The Unforgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce – Review
"I would recommend this book to anyone aged between eight and twelve who likes to find out about other children's lives. It is so beautifully written and easy to read"Julie is like any other year six schoolgirl thinking about clothes, boys and best fri...
Fidel Castro launches memoirs in Havana
Former Cuban president makes rare appearance to present 1,000-page book, Guerrilla of Time, charting his rise to powerFidel Castro has made a rare public appearance to launch his memoirs.The increasingly reclusive former Cuban president spent six hours...
Tim and Charlotte by Edward Ardizzone – review
'Tim and Ginger are in a lot of books by Edward Ardizzone and I love all of them'This book is about a little girl called Charlotte. It is also about two boys called Tim and Ginger. Tim and Ginger are in a lot of books by Edward Ardizzone and I love a...
Tempest by Julie Cross – review
'I adored this book, and would recommend it for any teenage reader: from sci-fi to action to romance, this book has something for everyone'Forget any time-travelling book you have ever read, for here comes one of the greatest... 'Tempest' tells the tal...
Library Poem by Julia Donaldson
Libraries are being closed all over the country, so children's laureate Julia Donaldson has written this poem specially for National Libraries DayEveryone is welcome to walk through the door.It really doesn't matter if you're rich or poor.There are boo...
Bridget Jones’s Baby due date pushed back
Working Title still expected to deliver third instalment in series despite concerns over the scriptThe third instalment in the Bridget Jones series, Bridget Jones's Baby, has run into script problems resulting in a delay to the start of production, acc...
Bleak House: Rules of reading
It's useful to remember that the great fat volume we're reading left its author, and reached its original readers, in a very different formAs I write this, I'm just over a quarter of the way through Bleak House - which is to say, I've already read the ...
Save Our Libraries: Readers’ reports
We catch up with campaigners working hard to keep their local services goingWith National Libraries Day taking place on Saturday 4 February, we invited readers to tell us in their own words, how their campaigns to save their local library have progress...
Juan Gabriel Vásquez at A Room for London
A Room for London is a small living space in the shape of the Roi des Belges - the boat in Joseph Conrad's novella The Heart of Darkness, which has been moored on the top of the South Bank as part of the Cultural Olympiad. For four days every month, as...
Haunting stories
As the film company Hammer – famous as a purveyor of horror movies – moves into publishing, we hear from its boss Simon Oakes about the thinking behind the new venture, which has just produced its first literary title, The Greatcoat, Helen Dunmore....
The Big Ideas podcast: Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’