LOST DAPHNE DU MAURIER STORIES FOUND

Bookseller unearths five early Daphne du Maurier tales including a risqué short story entitled 'The Doll'.

A bookseller's dedicated attempts to root out the early work of Daphne du Maurier have resulted in the recovery of five lost tales by the enduringly popular author of Rebecca and Jamaica Inn. Most startling among them is "The Doll", published in 1928 when Du Maurier was barely into her 20s – a macabre short story about a man who discovers that the girl he's smitten with is besotted with a mechanical sex doll.

Read the whole story HERE.

JOHN LE CARRE DONATES ARCHIVE TO OXFORD

John Le Carré has gifted his literary archive to Oxford University, including a first manuscript for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy which reveals how different the book could have been.

Quite a good idea to prevent fights among heirs...

Being a lover of cooking and cookbooks, I can't help posting this!

We can't deny cooking is fashionable at the moment - just look at all the cooking programmes across channels, cooking competitions, etc

And the commercial impact is so obvious that in France they're getting ready to start the second edition of the Festival du Livre Culinaire, with more than 200 publishing houses present there showing their books and sharing experiences for 3 days. I wish I was there!

KAZUO ISHIGURO - Never Let Me Go

Yes! We finally have the trailer for Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go.

It is set at Hailsham boarding school. It is clear that Hailsham is not a normal boarding school, from the peculiar way the teachers - known as "guardians" treat the students to the stern emphasis on keeping healthy and the external boundaries that separate the school from its surroundings. We discover as the children do that they are actually clones intended to provide vital organs for non-clones ("originals"). The students are not taught any life skills, though the teachers encourage the students to produce various forms of art and poetry. The best works are chosen by a woman known only as Madame. Students believe she keeps their work in a secret Gallery although this is not discussed with guardians (from Wikipedia).

Have you already read the novel? I haven't yet, but it's next on my list...

JANE EYRE

Romantic novels seem to exert a special fascination on film-makers and that's shown in the fact that they keep been adapted to be shown on the silver screen.

The Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne) were a threesome who really made an impact on English literature with their novels Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Agnes Rey.

The 3 novels have already been turned into movies, but in a few days a new version of Jane Eyre will be released, written by Moira Buffini and directed by Cary Fukunaga, with quite an amazing setting. Even if you haven't read the novel (which I recommend) you should watch the earlier movie (1996) by Franco Zeffirelli with William Hurt as Mr Rochester, and also the 1944 one starring Orson Welles.

Here's the trailer of the new one: