Report: World Book Night

Trafalgar Square

As unofficial British correspondent for MobyLives, this weekend I attended the wonderful launch of World Book Night to report back to our readers on the festivities. The opening ceremony took place on Friday 4th March in Trafalgar Square, with a line-up of authors including Nick Cave, John le Carre, Sarah Waters and many others. The set-up was pretty spectacular, with a stage under Nelson's Column furnished to look like a cosy sitting room full of couches and even a fireplace which, unfortunately for the night's readers, was not real.


By 6pm Trafalgar Square was filled with people eagerly waiting for the start of the night, which was briefly introduced by Jamie Byng, the brains behind World Book Night and head of Canongate Books. The idea behind the evening was for authors to read from either their own work or from their favourite texts. The first author to kick off the proceedings was Australian writer DBC Pierre, author of Booker Prize-winning Vernon God Little, who decided to read from the opening of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Given the rapidly dropping temperature of the evening, it was an appropriate choice, but what was even more striking was the hush that spread across the crowd as he started reading.

Sofas and a mock fireplace

The crowd remained attentive and maintained high spirits throughout the event, and highlights included British author Alan Bennett who read from his memoir A Life Like Other People's, and who concluded his reading with the frank statement, 'Closing libraries is child abuse!' which was met with huge cheers throughout the crowd. Later, Philip Pullman, who has also been a key figure in the fight against UK library closures, read from his novel The Northern Lights.

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London

Other great moments included London Mayor Boris Johnson who appeared on stage to a mixture of applause and heckling from the audience, but ultimately won the crowd over with his hearty rendition of a passage fromLucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. Before reading he informed the audience; 'It is my duty, my Mayoral duty to read you one of the best short accounts of a hangover ever to appear in English Literature'.

Another huge supporter of World Book Night, Mark Haddon, introduced his reading by saying, 'A really good book does an extraordinary thing which nothing else in the world can do which is to give you instant intimate access into the mind of another human being,' and 'World book night is about giving and sharing things for free in a world that is obsessed with money and profit'. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was the most requested book out of the 25 titles chosen for World Book Night.

Margaret Atwood

One of the biggest hits of the weekend was Margaret Atwood, who flew in all the way from Canada to take part in the festivities. She read a passage from her novel The Blind Assassin, which was also one of the 25 titles chosen. She introduced her reading by commenting on how brave the audience was to withstand the cold, and imparted the following advice regarding the best way to entice potential lovers:

'...his method of seduction is storytelling, and this is why you should all read a lot! If you are a male person, then you will know a lot of stories to tell, and if you're a female person then you'll know when you've heard them before'.

Foyles

The next day was World Book Night itself, so I decided to visit a couple of bookstores before heading over the WBN party at the Southbank Centre. I stopped at Waterstone's Piccadilly, which had several displays and was hosting a book quiz later that evening. At Foyles, I even managed to pick myself up a WBN copy of Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Later in the evening at the blissfully warm Southbank Centre, the night started off with readings from up and coming authors Rebecca Hunt, Stuart Evers, Evie Wyld and Joe Dunthorne, and also included other bookish activities such as literary speed dating, book exchanges, music, and my favourite - a corner devoted to a poetry doctor, where patients were prescribed poems for their ailments of body and soul.

Margaret Atwood at the Southbank Centre

Also in attendance at this event were some lovely folks handing out flyers in support of the Big Green Bookshop in North London. These guys are a struggling independent store, and they've recently launched a campaign to try and help save their store from closing down, so if you get a spare moment, check them out and support them in whatever way you can. In spite of some indie Booksellers having reservations about the potential impact of WBN, the people from the Big Green Bookshop were supportive and excited about the project, and in particular spoke about the sense of community which they hoped that World Book Night would help to build.

Big Green Bookshop

Whether or not WBN will be successful in boosting the book trade has yet to be seen, however an earlier report from The Bookseller shows a promising rise in sales figures amongst the 25 titles chosen for the giveaway. Overall, the weekend had an extremely positive feel to it, and I had a great time. The sheer numbers of people at both events was extremely encouraging, and all in attendance were excited and enthusiastic about the spirit of the project, and not just getting a free book or two. As for the future, Jamie Byng has stated his ambitions that World Book Night 2012 will grow beyond the shores of the UK and Ireland, so stay tuned for next year.

Me and my World Book Night copy of Love in the Time of Cholera

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Also posted to MobyLives

A disturbing trend

I've been following the recent news articles regarding the disparity between male and female authors and reviewers, and noticed something a little disturbing about my own reading habits.

Laura Miller's piece over at Salon.com sums up the what's been going on so far really well if you haven't been following along. Basically what's been happening is some researchers decided to to a quantitative analysis of books which are reviewed in 14 major publications such as the NYRB and the New York Times, and see what the difference was between the number of books reviewed which were written by men and those written by women. The results are astonishing.

Books written by men are overwhelmingly reviewed over those written by women. Not only that, but book reviews are overwhelmingly written by men, rather than women within those same publications.

Now a lot of head scratching is going on, because no one can quite work out why. In fact, studies have shown that women tend to read more diversely than men do, so if anything, the disparity ought to swing the other way, but that's not the case. Laura Miller suggests that it might be to do with the fact that male reviewers don't tend to care as much about the kind of issues women write about. Does women's writing seem 'less' important than stuff written by men? Is men's writing taken more seriously? Both male and female authors certainly have trashy names that I could roll off the tip of my tongue...

I decided to do a casual analysis of my own book list and see how I fared. I guess I shouldn't be that shocked by the results below, considering that I did pick out all these books.

Of my original 111 books, 84 are by men, 25 by women and 2 are collections.

Of the new list, 23 are by men and 8 are by women.

This leaves me with a total percentage of: 75% male authors, 23% female authors and 2% mixed.

I guess I get brownie points for being a female reviewer, right?

Like I said, I bought all these books, so how can I possibly be surprised that they are mostly by men? I'm a little disappointed in myself, because I consider myself to be a feminist and a champion of women's writing, and I can't figure out how this happened. I would have to stress that I did not consciously choose  not to buy women's books.

I guess all I can think to account for how this might have happened is to go back to the original roots of this project. My aim was to get through the 111 books that I had left over from previous years. Thinking back, I have read and loved a great many books by both women and men, and I can't say with absolute certainty, but one reason that I might have so many books authored by men left on my shelves might be because they were the ones left behind.

Here are some female authors I have read and loved in the past year: Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, Catherine O'Flynn, Emma Donoghue, Monica Drake, Jennifer Egan, A.M. Homes, Miranda July, Susie Orbach, Natasha Walter, Kat Banyard, Jessica Valenti, Delphine de Vigan, Charlotte Roche, Audrey Niffenegger and others, I'm sure.

Okay, I feel a bit better now.

In defence of Waterstone's

When I read last week’s diatribe in The Spectator criticizing the staff of Waterstone’s, it hit a nerve. As a former employee and a loyal customer, I was stunned by the rudeness and some of the assumptions made of Michael Henderson. The article begins by recalling that he entered the Waterstone’s Piccadilly store only to encounter what he calls a ‘duffer’.

The offense: someone among the staff had addressed Evelyn Waugh as a ‘she’ rather than a ‘he’ on a review card. Upon questioning a member of staff he was apparently met with blank looks. Henderson then goes on to describe several visits to other branches, perhaps to confirm his suspicions that the staff are all ‘duffers’.

As someone who has worked for Waterstone’s I can attest to the fact that Christmas and the post-Christmas recovery period is a chaotic time — not to mention that the Piccadilly branch is one of England’s busiest bookshops. So when a customer comes into the store and decides to pick at a relatively small error, I can understand why the reaction was not what Henderson had hoped. When there are plenty of other customers with real queries, they tend to get more of a bookseller’s focus. We booksellers also learn to develop an immunity to customers with weird and wonderful complaints — I was once asked by a customer, ‘Don’t you have all the books?’ Damn — guess you can’t please everyone.

To be fair to Henderson, mistaking Evelyn Waugh for a woman looks bad, and the bookseller in question should be embarrassed. Had it been me, I certainly would have corrected the offending card. But Henderson cannot let it go, and goes on to portray staff as morons.

I love bookselling. I love being enthusiastic about books and recommending titles I love to customers who are genuinely interested in having a dialogue. And the majority of the booksellers I have encountered at Waterstone’s have felt the same way. I often wish bookselling were taken more seriously as a career, rather than being regarded as just another retail job that any idiot can do. David Vann points out that booksellers in France, ‘undertake a course of study similar to that of a librarian in this country, suggesting the premium the culture places on literature’ which would be marvelous. Instead, people with a passion for books do the best they can.

Furthermore, a situation like the one Henderson describes would best be approached with humor rather than snide remarks about the educational background of the staff. I resent the implication that booksellers ‘should’ go to university and study English Literature. Full disclosure: I went to university and studied English Literature. But I know many booksellers who studied in other areas (it should also be obvious to most people that fiction is only one area of bookselling). Each person at my old store had their own area of interest and they brought those passions to the job, with a well-rounded approach to books as a whole. But you can’t know everything. I’m 25 and I consider myself well-read for my age, but I am humble enough to realise that my knowledge is minuscule compared to most, and what knowledge I do have, I wouldn’t dream of lording over others.

I would also like to stress that several of the most passionate and knowledgeable booksellers I know do not have a university education. These people got where they are by hard work and a love of books, and like me, with a dash of humility for the sheer number and quality of books out there. Henderson sounds like he could do with a dose of it himself.

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Also posted to MobyLives

Ugly fonts help make beautiful minds

Stop! Everything you thought you knew about typesetting and good graphic design was wrong. All wrong…

Back in 2010 the BBC ran a piece titled, ‘What’s so wrong with Comic Sans?’ as an exploration into why the font has fostered so much hatred among not only typographers and design snobs but also regular humans. There is even an entire website devoted to what Laura Miller calls the “typographical jihad” against this single font. (Visit Bancomicsans.com where you can make a donations towards a documentary on the most hated font in the world.)

They may have to put the brakes on their plans slightly, because as of this month, findings suggest that Comic Sans may actually lead to better retention of information. A study entitled; “Fortune favors the

Bold (and the italicized): Effects of disfluency on educational outcomes” was conducted by a research team at Princeton University. The study consisted of teaching the same information to different groups of students of all different learning abilities. For one group of students, the study materials were printed in an ‘easy’ font, such as Arial. For the other, their materials were printed in so-called disfluent fonts such as Comic Sans Italicized and Monotype Corsiva (although no Wingdings, for some reason).

After several weeks of study, both groups of students were tested and the outcome was surprising: the group of students studying from the fonts that were more difficult to read performed better in their tests. There are several theories as to why this might be, with the main thought being that processing information in a more complex format forces the brain to try harder, which in turn forces you to take in and eventually recall the information more effectively. Neuroscientist Jonah Lehrer says;

“We assume that anything which makes it easier to see the content, to process the content, is a good thing. And you see that especially in the classroom where teachers assume that legibility makes it easier for kids to learn and remember the information they’re trying to process, and that turns out that that’s exactly backwards.”

The applications for learning potential is obvious, but I can’t help but wonder what the implications could be for the written word. Laura Miller points out that some e-reading devices already give users the choice of half a dozen different fonts, (although you can be sure that Comic Sans isn’t one of them). If this effect is so great, will we begin to print not only school materials, but also novels in fonts that encourage greater mental engagement? These findings may not even be permanent – perhaps in fifty years, when we’re used to reading everything in ugly fonts, we’ll have trouble comprehending our old faithful friend, Times New Roman.

As the years go by and I read more and more books, there have been several occasions on which I find that I have forgotten the plot, or key ideas in books that I have spent a total of over eight hours reading. On the one hand, it can bring great pleasure to revisit a treasured story for a second (or even third) time. However when it comes to forgetting the major plot points of a beast like Daniel Deronda, I can’t help but lament: if only it had been printed in Comic Sans.

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Just as a side note - I also contribute about once-weekly to MobyLives, the blog for Melville House Publishing. So, I will occasionally re-post things here too. In the meantime, be sure to check out their blog; it's excellent.

Bookshelf Porn: I bet you can’t do THIS with a Kindle

I recently came across the Tumblr blog for Anthony Dever, the creator of Bookshelfporn.com. The blog, which he’s been running since January 2009, is described as, "Porn for book lovers. A photoblog collection of all the best bookshelf photos for people who *heart* bookshelves.”

As someone without proper shelves of their own, I’ll be living vicariously through this blog for a while. Here are some of my favourites: