Time for some assorted web reading: there's nothing much happening in the book world right now, so the school holidays must be having an effect. Take your pick from these morsels:

• New Zealand writers of non-fiction books are invited to apply for two grants worth $35,000 each in this year’s Copyright Licensing Ltd (CLL) Writers’ Awards. CLL 'encourages all established writers of non-fiction to consider applying for one of the two awards on offer this year. It is hoping to encourage applications from writers with interests in the sciences, business, Maori and Pacific studies, the arts and beyond.'

Applicants must be New Zealand citizens or permanent residents and writers of proven merit. Details are available on the website or by telephoning (09) 480 2711.

• The Guardian has reviewed Catherine Chidgey’s The Transformation and has given it a cautious thumbs-up: 'Chidgey is a gifted writer, and in this, her third novel, her confident, commanding prose and vivid atmospherics hold the attention even if the curiously shaped plot does not.' Should bode well for Chidgey's chances of cracking the UK market.

• Two new books From Huia Publishers. First up is Dream Fish Floating by Karlo Mila, a book that 'explores the intergenerational tensions between migration and returning, the new and the traditional, the emergent professional classes and their working-class migrant communities of origin.' Mila’s poetry has been published in Best New Zealand Poems 2003 and the Listener, and several of her poems also feature in the 2004 Montana New Zealand Book Award-winning anthology Whetu Moana.

Second is Festival of Miracles by newcomer Alice Tawhai: 'a bittersweet New Zealand wonderland that is at once luminous and sensual, tragic and fated. The stories in this debut collection are set from the Hokianga to Bluff and they are populated by a stunning range of characters – circus workers, tattoo artists, bikies, mail-order brides, beautiful victims, wild children, immigrants, tangata whenua – who never cease to believe that they will find perfect things amidst the human imperfection of their lives; miracles, not misfortune.'

• The Orange Prize for Fiction, the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman, has announced the 2005 shortlist: Joolz Denby for Billie Morgan, Jane Gardam for Old Filth, Sheri Holman for The Mammoth Cheese, Marina Lewycka for A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, Maile Meloy for Liars and Saints and the curiously bloke-ish sounding Lionel Shriver for We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Later, 'gators.