Reading Copy Book Blog

We have a guest writer today – bookseller Peter Thackeray describes the legacy of the author who helped launch the espionage fiction genre with The Thirty-Nine Steps. John Buchan published more than 25 novels and yet he had a remarkable life away from writing that included being a Member of Parliament and Governor-General of Canada. [...]

Ngaio Marsh was a mystery writer whose tales of murder and intrigue had her known as New Zealand’s Mistress of the Macabre.

More news on JK Rowling’s career. Ian Rankin, a fellow author and neighbor of Rowling, says she is writing a crime novel and that she is back hanging around Edinburgh’s cafes. We don’t even have a title or a publication date yet, but the book world is buzzing with excitement.

The WSJ asks why American thriller writers are huge in the UK and yet British thriller writers struggle to sell books in the U.S.? For bestselling British crime writer Peter James, it’s not an academic question. Mr. James’s novels are published in 34 languages and have sold more than 10 million copies. His books regularly [...]

Ten crime writers are competing for the honor of having a new morgue at Dundee University named after them, reports BBC Scotland. Now that’s what I call a lasting tribute. The university needs another £1 million to build the morgue, so some bright spark came up with a public vote. Authors taking part in the [...]

Mystery crime writer P.D. James has written a new novel – “Death Comes to Pemberley” – as a follow-up to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. No, really.

A New York City book thief met in his match in Donald Davis of East Village Books in St Mark’s Place, who was a wrestler in high school. The NY Post reports. Three cheers for Donald. (Let’s the hope the thief gets thrown in the Big House where the tough guys will ask what his [...]

JK Rowling is expected to give evidence to Lord Justice Leveson’s judicial inquiry into phone hacking, according to this news report. The Harry Potter author is very keen on her privacy so if her phoneline at Potter Towers was hacked by the News of the World then she will be fuming.

This week I was following as closely as possible the riots and unrest in the UK. I read and watched with a mixture of shame (being English) and fascination (like seeing a car crash). Watching Twitter (#londonriots) was particularly interesting – a mixture of deeply personal opinions and experiences, lots of rumors and untruths, traditional [...]

Further to my post yesterday that looters don’t loot bookshops, here is the proof. In Clapham Junction, the only shop left untouched was Waterstone’s, and the looters of Boots had, unaccountably, stolen a load of Imodium.