Who reads books?

Andy Murray, Britain's brightest tennis hope, was asked what he was reading. He is said to have replied, "I don't read. I haven't read a book since the second Harry Potter", that is since 1998. Well, why should he read? Those who do read books sometimes find it hard to understand what life would be like without them. Pretty empty? Not necessarily. I think we may be moving into the post-literary era. To read a book requires some leisure time, and for most people their leisure time is already full up. Don't be snobbish about books. Is watching an hour of television less "cultural" than reading a book? It depends of course, but generally the answer is no. Culture exists in many ways: conversation, for example - the mobile phone encourages the long conversation; the cinema, even blogging. So who does read books? It is a minority activity. Quite small, and getting smaller. And yet there are all these books being published, seemingly more than ever before. A puzzle. I'd like to return to the subject when I've thought a bit more about it. I just want to turn on the TV to see how Murray has done today.

The last bookshop

I will be sorry to see the end of bookshops. They have been friendly places: and brave too, stocking books the booksellers knew they would never sell, but giving them accommodation, heat and light before returning them to their publisher for a credit. I feel a bit guilty too that in a tiny way I may be contributing to their demise. It is not my fault that most of my books are now sold through Amazon, which is not particularly friendly but is efficient at selling world-wide. All the same, I have spurned offers to join the Organisation of Latterday Luddites, decent people though its members are, and consider that its slogan, Gutenberg Lives, is not really accurate. I agree that, looking around one of the great book supermarkets, say Waterstones in Piccadilly, London, conventional book marketing does have a look of permanence. How could all this disappear? But they said the same about the British empire. Sorry about that. But there will still be secondhand bookshops. Very friendly places.
Hot news. My publisher Solidus has entered my most recent novel, Beyond Reason, for the People's Book Prize. This is a new prize with entries restricted to books from independent publishers. So no conglomerates. You can read about it at www.peoplesbookprize.com and, if you are so inclined, vote for your favourite book.

The perils of fame

I have always been aware of the perils of fame. Years ago, while I was waiting for my first novel to be published I offered the editor of the newspaper where I worked an article on this notable event. The danger to a young writer of instant success, the corruption of money, the pain of fame. He declined. Funny business, literature, he said. So it turned out to be. The event passed unnoticed. Five kindly lines in the Observer for The Money Tree did not impress my publisher, Hamish Hamilton (Jamie to his friends, Mr Hamilton to me).
However, the threat of fame did not go away. For my second novel, Point of Stress, Mr Hamilton primed some of his better known writers who also reviewed books that he expected some enthusiasm for this promising recruit to their trade. They did not fail him. It has the cleansing sanity of Candide and of the the best of Bernard Shaw, wrote John Raymond, then a critic of some eminence, sadly dead now. One is left in better heart for reading it, he insisted. Voltaire, Bernard Shaw? I turned the pages of Point of Stress with new admiration, smiling at the jokes, Voltarian ones presumably, although I had not read him. I awaited the summons, the four-column photograph, the agonising questions from the Paris Review, the need to preserve my privacy. But I was spared. The next two novels gave me no anxiety. No one much liked them except my editor at Chatto & Windus, Dennis Enright. I have had several more novels published, all well received, as they say; succes d'estime is the polite and meaningless phrase. This year I have another novel published, Beyond Reason (Solidus), and Profile Books has published The Economist Book of Obituaries, part of which I wrote. Good reads both, but best not spread it around.

A book party

Apologies for neglecting my blog over the past month. I have been away. On my return I went to a party to give a send-off to the Economist Book of Obituaries, published by Profile. It had a rather old-fashioned atmosphere about it. These days publishers tend not to have send-off parties, or if they do they are usually modest ones. They cost money and may not result in much in the way of sales. But this one was pleasantly lavish with champagne and high-class food. I did my best to play author (I am the joint editor of the book), signed copies and made a little speech. Have you published anything else? someone graciously asked. Well, I have, ten novels. The latest, as noted in earlier posts, is Beyond Reason (Solidus). Why not buy them both, the quick and the dead?

Strange titles

The titles of novels seem to be getting stranger. A novel submitted for a recent Guardian competition is called A Case of Exploding Mangoes. If it does well, as I hope it does, I suspect that may be despite the fashionably quirky title.

A matter of luck

I see the new Booker prize longlist contains five first novels, or at least five first-published novels. One wishes the writers luck. Luck is a big element in a writer's success; that is, success in making a living as a novelist rather than succes d'estime, although that is very nice.

No one knows just how many published authors there are. But there must be a lot of them. More than 10,000 authors are registered with the office of Public Lending Right, which pays them a fee when their books are borrowed from public libraries. The Society of Authors publishes a list of several hundred new members in its quarterly magazine, so the profession, if that is what it is, continues to thrive. What nearly all these authors have in common, apart from being published, is that they are unknown. They do not have the instant recognition granted to the relatively small number of authors of bestsellers. You’re a writer? How interesting. Do you write under your own name?

Unknown writers sometimes become known, like the five in the Booker longlist, but usually only briefly and to a small audience. After a few flattering reviews, they mostly return to normal obscurity. And there are writers who, while not unknown are only vaguely known. Didn’t he/she write ..? Anything else? Don’t think so. Books by the vaguely known may linger hopefully in bookshops long beyond their sell-by date, libraries are reluctant to throw them away and they may have an afterlife in charity shops. But it has to be said that most unknowns, and even the vaguely known, make little money from their books. But somebody loves them, or did love them and, possibly, will love them again.

The unknown tend not to love the well-known. Human envy, course. Each story of some fellow writer’s fabulous earnings feeds the envy. But famous writers you may encounter at literary parties grumble about their deals, about the pittances they are paid for writing book reviews to keep their name known, and how much they pay in tax. It is all quite cheering to an unknown writer who has a proper job, with a cheque coming in every month, paid-for holidays and is at peace with the taxman.

Mysterious ways

According to the Guardian, the next bestseller in Britain is going to be The Shack, which has done well in the United States. It apparently deals with God's mysterious ways. As I noted in an earlier post (July 3), God seems to be one of the themes that sell books. God though, being almost human in some ways, likes books that praise him. I have doubts that he will entirely approve of my own novel with a religious theme, Beyond Reason (Solidus). But read it anyway, bless you.