Tim Waterstone, the founder of the eponymous British bookshop chain, has today made a £280m offer to buy it back from its prsent owners, HMV. Who knows what the outcome of this will be although it certainly adds another chapter to the roller coaster of British bookselling over the last year. Anyone wishing to predict or to bet money on the outcome would be well advised to check out Tim's book Swimming against the stream for clues. One thing is clear - Tim is not a quitter.

I spent Friday as a guest of La bibliothèque nationale de France. Every day one learns something and today I have learned how to type an e with a grave accent.

The bibliothèque is an extraordinary series of interlinked buildings housing not just books but a wholly Gallic philosophy of culture. Whilst it clearly shares many aims, objectives and practices with the British Library there is equally clearly a peculiarly French tinge to everything - and thank goodness for that. During the course of the visit I was able to see the manuscript of Samuel Beckett's  En attendant Godot. For some reason the French guide didn't seem very interested in the fact that Beckett is the only Nobel prize winner ever to have appeared in Wisden - strange these French. Well worth following the Wisden link for details of the great man's prowess with bat and ball.

One strange thing is that researchers have to pay to use the bibliothèque. It seems perfectly sensible to me but I am certain that, if adopted in Britain, there would be an outcry about abandonment of cultural values, open access etc. The French who are as committed (some would say much more so) to the preservation of culture, language, scholarship, freedom of information have absolutely no problem with the idea of paying for a cultural service - and nor should we in Britain.

And finally on French matters, if you can get to Paris this Spring do try to visit Les lumières exhibition. Apart from fascinating Voltaire and Rousseau materials there is a wonderful collection of Hogarth cartoons - well worth it.

A little while ago Tim Coates wrote a guest blog here on waste in Government-funded activities. It hit quite a few nerves and the response has been interesting. Tim has meanwhile contracted blogitis and it's worth checking out his good library blog.

Also, a little while ago I mentioned a book we were about to publish about Lonesome George the last of a species of giant tortoise who lives a long but celibate and lonely life on an island in the Galapagos. Hardly likely to be a bestseller you might think but here is the list of publicity to date which augurs rather well. Do read Henry Nicholls's book. It really is a marvellous story blending science, good writing and a gripping story.

quote from lovely review in this week’s NewScientist

“Read this fascinating book — it skillfully blends historical derring-do with cutting-edge conservation biology.” NewScientist

John Vidal, Guardian Environment editor promises us that his pages in Wednesday 19^th’s Society section should contain a full page interview by Nicholls of the new head of research on the Galapagos.

the Guardian have an interview with Nicholls in the can which they plan to use in their hugely successful podcast any day soon. I’ll let you know when that airs. 

MacSci’s new editorial assistant Lisa Hayden has managed to get Nicholls onto BBC Radio 4’s premier science show Material World on 27^th April 16:30-17:00 [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/thematerialworld.shtml ]

He’s appeared twice on ‘The Naked Scientists’ radio show, syndicated across BBC Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northampton, Norfolk, Suffolk, and BBC Three Counties Radio, and in the itunes top 100 podcasts: http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/shows/2006.03.19.htm

The book is the subject of a 2 page feature in the major German newspaper the Sueddeutsche Zeitung:

http://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/front_single/front_content.php?idside=1662&idcat=90&sid=60c956f5b6206be8ff473f0636c618a7

Meanwhile, Henry is doing lots of gigs in London, Cambridge, Oxford, Hay and beyond. For details see: http://www.macmillanscience.com/archive.asp?view=archive&year=2006

About a million years ago when I was an undergraduate I was introduced to a bearded giant called Roger Law. He was married to my then girlfriend's sister and was working as an illustrator-cum-troublemaker on the unbelievably trendy Sunday Times Colour Magazine. He is now sixty and still an illustrator-cum-troublemaker and his sort of autobiography is about to come out in paperback from HarperCollins (who says I only plug Macmillan books?). It is absolutely brilliant and is not only addressed to friends and enemies (including media moguls, smoking nuns, Mrs Thatcher, all South Africans and the Queen, God bless you and happy eightieth birthday, Ma'am) but also to all those interested in the sex life of the platypus. Go get it (and I won't dare give you a link to Amazon in case I get pilloried again by independent booksellers).

And the latest health scare is that blogging is definitely a communicable disease. My friend, Susan Hill, has clearly caught the disease and is blogging away merrily - do check her out. Apart from anything else, she can write English.

This comes to you from a rainy  and grey South-West France. I've been checking out some links which I'd like to share.

First an interview with Stephen Page, Chief Executive of Faber and my successor as President of the Publishers Association - and the best thing to happen to independent publishing in years.

And then feast on an interview with Tom Turvey who is in charge of Google's Booksearch program. Tom is the acceptable face of Google and has had to put up with all sorts of  publisher attacks beginning at the 2005 PA AGM debate and continuously since then. He's still smiling which says a lot for his character and commitment.

And whilst on character and commitment I forgot to mention that the mother of Laurie Engel,then known as Hilary Davies, for Macmillan for ten years until 1991 as editorial director of Sidgwick & Jackson and then Pan.

And finally, if you want to set yourself a difficult task which will bring cheer try to track down a Costa Rican group called el Cafe Chorale and in particular the track Ojala que llueva cafe. I'm listening  to it right now and the skies have already brightened.

The weather shows no signs of improving in Britain in spite of the beginning of the cricket season.

As I mentioned here earlier in the week, the latest edition of Wisden is published this week, and is the 143rd consecutive annual since the first one in 1864. This is a remarkable achievement, especially when you consider that it came out in every year of both world wars, despite there being virtually no cricket played anywhere between 1915 and 1918, and wartime paper shortages as well.

This morning's leader in the Times described the Italian election as an Italian fudge. I think cream buns might be the more appropriate confectionery as the contenders sling insults at each other like clowns at the circus. Clearly this non-result is bad for Italy and the Italian economy.Equally clearly the German result last year did nothing for European economic liberalisation. And Chriac's pathetic climb-down yesterday was equally unhelpful.

These were the down-sides of some political stalemates. But the joy of all these results is that they confirm the intrinsic differences between the nation states of Europe and make federalisation even more obviously absurd. Gloria Italia.

On a more bookish theme I was amazed to discover that Oxfam in the UK sells £60m (roughly a third of Ottakar's total book sales) of used books a year through 750 outlets of which 112 are book and music specialists. It's great that so much money is raised to help alleviate famine and disease in the developing world but if I were a second-hand bookseller I'd be pretty worried.

And here is a link to an article by commentator Clive Keble.

A huge hole in the ground has appeared next to our King's Cross building. This is one of the first parts of Western Europe's largest building development. The hole will house an underground car park, a concert hall, a sculpture gallery, the Guardian newspaper, several restaurants and I don't know what else.

Most importantly it will ensure that Macmillan will be no more than two and a half hours from the centres of Paris and Brussels door to door by train. It won't necessarily make me any more sympathetic to Eurocracy and a 'federal' Europe but it should certainly be good for business and communications.

And this is what the hole will look like when completed in 2008 - the sooner the better.