The Booklist: I do like to be beside the seaside…

Summer is upon us, and we will flock to the coast to enjoy the breeze and avoid the worst of the heat, thronging on the beaches and piers, riding the rollercoasters and swimming in the sea. This month’s Booklist features titles with a seaside theme, though not necessarily donkey rides and sticks of rock.

Win copies of Grace Williams Says It Loud [closed]

This isn’t an ordinary love story. But then Grace isn’t an ordinary girl. We have seven copies of Emma Henderson’s remarkable debut novel to be won.

The Round-up: Military History

Bookhugger’s publishers present a selection of true tales of heroism, survival, strategy and tragedy from the all-conquering Ottoman Empire of the mid-sixteenth century to behind lines operations in the ‘Alpine Redoubt’ area of Austria in World War Two…

Ferdinand Mount on Full Circle

Author Ferdinand Mount talks about his new book Full Circle, which explores the idea that the society that is now emerging in the twenty-first century bears an astonishing resemblance to the most prominent features of what we call the classical world – its institutions, its priorities, its entertainment, its physics, its sexual morality, its food, its politics, even its religion.

June contemporary fiction round-up

Enjoy our round-up of the best and the brightest new fiction from the Bookhugger publishers this last month – and then get yourself some stimulating holiday reading…

Read an extract from The Breath of the Rose by Andrea Japp

Alencon, September 1304. Imprisoned by the Inquisition, Agnes de Souarcy faces interrogation and torture. At the same time, the religious community of Clairets Abbey is shaken to the core when a nun is horrifically poisoned by a murderer hidden in its midst.

Monique Roffey talks about The White Woman on the Green Bicycle

Monique Roffey talks about the genesis of her novel, what it’s like to be shortlisted for the Orange Prize, and about her writing routine and her influences as a writer.

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Friends & Enemies of ‘The Hitch’: Christopher Hitchens’ memoir

Journalistic firebrand Christoper Hitchens, whose memoirs were published recently, is a man who has not been afraid to make enemies over the course of a long and distinguished career. Richard T. Kelly argues that’s a good thing indeed.

My Secret Sister

This isn’t an ordinary love story. But then Grace isn’t an ordinary girl. Emma Henderson talks about the real life inspiration for her debut novel, Grace Williams Says it Loud.

The June Competition [closed]

Stock up on holiday reading – if you win our fantastic June competition you’ll be all set for summer!

Graham Robb on Parisians

No-one knows a city like the people who live there – so who better to relate the history of Paris than its inhabitants through the ages? Taking us from 1750 to the new millennium, Parisians introduces us to some of those inhabitants: we meet spies, soldiers, scientists and alchemists; police commissioners, photographers and philosophers; adulterers, murderers, prisoners and prostitutes.

June Reading Groups Round-up

Looking for ideas for new titles to read with your reading circle or book group? Let us help. Here are some titles which have reading guides ready and waiting for you to stimulate discussion and debate.

Helen Rappaport: Lenin in Exile

Conspirator is the compelling story of Lenin’s exile: the years in which he and his political collaborators plotted a revolution that would change 20th century history. Historian and Russianist Helen Rappaport talks to George Miller

Independent Bookseller of the Month: The Wivenhoe Bookshop, Essex

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 the Wivenhoe Bookshop, near Colchester in Essex.

Read an extract from My Friend the Mercenary

In a fly-blown bar in West Africa, war reporter James Brabazon found himself discussing military plans to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea with one of Africa’s most notorious mercenaries – his friend Nick du Toit.

Hit the road with Joe Moran

We use roads every day, yet we have no idea of why our journeys are the way they are – of how roads are built, signposted, mapped or numbered. In unravelling this history, cultural historian Joe Moran throws a whole new light onto our history and our daily lives. Here he talks to George Miller.

Deceptions, by Rebecca Frayn

Rebecca Frayn explains the genesis of her novel Deceptions, a thriller about family deceit, in this exclusive piece for Bookhugger.

The Bookhugger Summer Draw

Summer is here, and to celebrate the time of book festivals and beach reading, and Bookhugger’s sponsorship of both the Borders Book Festival and Ways With Words at Dartington Hall, you can enter Bookhugger’s Summer Prize Draw – there’s a seriously bumper haul of prizes, with a top prize of £50 of National Book Tokens.

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Alberto Manguel: A Reader on Reading

George Miller talks to Alberto Manguel, whom George Steiner has called ‘the Casanova of reading’. In his In a major new collection of his essays, argues that the activity of reading, in its broadest sense, defines our species.

Read an extract from Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel

Fate takes many forms… When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulling into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey – named Beatrice and Virgil – and the epic journey they undertake together.

Barbara Kingsolver wins the Orange Prize for Fiction

With her novel The Lacuna, Barbara Kingsolver won this year’s Orange Prize, the result of which was announced on Wednesday night. Read the first chapter here on Bookhugger.

Lucy Worsley discusses life in the Georgian court

Lucy Worlsey, curator of the Historic Royal Palaces, historian and TV presenter, tells stories of the Georgian court at Kensington Palace from her new book Courtiers.