Thursday digest

Blogger was being awkward again today....

More Booker

Further to yesterday's post: I advise all readers of the ensuing discussion of the winning book, in every newspaper, magazine and blog in the known universe, to bear in mind the wise words of the founder of the prize. People love the Booker, he declared, 'because it is so unfair.'

Meanwhile, Publishers Lunch highlights some words of wisdom from Richard Charkin, the bossman at Macmillan:

I should have known that this particular title would win when, earlier in the evening, I was asked whether Macmillan was committed to publishing literary books. I asked what is meant by a literary book. Apparently it is a work of fiction which loses money. It seemed rather an odd definition and I tried to argue that publishing companies tend to do a better job when they are solvent. In addition I'm not quite sure why literary publishing should deserve more support than, say, educational publishing in Zimbabwe.... But I should not want to leave future publishers at Macmillan with an inheritance of loss whatever the definition of literature.

Belated thanks

It was, of course, Clive Keeble who alerted me to the Susan Hill point about Cheltenham, mentioned on Tuesday.

Published.com

Published.com is 'a free directory of writers and artists'. You can offer your stuff to the world, and see what the world has to offer you. Not a lot there as yet, but the art books section suggests that Lulu is now being used to publish, in ebook form, some material which would never be economic in the print world. (Link from Nadine Laman.)

Gender rivalry

Petrona took exception to David Montgomery's list of the ten 'best' detective novels because the authors were all male. So she's started to collect her own list of women writers.

Stephen King again

Stephen King is not my favourite author, but by golly he works hard. His new book is apparently somewhat different from the usual recipe, and he has some interesting things to say to the New York Times, not least in reference to critics who 'made their ignorance of their own popular culture a virtue.' (Link from Merisi, who blogs [visually] from Vienna.)

Stephen King by the way, is coming to England. And he doesn't do that very often. There is to be (I am told) an 'exclusive event', presented by The Times, Hodder & Stoughton and Waterstone's. It will take place at Battersea park Events Arena on November 7th at 7.00pm. Tickets cost £15.00 each. Book yours now: 08708 303 488. Or not, according to taste.

Tonto Press blog

Tonto Press is a relatively new UK-based small press, and the two guys in charge have started a blog which relates how they deal with some of the problems. In their most recent post they deal with the knotty question of how to sell books. (And you thought writing them was the difficult part.)

Not so smart

In recent days I have twice mentioned that writing a novel based directly on personal experience is not such a smart move. It is much more dangerous, from a legal point of view, than is generally realised, especially by writers who are new to the fiction business. Now here's a case which rather proves my point.

Joyce Dudley, in real life, is a Santa Barbara prosecutor, and she recently self-published (through Infinity) her second crime novel, Intoxicating Agent. This features a heroine who is also a female prosecutor and 'has the poise and sexiness of a dancer, the brains of a scholar', and so forth. Said fictional prosecutor takes on a case in which a seriously nasty piece of work is accused of raping an intoxicated victim.

Sadly, one of Ms Dudley's real-life defendants argued that this fictional case was far too much like his own. And the California Court of Appeal agreed. Ms Dudley has been barred from prosecuting the real-life case because of a disabling conflict of interest. (Story in the Times.)

Meanwhile, Galleycat reveals that the too-close-to-reality syndrome is not confined to younger writers. Joyce Carol Oates, author of more novels than you can easily count, published a new short story this year, and now wishes that it wasn't quite so closely related to a real-life incident.

'If I had to do it all over again, I certainly would have changed some details,' she says. And Galleycat thinks that this does 'speak to the larger question of how much fact is appropriate in fiction.'

Make it all up, is what I say. Every damned word.

Ansible 231

Dave Langford's monthly newsletter, Ansible, is out again. This deals mainly with science fiction, but you really don't need to be an SF fan to find it amusing. Thog's Masterclass, for example, constitutes a monthly warning to writers of all kinds that it is all too easy to put your foot in your mouth. So to speak.

Aultbea

Before offering anything to Aultbea, be sure to check my post of 18 July 2006 to see if there are any relevant comments.

Emotions

Albert Ellis is a name I first became aware of back in the early 1960s. In those days, there were a mass of men's magazines in the US, aimed mainly I suspect at the college boys' market. They featured intelligent articles and some pretty good short stories, plus lots of pictures of young women without any clothes on. Since there was absolutely no UK equivalent at the time, any unsold copies of the print-run were shipped to the UK, where they found an eager readership.

Anyway, Albert Ellis used to write for some of those magazines. He was trained as a psychologist and psychoanalyst, and Wikipedia now refers to him as a cognital behavioral therapist. He was, incidentally, unsuccessful in early attempts to write fiction.

Now a correspondent rightly reminds me that anyone interested in emotions would do well to take a look at Ellis's work. The Wikipedia article has a useful list of his publications.

Bomb bunkers

Speaking of the bomb, which we were recently, both in relation to the weather and North Korea, bookseller Steerforth gives us an extremely interesting tour of a cold-war nuclear bunker. This would, he said, have been the home of the British government in the event of nuclear conflict. And he wonders if something similar was built elsewhere.

Well, that's quite certain. Within ten miles of my home there is a pretty well documented network of tunnels, bunkers, and so forth. There are bunker spotters just as there are train spotters. A few years ago the Monkton Farleigh bunker was open to the public, and it was an extraordinary place.

These places were never all that much of a secret, even when they were supposed to be.

Ephemera

Ephemera are bits of old paper, booklets, catalogues, and so forth. People collect them, buy and sell them, swap them, and so forth. And there is, needless to say, a blog about it.

Ain't it awful

Philip F. Harris writes to say that he has commented on the unhappy state of publishing -- unhappy from a tyro writer's point of view, that is -- in the American Chronicle. 'Everyone seems to agree with my message,' he says, 'but no one knows what to do.'

Pass, as they say on quiz shows here in England.

Philip himself, however, does not seem to be too discouraged. Having co-authored a novel called Waking God (a natural, one might think, for the Da Vinci hard-core fans), he is about to publish A Maine Christmas Carol.

Lonely as a cloud

Poor old Paul Burrell. He who authored a book which, in the States, was sold without a title, author, or any details, as the big smash hit (allegedly) of the autumn season, was at a book signing in Waterstone's, Glasgow, and five people turned up. Clive Keeble spotted the story in the Sun, which is famous for its excellent book coverage -- always provided you can get past page 3.

The book, by the way, proved to be a rehash of the Princess Diana story.

The editor's revenge

Publishers Lunch has one or twice pointed to the Unsolicited page of Gawker, and it's certainly worth a look. On October 4, for example, we had an editor sounding off about authors, which certainly makes a change from the constant stream of vice versa. Sample: 'With a few glowing exceptions, authors are the craziest, meanest, strangest, cluelessest people you've ever met.'

This week, October 11, we appear at first sight to be back to the same old same old, i.e. writers complaining bitterly about editors who are too stupid to recognise their genius. But it ain't quite like that. It's an editor again, one with an almost saintly degree of patience.

More free stuff

From time to time, even in 2004, and again in 2005 and 2006, this blog has pointed to a handful of eccentrics who take the view that giving stuff away free on the web is good business and helps to sell books. Now there is an addition to the tiny number of publishers who hold the same view.

From the end of October, the Friday Project will be making its entire back catalogue available online for free. There isn't a lot about it on their web site yet, but they put out a press release to that effect on 5 October. The Friday Project site also provides a route to Scott Pack's 'uncensored' blog about the state of UK publishing.

The current Friday Project plug is Blood, Sweat and Tea, Tom Reynolds's book about life in the London ambulance service. And this one already is available for free in pdf format. Furthermore, you can copy it, send it to friends, or do almost any other damn thing with it for non-commercial purposes.

More than 10,000 pdf copies of the book were downloaded in the first two weeks. As for the print version, Scott Pack says that the initial print run of 20,000 is almost sold out, and they have another 15,000 on order.

Conclusions?

Popular art

If you are interested in popular fiction, you might, perhaps, be interested in popular art. If so, the Photogold gallery offers lots of info -- not to mention prints et cetera -- on Jack Vettriano and Beryl Cook.

Nobel news

Orhan Pamuk has won the Nobel prize for Literature, but Martin Rundkvist isn't any too impressed by the procedure for selecting the winner.

Shelfari

A new web site aimed at hard-core book readers has just opened for business. Called Shelfari, it seems to be designed for those like to chat online about what they've read, pick up tips on suitable books for reading groups, et cetera.

Book Standard blog

The Book Standard has launched a blog which will concentrate on book-related video content, including book trailers, author interviews and so forth. And they even give some space to those who are sceptical about videos for promoting books. Such heresy. Though I must say that one or two of those on offer do give one pause.

The Riot Lit blog

The Riot Lit lot have also started a blog. Since there are quite a few of them it is not likely to be short of material. Jeremy Robert Johnson, I see, has offered to marry Poddy Girl, aka Girl on Demand. And Daniel Scott Buck writes about getting his book reviewed by bloggers. I was the first, it seems, and Poddy Girl was keen on it too.

As I have been known to say, all you can do is put it out there and see what happens. And they won't find it, in my opinion, unless it's free to begin with.

The Booker 2006

The Booker

So, Kiran Desai won the Booker. She is the daughter, the Times reports, of Anita Desai, who has herself been shortlisted for the prize on three occasions.

The Times also tells us that Kiran is currently a student on the Columbia University creative-writing course. That course is not without its critics, as we noted here in April.

If you want to read a digest version of the winning novel, plus all the other shortlisted books, you can find one in yesterday's Guardian (link from booktrade.info). But don't make the mistake of thinking that you're reading the real thing -- it's all a bit on the ho ho ho side. That said, the Night Watch precis gives quite a good flavour of the book, and it's a lot quicker to read. It's also just about as rewarding.

Nic Bottomley, elsewhere in the Guardian, says that a Booker prize is a badge of readability. This would be the joke of the week but for the fact that he obviously means it. However, since dear old Nic recently opened yet another bookshop in Bath, he is clearly an eccentric. Not to mention an optimist.

As for me, I think I said all I want to say about the Booker in January 2005, in my post entitled 'The Booker Prize and absolute nonsense'.

Bits and pieces

The glorious future

The International Herald Tribune would have us believe that book publishers are not going to make the same mistakes as the music and film industries. Springer is simplifying digital access and copying facilities for its substantial academic and scientific output, and mainstream publishers are, er... having a think. (Link from booktrade.info.)

Wisdom from Cheltenham?

The Times, I gather, is sponsoring the Cheltenham Literature Festival, and hence is giving the proceedings rather more column inches than would otherwise be the case.

Yesterday, for example, 'one of the country's leading writers' said that bookshops were failing to promote modern literature. The leading writer making this charge was Patrick Neate, of whom, sad to say, I had never previously heard a whisper.

However, as some blogger pointed out (and I regret that I cannot now remember who), Susan Hill was also at Cheltenham, and she told an entirely different story:

At Cheltenham on Saturday we had yet more complaining about how hard it is for writers, how no one wants to publish them and when they are published how no one wants to stock them and... Oh give me strength.

Quite right too.

April Ashley survives

You won't remember, because you're far too young, but April Ashley was one of the first Brits to have a so-called sex-change operation. Once famous, and beloved of the tabloids, she has faded from view somewhat in recent years, but now she has her own web site, and gallery, and so forth. (Thanks to Madame Arcati for the link.)

April is going to write another autobiography, dealing with 1980 onwards, and this time including stuff which had to be left out of the first one. Now that I really would like to read.

Cliff Richard also survives

Galleycat alerted me to the fact that Headline is going to publish a Cliff Richard memoir.

That one I definitely won't bother with. There is no way in the world that it will tell anything even remotely like the truth. Pure vanilla, from start to finish.

Blogroll

Mention of Madame Arcati reminds me that she ain't on the blogroll yet. And neither are some others who ought to be. But I will get there. Eventually.

The bomb

If you want the inside story on how the South Koreans are reacting to the bomb, my son Jon can help. Complete with stock market tips.

Booker

Apparently it's the Booker thingie tonight. I hadn't noticed, but a blogger (and again, I'm afraid I have forgotten who) reminded me yesterday.

The big revelation used to be broadcast live on one of the UK TV channels, but this year it's just going to be announced on the BBC ten o'clock news. Lead item, no doubt, taking precedence over anything to do with bombs.

I find, on reflection, that I am successfully managing to contain my excitement.

The Book People

The Book People's catalogue is beginning to drop out of magazines again. Well, it is nearly Christmas, after all.

I must say I find it all rather garish. The catalogue is mostly red, but the web site is mostly blue. Strong, either way.

There's lots and lots of stuff for kids. Paddington Bear is still popular, I see. And so is William! Good grief. He has joined the immortals. I wonder if it's been updated?

Simenon is recycled, and you can buy all six of the Booker shortlist for £29.99! Crumbs. I bet the authors are all thrilled about that.

Amy's View

On Friday last, by the way, to the Theatre Royal, Bath, to see Amy's View, starring Felicity Kendal. This play is by David Hare, who has a long and distinguished track record. The production is directed, without much fanfare, by Sir Peter Hall, and is going to tour in anticipation of a West End transfer.

You probably recall that Amy's View was very successful, just under ten years ago, in both London and New York, with Judi Dench in the lead. It's a play all about relationships, the mother/daughter/son-in-law thing, and I'm afraid I didn't enjoy it much. There are also some ideas lurking in there: is the theatre dead type of thing.

All in all, it struck me that, had it not been written by a man with a long list of successes, Amy's View would never have been put on in a month of Sundays. Except possibly by the Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society. However, it is undeniably well acted.

McGillivray on censorship

Speaking of Farndale Avenue, I had forgotten that David McGillivray was one of the parties responsible for that. David doesn't seem to have a web site devoted solely to his exploits, which is a pity, because he has an unusual set of achievements. Here are a few things that have come to my notice.

If you want an entertaining account of some of the less respectable corners of the British film industry, try Doing Rude Things, which is a history of the British sex film from 1957 to 1981. I find, to my astonishment, that I have a signed copy. Not only that, but Pamela Green, who wrote the foreword, has signed it too! Crumbs. Ah, Pamela. If only we were both young again. Now she does have her own web site.

I'm pretty sure that it was also David McGillivray who wrote a short biography of the UK actress Madeline Smith. I had a copy of that too, once, but it seems to have disappeared.

On a more serious note, you can find David's learned and valuable 1999 essay on censorship on the Melon Farmers web site. Subtitled 'Why obscenity legislation is the pornographer's best friend', it contains a lot of useful information and much good sense.

Robin Hood

If you live in the UK you would be hard put to avoid knowing that the BBC has revived Robin Hood for a new series on Saturday nights. Timed at 50 minutes an episode, it is obviously intended to be sold to commercial stations, so it will probably go everywhere in the end.

The mythical figure of Robin has had a long run in show business. Errol Flynn did him for Hollywood, as did Kevin Costner. But what most people my age remember is the 1950s television series, produced, curiously enough, in the UK. It was, as I recall, cheap, cheerful, and gave employment to, among others, a couple of blacklisted Hollywood writers.

The executive producer was Hannah Weinstein. I remember one day in about 1960 when I was walking through Kensington with an American friend. He pointed out a Rolls Royce. 'That's Hannah's,' he said, and explained how she had come by it. 'I knew her,' he added, 'when she was so poor that she had to write letters with a burn matchstick.' A slight exaggeration, but I took his point.

The new BBC version is not to everyone's taste, but I liked it. Robin, it turns out, is a bit of a shortarse, but what he lacks in stature he makes up for in supernatural powers. When he gets annoyed he does a bit of an incredible hulk thing; light shines out of his eyes and so forth. He's a dab hand with a bow and arrow too: he can fire two arrows at once and save not just once chap from hanging but two, by cutting the ropes with his deadly aim. I don't think Errol Flynn could do that.

The programme is worth watching for Maid Marian alone. I have to choose my words carefully here, but she is, shall we say, distinctly juicy. I don't think Robin's man enough for the job, actually, but we shall see.

Frankfurt 'frenzy'

Am I alone in sighing wearily at yet more tales of frenzy at Frankfurt? This one comes from the Bookseller, which is too damn mean to let you read it on their site, so you have to go to the Book Standard.

The 'hottest book of the year' is reportedly the best of its kind since The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which isn't saying much, in my estimation. Then Faber have snapped up this, and there's huge interest in that, and there are 'massive six-figure pre-empts' and so forth.

God it's boring.

Pratchett rules

Last Saturday's Times shows Terry Pratchett at the top of the bestsellers with 32,348 copies sold. But the Sunday Times chart, for the same period, doesn't list him at all. Am I missing something? Is it because Wintersmith is allegedly a kid's book? I've bought one anyway, so there.

A good laugh

If you are in search of comic relief, the best I can offer you this morning is a piece in the Law supplement of today's Times. Written by David Pannick, it concerns a couple of judges who were shagging each other, and a few other people besides, and got themselves into the newspapers. Highly entertaining, always provided, of course, that you are not one of the parties involved.

The truth shall out?

And finally today, another reminder that the nature of obituaries has changed. Once the rule was de mortuis, but not any longer. Some time ago I referred to the obituary of Peter Carter-Ruck, in which the dead man got a thorough (albeit thoroughly deserved) kicking from a former colleague. And today's Times offers an obit of Professor Arthur Marwick which is franker than most.

Marwick was a historian, and I remember him because he wrote The Deluge, a study of the impact of the first world war on British society. I found it useful when planning a never-written novel about that period.

After the usual life summary, the obituary (unsigned, as is the Times regular practice) says that Marwick's interests were 'wine, women and football'.

He was, in truth, too often drunk, and when drunk a boor and a bore. He made enemies and hurt friends. But he was also a shy, generous and deeply kind man. He had an unswerving commitment to history’s social purpose. He never married, but had a daughter and granddaughter, on whom he doted.

Well, I don't think he was drunk when he wrote The Deluge. That was pretty good.

Francis Ellen: The Samplist

Francis Ellen's The Samplist is perhaps the best known self-published novel of recent years. It is said to be the first self-published novel to be reviewed by The Times Literary Supplement for more than a hundred years.

The Samplist was published in 2004, and I actually bought a copy about a year later. But it wasn't until I was sent a further review copy, together with an accompanying CD of music, that I actually got around to reading it.

For the purposes of this review, I decided to limit myself to the kind of information that might typically be available to a publishing-house editor or a newspaper book reviewer: in other words, I would just read the book, and listen to the music, and make comments accordingly. I have not (yet) looked at the author's web site.

What we have, essentially, is a substantial (360-page) novel about music; it is related in the third person. The principal characters are all students in a specialised music college in Glasgow. Also featured are several members of staff, most of them slightly barmy.

The samplist of the title is Alex, who records 'samples', or individual notes of music, as played on various instruments, and then uses a computer to construct from the samples a musical performance which is 'greater' than that of any living musician.

While Alex is the central character, we also spend quite a lot of time with Elliott, a brilliant guitarist, Skuggs, who plays the tuba, and Laura, who can play the violin like a virtuoso, but only if Alex is touching her at the time.

The storyline is concerned with Alex's attempts to avoid being thrown out of college, and to prove to the world that his phantom, computer-generated pianist can fool the finest judges. There is also a sub-plot involving the bearded Principal who prefers to dress as a woman, and his scheming deputy who, Macbeth-like, wishes to take over the top spot.

Now -- if you're a really close reader of this blog, and if you're one of the tiny minority who actually make a point of reading the comments on various posts, you will know that Francis Ellen is a fairly regular commenter here. You will also know that he is less than happy with the state of publishing today, not least because he has a pile of letters from publishers and film companies saying things like, 'This is a marvellous book, but...'

So, let us at this point examine some of the virtues of The Samplist, and then let us try to determine why it has been that more than a few publishers and reviewers have admired it, but no commercial firm actually wants to publish it.

Almost everything about this paperback puts it a cut above the average. In the first place, it is nicely designed -- easily the best designed self-published book that I've come across, with interesting musical motifs in the margins and so forth. True, the cover is not all that startling, but when you come to think about it, it would be quite hard to do better.

The characters are extremely well portrayed. In the course of the book we get to know them all quite well, and they are both entertaining and convincing as people. Overall the tone is serious, but also light-hearted: we get touches of comedy, if not outright farce. Along the way we are offered some seriously interesting insights and discussions about the nature and purpose of music. And in the end the good guys win: the ending is both funny and neat.

There are a few problems. The author uses the third-person, writing mostly from the point of view of one or other of the main characters, but then, abruptly, shifting to another character. I found this unsettling, but other readers may not be so fussy. For me, it was a bit like being driven somewhere by a person who hasn't quite mastered the clutch: you get there, but the journey could be smoother.

We have occasional, and perhaps deliberate, variations from orthodox spelling: poe-faced and buggar, for example. One chapter, in particular, goes on too long. But these are trivial criticisms.

OK, so what we have is an unusually well written and competent first novel. So now let us try to see why editors didn't buy it.

If I were an overworked and underpaid editor, sitting in my little cell, I would ask myself a number of questions. E.g.:

Is this a 10/10 must-have book? No. It's an 8/10 book. A lot better, I suspect, than most offerings from as-yet unknown writers, but not absolutely irresistible.

Did it make me laugh out loud or cry real tears? No. It's amusing, in an Evelyn Waughish way, but not (for me) hilarious.

Is it going to generate passionate word of mouth? Not really. Respectful recommendations, yes, but not an immediate, leap-to-the-phone, Wow you've got to read this. It's not going to be a big fat hit.

And, er, what about this accompanying CD business? Can we sell a book with a CD attached? Well yes, it's done all the time with books on computing, but it adds to the expense, and you can't do it with a mass-market paperback, so...

Hmm. You begin to see why this has generated the editorial feedback that it has. Much to the author's disgust and fury.

There are a few other causes for potential concern, if we are being a really picky publisher. The Samplist gives the impression of being heavily based on first-hand experience. And, as I said only last Friday, novels based on personal experience are, in my view, considerably more dangerous, from a legal point of view, than is generally realised -- particularly by young authors. The dangers are real. And, furthermore, what does our author do for an encore? Where does he go from here? The further adventures of Alex and Co?

The CD, now that we have mentioned it, is at least as impressive as the novel and must have absorbed, I suspect, even more man hours. It features five short classical pieces: two as performed by 'Yang Li', i.e. Alex's virtual digital pianist, two by 'Elliott', and one by 'Skuggs'.

I have to say hear that my knowledge of classical music is minimal, and my ears are distressingly low fi. But the Skuggs piece definitely sounds much too fast for a human being playing the tuba, and the guitar pieces I wasn't sure about. Though I do know, because Francis said so on this blog, on 25 October last year, that all five are computer generated: it was done 'almost exactly as described in the novel. Each individual note built from hundreds of samples with hundreds of variables to control and sculpt into a convincing performance.' That in itself, I suggest, is a major achievement.

At this point I went to have a look at the author's web site. Here you get to see the cover of the book, and to read some reviews. You also learn that Francis Ellen has a degree in music from Glasgow University and a master's degree awarded by the department of mathematics and computing science at Stirling University. There is an excerpt from the book and an opportunity to listen to the CD music online.

Overall conclusion: I have a feeling that this novel will not go away. It's a substantial achievement and has impressed a considerable number of distinguished judges. In a parallel universe you can easily imagine it being both published and winning prizes. I hate to mention the word randomness -- well, actually I don't hate mentioning it at all -- but it does play a major part in the way things happen.

In various places Francis has given us hints that he is working on something new -- and quite different. Whatever he does, I'm sure it will be worth reading.

More MNW

Macmillan New Writing (MNW) is an imprint which was set up last year and began publishing in April of this year. Its purpose is to publish fiction in any genre by authors who have not previously had a novel in print.

Below are short reviews of the two latest MNW publications. Both are (naturally) first novels, and both exhibit the features that one might expect of such a novel. That is to say, they are heavily based on personal experience, if not actually autobiographical. And they both lack the total mastery of technique which comes from writing a considerable number of novels (if it ever does).

Of course, first novels need not be directly based on personal experience, and as a matter of fact I think it is better all round if they're not. For one thing, writing about 'what you know' leads to basing your characters on real people; and your friends, neighbours and acquaintances may not always appreciate that. There is a very real risk that some of them may consult Messrs Sue, Grabbit, and Runne. And that is not a matter to be taken lightly.

The second problem is that, if you use up all your personal experiences in novel number one (or even novel number three), where do you go from there? Beryl Bainbridge, for example, found this something of a problem at one stage.

None of this will, however, prevent ambitious young novelists from plunging ahead and mining their own past for inspiration.

Overall there is now a third problem for these two MNW authors. It is that the first flurry of interest in the imprint has evaporated, and booksellers, literary editors, and book buyers are all going to look at the latest offerings with a much more critical eye than they did initially. Making your name through MNW was never going to be easy, and it gets harder with every passing month.

Jason Webb: The Ghost of Che Guevara

Jason Webb was the Reuters bureau chief in Colombia for five years. While there, he interviewed Marxist rebels, far-right paramilitaries, and coca growers; he spent time in jungle camps. Now he has written a novel which is set in Colombia and centred around a British journalist who goes out into the jungle, interviews Marxist rebels, and so forth.

Robert, the principal character, exhibits some of the burnt-out, alcoholic characteristics of, say, the British journalist in Graham Greene's The Quiet American. And, like Greene's protagonist, Robert is involved with a young woman who may or may not be a prostitute.

In the course of his work Robert meets up with an American student who, no doubt inspired by noble motives, has joined the rebel forces. And to reveal much more about the story might, perhaps, be unfair to the author and the potential reader. What I can say, I think, is that Robert emerges from South America with a story on videotape, only to find that, because of 9/11, no one is interested.

This is all very well as far as it goes, and the novel improves as it goes along. But the crucial early pages are not, I'm afraid, all that gripping. And, as we all know by now, in the twenty-first century a novelist is no longer allowed to develop his skills over three or four early books before finally finding his voice and his audience.

To my mind, the novel appears considerably better when you've finished it that it does while you're reading it. And I can see why MNW bought it: it's intelligent, thoughtful, and relevant to today's world.

But this book is, I fear, a version of its own story: that is to say it is a sound piece of craftsmanship that almost no one will wish to buy. Its natural home is the UK public-library system. But in 2006 is there any library system left? Time was, a publisher could break even on a writer's early books by selling 1500 to 2000 to libraries. But those days are gone. Today, a hardback sale of 500 would be a good result.

There may be hope. In the MNW publicity material accompanying review copies, the author is quoted as saying, 'Colombia's war, which has been going on for more than four decades, is probably as difficult to explain to an ordinary English-language reader as the Middle Ages.' That being so, he may have other books in him. And, next time out, he may write a sharper, bolder, more intense book.

Of course, the poor bloody author probably thinks he's done all that already. What an ungrateful lot we readers are.

Lucy McCarraher: Blood and Water

The cover of The Ghost of Che Guevara makes it perfectly clear that the book is about armed revolutionaries, but the cover of Blood and Water gives us no guidance whatever. Or it gave me none, anyway. Yes, I did eventually get the point about blood being thicker than water, but not immediately. Personally I thought the cover was thoroughly confusing; the book could have been about anything.

What we have, in fact, is a novel written by a mature author with two grown-up sons and two young daughters. And the book itself is about a mature woman with two grown-up children and a second, younger, husband by whom she has a young daughter. Personal experience, I imagine, played a substantial part in choice of plot.

Lucy McCarraher has had lots of writing experience: you name it, she's done it: script-editor, researcher, journalist, ghost writer, theatre critic, and so forth. This would give her, you might think, loads of confidence, and perhaps it did. Nevertheless, Blood and Water begins with an acknowledgements page which makes the novel sound like a team effort.

Well, there's nothing wrong with that. However, as Algernon Swinburne once observed, the problem with the advice of one's friends is that no two friends offer the same advice; and in the end you really have to take responsibility for your own work.

We are also presented, before we get any text, with a two-page list of 'main characters', running, by my count, to 43 names; and this for a 246-page book. I was not, I have to say, encouraged by this. I know Jilly Cooper did it, in at least one of her books, but Jilly's books tend to be very long and it's just about forgivable. In general, if your reader has to refer to a list, I would say that you have too many people in your pages.

The first person narrator is Mo Mozart, a woman who has a crowded, hectic life. Inevitably, therefore, quite a large amount of action is packed into the relatively short (by modern standards) narrative.

The subject matter is, I suppose, relationships. Relationships between men, women, mothers, fathers, siblings. Teenage sex, adoption, other women, that sort of thing. Precisely the sort of thing, in fact, that most men are not interested in reading about but which may well intrigue women readers.

One relatively minor aspect which did intrigue me was a character who was born with ambiguous gender characteristics: in other words, a person who might have been either a girl or a boy. The parents were given a choice -- or perhaps we should say that they had to make a decision -- as to which gender to choose. And they got it wrong. Such cases are by no means unknown. And in a similar case known to me, the wrong choice was also made, with sad results.

The plot of Blood and Water eventually resolves itself into a search for the birth mother of Mo's husband and his twin sister.

The potential audience for this book is one which the author refers to as the 'sandwich generation' of women: those who combine responsibility for children, partners, a career, and often older adults too. And such readers will, I guess, find this a rewarding book.

But will they actually go out and buy it? Read it via the local library, yes. But buy it? I am rather doubtful. So much time effort and talent has gone into this book, and yet I can't see it being a great commercial success. Life really isn't fair.

Thursday is market day

Jason Epstein on Google et al.

When Publishers Lunch mentioned the name Jason Epstein, it took me a moment to place him. But he is, of course, the far-sighted author of the best book about publishing in the 21st century, Book Business (2001). If you haven't yet read it, do so immediately; it's quite short.

Epstein has been recruited by the New York Times to review a few books about Google, the long tail, and so forth. It turns out that Epstein is a supporter of the Google plan to digitise, if possible, the whole of human knowledge, as contained in books; and so am I.

The Google project raises, he says 'the theoretical possibility that every book ever printed in whatever language may indeed be accessed wherever Internet connections exist.' And if that doesn't thrill you, you're in the wrong blog.

Epstein describes the Google ambitions as heroic, and indeed they are. Not only heroic, but noble. If ever implemented, the Google project would offer at least some hope that future leaders of the world might one day be people who have at least some clue as to how to do the job. Having access to the accumulated wisdom and knowledge of the entire world ought to help, at least in principle.

As for how the texts would be read, Epstein is absolutely clear that they will seldom be read online. Instead, he argues (as he did five years ago in Book Business) that the digital file will be printed out in traditional book form, at a shop in your local high street or even village, by a machine not much larger than an ATM.

Prototypes of such machines are, he tells us, already offered in three sites by a company in which he has an interest. One of them, based in Egypt, will soon be printing books in Arabic.

A different kind of fake

The New York Times also reports on an elaborate spoof, fake, call it what you will, which takes the form of an alleged history of the funerary violin.

This book, written by Rohan Kriwaczek, is said to be published in the UK by Duckworth on 28 September 2006, and is allegedly due for publication by the Overlook Press, in the US, in January. However, I can't find it on the Overlook web site (you may have better luck), and Amazon.com says that the book is unavailable. So maybe Overlook have changed their minds.

Most peculiar. An example of English eccentricity, perhaps. Just what you'd expect from a chap called Kriwaczek. Thanks to Susan Higginbotham (a proper English name) for the link.

Booksie

If you really can't find any other way to publish your stuff, Booksie will do it for you. Upload your writing to an eager audience. It says. And there are a couple of associated sites: The Next Big Writer and The Writers Site.

Independent Publisher

Anyone who publishes their own novel or non-fiction book is, I suppose, an independent publisher, or small press; and those engaged in such enterprises might find some useful info on the Independent Publisher web site.

Top feature on the site at present is an excerpt from a book by Dan Poynter and Danny O. Snow, who have been around for some time and in my estimation usually know what they're talking about. But there's plenty more.

Mainstream fact-checking

If you are trying to keep abreast of the O'Beirne saga, take a look at the comments on yesterday's post. Walter Ellis offers a particularly interesting case study.

Tonto runs courses

If you live in the UK, and especially if you live in the north-east, you may like to know that the Tonto Press has some places left on the week-long creative-writing course starting on 23 October. No, I don't get a percentage if you sign up. Dammit.

Kathy O'Beirne update

You may remember that, a while back, there was a blog set up by a homeless (possibly) woman who called herself Wandering Scribe. As noted here on 27 June, not everyone was convinced that the lady really was homeless. Some suspected that the blog was an elaborate stunt to get a book contract, or that the contract was already signed, and that the blog was advance publicity.

So suspicious and annoyed, in fact, were some people that they set up a counter-blog, specifically to debate the issue of whether or not Wandering Scribe was genuine.

If you visit the two Wandering Scribe blogs today, pro and anti, you will see that our homeless friend now updates us on her life rather irregularly. You will also see that the the counter-blog has widened out to consider the whole question of unreliable memoirs, including those of Norma Khouri, Helen Darville, Laura Albert, et al. And now, of course, Kathy O'Beirne.

In relation to the famous Kathy O'Beirne, what we find now is that there is a newish and, I suspect, important blog set up by Honora Hemple, who says that she has 'a low tolorance (sic) for doing nothing when annoyed'. This blog is called, quite plainly, Kathy's Story Scam.

Note: the Kathy's Story Scam blog does not display correctly in IE6. It does work OK in Mozilla. So, if you're using IE6, you need to jump down to the bottom of a very long page to find Honora's details in the right-hand panel. She claims a background in journalism, but it has not, I fear, inculcated any great proof-reading skills -- we get two versions of her name in the first few lines -- and her spelling is dodgy too.

But let us concentrate upon content. The content of Kathy's Story Scam is not complimentary of Ms O'Beirne. Rather the reverse. And there's a lot of it. Much of it is reprints of newspaper articles (umm... ever heard of copyright, Honora?). But there's also some original stuff, including copies of letters to the publisher.

It's only when you read the transcripts of some of O'Beirne's radio interviews, for example, that you begin to realise why some of this stuff is the cause of outrage in certain quarters. You also realise that, if her story is not true, then this woman is one of the champion bare-faced liars of all time.

The principal point, I think, is that there are some people around who have suffered genuine abuse as children; and while some such victims want nothing more than to forget the past, some of them are very angry indeed that a third party is (apparently) 'borrowing', so to speak, their childhood suffering and using it to make money.

It would be a serious mistake to underestimate the strength of feeling involved; and it would also be a mistake, I think, to assume that the opposition to Kathy O'Beirne is coming from a small group of cranks.

This is a very messy business and it's getting worse by the week.

Wednesday roundup

HMSO

Her Majesty's Stationery Office -- publishers and printers of many if not all official UK government documents -- ceased to be part of government in 1996, when it was sold to a group of venture capitalists. Now it's being bought by the Germans. Story in the Telegraph -- link from booktrade.info.

I don't know about you, but I'm a bit fed up about this. I thought we won the war.

Lablit

Marnie Schulenburg, whom I unaccountably forgot to name when discussing her book A Test of Survival on Monday, not only forgave me but also introduced me to a UK web site called Lablit. This is about the culture of science in fiction and fact, and contains a massive amount of good stuff. It may, however, upset readers who are not used to thinking in strictly logical and scientific ways. And even a few who are.

The bit I like best (so far) is the interview with Ben Goldacre, a science writer for the Guardian. He was the one, you may recall, who beat up Gillian McKeith and left her for dead -- not that it made much difference to her booming career and wealth. Anyway, here are a couple of choice questions and answers from the Goldacre interview:

What is your favorite film or novel featuring a scientist character and why?
The film Outbreak, because the lead character is a gun-toting public health physician. Also I think there's SPSS running on a computer screen somewhere in it.

What do you think is the biggest medical danger facing us in the present day?
Food, too much or too little, depending on who ‘us’ is.

SPSS, by the way, stands for Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, which is one of the best jokes in the whole of academia, and eternal proof of the GIGO proposition.

Narcissism and blogging

Say what you like, brothers and sisters, but there is some extraordinary material out there.

For example, go to this post about Narcissism on the Dark Age blog. The author of said post is someone who signs himself longsword. Now, you may or may not want to read the essay itself -- though you will find yourself being made to think if you do -- but scroll right down to the bottom and read longsword's response to the comment. It's a thoughtful disquisition upon the delicate question of the interaction of blogs and books.

Thanks to the commenter, elberry, for the link.

Bronx River Press

Bronx River Press has an intriguing take on modern fiction. You might wish to take a look at their manifesto. But so far they only have one book scheduled, and are not accepting any submissions. Yet.

Riot Lit

Another gang who are determined to change the way things are done are Riot Lit, a writer's collective. Here's part of their manifesto:

The Riot Lit Collective refuses the passive role that writers are expected to embrace. They defy all preconceived notions of how a writer should create and thrive within modern culture. Their strength is their ability to maneuver outside of the literary establishment. They do not seek endorsements from talk show hosts. They do not write paint-by-numbers beach reads. They have united and they are here to change the dominant paradigm.

Riot Lit includes Daniel Scott Buck among its members. Also present is Tony O'Neill, who is the author, interestingly enough, not of a dodgy memoir but of a novel in which (he tells me) every word is true! Go figure. Both these guys write truly impressive stuff. Also present, surprise surprise, are N. Frank Daniels and Kristopher Young, both of them mentioned yesterday.

If I were a betting man, and I had to put money on who I thought would be read and remembered fifty years from now (as are Kerouac et al. from the 1950s), I think I would look here.

The Walrus

The October edition of The Walrus is now available. It's Canadian and not much of it is for free online.

Cuppa Joad

The Alibris web site, which is a resource for those interested in finding and buying secondhand books, also has an associated blog, which is known (I cannot explain why) as Cuppa Joad. On 22 September Lynn Wienck, of the Chisholm Trail bookstore, put up a post about other book blogs, including a generous reference to the GOB. Some of the blogs that she mentions were new ones to me, and may be to you, so you might want to take a look.

Robert A. Wilson

If the name Robert A. Wilson means anything to you, you might wish to know that he is broke and in ill health. Henry Baum at the Ash Tree blog has some details. And if you're wondering who Robert A. Wilson is, Wikipedia (naturally) has the answer. It's certainly been an interesting life, though his skills have not, it seems, included preparing for old age. (Info from Randy Radic.)

Robert A. Wilson is not, by the way, the same as Robert Charles Wilson, author of Spin.

Tuesday miscellany

M.J. Rose offered a link to an article by Stephen King, with the comment that he writes wonderfully well about the writing life. And indeed he does. I’ve never been able to read one of his novels – they make me feel vaguely ill; or, come to think of it, rather more than vaguely – but I have managed a few of his short stories. And his book On Writing I certainly read, with some interest.

In his latest essay, King has some amusing things to say. ‘The so-called "writing life", he suggests, ‘is basically sitting on your ass.’ Oh, and you have to have a muse. His is called Scruffy.

King also has an eminently sensible view of creative-writing classes. They’re excellent he says: excellent, that is, for giving the people who teach them a bit of cash, and for enabling the students to chat each other up. But when it comes to teaching anyone how to write, they’re bloody useless.

The writer as loony

M.J. Rose also has a link to an amusing (or not so amusing) article about recognising and treating author personality disorders. In my view, it's the treating bit that's difficult. Diagnosis is easy: they're all nuts.

Lost Girls

Bookslut led me to an article about Alan Moore and Lost Girls in the Independent. It’s long, and interesting. But while everyone is enthusing about the damn thing, where’s my copy? It’s been on order for months.

More on emotion

In a comment on my overview of emotion, Art Durkee mentions two more books on emotion which may be of interest.

The first is Sentics: the Touch of Emotions, by Manfred Clynes. You can read a lot more about sentics on the Sentic Cycles web site, but you might do best to start with Dr Clynes's own web page.

Personally I don't think I am about to start doing the Sentics cycle 'exercises', but some highly stressed people might find them useful. I might have a look at the Sentics book, because it seems to be listed as required reading by some quite respectable academic institutions, particularly in relation to music.

The other book mentioned by Art Durkee is George Leonard's The Silent Pulse. Here again, this looks, at first sight, a bit too touchy-feely and new age for me. There's a short description provided by the publisher of the latest, revised, edition.

Tommy Sheridan in peril

In a short discussion of the curious decisions reached, occasionally, in the English libel courts, on 10 August, I mentioned the result in the Tommy Sheridan case. Our Tommy won £200,000 in damages from the News of the World.

Well, it was always obvious that the Screws wasn't going to take that lying down, and on Sunday they struck back. They have a tape, it seems, on which Tommy confesses his sins, thus proving that he had been lying to the jury.

Being called 'the biggest liar in politics' is clearly actionable (and quite a major achievement, one would have thought). But will our Tommy chance his arm again?

Meanwhile, Inspector Knacker of the Yard is on the trail. The Times says that a formal inquiry has been launched to investigate claims that Tommy and his pals may have lied to the court.

Mark Osmun

Mark Osmun is another reporter turned novelist. I say another because I mentioned one yesterday (final item), though now that I look at it again I see that, for some odd reason, I never mentioned her name -- just the book. Apologies, therefore, to Marnie Schulenburg, author of A Test of Survival.

Mark Hazard Osmun has had an eventful life, plus lots of experience of writing professionally, and he has so far produced three (self-published) novels. The latest of these is After the Bones, set in Honolulu in 1866 and featuring the young Mark Twain.

But the one which caught my eye is Marley's Ghost. This features, as you have probably guessed, Jacob Marley from Dickens's A Christmas Carol. It's a prequel to A Christmas Carol -- which is interesting, because I myself once wrote a sequel to the same book: Scrooge and the Widow of Pewsey, written under the pen-name Anne Moore.

Another Sky Press

Another Sky Press is an experiment -- I guess -- and it is certainly one which is worth taking a look at. Essentially, the press wants people to read their books, even if they read them for free. But the press also sells books in traditional formats, at cost price, with the hope that you will add something for the deserving author.

The press came to my attention through Click, by Kristopher Young. This is a book which has picked up some very favourable comments. It isn't going to appeal to everyone, that's for sure, but since you can, if you wish, read the whole thing in PDF, free, before you buy, you can't really go wrong.

Futureproof

Futureproof by N. Frank Daniels, is a Lulu.com production. This won't appeal to every reader either, but it has certainly picked up a great many recommendations from the readers who did find it on their wavelength. You can read several pages of their comments in the Lulu preview (which is a Word file). Plus, of course, part of the book itself.

Futureproof also has its own web site, though when I visited the preview link on that site didn't work.

Viral success?

Finally this morning, a link kindly provided by Peter Winkler. Some people are beginning to suspect that in the brave new world of Web 2.0, not all is as it seems. Could it be, do you think, that Big Brother is manipulating the whole thing? Read Emily King on MyScam, and decide for yourself.

Monday morning

State of Denial

Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial, comes out this week -- today, in fact. It is subtitled 'Bush at War, Part III', and it is clearly an important contribution to the Iraq war debate.

Leaks from State of Denial began to emerge last week, with CBS leading the way. Woodward has recorded a 60-minute TV interview with Mike Wallace, due to be broadcast yesterday. You can find a text reference to it, and a clip, on the CBS site.

Most readers of this blog will know of Woodward's long and honourable history as a journalist, and it will be fascinating to see what sort of a reception this latest book receives. (Link from Publishers Lunch.)

Copyright jungle

Maud Newton provided the link to an excellent article on copyright in the Columbia Journalism Review.

I didn't much like the tone of this piece when I began to read it, but it soon settles down and begins to talk sound common sense. Not, I have to say, that much of what it has to say is new -- you may have come across many of the ideas on this very blog, and in other sources that I have pointed to from time to time. But overall this article is an excellent contribution to the debate, and it constitutes a useful summary of the present position.

Rosslyn Chapel

Are you a Da Vinci Code enthusiast? Do you yearn to know the secrets of the Rosslyn chapel? If so go to The Rosslyn Hoax? web site for details of a new book which reveals (it is claimed) some startling facts. Note: the Rosslyn Chapel was already the subject of much speculation long before Mr Brown wrote his famous book.

The joy of academe

Martin Rundkvist explains what fun it is to write academic papers and reviews, and then have to wait a year to put your own stuff on your own web site.

Roger Morris makes money

Roger Morris, you may recall, was one of Macmillan New Writing's first half dozen. And now he's had his first royalty statement, which is analysed on his blog:

Number of copies sold: 1,804.
Income generated by the book: £10,429.76.
Roger's earnings (20% of the above): £2,085.95.

Now that strikes me as very respectable. Of course there was a flurry of excitement and press coverage of the early MNW authors, but even so, not at all bad for a hardback.

Happy days

Carla Nayland kindly pointed me towards a post on the Poddy Mouth blog, in which Poddy points out that being an author is getting to be less and less fun.

Barrymore out

Today, 2 October, is the official publication date for Michael Barrymore's book Awight Now -- Setting the Record Straight, which I discussed on 3 August.

In that post I also mentioned a related book, Not Awight Now -- Getting Away with Murder, which has the ISBN number 0-9546949-1-0. The book deals with the death of Stuart Lubbock at Michael Barrymore's home.

I mention the ISBN of that second book because some of the other details are a bit obscure. For instance, on Amazon the authors are listed as Terry Lubbock, Andrew Simmons and Harry Cichy (editor). But if you blow the cover illustration up to the 'larger image' size you will see that the cover gives the Simmons first name as Alan. The title is also slightly different from the book's heading on Amazon.

Mr Cichy told me, in an email, that Alan Simmons is a pen-name. Harry Cichy is listed by Amazon as the publisher. And he is also the Chairman of the Lubbock Trust, which was, reportedly, set up to promote further investigation into the death of Stuart Lubbock.

The whole Lubbock/Barrymore history is extremely murky, and on the whole it seems unlikely that either of these two new books will reveal the whole truth about the death of Stuart Lubbock. And while some of us don't care, some people obviously do care. Very much.

More Hardy

How many books are there about Thomas Hardy? Five hundred? Anyway, there are some new ones out, and the Financial Times discusses three of them. The most important, I suspect, is Claire Tomalin's, and she has her own article to plug the book in the Sunday Times. There's also an extract, dealing with Hardy's peculiar funeral.

Mrs GOB is still trying to recover from the shock of hearing that the National Trust is going to let out Hardy's home as a holiday cottage.

Buy a friend a book

It's Buy a Friend a Book Week again -- October 1-7. Debra Hamel decrees them quarterly, and why not.

Assassination Street

You may have heard of the movie Death of a President, wherein an Arab kills the current American President.

But what if every American wanted to do the same? If you want to read a 352-page screenplay describing such a situation, in the '24th year of the war on terror', then Assassination Street is the place to go.

Hugos

Robert Charles Wilson won a Hugo for Spin, which I liked too, and Dave Langford of Ansible got one as best Fan Writer.

Thirteen is not a number

Thirteen is allegedly a state of mind. So say Myrmidon Books anyway. Myrmidon are new guys in publishing and they're based up north, which makes a change.

Thirteen is the title of one of their first books, by Sebastian Beaumont. He got an Arts Council bursary to write it, which normally makes me deeply suspicious, but in this case the book looks quite interesting.

A test of survival

Speaking of interesting books, here's another one: A Test of Survival. It's published by iUniverse, but, as we all know by now, if we've been paying attention, that does not mean that we can dismiss it with a sniff.

The four-paragraph description of the book is, quite simply, the best blurb that I've read in a long time, from any publisher. The author's early background was in journalism, which I regard as promising. And if you want to make up your own mind about the book, you can read the first three chapters online.

You can also read the evaluations of three professional editors in response to a submission from a literary agent. These editors decided against buying the book because they believed that the science got in the way of the story and would not attract sufficient readership.

Whether you buy A Test of Survival or not, this web site is a valuable case study in modern publishing.