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 Annotated Nightstand: What Karla Cornejo Villavicencio Is Reading Now, and Next

If I had to pick the literary crew Karla Cornejo Villavicencio would sit with in the dining hall, it would be Myriam Gurba, Virginie Despentes, and Jenny Zhang. Those three cut to the heart of things with whip-smarts and wryness. In her eponymous novel Catalina (as in her National Book Award... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-07-25 08:54:24 UTC ]
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What to read this week: The Light Eaters, Paranoid Gardens and I Was a Teenage Slasher

Recent releases in fiction, nonfiction and comics that caught our attention. I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones Stephen Graham Jones is something of an expert on slashers. The author has tackled the genre in a slew of his novels (most notably in the Indian Lake Trilogy, with its... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2024-07-20 13:30:12 UTC ]
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Fall Into New Fantasy Reads About Literature and More!

This week's new science fiction and fantasy reads include two that explore fantastical worlds about literature. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-07-19 16:00:00 UTC ]
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Should you read Keanu Reeves’s novel?

In case you missed it: Keanu Reeves has written a novel. Yes, it’s true: the internet’s boyfriend has teamed up with China Miéville, one of the great speculative fiction writers of all time, to produce a novel set in the world of BRZRKR—the comic book series he also created—and we here at... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-07-19 15:23:42 UTC ]
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Can Apple’s Vision Pro Usher In a New Era for Reading?

Imagine following Harry Potter’s adventures while the gothic library of Hogwarts glows in the background. Apple’s latest VR headset suggests that future may be near. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-07-19 04:00:00 UTC ]
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100 of the Greatest Posters of Celebrities Urging You to Read

The American Library Association has for nearly 40 years been putting out “Read” posters featuring celebrities and books. Lots of us remember these from school and libraries—my elementary school had the Shaq one guarding the reference books section. When I set out to compile a list of these... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-07-18 08:56:19 UTC ]
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Author Challenges ChatGPT to Writer a Better Beach Read

A bestselling author takes on the bots, Penguin Random House acquires a comics publisher, an epic bookstore roadtrip, and more. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-07-11 15:00:00 UTC ]
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Book Club: Read ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ With the Book Review

In July, the Book Review Book Club will read and discuss “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” Patricia Highsmith’s classic 1955 thriller about wealth, status, obsession and murder. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2024-07-02 09:03:17 UTC ]
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ALA 2024: Librarians Rally for the Right to Read

The American Library Association’s 2024 conference emphasized the threats posed by book bans and the undermining of public institutions and trust with a Rally for the Right to Read and more. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-07-01 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Chilling Crime Novels for Hot Summer Reading

🏆 These are the “it” books of the year so far.🏖️ Emily Henry became a bestselling author without book tours ... Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-06-28 15:00:00 UTC ]
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Get this $15 page turner for your Kindle and read in absolute comfort

Anyone who’s an avid Kindle reader is gonna want this tiny page turner for Kindle devices—and right now you can get it for just $15 if you’re an Amazon Prime member (or $18 if you aren’t). This nifty gadget is a total game changer if you love reading ebooks but hate having to tap the... Continue reading at PC World

[ PC World | 2024-06-24 16:23:09 UTC ]
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Reading Jill Ciment’s Consent As a Former Teenage Bride

“A memoir is closer to historical fiction than it is to biography” writes artist and author Jill Ciment in her retrospective memoir Consent. At seventeen, Ciment had an affair with her forty-seven-year-old painting teacher. The two married, and Ciment wrote the original account of the affair in... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-06-24 08:55:21 UTC ]
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Roe, Dobbs, and Reproductive Justice Lit: A Reading List for Abortion Advocacy

The history of abortion in the United States is the story of my life—or my life’s work. I’ve run a clinic since 1971, two years before Roe and now, fifty-three years later—two years post-Roe—I’m still at it, running Choices Women’s Medical Center. Since the roll-back in women’s human rights that... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-06-24 08:54:36 UTC ]
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I’ve Read Nearly Every Memoir by a Former Trump Official. Fauci’s Is Something Different.

The evenhanded scientist is generous to Trump, but you can tell what he really thinks. Continue reading at Slate

[ Slate | 2024-06-21 15:04:13 UTC ]
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Kate Reading on Becoming All the Characters

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[ Literrary Hub | 2024-06-21 08:01:04 UTC ]
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Five Years of Reading with Jenna Hager Bush

Over the past half-decade, the Read with Jenna Book Club has become a valuable platform for new literary voices. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-06-21 04:00:00 UTC ]
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A Book Club of Two: The Time I Started a James Joyce Reading Group in College

I’d bought my copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses at a Barnes and Noble in Manhattan in 1999, the summer before I left for college, along with a stack of other novels that I was convinced my much-smarter classmates would have already read. How I even decided which novels those were, I am still not... Continue reading at Literrary Hub

[ Literrary Hub | 2024-06-14 08:56:12 UTC ]
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Children’s Institute 2024: Reading for the Joy of It

Renée Watson's breakfast keynote, panel discussions on underperformance in the children's book market and the ongoing surge in book bans, and a wall-to-wall evening author reception were among the highlights on a busy second day of CI 2024. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2024-06-12 04:00:00 UTC ]
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BANNED TOGETHER: Empowering Teens and Fighting for the Right to Read

Teens have been at the forefront of fighting for the freedom to read. BANNED TOGETHER, publishing in March, is a YA anthology to encourage and support them while talking frankly about contemporary book censorship. Check it out! Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-06-11 12:30:00 UTC ]
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A Love Letter to Libraries and the Freedom They Represent

It's a book in a library that helps a young girl break free of the repressive and conservative world her parents raise her in. Continue reading at Book Riot

[ Book Riot | 2024-06-07 12:00:00 UTC ]
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