AbeBooks' Reading Copy

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.

Over at the excellent Jacket Copy blog, Carolyn Kellogg writes about how London’s bookshops are shutting early because of fears over the rioting. Carolyn – look at the pictures of the people doing the looting and burning. Do they look like the sort of people who would smash the windows of a Waterstone’s and run [...]

Whoops! The folks at the stunningly beautiful Spanish cathedral in Santiago de Compostela have lost a priceless 12th century manuscript called Codex Calixtinus. Last week, the rare document was stolen from the cathedral’s safe. The thief didn’t have to work to hard for his or her crime as they had the keys to the safe [...]