Jamie Byng: ‘Listening to letters being read out is quite something’

The Canongate Books boss on the success of Letters Live, performances of notable correspondence by leading lights of stage and screenJamie Byng, 46, son of the 8th Earl of Strafford, grew up in Hampshire and studied at the University of Edinburgh. After graduating he joined Canongate Books as an intern and bought out the struggling Edinburgh publishing house two years later, aged just 25. His successes include the UK publication of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, which won the Man Booker prize in 2002 and sold more than 3m copies. In 2013 he set up Letters Live, “a celebration of the enduring power of literary correspondence” based in part on Shaun Usher’s Letters of Note books. Letters Live returns to London’s Freemasons’ Hall on Thursday 10 March.How did Letters Live come about?In 2013 we published two books about letters on the same day. One was Simon Garfield’s To the Letter, which is a history of letter-writing. The other, Letters of Note, grew out of Shaun Usher’s website, which compiles great correspondence throughout history. We decided to promote both books by getting people to read out letters in a live setting. Nick Cave had a letter in Shaun’s book and he’s a good friend, so it was very straightforward to call him up and say “How’s about it?” Gillian Anderson went totally nuts for a Katharine Hepburn letter to Spencer Tracy. Everyone I asked who was around – Benedict Cumberbatch, Matt Berry, Neil Gaiman, Bruce Robinson – said yes. Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-03-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Best Aldous Huxley Books Everyone Should Read

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University) Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was an important twentieth-century writer whose work often explored some of the ‘biggest’ and most important ideas of his day. The following pick of his best books include a work documenting his experiences of drug-taking,... Continue reading at Interesting Literature

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Chronicle Restyles 'Letters to My' Bestsellers

Chronicle Books has redesigned four of its popular "Letters to My" gift packages for 2024. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

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Close-Up on: Jamie Oliver’s ‘Billy and the Giant Adventure’

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On Literary Empathy and the Performative Reading of Palestinian Authors

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Welcome to De Los | Reads: A roundup of books designed to amplify Latinx authors

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The Joy of Perusing Pictures: A Reading List of Wordless Picture Books

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It took 28 years, but this book club finally finished reading Finnegans Wake

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Patt Morrison: Don't let anybody diss L.A.'s reading habits. This was and is a bookstore boomtown

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The Power to Publish Enables the Freedom to Read

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How Isaac’s Reading List on HEARTSTOPPER is Diversifying Booklists

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Pantheons of the Past in the Present: A Reading List of Modern African Books Based on Mythology

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NEA Finds Worrying Drop in Reading Participation

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The Atlantic’s books editor prescribes these titles as antidotes to the quick and dirty ways people are communicating on social media. Continue reading at The Atlantic

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