What do an ex-Python, Martha Stewart, and a woman in the running for first female poet laureate all have in common? Come on now, use your deductive reasoning skills. They all somehow feature in this week’s Book Grocer, of course! Monday: Novelist David Benioff has a few recognisable names on his CV – he’s both collaborated with Spike Lee and written the screenplay for The Kite Runner. Tonight Benioff is at Foyles to discuss......

After a 2-month hiatus spent reading Finnegans Wake (alright, would you believe rubbish romance novels?), The Book Grocer returns, with a continually evolving format and its diary stuffed full with book-ish events. Here are our picks for the week: Tuesday: Anne Sebba, author of Jennie Churchill, Winston’s American Mother, in conversation with Hugh Whitemore, playwright and writer of the Emmy-award winning Winston Churchill drama The Gathering Storm, at Waterstone’s Notting Hill Gate store, 7pm,......

Diego Attanasio, the shipping magnate who David Mills claims is at the centre of 'Jowellgate' is holed up in a London flat and is refusing to answer the door. Ken thinks we're at the 'midway' point between the last terrorist attack and the next one. Enjoy it while you can folks. And talking of terrorism: Sir Ian Blair told a London Assembly inquiry yesterday that limiting mobile communication channels on July 7 was "a bad......

It's been a good year for British Literature, what with the globally lauded Booker nominees and the Nobel Prize and all. But alas, it's not quite over yet... The folks over at the Whitbread headquarters wait all the way until next year to announce their 2005 prizes. On January 24th, 2006, honors will be dolled out for Fiction, Biography, First Novel, Poetry, and Children's Book. The Shortlists (announced yesterday) across the categories include Tash......

The Short Version: It's been quite a couple of days for British literature. First, the Booker Shortlist comes out and most of the names you're sure are going to be on there are nowhere to be seen. Then, Zadie Smith says all this awful stuff about London and England while in the States and apparently thinks no one over here will find out about it, perhaps because of the "general stupidity" in her home......

Sounds silly, but I don’t think I’ve been in a library for ten years. I was thinking of joining my local one, but it doesn’t look so great. Can I join a different one? Yeah, we know your local library may look like it’s been stocked with paperbacks from that holiday house your parents rented in the 1980s, but it’s still worth joining. Especially since it’s free. You'll actually be joining all the libraries......

The longlist for the 2005 Booker Prize was announced yesterday to considerable praise. Word on the street is that this is the strongest crop of British novels in decades, with a mix of literary greats, first-time novelists, and long-time midlist authors deserving of accolades. You’ll recognize names like Coetzee, McEwan, Ishiguro, Rushdie, and Zadie Smith. Names you might be getting to know well quite soon include Tash Aw, Marina Lewycka, and Harry Thompson, and......

At a talk in Oxford yesterday, Ian McEwan told his audience that his new novel Saturday is "set on a single day in February 2003, when London was seized by its biggest-ever peace demonstration. More than a million people took to the streets to protest the looming war in Iraq and British participation as America's main ally." According to the NY Times' report of the event (free registration required), McEwan "perched on a dais,......