Reading Copy Book Blog

Biblioasis will publish John Metcalf’s latest memoir, Shut Up He Explained, this fall.  The publisher posted design ideas for the books cover and asked for feedback from their readers.  One reader took the this a step further and actually designed an entire new book cover suggesting the house should use it instead.  The asking price? $8 and a one year subscription [...]

Well BEA kicks off today and a number of the Abe staff will be working the floor this weekend.  If you want to head over and say hello the AbeBooks booth is number 4300.

Expected to open in 2009 at Universal Studios in Florida.  The Harry Potter theme park will feature a life sized Hogwarts Castle, Forbidden Forest and the village of Hogsmead among other attractions.

Barbara Holland has just published her 15th The Joy of Drinking to counter the rise of broccoli, exercise and Starbucks.  If you like this one you can venture into her back list and pick up Endangered Pleasures: In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity, and Other Indulgences

Randy Kearse, a former South Carolina crack, dealer has written a 686 page book on the language of urban youth called Street Talk. Kearse found prison the perfect research ground for the book, interviewing other inmates while serving his 18 year sentence and is working on two more books: “How to Use Incarceration as a [...]

This one is for Brits, but also Aussies, Kiwis and the other cricket playing countries of the Commonwealth. The Guardian has a digested read of Test Match Special: 50 Not Out. “I say! That’s the third bendy-bus in the last 15 minutes. That really must be a champagne moment.” If you don’t know your full [...]

A set of indentical twins, Helen and Morna Mulgray, have just published their first book, a crime novel called No Suspicious Circumstances, and made a piece of literary history, according to The Times. Morna, who is the elder by ten minutes, said: “We both sit at the laptop, and whoever happens to be closest to the [...]

The Independent reports that the Hay-on-Wye literary festival has sold out. Leading the charge is the novelist Margaret Drabble, who attended the first festival in 1988 but has vowed never to return. The author of 17 novels, two biographies, a television play and winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize told The Independent on Sunday [...]

Everyone is ticking off the days until July 21 and the final Harry Potter book – in the meantime, let’s do some knitting to kill time. Apparently, there are lots of knitting references in JK’s books. The Pioneer Press in Minnesota reports…. “Knitting is an ancient craft, and if you go back to a magical, [...]

The Times has the summer reading list of Gordon Brown – the UK’s prime minister-in-waiting. The first two choices are fairly predictable: The Assault on Reason by Al Gore, the former US Vice-President; and The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board.  His third choice, Engleby by [...]