Ferdia Lennon

2 weeks ago | thebookseller.com | Philip Jones |Ferdia Lennon

I interviewed for a podcast this week, I found myself unusually hesitant about commenting on the UK book market. Yes, print book sales are currently subdued, but in the accelerating spaces of audiobook, e-book and exports, there remains much to be cheered about. Yet, this week’s National Literacy Trust (NLT) report into children’s reading habits is a doozy, but BookTok shows that a new generation has already been onboarded to the pleasures and sweet pains of reading.

3 weeks ago | thebookseller.com | Philip Jones |Ferdia Lennon

In the early 2010s, traditional publishing was assailed by start-up businesses that threatened to up-end the old order. Leaders of these new entities would typically refer to book publishers as legacy businesses, while also attempting to do deals for their content. Names such as Gojimo, Bardowl and Oyster would be whispered reverentially at publisher conferences, as examples of new approaches to what were considered intractable problems.

1 month ago | thebookseller.com | Philip Jones |Ferdia Lennon

Don’t judge me. Over the past few weeks, I have been resurfacing books from my past as I fill the bookshelves of my new flat. Here is Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, The Ka of Gifford Hillary by Dennis Wheatley, Kathy Acker’s Blood and Guts in High School, Hunter S Thompson’s The Great Shark Hunt, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Lightning by Dean Koontz, Jeanette Winterson’s Sexing the Cherry, and the beloved Love Is a Dog from Hell by the poet and all around bad influence, Charles Bukowski.

1 month ago | thebookseller.com | Maia Snow |Ferdia Lennon

Michelle de Kretser has won the $60,000 Stella Prize, Australia’s most prestigious women’s literary prize. She takes home the 2025 prize for her novel Theory & Practice (Sort of Books). Following her win, she will be in the UK speaking about her book at Charleston Festival, Hay Festival, the Southbank Centre and at a DallowDay event with Hatchards, London.

1 month ago | thebookseller.com | Ferdia Lennon |Philip Jones

News Glorious Exploits, written by Ferdia Lennon, has won the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. Novelist Tracy Chevalier presented Lennon’s publisher with £2,500 at a reception at the National Liberal Club in London on 21st May. Chevalier said: "Glorious Exploits is a remarkable leap of the imagination into 4th-century BC Sicily, where two young potters have the madcap idea of directing Athenian prisoners in a Euripides play.