Speculation, Fact and Fiction

while Foyles stocks 221,000 titles, and still manages to make money, Waterstone's carries some 160,000, and is busy issuing profit warnings.

A very interesting article in yesterday's Observer, commenting on the book trade.

Mind you, one has to allow for the London Effect. 22% of UK book sales happen in Greater London, which has 11% of the population, according to statistics in The Guardian in October 2005.

I've been invited to write a short story for an anthology, full details to follow in due course obviously, and I'm working with the idea of 'imaginary friends'. So as well as looking at my own slowly burgeoning idea from various angles, I've been googling around to see what I can find to nurture it.

With one of those splendid unanticipated consequences of the Internet, I find this article by Ursula Le Guin pithily asserting reasons why tales of talking animals and fantastical adventure aren't just for children, rather they're something we can and should return to throughout our lives.