Simon Trewin

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Click here to see the awesome trailer for the mass-market outing of Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts.

Scarlett Thomas’ enigmatic and thoroughly enjoyable novel THE END OF MR Y has won plaudits on both sides of the Atlantic as well as being sold for publication in 11 different languages to date. It is also in the Top 30 Bestseller List for Hardback Fiction. It tells of Ariel Manto, a lonely PhD student, who enters a second hand bookshop and stumbles upon an extremely rare novel, The End of Mr. Y, first published in 1893. The Philadephia Inquirer said that it was ’a Foucault’s Pendulum for the iPod generation and, like its forebear, it’s a fearless book best read with a dictionary (or Google) in one hand and an encyclopedia in the other. And with seat belts tightly fastened’ and Philip Pullman called it`Ingenious and original . . . A cracking good yarn fizzing with intelligence.’

BBC Newsnight Review on Friday last featured an interview with the author and a panel discussion by Julie Myerson, Jeanette Winterson, Tim Lott and Michael Gove. Pictured is Martha Kearney introducing the item and there are more pictures here or you can watch the whole programme here.

The wonderful Dave Headley at Goldsboro Books has produced a limited edition slip-case edition of Mr Y which has been signed and numbered by Scarlett. You can buy it here.

Scarlett Thomas and Steven Hall were centre stage at the Royal Festival Hall this week to explore the whole notion of ‘slipstream fiction’ in a lively and sold out event, chaired by the novelist Toby Litt (centre), at the London Literature Festival. The event co-incided with Steven’s return from a three-month world tour to promote is bestselling debut The Raw Shark Texts and the publication of Scarlett’s extraordinary novel The End Of Mr Y. We were all entertained to dinner in a Yurt on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall afterwards. Which was nice. See some pictures here