AbeBooks' Reading Copy

Triple Oscar winner Birdman is sparking interest in Raymond Carver’s short stories. The movie chronicles an actor’s attempt to boost his flagging career with a stage adaptation of Carver’s short story collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, which was originally published in 1981. Birdman, which stars Michael Keaton, enacts parts of […]

Early last month we reported that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had begun a year-long goal of reading two books a month, sharing the titles publicly and opening avenues for discussion on the book club’s Facebook page. The books selected will be chosen with an eye for relevant themes of technology, culture, history and belief systems. […]

The book world moves in mysterious ways.  Jennifer Lopez has sparked interest in ‘first editions’ of Homer’s The Iliad – the epic poem about the Trojan War written around the 8th century BC. Since Lopez’s latest movie,  The Boy Next Door, was released in the US on January 23, ‘The Iliad, first edition’ has been […]

Five years ago we put together a feature called “To Kill A Mockingbird and Other Literary One-Hit Wonders“. As it had been 50 years since the publication of her classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, and Lee, in her 80s, seemed to want nothing more than for people to stop badgering her, we felt it […]

As you can see, Madonna is absolutely heartbroken after her Sex book fell to third place in the latest BookFinder.com report on the most searched for out-of-print books. The popstar was beaten by On the Psychology of Military Incompetence by Norman F Dixon and Lovely Reed: An Enthusiast’s Guide to Building Bamboo Fly by Jack […]

This is fascinating to me as a food lover, a tech employee and member of the book industry. Jeopardy devotees may remember the 2011 episodes in which Watson – IBM’s famed cognitive computing system – was pitted against human contenders on the trivia show. Brad Rutter, who first appeared on Jeopardy in 2000 and is […]

Portions (heavily, repeatedly redacted portions) of the diary of a Guantánamo Bay prisoner have been released – even if the author hasn’t. Mohamedou Ould Slahi has been detained at the infamous facility since August, 2002 after turning himself in to the Mauritanian authorities for questioning months earlier. Slahi, who admits to past Al Qaeda ties, […]

Lewis Carroll, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Harper Lee, Salman Rushdie, JK Rowling, JRR Tolkien, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, William Wordsworth, and Voltaire – they are all on this year’s list of the most expensive sales on AbeBooks.com. Art features prominently, with books illustrated by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse. Two copies […]

When I was a little girl, I saw a movie in which some children are trapped overnight in a shopping mall. I can’t remember how that came to pass, what they did in there, or the eventual outcome (I feel sure they made it out alive). What I do remember, however, is trying to go […]

The longlist has been announced for the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s most prestigious literary honour. The Giller Prize was established in 1994 and has been recognizing and rewarding outstanding literary talent ever since to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English. The prize sees cash being awarded […]