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Comment from the book world in June 2004

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June 2004

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Boom time for history

28 June 2004

'One of the reasons people have turned to historical novels in much greater numbers is because history is less fully taught in schools. Readers like to learn about historical periods that interest them. I also think that the quality of writers writing historical novels has been consistently high over the past 10 years.

It's also true that writers can comment on today's society in a much simpler way using historical fiction...

I think all of the TV and film tie-ins add up to a feeling that it's not just perfectly OK but positively chic to watch or read history. I'm pretty certain that we have never had as much in the way of history-related programming on TV as we've had in the past year.'

Susan Watt, publishing director at HarperCollins UK

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Clinton's own story

21 June 2004

'Everybody should sit down and write the story of their life when they reach 50... It's very therapeutic. After an hour, I was there again. I felt what it was like when I was five and my stepfather's shot landed in the wall between my mother and me...'

'When I thought about what Kenneth Starr did to me, I was so mad I couldn't write for four hours.'

'I was very fortunate to grow up during the last pre-television age.' I ...'learned to listen and appreciate the unique character of superficially ordinary people.'

Bill Clinton speaking about My Life at Book Expo

'It's not photographic'

14 June 2004

'Every time I write a book there's a sort of prime fulfilled, unconsummated. It's about being at the height of your powers. Or more having access to ideas and energy that you need to fulfil...

A novel about people who are normal won't come out as reality. A book is like a stage. You've got people a little larger than life always. It's not photographic so you have to exaggerate a bit...

I wish people wouldn't write novels if they can't do it. It would be better, if they had an urge to write, if they wrote memoirs, diaries, or just letters to friends, wonderful letters.'

Muriel Spark, interviewed in The Times by Nicola Christie on publication of her new novel The Finishing School

'A massive displacement below the waterline'

7 June 2004

A crucial change over the last year is that both sides are coming to understand that selling fewer books at greater discounts is not the way to go... We need to think more strategically, creatively and practically about offering a richer range, and promoting the product as much as the price of the product. A tighter bottleneck of retailers, whose competition reached new extremes, more sales of fewer titles and margins that, to put it mildly, were not spectacular - resulted in a massive displacement below the waterline.'

Anthony Forbes Watson, CEO of Penguin Group UK