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Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown has penned a new thriller, Inferno, which will publish globally on May 14. In his eagerly awaited follow-up to The Lost Symbol renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon returns. Set in the heart of Europe Langdon is drawn into a harrowing world centred on one of history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces. From [...]

Fifty Shades of Grey (herein referred to as Fitty Shades, because it sounds totes more street) is, according to hotel chain Travelodge and The Telegraph newspaper, the book most likely. Most likely to be left behind in hotel rooms, that is. Hmm. So much to unpack there. ‘Left behind’ implies deliberate ditching, but I wonder [...]

Authors are a bit like pop musicians. No, really… they are more alike than you might first think. Both tread that fine line between art and making money. Good books and good music are often never released because they are not commercial enough. Just as authors are often at the mercy of large publishers, musicians [...]

A writer needs to get the attention of his/her readers as soon as possible — to make them want to read further, to make them not put the book back onto the bookshop shelf in favour of another book. There are many ways to do this and it can take anywhere from a single word [...]

Call it airport fiction, call it mass market fiction, or call it trash, the reading equivalent of quick-fix, craving-inducing simple carbohydrates are something we all secretly or not-so-secretly love. You know the ones. The Dan Brown bestsellers and the books that need not be named by the Mormon mom turned author that have tweens and [...]

So this is going to be a blog about book technology. And I want to kick it off by talking about the title … The Smell of Books. In the last few years I have read hundreds of pages of blogs and newspapers about ebooks. I’ve also been working in a publishing company, where people [...]

The Lost Symbol sold 1 million copies worldwide in one day. While no-where near the numbers Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows raked in – 8 million in the US alone on Day 1 – there’s no doubting that Dan Brown’s latest is a hit. When a book has been as anticipated as this has, readers often [...]

My earliest memories of Wendy Harmer are of her 2DayFM breakfast radio programme The Morning Crew – crammed in the back of the car with my two brothers, I’d listen to Wendy and her co-hosts. My brothers and I would laugh until our sides split, and I dreamt of making an audience laugh like that. I [...]