Category Archives: Books

Army veterans criticise Prince Harry’s claim he killed 25 Taliban in Afghanistan

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Col Tim Collins says ‘we don’t do notches on rifle butt’ and kill-count talk could increase Harry’s personal security risk

High-profile British veterans have criticised the Duke of Sussex’s claim he had killed 25 Taliban soldiers while serving with the British army in Afghanistan and warned the high-profile admission could increase the risk to his personal security.

The retired army veteran Col Tim Collins, best known for delivering a rousing speech before the start of the Iraq war in 2003, said the prince’s kill-count talk was crass and “we don’t do notches on the rifle butt”.

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Indie bookshop numbers hit 10-year high in 2022 defying brutal UK retail year

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Lockdowns were good news for book trade as people read more and sought out bookshops when they reopened

The number of independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland climbed to a 10-year high in 2022, as the book trade defied the odds in an otherwise brutal year for high street retailers.

The lifestyle changes brought about by the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns were a boon for the book trade, as Britons with more time on their hands read more and sought out bookshops when they reopened.

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National Library of Australia’s free digital archives may be forced to close without funding

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With only six months worth of funding left, library’s director general faces ‘very big decisions’ on the future of Trove

The future of Trove, the National Library of Australia’s expansive public digital archives, is in doubt with just six months funding left, with the library’s director general revealing that it is facing “very, very big decisions” in the next few months, if the government does not step in with funding.

Trove, a free online resource used by thousands of researchers, academics and members of the public, receives more than 20m hits each year. It has been treading water for the past six years, drip-fed by the federal government to the tune of about $5m annually.

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Africa’s biggest photography library opens in Ghana

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Ghanaian photographer’s crowdfunded project won support of Humans of New York author and boasts more than 30,000 books

The largest photography library in Africa has opened in Ghana’s capital, Accra, showcasing the work of the continent and diaspora’s forgotten, established and emerging talent.

Founded by Ghanaian photographer and film-maker Paul Ninson, the Dikan Center houses more than 30,000 books he has collected. The first of its kind in Ghana, a photo studio and classrooms provide space for workshops while a fellowship programme is aimed at African documentarians and visual artists. An exhibition space will host regular shows, the first of which is Ahennie, a series by the late Ghanaian documentary photographer Emmanuel Bobbie (also known as Bob Pixel), who died in 2021.

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James Patterson to complete unfinished Michael Crichton book

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Late author’s estate has shared a manuscript with the bestselling novelist centered on a volcanic eruption in Hawaii

The bestselling author James Patterson is set to complete an unfinished manuscript from the late Michael Crichton.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Crichton’s estate has provided him with over 100 pages of a novel about the imminent eruption of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, which threatens a secret cache of deadly chemical weapons. Just last month, the volcano did start erupting.

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Huge decline of working class people in the arts reflects fall in wider society

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Study shows the proportion of musicians, writers and artists with working-class origins has shrunk by half since the 1970s

The proportion of working-class actors, musicians and writers has shrunk by half since the 1970s, new research shows.

Analysis of Office for National Statistics data found that 16.4% of creative workers born between 1953 and 1962 had a working-class background, but that had fallen to just 7.9% for those born four decades later.

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Canadian journalist’s memoir accused of depicting sexual assault as consensual

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Film-maker Zoe Greenberg says she raised concerns with Penguin Random House Canada over Leah McLaren’s book

A Canadian film-maker who was allegedly sexually assaulted as a teenager has accused the country’s largest book publisher of knowingly releasing a memoir by one of her alleged assailants that depicts the incident as consensual.

In a 6 December post on Medium, Zoe Greenberg claimed she was subjected to a sexual assault in her youth.

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Europe’s largest Middle Eastern bookseller to close

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Al Saqi Books in London, which was established in 1978, blames closure on rise in prices of Arabic-language books and ‘detrimental’ effect of Brexit

Europe’s largest specialist bookseller for Middle Eastern books, based in London, has been forced to close because of the hike in prices of Arabic-language books and because Brexit has been “detrimental” to its business.

Al Saqi Books in Bayswater opened in 1978, and sells books on the Middle East and north Africa in English, and on all subjects in Arabic.

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DeSantis and Pence lead Republican wave – of presidential campaign books

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The GOP flopped in the midterms but its White House hopefuls still hope to find readers – and conservative group bulk-buyers

In one of the clearest signs that the 2024 Republican presidential primary will feature rivals to Donald Trump, a host of likely candidates have released or will soon release books purporting to outline their political visions.

Such books often sell poorly, but that is rarely their point. They are markers of ambition. To judge from the political bookshelves, after midterm elections in which many Trump-endorsed candidates suffered humiliating losses, the former president will not be the only declared candidate for long.

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Winnie the Pooh joins Chinese Covid lockdown protests

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Disney merchandise shows frowning bear looking at blank sheet of paper – a symbol of opposition to censorship

Years after he became character non grata in China, Winnie the Pooh is exacting quiet revenge against the country’s government in the form of Disney souvenirs.

In what appears to be a case of incidental resistance, Disney stores in Japan are selling a line of merchandise featuring a frowning Pooh looking at a blank sheet of white paper – a symbol of ongoing protests in China against censorship and Covid-19 restrictions.

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Ron DeSantis book announcement a clear sign of presidential ambition

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Florida governor expected to challenge Trump for Republican nod in 2024 will publish The Courage to Be Free in February

In the clearest signal yet that Ron DeSantis is preparing a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, it was announced on Wednesday that the rightwing governor of Florida will publish a campaign-style book, mixing memoir with policy proposals.

The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Renewal, will be published by Broadside Books, a conservative imprint of HarperCollins, on 28 February.

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Bernie Sanders to publish book outlining vision for ‘political revolution’

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It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism, out next year, will argue the world needs to ‘recognise that economic rights are human rights’

Former presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders is to publish a book outlining “a vision of what would be possible if the political revolution took place”.

It’s OK to Be Angry About Capitalism will be published by Penguin Random House in February 2023.

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Trump said Pence was ‘too honest’ over January 6 plot, says ex-vice-president in book

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Pence also seems to blame anti-Trump Lincoln Project for angering former president with political ad, fueling Capitol attack

Shortly before the January 6 insurrection, Donald Trump warned Mike Pence he was “too honest” when he hesitated to pursue legalistic attempts to stop certification of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory and would make Trump’s supporters “hate his guts”, the former vice-president writes in his memoir.

Pence also seems, bizarrely, to blame the anti-Trump Lincoln Project for enraging Trump with a political ad, thereby fueling the anger that incited the Capitol attack.

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BookTrust launches Christmas appeal with research showing parents buying fewer presents

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Survey shows more than 60% of UK parents will be spending less this year on gifts for children, as charity begins #JustOneBook drive to give disadvantaged youngsters book parcels

More than 60% of parents in the UK will be spending less this year on Christmas presents for their children, a survey by BookTrust has found, as it launches its Christmas appeal to provide young people with books.

The survey found that 59% of parents who celebrate Christmas have cut back on spending ahead of the festive season so they can afford to buy gifts for their children, but 62% still say they’ll be spending less than they usually do.

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British-Egyptian hunger striker may die in prison, Nobel laureates warn world leaders attending Cop27

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Alaa Abd El-Fattah has been on hunger strike for six months and will refuse water from 6 November, the first day of the climate summit

The majority of living Nobel prize for literature laureates have called on world leaders attending the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt this week to help free thousands of political prisoners in the country, including the writer Alaa Abd El-Fattah who is six months into a hunger strike and “at risk of death”.

The letter, organised by Abd El-Fattah’s UK publishers Fitzcarraldo Editions and Seven Stories Press, has been signed by 13 Nobel prize for literature winners: Svetlana Alexievich, JM Coetzee, Annie Ernaux, Louise Glück, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Kazuo Ishiguro, Elfriede Jelinek, Mario Vargas Llosa, Patrick Modiano, Herta Müller, Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka and Olga Tokarczuk.

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Julie Powell, food writer and blogger behind Julie & Julia, dies aged 49

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Food blogger was played by Amy Adams in the film inspired by her memoir, about attempting to cook more than 500 Julia Child recipes in a year

Julie Powell, the food blogger best known for her cooking memoir, Julie & Julia, which inspired a film starring Meryl Streep, has died at the age of 49.

Her husband, Eric Powell, confirmed to the New York Times that she died of cardiac arrest caused by heart arrhythmia at their home in Olivebridge in upstate New York on 26 October.

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Pence blames Trump for events leading to January 6 in new memoir

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Former vice-president says meeting at which advisers led by Giuliani urged Trump to not accept election defeat was ‘a new low’

A post-election meeting at which advisers led by Rudy Giuliani attacked campaign lawyers and urged Donald Trump not to accept his election defeat was “a new low” for a president “well acquainted with rough-and-tumble debates”, Mike Pence writes in a forthcoming memoir.

Of the meeting in November 2020, the former vice-president writes: “In the end, that day the president made the fateful decision to put Giuliani and [attorney] Sidney Powell in charge of the legal strategy … The seeds were being sown for a tragic day in January.”

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‘It’s a therapeutic genre for me’: Iceland’s PM releases debut crime novel

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Katrín Jakobsdóttir joins long list of fiction-writing politicians with book that came together during Covid pandemic

For 30 years, the disappearance of teenager Lára Marteinsdóttir from the windswept island of Víðey, off the coast of Iceland’s capital, tormented the nation. Until 1986, when Valur, a rookie reporter on a local newspaper, decided to investigate …

So far, so Nordic noir. But Reykjavík, published to promising reviews in Iceland this week, is a crime novel with a difference – it was written by the prime minister, albeit with the help of one of the country’s international bestselling authors.

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Senator Tom Cotton brags about ignoring Trump impeachment evidence

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New book by Arkansas senator, a Republican presidential hopeful, also suggests president did not understand military procedures

In January 2020, the rightwing Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton said he would vote to acquit Donald Trump in his first impeachment trial because despite senators having “heard from 17 witnesses … and received more than 28,000 pages of documents”, Democrats had not presented their case correctly.

According to Cotton, the senators who sat through so much evidence would “perform the role intended for us by the founders, of providing the ‘cool and deliberate sense of the community’, as it says in Federalist 63”.

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Open letter to top publisher condemns $2m Amy Coney Barrett book deal

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More than 250 literary figures rail against acquisition by Penguin Random House of book by conservative US supreme court justice

Nearly 250 figures from the US literary world have signed an open letter protesting the acquisition by Penguin Random House of a book by the conservative supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett.

The hardline Catholic conservative was Donald Trump’s third appointee, her nomination rushed through by Senate Republicans after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal lion, shortly before the 2020 election.

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