The Reading Book Post, May 18th

A new week has just begun and now I can really say that summer is indeed here. There's nothing better than reading in the park and that's what I like to do all day long. The list for the funny books theme is almost ready, but if you have any recommendation please tell me in the comments. Meanwhile, let's see what happened in the literary world the previous week.

• The Miles Franklin Literary Award announced the shortlist for the prize in 2015. Among the nominees, there is Christine Piper with her debut novel After Darkness. The winner will be made public on June 23rd.

• A rare first edition of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens will go on sale in this year's London International Antiquarian Book Fair. What makes the edition so rare is the short dedication by its author, J.M. Barrie, to the nanny of Llewellyn Davies boys, who inspired the character.

• The last week was a sad one for the literary world. The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Franz Wright died at the age of 62. Read some of his poems, such as Alcohol and Wheeling Motel. Also, the historian Peter Gay died at the age of 91. He was known for his books on the Enlightenment, the Victorian middle-classes and the cultural situation of Jews in Germany. Finally, the literary world mourns the loss of the author Willian Zinsser at the age of 92. His books On Writing Well sold more than 1.5 million copies.

• The lives of the Brontë sisters will be dramatised for the BBC One. The drama will follow the relationships of Charlotte, Emily and Anne with each other. It will be written and directed by Sally Wainwright, the author of the script of Last Tango in Halifax.

• Fans of An Ember in the Ashes rejoice! A sequel is on its way and is to be expected in 2016. Even though the author Sabaa Tahir claimed that it would be a stand-alone novel, the great success of her debut novel has led to a second book. Isn't this great news?

• An image of musician Thom Yorke has been spotted on the cover of an Iranian sex manual, along with the author John Updike and another unidentified man. The book is called Marital and Sexual Problems in Men and was recently shared on Twitter by the Iranian journalist Sobhan Hassanvand. 

• This week's quiz is one of my favourites. Two pictures are given to you and you must guess the title of the book (it's always a two-word title, without the or a at the beginning). I hope you'll enjoy it :)