Social Mobility in Victorian England: The Case of Robert Cain

One of the things that surprised me while I was researching my book Cains: The Story of Liverpool in a Pint was how open Victorian society seems to have been to social climbers. Robert Cain, the founder of the Cains brewery in Liverpool has always been widely believed to have arrived in Liverpool aged 18 [...]

Stanza Makes Wired’s ‘Best of’ iPhone Apps for 2008

Stanza (iTunes Store) the application that turns the iPhone and iPod Touch into an excellent book reading device, has turned up at number 10 in Wired’s end of year roundup for iPhone applications (via Lifehacker). I’ve read several books this way so far and recommend the experience. It’s surprisingly comfortable and easy. It’s the time [...]

Cains Radio Interviews

I was off sick most of the last week but on Saturday I managed to drag myself into Liverpool for radio appearances on the Billy Butler show on BBC Radio Merseyside and then on Brian Reade’s show at City Talk. I’ll try to get copies of the interviews up here as soon as I can; [...]

Cains: The Story of Liverpool in a Wordle

According to the developer Wordle is a toy for creating ‘word clouds’ from chunks of text, or from any blog or website that has an RSS feed. Apart from being quite entertaining, it looks like Wordle is being used in schools to teach spelling and vocabulary. You can tweak the font, layout, and colours, or [...]

Cains: The Story of Liverpool in a Pint–It’s Finally Here

An email from the publisher this morning to say that the Cain’s book has finally arrived. I haven’t seen a finished copy yet, so the tension is high around here, but it looks like it is starting to show up at the online bookstores at least. Borders seems to be quickest off the mark and [...]

Publishers target iPhone, Nintendo DS for ebooks

Karen Templer continues what she calls her ‘near-constant ravings’ about iPhone reading apps with the news that Random House is now offering free books to iPhone readers through the Stanza download channel. But the iPhone isn’t the only more-useful-than-you-might-think device in town. Earlier today the BubbleCow twittered about HarperCollins offering books on the Nintendo DS. [...]

Accidentally Great: Apple’s Answer to the Kindle

On Sunday mornings my daughter and I like to read together for an hour or so. She’s still small enough to sit on my knee while I read to her, but as she grows it gets more difficult to juggle book, child and coffee cup in ways that make the experience relaxing. Enter the iPod [...]

Cains Still Not on Amazon.co.uk: Try Here Instead

The list of people receiving order cancellations from Amazon is growing so I’m putting together a collection of alternative places where you can pre-order Cains: The Story of Liverpool in a Pint, which will be with us very soon now. Many thanks to everyone who has pre-ordered the book.
Amazon (UK) is giving you a link [...]

The Inheritors

The New Scientist reports that Neanderthals may have been driven to extinction by modern humans throwing rocks and spears. Apparently the fossilised shoulder bones of ancient humans show similar signs of wear as those of modern-day baseball players. Who’d have thought it? Well, William Golding actually, in his novel The Inheritors (1955) which is told [...]

Philip Marlowe on Freelancing

Penguin Books have been messing with my head for a while now with the new covers they have commissioned for books like Nineteen Eighty-Four and the Sherlock Holmes stories. Now they have gone too far by adding limited edition posters to the complete sets. This one comes with the set of Raymond Chandler novels. Must. [...]

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