Newsletter: July 2006

Half the year gone already: can it be true? Just as I've got used to the days being lighter, they're set to start getting darker...

Still, look on the bright side. We've had quite a busy month on EnCompass. My head's starting to frazzle a bit with setting all the readers' quizzes on the site (seventeen and counting...), so the last one was a rather indulgent selection of opening lines from novels which just happened to be both on my shelf and on the EnCompass database. If you haven't had a look yet, why not see if you can work out which novel they come from... We've also been busily blogging away. Over the last few weeks Tom Palmer and I have written about some of the weird and wonderful aspects of our reading lives, including how books can help children, and parents, make sense of the world (read that post), and how exciting it is to get books through the mail - especially when they're free, and unexpected (read that post). Also worth checking out is our latest EnCompass interview - with much-loved Small Island author Andrea Levy.

Meanwhile there's been more prize-giving in the busy British book world. Zadie Smith took the Orange Prize for Fiction with On Beauty, and Colm Toibin is quite a lot wealthier since winning the IMPAC Dublin Award for The Master. Both highly recommended (the books that is, not the prizes - unless you're a published author, of course). Also, James Shapiro surprised a lot of people by 'stealing' the Samuel Johnson non-fiction prize from (it was widely felt) under the nose of Alan Bennett. Shapiro's book is called 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. And James Lasdun won one of the richest short story prizes around with his tale of 'An Anxious Man'. If this prize passed you by, you can find out more about it, and / or find out more about James Lasdun winning it, by following these links.

By the way, I've had quite a good response to my discussion thread asking for recommendations of graphic novels (a genre I've admitted being hopelessly ignorant about), but little feedback to my prompt for top football books, or suggestions for good literary blogs (apart from ours, of course). So if you've something to contribute to any of those, please go along to the discussion boards and post a response. It's easy to do.

Best wishes,

Susan

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