Great Regulars: Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy is to retell

classic folk stories including The Pied Piper of Hamelin for the theatre this Christmas.

Duffy is collaborating with director, designer and choreographer Melly Still on the production Rats' Tales, which is set to be shown at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester between November and January. The show is "a dark and magical cycle of folk tales packed with thrills, laughs, loves and more than a bit of magic", said the Royal Exchange, "an epic piece of theatre with a strong visual style from seven tales from around the world".

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Carol Ann Duffy to bring folk tales to stage for Christmas

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Drawing its data from information provided by 250 publishers, the Publishers Association's Statistics Yearbook put the value of consumer ebook sales--fiction, non-fiction and children's digital titles--at £92m in 2011. This is a 366% increase on the previous year, the Publishers Association said, and consumer ebooks are now equivalent to 6% of consumer physical book sales by value.

But the strong digital sales come at the expense of print, the yearbook reveals: consumer print sales were down by about 7% in 2011 to £1.579bn.

from Alison Flood: The Guardian: Huge rise in ebook sales offsets decline in printed titles

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