I am so at home in Dublin, more than any other city, that I feel it has always been familiar to me. It took me years to see through its soft charm to its bitter prickly kernel - which I quite like too.

The Book

A bookselling institution

The famous Foyle's bookshop in central London is moving to a spectacularly beautiful new premises just down the road from its traditional Charing Cross Road pitch.

Penguin relaunches Pelican

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

Not yet heaven, not quite hell

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.

Jacques Le Goff 1924-2014

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

A Greek sacrifice

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.

Le livre est mort. Vive le livre

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.

First Catch Your Fairy Godmother

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

Prix Goncourt winner

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

D’Annunzio biography takes Johnson prize

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

Mrs Thatcher, blood, guts and bumblebees

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

We’re All Done For

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

Censorship Polish Style

The publisher of a controversial biography of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński has agreed to withdraw the book after a protracted legal dispute.

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