Skip to Content

News stories from the book world in January 2008

« Prev  

January 2008

  Next »

Can fumes make your writing more lowbrow?

28 January 2008

Joan Brady, the distinguished author of Theory of War, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year in 1993, has made the astonishing claim that the fumes from a factory next door to her home made her writing more downmarket.  Read more

Indies in the ascendant

21 January 2008

The New Year has brought some welcome news on independent publishing and bookselling, both of which are especially important to writers.  Read more

A good Christmas for books

7 January 2008

It is good to be able to follow up last week's story on the continuing strength of reading with a report that Christmas 2007 was not the disaster that had been feared in the book trade. In the UK sales for the four weeks up to 29th December were up 5% on the same period last year. In the US the independents reported solid sales, although the chains continued to consolidate their l  Read more

'Why we read books'

1 January 2008

An article in a recent edition of the New York Times was headed: A Good Mystery: Why We Read Books. At a time when the book seems more than ever before to be under pressure from the competition of the Internet, TV, computer games and so on, it is important to remember that millions of people across the globe still read books.  Read more