Reading Copy Book Blog

Mrs Salinger thanks her neighbours.

1 Old Waldorf Bar Days by Albert Stevens Crockett A piece of history from 1931 that reveals how posh folks drank before Prohibition. 2 The Savoy Cocktail Book A highly collectible example of 1930 Art Deco but affordable reprints (link to PLP) are available. 3 The Tale of John Barleycorn or, from Barley to Beer [...]

Reclusive author JD Salinger has died at age 91, from natural causes.

Howard Zinn, the author of A People’s History of the United States, died on Wednesday in California at the age of 87.

The BBC goes in search of Stieg Larsson – Europe’s biggest selling author. What happened to J.K. Rowling? Does anyone remember anything about a wizard?

Perhaps the most used image on a book cover is Diego Valazquez’s ‘Rokeby Venus’. AbeBooks certainly has many books using this cover.

Poet Christopher Reid has won the 2009 Costa Book Award, beating hot favourite Colm Tóibín and his novel Brooklyn. Reid’s collection of poems, The Scattering, was written in tribute to his late wife. Here is The Guardian’s take on this surprise result. Previous poets to won the Prize are Douglas Dunn, Ted Hughes and Seamus [...]

A Southern California school district has pulled the 10th edition of Merriam-Webster’s dictionary from its shelves, because it contained the definition of “oral sex”. Really.

Imagine putting this bad boy on your bedside table? This is the behemoth of books. You’d need a truck to get it home and you have to get up to turn the pages and walk them from one side of the book to the other. A couple of my cars have been smaller than this [...]

1 The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin The 1955 poetry collection that made his name – Larkin was a librarian at the University of Hull. 2 A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle Her 1962 sci-fi/fantasy classic (rejected by many publishers) – L’Engle worked as a librarian in New York. 3 The Aleph and Other [...]