2011 Independent Booksellers Week (UK)

Independent Booksellers Week is part of the IndieBound campaign for independent bookshops, which promotes independent bookshops, great books, strong reading communities, and the idea of shopping locally and sustainably. An exciting new development for 2011 is the inclusion of National Reading Group Day on the second Saturday of IBW, Saturday 25th June. National Reading Group Day is one of BA President Jane Streeter's key objectives for 2011. It's not necessarily about booksellers starting reading groups, or even running groups in the shop, but about capitalising on the current huge grassroots affection for Reading Groups in the UK - 18 to 25 June 2011. RSS Feed

The British Library and Google to make 250,000 books available to all

The British Library and Google have announced a partnership to digitise 250,000 out-of-copyright books from the Library's collections. Opening up access to one of the greatest collections of books in the world, this demonstrates the Library's commitment, as stated in its 2020 Vision, to increase access to anyone who wants to do research. Selected by the British Library and digitised by Google, both organisations will work in partnership over the coming years to deliver this content free through Google Books and the British Library's website. Google will cover all digitisation costs. This project will digitise a huge range of printed books, pamphlets and periodicals dated 1700 to 1870, the period that saw the French and Industrial Revolutions, The Battle of Trafalgar and the Crimean War, the invention of rail travel and of the telegraph, the beginning of UK income tax, and the end of slavery. It will include material in a variety of major European languages, and will focus on books that are not yet freely available in digital form online

The Publishers Association Bulletin - 20 June 2011 (UK)

The Publishers Association Bulletin - 20 June 2011 - is now available online

Andrea Levy wins Walter Scott Prize for The Long Song (Scotland)

The second Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction has been awarded to Andrea Levy for her slavery novel The Long Song. The £25,000 prize was awarded at one of Scotland's top literary events, the Borders Book Festival in Melrose. The author accepted the award from the Duke of Buccleuch, sponsor of the prize, at a ceremony hosted by festival patron Rory Bremner

Book Grocer: 22-28 June 2011 (UK)

Book Grocer: 22-28 June 2011 - The week ahead in literary London from the Londonist blog

Germany honours John Le Carré with Goethe Medal

John Le Carré has been named as one of this year's recipients of Germany's Goethe Medal, which goes to individuals who "have performed outstanding service for the German language and international cultural dialogue". This "master of the political and psychological crime novel", according to the Goethe Institut, "condensed Germany's difficult role during the era of the cold war" in his books, and "vividly brings to life the global fields of conflict"

Palgrave Macmillan announces Palgrave Open

Palgrave Macmillan has announced the launch of Palgrave Open which offers authors of accepted primary research papers the option to publish their articles with immediate open access upon publication. With Palgrave Open authors can choose to pay an Article Processing Charge (APC) in order for their article to be made available to non-subscribers

First Fictions, a festival for readers and writers (UK)

Myriad Editions are joining forces with the University of Sussex to launch an exciting new event to celebrate and champion first novels, past and present. The First Fictions Festival uniquely fuses an innovative and eclectic programme of literary events featuring an array of new and established authors, with a course of creative writing masterclasses as well as an academic conference on the impact of creative writing on critical thinking. Among those helping to celebrate first works will be Kate Mosse, Jackie Kay, Elleke Boehmer, Steve Bell, Meg Rosoff, Melissa Benn, Michael Prodger and Ian Rankin - treating us to an exclusive reading from his unpublished first novel. To be held January 2012

First winner chosen for Aspire Award (UK)

Carly Miller, a student at the University of Sheffield, has won the first CILIP/IFLA Aspire Award. She will receive a free residential place at CILIP's flagship conference, Umbrella 2011. The conference will take place at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield on 12-13 July. The Aspire Award was created in memory of CILIP's Chief Executive Bob McKee, who died in August 2010. The Award will support Bob's passionate interests - developing new professionals and strengthening international relationships. It will help new professionals develop through networking at UK and international events

J.K. Rowling announces Pottermore

Pottermore is a free website that builds an exciting online experience around the reading of the Harry Potter books. Come back on 31st July to find out how you can get the chance to enter Pottermore early

OxfordWords blog

OxfordWords blog - Here you'll find articles about words, language, and dictionaries, plus English grammar and usage tips, interactive features, games, competitions, and more. From Oxford Dictionaries Online

2011 CILIP Carnegie Medal and CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal winners

The winners of the 2011 CILIP Carnegie Medal and CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal have been announced:

CILIP Carnegie Medal winner: Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal winner: FArTHER illustrated by Grahame Baker-Smith

Carnegie winner Patrick Ness attacks library cuts (UK)

Author Patrick Ness has criticised Education Secretary Michael Gove over library closures as he accepted a prestigious children's fiction prize. Ness was awarded the Cilip Carnegie Medal for his novel Monsters of Men at a ceremony in London. "We must accept that it is not only libraries that are under threat, but librarians as well," Ness said. The prize is awarded by children's librarians for an outstanding book for young people. Ness's winning novel is the third and final book of the Chaos Walking trilogy about the power struggles on a planet where private thoughts are audible. The US-born author described decisions to partially staff libraries with volunteers as "a one-sentence, Big Society idea whose consequences and ramifications they haven't even remotely considered". Talking about Mr Gove, Ness said: "Here is a man who races to the latest news about what a tragedy it is that three out of every 10 children don't own a book - The BBC

Desmond Elliot Prize 2011 winner announced

Anjali Joseph has been named as the winner of the £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize 2011 for Saraswati Park, published by Fourth Estate. The Prize is awarded annually to the best first novel and Anjali Joseph's portrayal of modern-day India was selected for its enchanting narrative and assured style

We Love This Book - from The Bookseller (UK)

We Love This Book is the new consumer book magazine and website from The Bookseller Group, launched on 25 June 2011. We Love This Book will celebrate the most exciting books in the world today, with independent reviews, features with big-name and emerging authors, events, book video trailers and much, much more

London Literature Festival 2011 (UK)

London Literature Festival 2011 – an exciting mix of talks and events from brilliant writers, thinkers and artists. This year, with our riverside site transformed in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain, we explore the past, present and future of Britain and its capital. We investigate the complexities of modern Britain in our State of the Nation series, and articulate our dreams and nightmares of the future in our Futurology events. With writers from over 30 countries joining us, we invite you to immerse yourself in a momentous London Literature Festival this summer. 30 June to 14 July, 2011

Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011 (Scotland)

The Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011 takes place 13-29 August, 2011 in Scotland

Guardian Books podcast: Do books have a future?

Publishers, academics, digital pioneers and writers assembled in Milan at the Book Tomorrow conference. Claire Armitstead, the Guardian's literary editor, went along to find out what the future holds for the printed word
Technorati Tag: Books

The Penguin Podcast - Blogger's Night

The Penguin Podcast - Blogger's Night - "Back in April we held the inaugural Penguin Bloggers' Night. Think of it like an evening of speed dating, where the internet had a gaggle of new books and authors vie for its affections. And here's your chance to listen to that gaggle"
Technorati Tag: Books

Women dominate first Rising Stars list - The Bookseller

Women dominate the first-ever The Bookseller Rising Stars, an annual listing which highlights the people who will shape the British book trade. Two-thirds - 26 of 39 entries - of Rising Stars 2011 are women. The list is divided into six categories: publicity, sales and marketing; design, production and supply chain; digital; bookseller; editorial; and agents and rights. Digital was the only category which had a majority of men, with five out of seven entries. All six agents and rights professionals on the list are women, as are six of eight booksellers.

Technorati Tag: Books

The Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize 2011 winner (UK)

Edmund de Waal has been awarded the GBP10,000 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize for The Hare with Amber Eyes (Chatto). This is an annual award for a distinguished work of fiction, non-fiction or poetry, evoking the spirit of a place
Technorati Tag: Books

Téa Obreht wins the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction (UK)

Serbian/American author Téa Obreht has won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction with her debut novel The Tiger's Wife (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). At 25, Obreht is the youngest-ever author to take the Prize. Celebrating its sixteenth anniversary this year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women's writing from throughout the world. At an awards ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, hosted by Orange Prize for Fiction Co-Founder and Honorary Director, Kate Mosse, the 2011 Chair of Judges, Bettany Hughes, presented the author with the £30,000 prize and the ‘Bessie', a limited edition bronze figurine. Both are anonymously endowed

Technorati Tag: Books

Foyles branches out to east London (UK)

Foyles bookshop is to open its seventh branch near the site of the 2012 Olympics in the new Westfield Stratford City shopping centre. The family-owned bookseller, which has its flagship store on Charing Cross Road, central London, will launch its latest shop in the Westfield Stratford City, dubbed "Europe's largest urban shopping centre" and due to open later this year. The seventh Foyles will trade from over 5,000 square feet and be situated on the ground floor - The Bookseller

Technorati Tag: Books

National Crime Writing Week - June 2011 (UK)

National Crime Writing Week takes place at various venues in the UK, 13-19 June, 2011

Technorati Tag: Books

Red House Children's Book Award 2011 winners

The winners of the Red House Children's Book Award 2011 have been announced. Michael Morpurgo's novel Shadow has won this year's Red House children's book award, which is voted for by young readers. Other winners were Angela McAllister and Alison Edgson's Yuck! That's not a Monster in the category for younger children, and Alex Scarrow's TimeRiders in the older readers' category
Technorati Tag: Books

James McGonigal wins the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets with Cloud Pibroch

Poet James McGonigal has won the Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets with Cloud Pibroch (Mariscat Press), for the publishing year 2010. Judge Lavinia Greenlaw presented the poet with the prize at an award ceremony at the British Library in London on 13 June 2011
Technorati Tag: Books

The Worlds of Mervyn Peake (British Library)

Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) was a prolific and astonishingly original writer and artist, who touched at one time or another on almost every literary form. To celebrate the centenary of Peake's birth, the British Library's exhibition The Worlds of Mervyn Peake (5 July to 18 September 2011) examines Peake's output as novelist, poet, playwright and illustrator through the worlds he inhabited, both real and imagined. The exhibition brings together a wealth of material from the British Library's collections, including the recently acquired Mervyn Peake archive. Previously unknown works discovered amongst Peake's papers include: the manuscript of the soon-to-be published fourth Titus book, Titus Awakes, completed by Peake's wife Maeve Gilmore after his death; and the complete first scene of his sci-fi play 'Isle Escape', in which a couple escape to a tropical island to wait out a world war that they later discover failed to take place
Technorati Tag: Books

2011 Dolman Travel Book Of The Year shortlist announced

2011 Dolman Travel Book of the Year shortlist announced:

* Dreaming in Hindi by Katherine Russell Rich (Portobello Books)
* Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah's Beard by Nicolas Jubber (Da Capo Press)
* Germania by Simon Winder (Picador)
* Molotov's Magic Lantern by Rachel Polonsky (Faber)
* Parisians by Graham Robb (Picador)
* The Last Resort by Douglas Rogers (Shortbooks)

The winner will be announced 6 July, 2011
Technorati Tag: Books

Belfast Book Festival 2011 (Northern Ireland)

In a Festival that now offers some 40 events, the organisers have tried as much as possible to appeal to a wide range of readers and writers across Belfast. There are established authors such as John Banville, Maurice Leitch, and David Peace; local authors with new works, Jo Baker and Lucy Caldwell; performers such as Larry Lamb and Owen O'Neill; poets like Martin Mooney, Leontia Flynn and Ben Maeir. There'll also be events based on The Belfast Blitz: The People's Story with readings from a new book of eye-witness accounts, the first live performance of W.R. Rodger's The Return Room, as well as an exhibition of photography books based on the Belfast Exposed archive - Until June 19, 2011
Technorati Tag: Books