Sales of printed books fall by more than £150m in five years
New figures from Nielsen BookScan show continuing decline since 2009 as more and more readers migrate to ebooks
Culture
Going, going, gone: how Sotheby’s and Christie’s still lose out on big sales
Despite increasing prices of art, big profits do not always trickle down to auction houses – thanks to generous guarantees to ultra-rich sellers
James Patterson’s Private Vegas: a $300,000 self-destructing book for the superfan
A special edition of the crime-fiction king’s new novel will include a five-course dinner with the author, gold binoculars – and a very limited time to read it
Philharmonie de Paris: Jean Nouvel’s €390m spaceship crash-lands in France
Paris’s gargantuan new concert hall is two years late, cost three times what it should, and its architect even snubbed its opening … Oliver Wainwright tackles a tyrannical new mothership
Alexander McQueen’s menswear show is a thing of savage beauty
Military-style collection takes centre stage in London the same year that McQueen gets a retrospective at the V&A
Sweet in the middle: map reveals Americans’ art tastes, state by state
A new map made by eBay shows the most searched-for artists by its US customers – and it seems that in the midwest, all Americans want for Christmas is the corny, cosy art of Terry Redlin