Service says the move is aimed at encourage the return of borrowers who stopped using the library during the Covid pandemic
Libraries in Peterborough are holding a fine amnesty to try to recover 22,000 missing books.
The service, which runs 10 libraries across the area, will not fine anyone for returning overdue books and will clear accounts of debt.
Continue reading...Full extent of injuries from ‘brutal attack’ on Satanic Verses author in New York state in August revealed
Salman Rushdie has lost sight in one eye and the use of one hand after the attack he suffered while preparing to deliver a lecture in New York state two months ago, his agent has confirmed.
The 75-year-old author, whose received death threats from Iran in the 1980s after his novel The Satanic Verses was published, was stabbed in the neck and torso as he came on stage to give a talk on artistic freedom at the Chautauqua Institution on 12 August.
Continue reading...The final episode of the first season of the hit Game of Thrones prequel has landed online days early
The season finale of House of the Dragon has leaked online just two days before it was set to premiere on HBO.
According to an HBO spokesperson, the much-anticipated episode of the hit Game of Thrones prequel appears to have come from a distribution partner in Europe, the Middle East or Africa.
Continue reading...Publisher who founded Virago Press began as a campaigning outsider who introduced UK readers to authors including Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood
Carmen Callil, the publisher and writer who championed female writers and transformed the canon of English literature, has died of leukemia in London on Monday aged 84. The news was confirmed by her agent.
Callil began as a campaigning outsider, founding the feminist imprint Virago Press, where she published contemporary bestsellers including Margaret Atwood, Maya Angelou and Angela Carter. She challenged the male-dominated canon of English literature by bringing back into print a list of modern classics by authors including Antonia White, Willa Cather and Rebecca West, eventually becoming a pillar of the literary establishment. She was made a dame in 2017, served as a member of the Booker prize committee and was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Continue reading...Judges described the Sri Lankan author’s second novel as a ‘rollercoaster journey through life and death’ and praised its audacity and ambition
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Sri Lankan author Shehan Karunatilaka has won the Booker prize for fiction. The judges praised the “ambition of its scope, and the hilarious audacity of its narrative techniques”.
Karunatilaka’s second novel, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida comes more than a decade after his debut, Chinaman, which was published in 2011. The Booker-winning novel tells the story of the photographer of its title, who in 1990 wakes up dead in what seems like a celestial visa office. With no idea who killed him, Maali has seven moons to contact the people he loves most and lead them to a hidden cache of photos of civil war atrocities that will rock Sri Lanka.
Continue reading...A Message from Ukraine includes 16 speeches selected by the president as well as an introduction setting out what he has learned since the start of the war with Russia
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy is to publish a collection of his war speeches, which his publisher has described as “a battle cry for the world to speak out and fight for liberty”.
A Message from Ukraine will include 16 speeches personally selected by Zelenskiy, which will “explore Ukraine’s journey since 2019”, said publisher Penguin Random House.
Continue reading...In new memoir, former Israeli PM describes efforts to turn US president against Palestinian leader Abbas
Benjamin Netanyahu used maps of Hezbollah missile sites and intelligence gained from a Mossad raid in Tehran to make sure Donald Trump backed Israel in Middle East peace talks and pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, the former Israeli prime minister writes in a new memoir.
But in unconventional scenes similar to those in countless books of reportage and Trump tell-alls, Netanyahu also says that to sway Trump from his desire to pursue peace between Israel and the Palestinians and to scotch his positive first impression of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, the Israelis deployed golfing metaphors and maps of New York City.
Continue reading...Delia Falconer and Nikki Gemmell latest writers to find out their works were selected for the HSC – after the exams
When roughly 60,000 year 12 students sit down to do their final English exam in New South Wales each year, they have no idea what texts they’ll be asked to analyse.
Likewise, the authors of those texts are neither asked nor warned by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) – an increasingly controversial policy as students sometimes take to social media to vent their post-exam frustration directly at them.
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Continue reading...The Bahraini activist who is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in anti-government protests was chosen to share the PEN Pinter prize by Malorie Blackman
The academic, activist and blogger Abduljalil al-Singace from Bahrain has been named this year’s international writer of courage by Malorie Blackman. Al-Singace is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in Bahrain’s 2011 anti-government protests.
The award is part of the PEN Pinter prize, which goes to an author deemed to have fulfilled Harold Pinter’s aspiration to “define the real truth of our lives and our societies”. This year’s PEN Pinter winner was Blackman, the first children’s writer to be awarded the prize. She chose al-Singace as the international writer of courage, an award for an author who has been persecuted for speaking out about their beliefs, with whom she will share her prize.
Continue reading...‘What I have lived, the youth is living now,’ says Marjane Satrapi, whose graphic novel depicted girl’s life in 1979 Islamic revolution
The creator of Persepolis, the acclaimed graphic novel depicting the childhood of an Iranian girl during and after the 1979 Islamic revolution that was made into an Oscar-nominated movie, has said today’s protesters are “beautiful and inspiring”.
History was repeating itself in the protests sweeping across the country, Marjane Satrapi told the Guardian. “What I have lived, the youth is living now. My hope is that the situation will go towards something beautiful that is called freedom and democracy.
Persepolis book art will be auctioned on 19-25 October as part of Sotheby’s online 20th century art/Middle East sale. The works will be exhibited in Sotheby’s London galleries from 21 October
Continue reading...Author’s method acting approach to writing terrified local people in Aberdeenshire as he perched on the rocks like a bat
In August 1894, at the end of a month-long stay to research his embryonic novel, Bram Stoker wrote in the visitors’ book at the Kilmarnock Arms on the Aberdeenshire coast that he had been “delighted with everything and everybody” and hoped to return soon.
According to new research, though, the feeling was not entirely mutual. Stoker, a genial Irishman usually known for his cheeriness, was experimenting with what would become known as “method acting” to get under the skin of his new character, one Count Dracula. Local historian Mike Shepherd, who has spent seven years researching Stoker, says the author’s links with the London theatre inspired Stoker to try inhabiting his character in a different way.
Continue reading...Actor will address her ‘unconventional upbringing in Baltimore’ and ‘complicated marriage’ to Will Smith in tell-all due next year
Jada Pinkett Smith is putting her experiences on record in a new tell-all memoir, the publisher Dey Street, an imprint of HarperCollins, announced on Thursday.
The “no holds barred” memoir, due next fall, will chronicle “lessons learned in the course of a difficult but riveting journey – a rollercoaster ride from the depths of suicidal depression to the heights of personal rediscovery and the celebration of authentic feminine power”.
Continue reading...Sotheby’s describes 17th-century Cervantes editions as a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity for collectors
One day in the early 1930s, a young Bolivian diplomat named Jorge Ortiz Linares walked into the illustrious Maggs Bros bookshop in London to ask if they might have a particularly fine edition of Don Quixote for sale.
But even for Ortiz Linares – a dedicated bibliophile who also happened to be the son-in-law of Simón Patiño, the Bolivian tin magnate nicknamed the Andean Rockefeller – the answer was a polite no.
Continue reading...Inscribed first edition of Emma to go on display in UK for first time at Chawton House, Hampshire
An inscribed copy of a Jane Austen novel has become the most expensive of the author’s works ever sold after being bought for £375,000 and will go on public display in the UK for the first time.
The unique first edition of Emma – which carries the handwritten message “from the author” – achieved the highest sale price for any printed work by the novelist.
The three-volume edition has been deposited at Chawton House, Hampshire, the former home of the author’s brother, Edward, now a research institution specialising in women’s writing, after its American buyer insisted it stay in the UK.
Peter Harrington, the London rare book dealers, said it was the only presentation copy of an Austen novel with a written inscription known to exist. As was the custom, the book is inscribed by the publisher rather than Austen herself and was presented to her friend Anne Sharp, who was governess to Edward’s children.
Pom Harrington, the owner of Peter Harrington, said: “The buyer of this unique copy of Austen’s Emma expressed his wish for the work to stay in England.
“We immediately thought of Chawton House – given its connections to both Austen and her brother Edward. Chawton House’s support of early women’s literature made it the perfect choice, as Sharp served as confidante, cheerleader and sometime critic of Austen’s works.
Then-president voiced concern after socialite’s sex trafficking arrest, according to book by New York Times’s Maggie Haberman
At an Oval Office meeting in July 2020, Donald Trump asked aides if Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend of the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who had been arrested on sex trafficking charges, had named him among influential contacts she might count upon to protect her.
According to a new book by Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, Trump asked “campaign advisers … ‘You see that article in the [New York] Post today that mentioned me?’
Continue reading...Michael Fanone makes candid and profane remarks about Republicans in Rolling Stone interview as he promotes memoir
In an extraordinarily candid and profane interview with Rolling Stone, Michael Fanone – the former Washington police officer who was seriously hurt at the US Capitol during the January 6 attack – called the Republican House leader, potentially the next speaker, a “fucking weasel bitch”.
Fanone said past Republican giants would be unimpressed with Kevin McCarthy.
Continue reading...Actor M John Kennedy will read all 75 books in a single day during Toronto’s Nuit Blanche art festival
Children’s author Robert Munsch has sold more than 82m copies of his books and entertained generations of readers with his tender and sharp sense of humour.
His stories have been translated into 45 languages, including 20 Indigenous languages and dialects. He still receives about 10,000 fan letters a year, and has two public schools named after him.
Continue reading...Novelist given suspended sentence after staging peaceful protest calling for political reform
Renowned Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga has been given a suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of inciting violence by staging a peaceful protest calling for political reform.
Dangarembga and co-accused Julie Barnes were convicted of participating in a public gathering with intent to incite public violence at Harare magistrates court on Thursday. The pair were also each fined 70,000 Zimbabwe dollars (£200).
Continue reading...The German author’s contribution will remain unseen, alongside contributions from authors including Margaret Atwood and David Mitchell, until 2114
German writer Judith Schalansky has become the ninth author to be selected for the Future Library, which asks authors to create a work that will not be revealed to readers until 2114.
The Future Library is an organic artwork dreamed up by the Scottish artist Katie Paterson. It began in 2014 with the planting of 1,000 Norwegian spruces in a patch of forest outside Oslo, and one writer a year is asked to contribute a manuscript to the project.
Continue reading...Paul Gosar and Louie Gohmert were eager to believe ‘wild, dramatic fantasies’, claims Denver Riggleman in new book
The Republican congressmen Louis Gohmert and Paul Gosar adopted such extreme, conspiracy-tinged positions, even before the US Capitol attack, that a fellow member of the rightwing Freedom Caucus thought they “may have had serious cognitive issues”.
Denver Riggleman, once a US representative from Virginia, reports his impression of his former colleagues from Texas and Arizona in a new book.
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