AbeBooks' Reading Copy

The Saturday Book was an annual miscellany that featured art, literature and comment on British life during World War II and the decades that followed until 1975. The series was initially edited by Leonard Russell with John Hadfield taking over the reins in 1952. Each edition of The Saturday Book provides a wonderful glimpse into [...]

About a year ago a mystery book sculptor began randomly placing pieces of book art around the city, and it appears that the sculptor is back at it again this time to help celebrate “Book Week Scotland.”  Surprise gifts have been left at the Glasgow School of Art, Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, the Scottish Seabird [...]

The boy wizard might be grown and gone now, but Harry Potter’s creator is showing no sign of fading into obscurity any time soon. As reported yesterday by the BBC, J.K. Rowling’s latest novel (this one written for adults) The Casual Vacancy is set to become a BBC television drama. The novel tells the story [...]

Is Enid Blyton simply an anachronism? Does the fact that she has sold hundreds of millions of books count for anything when critics say her adventure stories are old-fashioned and no longer relevant to today’s young readers? My colleague Richard says yes, and I agree. I grew up with her books, in Canada, in the [...]

I guess I’d better start boning up on my Scottish dialect – fitba means football, right? – gritty novelist Irvine Welsh has a new book out. Skagboys is the prequel to his 1993 darkly hilarious (yet horribly depressing) novel Trainspotting, made into a hugely successful 1996 film starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Kelly MacDonald. [...]

One of my favourite, televised guilty pleasures is the BBC’s The Supersizers Go…, which was rebroadcast on The Food Network in Canada. The show combines my love of cooking, history, and humour into several episodes of gastronomical adventure and hilarity. In the spirit of Morgan Spurlock’s ‘Supersize Me’, the two hosts immerse themselves in the spirit [...]

The November 2011 issue of Which? Magazine has just been published in the UK and it carries an in-depth review of the UK’s online shopping sites. If you don’t know Which?, it’s the UK’s leading consumer protection organization and highly respected for its work in consumer affairs. Which? surveyed 14,671 of its members about their [...]

On his fourth time being shortlisted for the prize, Julian Barnes has been announced the winner of this year’s £50,000 Man Booker award. The Sense of an Ending, Barnes’ first novel in six years, is the story of a seemingly ordinary man who, when revisiting his past in later life, discovers that the memories he [...]

In a feel good story today, a guest book which had been kept at the burial site of Lord Byron following his death to collect signatures, tributes and lamentations from poets and guests has just been found at a church sale in Savannah, Georgia, USA. The woman, who bought the book for $35, has given [...]

Oxfam has released a list of authors whose books most often darken the doorway of their shops, a list of books most often given up for adoption. Once again Dan Brown is shown no love. Reads like a supermarket checkout counter eh? The most donated authors to Oxfam shops (with last year’s position in brackets): [...]