“If Agatha Christie asks, ‘Who did it?’, Nordic crime fiction is more interested in ‘Why did it happen? – and what does it say about our society?” Lagercrantz tells me. “The only thing that’s certain nowadays—or almost certain—is that the protagonists have more problems than the crimes they are trying to solve. There are few happy detectives in Scandi Noir.” Read more
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Hugh Cullimore talks $450,000 first editions and rare pamphlets with Tom Ayling, a specialist in JRR Tolkien texts. Read more
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The chief reason for Iowa City’s bookish demeanor celebrates its 90th anniversary this year; in 1936, the town’s University of Iowa set up the first creative writing degree in the United States, after decades of nurturing creative writing talent as part of wider academic programs. Today, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop is globally famous, with a roster of former faculty and alumni that reads like a who’s who of modern American letters — Kurt Vonnegut, Curtis Sittenfeld, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, Flannery O’Connor, to name a few. The Pulitzers and National Book Awards for alumni continue to stack up and in 2008, the town was named America’s first UNESCO City of Literature. Read more
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Dream jobs are a rare find, but nothing quite beats the role of bookseller in the Maldives, specifically at Soneva Fushi, one of the world’s most sublime resorts. Read more
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This year is not only the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Book of the Month Club—it also marks a decade since chairman John Lippman relaunched the iconic service and rebranded it Book of the Month. When Lippman, whose background is in finance and music, acquired BOTM in late 2012 from parent company Bookspan, it was being buffeted by both the rise of online bookselling and the explosion of e-books. Lippman’s goal was clear: to create a new business that would appeal to readers who were increasingly buying books online. Even after the acquisition, Lippman wasn’t sure his plan would work. But now he’s happy to report to PW that BOTM has grown every year since the relaunch, and it currently has more than 400,000 members and around 60 employees. Read more
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Sales have been sliding for nonfiction titles about politics, biographies and other books often aimed at men. Read more
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Was Twilight topping the charts the last time you cleaned your home library? It’s time. A book restoration expert walks us through the process. Read more
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Each is animated by the author’s love—for their subject, for language, and for pushing the boundaries of what the genre can do. Read more
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Smutty book clubs are now gaining traction across the world. In London, Main Character – a new romance-novel-themed shop in Spitalfields – is holding monthly Smut Clubs and “spicy read” open-mic nights. Toronto-based romance-only book store Hopeless Romantic now has four book clubs to keep up with demand and the breadth of the genre – contemporary romance, ‘dark and spicy’, queer, and romantasy. Read more
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