Blog
‘Who Are You?’ asks Grayson Perry
10 November, 2014
Grayson Perry’s stunning ceramics and loud, colourful tapestries have always been a favourite of mine. And fourteen of his portraits of individuals, families and groups are currently on display at the London Portrait Gallery in an exhibition that asks Who Are You? I don’t want to give too much away but one of the many […]
Girls on Film: The Bechdel Test
7 November, 2014
Here at A&B we love reading about great female characters and have been inspired by the likes of Freya Stark, Shifting Colours‘ Miriam, and Charlotte-Rose de la Force, of Bitter Greens. So we were interested to hear of the Bechdel Test– a three-step rule to see if a film has two named female characters who have a […]
Spelling mistakes, typos and howlers
5 November, 2014
This morning an article on the BBC website caught my eye: Why Typos and Spelling Mistakes Really Don’t Matter. Author and FT columnist Lucy Kellaway, a journalist with a self-confessed ‘flair for typos’, believes we should not be overly obsessed with these little mistakes that often crop up in writing. Working in an editorial department in […]
The Launch of The Silk Tree PLUS Julian Stockwin’s latest blogpost
3 November, 2014
Julian Stockwin plus family, friends and the whole A&B team, greatly enjoyed the launch of his new book The Silk Tree last Thursday night. It’s always fun to celebrate an exciting new venture and, as both Julian and Susie said on the night, we hope there are many more A&B/Stockwin books to come! The book’s official […]
WIN: Morganville Goodies Plus a Kindle
31 October, 2014
Please note that this competition is now closed To celebrate Rachel Caine’s visit to the UK and the launch of the Morganville Digital Series, we’re running a spooky competition… Two runners up will win a special edition signed copy of Daylighters and some Halloween goodies, plus one lucky winner will also receive the latest Kindle, with a cover signed by the author and […]
Spooky Reads
31 October, 2014
It’s that time of year again where pumpkins and fake blood start to appear in supermarkets – Halloween. And what better time to ponder our favourite scary reads? For an especially frightening read, I always return to Stephen King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes. Nothing is quite as terrifying as the short story ‘The Ten o’clock People‘ […]
Sherrinford Holmes and his trusty sidekick, Ormond Sacker
29 October, 2014
Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it? However, an early manuscript of A Study in Scarlet shows its author still sketching out the names for what became the infamous duo, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson . This weekend I stepped behind the wall of books and into the world of Sherlock Holmes […]
Book Walks
27 October, 2014
If you haven’t stepped out on one already, why not try a literary stroll around London this month? Every year (usually in October) Footprints of London hosts a Literary Festival. Highlights include a literary history of Covent Garden- a walk following Mrs Dalloway as she goes to buy flowers for her party, a walk around literary […]
Ahead of trend with Forsyth’s fairytale retellings
24 October, 2014
Fairytales with a new twist are still very much in vogue, heightened by the success of blockbusters such as Snow White and the Huntsman and Maleficent. Authors such as Neil Gaiman and Russell Brand are reinventing the fairytale with gangsta rats, werewolves and warrior queens. If you’re looking for an utterly captivating reinvention, check out […]
A Night in the Bookshop
22 October, 2014
After an American tourist got locked in one of their bookshops, Waterstones have invited ten lucky people to join them for a sleepover in their flagship Piccadilly store. (Their marketing team must be looking pretty smug right now!) But what a brilliant idea! Perhaps more bookshops around the country could get involved. We could gather round […]
Read Yourself Well
20 October, 2014
Whilst books might not provide a medical antidote to health problems, there are emerging schemes that might go some way to helping those faced with challenging health problems. A new scheme promoting book-based therapy for dementia sufferers will be launched in libraries in England in January 2015. The ‘Books on Prescription‘ scheme comes from The […]
Bookshops from around the world
17 October, 2014
An article in The Guardian caught my eye recently: Weird and Wonderful Bookshops from around the World and I was pleased to see that one of my favourites, Barter Books, had made the list. It’s a beautiful secondhand bookshop housed in a converted railway station in Alnwick. The list features lots more I’d like to visit […]
Have Kindle converts returned to the bookshop?
15 October, 2014
A lover of thumbing through pages of a riveting read, the feel of an embossed cover and the smell of a new book – I never converted to e-book reading. But, with it’s light-weight transportable convenience, many did and for a while it looked to be the end of printed books. However, last November, statistics […]
Prizes for Perry
13 October, 2014
The Turner Prize is rolling round again (for a tongue in cheek read on the subject, try Ruth Dudley Edwards’ Killing the Emperors) and putting art at the forefront of peoples’ minds. This weekend I saw a great exhibition by an artist who fully deserves their Turner Prize-winner title, Grayson Perry. ‘The Vanity of Small Differences’ […]
‘Lost’ Sherlock film discovered
10 October, 2014
A silent Sherlock Holmes film made in 1916, thought to have been lost forever, and featuring the only screen performance by William Gillette with his trademark pipe has been found in the French film archive. Read the full article here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29474334 Lydia Riddle, Editor
Change of Season
8 October, 2014
We’re now officially into autumn which means darker mornings and drizzly weather. But it’s not all doom and gloom: it’s not to hard to love this change of season when our parks and cities look like this – check out these beautiful autumn pictures: Do you have any great seasonal photos to share? Sophie. Editorial […]
The Adventure Continues for Holmes-ians
3 October, 2014
Fans of our Sherlock Holmes pastiches will be delighted to hear that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original manuscript of the late Holmes story The Adventure of the Illustrious Client will be on display for the first time, at the Museum of London, from 17th October. Famous for never revealing the true identity of the ‘illustrious […]
From Proof to Perfection: Murder at the Brightwell
1 October, 2014
Ever since we caught a glimpse of it’s proof-copy baby sister, we’ve been waiting with baited breath… And the time has come- just LOOK at this beautiful and stylish hardback, hot off the press! Murder at the Brightwell, by Ashley Weaver, is a witty new crime debut in which we meet Amery Ames (best name ever) […]
The Read for Speed
29 September, 2014
Apparently, I could read the entire Game of Thrones collection in 166 days. (Interestingly, it’s taken me over a year to watch 2.5 series). That’s reading for about 25 minutes a day, which is incidentally about the length of my tube journey. Find out your reading ‘potential’ using this Daily Mail test– just think how many wonderful […]
Which poem do you know by heart?
26 September, 2014
I’m proud to say I can still recite William Blake’s The Tiger on request, thanks to my GCSE English teacher who ruthlessly ordered me and my fellow classmates to stand up in front of the class and deliver it from memory. Over the next year, Cambridge University are conducting a poetry and memory survey, in which academics are going to […]
From Print to Screen
24 September, 2014
The time has finally arrived! Next week David Fincher’s adaptation of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn hits our cinemas. And I couldn’t be more excited. I remember last year the sea of black books with fluorescent typeface on the tube. Finally intrigued, I picked up a copy and didn’t put it down for a week. […]
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