Giving up books for Lent
Wednesday, 22nd February 2012
More bad news for people who like their reading matter to come with a spine: January sales for printed books were down 16 per cent on last year's. There are lots of reasons for this — ebooks, better telly, a global pandemic of attention deficit disorder — but what’s often overlooked is modern publishing's tendency to value quantity over quality.
Over 150,000 books were published in the UK last year, an increase of nearly 50 per cent on a decade ago. Not all of this is down to the growth in self-publishing. The book industry appears to have taken...
Books do furnish a room
Wednesday, 22nd February 2012
Cult US site Flavorwire recently produced a photo-feature on 20 beautiful bookshops from around the world, and it has since compiled a list of 20 beautiful private libraries. The sense of barely contained disorder contrasts with rooms that seem to have been arranged for a lifestyle magazine, such as the design by Sally Sirkin Lewis above.
It all goes to show that Lindsay Bagshaw, one of the characters in Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time, was right when he said that ‘books do furnish a room’. And they can furnish just about any room....
Shelf Life: Tara Palmer-Tompkinson
Wednesday, 22nd February 2012
As well as being a keen pianist (she practices daily for 90 minutes), Tara Palmer-Tompkinson can also read. In this week's Shelf Life, T P-T tells us exactly what she'd do if she didn't find Sidney Sheldon on someone's bookshelf and why Santa Sebag Montefiore is a godsend for most men. Tara's latest novel Infidelity is out now.
1) As a child, what did you read under the covers?
Beatrix Potter’s Squirrel Nutkin. And then later, Princess Daisy by Judith Krantz.
2) Has a book ever made you cry, and...
Call publishers to Leveson
Tuesday, 21st February 2012
The Leveson inquiry was convened to ‘examine the culture, practices and ethics of the media’. Most of the inquiry’s time has been devoted to newspapers, particularly tabloid newspapers. To date, no publishers have been called to give evidence, although they may yet do so. I very much hope that they are, because a new book published by Faber, Aftermath by Rachel Cusk, raises questions about publishers’ ethics and privacy law.
Aftermath is Cusk’s account of the end of her 10-year marriage. It is extremely frank, sparing little of her estranged husband’s privacy or that of her...
The cruel sea
Tuesday, 21st February 2012
The early years of the twentieth century hold an irresistible draw for the modern imagination. The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan takes us back to 1914, the world poised on the precipice of the modern age, with a plot and characters that are of the pre-modern era. A ship is stricken and, in a rescue bid, lifeboats are hurriedly deployed. At the last minute, Grace Winter manages to secure a berth on one. She finds herself adrift with thirty-nine fellow passengers. Rumours of distress signals stoke hope of potential rescue. But this is a technological dark age; they...
The joys of motherhood
Tuesday, 21st February 2012
In between feeds, I read to my babies. I like to read. It is the thing I do — I like to read more than I like to write or eat or sleep. Reading has been my go to method for getting through every-day life since I was bout three. My cutting-edge English teacher mother borrowed a book from the University of London library when I was two, which told her how to teach very young children to read. Mum made flashcards and pinned them up around the house: breadbin, door, shoes, floor, Dad. I read the TV pages....
A Bible: read in a year with daily sections of OT, NT, Psalm and Proverb
Daughter of the Desert: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell by Georgina Howell
Transition in Afghanistan 2011-2014, NATO Parliamentary Studies
The Etymologicon, a circular stroll through the hidden connections of the English language by Mark Forsyth
The Second Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson
Elizabethan England by G B Harrison, No.116 Benn’s Sixpenny Library
To read more about Sir Peter's reading habits, click here.
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