Chris Masters’ long-awaited unauthorised biography of infamous Sydney squawkmeister Belford Parrott has been shelved. The book, tentatively titled “Jonestown”, was intended as a follow-up to Masters’ Four Corners report on Mr Parrott in 2002.

The ABC issued a press release this afternoon, possibly the first press release I can ever recall announcing the non-publication of a book. The decision, according to ABC Enterprises director Robyn Watts, was made for “purely commercial reasons”.

Ms Watts went on to say:

“ABC Enterprises has a clear responsibility to deliver a commercial return to the ABC. To proceed with publication will almost certainly result in a commercial loss which would be irresponsible.”

While I get back to reading “Simply Stuffed” by HG Nelson, feel free to take a browse through the ABC Shop’s book section at all those titles responsibly published by ABC Enterprises to deliver a commercial return.

It’s quite unsettling to hear the news of Hunter S Thompson’s death, apparently by shooting himself. It’s only last Friday that I wrote a short appreciation of him on these pages.

I’m writing this less than half an hour after the news of Hunter S’s death hit the wires. Here’s the Associated Press report at the Sydney Morning Herald. ESPN.com has linked to an archive page of his work for them over the past three and a half years.

There’ll be a lot more to come on the net about the passing of Hunter S Thompson - a modern-day Hemingway who appears to have chosen the same exit.

See Technorati.

Lord of the Rings. Are you shocked?

The whole ABC exercise was apparently a derivation of the BBC’s The Big Read from last year, even down to the style of last night’s program, which was very un-ABClike. Jennifer Byrne seemed unusually ill-at-ease in the compere’s role (where’s Indira Naidoo when you need her?), and Chris Taylor (The Chaser, CNNNN, radio’s Today Today) was a generally unfunny devil’s advocate. However, it was a fun format which I would like to see converted into a weekly book review program. The vox pops (even if they were mostly celebrities such as “Peter Garrett, politician”) were sharp and amusing.

The top ten, which was actually a top eleven, was:
10. “A Fortunate Life” - AB Facey (1981)
=9. “The Da Vinci Code” - Dan Brown (2003)
=9. “Catch-22″ - Joseph Heller (1961)
8. “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy” - Douglas Adams (1979)
7. “Nineteen Eighty-Four” - George Orwell (1949)
6. “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” - JK Rowling (2003)
5. “Cloudstreet” - Tim Winton (1991)
4. “To Kill A Mockingbird” - Harper Lee (1960)
3. “The Bible” - various artists (various centuries)
2. “Pride and Prejudice” - Jane Austen (1813)
1. “The Lord of the Rings” - JRR Tolkien (1954-55)

The complete top 100 (actually a top 103) is now up on the ABC website. It makes an interesting comparison with the Big Read results as listed on the BBC website. (They, incidentally, have a top 200.) BBC viewers chose the same quinella as their ABC brethren, ie LOTR at 1 and P&P at 2, and both lists share five of the top ten.

On the ABC list I find it a little odd that the fifth Harry Potter book has made the top ten. The others come in at 93, 59, 15 and 36. That much better, or sold that much better because of the hype? I wonder if the Da Vinci Code benefited from being a current best seller, and whether Pride and Prejudice benefited from the oft-repeated 1995 BBC series.

Of the top five that I named yesterday, my top pick, “Frankenstein”, did not make the ABC 100 and came 171 on the BBC list. “Lord of the Rings” was my second choice. At third, I had “Animal Farm” (ABC 82, BBC 46), at fourth, “Dune” (ABC 24, BBC 39). As expected, Arthur Mailey’s “10 for 66 and all that” came nowhere…

The Bible (which didn’t appear on the BBC list at all) aside, top non-fiction last night was AB Facey’s “A Fortunate Life”. The most curious disparity between the ABC and BBC lists was the presence at number four with the BBC of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy, which didn’t figure in Australia at all. Nor did the works of Jacqueline Wilson, which figured no less than fourteen times in the BBC top 200.

Of the ABC’s top ten (eleven), Pride and Prejudice is freely available on the web. Nineteen Eighty-Four is also readable on-line, but copyright laws are such that it is in the public domain in some areas (for example Australia and anywhere that copyright expires 50 years or less after the author’s death), and still under copyright in others (for example the USA and the European Union, where copyright on Orwell’s works will continue in force until 2021).

The Bible, of course, is available in heaps of websites, although some recent translations are under copyright. I was a little surprised that “The Koran” didn’t score a mention on anyone’s list.

The ABC will tonight be announcing the results of a nationwide poll conducted over the last few months to find “Australia’s Favourite Book“. The announcement will come as part of a 90-minute special beginning at 7.30pm. I’m going to make a dull prediction and say that “The Bible” will get up.

I missed out on voting in the poll, so to make up, here is my personal choice of my five favourite books of all time, counting down in reverse order. There are four fantasy fiction works and one non-fiction.

5. Ten for 66 and All That - Arthur Mailey I have a large soft spot for books about cricket, and Mailey’s 1958 autobiography is the best of them all. An account of the life and playing career of the Australian leg-spinner who was also a talented journalist and cartoonist in later life. His whimsical retelling of his childhood, early playing days and selection for Australia are about as sublime as sports writing could ever be. He paints an evocative picture of a suburban Sydney long since gone - try crossing the sandhills when walking from Waterloo to the SCG today. If that’s not enough, he makes an uncanny prediction of Packer’s World Series Cricket, which erupted twenty years after this book was written and more than a decade after his death in 1966.

4. Dune - Frank Herbert A rich sci-fi epic, published in 1965, which creates an interplanetary world of environmental politics that is scarily echoed by 21st century reality. This ranking does not include any of the sequels or rip-offs.

3. Animal Farm - George Orwell It’s not a Disney cartoon. Orwell’s allegory of the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing dictatorship over the proletariat is a devastating satire that shades out “1984″ for qualification for this list on the strength of its sheer audacity. Under Australian copyright law, “Animal Farm” has been in the public domain since 2001 and can be read on-line in full. If you live in the USA or the European Union do not, repeat not, click here.

2.The Lord of the Rings trilogy - JRR Tolkien January 1976 saw two cultural events that left their mark on my teenage years: the first time that I heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” and the first time that I read “The Lord of the Rings”. As complex and rewarding a series they may be, they still don’t make number one on my list. That honour goes to…

1. Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley A brilliant allegorical thriller from the mind of nineteen year-old Mary Wollstonecroft. None of the 20th century movie incarnations can even remotely do justice to this classic, my favourite book of all. (In the public domain in all jurisdictions, it can be read on-line.)