November Contemporary Fiction Round-up

The best and the brightest new fiction from the Bookhugger publishers in November – including some great stocking fillers!

Give a book: Christmas Gifts round-up – Part Two

That time of the year is creeping up on us once again! Bookhugger asked its publishers to suggest a few choice items for your consideration during this hectic period. Here are their second set of suggestions…

The November Competition [closed]

Here’s your latest chance to win a selection of the latest and greatest books from the Bookhugger publishers – and all you have to do is answer a few simple questions, the answers to which can be found right here on Bookhugger.

Simon Tofield – one man and his cat

Simon Tofield is an award-winning illustrator, animator and director at Tandem Films in London. He is the creator of the Internet phenomenon Simon’s Cat, the highest-rated animations ever on YouTube. Fresh from his BBC Breakfast appearance, Simon took some time to answer a few questions just for Bookhugger.

An interview with Neil Cross

Neil Cross talks about his forthcoming new novel, Captured, a tale of regret and the consequences when one person tries to pay their debts and make good all of their mistakes.

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An interview with Marcus Chown

George Miller talks to Marcus Chown about his urge to explain the inner workings of the universe, and the techniques that he uses to help people understand what’s going on…

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The Booklist: I have seen the future, and it’s…

Is your glass half full, or half empty? Do you wear rose tinted spectacles, or do you consider life through a glass, darkly? We’re all of us on this planet going somewhere, but where, and how?

Which Quite Interesting dead person are you most like?

Around 90 billion people have existed since the human race began. The QI team selected 600 of the finest examples and researched them in depth, distilling this immense banquet of life into an exquisite tasting menu of 72 crisp, racy mini-biographies. Take the test to find out which famous dead person you have most in common with.

How much are you worth? Find out with The Viral Loop [closed]

Here’s how it works: you read a book you enjoy and you tell a friend. That friend tells another friend, the next friend tells the next, and so on and so forth, until the book becomes that year’s word-of-mouth bestseller. That first recommendation gives birth to many. Simple.

Give a book: Christmas Gifts round-up – Part One

That time of the year is creeping up on us once again! Bookhugger asked its publishers to suggest a few choice items for your consideration during this hectic period.

Nicola Upson: The Book That…

What do writers read? Nicola Upson, whose books Angel with Two Faces and An Expert in Murder feature a heroine in the form of Golden Age crime writer Josephine Tey, tells us about the books that have made her laugh, cry, kept her awake at night, and more.

Independent Bookseller of the Month: Goldsboro Books, London

Every month we feature a different bookshop – we ask them to tell us what makes them special and what they like most about what they do. This month it’s the turn of Goldsboro Books, on Cecil Court in London, just off the famous Charing Cross Road.

Win a signed set of The Victor Legris Mysteries [closed]

Read an extract from Death on the Eiffel Tower and you could win the first three Victor Legris adventures, historical crime fiction set in fin-de-siècle Paris.

Meat Dishes Without Coupons

Robert Brown, archivist for Faber, tells George Miller about a resourceful cookery book from 1940 designed to overcome the monotony of a rationed wartime diet. But some of the dishes it describes will be quite shocking to the modern palate!

November Non-fiction Round-up

Memoirs, science and not fiction, fleeting meetings and long memories, interviews with writers, writing on art, commentary on the UK as it is now and the changes it’s gone through… all these and more are to be found in our November non-fiction list.

Paris Review Interviews vol. 4: an introduction by Salman Rushdie

Read the new introduction by Salman Rushdie to a volume which makes indispensable reading for all those interested in what makes our greatest writers tick.

Barbara Kingsolver on The Lacuna

Barbara Kingsolver wasn’t able to come to the UK for publication of her spellbinding new novel The Lacuna (though she hope to visit in 2010), so Faber did the next best thing – went to her with their questions.

Did the Vikings wear Viking helmets?

George Miller talks to Robert Ferguson about his major new history of the Viking age, The Hammer and the Cross, and asks him how much of our image of the Vikings is myth, how much reality (and did they really have horned helmets)?

In praise of Shouting at the Telly

What does Howards’ Way tell us about the eighties? And if you play the theme from Inspector Gadget in a nightclub, will people dance? George Miller talks to editor John Grindrod about a book that answers all of these questions and more.

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Oliver Postgate’s Seeing Things: an extract

‘Oliver Postgate was, for my money, the greatest children’s storyteller of the last 100 years. Together, the team of Postgate and Peter Firmin were apparently incapable of creating anything less than timelessly wonderful whenever they sat down to work.’ Charlie Brooker

Enter Bookhugger’s Quite Interesting competition and win QI goodies [closed]

We have five sets of great QI prizes to give away: each set features QI: The Book of the Dead and the 2010 QI Annual, in which you will learn many fascinating new facts about things that begin with the letter G.

The Year that Changed the World: Remembering the fall of the Berlin Wall

Enjoy this extensive extract from Michael Meyer’s new book, the untold story of the the year the Berlin Wall came down.