Between the covers: What's really going on in the world of books

Dragon’s Den-supported publisher Lost My Name has gone stratospheric

From small beginnings in 2012, the Dragon’s Den-supported publisher Lost My Name has gone stratospheric. Literally. Last week, the company sold the millionth copy of its first title, The Little Boy/Girl Who Lost His/Her Name – a personalised picture book in which a brave little boy or girl goes on an adventure to find all the letters of their missing name.

The next book, which is also personalised, is The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home, so how better to celebrate than to send a copy into space?

The title is the first British book to take part in the International Space Station’s “Story Time From Space” project, in which astronauts on board the space station film themselves reading children’s stories with outer space plots, and then demonstrate scientific experiments that children can do.

The Incredible Intergalactic Journey Home, was due to blast off from Cape Canaveral on Friday, bearing the name of lucky competition winner Roraigh Curran, seven, from Lancashire, who was flown to the Florida space port to see the launch.

Roraigh’s book will take three days to reach the space station aboard the Cygnus supply rocket, and may be read in orbit by British astronaut Tim Peake, who is blasting off to join the space station on 15 December.

Lost My Name has personalised books with 97,827 different names, the most popular for boys and girls being Oliver and Olivia.

However, 64,027 names on the database at www.lostmy .name are unique.

There’s nothing that warms the cockles at Christmas more than the tale of a sickly gazelle that has survived and thrived despite the attentions of a hungry cheetah, which is why Between the Covers subscribes to the group Amazon Anonymous – a support group for bookaholics that suggests more wholesome and often cheaper shopping alternatives to the retail giant.

The best alternative of all of course is your local bookshop – it’s for life, not just for Christmas! – which can usually offer lots of helpful advice about which books to buy.

Take that story last week about a children’s author complaining about another author whose books are maybe too grown-up for some children … who to believe?

A good bookseller is better than even a Dragon’s Den-winning algorithm for personalising book choices for children and adults this Christmas.