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Do you need help picking out your next read? The team at Penguin Random House Canada has created the “What Do You Feel Like Reading?” infographic.

The image showcases books written by several popular authors including Alexander McCall Smith, Jo Nesbø, and Margaret Atwood. We’ve embedded the full piece below for you to explore further—what do you think?

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Vintage Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, announced plans for a Short Story Month celebration.

For every day throughout May, the team will digitally release a new Vintage Short fiction piece. These eBooks will be priced at $0.99 each.

According to the press release, the 31 stories come from a wide array of authors including Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, Edgar Allan Poe, and Langston Hughes. The roster also includes five original pieces from writers “Alexander McCall Smith, Carrie Brown, Hari Kunzru, Patricio Pron, and the first-time U.S. publication of an original Maeve Binchy story.” Follow this link to see the full Vintage Shorts calendar.

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Alexander McCall-Smith delivers a sweet story here, but it is not without some angst. Clover has loved James all of her life, but she feels him drifting away from her as they both leave their home in the Cayman Islands for boarding school in England. At the same time, Clover's parents seem to be drifting [...]

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HarperCollins Publishers has launched a new global podcast network called “HarperCollins Presents.”

Here’s more from the press release: “Each week the HarperCollins Presents podcast series will feature an exchange of ideas from leading authors and creatives – from home-grown heroes to global stars. It will take listeners behind the scenes, explaining the mysteries of the creative process and inspiring fans to think differently.”

The podcasts can be downloaded from iTunes, SoundCloud, and Stitcher. Currently, fans can listen to episodes featuring Coraline author Neil Gaiman, Divergent author Veronica Roth, and Rooms author Lauren Oliver. The executives behind this series plans to create new content with filmmaker David Cronenberg, the Kay Scarpetta series author Patricia Cornwell, and the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series author Alexander McCall Smith.

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At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for [...]

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Here are some literary events to pencil in your calendar this week.

To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.

Author Amy Tan will discuss her newest novel, The Valley of Amazement, at a signing event. See her on Tuesday, November 5th at Barnes & Noble (Union Square branch) starting 7 p.m. (New York, NY)

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The latest stand-alone novel by Alexander McCall Smith is a slight departure from his usual fare. It lacks the charm and lightness of his other offerings but gives, instead, a truly heartfelt dissertation on love.  Melancholy, poignant, and bittersweet, Trains and Lovers has four tales of romance — warts and all. Four strangers take a long train ride, sharing [...]

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People who know me well know I love mysteries. I started at age 10 with the Nancy Drew series and never looked back. Today children can get hooked on detective stories at an even earlier age. Precious Ramotswe, a private eye living in Botswana, stars in a number of adult mysteries written by the prolific Alexander McCall Smith. Now young readers have the chance to meet Precious as Smith recounts how she solved her first case while still a schoolgirl. Smith has an easy, conversational style. He begins, "Have you ever said to yourself, Wouldn't it be nice to be a detective?" Readers feel themselves in the hands of a natural storyteller and immediately relax.

The mystery Precious solves is appropriately scaled for young readers. A thief is stealing delicious baked goods from students in school. When a boy is accused on circumstantial evidence, Precious comes to his rescue. And when the true suspect is revealed, like in every good mystery, readers will experience both surprise at not spotting the culprit sooner and a sense of inevitability.

Set in Botswana, the book immerses readers in a world much different from the world they know. Smith begins the book with Precious's father relating a tale of how he saved his village from a hungry lion by keeping his wits about him. Readers will relate, though, to Precious and her classmates, who behave as children do the world over.

The book is illustrated in striking woodcuts. Ian McIntosh limits himself to a palette of red, black, and gray, yet manages to produce  bold artwork that give the story a timeless feel. Altogether, this book serves as a fine introduction to the mystery genre.

The Great Cake Mystery
by Alexander McCall Smith
illustrations by Iain McIntosh
Anchor Books, 80 pages
Published: April 2012

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The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe’s Very First Case
By Alexander McCall Smith
Illustrated by Iain McIntosh
Anchor Books
$12.99
ISBN: 978-0-307-94944-8
Ages 7-10
On shelves April 3rd

There was once a time, best beloved, when the early chapter book section of your local lending library was a veritable wasteland of white characters. Oh, every once in a while you might be able to get your hands on Stories Julian Tells or My Name is Maria Isabel but by and large they were it, man. Then, in the last ten years or so, something changed. Suddenly there was an influx of great books starring kids of a diverse range of backgrounds and races. Different nationalities would sort of come up too (Younguncle Comes to Town, The White Elephant, Rickshaw Girl, etc.) but they remain, to this day, far less common. Then, two years ago, the amazing and delightful Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke hit American shores and the masses did rejoice. The series was remarkable, not just for the great writing and art, but because until that moment the idea of reading about a girl living in contemporary Africa was a dear and distant dream. Maybe that’s what helped to convince American publishers to bring over Alexander McCall Smith’s enjoyable early chapter book The Great Cake Mystery: Precious Ramotswe’s Very First Case. An early chapter book of a mystery starring his most famous character during her childhood, Smith isn’t entirely comfortable writing for a young audience, but this mini mystery and its jaw-dropping illustrations will please proto-detectives, both large and small.

Some people are good at noticing things. Take Precious Ramotswe. She’s the kind of girl who will seriously consider when someone might be lying or telling the truth. Prompted by her father to consider a future as a detective, Precious likes the idea but figures it’ll be years before she gets her first case. As it turns out, it happens a lot faster than she might think. At school a boy is accused of stealing sweets from his fellow students. Refusing to accept circumstantial evidence, Precious discovers the true culprits and devises a delightful solution to the sticky fingered thief problem.

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The new serial novel No Rest for the Dead features writing contributions by 25 thriller writers, including Sandra Brown, Jeffrey Deaver, R.L. Stine, Gayle Lynds and Alexander McCall Smith. Novelist David Baldacci wrote the introduction to the charity novel.

Strand magazine managing editor Andrew Gulli and Lamia Gulli edited four-year project. Proceeds from the Simon & Schuster novel will be donated to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, honoring the memory of Andrew’s mother.

Here’s more about the serial novel: “When Christopher Thomas, a ruthless curator at San Francisco’s McFall Art Museum, is murdered and his decaying body is found in an iron maiden in a Berlin museum, his wife, Rosemary, is the primary suspect, and she is tried, convicted and executed. Ten years later, Jon Nunn, the detective who cracked the case, is convinced that the wrong person was put to death.”

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A team of authors have joined Book Wish Foundation‘s What You Wish For: A Book For Darfur project. Book sale profits will be donated to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), an organization building libraries in Darfur refugee camps in Chad.

Penguin Group’s G.P. Putnam’s Sons imprint will release the collection in September. If you make a donation of $20 or more before April 30th and your name (and your child’s) will be included in the book’s acknowledgment section.

Actress Mia Farrow, who serves as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, has written the forward. The participating authors include: Cornelia Funke, Meg Cabot, R. L. Stine, John Green, Ann M. Martin, Alexander McCall Smith, Cynthia Voigt, Karen Hesse, Joyce Carol Oates, Nikki Giovanni, Jane Yolen, Nate Powell, Gary Soto, Jeanne DuPrau, Francisco X. Stork, Marilyn Nelson, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Sofia Quintero.

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"Imagine living in the heart of Africa. Imagine living in a place where the sun rises each morning over blue mountains and great plains with grass that grows taller than a man." That's how this terrifiic series starts. Akimbo and his family live on the edge of a nature preserve in Africa. In the first book, Akimbo and the Elephants by Alexander McCall Smith, young Akimbo tries to save a herd of elephants from poachers (thieves who kill elephants for their ivroy tusks) through a really dangerous plan. In the other one, Akimbo and the Crocodile Man, he goes with a scientist to tag a female crocodile and her babies. Crocodiles are deadly, right? That's what Akimbo and the Crocodile man find out!! These books are short but REALLY GOOD!!! It always amazes me how a first-rate writer can fill a short book with action and suspense while making you see and feel what the characters do. Alexander McCall Smith is first-rate and so are these books. There are two more in this serires:

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