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News: TV Book Club announces Top 3 Summer Reads, as Winner Leaves Day Job Behind

Debut novelist Katherine Webb emerged triumphant as the verdict was announced this week on the nation’s favourite summer reads. Her novel The Legacy was featured in the acclaimed Cactus production for Channel 4’s TV Book Club which featured eight titles over the summer months. Close second and third positions were taken by Kate Kerrigan’s Ellis Island and Lucie Whitehouse’s The Bed I Made in an online poll for viewers.

News: The publicity campaign for the second series of Bookaboo will begin on the 1st November to coincide with the launch of the second series on ITV1. The show is aimed at children aged 3-6 with a core of ages 4-5, the aim of both the TV series and the campaign is to promote sharing reading with your children, with the main message ‘Share a Book Today.’

News: The Crime Thriller Season and Awards show will be aired on ITV3, which is now the most watched digital channel in the UK. The 2009 awards show had 1.2 million viewers and each documentary in the Crime Season in the build up to the awards achieved viewing figures of 900k.

News: A national poll to the find the audiobook of the year from the 20 titles in the 2010 selection is currently running at www.audiobooks.co.uk/vote2010. Voting ends at midnight on 10th September, with the winners announced at the Chiswick book festival on 19th September.
The current top ten titles with the most votes (on 12/08/10) are as follows - in alpha order:
Dead Tomorrow
Doctor Who: Dead Air
From Shakespeare With Love
Mrs Dalloway
Othello
The Cellist of Sarajevo
The Colonel of Tamarkan
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
The Honourable Schoolboy

News: Channel 4 are planning to repeat the whole series of The TV Book Club Summer Read with episodes 1-4 shown Tuesday 17th August - Friday 20th August and episodes 5-8 shown Tuesday 24th August - Friday 27th August at 1pm.

News: The publicity campaign for the second series of Bookaboo will begin early November to coincide with the launch of the second series on ITV1. The 13 picture books chosen for the series will be announced soon.

The celebrities reading to Bookaboo in series II are:
Omid Djalili
Bernard Cribbina
Tamsin Egerton
Maisie Smith
Lorraine Kelly
Myleene Klass
Ricky Hatton
Samia Smith
Keith Allen
Emilia Fox
Lethal Bizzle
Adam Garcia
Johnny Vegas

News: The finalists in the three book categories of the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards 2010 on ITV3, have been announced:

CWA GOLD DAGGER 2010
Blacklands by Belinda Bauer (Corgi/Transworld)
Blood Harvest by S J Bolton (Bantam Press/Transworld)
Shadowplay by Karen Campbell (Hodder & Stoughton)
The Way Home by George Pelecanos (Orion)

CWA IAN FLEMING STEEL DAGGER 2010, SPONSORED BY IAN FLEMING PUBLICATIONS LTD
A Loyal Spy by Simon Conway (Hodder & Stoughton)
Innocent by Scott Turow (Mantle)
The Dying Light by Henry Porter (Orion)
The Gentlemen's Hour by Don Winslow (Heinemann/Random House)

CWA JOHN CREASEY (NEW BLOOD) DAGGER 2010
Acts of Violence by Ryan David Jahn (Macmillan New Writing)
Rupture by Simon Lelic (Picador)
The Holy Thief by William Ryan (Mantle)
The Pull of the Moon by Diane Janes (Constable & Robinson)

News: Shortlists Announced for Three Book Categories in the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards 2010

Specsavers, Cactus TV and ITV3, in partnership with the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), are pleased to announce three key book shortlists for the Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards on ITV3, celebrating the very best of British and International crime thriller fiction in the UK and beyond.

The content of ITV3’s brand new Crime Thriller Season of accompanying documentaries is also announced today at the Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, Yorkshire.

News: Launching on Monday 5th July, the Best Audiobooks of the Year 2010 features the best in audio publishing from April 2009 – March 2010. Comprised of four categories – fiction, non-fiction, poetry and children’s – the objective is to showcase the very best audiobooks, and the resulting shortlist features a diverse collection of audio ranging from Shakespeare to Charlaine Harris.

News: The 2010 Crime Thriller event takes place on October 8th at Grosvenor House Hotel. Please contact Merric for ticket information:
merric@agile-ideas.com

The newly commissioned season begins on ITV3 on August 29th and runs for 6 weeks up to the event.
The shortlist selection for the 3 key book awards is now a two-stage process: with a ‘shortlist’ of 8 titles announced on July 23rd at Harrogate Crime Festival and ‘Finalists’ of 4 titles in each category announced by ITV on August 9th.