Diamond geezer

I hear Irishman John Mc Namee of the European Booksellers Federation enjoyed his visit to the Australian Booksellers Association conference. Having scared everyone with prophesies of store closures in the digital future, John admitted there was an area of modern bookselling which he just didn’t understand: manga comics. Fortunately, Diamond Book Distributors’ beatnik-coiffed Scott Hatfill came to his rescue by running a ‘Manga for dummies’ session at the conference. ‘Now I understand why I didn’t get manga,’ Mc Namee was heard to admit afterwards, ‘I was always reading the books from the wrong end!’