If you have joined in our Booker Book Groups in the past few years, you'll remember our collective frustration at wanting to read all the titles in the longlist for the prize but finding many of the books to be unavailable.
When authors are gaining this extraordinary attention, it's a shame that the publishers are unable to act quickly enough to capitalise on the interest by providing the quantities of books clearly needed.
Although it is to be hoped that an author's career will see continuing rewards from this recognition, and although we are always acknowledging that reading is a solitary act, there is something to be said for us to be enjoying a book, or a list of books, together, in the moment, and it's a shame that this has often proved so difficult.
Last week I saw that there was an abundance of copies of one of the Booker longlisted titles available as a paperback and thought that this would make a good choice for our regular book group meeting, later this month. Three days after selecting it, however, the publisher had sold out and a reprint will take another couple of weeks.
How will we feel when we are eventually able to obtain copies of the book? Will the wait have enhanced our sense of expectation and excitement? Or will we have moved on to the next 'big thing'?
There has been a great deal of hype ahead of the new Sally Rooney novel, which is released on Tuesday. Will you be racing to get a copy, to be among the first to read it? Or will you wait to see what others say about it before launching in?
Amidst all this publishing frenzy (and take a look at Tom Gauld's cartoon in this week's Guardian here), our book group for September will now be something completely different (scroll down for details).
And our Booker Book Group will take the shortlist as its focus this year in the hope that all the titles will be available to us as soon as they are revealed on 15 September (details about joining the discussion will be available soon).
In the meantime, I hope you'll find the two titles I've recommended this week on the shelves in your favourite independent bookshop, and if they're not, they'll be worth the wait, I assure you!
Thank you for reading.