rating: 4 out of 5

Synopsis: When Laura's Australian penfriend goes blind she decides to learn braille so that she can send him a get-well-soon card. They are soon corresponding in Braille, making their letters private and confidential.

How do you write to a friend who can't see?

Review: The Poet's Cottage by Josephine Pennicott

You are invited to a murder. The diabolical event will take place at Poet's Cottage on Saturday 17 August...
- Poet's Cottage by Josephine Pennicott

Review submitted by: Rachel
Title: Poet's cottage
Author: Josephine Pennicott
ISBN: 9781742610894
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2012
Genre: General fiction
Age group: Adult
Rating: 4 out of 5

Synopsis: When Sadie inherits Poet's Cottage in the Tasmanian fishing town of Pencubitt, she sets out to discover all about her notorious grandmother, Pearl Tatlow. Pearl was a children's writer who scandalised 1930s Tasmania with her behaviour.

Haunting...murder-mystery/narrator's path of self-discovery yarn

Just a quick post...

...to remind you all about our Next Reads eNewsletters. They're a fantastic place to find that next great book. Each month you'll get a handpicked set of titles and there's bound to be at least one or two that catch your fancy! (I end up with a request list about the length of my arm every time they appear in my inbox)

The (Perpetual) Return of Sherlock Holmes

Nineteenth-century literature is crawling with characters that just won't die.

The Headless Horseman forever stalks the hamlet of Sleepy Hollow. The protagonist of The Tell-Tale Heart is tormented by the still-beating heart of his victim under the floorboards - or at least thinks he is. There's the ageless, homicidal Dorian Gray, and evil Lord Ruthven, the original "vampyre". Most immortally of all, there are Dracula and the eternal child Peter Pan (if we stretch it to 1903).

Sherlock Holmes, however, is in a league of his own.

Despite plunging over a waterfall to his death in 1893, Holmes came back - and since then he's kept repeating like a dodgy curry. There have been countless film and television productions, with and without deerstalker and pipe, and we now have the joy of not one but two screen adaptations at once. This month the second Sherlock Holmes film starring Robert Downey Jr was released on DVD, as well as the second series of Sherlock, with Benedict Cumberbatch. I thought it was impossible to replace Robert in my affections. I was wrong. I would listen to Benedict Cumberbatch read our workplace safety manual. I'd listen to him read it in Danish.

The best thing about these adaptations is that they're not stuck - so to speak - in the past. The original Holmes is a great character, but let's face it, he doesn't grow any more than Peter Pan. For all we see of his inner life, he might as well be Rupert Bear. That's why it's so fascinating how much of a hold he's had on the popular imagination all through the years, and why it's great to see so many new interpretations, keeping his character fresh. A ridiculous ninety-five titles relating to Sherlock Holmes have appeared in Auckland Libraries in the past 18 months. And apparently we haven't reached saturation point yet.

You may already have come across the Mary Russell novels (she's Sherlock's wife) by Laurie R King, but there are also teen series by Andrew Lane and Shane Peacock, a junior graphic novel series by Murray Shaw, a Japanese manga called Young Miss Holmes and....wait for it...Muppet Sherlock Holmes.

So if, like the rest of the world, you can't get enough Sherlock, this list is for you.