Off the Page - Current Affairs Books, Comment & Debate

A Tough Start for Brown

Gordon Brown waited so long to finally take over from Tony Blair, but I bet he wishes he'd left it another couple of months. Since his inauguration, he has had to deal with, as the Guardian puts it, the three Fs - floods, foot & mouth and fundamentalism.

Within his first week Brown had a series of terror alerts to deal with, followed by the worst flooding this country's seen for 150 years and then an outbreak of a potentially costly disease. He has had to learn a very swift lesson in crisis management.

So how well has he dealt with these unfortunate situations?

Click here for the Guardian's analysis and leave your thoughts below.

Or why not try reading The Future of Socialism by Anthony Crosland and Gordon Brown - according to The Times "it provides the classic formula for relating the ideals of social democracy to the realities of the modern world"

Off the Page - News and Events

Here is a digest of a couple of news items this week that relate to Off the Page's featured topics. They include the resurgence of nuclear power on our agenda; global warming and the first few steps towards a greener Britain; and the health of the nation.

Also included are highlights of the Institute of Contemporary Arts season, which features several of the issues we here at Off the Page have also been discussing.

Our Man at the London Book Fair - day 3

Day three of the fair and the last day. I always get into the hall by eight, partly because I like to be prepared for all the different people I am going to see during the day, partly to tidy the stand and partly to have a quick wander round the rest of the hall before it becomes too busy. Invariably publishing friends will say, “Will see you at the book fair” implying that you will be having a good old chat but all too often in the end all you get to do is literally just “see” them as they go past the stand. So apologies to Andrew Johnson, Wilf Clark etc. I will catch up with you all at Frankfurt!!

Our man at the London Book Fair - day 2

The evening of the second day of the London Book Fair and I am in a restaurant in South Kensington with a great crowd of people. We are all guests of Theo Philips, our agent from South East Asia. In one moment this encapsulates all that the book fair is about - people from many different countries and backgrounds sharing one passion for books, enjoying one another's company and pooling our different experiences.

News in brief

O.J.'s confession, Agassi's memoirs and the best book ever: here is a selection of news from the book trade today.

Our man at the London Book Fair - day 1

By Andrew Hayward, Sales & Marketing Director

The book fair officially started at nine o'clock this (yesterday) morning but for many of us it is our third day inside Earl's Court. Our book fair started at 8am on Saturday morning in the empty confines of a large, gaping space that is the Earl's Court arena. Stands go up and posters, pictures and books start to decorate them. There are always two certainties every year, firstly that some part of the furniture package will be missing and secondly that despite carefully indicating where the shelving should go, it is never in the right place.

Having said all that the transformation of an empty space on Saturday morning to a hall packed with brightly coloured stands, flying the company livery and boasting the exciting new publications, never ceases to amaze and to thrill me.

London Book Fair 2007

Today marks the first day of the world's leading springtime publishing event and takes place at Earl's Court, London over the next three days.

Visit the official site here

Off the Page will be there all week and will report back with a diary of the event and any interesting news, photos and anything else we find.

British Book Awards 2007

Book of the year: Conn & Hal Iggulden, The Dangerous Book for Boys

Reader's Digest author of the year: Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

Biography of the year: Peter Kay, The Sound of Laughter

Children's book of the year: Ricky Gervais, Flanimals of the Deep

For a full list of winners click here

An interesting night but with few surprises (when you realised it rewarded the mass-market and TV friendly), however it was good to see Granta coming close in the Richard and Judy best read of the year and suggests that there might be greater variety in future years. One disappointment was that the range of publishers represented was also minimal, with the majority of the awards split between Random House, the Hachette Group and Harper Collins.

Highlights of the night were Peter Kay's and Ricky Gervais' acceptance speeches, along with several low points including the interaction between presenters and celebrities.

An unintentional highlight was when Gervais provoked a foul-mouthed reaction from Richard Madeley by quipping about phone vote scams.