Latest news

?This debut novel is an electric no-holds-barred thriller? dark, creepy, vivid and enthralling? Eeny Meeny - published by Michael Joseph (Penguin) May 2014 - features in Richard & Judy?s Summer Book Club. M.J. Arlidge?s debut sits alongside eight other selected writers including Khaled Hosseini, Robert Harris and Helen Dunmore. This from Judy: ?Eeny Meeny has an assurance and confidence that many a seasoned writer might envy. This is a terrific read; it'll keep you up turning the pages until the early hours, biting your nails.? And praise from Richard: ?A compulsive read. Eeny Meeny's plot is subtle and complex. Arlidge weaves a story that at first seems impossible to solve? Eeny Meeny is the first in a series of thriller novels featuring Helen Grace. The next in the series, Pop Goes The Weasel, will be published September 2014. Find out more here: http://richardandjudy.whsmith.co.uk/20-14/summer2/mjarlidge-eenymeeny/

Elly Griffiths? Dying Fall (Quercus 2013) has been longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year Award 2014. Dying Fall is Elly?s second book to be selected for the T.O.P. Crime Novel of the Year Award. Her debut novel, The Crossing Places - winner of the Mary Higgins Clark Edgar Crime Novel of the Year Award 2011 - was shortlisted in 2010. 2014 is a special year for the T.O.P. Crime Novel which celebrates its tenth anniversary. The prize was created to celebrate the very best in crime writing and highlights ?the cream of the crop of crime novels.? The names of the six short listed titles will be announced on 1st July and readers can VOTE HERE: http://harrogateinternationalfestivals.com/crime/award/

Congratulations to Derek B. Miller, who has been short-listed for two, out of a possible three, awards at this year's Bristol Crimefest; the EDunnit Award and the Goldsboro Last Laugh Award. The awards dinner takes place during the festival, on the 17th May, when the winners will be announced.

Janklow & Nesbit agents, Jessie Botterill and Hellie Ogden, will be at The Big Green Bookshop in London, on Saturday May 24th, between 5-8pm, hearing pitches from aspiring authors. They?ll be offering advice and guidance and are looking for authors working on anything from historical fiction to fantasy. For more information please visit: http://www.biggreenbookshop.com/

Lewis Dartnell's The Knowledge has been receiving some fantastic coverage in the week leading up to publication: the Times, Guardian, Independent on Sunday, Telegraph, Nature and Times Higher Education, have all reviewed favourably. "Where The Knowledge really succeeds is in demonstrating the interconnectedness of knowledge, the importance of the scientific method in advancing society, and the ?symbiotic relationship? between scientific discovery and technological advance." - Times Higher Education "The Knowledge is a terrifically engrossing history of science and technology. How exactly did people develop farming machinery, clocks, steam engines, glass lenses, radios, explosives, and the like? Dartnell deftly sketches the contours of each problem, and sympathetically reconstructs the reasoning applied." - the Guardian "This is the most inspiring book I?ve read in a long time. It makes me want to assemble a radio receiver using aluminium foil and a rusty razor blade.? - the Independent "Dartnell is a confident writer, as befits a runner-up in The Daily Telegraph/BASF Young Science Writer Award, and the book never drags. And it probably is a good thing that someone has written this book. After all, when the fall comes, Wikipedia will probably be the first thing we miss." - the Telegraph

ITV will air the final part of "Undeniable" tonight at 9pm. Claire Goose stars as Jane Phillips, a woman who recognises her mother?s murderer, twenty-three years after the crime. Despite being just five years old when she witnessed the killing, she?s determined to bring the man she believes is responsible to justice. Starring alongside Claire is Peter Firth as Andrew Rawlins, a leading Oncologist who becomes the focus of Jane?s attention, and the prime suspect for a murder inquiry that has remained unsolved for almost three decades. The Sunday Times describes the show as "a masterclass in seamless plot and character exposition". M.J. Arlidge, author of EENY MEENY, is an Executive Producer on the project. Catch-up on ITV player: https://www.itv.com/itvplayer/undeniable

The Desmond Elliott Prize, the ?most prestigious award for first-time novelists? (Telegraph), has announced a diverse longlist of 10 ?astonishing? novels, which showcase the excellence of new British and Irish writing. Among the chosen ten is The Dynamite Room, an eerie, thrillingly exciting and piercingly sad d?but for actor and play-write, Jason Hewitt. Chair of judges and best-selling author, Chris Cleave said: ?British and Irish writing is in the best shape it?s been for many years. The strength of these ten astonishing novels proves that our home-grown talent is world class.? Please visit the site for more information.

Lewis Dartnell's survival guide for the end of the world, The Knowldege, has received some great coverage this weekend; The Times, The New York Times, Daily Mail and Esquire Magazine have all reviewed favourably. The Times said: "An extraordinary achievement. With lucidity and brevity, Dartnell explains the rudiments of a civilisation. It is a great read even if civilisation does not collapse. If it does, it will be the sacred text of the new world ? Dartnell that world?s first great prophet." You can also listen in to Alok Jha's interview with him for The Guardian, here.

Derek B. Miller?s Norwegian by Night has been shortlisted for the ?Adult Debut Fiction Book of the Year? category of the ABA Indies Choice, as well as the Strand Mystery Magazine Critics Award for best novel of the year: http://www.bookweb.org/news/voting-opens-2014-indies-choiceeb-white-read-aloud-awards http://www.wfsb.com/story/25006173/strand-magazine-critics-awards-nominees-announcedrl-stine-awarded-the-lifetime-achievement-award

BBC Radio Scotland will have a long interview on Sunday Morning with Lipika Pelham, author of The Unlikely Settler. Lipika will talk about her experience of living in Jerusalem, and play her favourite music. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03y3fbz Photograph: Karel Cudlin

"50 years ago to the day, a 20 year-old history, Arabic and medieval Spanish student at King's College, Cambridge, lit a rocket under the musical establishment, and he's spent the last half-century continuing to shock and awe, agitate and enlighten, entertain and energise audiences and performers all over the world - but mostly, and most importantly, in the UK ever since. It was on 5 March 1964 that John Eliot Gardiner conducted Monteverdi's Vespers in the Chapel of King's College, and musical culture has never been the same since..." Read more from the Guardian report, here.

The shortlist for the Wellcome Book Prize 2014 has been announced by the chair of judges, poet Andrew Motion: Adam Rutherford, author of Creation: The Origin of Life/The Future of Life, will be competing against Elizabeth Gilbert, Emily Mayhew, Oliver Sacks, Andrew Solomon and Sarah Wise for this year?s Prize, which will be presented at a ceremony at Wellcome Collection on 29th April. The shortlist was decided by a panel of judges comprising author Lisa Appignanesi, journalist Hadley Freeman, scientist and TV presenter Michael Mosley, former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion (chair), and novelist and Head of Spoken Word at the Southbank Centre James Runcie. The Wellcome Book Prize, which was relaunched in November to celebrate its fifth anniversary, will award ?30 000 (an increase from ?25 000) to the best book of fiction or non-fiction from 2013 which leads on a medical theme.

Ever wondered what would happen to your body in Mars? In a recent article for Wired Magazine, Kevin Fong explores the strange, deadly effects a life on Mars would have on the human body: "Deprived of the need to work against the force of gravity, the body becomes deconditioned ? taking athletes and turning them into couch potatoes." His current book, Extremes: Life, Death and the Limits of the Human Body, is being serialised in the Atlantic and he was interviewed, recently, by NPR.

Tune in to BBC Radio 3, next Saturday 15th Feb, at 21:30, to hear novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo's radio drama, 'Dostoevsky and the Chickens', in which convicts read Dostoevsky and dream of life beyond the prison chicken plant. Set on a purpose-built island in the Pacific Ocean in a vast poultry processing plant, staffed entirely by prisoners, a teenage couple, Zhuang and Niue, meet in secret and read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment together. Zhuang dreams about the possibility of bringing about a new social order, while Niue has quieter ambitions to become a mother and earn a living from her talent for singing. When the Mainland is hit by a highly virulent strain of bird flu, suspicion falls on chicken meat from the island's processing plant. The chicken factory island and its workers are put into enforced quarantine, surrounded by soldiers and left to their fate. But Zhuang is determined that the workers should be masters of their own destinies. Xiaolu Guo was named one of Granta's Best British Novelists in 2013. She studied at the Beijing Film Acadamy and received her MA from the National Film School in London. She has published seven novels in both English and Chinese. A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She directed the award-winning films 'She', 'A Chinese' and 'Once Upon A Time Proletarian'. Her new novel, I Am China, will be published this year by Chatto & Windus.