Before Amazon and algorithms, children’s book clubs brought curated, affordable books into homes, schools and workplaces. From Puffin Post to Red House catalogues, this is the story of a vanished reading culture.

Is coincidence fate, pattern, or just the story we tell ourselves? In this interview, Patricia Borlenghi discusses A Book of Coincidences — her literary memoir about memory, identity, and the serendipitous moments that shape a life — alongside publishing, belonging, and what it means to live between two cultures.

The Bologna Children’s Book Fair isn’t just an event — it’s where global children’s publishing decides what survives. From instinct-driven acquisitions to geopolitical tensions, here’s what really happens behind the scenes — and why, even in 2026, nothing has kept the industry away.

Before AR became a buzzword, I built interactive children’s books using webcams and printed pages. Here’s what worked, what failed—and why the market wasn’t ready.

AI authorship has arrived — and publishing isn’t ready. Books can now pass through the entire editorial process without anyone being entirely certain how they were made. The question is no longer what we’re reading, but who — if anyone — truly wrote it.

A dish older than poetry. A poet who refused refinement. And a nation that celebrates its greatest writer by addressing a pudding. The curious, ceremonial, and quietly radical history of haggis and the Burns Supper.

What happens when decades of creative labour are repackaged as “the start of an idea”? An industry explainer on attribution, acquisition-led growth, and why visible human authorship matters more than ever — especially in the age of AI.

Audiobooks are valuable, inclusive and powerful — but they are not the same as reading. For young children especially, decoding print is a skill that can’t be replaced by listening. In our rush to keep reading alive, we risk blurring a distinction that really matters.

Auteur is not a pretentious relic. It is a lost word of precision — one that distinguishes vision from branding, authorship from automation, and human intention from machine output. In an age of infinite content, clarity matters. David Salariya

In 1961, Billy Bunter left Greyfriars and headed for Butlin’s. It sounds absurd—but this curious crossover reveals a moment of marketing brilliance, class collision, and cultural change in post-war Britain.

Colouring-in can be calming and good for control — but it’s not the same as drawing. Drawing builds thinking, memory, language and confidence. Here’s a plea for “beyond the line” creativity (plus easy ways to encourage it)

Adventure isn’t about recklessness — it’s about agency. A practical, publishing-savvy guide to writing children’s adventure stories that move, matter, and endure.

Publishing leaders offer predictions for 2026—AI, audio, BookTok, the Year of Reading. But what if we treated them like Roman chicken-liver omens: not certainty, but judgement? An essay on the real signs, the contradictions, and what growing up might look like for the trade

When a phrase like "after careful consideration" is deployed, you're meant to hear moral gravity. What you're usually hearing is the soft click of a filing cabinet closing. David Salariya examines the pattern behind British publishing's quiet erasures — and the revealing moments when it suddenly moves at speed.

John Baskerville made books that gleam like jet on porcelain — and insisted on being buried standing up. From japanned snuff-boxes to the Cambridge Bible, from wove paper to sharp transitional type, here’s a brisk, book-trade tour of the printer who annoyed London, dazzled Franklin, partnered Mrs Eaves, and prepared the public for Didot and Bodoni.

Why is the Society of Authors criticised for neutrality while authors feel increasingly unsafe? Because publishers have abandoned cultural leadership. This blog explores how consultancy thinking, risk avoidance, and corporate amnesia have left the SoA carrying the weight of an industry too timid to defend its own creators.

Why does France defend authors while Britain backs “innovation”? The answer lies in two centuries of cultural philosophy: France treats creators as custodians of national identity; Britain views them as participants in a market. As AI reshapes publishing, these old instincts have re-emerged - with profound consequences for anyone who makes books.

Reading doesn’t begin with school. It begins with a voice and a child — a shared giggle, a quiet cuddle, the magic of “read it again.” As the National Year of Reading 2026 unfolds, we’re not just turning pages — we’re turning up the joy.

Seeing, Reading, Drawing As the number of art teachers plummets and children spend more time swiping than sketching, we risk losing one of the simplest, most powerful forms of learning: looking. Reading and drawing both teach us how to see — one through words, the other through lines. They nurture curiosity, empathy, and imagination, and they shape the way children think about the world. In a society increasingly addicted to the instant, these slow, patient arts might just

A generation is arriving at school unable to speak. The UK faces a “Language Recession” — and until we restore talk, play and storytime, the reading crisis will deepen.