Bond is Back

The first seven copies of Devil May Care, the new Bond novel commissioned by Penguin Books to celebrate the Ian Fleming centenary, were brought up the river Thames yesterday aboard warship Exeter. A pair of Lynx helicopters escorted the boat on either side. The books were then taken ashore by model Tuuli Shipster (who appears on the cover of the book) on a hi-tech speedboat known as a Pacific 24.

It was a fitting launch for the latest instalment in the adventures of the world's most iconic spy.

Picking up from where Fleming left off in 1966 with The Living Daylights and Octopussy Sebastian Faulks has written the perfect continuation of the James Bond legacy. Devil May Care is set during the Cold War and features all the glamour, thrills and excitement that one would expect from any mission involving Bond... James Bond.

To visit the James Bond collection at Audible go here.

Audible Sounds of Crime Award at CrimeFest

CrimeFest, a new international crime fiction convention featuring interviews, panels, a Gala Dinner, and possibly one or two surprises, takes place in Bristol next month. Many of the world’s top crime novelists such as Ian Rankin, Karin Fossum, Jeff Lindsay and David Hewson will be attending.

CrimeFest will be presenting two awards: the Last Laugh Award for best humorous crime novel, and the Audible Sounds of Crime Award for best crime audiobook. Registered delegates and Audible Listeners have nominated the crime audiobook they most liked listening to in 2007.

The shortlist is:

• Blaze by Richard Bachman, read by Ron McLarty (unabridged)
• Bad Luck & Trouble by Lee Child, read by Kerry Shale
• The Mephisto Club by Tess Gerritsen, read by Lorelei King
• The Seventh Sacrament by David Hewson, read by Saul Reichlin (unabridged)
• Exit Music by Ian Rankin, read by James Macpherson

The awards will be presented at the Gala Dinner on Saturday, the 7th of June and an award will be given to both the author and the reader of the winning entry.

For more information on CrimeFest visit: www.crimefest.com

Vote for The Best of the Booker

The public are being asked to vote for the winner of The Best of the Booker, a one-off celebratory award to mark the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize. The six shortlisted books, chosen from the list of 41 previous Booker Prize winners, are:

• Pat Barker's The Ghost Road (Penguin)


• Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda (Faber)


• JM Coetzee's Disgrace (Vintage)


• JG Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur (Phoenix)


• Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist (Bloomsbury)
  
• Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (Vintage)

The winner will be announced as part of the London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre on 10 July 2008 where the winner will be awarded a custom-made trophy.

Voters have until midday on 8 July to select what they believe is the best novel to have won the prize since it was first awarded on 22 April 1969.

Of the six shortlisted titles only The Ghost Road is currently available as a download but for a list of all previous winners available to download at Audible, go here.

Plain Sailing at Audible

Here at Audible we're thrilled to announce that James’s Patterson’s summer blockbuster, Sail, is available to listen to a month before the print edition of the book. Plus the unabridged edition of the book is only available as an audio download – so you wont be able to hear it anywhere else!

James Patterson really knows the ropes when it comes to thriller writing . He is one of the biggest selling authors in the world and his books have been translated into 49 different languages.

More about Sail
As Stuart Dunne waves off his wife, children and brother on a relaxing sailing holiday, all they have in mind is lying back and relaxing. But as a violent storm breaks out, an explosion causes the boat to vanish without trace and the family are lost, presumed dead. Until now. When a message in a bottle is washed up on the shore, it becomes apparent that there must have been at least one survivor. Now The race is on to rescue any survivors and to discover what really happened aboard the luxury yacht.

Click here to find out more...