Sophie, Author at Allison & Busby

Spooky Reads

31 October, 2014

It’s that time of year again where pumpkins and fake blood start to appear in supermarkets – Halloween. And what better time to ponder our favourite scary reads? For an especially frightening read, I always return to Stephen King’s Nightmares and Dreamscapes. Nothing is quite as terrifying as the short story ‘The Ten o’clock People‘ […]

A Night in the Bookshop

22 October, 2014

After an American tourist got locked in one of their bookshops, Waterstones have invited ten lucky people to join them for a sleepover in their flagship Piccadilly store. (Their marketing team must be looking pretty smug right now!) But what a brilliant idea! Perhaps more bookshops around the country could get involved. We could gather round […]

Bookshops from around the world

17 October, 2014

An article in The Guardian caught my eye recently: Weird and Wonderful Bookshops from around the World and I was pleased to see that one of my favourites, Barter Books, had made the list. It’s a beautiful secondhand bookshop housed in a converted railway station in Alnwick. The list features lots more I’d like to visit […]

Change of Season

8 October, 2014

We’re now officially into autumn which means darker mornings and drizzly weather. But it’s not all doom and gloom: it’s not to hard to love this change of season when our parks and cities look like this – check out these beautiful autumn pictures: Do you have any great seasonal photos to share? Sophie. Editorial […]

From Print to Screen

24 September, 2014

The time has finally arrived! Next week David Fincher’s adaptation of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn hits our cinemas. And I couldn’t be more excited. I remember last year the sea of black books with fluorescent typeface on the tube. Finally intrigued, I picked up a copy and didn’t put it down for a week. […]

The Monster’s Wife

17 September, 2014

We all have one or two books that we read and that stay with us forever – for me one of those titles is Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. The creature”s ability to be at once terrifying and vulnerable captured my imagination. I even wrote my dissertation on it. So I was extremely excited to learn that Kate […]

Unbinding the Book

10 September, 2014

Well this is something you don’t see everyday: As part of London Art Book Fair, artist Camille Leproust has created a book that turns black as it is read. The book is printed on thermal paper which heats and slowly blackens so the reader has around four hours to read it before the text fades completely […]

Holiday Reads

5 September, 2014

As I woke up this morning to a very grey and dreary London, I am especially pleased to be going on holiday tomorrow to sunny Spain. For me one of the best things about preparing for holiday is choosing what books to take. But I made the silly mistake of buying them over a month […]

Surprise Sequels

1 September, 2014

I found out today that Audrey Niffenegger is currently writing a sequel to her bestselling novel, The Time Traveller’s Wife. As a great fan of the first book, I can only wait expectantly, and somewhat anxiously, for the next one. There’s something a little nerve-wracking about the prospect of a sequel to a beloved book. What if I don’t […]

Childhood Heroes

12 August, 2014

I was sad to learn this morning that Robin Williams was found dead in his Californian home from what appears to be suicide. I grew up watching him and loved everything from Good Will Hunting to his stand-up shows. Not just a great comic, he was an immeasurable acting talent. Nearly every year or so, my […]

Bookish Architecture

8 August, 2014

The internet is a place where you can find just about anything. And today I found an igloo made of books. Yes, that’s right. The sculpture installation, called Home, is by Colombian artist Miler Lagos. He used carefully stacked books to create a compact dome that is entirely self-supporting. Now how cool would that look in your living […]

Re-Covered Books

30 July, 2014

We all have favourite books and cherished covers but what if someone re-imagined those beloved jackets? That’s exactly what the Re-Covered Book contest aims to do: ‘A creative contest which asks readers to push the limits of book design‘. Everything from Jane Eyre to Harry Potter has been re-covered in this creative, remarkable competition. It’s […]

A new era for the God of Thunder

16 July, 2014

Yesterday Marvel comics announced a new era for the Norse superhero Thor – the character will become a woman. The publisher hopes that recasting Thor as female will attract more woman and girls to comic books and graphic novels. ‘The inscription on Thor’s hammer reads “Whosoever holds this hammer, if HE be worthy, shall possess the power […]

Celebrating Childhood Story Heroes

8 July, 2014

The Story Museum in Oxford has had a great idea: celebrating childhood story heroes. The exhibition, called 26 Characters, features some of Britain’s best-loved storytellers transforming themselves into the characters they loved as children. Writers included are Anthony Horowitz, Terry Pratchett and Malorie Blackman. Although I think my must-see would be Neil Gaiman as a certain woodland creature […]

Books about Town

4 July, 2014

The National Literary Trust is running a new project this summer: Books about Town. Hoping to encourage readers to sit down with a good book, books as diverse as Mary Poppins, The Wind in the Willows and Agatha Christie’s various Poirot adventures are being re-imagined as a limited series of eye-catching benches dotted about London. […]

Middle Eastern Delights

27 June, 2014

Fitzrovia’s beloved restaurant Honey & Co. have finally got their own book. It was only a matter of time. The tiny cafe on Warren Street has a religious following of foodie fans (I am one of them) and now I can experiment with the recipes at home. In their debut book, the restaurant owners share […]

Unlikely Libraries

18 June, 2014

Over the years the rise of the mobile phone has left many phone boxes falling into disrepair. Often vandalised, they appear on street corners looking rather forlorn and neglected. But BT stepped in and launched their Adopt a Kiosk scheme. Then a group of innovative volunteers in Brockley, Lewisham decided to repair, renovate and turn their phone […]

Literary Nooks & Crannies

11 June, 2014

Book lovers are always on the look-out for all things book related. Everything from literary mugs to bookish wallpaper is of interest to me. And imagine my delight when I found The Fable bar. It’s a bar/restaurant in Holborn, London inspired by the fantasy world of fairy tales where every detail tells a story. To be […]

Back from the Dead

4 June, 2014

I am currently reading Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes – a hilarious political satire where Hitler wakes up alive and well in Berlin, 2011. People think he’s a flawless impersonator and it’s not long before he gets his own TV show. It’s a such a simple and brilliant idea for a book. And it […]

Staying Alive with poetry

30 May, 2014

Sometimes it’s nice to branch out of your ordinary reading habits. I recently did so myself after finding a poetry anthology in Waterstones Wandsworth. I was heading to the check out when I noticed a stand of books to one side: Staying Alive, Being Alive and Being Human. They are three anthologies, each consisting of […]

Why choose just one? #ThisBook

23 May, 2014

The #ThisBook campaign launched by Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction is a great idea. But quite a difficult one. I struggled for about half an hour before finally being able to decide that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was the book that the most impact one me. I struggled, not for mere lack of choice, but for […]