Pages & Proofs

Here’s the latest trailer for On the Road starring Kristen Stewart, Sam Riley and Garrett Hedlund. The film premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

Apparently Coca-Cola was first offered for sale in Britain on this day in 1900. Here’s a piece of Coke memorabilia from April 1959 – The Coca-Cola Bottler magazine was a publication produced by the Coca-Cola Bottlers’ Association. It was first printed in April 1909. In a previous life I was a journalist and I learned […]

The White Cliffs of Dover now have a philosopher-in-residence, reports the BBC. Author and pop culture philosopher Julian Baggini is writing and blogging about the cliffs and dwelling on how big they are, how white they are and how important they are to the British. I guess he might also be thinking about what they mean to […]

A rare collection of beekeeping books is going on display at the National Library of Scotland from September 14-21. The books come from the Moir Rare Book Collection – one of the finest collections of rare beekeeping books in the world and the display will celebrate the centenary of the Scottish Beekeepers’ Association. The Moir […]

Here’s a lovely photo, taken last week, of Trish from the AbeBooks office. Trish has just gone on maternity leave with a baby about to arrive in the near future. She’d better get her reading in now. There’s a few of us who are big fans of Michael Pollan in this office.

Before lycra, before doping, before Lance Armstrong, before Bradley Wiggins, before those funny aerodynamic helmets, there was a book published in 1900 called Cycling the Alps With Some Notes on the Chief Passes by C.L. Freeston. It was a time when ladies cycled in very long skirts. It appears C.L. Freeston wasn’t a devotee of […]

The silly season goes on and on. The Daily Mail reports that 50 Shades of Grey fans have been blamed for stealing shackles and chains from Blackpool Tower Dungeons. Dungeon chiefs first noticed something was amiss when a pair of shackles from the torture show went missing three weeks ago. A large chain hanging on […]

Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime is Pure by Andrew Miller. The novel is set in pre-revolutionary Paris in 1785 and concerns engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte who is tasked with clearing Paris’ oldest cemetery. The novel won  the Costa Book Award for Best Novel and Best Book in 2011, and won over countless reviewers. You can’t beat […]

A New Yorker cartoonist, in the August 27 issue, riffs on Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James.

It’s all about Zadie Smith in the book sections. It has taken seven years for her to produce her new novel, NW – writer’s block? The Daily Telegraph has a major feature on the author who rocketed into literary superstardom with White Teeth in 2000. The Guardian also reports on her fourth novel. The Guardian […]