Newsletter: December 2004

It's nearing Christmas now, and there's a definite nip in the air here in the UK. Business at booksellers is, as usual, brisk at this time of year - currently the national bestsellers are Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, Himalaya by Michael Palin (accompanying his recently-aired BBC series), and The Two of Us, Sheila Hancock's account of her life with fellow actor John Thaw. Perennial Christmas favourites like the Guiness Book of Records, the Beano Annual and assorted cookery titles are all doing well too.

It's also at this time of year that newspapers start asking the great, the good and the briefly famous to nominate their favourite reads of the year. A recent article in The Guardian, however, cast doubt over whether anyone actually cares what famous people like and don't like. But at enCompass we're looking for our own 'book of the year', and you can submit your nomination (however famous you are) by posting it on our message boards. I've gone for David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.

A quick mention of a couple of items of book news from the UK. The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize has been won by British writer Charlotte Mendelson with her second novel Daughters of Jerusalem. And a group of writers have taken a leaf out of the pop stars' book by pooling their efforts for charity. The short story collection Telling Tales, the brainchild of South African writer Nadine Gordimer, was launched yesterday at the United Nations by Kofi Annan, in time for World AIDS Day. Gordimer wrote to twenty of her favourite international writers - including Salman Rushdie, Chinua Achebe, Margaret Atwood and Gabriel Garcia Marquez - and they all agreed to donate stories for the book. Publishers have waived royalties, and all profits will go to the Treatment Action Campaign which tackles HIV and AIDS in southern Africa.

If you're celebrating Christmas, have a good one.

Susan Tranter

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