A hugely successful experiment in popular intellectual publishing, established in the 1930s and abandoned at the end of the Thatcherite 1980s, is being relaunched.

First of all you knew you were going to one place or the other. Then along came purgatory. Why it was required is a complex matter, but for heavy work under ground they knew they were going to need the Irish.

France’s greatest medievalist, and one of Europe’s leading historians, has died after a life filled with achievement, aged ninety.

The Greeks have been asked to liberalise book prices, a move which publishing and cultural interests in both Germany and France see as inimical to the long-term health of the book sector.

It would be naive to think that new media do not have an eroding effect on old, but traditional forms of reading are not dead yet.

The London Review of Books is a marvel. Cool design, sharp opinion, cosmopolitan style, intellectual depth. How does it do it? Money.

France’s most prestigious literary prize has been awarded to Pierre Lemaitre, a writer previously best known for his crime novels.

Britain’s major prize for non-fiction has been won by a biography of the Italian poet Gabriele D’Annunzio.

The winner of the main literary prize for serious non-fiction writing in Britain is about to be announced.

More figures on e-books and paper books, more trends and countertrends. What can it all mean?