From new voices like NoViolet Bulawayo to rediscovered old voices like James Salter, from Dave Eggers's satire to David Thomson's history of film, writers, Observer critics and others pick their favourite reads of 2013. And they tell us what they hope to find under the tree …Curtis SittenfeldNovelistMy favourite books of 2013 are Drama High (Riverhead) by Michael Sokolove, Sea Creatures (Turnaround) by Susanna Daniel, and & Sons (Harper Collins) by David Gilbert. Drama High is incredibly smart, moving non-fiction about an American drama teacher who for four decades coaxed sophisticated and nuanced theatrical performances out of teenage students who weren't privileged or otherwise remarkable and in so doing, changed their conceptions of what they could do with their lives. Sea Creatures is a gripping, beautifully written novel about the mother of a selectively mute three-year-old boy; when she takes a job ferrying supplies to a hermit off the coast of Florida, her world is upended. & Sons is a fabulously clever, warm-hearted novel about fathers, sons, literature, art, lust, envy, fraudulence, and Manhattan.As for a book I'd love to be given, Mohsin Hamid has recently been writing wonderful columns for the New York Times that make me curious about his novels. If Santa's reading this, I believe I'll start with How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia (Hamish Hamilton).Hilary MantelNovelistTime to recall the more energising parts of the year's reading: Kate Atkinson's... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'
[ The Guardian | 2013-11-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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French booksellers have called it a "catastrophe" that VAT rates will go up to 7% in... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Printed book sales soared by £8.6m week on week last week, but spending remains down on... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Amazon.com has acquired 450 titles from publisher Marshall Cavendish, marking the retailer's... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Half of the one million books to be given away on the next World Book Night on April 23rd 2012... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-07 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Printed book sales soared by £8.8m week-on-week last week, with the latest edition of... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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#latest edition
Apple's entry into the ebook business hasn't been a huge success, but it has still registered with European antitrust regulators. Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2011-12-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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According to a survey, 24 percent of people who said they had bought books from an online retailer in the last month also said they had seen the book in a brick-and-mortar bookstore first. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2011-12-05 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The only non-fiction title shortlisted for the 2011 Guardian First Book Award has taken home the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-12-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Digital royalty rates paid to authors by publishers are increasing, though there remains... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Bloomsbury has readied a slew of publishing to tie into the latest movie from the team behind... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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It was a chance chauffeur job, shuttling a bored author back to his hotel room, that got Dan Halpern into publishing. The author was Paul Bowles, it was the late 1960s, and Halpern agreed to take the writer on the long drive back to Santa Monica when Bowles tired of the party hed been thrown at... Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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American author Jack Kerouac's first ever novel, which was thought to be lost, has been published 40 years after his death. Continue reading at BBC News
[ BBC News | 2011-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Megan Raphael, executive director of the National Writers Series, a literary nonprofit organization, in Traverse City, Mich., insists that local government leaders should declare it a book city. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2011-11-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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They publisher may want to make sure that library ebooks can't be easily stripped of DRM and kept by a borrower without penalty. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2011-11-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The British newspaper publisher says the pioneering Web site is "is a high-quality asset but our focus in the US is on building the Guardian." Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2011-11-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Mark Cuban has 335,000 friends on Facebook and 760,000 followers on Twitter. Monday, the Internet billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team will test just how friendly those fans really are. Continue reading at AllThingsD
[ AllThingsD | 2011-11-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Lisa Campbell Publication Date: Thu, 17/11/2011 - 06:45 Full Circle Editions is to publish Body of Work, celebrating 40 years of the University of East Anglia writing course, associated with authors such as Rose Tremain and Ian McEwan, on 1st December. Edited by Giles Foden, the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Benedicte Page Publication Date: Thu, 17/11/2011 - 09:30 Children's laureate Julia Donaldson has welcomed yesterday's High Court ruling against library closures in Gloucestershire and Somerset as "the best news Ive had all year". In a statement given to Somerset group Watchet... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Writing a how-to book in a static medium like paper about something as dynamic as Facebook is challenging at best and at worst...well...idiocy. Continue reading at PC World
[ PC World | 2011-11-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Written By: Charlotte Williams Publication Date: Mon, 14/11/2011 - 08:12 Stephen Kelman's Pigeon English (Bloomsbury) has made the shortlist of the £10,000 Guardian First Book Award, equaling its achievement on the Man Booker Prize this year, with Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2011-11-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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