"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
~ Douglas Adams
"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."
~ Dr. Suess
"Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass."
~ Anton Chekhov
Wherever you look there are books. Marvellous books on groaning shelves. And the pity of this end of year literary orgy is that you can’t buy everything. What an extraordinary year of fact and fiction there has been. Until three months ago, it seemed that it would be a year of stellar fiction. I still […]
Thank goodness. It’s enough with the book awards for 2017. It’s also enough with the book festivals for 2017. We need a break now that the Booker Prize 2017 has come and gone. Now it’s time for whatever peace we can find as we run down the steep slope towards the end of a turbulent […]
Twenty years ago a distinguished and influential South African publisher rubbed his hands together and said: “Now that we have our freedom I’m looking forward to the great South African novel.” Our Gone With the Wind, our To Kill a Mockingbird, is yet to be written. But what is happening in our vital local book […]
A little over a month ago I interviewed Exclusive Books’ CEO Benjamin Trisk. He’s an amusing lunch and dinner partner and sniffs out good wines like a hungry terrier. But it wasn’t the wines or the food that interested me on this occasion. It was literature. Specifically, it was a conversation I’ve been waiting to […]
The Exclusive Books Recommends July selection is definitely the best escape from the icy winter. The winter freeze means that the best place to be is indoors, preferably besides a fire with a mug of hot chocolate! These books will keep you going as they stoke the fire of your imagination and warm your heart: […]
As usual for a Sunday morning, I spent it browsing Twitter to see what the people around the world are up to, and then this little gem popped up from Gollanz fantasy author, Sam Sykes: Now we can assume that this was said in jest, but it did bring up an interesting thought. What responsibility do […]
