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The more you find out about the history of disability and the associated language used, the more eye-opening it becomes. It wasn't so long ago that 'special' was widely used - a patronising euphemism now best avoided - and we are still left with the remains of so many other words that cast disabilities and impairments in a negative light.
November 22, 2016
0 CommentsIt's Hug a Bear Day! If you've read the blog before, you might have caught that I'm a huge Winnie-the-Pooh fan. Well, I'll confess to you now, that whilst Winnie-the-Pooh might be my favourite literary bear, I love a lot of bears. By which I mean fictional bears, and cuddly bears, and fictional bears that you'd really like to cuddle.
November 7, 2016
0 CommentsWhat do ghosts do for fun? They listen to audio-BOO-ks! Okay, so we’re not going to win any prizes for our jokes. What we can do, though, is recommend some fang-tastic books for you to get your teeth into this Halloween! (Sorry, I really will stop with the puns now). Whether you’re looking for scary fiction, frighteningly real crime, or just something to make you laugh, this selection will have a book for you!
October 31, 2016
0 CommentsBill Bryson has written over twenty non-fiction books covering topics as diverse as history, travel, science and Shakespeare. Holly Newson spoke to Bill about family, the inspiration behind his writing, and his changing perspective on the United Kingdom.
July 5, 2016
0 CommentsIf bookshop window displays are any indication, millennials are reading differently. The front shelves of YA dystopian novels are making room for more memoirs and essay collections. On the covers are not historical figures or seasoned actors, but fresh-faced internet personalities.
June 27, 2016
0 CommentsThis week is National School Sport Week. It's here to encourage school children to participate more in PE and sport. Sometimes we can all do with a little inspiration to get involved with sport, so we've picked out some books for a variety of ages to get you sweating... or thinking about sweating at least!
June 20, 2016
0 CommentsMany people have discussed on book blogs who YA should be read by, if can you be too old for the genre, etc. But one recent chain of articles contained some specific, and widely varying, views.
June 13, 2016
0 CommentsAt the Hay Festival on June 2, Melvin Burgess received the Andersen Press Young Adult Book Prize Special Achievement Award for his novel Junk, first published 20 years ago. Since then, the young adult novel has come of age.
June 7, 2016
0 CommentsOften it's the characters in a book that make it great just as much as the story. So we asked the Listening Books team - who is your favourite character from a book?
May 23, 2016
0 CommentsCosy crime, a sub-genre of crime whose stories are sometimes referred to as ‘cosies’, shows no sign of losing its popularity.
May 3, 2016
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