Category: Literature
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Douglas Adams
12 May 2001 was a big day for me. It was the FA Cup Final, with Arsenal playing Liverpool in Cardiff. And it was also a good friend’s wedding in London. The match didn’t go so well for an Arsenal fan like me (forced to sneak off during the reception to watch the match on…
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LonCon 3 – Thoughts on Worldcon
Paul Cornell interviews George RR Martin and Connie Willis Each year the World Science Fiction Society holds Worldcon – an annual convention – in different parts of the world. It’s a movable feast, although more often than not, it’ll be held in a US city. In the past, the UK has had a decent crack…
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eBook Readers – Reappraised to an Extent
I love books. Real, physical books. Two arrived in the post just today! And I have 30 pages left to read in the thriller in my bag. In fact, why am I typing this in my lunch break and not reading it? As such, I’ve not bothered buying something like a Kindle. They seem vastly…
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Byliner
Byliner is a worthwhile new website. It’s purpose is twofold: to link to and promote long form non-fiction to sell original ebooks in that genre under the Byliner Originals imprint The site came to prominance when it released Three Cups of Deceit by Jon Krakauer a couple of months ago. Krakauer wrote Into Thin Air…
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Book News
Two interesting developments in the book world in the last 24 hours: Waterstones has been sold by HMV; and Amazon says it’s selling more Kindle books that Hardback and Paperback titles Waterstones has been sold by the slightly ailing HMV group for £53m to Alexander Mamut’s A&NN Group, and James Daunt (he of Daunt Books…
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Serendipity Redux
No, not a very poor film in John Cusack’s ouevre. noun the occurance and development of events by chance in a happy and beneficial way I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This is something that sadly the internet is not able to deal with effectively in certain areas. I’m going to talk…
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Trying to Decode Kindle Stats
Amazon has been trumpeting its latest Kindle stats, proclaiming that it has sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardback books sold over the last three months. I say “stats”, but they actually keep their cards very close to their chest. They’re mostly talking about ratios. And they’re not necessarily comparing like with like. While…
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Advertising The Book Show on Sky Arts
Sky Arts has recently been running a pretty large-scale advertising campaign for The Book Show presented by – as all literary shows seemingly have to be by law – Mariella Frostrup. That’s fine. Sky Arts is a decent enough channel, even if you know it really exists so that Murdoch can argue for the closure…
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EBook Readers And In-Fighting
What are we to make over the weekend’s bit of fun over at Amazon.com? In brief, Amazon likes to charge a single price for its ebooks on the Kindle – $9.99. Macmillan, one of the biggest publishers in the US and the world, fundamentally disagrees with that philosophy. While it’s a clear and simple proposition…
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Henning Mankell
One of my favourite authors, Henning Mankell, was in London this week to promote his new novel The Man From Beijing. This isn’t a novel set around his most famous creation – Kurt Wallander – but is a thriller set in several countries including, of course, Sweden. Mankell was interviewed by Stefanie Marsh of The…
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The Year of the Kindle/ebook Reader?
Sometimes, a piece of information just doesn’t smell right. On Boxing Day this year, Amazon announced a couple of pieces of information in a release that got lots of coverage, in large part – I’d suggest – because over the holiday period, and there’s not a great deal of real news kicking around. We were…
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Hunting In Packs
In today’s Standard (I managed to get a copy at Kings Cross – they’re never available much beyond 5.30pm at Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus), David Sexton pontificates over two pages about why “bloggers” are so hostile towards Ian McEwan. This is the piece that Sexton is talking about. Following a series of Guardian Book…
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Bookshopping
Sadly one of the few remaining book chains in the UK has gone into receivership, and it seems we’ll shortly be seeing the end of Borders. I’m immensely saddened by this. Few things make me as happy as wandering into a bookshop for a bit of a mooch around. I’m lucky. I work in the…