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 record price. After a bidding war between two buyers the book sold for £150,000, a new record for a printed book by Rowling.

It was great to see that the second-highest price (£30,000) was for a copy of Matilda by Roald Dahl, with new illustrations by Quentin Blake. Definitely a night for children’s literature.

The original Dice Man novel, a fictional memoir, was published in 1971 and it tells tells the story of a psychiatrist who makes decisions according to the throw of a dice. The book switches between the first- and third-person, and also uses epistolary themes.

Luke Rhinehart is the pen name of George Cockcroft. The author was inspired to write the story after using dice to select his own experiences as a student. In some places, the novel tackles some controversial issues. Rhinehart wrote two further Dice Man novels, The Search for the Dice Man and Adventures of Wim.

Johnson, who was to hold five Cabinet posts including that of home secretary, was born five years after the war at the wrong end of pre-gentrification Notting Hill or, to be more precise, North Kensington. It was a world of slum landlords, gang warfare, race riots and, it must be said, a strong sense of community. His first home was two rooms in a tenement that, even before the war, had been declared unfit for habitation. There was no indoor toilet, no bathroom, the kitchen was a stove on the landing and the electricity was metered, which meant the family were constantly scrabbling for shillings and often had to rely on candles for light. As a young teenager he recounts walking the streets with an old pram scavenging for coal and the repeated humiliation of having to ask local shopkeepers for goods on tick.

The book describes two strong women – Alan’s mother, Lily, and his sister, Linda, who had to assume an enormous amount of responsibility at a young age. It describes an era of west London not mentioned much today – the post World War II slums along with the race and crime problems.

The Daily Telegraph writes about Jane Hilton’s latest book of photography, Precious, which details brothels in Nevada. Most of the nude portraits are taken in the rooms used for sex. The brothels have names like the Playmate Ranch and Sharon’s Bar and Brothel, and they seem to be in remote locations. Nevada is only state in America where prostitution is legal. Hilton is photographer and filmmaker from London. Her previous book was Dead Eagle Trail about America’s modern cowboys.

Mrs Dalloway was published on this day in 1925. It was Virginia Woolf’s fourth novel and published by the Hogarth Press. The Vanessa Bell-designed dust jacket is something to behold. The novel famously details a June day in the life of 51-year-old Clarissa Dalloway – a society lady in post-World War I England – as she prepares to host a party.

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 order to defeat writer’s block. Meanwhile Florence is hoping for a boost in tourism on the back of Inferno. And the people having a really bad time are the book’s translators. If you want a signed copy of Inferno then several are already available

Amazon’s survey established which cities were the most well-read on sales numbers divided by population in areas with more than 20,000 living there. Doncaster’s demand for raunchy literature meant it rose above Huntington, John Major’s former constituency, which has been the most well-read city for three years running, and Dunfermline in Fife, whose readers have a soft spot for science fiction.

To my knowledge, Doncaster is famous for… well… err… its racecourse and Doncaster Rovers. To the left, you can see a council guide book to the city from 1981, which seems to focus on the importance of the train station.

Yes, The Great Gatsby is everywhere thanks to Baz and Leo, but F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel never really went away. It’s been published countless times since 1925. Join us on a countdown of 30 Gatsby cover designs – a few great ones, some good ones, and a couple of shockers too.

Dame Jacqueline admitted that her struggle against the pink tide dated back to when she was bringing up her own daughter, Emma – now a Cambridge don – but that even then she had little success in resisting it. “I was the sort of mother who very much wanted to bring in bricks and engines and dress her in denim and give her a choice,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

“But, when my daughter was little, her favourite colour was pink and she begged and pleaded to wear a pink dress. I am not anti-pink as such but I think it would occasionally be nice to have a different colour. I do think that with books a boy is going to have to feel really quite confident if he is going to be seen in front of his mates with a book that is bright pink because it is immediately code for this being ‘girlie’.

I absolutely dread to think what Wilson would make of the Pinkalicious series.