‘Book Bites’ for Wednesday 2nd July 2009

A suitable partner coming for Seth’s A Suitable Boy – Hot news today as Vikram Seth announced that the long awaited follow-up to his best-selling novel, A Suitable Boy is going to be released by Penguin in the UK, India and Canada in the autumn of 2013 (the US rights have still be put up for sale). Cunningly titled A Suitable Girl, Seth’s follow-up novel will see the narrative being brought up from the period in which A Suitable Boy was set (just after India gained Independence in the late 1940s), to the present-day, with the story centering on the grandson of the first novel’s heroine, Lata.

Penguin India have long been Vikram’s publisher in South Asia, but the publication of this new novel will see Penguin expand their publishing rights to other continents. Talking of his new partnership with Penguin, Seth had this to say earlier today:

“In India, all my books have for years been published by Penguin. But I am very happy today to be joining foreign colonies of the Flightless One. They have already made me feel very welcome, and I hope in time to hatch many suitable eggs with them.”

With 2013 also marking the 20-year anniversary of the publication of A Suitable Boy, Penguin will be republishing this title in that year, under their Modern Classics label.

So exciting times ahead, but such a long time to wait. Or is it? For those of us who haven’t the pleasure of reading A Suitable Boy yet, four years should just be long enough to get through its tome-like 1350 pages (hopefully )). And for those Vikram Seth fans who have read A Suitable Boy, Penguin are planning to keep them happy with the release of a number of volumes of his poems and essays in the interim. ::via Penguin Press Office.

Canadian Book Collecting Contest Winners interviewed – The Afterword blog has a brilliant two-part interview with the winner (Charlotte Ashley), and the runner-up (Vanessa Brown), of a recently run competition to find Canada’s biggest book collector under the age of 30. Rather an unusual contest agreed, but have a read of these interviews and you’ll discover two young readers who are hugely passionate about books. Hallelujah! We’re saved!

Ebook readers: And then there were 3 – As anyone in the UK knows, ebook readers are pretty thin on the ground. The Kindle is a distant dream as we wait for Amazon to get their act together outside of the US, meaning the only real choice for Brits is the rather slinky ‘Rob owning’ Sony Reader PRS-505 (note: there are two other readers – the overly-expensive-and-not-really-worth-considering-unless-you’re-a-millionaire iLiad Reader, and the Cybook Gen3 from Bookeen, but both have made less than a marginal impact).

Well it looks like the UK ebook reader drought may be set to come to an end, at least partially, with the arrival of two new kids on the digital block. First is the Elonex eBook which is being sold exclusively though branches of Borders UK (they’re also the exclusive stockists of the aforementioned iLiad, which they’ve said they will continue to stock). And it also looks like the COOL-ER, the ‘rainbow of colours’ reader which I mentioned on RobAroundBooks at the beginning of June, has started shipping now also, bringing a veritable feast of selection to the UK ebooker.

What’s most interesting in my opinion however, is that all three are of a comparable price (around the £189-£200), so it’s gong to be interesting to see if any kind of ‘price war’ breaks out on the high street. The thing is, it looks like it may already have started because the Sony Reader, at the time of writing, is down to a very competitive £149.99 at Play.com (non-affiliate link as always)

‘Book Bites’ – bringing you tasty bite-size morsels of bookish news and delight, from around the web.