JK Rowling and Bill Bryson top the charts, while film tie-ins give Paula Hawkins and Jojo Moyes a second bite of the cherry – but this unpredictable year has also seen a welcome revival of humorous writingIt was a year when the No 1 book was a play script. When hyper-prolific James Patterson, dubbed the “library king” as Britain’s long-reigning most-borrowed author, could manage no higher than 60th place. When the anonymous, insanely difficult GCHQ Puzzle Book was 43rd, and so beat super-sellers like Patterson and Ian Rankin, not to mention all those much-hyped hygge books.The all-year sales rankings for 2016 are full of such surprises, as befits an unpredictable year, but also contain much that is comfortingly recognisable, such as the ghosts of Christmas charts past at the top. With Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, JK Rowling reclaims the No 1 spot that used to be reserved for her in the noughties, and her versatility is underlined by four other entries in various genres (12, 28, 64, 95). Bill Bryson reprised the round-Britain trip behind his mid-90s hit, Notes from a Small Island, in The Road to Little Dribbling (13) and the result is the list’s highest placed non-fiction title. Mary Berry (17), easily this year’s leading conventional cookery writer, was penning bestselling festive gifts long before either of them emerged. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2016-12-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ever fantasize that those gorgeous twins, Drew and Jonathan Scott (aka HGTV’s the Property Brothers), would come and personally fabulize your home? Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Karla Zimmerman, the author of Lonely Planet’s Pocket Chicago Guidebook, suggests the following to wow your friends back home with tales of a magic Bean, your daring walk onto a skyscraper’s ledge, and exploits with supersized pizzas in the Windy City. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When Ransom Riggs’s debut YA novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, was published in 2011, it flew to the tippy-top of the New York Times bestseller list, where it spent more than 100 weeks. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Veronica Roth describes herself as totally “pumped” that BookCon this year is taking place here in the Windy City. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Irish actor/comedian Chris O’Dowd is best known in this country for his turns in the movie Bridesmaids and the TV series Girls. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ask any writer, actor, or comedian about their lives, and they all say the same thing: it’s all fodder for their art. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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London-based independent Elliott & Thompson is publishing Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags by Tim Marshall, former diplomatic editor of Sky News. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Hannah Hart is the wildly popular, sometimes sober YouTube personality (2.3 million subscribers), and author of the New York Times bestseller "My Drunk Kitchen." Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Zed Books’ Facebook page was removed after it became the victim of hacking, the publisher now believes. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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If there’s one characteristic that fans of Sarah Maas’s Throne of Glass series, Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen series, and Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone series share, it’s this: they can’t read each installment fast enough. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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We know that Marissa Meyer and Leigh Bardugo’s YA novels usually get pigeonholed as fantasy, but that catch-all doesn’t really convey the essence of the fictional worlds they’ve created and filled with males and females who are equally swashbuckling as heroic characters. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Quadrille has signed a book about the cook's knife from award-winning food writer and broadcaster Tim Hayward. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Luvvie Ajayi—comedian, social activist, digital strategist, and pop culture critic—is used to being the person who says what we’re all thinking but dare not put voice to. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Heralded lawyer-turned-bestselling-author John Grisham is hard at work on his October novel, "The Whistler" (Doubleday), a thriller about a dangerous investigation into high levels of judicial corruption. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Authors are basically storytellers who do their thing on the printed page (or on your favorite electronic device), instead of around the kitchen table or wherever people gather to swap stories. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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When it comes to filling their worlds with characters positioned along the spectrum of good and evil, Veronica Roth, Melissa de la Cruz, Lauren Oliver, and relative newcomer Sabaa Tahir have it down. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Got adult coloring books? The millions of copies of adult coloring books that have been sold in the past four years proves that the joy, excitement, and memories of this uncomplicated childhood pleasure really have no age limit. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Candice Millard says that she doesn’t write “full biographies” of historical figures; rather, she delves into “moments of time that are powerful and illuminating” about that person. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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A story of turning a negative into a positive is always heartening, as evidenced by "Seven and a Half Tons of Steel," a picture book written by Janet Nolan and illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Long before Jeff Giles wrote a word of his debut YA novel, The Edge of Everything (Bloomsbury, Jan. 2017), he had felt firsthand the passion YA readers have for their favorite books and authors. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2016-05-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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