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HarperCollins has bought rights to a memoir by the father of late soul singer Amy Winehouse.

Nick Canham, editorial director for Harper Non-Fiction, bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, to Amy, My Daughter by Mitch Winehouse, from Maggie Hanbury at the Hanbury Agency.

Lisa Sharkey, senior vice-president and director for creative development at HarperCollins US bought North American rights from Robin Straus at the Robin Straus Agency in conjunction with Maggie Hanbury. The book will be published worldwide in summer 2012.

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Philip Roth’s tale of a polio epidemic has been shortlisted for the £25,000 Wellcome Trust Book Prize, with a six-strong shortlist that sees four novels in the running.

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John Burnside has won the Forward Prize for Best Collection after being shortlisted a previous three times for the poetry prize.

The 56-year-old received the £10,000 award for his collection Black Cat Bone (Jonathan Cape), praised by chair of judges Andrew Motion as "[a book] to linger over, as well as one to enjoy at first reading". He said: "It is a distinguished winner of the Forward Prize."

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Random House has acquired the autobiography of Grammy Award-winning rock 'n' roll singer and musician Rod Stewart, with Stewart promising to "hold nothing back".

The Random House Group UK and Random House US jointly acquired world rights to the memoir of the former Faces frontman, with the deal struck by Random House Group c.e.o. and chairman Gail Rebuck, Cornerstone m.d. Susan Sandon, and Crown Archetype senior vice-president and publisher Tina Constable in the US, through Arnold Stiefel at Stiefel Entertainment.

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Former French culture minister Jacques Toubon has said he has high hopes that France will be able to cut VAT on e-books from 19.6% to 5.5% next January as planned without triggering the wrath of the European Commission.

Speaking at a recent conference in Paris about the future of books after the digital revolution, he said "we have a chance, even a very good chance" the cut will be accepted, according to trade magazine Livres Hebdo.

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Little, Brown and Sphere has bought the autobiography of Duran Duran bassist and founding member John Taylor.

Little, Brown editor in chief Antonia Hodgson bought UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, at auction from Jonathan Conway at Mulcahy Conway Associates. Taylor will co-write the book with journalist and author Tom Sykes and the memoir will be published in hardback in autumn 2012, alongside Penguin US.

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Sky Arts is moving "The Book Show" to a new primetime slot on Thursdays when it returns for a fifth series next week.

The show, presented by Mariella Frostrup, will be broadcast at 8pm and opens with four episodes from the Cheltenham Literature Festival. The show's producers have a new set and format for the show, which will focus on author interviews and performances.

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Super Thursday has begun with a welter of press coverage about one of the busiest days in the publishing calendar.

Today, 225 hardbacks hit shops including titles by Jamie Oliver, Alan Partridge, James Corden and Robert Harris.

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Independent booksellers are lining up special events for Haruki Murakami's eagerly awaited 1Q84 (Harvill Secker) with Foyles planning a midnight opening.

The book, Murakami's first since 2007's After Dark, will be published on 18th October, priced £20. It comprises volumes one and two of the story, with volume three published as a separate hardback on 25th October.

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London's independents have joined forces to publish a map of the city's bookshops.

The London Bookshop Map features 87 indies from across the city including ones selling new, antiquarian, specialist and second hand titles. The map is free and is available in bookshops and galleries. It features a text work from the artist David Batchelor. The map will be updated every six months and rereleased with a new text artwork.

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Pan Macmillan will be holding the world's first live Twitter book signing to launch Lord Alan Sugar's book The Way I See It: Rants, Revelations and Rules for Life.

The signing will be held over www.lordsugar.tv at 1pm today (28th September), with Sugar also asking his million-plus Twitter followers to tweet their rants at him, using the hashtag #thewayiseeit.

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Author Julian Barnes, shortlisted for this year's Man Booker prize for his novel The Sense of an Ending, has said it is "national self-mutilation" to damage the public library service.

Barnes said: "Like most writers of my generation, I grew up with the weekly exchange of library books, and took their pleasures and treasures for granted. The cost of our free public library system is small, its value immense. To diminish and dismantle it would be a kind of national self-mutilation, as stupid as it would be wicked."

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HarperCollins is publishing a collection of letters and photographs by Agatha Christie from a year long trip around the world in a new book published next year.

The publisher signed a worldwide deal with Christie's estate to release The Grand Tour in April 2012. The book will be edited and introduced by Christie's grandson, Matthew Pritchard.

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Simon & Schuster has signed a deal with Country Life magazine to publish a new series of tie-in books, beginning this autumn with Curious Observations: A Country Miscellany.

The book will comprise writings, articles and miscellany from the 114 year old Country Life archives. Twenty five titles will be published during the next five years. Forthcoming titles include The Glory of the Garden, Gentlemen's Pursuits and Letters to the Editor.

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Macmillan Children's Books has created an animated cover for the e-book of Frank Cottrell Boyce's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, which it hopes will attract the interest of bloggers.

The covers can be seen at www.chittyfliesagain.com. The book itself will be published on Friday 7th October.

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Turkey is to be the the Market Focus partner of London Book Fair 2013.

The announcement was made last night (19th September) at an official signing event attended by Turkish Ministry Of Culture and Tourism general director of libraries and publications, Onur Bilge Kula, and coordinator of the Turkish Organising Committee for International Book Fairs, Ümit Yasar Gözüm.

The Market Focus programme, in partnership with the British Council, will be supported by a series of public events across the UK featuring visiting Turkish authors.

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Former children's laureate Jacqueline Wilson is the latest high-profile author to take part in a fundraising benefit in aid of Brent's six threatened libraries.

Wilson will do the event at 6pm on 28th September at St Martin's Church in Mortimer Road, London, the same venue that hosted a packed benefit from author Alan Bennett in May. 

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Bonnier's new publishing initiative, headed by former Bloomsbury Group editor-in-chief Sarah Odedina, will be called Hot Key Books, and aims to have its first books published in time for the Christmas market.

Odedina, who is already acquiring titles, expects to have a full publishing team of 12 to 14 staff in place by January. She is currently recruiting for key positions including a publisher, sales and marketing director and editorial director for print and digital publishing.

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Virgin Books has acquired a title by craft journalist Perri Lewis, which will enlist the world’s top makers to explore different crafts from dressmaking to decoupage.

World rights to Material World: Inspiration and Secrets from the Frontline of Craft were acquired by Hannah Knowles, senior editor at Virgin Books, from Kate Shaw at The Viney Agency.

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Simon & Schuster Illustrated has won an auction to publish a cookbook by 2010 "Celebrity Masterchef" winner Lisa Faulkner.

Francine Lawrence, editorial director at Simon & Schuster Illustrated, bought world rights in a two-book deal from Jonathan Conway of Mulcahy Conway Associates Ltd on behalf of Jonny McWilliams at the Wasserman Media Group. The first book, Recipes from my Mother for my Daughter, will be published on 1st March 2012 as a £20 hardback.

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Hodder has bought a book by the comedian Miranda Hart, looking at "the unexpected pitfalls and horrors of growing up".

Publisher Hannah Black bought world rights in a deal with Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown. Is it Just Me? will be published in October 2012.

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Hodder & Stoughton will publish the first official book by Lady Gaga this November after signing a deal for a book of photographs by fashion photographer Terry Richardson.

Editorial director Fenella Bates bought British and Commonwealth rights to Lady Gaga x Terry Richardson from Grand Central Publishing. The book will be published on 22nd November 2011.

The book will showcase more than 350 photographs taken by Richardson during a 10-month period when he followed the pop star and had complete access to her everyday life.

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Photograph specialist and publisher The Francis Frith Collection is to publish a tie-in title to forthcoming BBC series “Britain’s First Photo Album”.

The BBC2 10-part daytime series will be fronted by John Sergeant and broadcast in 2012. The title focuses on Victorian photographer Francis Frith, who in the 1860s began a project to photograph every town and village in the UK, and will be published in collaboration with  Reef TV, the independent TV production company which made the series.

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The Big Green Bookshop is marking the scrapping of the iconic decade-long Waterstone's three for two offer by launching its own.

For one day only (10th September) the London independent bookshop based in Wood Green will be offering its customers three books for the price of two.

However, unlike Waterstone's promotion on selected books, the indie is offering customers three for two on any of its stock, including its second hand range, which it will launch tomorrow.

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