↑ & ↓ Poirot, re-invented
I’ve never been sure of contemporary authors writing sequels to novels whose creators have long since passed. My one exception, I am happy to concede, is PD James’ Death Comes to Pemberley. I am not sure what to make of the news that Sophie Hannah is to re-create Hercule Poirot.

Hannah, who describes herself to The Bookseller magazine as an “obsessively” devoted Christie fan who read all her novels as a 13-year-old, is a proven crime writer so hopefully the most famous Belgian detective will be in safe hands. The book, currently title-less, is due out in September 2014. My instinct is to say, leave well alone.

↑ Way to go, Jeffrey, Barbara, Lindsey, Lynda, Harriet & Emily
Jeffrey Archer, Barbara Taylor-Bradford, Lindsey Davis, Lynda La Plante [her latest mainstream thriller, Wrongful Death, is out this week] Harriet Evans and Emily Barr are the six authors who have written short books especially designed for adults who don’t usually read.

The campaign, sponsored by Galaxy and supported by Arts Council England, has distributed 4.5 million books since it started in 2006.
http://www.quickreads.org.uk/

↑ Boutique book festival at Kings X
London Lit Weekend is a new literary festival at Kings Place art hub at Kings Cross in London. From 5-6 October, LLW is a “small but perfectly formed boutique literary festival” incorporating music, biography, poetry, fiction, history, memoir, debut writers, foreign literature and horticulture in 14 events. Speakers include Wild Swans author Jung Chang, plus my favourite Booker Prize winner, Penelope Lively [below] who will read from her memoir Ammonites and Leaping Fish.

“This is not quite a memoir,” she writes. “Rather, it is the view from old age. And a view of old age itself, this place at which we arrive with a certain surprise – ambushed, or so it can seem. One of the few advantages of age is that you can report on it with a certain authority; you are a native now, and know what goes on here.”
http://www.kingsplace.co.uk/