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Archive for the ‘UK’ Category

AbeBooks.co.uk shines in Which? Magazine survey of online shopping sites

Friday, October 28th, 2011

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 online shopping habits and asked them to rate the best and the worst internet retailers.

The top five overall sites, according to the survey, are (along with customer scores out of 100)
1 Lizearle.com (92)
2 Johnlewis.com (89)
3 Amazon.co.uk (87)
4 = AbeBooks.co.uk (86)
4 = Lakeland.co.uk (86)

Here is some copy from the article:

“A good stock of items was also mentioned by several AbeBooks customers. ‘Its choice of books is truly impressive and descriptions of titles are always accurate. A very reliable service all round.

“One member said: ‘Having an alert to know when a rare book becomes available is really good – the World War I book I wanted became available in California, and was shipped to me speedily, and at a reasonable cost.”

Congratulations to all our booksellers for helping AbeBooks.co.uk become such a highly rated website within the UK. Books from booksellers all over the world are purchased by British customers via AbeBooks.co.uk on a daily basis and very high standards of service are being maintained.

A lot of very famous brands trailed way behind AbeBooks.co.uk in the Which? poll and customer satisfaction is always the most effective measurement of a website’s worth.

Posted in AbeBooks, internet, media coverage, news, UK, web | 1 Comment »

Julian Barnes wins Booker Prize for The Sense of an Ending

Tuesday, October 18th, 2011

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 holds are less than perfect.

The award was handed out this evening in at London’s Guildhall where Barnes beat out fellow finalists including Carol Birch, Patrick deWitt, Esi Edugyan, Stephen Kelman, and A.D. Miller for the honour.

If you’re looking for a hot buy I expect that the signed copies of The Sense of an Ending that I’m seeing online should be selling like hotcakes over night.

Posted in author, awards, Signed Books, UK | No Comments »

Lord Byron’s memorial book found in Georgia

Monday, July 11th, 2011

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 the book to the National Library of Scotland who had considered the book lost since Byron’s burial in 1824. The book records the personal tributes and several poetic laments left by more than 800 people, many of them famous figures of the day, who travelled to the poet’s final resting place.

Needless to say the curator at the National Library of Scotland is ecstatic to add the book to their collection.

Posted in antiquarian, author, books, UK | No Comments »

The UK’s least wanted authors

Tuesday, July 5th, 2011

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):

1 Dan Brown (1)
2 Ian Rankin (2)
3 Jeremy Clarkson (8)
4 Stephenie Meyer (New entry)
5 Alexander McCall Smith (4)
6 Stephen King (New entry)
7 Maeve Binchy (9)
8 James Patterson (New entry)
9 JK Rowling (7)
10 Jackie Collins (New entry)

Posted in lists, UK | No Comments »

Around Dublin without a pub

Thursday, June 16th, 2011

In a misguided attempt to celebrate Bloomsday an Irish software developer has put the power of computing to the task of solving the age old James Joyce riddle of can you cross Dublin without passing a pub?

The Belfast Telegraph reports:

Using online maps, the Dubliner worked out an algorithm – a computer equation – which found how to criss-cross the capital, from north to south and east to west, away from the temptation of any pub.

“The puzzle was just one of those things I was aware of, like most people in Dublin,” he said.

“I started thinking about how you would go about it, the pen and paper route which many people have tried, and which gets very tiring very fast, then I decided to try it on the computer.”

What a terrible way to celebrate Bloomsday. All I can say is if this is how technology is going to be used then put me firmly in the Luddite camp.

Posted in celebration, news, UK | No Comments »

Average crime novel has body count of 8.38

Wednesday, June 15th, 2011

So says a survey from the Crime Writers Association. Some of the more inventive ways to bump someone off included slicing them to death in an olive machine, being stabbed through the heart with a spangly stiletto or putting bees in a wicket-keeper’s inner glove leading to anaphylactic shock.

Posted in crime, UK | No Comments »

Terry Pratchett starts process to end his own life

Monday, June 13th, 2011

Sir Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2008 and is now been reporting that he has started the formal process which could lead to his assisted suicide at a clinic in Switzerland. He has been sent the consent forms requesting a suicide by the clinic, and claims that he planned to sign them imminently.

The Guardian reports that Pratchett “decided to start the process after making the film Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, which shows the moment of death of a motor neurone sufferer, millionaire hotel owner Peter Smedley, in the presence of his wife.” Pratchett goes on to say that “the only thing stopping me [signing them] is that I have made this film and I have a bloody book to finish”

Pratchett’s film will be shown tonight on BBC2

Posted in author, news, TV, UK | 1 Comment »

AbeBooks’ top 10 bestsellers from February 2011

Thursday, March 3rd, 2011

Here’s a list of what was hot this past month from AbeBooks.com, AbeBooks.co.uk and the world of signed books from the month of February 2011.

Top 10 bestsellers on AbeBooks.com
1. Jamie’s 30-minute Meals by Jamie Oliver
2. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
3. Night by Elie Wiesel
4. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
5. The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian D. McLaren
6. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
7. The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
8. The Shack by William Young
9. The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
10. Women Who Love Too Much by Robin Norwood

Top 10 bestsellers on AbeBooks.co.uk
1. Fire on the Mountain by John N. Maclean
2. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren
3. South Riding by Winifred Holtby
4. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. Living with Reform by Timothy Cheek
6. The Trap by James Goldsmith
7. One Day by David Nicholls
8. The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal
9. Death Comes as the End by Agatha Christie
10. True Grit by Charles Portis

Top 10 bestselling Signed books on AbeBooks
1. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
2. The Alchemist by Paolo Bacigalupi
3. West of Here by Jonathan Evison
4. Known and Unknown: A Memoir by Donald Rumsfeld
5. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
6. Pat Nixon: The Untold Story by Julie Nixon Eisenhower
7. The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie
8. The Empty Family by Colm Tóibín
9. Decision Points by George W. Bush
10. The Name of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Posted in AbeBooks, bestsellers, lists, UK | 1 Comment »

South Riding by Winifred Holtby gets second life with BBC series

Monday, February 28th, 2011

South Riding by Winifred Holtby was first published, posthumously, in 1936. The story is about a young headmistress living in a fictional Yorkshire neighbourhood; and the book itself has lived a fairly innocuous life in the midlist for over half a century until last week when Andrew Davies three part mini-series began to air on BBC One.

Sales of the book have spiked in a serious way, the novel was the bestselling book on AbeBooks.co.uk last week (on the heels of the first BBC episode) and it looks as if it will be one of our bestsellers on AbeBooks.co.uk in February.

This was not the first adaptation in the books history. The novel was first adapted for the big screen in 1938 starring Edna Best as Sarah Burton (the headmistress), Ralph Richardson as Robert Carne (a man tormented by his marriage) and Edmund Gwenn as Alfred Huggins (the sanctimonious hypocrite). Then in 1974 it was adapted for television by Yorkshire Television. BBC Radio 4 has done a radio version starring Sarah Lancashire and Philip Glenister in 1999.

With the success of South Riding The Guardian chose 10 more neglected literary classics for the Beeb to revive

Neglected English Reads:
1. The Real Charlotte by Somerville and Ross
2. The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns
3. The Rector’s Daughter by F.M. Mayor
4. School for Love by Olivia Manning
5. The Wife by Meg Wolitzer
6. A Way of Life, Like Any Other by Darcy O’Brien
7. The Odd Woman by George Gissing
8. The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
9. Ann Veronica by H.G. Wells
10. The Victorian Chaise-Longue by Marghanita Laski

Posted in bestsellers, lists, literature, TV, UK | No Comments »

The Strongest Link: Anne Robinson’s new book show

Monday, January 24th, 2011

memoirs-of-an-unfit-mother Anne Robinson, the mistress of the killer put-down and one of Fleet Street’s most famous reformed drunks, is to front the BBC’s new flagship book show. Famous for presenting The Weakest Link, her new bookish chatshow will be a bit like Desert Island Discs (note to non-Brits, a famous person turns up and picks their favourite records, or in this case books, while chatting about their life). Guests will include the likes of PD James and the last surviving Mitford sister. The show begins in February.

Three years ago, I read Robinson’s autobiography and there is a lot more to her than The Weakest Link. The book is called Memoirs of an Unfit Mother and the title is very apt.

It’s great to see another book show coming into the fray. I always loved Desert Island Discs so I’m sure this format will work.

Posted in books, news, TV, UK | No Comments »

Tony Blair up for the Bad Sex Award

Friday, October 15th, 2010

Normally the prize is only given for fiction but in this one special case the Bad Sex Award judges bent the rules and are letting Tony Blair into the running for this little atrocity which made its way into the former Prime Minister’s autobiography A Journey:

That night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me. On that night of 12 May 1994, I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly. I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct…

The Telegraph reports that the offical shortlist will be unveiled next month but “sources said: Tony Blair’s book is definitely up there.”

Posted in author, awards, humor, UK | 1 Comment »

Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley is sought after once more

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

Our friends at BookFinder.com have released their annual “BookFinder Report” on the 100 most sought after out-of-print books in America. I enjoy looking at this list each year because it features everything I love about used book shops in one tidy list. A nice mix of nearly forgotten fiction, old manuals that are superior to any modern reprint and cool art books that have fallen through the cracks.

Each book on the list has a story behind why it was published and why it eventually fell out-of-print, and BookFinder.com’s blog features a great story about the title Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley.

It also brought a smile to my face seeing Fly Fishing by J.R. Hartley show up in the list. This, of course, is the book that anyone who lived in the UK in the 1980s would remember from the now classic Yellow Pages TV advert which featured an man traipsing around London’s used book shops looking for an old book, only finding success with the telephone directory.

Neither the book, nor the author, existed at the time of the when Yellow Pages created this commercial. So why, you may ask, is this book found in the BookFinder.com report?

The beauty of this whole scenario is that in 1991 a spoof memoir by the fictional Mr. Hartley was published due to the popularity of the ad, and now the spoof is the out-of-print book which is sought after. It kind of reminds me of the time paradox in Terminator, only with used books instead of cyborgs.

I love it.

Posted in books, internet, lists, UK | No Comments »

Women dominate Thomas Award nominations

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

Five of the six writers shortlisted for this year’s incarnation of the Dylan Thomas Award, which is a £30,000 prize given to the best published writer in English who is under 30.

The Beeb summed up the candidates quiet nicely:

Caroline Bird: UK poet and playwright, 23, the first writer to be nominated twice for the prize – for her third collection Watering Can

Nadifa Mohamed: Novelist, 28, who said Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood was the inspiration for her work Black Mamba Boy which describes a journey from her Somalia homeland to Port Talbot

Eleanor Catton: Novelist 24, who grew up in New Zealand explores the controversial topic of an affair between a high school girl and her teacher in The Rehearsal

Karan Mahajan: Indian-born, 26 and the only man on the shortlist, with his debut novel Family Planning

Elyse Fenton: US poet, 29, with her acclaimed collection Clamor, a book of war poety in which a woman reflects on her lover fighting in Afghanistan

Emilie Mackie: Born in Winchester, aged 27, she based her novel And This is True in the Scottish Highlands where she grew up

The winner will be announced on 1 December.

Posted in awards, UK | 1 Comment »