AbeBooks' Reading Copy

It’s 1977 and Stephen King publishes his third novel called The Shining. The book powers King into superstar status in the literature world. Stanley Kubrick goes on to make a famous movie in 1980 and interest never seems to wane in this story about the Overlook Hotel, an isolated resort in Colorado. Today, we have […]

Australian author Christopher John (CJ) Koch, famous for writing The Year of Living Dangerously, has died at 81 in Tasmania, reports the BBC. His first novel, The Boys in the Island, in 1958, was a coming-of-age story about a young man growing up in Tasmania. The Year of Living Dangerously, published in 1978, follows a […]

The Daily Telegraph carries an interview with Eleanor Catton, the 27-year-old novelist from New Zealand who has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize.  The Luminaries is tale set in the New Zealand goldfields during 1866, and Catton is the youngest writer to be ever shortlisted for the award. In her second novel, The Luminaries, […]

Some news from our neck of the woods here in British Columbia. Five finalists have been selected for the 2013 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize.  The award goes to the best book published in the preceding year by a Greater Victoria author in the fiction, non-fiction, or poetry categories, though there aren’t any poets […]

The National Book Award released its long-list for 2013′s Young People’s Literature Award. The list of 10 is an eclectic one, with protagonists ranging from a pair of raccoon brothers to a squirrel to an orphaned baker.  Here are the contenders: The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt Flora and Ulysses: […]

The six-book shortlist for the 2013 Man Booker Prize has been revealed. NoViolet Bulawayo, Eleanor Catton, Jim Crace, Jhumpa Lahiri, Ruth Ozeki and Colm Tóibín are the contenders. The winner will be announced on 15 October at London’s Guildhall We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (signed copies) The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (signed copies) […]

  When it comes to collectible literary underwear, Johnnycake Books, up in Salisbury, Connecticut, is hard to beat. A pair of Eugene O’Neill’s boxer shorts are being offered for sale by this particular bookseller for the grand price of $1,750. They are pale blue, size 32 with the initials “E O’N” stitched into the waist-band.  […]

Look at Ernest Hemingway in this signed photograph that appears on our list of most expensive sales in August. The photo is inscribed “Norma – glad you finally came to Key West – ever, Ernest” and dated 1937. Sitting on a sailboat gunwale, Hemingway looks fit, tanned and totally at ease. This photo sold for$8,250 […]

Hot on the news that five new JD Salinger works could be published beginning in 2015 the estate of Elmore Leonard has come out with news that Elmore’s son plans to finish the late author’s final novel. Elmore Leonard passed just last week, and it has now been reported by the BBC that his son, […]

American crime writer Elmore Leonard has died at 87. The author wrote 45 novels including Fifty Two Pick Up, Get Shorty and Maximum Bob. He had suffered a stroke earlier this month. Born in New Orleans in 1925, he began his writing career with westerns before switching to crime in the 1960s. Hombre, 3.10 to […]