Book2Monday 08 Feb 2016
One of the UK's largest collections of printed book reviews has been "saved from the grave" by Lovereading.com following the collapse of The Good Book Guide (GBG), it has emerged.There were fears that the "historic treasure trove" of more than 10,000 hard-copy critiques would be lost when the magazine ceased trading last year.
The populist publication - the antithesis of The London Review of Books and the Times Literary Supplement – sadly shut down after 38 years of trading.
At its peak, subscriptions reached 40,000 per year and features were procured from highly regarded authors including Salman Rushdie, Beryl Bainbridge and Will Self.
Despite going online in the late 1990s, the publication – a holder of two Queen's Awards for Exports - "simply couldn't compete" with the likes of Amazon and closed its doors after 294 issues in August 2015.
A statement on its website said that production was "no longer financially viable" and they had therefore been unable to fulfil the vast majority of orders from the last edition of the guide.
But its vast collection of printed reviews, which span the last decade of publication, have been rescued after GBG directors struck a last-minute deal with Lovereading Ltd.
Bing Taylor, founding editor of the Good Book Guide added: "I am absolutely delighted that the Guide lives on under the umbrella of Lovereading. The ethos of the GBG was to provide regular, unbiased, independent guidance on books currently available and selected by knowledgeable reviewers who love reading. So what could be more appropriate than to join forces with a thriving company sharing the same ethos but adapted for the 21st century."
Lovereading.co.uk, and its sister site Lovereading4kids.co.uk, were launched in 2006 and have jointly become the UK's most popular book recommendation platform with average footfall in 2015 of just under 300,000 unique visits per month.
http://www.lovereading.co.
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