- Colm Tóibín was all over the Irish papers last week owing to the release of his new novel, Brooklyn. (I'm still kicking myself I didn't buy it when I saw it at Dublin airport on Sunday night, because it hasn't even been released in the UK yet.) There's a great interview with the man himself in the Irish Times, which is worth a read, and their review of the book is similarly impressive, comparing him to my old favourite John McGahern.
- It looks like Swedish crime novels are dominating the European book charts. Tell us something we don't already know.
- Irish crime writer Brian McGilloway selects his top 10 modern Irish crime novels. Given my penchant for Irish fiction and the crime genre, this is exactly my type of list! Look out Waterstone's, here I come!
- How's this for a new pub worth visiting: The Swan & Edgar, in Marylebone, north London, has a bar made entirely out of second hand books! [Thanks to the Other Half for tipping me off about this one, I guess that means you'd like me to buy you a pint there, no?]
- If you haven't discovered it already, Vanity Fair has a great section on its website called Writers Reading. Basically, it's a series of podcasts featuring authors reading extracts from their books, such as Gay Talese reading from his 1981 novel Thy Neighbor's Wife and Jay McInerney reading from a new short story How It Ended.
- The New Statesmen pays tribute to J.G. Ballard, the British author who died earlier this month aged 78.
