Another strange week...

...in the weird and wonderful world of books.

Harry Potter 7 finally went on sale. We will not see the like again. Jo Rowling has done a wonderful job in promoting the magic of books.

The Richard and Judy Summer List continues to generate best-sellers - and the programme deserves praise for its own substantial contribution to the public interest in books.

How strange then that some of those paid to project the value of books into the public consciousness and to ensure that a love of books is a basic tenet of our culture, should appear to place no value at all on any works of fition. I refer to the extraordinary proposal of Hampshire County Council that its public libraries should no longer stock fiction. The proposal comes not just from the Council, but also from the Head of Library & Leisure Services and the Chief Librarian. How weird and sad is that?

Another cause for sadness - yet another local bookshop has closed, squeezed out of business by the supermarkets and chain stores selling books at a price below the price that the small retailer is paying for stock. If this carries on there will be many towns where the only books on sale will be the 'best-sellers' - and it may be pointless heading for your local library if you want a good read.

More cheerful news is that we do have a new independent bookshop in Devon. In the moorland village of Chagford you will find The Big Red Sofa, enthusiastically run by Alan and Dawn. You can select a handful of books, lounge on the eponymous sofa and drink good coffee while you look over your selections - or just talk books. They have an enterprising calendar of events lined up. In many ways I was reminded of Mostly Books in Abingdon, another small, independent bookshop run by a young couple with bright ideas. They deserve our support.

Our Book Review Service has received a lot of enquiries this week. It seems that we were right - there are a lot of authors who are discovering that their publisher does little or nothing by way of active marketing. No one has as much interest in a book selling well as the author and the author who is prepared to work hard at promoting their own work will see the benefit.

We will shortly be publishing our own practical guide to the marketing and selling of books that have been self-published or published by a small independent press. With some 25,000 such books being published each year, we are expecting to sell more than a few copies.

My resolution for the coming week - read something other than a manuscript.