Boldness be My Friend

It's funny how some books survive while some disappear after six months. This afternoon, for instance, I was walking past a charity shop when I saw in the window a copy of a book that I read nearly sixty years ago. And yet there it was, in a modern paperback edition.

When I got home I looked it up on Amazon. The title is Boldness be My Friend, and it's by Richard Pape. First published by Elek Books in 1953, apparently, and now available in a 2008 edition from Headline Review. The printer is Antony Rowe, which means that they've done it as a POD edition, and very wise too. I notice that the original copyright notice was in the name of Helen Pape, so perhaps his wife wrote the book on behalf of the nominal author.

Boldness be My Friend was one of the many wartime memoirs of ex-servicemen which were published within about ten years after the end of hostilities in 1945. The most famous of these memoirs was, perhaps, The Wooden Horse, by Eric Williams. First published in February 1948, it was reprinted nine times in the next four months. A huge seller; and it was soon filmed (1950), the film too being a big success. Collins were the original publisher, and Leo Cooper (Jilly's husband) revived it in 2005.

Both these books were about prisoners of war, held by the Germans, who somehow or other managed to escape from their prison camps and made their way back to England. Or tried to. That was their appeal. Captured these men might have been, but they never gave up fighting. That sort of thing. And the appeal, it seems, still lingers. Courage in the face of adversity. Don't underestimate it.

Words of the week

Leigh Russell is smart enough to have a three-book contract (with No Exit Press) for a series of UK-based crime novels featuring a female police officer, DI Geraldine Steel. On his blog, he writes weekly about the process of writing.

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Penguin, I hear, has successfully defended itself in a copyright case (link from the Bookseller). Which proves absolutely nothing to me except that it is most unwise to get involved in these battles. Lord Goodman used to say that anyone who sued for libel was demonstrably mad, and to my mind the same applies to copyright, which knobs on.

I speak here of individuals, of course. For companies it's different. Penguin, for example, can certainly afford to pursue breach of copyright cases where international, deliberate, and organised piracy is concerned. In fact, can hardly afford not to.

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Ron Hogan on Galleycat reports that big publishers are deliberately making royalty payments late, and paying less than is due, in the hope that agents and writers won't notice.

Nothing new here. I remember, about thirty years ago, reading an article in the Financial Times. A tradesman (plumber or some such) was getting regular work from a big firm, but his invoices were ignored. Eventually he managed to speak to someone in the big firm's accounts office who airily told him, 'Oh, we never pay anything until we get a writ.'

So, from then on, the plumber submitted his invoices monthly. With each one he enclosed a letter from his solicitor (lawyer) threatening legal action if the bill was not paid within twenty-eight days. This letter cost him £50 a time, a charge which, naturally, he added to the big firm's bill. From then on, no problem. Bills paid on time, tradesman happy.

Maybe agents should do the same?

Meanwhile, of course, if you want to know what big-time publishers really think about writers (ungrateful little sods, apparently) then Ron Hogan can give you an example.

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Gee whiz. Ron Hogan (a busy feller) also points out that Marion Boyars has just published a book about book blogs. (Marion Boyars? Into books about the internet?) Anyway, no one's ever contacted me about it, so I suppose I ain't in it. Not, frankly that it would trouble me. Nothing Marion Boyars ever did in the past was ever of any interest to me. Far too highbrow. The lady herself is deceased by the way, but she had her admirers.

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Cory Doctorow, at Locus Online, provides a very useful and succinct account of copyright in general and the Creative Commons licences in particular.

I can't emphasise too much that it is important for anyone reading this blog to read Doctorow's piece (or something like it, if you can find it). It contains information which is essential if you care about books and publishing, not to mention the other media.

In passing, you will also discover why anyone who knows anything about copyright is obliged to spit every time they speak the word 'Disney'.

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Dust Jacket Review is a newly launched resource for book lovers. It will take some time to explore this site, I feel, and you need to sign up to gain access to the full range of features. There are, I am told, some sixty of my own book reviews on the site somewhere (the GOB is issued under a Creative Commons licence).

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Not everyone is happy about the free use of their work, especially if no one asks their permission. A number of Welsh writers have taken a dim view of what the National Library of Wales is up to.

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Publishers Lunch rightly finds it intriguing that, in the music biz, some performers are issuing their stuff through specific outlets only. E.g., the Eagles' latest album via Walmart, Paul McCartney through Starbucks. Lessee now.... books? It's a question of when, not if, suggests PL.

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Crumbs. PL also reports that you can order a one-off book in which your child features in adventures with established media characters.

I don't know who wrote the press release, and if they were working for me I'd sack them, but eventually we get to the following: 'In days, the child will receive a timeless, one-of-a-kind story where they appear on every page of an exciting travel adventure with Dora, helping to save Boots the monkey.'

Whatever else may be said, it seems to me that this operation requires some seriously well organised firms to collaborate with some reasonably clued-up parents, digitally speaking, and it will be interesting to see if it catches on.

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Ah, now here is the kind of man I really have time for. A guy who gets seriously pissed off by the enthusiasm, energy and drive of all them wannabes. In particular, Peter L. Winkler is grinding his teeth over all this Write a Novel in No Time At All and Get Rich and Happy and Have Fantastic Sex Into the Bargain stuff.

His suggestion: let's have a month in which no one writes anything. There's far too much of it around as it is.

The man has a point.

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Eric is very keen on books and is building up substantial lists of blogs, software, publishers, and more. Several languages available.

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Leslie Hurst commented that John Twelve Hawks's number two book (number one being The Traveller) hasn't made much impression. And my search of the Publishers Marketplace archives (available only to subscribers) reveals that, after July publication, it never got higher than 24 on the New York Times bestseller list. And on most lists it didn't get that high. Which is no surprise to me.

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The Times has an interesting article about ghost-writing. It should be read after, or before, my own essay on the same subject. Subsequently you should be equipped for a new and dazzling career.

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Live in New York? The 20th Annual Independent and Small Press Book Fair takes place on Saturday, December 1st and Sunday, December 2nd, at the New York Center for Independent Publishing at 20 West 44th Street in New York City. Details here.

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Clancy Sigal has recently been awarded west coast PEN's 'lifetime achievement' award. And he was presented with it by Gore Vidal, no less. Now that is impressive.

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Is the net good for writers? That is the question posed by Ten Zen Monkeys, and it would probably take ten or twenty of same to figure it out. Unfortunately the Ten etc piece got up my nose fairly early on and my concentration faded. But I agree with the commenters at the end: let's have more women. (Link from Martin Rundkvist.)

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Samuel Edmonson showed me the Literary Rejections site, where lots of writers go to have a jolly good moan and join the massive crowds of those who have had lots of rejection slips and expect to receive a lot more.

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Yeshua, it seems, is the Jewish name for Jesus, as in Jesus of Nazareth, and Lulu.com alone has lots of books about him. One of these is by Edmund Jonah, who has chosen to write up the life of Jesus in the form of a novel.

Edmund has an interesting background in that he was a Jew who was educated by Jesuits. Like many another author, Edmund had two agents who enthusiastically offered his novel around, but without success; hence Lulu.

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Lapham's Quarterly is a new (US) history magazine started by Lewis Lapham, who was editor of Harper's for many years. The first issue is just out. Entitled 'States of War,' it includes both historical texts (ranging from Thucydides to Jessica Lynch) and contemporary commentary from Fritz Stern, Caleb Carr, Tom Holland, and John Mueller. By connecting the present with the past, the magazine hopes to place current political events within the context of their historical antecedents.

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Just out, Mary Scriver's biography of her former husband, Bob Scriver: sculptor in bronze in the Beaux Arts style.

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What is the Oxford dictionary's word of the year? You'll never guess.

Catch-up reviews

The pile of books which deserve a mention on this blog is getting worryingly large, so let's try to reduce it a bit.

Rupert Everett: Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins

Rupert Everett, act-or of this parish, has written a couple of novels (at least one of which, he tells us, was a roman a clef) but Red Carpets is his autobiography. So far, one might add, since he is not that old (born 1959).

I call him an act-or because to my mind he belongs firmly within that group of theatrical personalities (theatrical even if they never appear in the theatre) who are known in some English circles as luvvies. Luvvy is a slightly unkind term, implying an excessive friendly and self-obsessed, pretentious approach to life. Every so often Private Eye runs a column giving quotes from such slebs.

My memory tells me, and a Google search confirms, that the UK publisher (Little, Brown) paid an awful lot of money for this book (£1 million, reportedly), and succeeded in selling only a modest number of copies (15,000, according to BookInfo.Net).

All of that being so, I wasn't expecting a great deal from Red Carpets, and it therefore came as a pleasant surprise. My first note says: 'Why did this not sell? It's a bit too good really, isn't it? Actually it is a lot too good. Classy in the extreme.'

You can see very easily how some editor might fall in love with this book, and bet the farm on it. Unfortunately, sales don't depend upon what editors and I think about things: it's all down to the punters, who, by and large, prefer Jordan (think big knockers).

Everett takes us through most major stages of his life. He was brought up as a Catholic (or Roman Catholic, as John Betjeman used to insist on it being phrased), and educated at Ampleforth, a well known English school. Thereafter he went into acting, and in his time has co-starred with the likes of Sharon Stone and Julia Roberts.

All in all, Mr Everett has had a fascinating life. Though essentially gay (he describes himself as queer, which is an old-fashioned English version of gay), he has had affairs with some beautiful women. His deepest love, however, seems to have been reserved for his dog, Mo. His account of Mo's death is carefully observed: he has the true writer's disease of being highly observant, even when distressed, high, or drunk.

The key to the whole thing is that Everett can write. No hint of a ghost writer here, take my word for it. [Later note. Actually, don't do any such thing. Madame Arcati tells me that the book was ghosted by Justine Picardie. Well, someone can sure as hell write, and the ghost has done one hell of a job.] His portraits of the likes of Paula Yates and Fred Hughes are full of insights, and movingly written.

Overall, Red Carpets is thoroughly recommended, but it helps if you're (a) English, (b) deeply interested in show business, and (c) tolerant of the gay world and luvvies in general.

Thanks to Martin Rundkvist for recommending this book. I should have had more faith in his judgement.

By the way, before I forget. Rupert E will shortly be seen in the new film version of St Trinians. He plays -- oh, but you've guessed -- the headmistress. Now this, I have to see. My guess is that the ghost of Alastair Sim is stirring uneasily.

Judith Martin: No Vulgar Hotel

Judith Martin is much better known as Miss Manners, under which name she advises Americans on how to behave. In her private life, however, she is more than a little taken with the city of Venice. This book is subtitled 'The desire and pursuit of Venice', and it is both a valuable guide for visitors and for those who want to go several steps further and actually live in the city.

And, er, that's about it really. The book will make an ideal present for anyone who is about to go to Venice, or, having been there, talks longingly about going back one day soon. Though not encyoplaedic in format, No Vulgar Hotel certainly constitutes an encyclopaedia of information about what is perhaps the most glamorous, romantic and compelling of all cities.

It's worth noting, in passing, that, in the Renaissance, Venice was the publishing capital of the world, with some 1,500 presses. The greatest of Venetian publishers was Aldus Manutius, who not only invented italic type but also pocket editions and -- best of all -- the rejection letter.

Venice can also lay claim, I think, to having invented the concept of Intellectual Property. The patent system originated there in the fourteenth century, and Marcus Antonius Coccius received the first known copyright in 1486.

The publisher, W.W. Norton, clearly didn't expect this book to sell in significant numbers, because it is not particularly well presented and the illustrations are not well reproduced.

Hugleikur Dagsson: Is This Supposed To Be Funny?

Yes, is the answer. And is it? Yes, in places.

HD is the most famous cartoonist in Iceland, though on the evidence given here he can barely draw more than stick figures. What he can do is think up utterly outrageous, shocking, and sometimes disgusting things for his stick men and women to do and say.

Is This is HD's second book, and his first led the UK's downmarket Sun newspaper to declare firmly: 'Ban this sick book'. Which should constitute a warning to anyone. The Sun points out that the first book has become a cult classic in Iceland, 'where during the winter there are only three hours of sunlight each day'. As if that explains the phenomenon.

Samples? Oh, all right then. If you insist. Daddy figure to child figure: 'Put broken glass in Mummy's food and I'll give you a pony.' Also: female figure arising from bed, with male figure still in bed: 'Our sex life is like a box of chocolates -- my fingers are brown and sticky after we're done.'

This would possibly be a suitable present for a young person of a crude frame of mind. But take a look at the book before buying.

Terry Pratchett: Making Money

And finally, Mr Pratchett.

Mr P's new book didn't get much of a fanfare. But then it doesn't need a fanfare, does it? All it needs is to appear in the shops, and thousands of people buy it. In the most recent week for which there are figures, Making Money sold 37,425 copies, easily taking it into the number one slot.

Making Money is, as you would expect, a Discworld novel: either the 31st or the 35th, depending on who's counting and what you include. Anyway, the point is that, if you have never read a Discworld novel, this is not the best place to start. Start at the beginning and work your way through the lot.

Those who are already familiar with the Discworld will know what to expect, and will meet a whole host of old friends. Even before you get into the story, however, you will note, no doubt, that the book is handsomely printed and typeset (11.75 on 15 pt Minion, which is eminently readable; although there are those who say that the kerning is a bit tight, particularly after full stops, and I can see their point). You will also note that Mr P has taken to giving us old-fashioned chapter headings, in which the contents of the chapter are briefly encapsulated; as if one actually needed an incentive to read on.

As for plot -- well, Mr P must be psychic, or have a very good crystal ball. Why? Because the story is all about banking, and what it is that causes us to have faith in banks, and what causes runs on banks; and all like that. The timing could not be more apposite, because within the last few weeks the UK banking system has undergone precisely that kind of crisis of faith.

As usual, the book is very funny. But it is, of course, an English form of humour. We learn, for instance, that the ruler of Ankh-Morpork once had an ancestor who had people torn apart by wild tortoises; it was not a quick death.

The book is much more than funny, of course. It is, in places, touching and sad; and, in a note on page 334, I described it as beautiful.

Now that's a funny word to use about a Discworld novel isn't it? Beautiful. Do you think that after all these many decades of reading, and all these many thousands of books, do you think that I might be going... Well... you know... a little bit... peculiar?

Portents and examples to us all

I have remarked here more than once that the unpublished writers who plaster their work with large copyright signs, and warnings that their precious manuscript must not be xeroxed without permission, are simply labelling themselves as rank amateurs.

There is a serious copyright problem, and I would not wish to underestimate it, but it doesn't concern the unpublished. And for an inkling of how big this problem is, see the report in the International Herald Tribune, about various fake Harry Potters in Chinese. (Link from Seoul Man and David Isaak.)

The article concentrates on young Harry, but my guess is that there is an equally big problem about the piracy of textbooks, particularly in science and technology.

Piracy on this scale can only be tackled by big-time publishers with enough money to pay for big-time international intellectual-property lawyers. The average writer can safely forget all about it.

The average writer's main problem is obscurity, not the theft of copyright.

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If you're interested in the Old West and the Wild West, then Celia Hayes has just the book for you. Based on real-life events, To Truckee's Trail tells the story of an early group of pioneers on the California wagon-train trail.

More news on Celia's other books can be found on her web site.

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Dr Tanya Byron is a UK Clinical Psychologist, specialising in the care of children. Unlike many 'experts' she is eminently respectable and sensible with it, imho.

Not the least of her virtues, again in my estimation, is the fact that, having hosted a number of very successful TV programmes about handling difficult children, she has recently decided not to do any more, on the grounds that they really aren't very helpful to the children. She will, however, continue to offer advice to parents and others in the columns of the Times.

Meantime, Tanya Byron has a book out soon: Your Child, Your Way appears from Michael Joseph on 6 September. Better then Spock, I would lay odds.

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London-based Virgin Books has just opened a new outpost on Bleecker Street (New York). They are about to start publishing original US titles. Their mission, they say, 'is to publish authors -- be they novelists, memoirists, humorists or former hooligans -- who have something new and engaging to say about popular culture. And, being Virgin, we have a special affinity for the up-and-coming, the underdog, and the unconventional.'

The catalog(ue) is available online, of course. (Actually quite a few aren't -- see Mark Thwaite -- thus demonstrating that some publishers have a death wish.) So you can decide for yourself whether Virgin Books US is your thing or not. Personally I just wonder how anyone can find anything 'new and engaging' to say about Princess Diana. But who knows -- maybe the guy has.

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Scott Stein is the author of the novel Mean Martin Manning (published by ENC Press), and I must say he is pretty adept at getting himself web and press coverage. He has recently been interviewed by Ed Pettit, who writes book reviews for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia City Paper.

Pettit reviewed Mean Martin Manning in the City Paper back in March, and the interview with Scott Stein is now posted on his blog. It covers the reviewed novel and other subjects that might be of interest -- including the surveillance society, dystopian novels, the writing process, literary influences, and the tyranny of 'public health.'

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You may have noticed last week that Cambridge University Press announced that they were withdrawing a book which they had published in 2006. The book in question, Alms for Jihad, by American authors Robert Collins and J. Millard Burr, had recently been the subject of a libel writ in the UK.

Not only have CUP withdrawn the book, but they have also agreed to pay damages, and have issued a formal apology on their website . This states that the authors of the book made 'defamatory allegations' to which there was 'no truth whatsoever.'

The person objecting to this book is Sheik Kalid bin Mafouz, the son of the banker to the Saudi royal family, and you can read about him on Wikipedia.

Well, we have many a time noted here that the UK libel laws favour the rich and so this announcement didn't do much to raise my own blood pressure. Been there, seen it before. Many times. When faced with a litigant who has bottomless financial resources, few publishers can afford to do anything other than cave in. Consider, for example, poor little Arcadia.

While I was unsurprised by the CUP affair, and frankly gave a shrug of the shoulders about this latest proof that money doesn't just talk but screams its bloody head off, Jeffrey Stern, President of US publisher Bonus Books, was very exercised indeed.

You can read Mr Stern's statements on the matter in a press release put out by his company. He takes a very dim view of 'libel tourism', and asks, rather plaintively, 'Whatever happened to freedom of the press?'

Well, pardon me while I indulge in a hollow laugh. But freedom of the press has never really existed in the UK, and certainly doesn't today. Not only are there stringent libel laws, but there is political correctness to contend with, and 10,000 busybodies of one sort or another peering over your shoulder and jumping in fast to complain if you step over what they take to be a line set in concrete. If you criticise anyone, chances are that it interferes with their 'human rights' and they can take you all the way to the European courts about it.

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While watching the end of a Poirot TV episode the other day, I found myself wondering whether Poirot was gay. Did Agatha intend him to be thought of as gay? Or is it just that David Suchet, who has played him more often than anyone, seems to suggest (at least to me) that he is?

As I read the performance, Suchet plays Poirot as if he is gay by inclination, but almost certainly too fussy and particular ever to actually do anything. (Cf. Kenneth Williams.) After all, you never know where young men might have been, and one might get stains on one's shirt.

In search of elucidation on this vital issue, I typed "is Poirot gay" into Google, and came up with zilch. "Was Poirot gay" gives the same result. But a search for the two words Poirot + gay produces, as you would expect, some earnest discussion.

David Suchet himself has things to say on the matter. He claims that Poirot is a typical bachelor of his time, the 1930s. Hmm. Maybe. Typical of some, certainly. But to me he is very reminiscent of Kenneth Williams: gay by inclination, but usually far too nervous and fastidious to do anything about it.

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Chicklitreview.org is a web site 'focused on providing compact pieces of fiction for young professional women.' This month, the attention is on mystery stories. Gentlemen who visit should be warned: there's a young woman on the site who is keeping an eye on you.

Market day

The Bookseller is launching a series of blogs by people in the UK book trade. Let's hope they're a bit more interesting than those at Publishers Weekly, which I'm afraid I only looked at once.

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Alcemi is a new fiction imprint based in Wales. Not surprisingly, they are concentrating on Welsh writers, but in principle 'there will be no bars to setting, subject or style'. They are looking for 'original contemporary fiction that will resonate within Wales and far beyond'.

First two out of the box are Liminal by Chris Keil (not a very Welsh name, is it?) and Salvage by Gee Williams (that's better).

Both of these books have a mystery/crime tinge to them, but both seem determined to aim higher, and be metaphors or some such. That always makes me a bit nervous, frankly. I think most writers would be well advised to stick with the blood and thunder, and do it really well. After that, everything kind of follows naturally, without forcing it.

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Alan Gerstle did an MFA degree in acting and has a PhD in social science. He is also a fiction writer. On the sound basis of this considerable academic experience he now runs a blog for the benefit of humanities students -- particularly those on creative-writing courses. And let's face it, students on those courses need all the help they can get.

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The Times has an obituary of Don Arden, one of the UK's leading managers of pop groups in years gone by. Known in his youth for beating people up and threatening them with a nasty fate, Arden was chiefly famous at the end of his life for being Sharon Osbourne's father, and hence Ozzy's father-in-law.

Arden also published an autobiography of sorts: Mr Big -- Ozzy, Sharon, and My Life as the Godfather of Rock. It was written with a ghost, of course, and the ghost must have had to work hard for his money, because he gets his name on the book too (Mick Wall). I imagine that about 10 per cent of the stories might even be true.

Sharon gave up talking to her Dad for a good many years, and she told her side of the story in Sharon Osbourne Extreme.

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The BBC reports that Charles Whiting has died. Best known, perhaps, by the pen-name Leo Kessler (among others), Mr Whiting was the author of about 350 books. His work was discussed here on 6 July 2005. (Link from booktrade.info.)

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There is much to entertain us on Madame Arcati's blog this week.

First, Madame was watching (shorthand pad and pencil to hand) when George Galloway went to work in the House of Commons (post of 24 July).

Say what you like about George (and people do), he has the balls to say things which a lot of people are thinking but never quite have the courage to articulate. In this case, he wonders why the (New) Labour Party is prepared to accept money from a man whose TV channel features 'Spunk-loving Sluts' (and that's one of the polite ones). Not a bad question. Consequently, the Speaker, as you would expect, shut him up.

George wrote a book, of course, discussed here on 14 June 2005.

Then there's the results of the Arcati poll as to whether Daniel Radcliffe is cut or uncut (post of 25 July). Look, it was Madame's idea to have a poll, not mine, OK?

And finally we have the intriguing saga of Susan Hill and Fallowell, D. (posts of 24 July and 26 July, plus comments).

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A little bird tells me that the Russians aren't too fussed about copyright, and have posted lots of books online without permission. Which is, of course, very naughty.

However, if I were one of the authors, I think I would be quite relaxed about it. No one, surely, is going to read a full-length novel online, and printing it out would be slow, cumbersome, and expensive. On the other hand, having access to the entire thing gives one a pretty good taste of it, and one might, perhaps, go out and buy the book afterwards.

The list is eclectic, and, so far as I can see, in no logical order whatever. Or am I missing something? The two files that I tried were zipped, and you may need one of those fancy WinRAR programs. He says, as if he knows what he's talking about.

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Raft is a newish UK literary agency which is looking for a small number of new clients. There is also a company blog with news of latest deals et cetera, and Raft will be at Frankfurt this year.

Friday assortment

Virtual Bookworm is a self-publishing services company that I had not come across before, but I find that it is listed as one of the outstanding companies in Mark Levine's The Fine Print of Self-Publishing, so I guess that quite a few people must be using it. To be precise, Amazon.com lists 743 books from this publisher.

I came across Virtual Bookworm because it is the publisher of A.W.G. Coleman's Quest of the Seal Bearer fantasy adventure series; book 2 of the series came out in April.

The whole series has quite an elaborate web site to go with it. Given that these multi-part fantasy stories seem to be popular, this one might do quite well. You can, in any case, read several chapters of each book online, to see if they appeal.

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Catherynne M. Valente won the 2007 Million Writers Award for best online short story with "Urchins, While Swimming". She got 31% of the public vote. Details at storySouth.

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Bewrite Books is a name that has cropped up once or twice recently, and it certainly seems to be an interesting little publisher. Magdalena Ball, for example, is the author of a non-fiction book on reviewing, The Art of Assessment, and a chapbook of poetry, and she has a novel coming out from Bewrite at the end of this month.

Sleep Before Evening is about a young woman 'teetering at the edge of reason. A death in the family has sent her brilliant academic career and promising future spiraling out of control. Growing resentment towards those who shaped her past sends her on a wild, desperate search for the truth about herself.' You can read an extensive sample on the publisher's web site; or, indeed, listen to the author reading it.

In her spare time (!) Magdalena runs The Compulsive Reader, which provides reviews, author interviews, literary news and criticism.

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Fish Publishing (in Ireland) continues to run all kinds of competitions for writers. One of them offers a 10,000 euro first prize. Which ain't bad. Last year it was won by a young lady from New Zealand.

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Touchstone Books have been in the news once or twice recently, but an email from them recommends Heidi's Bedtime Stories, which apparently contains 36 erotic quickies for men and women. This is, of course, of absolutely no interest to a man of my age and medical history, but it may conceivably (conceivably -- that's good, isn't it?) appeal to younger readers.

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Robert Rankin is getting married in style. Plus lots more info at the latest Ansible. While you're there, read the bit about Diana Wynne Jones and be glad you're not a success. Think what you'd have to put up with. Those who enjoyed the debate about singular nouns and plural verbs should also study Thog's Masterclass. Oh, and, of course, Ursula Le Guin on serious literature. Look, why don't you just go there and leave me in peace. I'm sure you meet a much better class of person there anyway.

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I don't feel any sympathy for ole O.J., of course, but it seems like the court done removed his copyright. Can they do that? Evidently so. (Link from Publishers Lunch.) Seems like the Goldman family can do everything except speak in his name. Although, come to think of it, maybe they can do that too.

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Halfcut Books is a small UK fiction publisher with an elaborate web site but as yet a small list. No sign of inviting submissions either, so probably they have plenty to work on already. They also offer photographs, short stories, and songs.

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Susan Hill, novelist and publisher of Long Barn Books, has for three years been offering a prize for best first novel submitted to her. The shortlist for this year has just been announced. According to the Bookseller, however, this will be the last such competition, as Susan is fed up with the criticism that the comp has brought her way.

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Paul Perry in Melbourne Orstreyelia draws my attention to a self-published book with a difference. The story is a little difficult to follow, and I'm not quite sure that I've got it right, but it seems to go like this.

Michael Kelley has been running his 'Page of Misery' for quite some time now, and offers an archive going back to 1999. More recently, he has written, and published, a book on Roy Orbison. And, what's more, he has persuaded his local Waterstone's to put it on display. (He must have a hold on the manager: probably a firm grip on two sensitive parts of the body, I would guess.)

The new book apparently contains stories about Roy Orbison being wrapped in cling-film. And it is published (not surprisingly) under a pseudonym. In the circumstances, I'm sure you will excuse me if I have got confused somewhere along the way, but that appears to be the story.

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Not surprisingly, the Australian writer Peter Temple has won the UK Crime Writers Association £20,000 prize for the best novel of the year award. (Report from the Bookseller.) When I reviewed the book last September I described it as the best novel in any genre that I'd read for quite some time.

The corruption of the political process

OK, now if you do nothing else today, you ought to at least take a look at Lawrence Lessig's piece about why he is going to change direction in his academic work and activism.

For the past ten years or so, Lessig has been a leading light in the struggle to inject some common sense into the intellectual-property business. In particular, he has been one of those behind the Creative Commons movement. Now, however, he is going to focus on a new set of problems.

I won't try to summarise any more here; instead I will give you just a taster of how he is thinking, with the block quote below. (Passing comment: Lessig is not, in my opinion, the world's best prose writer; he could do with a good rewrite man at his side. But you will get the drift all right.)

As the Gowers Commission concluded in Britain, a government should never extend an existing copyright term. No public regarding justification could justify the
extraordinary deadweight loss that such extensions impose.

Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea -- both Britain and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms. Why? The answer is a kind of corruption of the political process. Or better, a "corruption" of the political process. I don't mean corruption in the simple sense of bribery. I mean "corruption" in the sense that the system is so queered by the influence of money that it can't even get an issue as simple and clear as term extension right. Politicians are starved for the resources concentrated interests can provide. In the US, listening to money is the only way to secure reelection. And so an economy of influence bends public policy away from sense, always to dollars.

As Lessig goes on to say, the problem has long been recognised; and indeed it has been mentioned here from time to time, though less lucidly analysed than in Lessig's statement. And for those who think this is exclusively a US problem: don't be so damn smug. The UK suffers just as badly: remember the Blair/Ecclestone business. Equally affected, I suspect, is every other western nation. As a problem, it makes the war on terror look minor.

Lessig, because of his background, couches his initial statement in terms of copyright. But it is just as relevant in relation to many other fields, such as global warming. Food is another example; and of that, more in a week or two, when I have got my thoughts together.

June is busting out

Angry young men and a bitter old one

Ooh. Ooh. It makes you wince, even to observe from a distance.

Once upon a time, back in the 1950s, there was a media construct in the UK known as the Angry Young Men. This was a label stuck on to a group of writers by some newspaper columnist or critic, or both, and the AYMs became, briefly, the talk of the town. (The US equivalent was, I suppose, the Beat Generation.)

These young Englishmen (they were all young, and men) had virtually nothing in common, beyond the fact that they wrote stuff, and disliked -- nay, hated and despised -- many aspects of England as it then was. And with good reason. Their number included John Osborne, John Wain, John Braine, and Colin Wilson. (And, apparently, a good few more -- I had forgotten. Time is merciful in many respects, and growing old does have hidden benefits.)

The angries hardly knew each other, much less formed a deliberate movement to achieve something or other. And they were all, I suspect, deeply jealous of each other's success.

Now the first three of the ones I named are dead. So are most of the others. And Colin Wilson, at the end of a career for which the word chequered might have been invented, has written a book about them. Roger Lewis reviews it in the Telegraph, and the review makes painful reading.

The various angries all came to unpleasant ends, cheered on their way, it seems, by Wilson. And Roger Lewis seems to feel a deep-seated contempt for the author of this summary of a long-dead age (which was barely alive at the time, if truth be told).

As I say, it makes you wince just to read about both the age and the book, not to mention Wilson's feelings as he discovers what the Telegraph really thinks of him. Wilson, by the way, says of himself that 'I had taken it for granted that I was a man of genius since I was about 13.' And he made no secret of that in the '50s. My, how we all laughed. But it's painful to contemplate such silliness and delusion.

I found all this, by the way, courtesy of Savannah, who left a comment on one of last week's posts, and led me to Dick Headley, where there's a staggering piece of video about beautiful women. Stunners, Mr Swinburne used to call them. And they are. Every one.

Smart cookie

On 19 December 2005 I wrote quite a long piece extolling the virtues of Michael Hyatt, CEO of publisher Thomas Nelson. Hyatt, it seemed, was spending a lot of his time just sitting there, staring at the wall, and thinking.

Smart move, I suggested.

Now here's further evidence of how smart he is (link from booktrade.info). Hyatt has dumped Thomas Nelson's 20 imprints and rolled them all under the Thomas Nelson heading. Customers don't care about imprints, he says. And he's right. I said so on 8 February 2005.

Brief notes

I first mentioned Marina Lewycka's novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian when it had won a respectable prize but was still relatively unknown. Since then it has gone on to be a huge seller, mainly powered by word of mouth. Now Marina tells the Guardian how she went about writing it. (Link from booktrade.info.)

If you are young enough to take life seriously, and are prepared to take on the Disneys and McDonalds of this world, then equip yourself with a book recommended by the Creative Commons blog: Ourspace by Christine Harold.

While you're at CC, you might want to note what they say about a new documentary on copyright and culture. You can, if you wish, download the whole movie from goodcopybadcopy.net.

And also, of course, CC are interested in what publisher Tim O'Reilly has to say about the influence of free downloads on book sales. In a non-fiction context, you should note.

If you really care, and I have to say that I don't, you can go to M.J. Rose's blog and read all about where MFA students go wrong. With more to come, probably available by the time you go there.

Bowker says that, in the US last year, there were 291,920 new titles published.

Errol Lincoln Uys tells me that, at the age of 63, James Michener had written only two of his blockbuster novels, with nine more yet to come. So there is hope for late starters. Meanwhile, Alex Beam, in the Boston Globe, has things to say about the Uys/Michener collaboration.

The Tartarus Press has moved servers, and old links may not work. This one will. Tartarus is a really interesting UK-based publisher, with quaint old-fashioned ideas about book-production quality. They print stuff in sewn sections, with acid-free paper, and embossed boards! Good grief, whatever next? You could spend a long time, with considerable advantage to yourself, exploring these pages.

Open Letters has a new edition out. It includes a startling review of Christopher Hitchens's latest. You know, the god is not Great thingy.

Fish Publishing is running various competitions for writers.

Tao Lin has posted two stories from his recent BED collection.

The Small Press Review, a UK-based journal for small publishers everywhere, will launch on 19 July 2007. Thereafter bi-monthly. Fiona Wallace is i/c. And there's a Christmas writing competition.

Ed Gorman has hosted a debate about the need for authors to promote themselves. (Link from the Wild West man, Chap O'Keefe.)

William Powell Frith (see Tuesday) had quite a lot of trouble with his models. He used to get them from the local workhouse, but after being paid they would go off and get drunk. Linda Bulloch has written a book about her own experiences as an academic studio model. But she was, I hasten to add, entirely sober. Her book deals with art education, a typical models' roster, syllabi, art materials and techniques, as well as some of the problems of posing nude. But it was, of course, the nudity thing that the media focused on.

Jerry D. Simmons has a lot of experience in publishing, and offers advice and other resources for writers.

Myrmidon Books is a newish UK-based indie publisher, prepared to consider submissions direct from writers.

Publishing News reports that Rosalind Kerven, author of 50 children's books, is setting up her own imprint for a new project.

Jane Austen isn't funny. Official.

Best story I've read this week appeared in an aside in the Guardian. It seems that veteran war photographer Don McCullin, whose camera stopped a bullet in 1969, was once thrown into a lorry with a pile of dead, dying, and wounded. But he kept on taking pictures. When asked why, he said, 'There was still some light left.'

News from the assembly line

How to blog

Gawker says that I must, by now, have seen that YouTube clip where some guys, er, 'perplex an ottoman'. Well no, see, I haven't. Actually. So I am one of those eight people who missed it. I don't get out much, if truth be told.

Anyway, it turns out that some other guys have done a parody of the original settee-humping whatever, and this time it's about blogging. A couple of guys teach you how to blog. Don't blame me if you waste three minutes watching it. I don't recommend it. Just thought you ought to know. In case you want to avoid the dreadful fate of being one of those eight people who don't know what everyone else is talking about. If that happens, no one will want to know you.

And since you ask, no, that's not the way I go about it when I blog. Doctor's orders.

Keeping it quiet

You have to smile don't you? If an established literary novelist wants to earn some cash, it's not unknown for him or her to turn to -- brace yourself -- crime fiction. Or -- even more shocking and horrible -- romance. Yes, I know you can hardly believe it, but it's true. One such is the pseudonymous Inger Wolf.

Publishers Lunch reports that she (I presume it's she) has just sold The Calling, featuring a 61-year-old, recently divorced detective, to Harcourt, for six figures, at auction, for publication in spring 2008. Publishers Weekly tells us that Wolfe is 'a pseudonym for a prominent North American literary novelist'. But don't worry, darling. If I ever find out who you are, I will not reveal your dirty little secret.

How big is yours?

In Slate, various writers are asked to name their favourite font -- i.e. the one they actually write in.

The Literary Saloon, whence this link, seems to find that bizarre, but actually it's a very interesting set of comments. I think it's fair to say that most of the (admittedly unscientific) sample prefer to write in something like an old typewriter font (often Courier). But I believe that's all wrong.

My advice: forget all that mss-have-to-be-doublespaced crap, and set up your word-processor page so that it looks as much like a proper book as possible. That way you will see things more or less the way the eventual reader will see them. Which is, in my view, essential. Unless, of course, you're one of those pure, idealistic writers who doesn't care about readers.

Ghosts rise from the dead

From time to time this blog has touched upon the gentle art of ghostwriting. And I have said here, more than once, that I warmly approve of the entire arrangement, at least in principle. To learn more, see my post of 1 June 2006.

In this connection, I have been taking a look at the web site of Errol Lincoln Uys. Here he has a section entitled Working with Michener. The Michener in question is James A. Michener, once famous for very long books about big subjects -- books which sold in vast quantities. His 1959 novel Hawaii, for instance, had sold 3,913,341 copies by 1975; and doubtless a few more since. His 1974 novel Centennial sold nearly as many in the first year after publication.

What Uys reveals is that Michener did not work alone. From 1978 to 1980, Uys was Michener's collaborator on a book which became Michener's South African novel, The Covenant. Uys plotted and outlined the book with him, undertook major research, and (most importantly) wrote thousands of words for key sections of the novel.

None of this comes as much of a surprise to me, but it might well have surprised those who bought and read Michener's books when they came out. Producing books of great length and complexity is largely a matter of hard grind -- almost a cottage industry -- and in the real world constructing such a book probably involves several people in most instances.

Uys was not, it seems, Michener's only collaborator. But he was, he says, the only one to go on and write his own epic in the same grand style. See his section on Brazil.

Uys suggests that his web pages offer a unique look at what goes into the making of a major novel. I agree.

Brief notes

If you view the comments to some of my old posts, e.g. this one, you will find that the spammers have succeeded in breaking through the defences. Ideally I would go through and delete all these, but life is too short. In the meantime, the true nature of a comment that includes links to a hundred or so sites dealing with credit is probably fairly obvious.

Anyone who writes thrillers, or is thinking of writing a thriller, or just enjoys reading thrillers, should take a look at Thrillerfest -- in New York City, 12-15 July.

Tonto Press has launched a second book of short stories, and is now interested in non-fiction submissions. More competitions for fiction will follow, I understand.

Aardvarchaeology is running the 27th Carnivalesque blog carnival, with links to mostly mediaeval stuff. Seems the ancient Brits believed in an otherworld, but even by Chaucer's time no one was seeing elves any more. (You get 'em in gardens now, but that's different).

The Hotel Chelsea blog has published an interview with British author and teacher Julia Bell.

Facial Anomaly is a blog whereon a writer seeks to develop material for a novel. Comments invited.

If you're a crime fiction fan -- or simply a reader who is interested in outstanding books from whatever genre and period -- hie thee to The Rap Sheet and peruse the extensive list of overlooked and half-forgotten masterpieces. Actually there are several lists; when I visited we were up to number IX, and there may be more by the time you get there. This assembly, by the way, is part of The Rap Sheet's first-birthday celebration.

Monsters and Critics kicks off a series of interviews: first, the multi-talented Charles R. Johnson.

Do you care desperately whether you're an alpha male, or even a delta male? Do you sincerely wish to win? If all of this concerns you, you might wish to peruse Newsweek's assertion that betas rule the world. Link from Josh Gidding, who is mentioned, and whose book, Failure: an Autobiography, is out soon.

Good grief! Clutches heart and reaches for the pills. Madame Arcati has written a novel! But it isn't available just yet. In due course, Madame will publish it herself. Eccentric as ever, Madame has a low opinion of editors and retail managers and prefers the new publishing paradigm.

The American end of OUP has blog, and the lady in charge, Rebecca Ford, was over here last week, picking various people's brains. The OUP blog has one very smart feature: every so often, it asks one of the OUP authors to write a piece about their area of expertise, linking their book to a current piece of news. Example: Stuart P. Green's essay about Lord Browne.

If you are mad keen to keep up with every snippet of news about the book scene, the UK's Bookseller has an RSS feed, which you can use to feed stuff into, say, Bloglines. In the US, Publishers Weekly offers a whole series of RSS options.

Tony Cowell, brother of the more famous Simon, is allegedly going to host a TV show which invites aspiring bestsellers to pitch their (completed) blockbuster novel to a panel. Winner gets a six-figure contract and may be mentored by Jeffrey Archer or Jackie Collins. Do you get to choose who? Because if not, I'm not going to play. (Link from booktrade.info.)

Just in case you missed it, John Angliss posted a comment on the recent copyright post which included a link to a minor work of genius. It's a succinct explanation of the concept of fair use, as illustrated by the output of that prime example of the power of massively well paid lawyers, the Disney Corp.

Do you want to know how to write the Great American Novel? If so, watch this short video and it will be a doddle. The video is produced by Morris Hill Pictures, which has short instructional films available on a number of subjects.

Copyright, copywrong, copywrong; copywrong, copyright, copyright

Maud Newton reports that the American authorities, heavily bribed by the big intellectual-property-owning companies, want to strengthen the laws against breach of copyright.

Sorry, sorry, strike that bit about politicians being bribed. Big companies give campaign funds, don't they? All in the interests of democracy, freedom, guys in white hats and all like that. Greedy self-interest would be a totally false description of their noble stand on matters of principle.

Speaking of copyright, do you ever get the feeling that this is a subject on which 99% of the people in the world are very fuzzy thinkers? To find a a classic example of such fuzzy thinking, nip over to the New York Times (if they'll let you in; the man at the door is very picky) and read what Mark Helprin has to say about copyright. He thinks it should last for ever. And if it doesn't, that's slavery. He says. (Link from Galleycat.)

Well, when an article like that appears in a prestigious place, then I suppose somebody has to sigh deeply and take it seriously; and that somebody, naturally, is Professor Lawrence Lessig.

Lessig was written about here very early in the life of this blog, and often since; he is one of the main thinkers behind the Creative Commons movement. In response to the Helprin 'contribution', Lessig has set up a wiki page which deals, in considerable detail, with the matters raised by Helprin. The slavery nonsense is dealt with in section 10.

Look, I have a modest proposal to make about this. Why don't we just pass a law, applicable in every country in the world, which says that the copyright of everything ever written or created, past, present or future, belongs for ever and ever amen to the Walt Disney Corporation? Hm? That would make everything perfectly simple and straightforward, wouldn't it?

Everyone would know that, if they wanted to quote three words of anything, they would have to pay the Disney Corp $500. Per word. And then we wouldn't have all these pointless debates about how long copyright should last, and who owns it.

Who could possibly object to that? Eh? Who? Macaulay? Who he? He's dead, isn't he? What do dead guys know about anything?

Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie: Lost Girls

In 1974, the Belier Press published a book called The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline, by John Willie, whose real name was John Alexander Scott Coutts.

John Willie was an artist and photographer, and he might best be described as a bondage freak, though he was in my opinion harmless rather than sinister. True, John Willie's heroine, sweet Gwendoline -- she of the spectacular bosom-- does get in some fearful scrapes, and is frequently tied up in the most awkward positions; but one really doesn't feel that she suffers any lasting damage.

Anyway, the point is that The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline came with an introduction by the artist Allen Jones. In that introduction, Jones tells us that there is a form of drawing which he calls Popular Illustration. This, he says, exists outside the accepted area of Fine Art, and can be divided into six categories (at least).

These six categories are, briefly: satirical cartoons; book illustrations; the picture story; commercial advertising; the animated cartoon; and the pin-up.

Lost Girls, by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie, falls firmly into the picture story category (as, of course, does Sweet Gwendoline). In other words, it is a long story told in comic-strip form, with several frames on each page. Comics, by the way, have a long history, and are sometimes known as sequential art or graphic storytelling. The point of comics/sequential art/graphic novels is simple. By comparison with other forms of fiction, you get a lot of pictures and not so many words.

First published by Top Shelf in August 2006, Lost Girls comes in three volumes, all enclosed in a slip case, and carrying a fairly high price tag: current Amazon price $75. Officially, the book is not yet on sale in the UK (copyright problems, of which more in a moment), but some copies have been imported.

So, what is this graphic novel cum book-length comic, or whatever, all about?

The answer, I suppose, is that it's mostly about sex, which is vividly illustrated. If you are offended and upset by representations of human sexuality -- erect penises, exposed vaginas, and the like -- then this is not for you. Neither is it for you if you feel that any persons under the legal age of consent can ever willingly engage in sexual activities. (For a discussion of these controversial aspects of the work, see Wikipedia.)

And who are the Lost Girls, you may be wondering. The answer here is that they are characters drawn from fictional media. To be precise, they are Alice (now Lady Fairchild) from Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy (Gale) from The Wizard of Oz, and Wendy (nee Darling, now Potter) from Peter Pan. In Lost Girls these three fictional characters are shown in later life, as it were; and if you object, on principle, to the lifting of such characters from much-loved classics, let alone their involvement in sexual activities, then this again is not the book for you. Alan Moore, however, has made a habit of the practice: his graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was something of a success, not least in the film version.

In book 1 of the Lost Girls trilogy we are gradually introduced to the three principal characters in the story. The time, we realise, is immediately prior to the outbreak of World War I. The three girls -- actually women -- find themselves attending the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du Printemps. And already we find the girls' traditional experience (in their original book/movie/play) being reinterpreted in sexual terms. Book I, my notes say, is rather fine: imaginative, erotic, original, interesting; the artwork distinctive.

In book 2 there are instances of lesbian sex, involving the three girls, and gay sex, featuring other characters. A number of additional characters from the source works also make their appearance: Captain Hook, for instance, becomes Captain Huxley, a paedophile.

It is also in book 2 that the reader begins to absorb the sense of doom which is perhaps the overall impression of this book -- at least it is once you have got over the shock/horror of the graphic sex and the liberties taken with famous characters. We are reminded, over and over again, of the coming tragedy of World War I, a tragedy which the characters are mercifully unaware of, but which somehow is in the atmosphere. It's certainly in the book. There is a great deal of red in these pictures, and I don't think that's an accident: I think it symbolises the terrible bloodshed which is shortly to come about.

Not only are the pictures remarkable, by the way, but the prose is also noteworthy. I am not going to quote examples, because when taken out of context they will inevitably seem banal.

As the story progresses, we are treated to pastiches of works by artists and authors of the period: these include such luminaries as Colette, Aubrey Beardsley, Wilde, Mucha, and so forth.

At the end of book 2, the women cavort while the Archduke dies at Sarajevo. And instinctively, Alice tells us that 'something quite glorious was finished with for good'. Thus she provides an epitaph for the age which was about to close.

Book 3 features a number of Beardsleyesque illustrations which in my view are the best in the book. And it contains a very English joke about not having sex while the train is standing in the station. In fact book 3 contains a very large amount of sexual activity, enough to make me feel that it was rather repetitious. However, one has to remember the context, which, I repeat, is immediately prior to World War I.

The book ends on the morning after the assassination of the Archduke, a crime which acted as the final precipitator of war. All the girls' most intimate secrets have been revealed to each other and it is time for them to leave the hotel where they have been staying.

German soldiers arrive and smash everything. The war begins.

The dialogue on the last few pages is entirely in German. But should you wish to know what the German soldiers are saying to each other, you can find a translation online.

A few final notes. Lost Girls reportedly took 16 years to complete. The authors found themselves in disagreement with Great Ormond Street Hospital, which owns the copyright in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan, but the Hospital has now reached an amicable agreement with the publisher (Top Shelf Books), to the effect that there will be no recourse to legalities so long as the publisher does not attempt to publish Lost Girls in the UK until after 1 January 2008: at which time the copyright allegedly expires. However, as always with copyright, the position is hideously complicated. I think that both parties would be well advised to avoid the courts, as the only people to benefit from such nonsense would be the lawyers.

This is a book which will repay study. And, should you wish to explore some of its complexities and subtleties before buying a copy, the Wikipedia article is a good place to start. The same article also provides links to some of the extensive internet comment on this book.

The publisher, by the way, naturally has its own web site.

I have stated what might put you off this book. But, if you are to enjoy it fully, you need not only a tolerance to those aspects that I have highlighted, you also need a sound working knowledge of European history and culture; otherwise, I suspect, many of the references will pass you by. And I do not claim that I understood all of them myself.

It is, in fact, rather hard to identify the natural audience for this book. It will appeal most, I think, to those with an odd combination of eccentric tastes -- tastes in art, literature, popular culture, and erotica (if we must use that shop-soiled term). Despite its exclusivity, however, I believe that this book will still be read in many years' time.

Some of the illustrations may not fall within the definition of Fine Art, as Allen Jones would have it, but they are definitely fine with a small f. The book will certainly tell future generations something about the present generation of writers, artists, and readers: though what that is, I cannot say.

If you have academic ambitions, you may care to note that there is material here for any number of PhD theses. To give but one example: all the participants in the sexual activity have an impossible number of orgasms; but the point is made in the text that pornography is not real. The girls tell stories of people doing things which the girls acknowledge are awful and dreadful, but which will excite the teller and the listeners. This seems to me to be a morally complex idea.

Overall this is, in my view, a much more subtle and complicated book than it might appear. It deals with imagination and fantasy as compared with real life, and guilt about our fantasies.

P.S. 16 May. Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie just got married. How romantic. Neil Gaiman was there and took some photos.

Worth a look

The novelist John Lanchester has some interesting things to say about copyright and intellectual property in general. (Viktor Janis, among others, spotted this.)

The Washington Post did an experiment to find out whether people can recognise a true artist when they hear (see/read) one, and finds that they can't. No surprise there then. Thanks to Maria Schneider for the link.

Latest in the ranks of those reviewing print-on-demand books only is The PODler. He has interesting things to say about what a POD author should expect. And, by an amazing coincidence, he reviews my Lucius the Club (10 April).

Madame Arcati acts as hostess to Molly Parkin's poetry. In one poem, Molly reports having sex, aged 73, with a 23-year-old young man from down under (it tends to be catching, doesn't it?); and in another she describes living in the Tower of Babel -- which sounds quite a friendly place. Our Moll wrote lots of books once upon a time, but no one seems to have listed them in a proper bibliography online. Abebooks can find some for you.

After three years, Biff Mitchell has finished Murder by Burger. Now all he has to do....

In his first novel, about McCarthy-era Hollywood, Eoin Hennigan claims that The Truth, it Lies.

Someone, probably Little, Brown & Co (young readers division), has spent a lot of money on the web site for Atherton. There's also an associated web site, Unlock Dr Harding's Brain, but I advise you not to go there without a youthful guide, otherwise you'll get hopelessly lost and confused. I certainly did.

Sam Tyler, he dead. Imho. When a little girl turns off your TV set, I reckon that's it. And if you're an American, and have no idea what I'm talking about, don't worry. You will.

For a regular stream of reviews on every sort and kind of book, try the January Magazine. Where there is, by another amazing coincidence, a review of Lucius the Club.

Mr Lethem leads the way

I don't know about you, but I have pretty much given up on expecting governments to do anything sensible. Furthermore, the big companies are motivated solely by proft, but then that is their raison d'etre, so it's no good complaining about that. And organised religion has shown itself to be deeply flawed. It therefore falls, it seems to me, to individuals to save the world.

One man who, in my opinion, is heading in roughly the right direction is the novelist Jonathan Lethem. He is the author of the novel Motherless Brooklyn, which I read with some interest a while back. And now he has just published a new novel, You Don't Love Me Yet. And in the case of this novel, he intends to deal with the film option and the ancillary rights in a rather unusual way.

To get the full details, you will have to read Jonathan's own account of what he is proposing to do, but basically he is offering film producers a free option on the book in return for two per cent of the budget (eventually) and an undertaking that, after five years, all the ancillary rights to the film and the novel will pass into the public domain.

'In other words,' says Lethem, 'after a waiting period during which those rights would still be restricted, anyone who cared to could make any number of other kinds of artwork based on the novel’s story and characters, or the film’s: a play, a television series, a comic book, a theme park ride, an opera – or even a sequel film or novel featuring the same characters. For that matter, they can remake the film with another script and new actors.'

Now this, you have to admit, is unusual. The question is, is it a smart move? Is it smart commercially, in the long or the short term? Because Jonathan does not make himself out to be a philanthropist -- he has to make a living. And is it smart in terms of reptuation, public interest, and creative interest? Is there a single film producer breathing who will not snort with derision at this naivety?

We shall see. In the meantime, it is certainly refreshing to find someone who is not so tight-arsed about copyright that he phones his lawyer every time someone quotes three sentences from what he has written.

Mr Lethem is also, by the way, the author of the most scholarly and fascinating essay that I have ever read on the subject of influence, copying, plagiarism, the use of famous characters in new works, et cetera et cetera. I particularly like his story about Muddy Waters telling how he 'wrote' the song 'Country Blues'.

'It becomes apparent,' says Lethem, 'that appropriation, mimicry, quotation, allusion, and sublimated collaboration consist of a kind of sine qua non of the creative act, cutting across all forms and genres in the realm of cultural production.' Think Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story.

And, when you get to the bit about Jefferson and the American constitution on the question of copyright, you might like to compare it with the ideas of Macaulay.

Dennis Cooper (editor): Userlands

The subtitle of Userlands is 'New fiction writers from the blogging underground'. What we have is a collection of short stories, edited by Dennis Cooper.

By my count, there are 41 different writers represented here. The editor says that they range in age from sixteen to early forties. Only two of them are women. Five of them are Brits, and the rest, I guess, American.

OK. Let's try to provide a lead for the time-short, so that they can decide whether to read any further. Userlands is made up of literary short stories, urban, hard-edged, very masculine in tone, dealing, very often, with violence, depression, street life, drugs, homosexuality, sado-masochism, and suicide. There aren't many laughs in it (Justin Taylor's study of a group of anarchists being as near as you get to humour). The writers seem to take themselves, and life, awfully seriously.

The publisher is Akashic Books, a firm which describes itself as dedicated to the 'reverse-gentrification of the literary world'. Well, judging by Userlands, it's doing a pretty good job. The cover illustration, which appears to be an image of some particularly unattractive microscopic bug, seems to me to be guaranteed to discourage any gentrified person from going anywhere near the book.

Dennis Cooper, the editor of this collection, is himself a writer with a track record and some reputation. He has written eight novels, most recently God Jr. (Grove Press) and The Sluts (Carroll & Graf). His novels have been translated into eighteen languages. Indeed he is sufficiently eminent to be the subject of a collection of critical essays: Enter at Your Own Risk, subtitled 'The dangerous art of Dennis Cooper'. It's a snip at $49.50; which means, of course, that it's intended for the academic-library market. So Mr Cooper is a man with some prestige in literary circles, and to be selected by him, for inclusion in a collection of new work, is doubtless thought in many quarters to be a distinction in itself.

I wish I could say that I enjoyed this display of young and new talent, but I'm afraid I didn't. It's all relentlessly self-centred, for a start, with little interest shown in the welfare of the reader. Some of these writers remind me of a stroppy child, jumping up and down and demanding attention. You need a strong stomach for some of the stories, and many of them reveal despair, anger, and disgust.

I have the very strong impression that all these writers yearn to be admired and famous in what they perceive to be the only circle of any consequence: namely that tight coterie of young, city-based, hard-edged, largely male and often university-based coffee-shop highbrow discussants. Unfortunately, there isn't room at the top for all of these writers to make it, so some of them are going to end up even more disenchanted than they appear at present.

Dennis Cooper's introduction makes some interesting points. 'It's not exactly a revelation,' he says, 'that book publishing in the United States is in a gentrified, conservative, and economics-driven state.' He adds that the graduating classes of the university writing programs 'have formed a kind of official advisory board to the large American publishing houses.' (Which could be why some of them are having a hard time making any money out of fiction.)

Userlands, says Cooper, offers 'one alternative to the status quo, one unobstructed view of contemporary fiction at its real, unbridled, vigorous, percolating best.'

He's dead right. Up to a point. That point is reached at the word 'fiction' in the sentence quoted in the previous paragraph. What Cooper offer us is, as he says, one alternative to the status quo. What he provides is, reasonably enough, a collection of the kind of work that he admires and enjoys, and which he considers the 'best'.

It would, however, be perfectly possible to put together a dozen other anthologies of work produced by 'bloggers', to use a generic term for anyone who puts their stuff on the web. You could, for example, make a book out of stories and articles by cheerful young women rather than thoroughly bad-tempered young men. Ignoring copyright problems, you could do a volume of Star Trek fan fiction, or Wodehouse pastiche. Or whatever. There are many worlds out there.

Any one of those other collections would, I suspect, entertain the average reader rather more effectively than would Userlands. However, if you want to know what the angry young men of today are up to, Userlands is definitely the place to go.

They call it Stormy Monday

Good sense on copyright from the FT

Last week saw the publication in the UK of the Gowers report on Intellectual Property (IP), of which more in a moment. And on Saturday the Financial Times ran an editorial which was full of good sense. Headlined 'Intellectual Propriety', the sub-head ran 'The term of copyrights and patents should not be extended'. Here is an extract:

This week, as part of a welter of documents accompanying a budget report, the Treasury published a review of the rules on intellectual property. Written by Andrew Gowers, a former editor of this newspaper, it argues against extending the term of copyright for music, but for reforms that would make intellectual property cheaper to protect and easier to enforce.

That is consistent with the purpose of copyrights, patents and trademarks: they exist to encourage the creation of knowledge, by providing the creator with a period of exclusive use, and to persuade people to make their discoveries public, so others can build on them.

If the revenue from a temporary monopoly is more than the cost of writing, recording or inventing then a financial incentive exists. But because that monopoly has a cost to society - the drug or film or book costs more than it would if it could be freely copied - the term of the intellectual property should be the minimum possible.

The FT (which I think we can assume speaks for its former editor) thus takes the same line as Macaulay in 1841. Macaulay argued that copyright was a form of temporary monopoly, and that monopolies were, in principle, against the public interest. For a fuller discussion, see my post of 6 February 2006.

I fear that 4500 musicians are going to be rather disappointed.

Full details of the Gowers report are on the HM Treasury web site.

The Frontlist

The Frontlist is the subject of a brief article in the International Herald Tribune, a newspaper which chooses, for its own good reasons, no doubt, to refer to it as The Front List.

The Frontlist was described here on 18 July 2006. It is a web site which offers you the opportunity to submit a sample of your novel, whereupon said extract is read and scored by five other people who have also submitted samples. Those bits of amazing prose which score highly are then read by agents and/or publishers who thus hope to avoid having to do their own elimination of the not very impressive by wading through the slush pile.

I had reservations, but I thought people should suck it and see. Scott Pack is quoted as having some reservations too.

The IHT adds little new, but as I said before, 'this entire operation is being run by thoughtful and well-intentioned people -- idealists, even -- who are going to be doing a great deal of work for close to zero money, and it would therefore be churlish to be unkind about it.'

It's early days yet to expect the scheme to have thrown up a winner, but, if you're an eager young hopeful, it's a site to explore. (Link from booktrade.info.)

Richard in bidding war

Galleycat says that Richard Madeley, male half of the UK's formidable TV pair Richard and Judy, is working on a book about fathers and sons, and that the auction is getting excitable. (The proposed novel has been put aside.)

Meanwhile, everyone continues to rave about the value and importance, to the UK book world, of the Richard and Judy show.

Prizes that no one wants

There is much uproar in blogoland over the prizes that no one wants. Well, not many people. It's all very boring, but if you read Galleycat's posts of 6 December and 7 December you will see that Sobol launched a prize for fiction writers and expected 50,000 entries; so far they've got 1,000 or so, probably because you have to pay $85 to enter.

Anyway, the only reason for mentioning it here is because it reminds me of an article which appeared in Esquire at least forty years ago. That told the tale of a competition (run by a publisher, I think) to find a really great novel. The prize was huge (I seem to remember $200,000), and included sale of film rights to some Hollywood household name. In the end the entries were so poor that the publisher had to commission a professional to write the 'winner'.

I am also reminded of a competition run in 1983 by the Sunday Express, to find a new romantic writer. Over 10 million words were submitted (perhaps 200 novels), but unfortunately only one entry conformed with the requirements of the competition.

Gobsmacked

Bookslut reports that an audience in New York was stunned (gobsmacked, as we say in England) by the following statement from Milton Glaser:

Glaser, designer of the iconic "I Love New York" design, had an unfortunate Larry Summers moment when he said that the reason there are so few female rock star graphic designers is that "women get pregnant, have children, go home and take care of their children. And those essential years that men are building their careers and becoming visible are basically denied to women who choose to be at home." He continued: "Unless something very dramatic happens to the nature of the human experience then it's never going to change." About day care and nannies, he said, "None of them are good solutions."

The crowd fell silent, says Bookslut, apart from a hiss or two. Curious, isn't it, how a crowd can be silenced by a statement of the blindingly obvious.

Ansible items

There are ghosts, and ghosts. Ansible reports that Arthur C. Clarke feels he's too old for the writing game, and has asked dynamic 'young' author Frederik Pohl (born two years after ACC) to finish his new novel.

Ansible also quotes the ever-modest James Ellroy: "I am a master of fiction. I am also the greatest crime novelist who ever lived. I am to the crime novel in specific what Tolstoy is to the Russian novel and what Beethoven is to music." (New York Times Magazine interview, 5 Nov.)

And a lot more besides. Go take a look.

While you're at it, go look at David Langford's The End of Harry Potter.

The Writers Ink

There are more ways than one to make a living as a writer, as The Writers Ink shows. And no, they don't bother with an apostrophe. This gang not only have an office in the USA, they have one in Seoul, South Korea, too. Link from my son Jon who met Peter at a party.

Kathy O'Beirne story

If you are keeping half an eye on the Kathy O'Beirne story, you may wish to note that some passionate supporters of that lady continue to post comments on my post of 20 September 2006. One of the latest is a 'counselling psychologist'.

Culture on Sunday

The Sunday Times culture section contained several items of note.

If you have ever wondered what an English pantomime is all about, the review of Dick Whittington at the Barbican gives you a pretty good idea.

There's a discussion of how the television industry hopes to avoid making the same mistakes that the music business made when it comes to permitting downloading. (And copying? See the Gowers report.)

Then there's a discussion of how classical music fans like to download stuff too (who would have guessed?), and can they have a more sophisticated service please.

John Doyle has written a book about the impact of television on Irish society. The Irish didn't get their own TV service until 1961, and at the official opening both President de Valera and Cardinal Dalton warned of the evil influence that TV could have. Well, it sure as hell reduced respect for both politicians and the church. You might like to read this before or after Christine Falls.

A chap called Pynchon has a book out. Apparently.

And the bestseller list shows that Marina Lewycka is still in the top ten (after 23 weeks) with A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, of which 557,350 copies have been sold. So far. Thumpy eck, Mavis, that's a lot of books. But she deserves it.

Director of People wanted

The Sunday Times appointments (jobs) section has an advert from HarperCollins for a 'Director of People', which is, presumably, the new name for Human Resources aka Personnel.

The ad describes HC as 'well positioned to embrace the transformation of publishing in the new digital environment'. The Director will be expected to 'enable the company to thrive in a rapidly developing publishing sector that will place increasing emphasis on direct relationships with the consumer'. W.H. Smith et al are going to love that bit, aren't they?

And, above all, the Director needs the 'ambition to play a pivotal role in taking an established and high profile organisation through substantial change to ensure it maintains its competitive edge in a dynamic publishing market.'

Well, it's taken a while, and this isn't the first sign of it, but at last UK publishers seem to have got the message that we're in the digital age and things cannot remain the same, even if you want them to.

Gessen on blogs

Finally, Maud Newton drew my attention to some comments about blogs which were made by Keith Gessen, editor of n+1. Here's part of what Gessen said:

The trouble with [literary] blogs arises when they go from being diaries (very private expressions, telling us something only that person knows) to being basically attention-grabbing mechanisms.... Back in the day, you would occasionally stumble upon some person blogging about their very private reading, what it was like, what their reactions were. Those people still exist, but they're drowned out by people who are just purveyors of literary gossip -- who comment on books they haven't even read, who, as Marco likes to say, are just basically freelance publicists.

Now the man has a point, and it has bothered me for some time. When I first started this blog it consisted almost entirely of stuff that was unique to me, i.e. it was about books that I'd read and enjoyed, and about my ideas on the best way to write fiction, and so forth.

Gradually, and I'm not sure quite how it happened, I drifted into providing (at least part of the time) what a friend of mine used to call tragic gossip -- i.e. snippets of news about the book world. Today's post is an example.

Now the tragic gossip approach has its uses. As a retired person I do have rather more time available to read newspapers and web pages than has someone who has a full-time job (and, often, is trying to write a novel as well). So a kind of filtering process and a bit of reader's-digesting can serve a useful purpose.

And it may be that I, and Keith Gessen, underestimate the usefulness of that. However, I do retain a slightly guilty feeling that the true value (if any) of this blog lies in such original comment and guidance as I can provide in the form of some of my better essays and book reviews. Most of the gossip you can, in fact, get elsewhere.

The trouble is, of course, that the extended essays take rather a long time to do. For weeks now, I have been thinking of doing at least a couple more items on Victorian pornography (parts one and two appeared some time ago), some more about emotion and decision-making for writers, and the literature of transgender, and a lot more. But it is all too easy, I'm afraid, to get distracted.

Note to self: must work on the balance thing.