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Authors including Neil Gaiman and Ian Rankin will collaborate with the public in a short story "Tweetathon" organised by the Society of Authors.

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Random House has made a series of promotions, including several to entirely new roles, in its group digital, operations, strategy and commercial teams led by deputy director c.e.o. Ian Hudson.

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Former colleagues of Faber finance director David Tebbutt have paid warm tributes to him this morning, amid widespread shock over the circumstances of his death.

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Fig Tree publishing director Juliet Annan has bought world rights in a new book by playwright and novelist Nell Leyshon.

The deal was done at auction through Anna Webber at United Agents. The Colour of Milk is told in the voice of a simple farm girl living in 1830, who has learned to write, and paid a high price to achieve this skill.

"A scrap of a thing with a sharp tongue and hair the colour of milk, Mary leads a harsh life working on her father's farm alongside her three sisters," Fig Tree said.

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Hodder Children's Books has bought two teen titles from journalist and presenter Dawn Porter.

Publisher Emily Thomas did the deal directly with Porter for a "sizeable" sum. The books are described as "epic stories of an intense female friendship between two schoolgirls...when platonic love can rival romantic love in the passion, jealousy, joy and betrayal it inspires".

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The Women's Institute will mark the 96th anniversary of its first meeting on 16th September with an action to support its Love Your Libraries campaign.

The WI's membership are being asked to each borrow a book from their local library on the day "in recognition of the continued importance of the WI's early vision to widen educational opportunities".

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Authors of Macmillan titles put on hold during the recent Serious Fraud Office investigation say they have been given a "glimmer of hope" for the future, with "sensible" discussions now beginning with the publisher after months of poor communication.

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The government and local authorities are not fulfilling the statutory duties laid out in the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, according to the man who drafted it.

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Granta has commissioned cover images of 93-year-old Diana Athill by celebrity photographer Rankin, better known for portraits of the likes of Kate Moss and Kylie Minogue.

The photographs will grace the jacket of Athill's new hardback Instead of a Book (6th October) plus paperback reissues of Stet, Yesterday Morning and Instead of a Letter.

Granta's artistic director Michael Salu said he had decided it would be interested to bring together "two rather distinguished individuals from different generations" for the images.

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Supporters of New Cross library have claimed the council is demanding £24,000 in annual rent to reopen the library.

It is due to reopen tomorrow (13th August) as New Cross People's Library, in a trial venture run by local people. However, supporters say the council is demanding the annual rent payment to make the people's library a permanent arrangement.

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The lawyer representing Brent library campaigners has warned Brent council not to undermine the borough's library services while both parties await the results of July's High Court judicial review.

The judge in the case, Mr Justice Ouseley, has indicated he will not publish his decision until October. John Halford of law firm Bindmans, which represented the campaigners, said: "This is an important test case and it is clear that the court is giving it a commensurate degree of thought and attention.

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Granta Publications has put its books onto the iBookstore, with all digitised titles from Granta Books and Portobello now made available.

Marketing and digital development director Iain Chapple said: "We are committed to taking great writing to the widest readership and this move represents the latest exciting development in our digital strategy."

In signing up to the agency model, Granta joins publishers including Quercus, Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Canongate.

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Juliet Annan at Fig Tree has won a "hotly contested" auction involving seven bidders to buy cookery manual Food DIY by Tim Hayward.

Annan acquired world rights to the book, and a second volume, from Tim Bates at Pollinger Ltd for what she called an "interesting" sum. Hayward is the editor and founder of food magazine Fire and Knives, and his book is promised to be a one-stop guide to the DIY food movement, including how to make your own cheese, smoke meats, butcher, preserve and pickle, build a still and brew your own cider.

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The judge handling the Brent libraries High Court judicial review case will give his judgment in October, it has been confirmed.

Mr Justice Ouseley had initially indicated the judgement might come as early as this month. Brent council has promised to keep the six libraries threatened with closure open until the decision is given.

The judicial review hearing was held in July. Gloucestershire and Somerset councils' library service plans will go to judicial review at the end of September.

The Women's Institute has launched an e-petition in support of public libraries.

The petition calls for the value of libraries to be recognised at both local and national levels and asks the government "to honour both its commitment to act as a champion of the library service, and its duty of oversight to ensure that a comprehensive and efficient library service is provided."

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Wokingham borough council plans to begin discussions this month with private companies interested in taking over the running of the borough's libraries.

According to a report in the Wokingham Times, the council's executive member for internal services, councillor UllaKarin Clark, said she hoped to have between three and six interested organisations by early August. "We will then begin a more detailed discussion known as competitive dialogue," she said.

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The defence of the public library service has entered a new phase with the judicial review hearing in the High Court into Brent council’s contentious proposal to close six of its 12 libraries.

The case was the first to be heard but more will swiftly follow, as campaigners frustrated by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport’s unwillingness to order a public inquiry into closures turn to the law for urgent action before their libraries are closed for good.

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A literary plagiarism allegation from the 1950s is set to be given its first detailed airing in a new biography of much-loved novelist Georgette Heyer.

Georgette Heyer: Biography of a Bestseller by Jennifer Kloester (Wm Heinemann, hb, £20, October) reveals the outrage felt by the queen of witty regency romances at the obvious similarities between Barbara Cartland's historical novel Knave of Hearts and her own youthful story These Old Shades (published in 1926), when they were brought to her attention in 1950.

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Bath-based independent Palazzo is to publish illustrated editions of Jane Austen's novels to mark the bicentenary of their original publication.

The Bath Bicentenary Editions will launch with Sense and Sensibility, first published on 30th October 1811. Palazzo's edition, which will come out on 28th September (h/b, £20), will have colour plate and silhouette illustrations by artist Niroot Puttapipat, who has also illustrated Austen for the Folio Society. The book will carry a foreword by Katherine Reeve, author of Jane Austen in Bath.

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Twelve of 25 libraries in the Wakefield district will cease to be funded by the authority after councillors gave their backing to a new proposal.

The libraries under threat include those in Kettlethorpe, South Kirkby and South Pontefract, the Yorkshire Post reports.

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Faber has a new typographic look and some new July titles for its print-on-demand and e-book imprint Faber Finds.

Two "seminal" music books of the 1980s, Dave Rimmer's Like Punk Never Happened and Fred Vermorel's Starlust, will launch this week, alongside the late poet Ian Hamilton's appreciation of Paul Gascoigne, Gazza Agonistes. Sylvia Townsend Warner's Strangers in a Bag and Trevor Wilson's The Downfall of the Liberal Party 1914-1935 are also among the newly revived titles.

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The Reading Agency has warned library service cutbacks could cause future problems in its Summer Reading Challenge, as it revealed 97% of library authorities will participate in this year's scheme.

It will be launched on Monday at the House of Commons. The number is up fractionally on 2010 when 95% took part, with support by TescoBank enabling more local authorities in Scotland to take part.

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Orion Children's Books is supporting the London Evening Standard's literacy campaign Get London Reading with donations of Horrid Henry books.

Volunteers to the Standard-backed scheme to help schoolchildren with their reading will each receive a copy of early reader title Horrid Henry's Car Journey by author Francesca Simon. The donation will apply to all volunteers currently working with children through Volunteer Reading Help, the charity supported by the newspaper, plus any new volunteers to the scheme up to the end of 2011.

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Education charity BookPower is to wind down this autumn after suffering a major squeeze in donations over the past 18 months.

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Publisher Iain Dale has launched a current affairs blogging platform, Dale & Co, at his website www.iaindale.com.

Over 90 contributors from across the political spectrum have been signed up to write for the platform, which will cover Dale's heartland, politics, but also media, lifestyle, arts and sport. Former home secretary Jacqui Smith, and ex-shadow home secretary David Davis, commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, MP Jeremy Corbyn and Neil and Christine Hamilton are among those chosen to share their views.

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