When digital pirates purloin, artists walk the plank

If you read one book this week

'Natchez Burning' by Greg Iles (HarperCollins) R180

Epic yet suspenseful 800-page first instalment in a planned trilogy on racism and the American South as a young idealistic lawyer attempts to defend his doctor father on a murder charge, a quest that unearths a mess of dark crimes in rural Mississippi.

The Issue

Novelist Steven Boykey Sidley's comments about digital piracy in yesterday's newspaper were right on the button. It is beyond doubt that file sharing destroys the cultural process. Thanks to hacking's guiding mantra, "information wants to be free", we have come to expect free online content simply because we own a laptop, and we have mistaken the packaging of physical products for what we were actually paying for - the creative content.

Robert Levine's excellent Free Ride: How the Internet is Destroying the Culture Business and How it Can Fight Back (Vintage) details how the tech companies make billions from content created and funded by others - and beggar culture in the process.

It was silly, though, to get the anonymous "Pirate Queen" to counter Sidley and defend stealing (she's probably not all bad; she only breaks laws she finds inconvenient). Her claim that she pirates TV shows, not books or music, is a bit like a rapist saying he only attacks blondes.

Sidley, meanwhile, launches his new novel, Imperfect Solo (Picador Africa), at Cape Town's Book Lounge tomorrow evening. Sidley will be in conversation with columnist Darrel Bristow-Bovey. Pirates most welcome.

Crash Course

Another shade of grey: Johannesburg crime novelist Jassy Mackenzie - she of the Jade de Jong thrillers - appears to have successfully switched genres, and is writing what could be described as light romance with a touch of the lash. Switch (Umuzi) - a sequel to Folly, her first BDSM-in-the-suburbs romp - sees heroine Emma Caine giving her clients the usual hard time as a rival dominatrix wants to put her out of business.

More female-friendly spanky: the UK's Emily Dubberley, author of the guide Mind-blowing Mornings, Naughty Nooners & Wild Nights: A Couple's Round-the-Clock Guide to Sizzling Quickies (Quiver) and founder of the website Cliterati, has come up with a novel way to sell Blue Mondays, her new e-book which details the sexual adventures of 20somethings Lucy and Ben. It's aimed at commuters who want to spice up the start of the working week - most of the action takes place on trains - and Dubberley is releasing it in weekly instalments with a download every Sunday evening. Blue Mondays will appear in paperback later this year.

The bottom line

"This food was special. Only the most senior men there ate it [the brain]." - Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism and Michael Rockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art by Carl Hoffman (William Morrow & Company).