Lovereading.co.uk

Can you spot the prize-winners or the best-sellers in waiting? Do you want to start at the beginning with a writer whose every subsequent book you’re going to anticipate impatiently? Do you enjoy being the first to read the next must-read novel? If so, you can rely on Lovereading to keep you up-to-date.

Romantic fiction is big news. ­Not only is it the most widely read genre but it provides more pleasure and escapism than any other.

50 years ago, the RNA was formed to promote the status of this broad and varied genre which now includes romantic comedy, chick lit, romantic suspense, sagas, family dilemmas and even vampire novels.

The Awards are in the following categories and will be announced on the 16th Mar 2010.

At Lovereading we’re passionate about all the books we feature.

Do you want to know what other people are reading?

Lisa Gardner

Author of the Month for March

Action is the keyword here! Just the fillip you need when you spend your working day behind a desk. With our online book review and free opening extract you’ll have all the information you need to choose the next action adventure you want to escape into.

the unique city break travel guides - simply the best ever city writing

Books are great to read - but there are times, driving, commuting on a very very crowded train etc. when reading isn't always as easy as it should be. So, more and more publishers are now producing audio CD versions of their books.

Our revamped Biography section now has our 'expert voice' Sue Baker recommending some fabulous books. In Sue's first selection she has chosen books she feels represent the best of the art of biography and including perhaps something a little more unusual and overlooked.

The Book Awards category on Lovereading  will help you discover authors who are winners of, or have been in contention for, some of the most prestigious awards. By their very presence on this page, you can be sure that each of the books featured here is the 'crème-de-la-crème' of today's literature.

Click here to view the 2009 Costa Book Award shortlists.

One of the real treats of working in the book world is being one of the few who get to read books before they are officially published.

Uncorrected proofs, as they are termed, are the editions of the books produced in small numbers and sent to book reviewers and the book buyers of large book chains.

Good Housekeeping is one of Britain’s oldest and most successful women’s magazines. Its readers have always enjoyed the books coverage, and its monthly reviews, author interviews and book-related features have been hugely popular.

Now you can look up past reviews from the magazine in this online archive. Here, you can read a review, download an extract and, if you like it, buy the book immediately.

The staff here at Lovereading aren’t just passionate about good books; they are also passionate about doing their bit to help ‘save the planet’ in any way they can. So we thought you might appreciate a bit of guidance on what books are out there that might enthuse you into thinking, and being a bit greener.

Here you will find book reviews and 1st chapter extracts from the well-established crime writers like P D James and Ruth Rendell, creators of Dalgliesh and Wexford, Peter Robinson with Banks, the gritty like Ian Rankin's Rebus or the good double-acts like Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe, but try someone new like Christopher Fowler's wonderfully cantankerous Bryant and May or move into the country, the Peak District, with Stephen Booth or the West Country with Hilary Bonner.

Susan Fletcher
our Guest Editor for March

Susan Fletcher was born in 1979 in Birmingham. She studied Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia and lives in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her first novel, Eve Green won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Betty Trask Prize and Author's Club Best First Novel Award. Her second novel Oystercatchers was published in 2007 to great acclaim and her latest novel, Corrag, is out now.

Do you struggle to read small print books? Do you have a friend or relative who loves to read but has given up? Many people would struggle to read these sentences or that of their favourite books simply because ‘standard’ type size is too small.  We hope to help change that by featuring on an ongoing basis titles that are being published in large print - 16 point rather than the standard 10 point. 

FOCUS is a new campaign which was launched earlier in the year by the RNIB and its publishing partners to make popular and bestselling books in Large Print easily available on the high street.

For further information about the Focus Large Print project, please visit www.focusonbooks.co.uk

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selected by crime aficionado

Maxim Jakubowski

Nothing delights the reader of mystery and thriller books more than a strong recurring character. Once you come across a hero (or heroine) that you take a liking too, you want to follow them through new adventures and investigations, test their abilities to overcome peril, empathise with their troubled life, get under their skin. Maybe you even identify with them on occasions.

Books are not just a great form of entertainment - they can also help you improve your life.

Selected by Lovereading's Popular Science guru, Sue Baker

Do you feel like asking your brain cells to work a little harder whilst at the same time learn something new and all from the comfort of the armchair?  All the books in this Popular Science category are titles designed to be read by the lay reader rather than the scientist.  The list is wide-ranging and the titles all highly accessible in their writing style.  Quite simply, they are an ideal starting point into the realms of science for an enquiring mind.  Enjoy.

There’s nothing like a really involving family drama and romance to take you away from your own life. And Lovereading covers the whole range, as you would expect.

Mariella Frostrup hosts the UK’s only dedicated TV book show, featuring an array of A-list authors and other big-name guests in the studio, discussing their favourite reads and their own works.

Men take note – reading is now officially ‘sexy’. But taking a leaf from Dr Grey Martians don’t read the same as Venusians so sign up here to keep abreast of what you need to read. From anarchic humour (Terry Pratchett and Dave Gorman) to novels that explore what it means to be a man (Tony Parsons and Mark Barrowcliffe). With our regular emails you won’t miss new works from favourite authors or new authors who’ll become favourites.

The TV Book Club will be reviewing 1 book per week from 17 Jan 2010. But if you can't wait, or want to read a free Opening Extract of them all before they appear on the show then Lovereading is the place to come. Just click on the book you are interested in.

History is a fascinating topic whether it be the history of a country, the history of warfare or the history of an individual. Although we have promoted historical books over the years in our real world and biography genres we felt it was time these titles got their own special spot on the site and so we bring you a dedicated History genre.

Historical fiction is such a great way to experience the past. It’s fascinating, thrilling and you learn from it. Wonderful! The best way to make sure you’re ahead of history is through our emails, which will guide you to the latest and best so you can...

If you like to spend your reading time in other realms, you’ll need our regular emails. With direct access to free book extracts and online book reviews they’ll transport you to the furthest, most exciting frontiers of horror and fantasy and science fiction, where you can experience terror or visit the future of this world and others.

This is where you’ll find the cream of modern writing, from the prize-laden greats to the new kids on the literary block. Our regular emails will give you direct access to free opening extracts and the ability to read online book reviews for all the newest and best Literary and Contemporary novels. We can keep you up to speed with home-grown favourites from Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie and Beryl Bainbridge to Monica Ali, Zadie Smith and Mark Haddon.

What is life without a bit of mystery and a few thrills? A crime, pure and simple! But we’re big on crime prevention, so let us do the detective work and keep you up to date with our regular emails. They give you direct access to free opening extracts and the ability to read online book reviews for all the newest and best Crime and Mystery books.

There comes a point in a young life when the time is right to move on from the books and children’s authors you’ve enjoyed as a child to reading books and authors that offer greater challenges as you grow up into adulthood. ‘New Gen’ is here to bridge that gap to introduce you to adult authors and also those children’s authors who also write for a teenage / young adult audience.

'Paranormal Romance' is big in the States and, undoubtedly, will be here too if the success of the film Twilight is anything to go by. The genre is growing and growing and although we have been promoting many of these titles they have perhaps been lost in our Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror genre so we decided it was time they got a genre all of their own.

As Carol Ann Duffy says in her introduction to The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems : ‘The best of poetry is memorable, as prayers are, and in this wonderful selection of classic poems both young and older readers will find something that will stay with them, or has stayed with them, all of their lives’.

Books that are great in bed.

French swingers, Italian teenagers, American pensioners and upper-class Brits. Seems like everyone is at it. And now they're writing about it too...

Did you know that the first recorded reading groups were among women working in factories in the nineteenth century?

We’re all totally fascinated by relationships, aren’t we? Our own and other people’s

Handsome aristocrats in becoming breeches, rags to riches heroines, close-knit communities and dark family secrets. There's nothing like a really compelling romance or saga, is there? If you want to read one, sign up now so you can read online reviews and download free book extracts and know about the very best of favourite authors and rising stars.

Whichever sport you follow, it is only through books about the games, the players, the events and the participants that you will gain a real insight into the motivating factors behind people with unimaginable (and sometimes inexplicable) talent. Fixtures and results bombard you from every conceivable media channel – TV, radio, the internet, mobile phones. But the real insights into the characters of the people, and the inside stories of the dressing rooms - from the muddy fields of winter to the steely mechanics and oily rags in the pit-lane - only really come from reading about them in books (sometimes long after the event is over or the personality has died).

Byron said ‘Truth is stranger than fiction’ a quote which is, perhaps, even more relevant in the 21st Century than the 19th.

There’s a bit of the traveller in all of us, isn’t there? Even if our biggest adventure is the annual 2 week holiday to Europe! Well, we’ll make sure that all your reading journeys have happy endings with our regular emails. With on-line reviews and free book extracts our regular emails will keep you up to date with the latest and best travel writing.