Clapham Books

Hope everyone having a good day!

What are you reading?

I've just finished The Bee Sting by Paul Murray - been out a couple of years, but only just got to it

So good!

Up next - maybe something silly

We are beyond excited to be producing a special edition set of The Copper Cat trilogy by Jen Williams @sennydreadful.bsky.social in association with @headlinebooks.bsky.social 🐉😍

This beloved backlist series will be available in hardback for the first time! 🥳

A pile of hardback copies of The Sleepless, on top of the author’s desk, which is looking remarkably tidy today

The Sleepless is officially out in the UK today! 🐉🐉🐉

This book has been a wild ride, from writing the first draft in a loved up haze to celebrating its existence with lovely foreign publishers in Bologna 💖 It’s my twelfth published novel (can you believe??) and I’m feeling very proud today.

Bookish friends are great because you can be all "read this, it will absolutely crush your soul and tear your beating heart into a million little pieces and you will literally never recover from it" and they'll be like omg yaaaasssss

A brown and white bunny stands upright on its hind legs, reaching for books on a shelf with various books lined up neatly.

Writers: before you sign a contract with a publisher, make sure AI isn't replacing your illustrator, your translator, your editor, your jacket designer. Readers: if you're thinking of buying a book, do the same. Refuse. Resist. If AI garbage doesn't sell, people will stop making it.

Happy Wednesday, Clapham & world!

Hope everyone enjoying/hiding from the weather

We are disappointed but not surprised that Meta has used millions of pirated books to develop its AI systems.

As a matter of urgency, Meta needs to compensate the rightsholders of all the works it has been exploiting.

But what can authors do? Read here:
societyofauthors.org/2025/03/21/t...

'Beloved' author Alex Wheatle MBE dies aged 62

Children’s writer and author of the award-winning Crongton series, Alex Wheatle MBE, has died of prostate cancer at the age of 62. 👇 #BookSky

Happy International Women's Day!

Lots of great women represented in this collection - who are your favourites? (Fiction, non-fiction, new, old...)

#InternationalWomensDay

The cover of The Sleepless by Jen Williams, which features a giant golden serpent entwined with pink flowers and pink sprayed edges

And that means I get to share the amazing US cover for The Sleepless too!
The light! The scales! The pink page edges! The SERPENT! 😍😍😍😍 The jacket was designed by Kerri Resnick, and Tom Roberts provided the amazing illustration. Out in the US September 30th 🐍🐉🐍 bit.ly/THESLEEPLESSGR

Writers, musicians, actors & other creators strongly oppose upending copyright law to favour AI companies, as suggested in the UK's AI Opportunities Action Plan.

As Kate Mosse says, seeking economic growth "cannot be on the basis of theft of our work".

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

tech bros: we built a machine that can tell you stuff loudly and confidently!

us: cool. is it right about stuff?

tech bros: we cannot stress enough how loud and confident it is!

Having said that, we might rebrand ourselves as ClaBksAI so that venture capitalists will throw money at us

AI is a big complicated subject, and obviously we’re not experts - but - we choose our stock very carefully, and we will always do it ourselves.

AI can do a lot of things - pattern recognition, plagiarism & fraud seem like the main ones

We will never stock anything we know to be AI-generated

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence This consultation seeks views on how the government can ensure the UK’s legal framework for AI and copyright supports the UK creative industries and AI sector together.

A couple of weeks to go on this:

www.gov.uk/government/c...

Happy New Year, everyone! Thank you for all your support & tremendousness, and here's to an excellent 2025

Anyone know what day it is? Anyway, we are here!

Hope you're all having a good week and/or weekend

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Thank you to all of our lovely customers, have a wonderful holiday, thank you for all your support throughout the year x

Heading rapidly towards the weekend-before-Christmas!

We're here every day up to, and including, Christmas Eve

Hope everyone's enjoying December & looking forward to the holidays

(or, you know, coping with December & looking forward to the holidays being over - that's ok too)

x

Hope everyone is having a good December - two weeks until Christmas Day! That doesn't sound right, does it?

We're here every day up to & including Christmas Eve - and we can still order in for you - often for next day - do ask if you want something we don't have on the shelves!

Hello to all our new followers! We will try to be interesting!

It's Hardback Out Here in Conversation With Eliza Clark Join It's Hardback Out Here as we chat to the sensational Eliza Clark about her new short story collection "She's Always Hungry".

We’ll be selling books at this Eliza Clark event on Saturday week (December 7th):

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/its-hardba... www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/its-hardba...

I was going to put the bat down and step away from the dead horse, but now that we've been quoted in the Guardian talking about the AI dingbats, I want to just say a couple of things about self-publishing and the value of $5,000.

Word of the day is ‘librocubicularist’: one who loves nothing better than reading in bed.

(Not easy to say, but I’m glad to know it exists).

Never forget: READING FOR PLEASURE has the biggest positive impact of any factor on children's life chances. So never stop sharing books with kids. Never stop reading to them, and helping them to read. Never stop changing lives. #literacy #kidlit #books

Coming in today... The Hungry Dark in paperback, AND Titanchild (the eagerly-awaited sequel to Talonsister)!
Two excellent books by the wonderful Jen Williams
@sennydreadful.bsky.social

uk.bookshop.org/p/books/talo...

Elevensies time. Cup of tea and a page turner, anyone?

What are you reading at the moment?

A comic of two foxes, one of whom is blue, the other is green. In this one, Blue is sitting on his computer, turning to look at Green, who is looking at a book laying open before him with delight. Green: Time for me to delve into a new book! Blue watches quietly as Green transforms into a cloud of abstract liquid energy, flowing into the opened book. Minding his own business, Blue turns back to his computer. Some time passes. Blue turns towards the book again, looking at Green, who peeks out of the book, looking somewhat disoriented. Blue: When were you coming out of there? It's 7 pm. Green: What year is it?