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US action against coca farmers in Colombia is discussed. The barriers facing farmers seeking to switch to legal crops are highlighted.

The crankiness of Sir Vidia Naipaul has been much in evidence recently; you don't have to be Paul Theroux to find some of his more in-your-face pronouncements just a little [...]

How have our writers faced up to the world emergency? The Guardian scrambled an impressive squadron, including Ian McEwan, Martin Amis, Jeanette Winterson, Blake Morrison and Simon Schama. All were [...]

'Maigret is a great fit with Agatha Christie's brands, principally Poirot,' said Chorion chairman John Conlan. 'We are delighted to be able to add Georges Simenon to our portfolio of [...]

When I heard my old chums Beryl Bainbridge and Doris Lessing fulminating on the radio against 'chick lit', I was confused at first, because in my youth Chiclets were another [...]

'Successful book publisher, 49. Handsome but married, seeks lady for discreet liaison. Am sensitive, tactile, passionate generous. Box 1831.' My attention was caught, not surprisingly, by this small ad in [...]

'One of the things that's changed in the past five years has been that people are less drawn to publishing by the attraction of books and authors, and more by [...]

Well, you'll just have to rub along without me ... after nearly 15 years of cutting-edge book trade punditry, I've decided to call it a day. Bent's little hint a [...]

Looks like it's open season on the classics again, after that recent flurry of girliness from Jane Austen. Manga versions of Shakespeare, anyone? ("What are manga?" asked Lady Boot, who […]

Considering my important opinion-forming role, I am not the inveterate blog-hound that I ought to be, otherwise I wouldn't now be bringing you old news. Having very early on tired [...]

One Damian Horner, freelance marketing consultant, clambered up onto his high horse on the Opinion page last week and shot himself in the foot in the process. Why oh why, [...]

There has been a fair amount of mal-pensant comment about the appointment of literary agent Ali Gunn as the Conservative Party's Media and Lifestyle guru. Even Bent was pleased to [...]

'The master is back' yelled the Quercus ad on the front cover of this week's Bookseller. 'Still the best in the business!' opined Kathy Reichs; 'Welcome back, and thanks for [...]

Fancy buying Penguin? It could be yours for 800m £, according to a Reuters report last week. 'Private equity firms are mulling over approaches for Penguin, Simon & Schuster and [...]

Electrolux, concerned that young men are spending too much time drinking and swiving and not paying enough attention to white goods, has apparently commissioned a novel, inevitably tagged as 'bloke [...]

'Celeb books hit saturation point', ran a headline in last week's Bookseller, over a load of hand-wringing from publishers about all the nonentities flooding the bookshops. Were they drugged, or [...]

Since you ask, no, I wasn't at Simon Master's retirement party at the Langham, my invite having unaccountably been lost in the post. There has been a slight froideur between [...]

The other day, Nicholas Clee was pondering the fact that almost as many agents as authors went to the Orion authors' party. He concluded that agents are now the dominant [...]

So it's all off to ExCel, then, for what I suppose we'll have to call the LonDonBoOkFair. Just think, no more endless waits at Earl's Court Tube station trying to [...]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that idle hacks in want of a kick-off for a couple of hundred words about Jane Austen will always reach for the phrase: 'It [...]

Bent provided rich fodder for contemplation last week. Someone at Ottakar's was amusing himself at the expense of those hapless souls who have to pitch books to him. You know, [...]

Despite the undeniable urgency of my task, I have grown weary of my labours on the definitive biography of Anthony Cheetham. It's all very well for the anatomisers of Sir [...]

As I dashed from one party to another on Tuesday night, the talk was not, as might have been expected, all about the Booker and who'd won and who hadn't, [...]

Uberagent Christopher Little has described Patrick Jimjam Smith as "one of the last few real publishers left". Being one of the last few real gents left in the increasingly showbiz-ridden […]

'But if editing disappears, as it seems to be doing, there'll be no books worth taking the credit for,' intoned Blake Morrison at the end of his where-have-all-the-editors gone article [...]

I must say, after years of lurking in the middle of the magazine overshadowed by glossy, unbendy adverts, it's rather pleasing to be moved into the limelight that is the [...]

Peregrine Thrust-Nicely asks the questions: How the devil are you? Very well, thank you very much. What have you been up to? I've been at the University of Texas, going […]

When I was told that our Greatest Living Bookman had published his memoirs I was, not unreasonably, excited. What a red-letter day in the annals of the Friends of Cheetham, [...]

More confusing shenanigans at HarperCollins, which reminds me that I should revisit my Caroline Michel shares at Pubdaq, which have been a little inactive of late. New readers begin here. [...]

Chorion aims to wake Chandler stories from their big sleep,' was the headline that greeted me in the Guardian the other day. 'Chorion, the entertainment company best known for the [...]

Not content with publishing the autobiographical meditations of call-girls, My Lord Weidenfeld intends, with a barely perceptible z crashing of gears, to publish the autobiographical meditations of the Pope. According [...]

According to an article in the Telegraph the other day, publishing is a 'barely rational business'. That seems about right. You would have to have a heart of stone not [...]