Books News Digest

J.K. Rowling's forthcoming novel The Casual Vacancy had its cover released this week.  Waterstones' Jon Howells' described it as 'bold', the Guardian contrastingly labelled it 'understated', and a tastefully named Comment is Free contributor commented 'Reviewing a COVER? Oh dear.'  But what else is new in the book world this week?

Nobel Prize-winning Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez will not be able to continue writing due to dementia, his brother has announced.  Marquez, best known for works such as One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, is with cruel irony midway through his two-part autobiography, entitled Living to Tell the Tale.



Maureen Johnson and Colin Dexter both won awards this week.  Johnson, author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes and the 'Shades of London' series, won the 2012 Queen of Teen award, while Dexter (who of course wrote the Inspector Morse books) won the succinctly titled Theakstons Old Peculier Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction award, following in the illustrious footsteps of 2011 winner PD James.

In amongst all this speculation and success, the print book market is £50million down for the first six months of this year, according to new figures released this week.  The loss is significantly due to the growing e-book market, but will still make worrying reading for bookshops and publishers alike.