Organisers of New Zealand Book Month, brainstorming about how to enthuse men about reading, came up with an obvious answer: free beer. It was on offer at a literary event at Auckland Town Hall. The other highlight of the evening was a talk by Peter Leitch, a businessman also known as “The Mad Butcher”, about his autobiography.

***

The Booker longlist has again highlighted the difficulty of selling literary fiction by unfamiliar authors. Michelle de Kretser's The Lost Dog received outstanding reviews and won a literary prize in de Kretser's native Australia. Yet, The Bookseller reports, it had sold just 363 copies in the UK at the time that its longlisting was announced. Leading the longlist, with sales of 15,433, was The Enchantress of Florence, by Salman Rushdie.

***

The most painful moment in the writing career of Tom Bullough became a topic of national amusement when a video mistakenly announcing that Bullough had won the Wales Book of the Year award was a huge hit on the BBC News website. (The prize went to Dannie Abse.) But Thomas has gained some reward, with copies of his defeated novel The Claude Glass “flying off the shelves”, reports the Western Mail. A bookseller at Borders said: “It would seem there's been more interest since [the gaffe].”

***

The shrinking world of bookselling has got smaller still. Some Amazon users like to spread their online purchases for competition's sake, using AbeBooks for second-hand purchases. But now they are the same company. Amazon has bought AbeBooks, but says that it will maintain its former rival as a separate site.

***

A.L. Kennedy has been to Salzburg to collect her Austrian State Prize for European Literature. But when asked whether she read any Austrian authors, Kennedy replied: “I don't even know if I'm familiar with any.”

Explore Books

• Book Extracts

• Book Reviews

• Books Group

• Audio Books

Times Recommends

• Superfreakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner
• The Times picks the 50 best paperbacks of 2009
• Vincent van Gogh’s letters show the soul of the artist