Stephen King, is today named the UK's favourite literary guilty pleasure. A surprise for all of us who thought it was perfectly socially acceptable to be seen reading one of his books on the tube. Never again. Second in the YouGov survey for Costa Coffee is JK Rowling, followed by John Grisham, Dan Brown, Danielle Steel, Catherine Cookson and Terry Pratchett. To help cover your literary shame they are promising to offer downloadable book jackets to hide what you are reading at costabookawards.com. King himself uses his website to tell us what he's reading at the moment - Bad Men by John Connolly, since you ask. An "... on Sanctuary, all hell is about to break loose ..." sort of novel.
The latest movers and shakers list is out. This time everyone involved in theatre is keenly looking at the Stage newspaper's new power list of 100 people. It is topped jointly by Andrew Lloyd Webber and David Ian - Live Nation's UK figurehead - who this year brought us The Sound of Music and Maria TV search. They're followed by Cameron Mackintosh, while at four are Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire of Ambassador Theatre Group, at five Nica Burns and Max Weitzenhoffer of Nimax, at six the Royal Shakespeare Company's Michael Boyd, at seven the National's Nicholas Hytner, at eight the South Bank Centre's Jude Kelly, at nine producer Bill Kenwright, and at 10 the Donmar's Michael Grandage.
The British Library is today celebrating the accession of Bulgaria to the EU by offering visiting Bulgarians (and others, of course) the chance to see the country's most wonderful and celebrated example of medieval art. The Gospels of Tsar Ivan Alexander were commissioned in 1355 and consist of 267 illuminated miniatures. The work is in near perfect condition. The tsar presided over a spiritual and artistic revival in 14th century Bulgaria. The Gospels left the country after the Ottomans took over and ended up in the library of the monastery of St Paul on Mount Athos, Greece. When the English traveller Robert Curzon visited in the 19th century he was offered a souvenir. Deciding against Mount Athos coasters, he asked for the Gospels, and to his amazement, the abbot said yes.
The new year's message from our favourite blogger, Moby, has inexplicably been missed from all the news coverage. "If I were your grandmother, I'd say: 'Spend time with people you care about, eat well and get some exercise, do good work and don't worry so much. And have a happy new year.' And even though I'm not your grandmother I hope that the sentiments expressed here are still relatively valid." They are, Moby.
