AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Chuck Palahniuk’s new novel, Damned, is now out and he’s interviewed by Shelf Awareness today. He was asked what was his favorite book was a child and he replied…. Anything involving Ellery Queen, I read it. Not so much for the murders, etc. I wanted to know why Ellery never got married. Why did he [...]

The Independent did a one-minute interview with Terry Pratchett as he sat in a hotel in Seattle. He revealed he was reading London Labour and the London Poor by Henry Mayhew. I’ll take a wild guess and say that most of you haven’t heard of this book. Mayhew was a Victorian newspaper journalist who detailed [...]

Japanese author Haruki Murakami is interviewed by The Guardian as the release of 1Q84 nears. I saw someone write yesterday that he is a ‘cult’ author – how can he be a cult author when his work sells millions of copies and he is translated into many, many languages? 1Q84, Haruki Murakami’s new novel, is [...]

Terry Pratchett’s newest Discworld novel, Snuff, is now out and who better to interview him than Mr. Neil Gaiman himself. I half expected a little more silliness out of the interview but in the end it’s just interesting to see that kinds of questions an author might ask a colleague. The two chat about whether [...]

Nine years after Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides is back with a book called The Marriage Plot. The WSJ carried an interview with the author last week and he revealed how he had recently appeared in court. Apparently, Middlesex sold three million copies and The Virgin Suicides was hardly a flop. (PS – we have a few [...]

The Guardian has an interview with children’s author Maurice Sendak, who appears to be exceptionally grumpy. It’s a long, interesting interview and rather sad in places, especially where the author is contemplating his own death. At 83, Sendak is still enraged by almost everything that crosses his landscape. In the first 10 minutes of our [...]

Anthony Bourdain is interviewed by the LA Times about his bookish life. I read a lot of essayists, I love essayists, I love essays. I’m a huge Joan Didion fan, I’m a huge Montaigne fan. It might be unlikely in the extreme that I’ll be able to reprint Orwell, but given the opportunity, I sure [...]

Interview with author Esi Edugyan, whose novel Half Blood Blues has been shortlisted for the 2011 Man Booker Prize and longlisted for the 2011 Giller Prize.

I was wondering why huge salaries and fancy cars have always eluded me during my career. It turns out that no-one wants to pay big bucks to someone who looks like a pig in knickers. Don’t read this Huffington Post interview if you are ugly.

Imagine being related to an author? I’m sure a few of you are, but imagine having George Orwell as your uncle? The Daily Telegraph carries an interview with two nieces and a nephew of the big man… aka Uncle Eric. I love how they all laugh about the time when Uncle Eric almost drowned. Having [...]