AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Boyd Tonkin, the Independent’s wonderful book person, riffs on writing about the suburbs following the death of John Updike. He says the Americans are better at writing about the ‘Burbs than the Brits -I always thought the British were pretty good at dissecting suburban angst. What about E.M. Forster tackling Edwardian class in the suburbs [...]

On 2 December 2006, this extract, from Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs, was published in The Guardian newspaper. When I read this piece earlier today, I was a little taken aback but now I think it’s very readable. ———— Tonight, my lunatic friend Suzanne worked me into a frenzy. “Baby,” she said, “do you [...]

John Updike, the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, has died at 76. He died of lung cancer. A statement was released earlier this morning by his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf. Updike had been writing since the 1950s and was one of America’s senior statesmen of literature. He won two Pulitzers for Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit at [...]

The Bad Sex in Fiction Awards took place this evening in London. Rachel Johnson – sister of Mayor of London, Boris – took home the top honour for some startlingly awful prose in Shire Hell and she appeared thrilled with the result, according to The Guardian. It sounds like John Updike should really have won [...]