Latest news with #AndyHunter
The Guardian
27-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
A horrifying end to Liverpool's parade: Today in Focus Extra
'I was just coming towards the end of writing what was a positive, upbeat overview of the whole day,' Andy Hunter, a Guardian football correspondent based in Liverpool, tells Helen Pidd. 'Wrote about how they were memories that would last a lifetime. And then just as I was finishing that and about to send it, I got a call from the desk to say, have you seen what's just happened? And then everything turned in an instant.' On Monday evening, a car ploughed through crowds of people leaving the Liverpool FC parade. Hundreds of thousands of people had lined the streets to celebrate the team's Premier League win. Merseyside police confirmed that more than 50 people were injured and treated in hospital, where 11 remain. The force said a 53-year-old white British man from the Liverpool area was arrested at the scene and the incident was not being treated as terrorism. 'Four children were injured,' Hunter says. 'But there were so many kids there yesterday. It was a family occasion. It was a chance for kids, who wouldn't get the opportunity to go to Anfield, to get a ticket to Anfield and see their heroes in the flesh, to actually see Mo Salah with the Premier League trophy, and, as I say, memories that last a lifetime, and then it's just destroyed in an instant.' Support the Guardian today:
Daily Mail
26-04-2025
- Business
- Daily Mail
Amazon blasted for 'unintentional' move on Independent Bookstore Day
Amazon has been slammed by local book sellers for hosting its second annual book sale at the same time as Independent Bookstore Day's 12th celebration. Amazon's book sale began on April 23 and is set to last through to April 28, while Independent Bookstore Day on April 26 has been an annual tradition on the last Saturday in April for more than a decade. The coinciding dates have irked independent sellers, who have described the move as 'cruel.' 'It's cynical, manipulative, and cruel - and for what? Amazon has already put half the bookstores in the country out of business, controlling over 60 percent of the market and selling far more books than all indie bookstores combined,' Andy Hunter, founder of said. Independent Bookstore Day is organized by the American Booksellers Association and considered the one of the biggest days of the year for local booksellers. Amazon, which announced the book sale on April 15, claimed in a statement to Vulture that the 'overlap was unintentional.' 'The dates for our sale were set this year to accommodate additional participating countries,' the statement said. Amazon did not immediately respond to request for comment. The coinciding dates have irked independent sellers, who have described the move as 'cruel.' 'It's cynical, manipulative, and cruel - and for what? Amazon has already put half the bookstores in the country out of business...' said Andy Hunter However, many indie book sellers believe that the move had far more sinister intentions. James Webster, who is opening Recluse Books in Texas with his wife, told Vulture: 'I'm sure if you were to reach out to Marlboro, they would tell you that it's just a coincidence that the heaviest cigarette smokers get cancer.' 'At best it's insensitive and at worst it seems like a tactic to hurt small businesses,' Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, said. Fatuma Hydara, owner of Tuma's Books in New York, told the outlet: 'Independent Bookstore Day happens the same weekend every year. There's no way their people didn't know this day was coming.' 'I don't believe that it's true at all. And if it is true, that's really silly of them, and they're not nearly as impressive as they think.' Kelsey Black of the Book Burrow near Austin, Texas, said: 'I just rolled my eyes and thought, "Of course they did." We can't even have one day where it's just us - Amazon has to swoop in.' The overlap of events comes at a cost for the independent bookstores, considering Amazon's size and ability to sell books with over a 50 percent markdown. Many stores across the US celebrated the event, nonetheless, including treasure hunts for prizes, cupcakes, pop up stores, and deals and sales throughout the day. Kelly Jo in Illinois wrote on Facebook: 'Tomorrow is Independent Bookstore Day. And shocker - Amazon's "big annual book sale" magically lands on the same weekend. It's not a coincidence. It's a strategy.' 'This isn't about books. It's about every local shop, salon, café, and small business fighting to survive while giants rig the game.' Another book enthusiast, Briana Lindquist, wrote: 'This year, Amazon decided to hold a big sale that overlaps with Independent Bookstore Day. Help me keep my favorite places alive by stopping in a bookstore today instead of placing an order online!' Maura Cheeks of Liz's Book Bar in Brooklyn, NYC, however, said she was hopeful that customers would choose to support the local stores. 'My feeling is that it's up to us as consumers and American citizens to make the choice about where to spend our money. It's that simple,' she said. Leah Koch, owner of the Ripped Bodice, said: 'We can never compete with Amazon on the price of books and speed of shipping because we don't employ a private army, and we know that.' 'So, Amazon is not out competitor. Our goal is to provide an experience that you cannot get on Amazon.' 'F*** Bezos. May he be very miserable living alone on the moon,' Koch added.
The Independent
19-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
EastEnders: 25 best forgotten characters in BBC soap's history
There was undoubtedly a time in your life when you considered EastEnders appointment viewing. For some, it was the Den and Angie-days; for others, it was the Golden Epoch of Janine and Barry, the latter of whom probably ranks as one of the soap's most memorable characters. More recent fans would most likely name storylines involving Stacey Slater and Max Branning as its most popular. It's characters such as these that have ensured the soap has remained a staple of BBC schedules since it began 40 years ago this week. As the soap celebrates its anniversary, we've taken a trip down memory lane to look at the best forgotten EastEnders characters. Andy Hunter Played by: Michael Higgs In the early 2000s, EastEnders went through a phase of having organised crime subplots, with characters including Dan Sullivan and Johnny Allen. Andy Hunter – who joined the show in 2003 – was the slimiest of them all. Kat Slater (Jessie Wallace) proved the perfect love interest to Andy's gangster up until she jilted him at the altar for Alfie Moon (Shane Richie) in 2005. Beppe di Marco Played by: Michael Greco Police officer Beppe di Marco was a household name in the late 1990s up until the character was unceremoniously axed from the soap in 2002. He's perhaps best remembered for his rivalry with the Mitchell brothers, the peak of which arrived when he attempted to frame Grant (Ross Kemp) for the murder of Martine McCutcheon's Tiffany. Binnie Roberts and Della Alexander Played by: Sophie Langham and Michelle Joseph Binnie Roberts and Della Alexander, characters from 1994, were the soap's first lesbian couple. They left after a few years as a happy couple, which is rather unthinkable for the soap. Chelsea Fox Played by: Tiana Benjamin Chelsea Fox, daughter of Denise, was a breath of fresh air on the Square, mostly thanks to her portrayal by Tiana Benjamin, who quit the Harry Potter franchise to join the soap in 2006. (She played Gryffindor student Angelina Johnson.) She left the square in 2010. Dawn Swann Played by: Kara Tointon Dawn may have been tainted by her association with the Miller family (her brother Mickey – played by Joe Swash – does not make this list), but the character injected a dash of glamour and optimism into the doom and gloom of Albert Square in 2005. Well, until she was kidnapped and almost died in a gas explosion. Dennis Rickman Played by: Nigel Harman Dennis Rickman seemed like a staple of EastEnders throughout the 2000s, but he was actually only on the show from 2003 to 2005. Still, his appearance made quite a stir thanks to the return of his resurrected father Dirty Den (Leslie Grantham) and marriage to his adopted sister, Sharon (Letitia Dean), right up until he was killed off on New Year's Eve. Garry Hobbs Played by: Ricky Groves Garry was in EastEnders for just under nine years, which – let's be honest – is longer than anyone could recall. His character had quite the trajectory. After being introduced as the doting, if ultimately unhappy, husband of Lynne Slater (Elaine Lordan), he ended his time on the show literally sailing into the sunset with Dawn Swann in 2009. Glenda Mitchell Played by: Glynis Barber It's fair to say that Glenda, the scheming mother of Ronnie and Roxy Mitchell (Samantha Womack and Rita Simons), was liked by nobody in the soap, which made her great entertainment for viewers. Glenda's episodes always saw the character swanning around Albert Square with the sole intention of stirring up trouble, which invariably came back to bite her. She's returned a number of times since the character was first introduced in 2010. Dr Harold Legg Played by: Leonard Fenton More memorable due to the fact he was given a send off in the soap in 2021, Dr Legg was Albert Square's go-to doctor throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Jamie Mitchell Played by: Jack Ryder Sorry Phil (Steve McFadden), but the best male Mitchell has always been his nephew Jamie, the character played by Jack Ryder from 1998 to 2002. He found himself at the heart of some of the soap's biggest moments, including the surprise pregnancy of Sonia (Natalie Cassidy), the arrival of the Slaters and the 2001 shooting of his uncle in one of the soap's biggest storylines of all time. Lou Beale Played by: Anna Wing The straight-talking Lou Beale was an early favourite, as well as being the matriarch of one of the soap's longest-standing families; Ian Beale (Adam Woodyatt) is her grandson. She was killed off in 1988. Kelvin Carpenter Played by: Paul J Medford Kelvin Carpenter was one of the soap's original creations. You might remember him being a member of the soap's fictional band alongside other teenage characters, including Sharon and Ian. His last appearance may have been 1987, but the character was mentioned in 2017. Lucas Johnson Played by: Don Gilet There was something Shakespearean about the downfall of Lucas, a former criminal-turned-preacher who started murdering his way around the Square in 2008. Full of dramatic irony, his scenes with unsuspecting wife Denise (Diane Parish) were genuinely enthralling to watch, with Don Gilet playing up the Jekyll and Hyde-aspect of his character impressively. Lucas got his comeuppance in 2010. Kelly Taylor and Spencer Moon Played by: Brooke Kinsella and Christopher Parker EastEnders has had its fair share of frustrating younger characters over the years, but Kelly – loyal friend to Zoe Slater – and the hapless Spencer Moon were two of the more likeable ones. Unlike his brother Alfie, Spencer's time on the Square lasted for just three years (2002-05) and Kelly was written out the year before he left. DCI Marsden Played by: Sophie Stanton Albert Square kept DCI Marsden very busy. Whenever a murder took place, there was a period when she'd be the detective assigned to the case. Marsden was brought in for four big arcs in all: Phil Mitchell's shooting (2001) and stalking storyline (2012), as well as the murders of Archie Mitchell (2009) and Lucy Beale (2015). Paul Trueman Played by: Gary Beadle Forget Anthony – the only Trueman you'll find on this list is Paul, the 'unloved' son of Audrey (Corinne Skinner-Carter) and Patrick (Rudolph Walker). Paul spent his time on the soap fighting for the attention of his family, which reached a crescendo when his mother told Anthony she loved him in her final moments, but failed to mention Paul. 'WHAT ABOUT ME?!' he bellowed. Cue the duffs duffs. Paul was killed off in 2004 completing three years on the soap. Sean Slater Played by: Rob Kazinsky Before Rob Kazinsky starred in True Blood and the Hobbit trilogy, he played the long-lost Slater brother, Sean, who wasted no time getting into trouble. His storylines included dealing drugs and infidelity with his step sister, Carly Wicks (Kellie Shirley). His last appearance as a regular was in 2009, but Sean returned for multiple episodes in 2019. Shirley Benson Played by: Robyn Moore Before Shirley Carter, there was Shirley Benson. Still no idea? Let us remind you: in 2003, Shirley led a pleasant life working in the bookies until the arrival of Gavin (Steve Nicolson), a noisy neighbour-from-hell who tormented Shirley and – in a pretty disturbing twist – left the body of her cat Boots in a bag on her doorstep. All before 9pm! Sue Osman Played by: Sandy Ratcliff Sue Osman was one of the soap's original 23 characters alongside her Turkish Cypriot husband Ali (Nejdet Salih). She was at the centre of what was probably the soap's first ever truly harrowing scenes, which focused on the cot death of her newborn son. She left after her character was sectioned in 1989. Tamwar Masood Played by: Himesh Patel Other EastEnders cast members may have tried to crack Hollywood, but It's fair to say nobody has had as much success as Himesh Patel. Since his breakout in Danny Boyle's Beatles film Yesterday, the actor has worked with Christopher Nolan in Tenet, appeared in a Leonardo DiCaprio film (Don't Look Up) and led his own HBO show. He's worlds away from the nerdy Tamwar, who provided much-needed light relief in the soap from 2007 to 2016. Tariq Larousi Played by: Nabil Elouahabi Hear us out – the Ferreira family might have been a disastrous addition to the show (they were axed after being blamed for plummeting viewing figures), but Ronny Ferreira's best friend Tariq wasn't so bad, bringing much-needed levity to many a sombre and terribly boring storyline from 2003-05. Yusef Khan Played by: Ace Bhatti Everyone remembers Trevor (Alex Ferns), the abusive husband of Kacey Ainsworth's Little Mo, but Yusef Khan also deserves a mention as one of the soap's scariest villains. He spent his single year on the soap breaking up the Masood family and, after months of violently manipulating Zainab (Nina Wadia), met a fiery end after burning down the bed and breakfast in 2001. Played by: Emer Kenny Writer-actor Emer Kenny had a brief appearance in EastEnders as Zsa Zsa Carter, one of an influx of teenage characters who primarily featured in spinoff show EastEnders: E20, but, throughout 2010, would occasionally show up in the main soap (the others included Leon, played by Sam Attwater, and Fatboy, played by Ricky Norwood). Zza Zsa didn't really get involved in the main action and spent the majority of her scenes chilling in the cafe, which is a vibe we can get on board with.
USA Today
29-01-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
E-books go local: New Bookshop.org app benefits indie bookstores
E-books go local: New app benefits indie bookstores Good morning booklovers! USA TODAY books reporter Clare Mulroy here to give you another recap of the week's biggest news in books. has launched a Kindle alternative – an e-reading platform that delivers profits directly to independent booksellers. Founder and CEO Andy Hunter talked to USA TODAY about his mission to create an app that keeps dollars in the pockets of local business people instead of in the hands of 'billionaires and giant e-commerce companies.' The now-available platform, called Ebooks, works for Apple and Android devices and is accessible on web browsers. Want to read more this year? This week, we've got tips from professional readers and booklovers to fit more reading into your busy schedule. Among our favorite suggestions: Bring a book, whether it's a physical copy or an ebook, with you whenever you leave the house so you can read during downtime instead of scrolling through your phone. Read at least 50 pages of the book and, if you don't connect with the story, don't be afraid to 'DNF' and move on to a new one. In case you missed it last week, our Winter Book Challenge is live! If you fill out our bingo card and submit your reading list to us, you'll be entered to win a $100 gift card! Deadline to enter is March 21. USA TODAY Best-selling Booklist recap: Not one, not two, but four versions of Rebecca Yarros' 'Empyrean' series top the USA TODAY Best-selling Booklist this week, including the new 'Onyx Storm' and its deluxe limited edition. Dystopian classics '1984' by George Orwell and 'Fahrenheit 451' by Ray Bradbury showed up in the Top 10 books this week. If you're one of the people looking to read more about hellish societies, check out 10 books like '1984' that we recommend.
WIRED
28-01-2025
- Business
- WIRED
Bookshop.org Now Sells Ebooks
The bookseller is applying its sales model—where online purchases support indie bookstores—to digital books. It has also released a mobile app for shopping and reading ebooks. Photograph courtesy of Bookshop If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED In the five years since its launch, has amassed quite the loyal following. The online retailer shares its sales revenue with bookstores around the US, and has become a popular destination for online customers who would rather help keep their local bookstore in business than send money to big retailers like Amazon. Until now, Bookshop has found success through the sale of physical books. Today, Bookshop is expanding its efforts into the digital realm. officially sells ebooks now. Or, as the company would put it, Bookshop now enables local bookstores to sell those ebooks themselves through its marketplace. The company launched its official ebook platform today, complete with an app (on Android and iOS) for shopping and reading digital books. Bookstores can use the platform to sell ebooks directly to customers, and when they make a sale, the store gets all of the money. Customers can also browse all of the ebooks for sale on the website, then choose which bookstore to support with their purchase. In that case as well, the chosen bookstore gets all the money. (If the customer doesn't pick a store to support, Bookshop puts a chunk of the profits into a sharing pool that's distributed among independent stores, but keeps the rest to fund its operation.) Bookshop CEO Andy Hunter sees a burning need for a better way to buy ebooks. 'It's crazy that bookstores can't sell ebooks to their customers right now,' Hunter says. He says he wants this program to continue his company's mission of propping up local bookstores, but he also hopes this move will help take Amazon down a peg as well. 'I know tons of people who love their local bookstore, support them in every other way, but when they need an ebook, they have to go to Amazon to buy that ebook even if they love and support their local bookstore and have ethical concerns about Amazon. We want to change that.' Bookshop launched in January 2020, mere weeks before the world shut down due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Physical book stores, like many IRL retailers, faced an existential threat when great masses of people shuttered themselves indoors. Many stores had already been struggling against the Goliaths of Amazon, Walmart, and Target well before pandemic restrictions drove more purchases online. Bookshop landed at just the right time to provide something of a crutch for struggling bookstores and offer an alternative to funneling more money into Amazon's maw. It may not have saved every bookstore or toppled any ecommerce empires, but Bookshop has done quite well—and proven popular among readers eager to support independent stores. At the time of this writing, Bookshop says it has raised more than $35 million for local bookstores. 'Everybody wants diversity in the landscape,' Hunter says. 'Whether you like Amazon or not, everybody understands it's a healthier market for books when you have a whole bunch of players selling and in competition with each other.' There are some other places to buy ebooks that support independent sellers—a handful of small publishers sell ebooks directly, and the ebook retailer Kobo has an affiliate program that sends a percentage of your ebook purchase to your favorite local bookstore—but Bookshop's one-stop shop is a unique experience that adds a needed layer of convenience. Rights and Wrongs Photograph courtesy of Bookshop The copyright and ownership arguments around ebooks are sticky. Unlike physical books, which you can freely loan out or resell, digital books have more draconian restrictions placed on them by both publishers and marketplaces. Amazon, for instance, has a proprietary ebook file type that can only be opened by a Kindle device, or within the Kindle app. Publishers also tend to hold onto the rights on their ebooks, which limits what customers can do with the titles they purchase. Cara Gagliano, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation who focuses on copyright law, also cautions that ebooks are almost always just licensed to the reader—even when you buy an ebook, you don't actually own the ebook itself. If something goes wrong with that publisher, or if it decides to pull its ebooks from retailers' stores, then you run the risk of losing access to the book you bought. 'The problem with a licensing model is that it gives them the ability to include terms that go beyond copyright law,' Gagliano says. 'We've especially been looking into the use of end user license agreements in the terms of service to try to expand copyright. So you might also find you're limited in other ways.' It is these kinds of machinations that Hunter hopes will entice people to use Bookshop instead. The new marketplace is not exactly the anti-Amazon, and there are some caveats. First, many ebooks you can buy on Bookshop cannot be loaded directly onto Amazon's Kindle devices, which are the most popular ereaders in the world. Second, some books will have digital rights management restrictions that publishers use to limit how a book can be distributed. If the books don't have DRM then you can swap that book between devices. If it does have DRM, then you can't. Gagliano says the solution to these kinds of problems is only likely to be reached through some kind of legislative action. Hunter knows that won't happen overnight, but he hopes his new store will push things in the right direction. 'The first step is to launch the platform,' Hunter says. 'Our second step is to make it popular, so we have leverage. And then we can start fixing what we consider to be the industry problems around ebooks.' Buying an ebook on works a little differently than buying a physical book on the platform. Shipping physical books requires storage and labor, so Bookshop takes a cut of the proceeds from sales. For physical books, Bookshop lets buyers direct 30 percent of the proceeds of a sale to their favorite participating bookstore. An additional 10 percent of those sales, plus the sales of books that are not earmarked for a specific store, gets split up and distributed to every store on Bookshop's platform. Ebook sales through Bookshop, however, will see 100 percent of the proceeds going to the store that sells them through the platform. If a user buys an ebook directly from Bookshop without naming a bookstore they want to support, then a third of that profit will go into the pool of funds that gets divided between stores. The rest will go to pay for engineers and server costs. Hearts and Minds Perhaps the biggest thing Bookshop's new model is going to have to contend with is what Gagliano describes as 'lock in.' Many readers may already have so many books in their Kindle library that it could be hard to just move to a new platform. It's sort of like the effort of making a switch from a Mac to a PC. The more costs you've sunk into a particular ecosystem, the harder it is to pry yourself out. Hunter gets that, but his hope is that his app is good enough to make the jump—and that people will see the extra value in keeping their local bookshops around. He views it as an important, almost existential step. 'There's a future that we're all getting pulled into where technology and people and governments that don't have our best interests at heart and don't have humanity's best interests at heart and are putting their own agendas ahead of the general good of humanity,' Hunter says. He sees independent bookstores as bastions of community—places in small towns or big cities where people can meet, share culture and knowledge, and make roots. Keeping them in business is good for everyone. 'It's motivating, being able to make a difference, even as the ground erodes beneath our feet,' Hunter says. 'We're trying to replenish the topsoil and keep the sustainable systems around the culture of reading and writing strong.'
