Nick Hornby

For 15 years, Dave Eggers' McSweeney's publishing enterprise has helped readers discover all things cool and quirky. On Wednesday, the Harry Ransom Center, the humanities library at the University of Texas, announced that it has acquired the archive of McSweeney's publishing company, which includes McSweeney's books, DVD journal Wholphin, the Believer, the food magazine Lucky Peach and the center's flagship literary journal first published in 1998, Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern.

British book bloggers and tweeters are enthusing over the ‘First Editions, Second Thoughts‘ auction at Sotheby’s of print first editions annotated by their authors, including JK Rowling, Hilary Mantel, Philip Pullman, Nick Hornby and Ian McEwan, to be sold off in aid of English PEN. The Guardian has put together a beautiful clickable interactive gallery [...]

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Do you judge a book by its cover? Designers Jon Gray and Jamie Keenan shared their theories on attracting readers – from cute cats to alluring perfume – at the Edinburgh book festival.

1. Face theory: Research suggests that human beings spend 48.6% of their lives decoding facial communication, so a big draw for a potential book buyer will be the familiarity of a face. The cover of Nick Hornby's Otherwise Pandemonium, for example, uses a cassette tape to create the image of a face.