I was at Bristol Comic Expo over the weekend, which took place at the beautiful Brunel's Old Station. Third year I've been. It was brilliant, to put it bluntly. However, it seems to have kicked me repeatedly in the immune system, and I write this half comatose on the sofa with a raw chest and sneezey constitution. Thankfully ThatBeastJen is in the kitchen cooking me some lunch...

Read on for a full report on BCE

I'm pleased to introduce our latest guest blog post. Jonathan Evison is fast becoming recognized as one of America's great young authors. His first book, All About Lulu, won the Washington State Book Award, and his latest novel West of Here has already received heaps of praise in the US.

Jonathan Evison writes: I'm a camper. It's what I do. Between late February and mid-October, I'm usually camping. Sometimes that means hiking twelve miles and three-thousand vertical feet with forty pounds strapped to my back, and sometimes that means my ass falling asleep in a lawn chair, as I scribble mad notes in front of a campfire with a case of cold beer within arms reach. Usually, though, it means parking my '76 Dodge motor home on a bluff at Kalaloch in a nasty squall, and watching the waves pound the shoreline, while the moho rocks like Jericho. These camping trips are my lifeline as a writer, and as a person. Without these trips, the wilderness of my spirit might have been tamed years ago. And probably I wouldn't be much of a writer. Most certainly, I'd be hell to live with.

www.IwishIwasabook.com has been a bit quiet of late, and I would like to apologise for this. Lots going on with work and life and the rest has meant that writing and even reading have had to take a back seat.

Do not fear though! I have written a few reviews over the last month or two, but they have been for another website, the fantastic We Love This Book from The Bookseller magazine:

www.WeLoveThisBook.com/

UPDATE: The Boy & His Bee has now been launched and is available from the author's shop here. Buy it. Really, do. It is fantastic and kids, parents and bee keepers will all adore it.

This weekend, the 19th & 20th November 2011, sees the launch of a fantastic new children's book – The Boy & His Bee by Jen Smith.

Launching at the Thought Bubble festival in Leeds, The Boy & His Bee is the story of a young boy desperate for a pet bee, but he soon learns there is more to friendship than freezers and flowers...

Kobo Books have today announced a brand new eReader – the Kobo Vox!

The Vox is a full colour tablet style ereader running on Android and has been dubbed by Kobo as “The World's First Social eReader”, thanks to its social network integration.

Read on for more details...

Justin Gustainis is without doubt one of the most exciting authors currently writing in the "urban fantasy" genre. His two latest books, Hard Spell and Sympathy For The Devil, have caused quite a stir in the fantasy fiction community and it's easy to see why, Justin's dark sense of humour and darker worlds are engrossing and fantastic fun.

We are happy to present a glimpse into the authors mind, where witchfinders hunt and vampires run riot...

With the launch of the Kindle Fire and Kindle Touch dominating headlines both in the UK and US, another launch seems to have gone unnoticed, but is much more important to us Brits right now -

The Kobo Touch is now available in the UK!

Welcome to the new look IwishIwasabook.com!

Hope you like it, it is quite different from the old look. Almost the opposite, actually...

I'm very pleased to present the very first of (hopefully) many guest blog posts! This one comes from Guy Haley, the rather friendly author of the rather excellent sci-fi detective novel Reality 36.

Guy writes: Hi there, my name’s Guy Haley, and I’m here to talk to you about my novel, Richards & Klein: Reality 36.

That classic shopping channel intro should tell you something about me (like, I can’t help but be flippant, like my character Richards) but it tells you precious little about my book, or why I wrote it, or what the hell it’s about. So let’s do that next.

Reality 36 is the first of what I intend to be a series of books out from Angry Robot. I am writing number two, Omega Point, right now (obviously not right now, although can the process of writing ever really cease? I’m probably thinking about it on some level even now, so actually yeah, right now). Reality 36 is an exciting, fast-paced adventure set in the near-ish future. It has super-intelligent AI, robots, and cyborgs in it. There is lots of action, and there are twists.

Cool, eh?

I'm a little bit ashamed to say that Angry Robot only came to my attention because Zoo City - a grimy, gritty sci-fi set in a South Africa plagued by spirit animals – won the 2011 Arthur C. Clarke award. I picked up a copy before a jaunt away and loved it. That got me intrigued, and since then I've read 4 Angry Robot books, and am looking forward to more.

Angry Robot seem to be an imprint with a difference, they really don't feel the need to do things by the book (excuse the pun), and as such they come up with some truly innovative ideas.

So, IwishIwasabook.com is 1 year old.

Wooo!

Cue the generic blog post about how amazing it is, and how the site has grown, and how everything and everyone is fantastic.

I recently uploaded 6 months of photo's onto my laptop. I thought I'd share.

Being a huge fan of old cameras and lomography - with their whimsical, dirty, dreamy photos - I use hipstamatic and instagram a lot.

Please enjoy this little peek into my world...

Last weekend was the Bristol Comic Expo, and I was lucky enough to attend again, this time on the exhibitor side of the table. It was a packed event, full of people from all over. Some hardcore comic fans, others just looking for a fun day out.

I love books. You may have noticed. I love clothes as well. Yup.

If only there was a way I could combine the two, maybe with a charitable slant, just for the heck of it ('coz we've got to help the kids, right?).

Wait! What's this? T-shirts with classic book covers on them? Ooooh. And every one bought will send a book to community in need? Wow!

For the last six and a half months I have been working one day a week at the Brighton Photo Biennial (BPB), the best photography festival in the UK.

Here follows my blog post, originally posted on the BPB website. It's not book related, but Photography is another big part of my life, so enjoy...

It's a fair slog from Eastbourne to Kew Gardens, London, especially after a busy day at work, but one that my partner and I were willing to make for one very special reason...

The Book Launch Jamboree for the Etherington Brothers' Monkey Nuts: The Diamond Egg of Wonder!

CLiNT is the new comic book magazine edited by Mark Millar - the writer of Marvel Civil War. With content from Jonathan Ross and Huw Edwards (yes, the Welsh news reader...), and with a front cover with the slogan “Kick Ass 2 Starts Here”, it would seem that this is the perfect magazine, right?

OK, try this:

CLiNT is the new Lads Mag edited by Mark Millar - the writer of Wanted. With content from Jimmy Carr and Frankie Boyle (yes, the foul mouthed Scottish prick...), and with a front cover with the slogans “Chinese Tom Cruise” and “Hot TV Mums”, it would seem that this is the worlds worst magazine, right?

Is there a better combination? Television is too distracting to read to, eating gets the pages all sticky, and driving is just bloody dangerous. So yes, I think music is the perfect accompaniment to reading.

Sometimes though, a song or album becomes more that just an accompaniment to the book, it becomes part of the whole experience, and that song can brings up memories of the book long after you've turned the last page. It is like experiencing said book all over again.

Though sometimes that is not exactly a good thing...

I have been a big reader of comics for years. It is a hobby that was picked up from my dad, who has been reading 2000AD from the very first issue as well as X-Men, Spiderman and many others.

I love comics and graphic novels - especially the latter - I love the way they look, the way they read, the storylines, the characters, even the way they feel. There is something quite special about holding a new comic or a graphic novel in your hands and flicking through the pages. So, as an almost life-long comic reader, should I, and everyone out there like me, be worried about the growing popularity of eComics?

The short answer is no...

Philip Pullman's latest book, The Good Man Jesus & The Scoundrel Christ, is due for publication in the very near future, and I have to say that I am disappointed. I have been nervously looking forward to The Book of Dust, the follow up to the phenomenal His Dark Materials trilogy, but we will have to wait even longer for that one. Instead, it would seem, of writing good, honest fiction, Pullman has decided to make his latest work a self-righteous dig at Christianity.

What is the need for it?

Read on for the full article...