A [New Zealand] gardening guru has uncovered another case of alleged plagiarism involving a book released by publishing house Penguin Books.
The accusations against The Tui NZ Fruit Garden, written by Sally Cameron, have caused Penguin to recall the book, which was released on Monday.
The book contains many sentences and passages which seem to have been taken, in some cases word for word, from various websites including Wikipedia.
Penguin came in for scrutiny just last year, after the book The Trowenna Sea by Witi Ihimaera was found to contain unacknowledged copy which appeared to come from other authors’ work.
This afternoon Penguin general manager publicity and promotions Sandra Lees said bookshops were being asked to return all copies of the book…
May 10th, 2010 at 12:23PM
When visiting the Te Papa museum in Wellington, NZ, I stumbled upon a description of the kiwifruit that claimed it was still called “vegetal mouse” in France. I can attest this is false – it is known as “kiwi”. The “vegetal mouse” phrase dates from one century ago, and the only place where I’ve seem it appear is on the old kiwi tree in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.
It seems, however, that the information that the kiwi is still occasionally called “vegetal mouse” is reprinted in English-speaking books on botanics and fruits. In short, everybody reprints as current some old information – and this has probably gone on like that for decades.