Pages & Proofs

Well done to English PEN for a successful charity book auction of annotated first editions last night. The sale raised £439,200 for English PEN’s campaigns for freedom of expression, reports the BBC. A rare first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, with annotations and drawings by author JK Rowling, has sold for a [...]

Lots and lots of Dan Brown stories today. The Guardian says Inferno will be the biggest book of the year. I have no doubt about that. The Daily Telegraph makes fun of Brown and how he is going to be mauled by the critics… again. We also learn that Dan Brown hangs upside down in [...]

In an amusing survey provided by my colleagues at Amazon.co.uk, Doncaster has been deemed as the UK’s most well-read city because of its high consumption rates of romantic fiction and erotica. The Telegraph writes: Amazon’s survey established which cities were the most well-read on sales numbers divided by population in areas with more than 20,000 [...]

The Wall Street Journal has a rather scary article about Charlaine Harris and her decision to end the Sookie Stackhouse series, much to the chagrin of her obsessive fans who have not taken news well. Her 13th book in the series, Dead Ever After, is just about to be released and the author won’t be [...]

Our friends at English PEN, an organisation devoted to literary freedom, are staging an exciting event later this month when 50 modern first editions are to be auctioned. However, these are no ordinary first editions. All the books have been annotated, usually at length and in great detail, by their authors specially for the ‘First [...]

The announcement of Margaret Thatcher’s death at the age of 87 has sparked a flurry of sales. Yesterday, AbeBooks sold 21 books associated with the former prime minister priced £100 or more. Collectors interested in her writing will veer towards her signed books, which are plentiful at the moment. The former Conservative leader signed a [...]

Sad news today from Scotland where the author Iain Banks has announced he is very ill with cancer. Here is his statement in full. April 3rd, 2013 I am officially Very Poorly. After a couple of surgical procedures, I am gradually recovering from jaundice caused by a blocked bile duct, but that – it turns [...]

March’s most expensive sales on AbeBooks reveals the broad scope of collectible books. The list of top 10 sales includes a guest book but it’s no ordinary guest book. The book belonged to the Castello Bar from the Castle Schloss Mondsee near Salzburg in Austria, and it sold for £7,900. Castle Schloss Mondsee, now an [...]

Tributes are being paid to British horror author James Herbert, who died on Wednesday at 69. He is most famous for writing The Rats but he penned more than 20 books and, according to reports, sold more than 50 million copies around the world. I have a distinct memory of reading The Rats in the [...]

Hats off to the London rare bookseller Peter Harrington, who celebrated World Book Day yesterday by visiting a local primary school… and taking a leaf from a Gutenberg Bible for show and tell. My daughter normally takes a stuffie or stone found on the beach, so a leaf from a Gutenberg Bible trumps those objects. [...]