Book news

As I haven't quite finished reading Anansi Boys (sometimes life - and research - can get in the way of reading), I'm going to share some recent book news with you - and you'll get book review tomorrow...

Giles Tremlett reports that a Madrid taxi driver has won a competition to be paid to read Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. Apparently he has to read sitting in front of a webcam and answer daily questions from internet users. You can see him at Dineroparaleer.com. The grant that Mr Carretero has won is part of a campaign to get more Spaniards reading.

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Stephen Moss offers a brief history of plagiarism; Oscar Wilde, T S Eliot, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge were all accused of borrowing heavily, if not outright plagiarism.

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Finally, I missed this article from Saturday's Guardian in which Philip Pullman asks if the new legislation to curb incitement to religious hatred will distinguish between a rational analysis of theology and a call for violence, whilst Philip Hensher, Salman Rushdie and Monica Ali consider the threat to free speech.