A few snippets of interest to New Zealand readers today:

Here's a great piece by Russell Brown, on rediscovering Michael King’s 2001 book of essays, Tread Softly For You Tread On My Life.

… 'A Fraction Too Much Friction?', a 1999 speech that might be taken as a stand against political correctness, whatever that actually means, turned out to be a timely read. I hadn't got round to reading the full text of Trevor Mallard's much-ballyhooed speech, 'We are all New Zealanders now', but it proves to have more than a little Michael King in it.

An intriguing new project in the UK is the Library of Unwritten Books, created by artists Sam Brown and Caroline Jupp.

They will be travelling around the UK conducting short interviews with people about the books they dream of writing or making.

Limited edition mini-books will be published from transcripts of the interviews, which are made available to readers at exhibitions and special events.

And finally, electronics giant NEC has created ecotonoha, a ‘word tree’. It grows and sprouts ‘leaves’ as people add hopeful words throughout each day. For every 100 leaves added to its virtual trees, NEC has pledged to plant a real tree on Kangaroo Island in Australia.

It’s an inspiring project that harnesses the power of literature to do some good for the environment - using a neat bit of lateral thinking and some truly cutting-edge web programming.