This article was written by Alison Flood, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 28th July 2010 13.27 UTC

The late Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson has beaten Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson to become the first author to sell more than one million ebooks on Amazon.

The online retailer said yesterday that Larsson, author of the Millennium trilogy, had become the first member of its new “Kindle Million Club”, for authors whose work has sold over a million copies in Amazon’s Kindle store in the US. The crime novelist is likely to be joined by thriller writer Patterson – Amazon said last week that it had sold over 860,000 of his ebooks – while Twilight scribe Meyer, Sookie Stackhouse creator Charlaine Harris and queen of romantic suspense Nora Roberts have each sold more than 500,000 Kindle books in the US.

“Larsson’s books have captivated millions of readers around the world and ignited a voracious interest in the lives of its main characters Lisbeth Salander and Michael Blomqvist,” said Russ Grandinetti, vice president of Kindle content. “It’s been exciting to have been a part of introducing so many people to these great books.”

The novelist’s three books – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – currently top Amazon’s Kindle bestseller list, and are also in the top 10 bestselling Kindle books of all time, according to the retailer.

The books have also topped Amazon’s UK Kindle chart for “a good few months”, said Iain Millar, marketing manager at Larsson’s UK publisher Quercus, and are currently at the top of Waterstone’s ebook bestseller list.

But Millar said that UK ebook sales for Larsson were “nowhere near the million mark, which is indicative of the extent to which the US ebook market is ahead of ours”.

“Broadly, the print books are equally popular in the States and in the UK, but uptake of the electronic version is much higher there, primarily because a much higher proportion of book customers in the States own ebook devices,” he said.

Quercus has sold 3.3m copies of Larsson’s books in the UK, and estimates that worldwide sales of the three novels are somewhere between 35-40m copies, “but they are literally selling too fast to count”, said Millar.

The news about Larsson’s ebook sales follows Amazon’s announcement last week that over the past three months it sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardback books. Kindle sales accelerated in the past month alone, when the online retailer said it sold 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardbacks. The figures cover Amazon’s US book business, include hardback sales when there is no Kindle edition and exclude free Kindle books.

The retailer made no mention of the proportion of paperback salesto Kindle sales, but founder Jeff Bezos stressed that ebooks were not cannibalising print, saying that hardback purchases at Amazon were still growing and that Kindles had overtaken them regardless.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2010

Dan Brown’s paperback release and a renewed surge of summer reading seems to have drive the figures for the Top Ten this week. Kathryn Stockett is at number one by a short, short measure, but it is nice to see her book do so well still, given the enormous word of mouth support it has. Larsson of curse still dominates and the Irish contingent is still at three with Binchy, McCann and O’Connor holding in well enough.

1: The Help, Kathryn Stockett, 1,761
2: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Stieg Larsson, 1,759
3: The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown, 1,712
4: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, Stieg Larsson, 1,677
5: The Girl Who Played with Fire, Stieg Larsson, 1,479
6: Broken, Karin Slaughter, 1,393
7: Picture Perfect, Jodi Picoult, 1,319
8: Let the Great World Spin, Column McCann, 1,249
9: Ghost Light, Joseph O’Connor, 1,238
10: The Return Journey, Maeve Ninchy, 1,186

Irish authors Emma Donoghue and Paul Murray have been included in the 2010 Man Booker longlist where they join eleven other authors on this year’s 13 strong list.

Donoghue’s Room, is published by Picador and Murrary’s Skippy Dies is published by Hamish Hamilton.

The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 7th September and the winner will be revealed on Tuesday 12th October.

The panel of judges for the award is chaired by Andrew Motion, former Poet Laureate and the remaining judges are Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic.

The Full list is below:

Peter Carey ~ Parrot and Oliver in America ~ Faber and Faber
Emma Donoghue ~ Room ~ Picador
Helen Dunmore ~ The Betrayal ~ Fig Tree
Damon Galgut ~ In a Strange Room ~ Atlantic Books
Howard Jacobson ~ The Finkler Question ~ Bloomsbury
Andrea Levy ~ The Long Song ~ Headline Publishing Group
Tom McCarthy ~ C ~ Jonathan Cape
David Mitchell ~ The Thousand Autumns of Zacob de Zoet ~ Sceptre
Lisa Moore ~ February ~ Chatto & Windus
Paul Murray ~ Skippy Dies ~ Hamish Hamilton
Rose Tremain ~ Trespass ~ Chatto & Windus
Christos Tsiolkas ~ The Slap ~ Tuskar Rock
Alan Warner ~ The Stars in the Bright Sky ~ Jonathan Cape

Irish author Ruth Dudley-Edwards has won the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction for Aftermath: the Omagh Bombing & the Families’ Pursuit of Justice (Harvill Secker).

The judges praised “The historian and crime-novelist‘s detailed account of the successful struggle, with the assistance of lawyers, to achieve recognition of those responsible.”

The award took place at the Daggers Awards Ceremony at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate. As part of her prize, Dudley-Edwards received a cheque for £2000.

Dublin has joined Edinburgh, Iowa City, and Melbourne in the ranks of UNESCO’s Cities of Literature within the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

The announcement was made today by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Gerry Breen, who said ‘I am absolutely delighted about this achievement – which confirms what Dubliners have known for years – this is a city that has always produced – and continues to produce – great writers.’

A new website has been launched with news and information about the designation and literature events in Dublin city at DublinCityOfLiterature.ie

Dublin’s designation is only the fourth such award. It follows a campaign headed by Dublin City Libraries that drew upon the support and expertise of the city’s literary, arts, tourism, publishing and political resources and organisations.

Cities hoping to qualify for the award must meet the following criterea:

* Quality, quantity and diversity of editorial initiatives and publishing houses
* Quality and quantity of educational programmes focusing on domestic or foreign literature in primary and secondary schools as well as universities
* Urban environment in which literature, drama and/or poetry play an integral role;
* Experience in hosting literary events and festivals aiming at promoting domestic and foreign literature;
Libraries, bookstores and public or private cultural centres dedicated to the preservation, promotion and dissemination of domestic and foreign literature
* Active effort by the publishing sector to translate literary works from diverse national languages and foreign literature
* Active involvement of media, including new media, in promoting literature and strengthening the market for literary products

Yesterday Robert Maguire wrote a long review post on some of the freely available iPad book Apps.

These apps allow readers to download books to their iPads and read them. Nearly all of them offer works for free that are currently in the Public Domain (That is books that have either been published by authors who have died before 1939 as copyright extends for the life of the author plus seventy years or books that have been placed in the public domain by their authors for a variety of reasons).

If you wish to buy books however, other than as stand alone apps, which IS currently possible directly though the iPad App Store, you will need to buy them in Apps other than iBooks.

The Kindle App for iPad is currently in the top Twenty free apps and it offers books for free and for purchase. Kobo also offers books for sale. Both require credit cards.

As soon as we have more information on other devices, we will update this note

This morning iBooks is the number one free iPad App in Ireland.

Amazon’s Kindle for iPad app, at number eleven is just outside the top ten free Apps.

The Elements: A Visual Exploration published by Touch Press is the top ranked paid book app at number 15 in the overall list of paid apps.

Drilling down to the paid apps in the book section, The Elements: A Visual Exploration is at number one, the full version of Disney’s toy Story Read Along App at number two, Alice for the iPad at number three, Self Help Classics at number four and The Cat In The Hat by Dr. Seuss at number five.

iBooks is joined by the Kindle App, Marvel Comics App, Toy Story Read Along App and the Free Books App in the top five free book apps.

For more on reading and book apps, read Robert Maguire’s post from yesterday: To E Or Not To E: A Beginner’s Guide To iPad Ereading Apps.

Just in time for the arrival of Apple’s iPad Northern Ireland’s Jamie Guiney from Co. Armagh, has just signed with Ether Books Ltd whose App makes short stories available on the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touches worldwide.

Jamie is now in the company of an impressive list of authors whose stories are also available in the app, such as booker prize winner Hilary Mantel, Lionel Shriver, Alexander McCall Smith, Louis De Bernieres and even Sir Paul McCartney.

Sophia Bartleet MD of Ether Books said, ‘We are delighted to be publishing Jamie Guiney’s stories. They have a very strong sense of place so that when you are reading them you can almost smell and taste a different world. Ether Books is always on the lookout for the best new authors to publish on to people’s iPhones and iPads alongside their list of prize winning contemporary writers.’

Argosy Books will act as distributor for Mercier Press from 1 October 2010.

The move marks the company’s entry into the distribution business and follows Thursday’s announcement that CMD Booksource is to cease operations on 30 September 2010 after it’s parent company Booksource failed to stem losses in the Irish market.

Fergal Stanley, Managing Director of Argosy books said ‘Argosy is thrilled to be part of this new distribution arrangement. Argosy is looking forward to working with Mercier and their customers in providing them with the highest level of customer service.’

Managing Directior of Mercier Press, Clodagh Feehan, said that ‘the winding up of CMD Booksource is hugely regrettable and is unfortunately another casualty of the severe economic conditions that the Irish book trade is currently experiencing. However we are very excited about our new distribution arrangement with Argosy.’

Argosy is currently a book wholesaler and began business as a commercial library supplier in the 1930s. The decision to enter the market for distribution will bring them into competition with Gill & Macmillan distribution who are the largest player in the field.

This week Amazon announced that, for the first time ever on Amazon.com, ebooks had outsold hardbacks, proving that whilst some of us are reluctant to part with our beloved bound volumes, there is an ever increasing number embracing the concept of electronic reading.

And with Apple‘s much heralded iPad finally launching on these shores, we decided to take a look at some of the various apps available for reading books on your iPads, iPods and iPhones, and determine which, if any, are worth their salt.

Kindle has one of the most appealing interfaces- they’ve recognised that swiping seems to be the most intuitive way of turning a page, a feature which some developers have criminally failed to include.

As far as features go, it sticks to the basics, with the ability to bookmark pages, search text, and change the font size and colour. As a basic eReader, Kindle does the trick nicely without many frills attached.

Furthermore, the iFlow range is rather limited, covering primarily classics, and educational texts (philosophy, psychology, etc.). What the iFlow reader does have in its corner, however, is its unique interface.

Utilising the accelerometer, the app scrolls the text along the screen, with the degree of tilting determining the speed of the scrolling. For ease of reading, this this method is by far the most natural. I’ve already gotten through two novels…

Don’t like the line spacing? You can change it. Margins irritating you? No Problem. The somewhat frustrating problem of automatic page rotation is dealt with (why Apple never considered that someone would look at their iPhone while lying down is beyond me), with the ability to lock the page in landscape or portrait mode.
Social networking fans can immediately share what they’re reading through facebook or twitter via a menu of shortcuts which, of course, you can customise.

Arguably its most convenient addition is the concept of assignable hot-keys. The user can designate an action to a particular touch or movement- for example, using the classic pinch and spread motion to adjust font size.

With a wide selection enabling downloads from a variety of eBook retailers, Lexcycle seem to have covered all the bases, providing one of the best eReading apps available. (Lexcycle was acquired by Amazon in 2009)

The experience of Kobo holds up well beyond the opening screen, with a number of ways of going from page to page. This seems to be its main area of customisation, with the other options being quite basic (font size, brightness, etc.).

In offering extra page turning options it pushes itself ahead of basic reading apps, but some of these choices are impractical to the degree that they become useless (manual scrolling??). As far as selection is concerned, Kobo fares very well, and once you’ve created a Kobo account you can purchase and download titles directly through the app itself.

Comics, quite simply, are amazing to read on an iPad. The screen lends itself fabulously to the images, and the technology offers a number of interesting ways to get through the story. For example, this app offers animated transitions, where the panels are displayed one by one, offering a dynamic reading experience well suited to the subject matter.

The app also capitalises on the periodical nature of comic books, offering an update service similar to podcast management, where new issues of subscribed series are automatically downloaded and added to your library. As far as the iPad is concerned, this is one area where the full potential of the medium is explored, and to great effect.

App: ibooks | Developer: Apple | Rating: 4/5
Apple’s own reading app is cosmetically appealing, offering a bookshelf interface similar to Kobo, but endeavors to offer a customisation level similar to Stanza. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite manage to win out in either category, but provides a solid app with several interesting features nonetheless.

Its actual reading interface is one of the most appealing available, particularly when viewed on the iPad, and provides one of the most generally pleasurable reading experiences. Among its attempts at offering functions beyond the basics, iBooks offers a dictionary, accesible through double tapping a word.

While convenient, the strength of this app lies in its style, and its selection, which offers tens of thousands of titles through Apple’s iBookstore (though the selection for Ireland is currently only Public Domain works, this should change soon).