In our office meeting this morning, we discussed the new covers for three Budd Schulberg titles we are republishing in April next year: boxing novel The Harder They Fall (also made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart); The Disenchanted (the thinly disguised novel about Scott Fitzgerald’s stab at writing a script for Hollywood) and On […]
I adore my library. I really would be in financial straits if I’d actually purchased all the books I’ve read this past month alone. Which is why I was truly perplexed to read in the Guardian that visits by UK adults to libraries have dropped almost 10% in the past five years. Errr, hello people: […]
Saturday 1st December 2012, 2:00pm – 4:00pm SOUTHPORT The Murder Squad is a group of award-winning crime writers. They include Ann Cleeves ( of the Vera novels), Cath Staincliffe (who created Blue Murder), Margaret Murphy, Kate Ellis and Allison & Busby’s very own Martin Edwards. There will be a talk, followed by Q & A […]
Since my previous blog on Female Literary Legends, I’ve become aware of some real-life legendary women who I think deserve another blog post. Many of you have probably heard of Malala Yousafzai, the fifteen-year-old girl who was recently shot by the Taliban because she campaigned for women’s right to education. People around the world are […]
My name is Sophie and I am the newest addition to the Allison & Busby team. I’ve been working here for precisely ten days and living in London for eleven days. Before I started this job I could count on two hands the amount of times I’d been into London. And on one hand the […]
Today, the 20 books to be given away on World Book Night 2013 has been announced. 23rd April 2013 will mark the third year for this innovative project. It is a diverse range of titles ranging from A Girl with the Pearl Earring, through Casino Royale, modern favourites including The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency, new […]
About a month ago I bought the book The One-Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared, by Jonas Jonasson purely on the basis that the cover jumped out at me (as did the title). I didn’t even read the back cover blurb (honestly I didn’t) but merely the 1st chapter […]
Have you ever jotted down some notes on a piece of paper, which made perfect sense to you at the time, only to find, when you look at the notes at a later date, they’ve lost all meaning? I’m sure I’m not the only one. But usually, after wracking our brains (and memory) for a […]
Today I was lucky enough to go along to a lunchtime reception at the House of Lords, celebrating the fact that Norwich has been named England’s first UNESCO City of Literature. Personally, I had no idea that Norwich had such a rich literary history, but this week I’ve discovered that it can lay claim to […]
It’s come to my attention that just the other week the last UK analogue signal was switched off in Northern Ireland. As I now rely on a certain satellite TV provide,r some of this passed me by, but what caught my eye in the news was that the digital switchover also entailed the end of an […]
Yes, that’s right, we’re not talking about books and making them, we’re taking bets and the game starts NOW. As of Friday last week our server has been acting up, or, as the case currently may be, not acting at all. So, as I sit here working from home pondering the world’s biggest questions, including “How […]
I am, if I may be frank, not the biggest fan of book trailers – or at least not the most common kind that feature a running stream of static images alternating with text about the book. So unless you make your book trailer look like the preview to Skyfall (ie. not look like a […]
What with it being Halloween tomorrow and the weather getting steadily more wintry, we’re all in a spooky mood. And I think there’s one scary trend that might be getting steadily bigger – I mean, of course, zombies. Yes, the undead theme has been around for a while now, but I think it’s still going […]
It’s a miserably grey day, complete with intermittent spits of rain which means venturing outside the office walls for lunch is less than appealing. So lunch is at my desk today, but since our server is down at the moment, access to email and certain drives are off limit, restricting the scope for a hugely […]
I’ve just come out of our inaugural A&B weekly meeting. As a small team, meetings have always been rather redundant as, previously working all together on one floor, there was never any real need for formal meetings, we all just knew what was happening and group discussions would take place in impromptu ways. Now, however, […]
We’ve just released, exclusively in e-book format, two more titles in Jacqueline Winspear’s hugely acclaimed Maisie Dobbs mystery series: An Incomplete Revenge and Among the Mad. Now we’ve mentioned the Maisie Dobbs covers in our blog before (most recently here) in light of the images […]
Since the move to our new offices, we’ve all been adjusting our commute morning and evening. Some of us have had to factor in a couple of extra minutes power-walking to make our train, some of us are negotiating new tube connections. None of us are Boris Bike users (I personally think being a pedestrian […]
Tuesday 20th November, 11.00am WATERSTONES, SALISBURY Come and meet historical novelist John Wilcox (author of the acclaimed Simon Fonthill series) who will be signing copies of his new and moving novel, Starshine, set during the First World War, at Waterstone’s, 7-9 High Street, Salisbury SP1 2NJ. For more information call the bookshop on 01722 […]
Recently Stylist published an article on Sylvia Plath, pointing out that if she was still alive, she would have been eighty years old this month. Despite the preconceptions of her poetry being overly angst-ridden, I’m not ashamed to say I’m a big fan of Plath – it’s a difficult choice, but she might just be […]
After over 8 years at Allison & Busby (time does fly) today is Lara’s last day the office. We are, of course, still in denial, and will probably remain so for a little while. Seeing as in this new office, we are separated over two floors, at least Susie, Lesley and I (who sit on […]
I read a thought-provoking article the other day in Stylist, on a crime writing prize judged by grande dame herself Ruth Rendell. What was fascinating to me were the trends that evolved from the entries. Firstly, many of the protagonists were red-haired (or flame-coloured, crimson, ruby, scarlet, auburn, burgundy – depending on the thesaurus to hand.) […]