Reading Copy Book Blog

The Globe and Mail writes about Canadian science fiction author Robert J Sawyer and the impact of his books in China. “Chinese readers prefer hard science-fiction, with real science rigorously extrapolated,” he observed, and “and they’re partial to optimistic views of the future.” In fact, “the domestic science-fiction is very much at the stage science-fiction [...]

USA Today interviews Melissa Plaut, the author of Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to Do With My Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab. She’s one of 200 female cabbies in New York plus she’s a blogging, college-educated, Jewish lesbian. I suspect the book’s real strength will be the stories about her passengers.

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of On The Road, AbeBooks.com has just posted an interview with Tom Peters, who runs the Beat Book Shop in Boulder. It’s been many years since I read On The Road but there are clearly many people still fascinated by the book’s style and its non-stop narrative. Tom’s knowledge of [...]

An odd article from The Scotsman about Robin Ince, who trawls through Edinburgh’s secondhand bookshops looking for books that be read out loud “sarcastically” at his comedy club called the Book Club.

The Boston Globe profiles the wonderful Brattle Bookshop and its owner Ken Gloss.

Watch model Sophie Dahl go shopping for rare books. We shouldn’t be surprised that she’s a bibliophile when you remember Roald was her grandfather.

I spotted this link on Bookslut and I’m so glad Dora the Explorer makes this list as she’s a huge part of our family life – we watch the Dora shows, we’ve got the Dora books, we’ve got the Dora toys, we’ve got the Dora pyjamas, we’ve got the Dora umbrella, we’ve got Dora sneakers, [...]

The Guardian, a newspaper that always been well known for its use of creative photography, has a picture gallery of authors who have been appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival. The Margaret Atwood picture is a bit scary, Richard Dawkins has bushy eyebrows and someone needs to have a word with Richard Ford about his [...]

I love stories about exceptionally expensive objects whether they are pizzas, cars or, in this case, a diamond-encrusted book that’s worth £3 million, according to the BBC. Made-to-order copies, complete with 600 sparklers built into the cover, of Dancing With The Bear are apparently ideal for Russian billionaires. The book is an account of how [...]

Today’s Guardian carries an obituary for Charles Whiting, who wrote under many names including Leo Kessler. Oddly, he died last month so why wait so long to print the obituary?