AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson – the book that launched the modern environmental movement – was the most searched for book on AbeBooks.com yesterday with 1984 by George Orwell a close second. Silent Spring was published in 1962 and addressed the indiscriminate use of pesticides at the time. The last edition was published in 2003. […]

35th Florida Antiquarian Book Fair The 35th Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is just around the corner, are you planning on going? Hosted by the Florida Antiquarian Booksellers Association, the fair will take place at the The Coliseum in beautiful downtown St. Petersburg, Florida from March 11-13. From antique maps to prints, photographs, rare books, ephemera and more, […]

It’s that time again when we get to see Amazon’s list of the top ten books to read this month – which books are going on your must read pile? A Doubter’s Almanac by Ethan Canin Spanning seven decades as it moves from California to Princeton to the Midwest to New York, A Doubter’s Almanac tells […]

1. Marlon James – this year’s Man Booker winner, says that Toni Morrison is his hero 2. Hotel Cocktail Books 3. 3 Crime Novels about Kidnapping 4. Margaret Atwood talks about her new book and Canadian politics 5. Library books returned after 52 years 6. The Wall Street Journal lists books every geek should read this fall […]

1. Penguin Books celebrates its 80th anniversary 2. 13 Creepy Bits of Bookish Trivia from Book Riot 3. Ladybird publishers updates its famous kids books for modern adults 4. The supremacy of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. 5. A disaster manual is proving to be very popular with people in Tokyo. 6.  Loss, Politics and the Stars: […]

Ten literary links to get your week started: 1. Lithub talks about 5 books making news this week. 2. LA Times interviews author Amy Stewart (The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Plants) about her new fiction book Girl Waits With Gun. 3. NPR Books presents an End of Summer Comics Collection. 4. BookRiot tells us What Happens […]

The Presidential inauguration reigns supreme this month as both the President and Rick Warren ride the top of this month’s best sellers… 1. The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren 2. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama 3. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 4. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx […]

The death of Bill Frindall removes another familiar voice from my childhood. Listening to Test Match Special on the radio was a part of my life until moving to North America (Sadly, the BBC blocks me from listening on the Internet because I’m in Canada). Amazing that a cricket statistician should be so loved. Bill […]

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 […]

Interesting commentary from the Chicago Tribune‘s Cultural Critic, Julia Keller. Keller takes a closer look at what is meant when people refer to Obama as a “literary president”. It is true that President Barack Obama writes books. So, of course, did previous presidents. If you want a real treat, read Theodore Roosevelt’s “The Rough Riders“—or […]