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Comment from the book world in April 2010

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April 2010

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'A book about becoming who you are'

26 April 2010

'Oranges would not be in print across the world, much less read and taught, 25 years later, if it were just about me. I never wanted me to be just about me, and maybe that's the point. I wanted, through language and through storytelling, to reach something wider and more important than my own circumstances. And that is why gay or not gay is not the point or the purpose of the book. Yes, the book has been vital for a lot of gay people struggling with social prejudice and self-hatred, but Oranges is a book about becoming who you are by means of a story. The opening words, "Like most people..." are the clue. Most people have not grown up the way I did, but the struggle to become who you are is for everyone.

That struggle seems to me to be narrative based: we're back to who can tell the best story. Will it be you, about your own life? Or will you let others tell your story for you? Literature offers us all, writers and readers, the best method of discovering and retelling the changing story of ourselves. The story is both journey and surprise. And as everyone knows, even the past is altered, depending on, not the facts, but the interpretation.'

Jeanette Winterson on her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, in The Times

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'A convenient extra way to read'

19 April 2010

According to Amazon Kindle's vice-president, Ian Freed, the success of the Kindle signals the end of physical books: "The only question is does it take three years, five years or 20 years?" I remain to be persuaded that e-readers are capable of matching the varied activities we engage in when reading. More is required to satisfy the dedicated reader than replicating the content and appearance of a printed book, or emulating the action of "turning pages" using a tap on a touch-sensitive screen.

My own reading habits, like those of the historical readers I study, involve changing patterns of physical contact with the book, moving through it in unpredictable and non-linear ways, alone and with others. I usually work with several books simultaneously, using their position on my desk to explain their part in the argument I am trying to follow.

So far I see little evidence that e-readers begin to engage with "real reading", the kind those surviving marginal annotations in much-studied books are testimony to. Reading, those annotations show, is an active and social activity. It interacts with reading matter in creatively constructive and useful ways. The output from a reading of this intense and systematic kind is larger than the book itself. It extends to other, related books, and conversations with other, similarly goal-orientated readers.

The electronic book offers me a convenient extra way to read while on the move. Given a good enough screen I am sure that I will use it, and I certainly like the idea of being able to buy and download difficult-to-locate texts at any time of the day or night. This may also be the device that will allow newspapers and magazines to survive as revenue-earning businesses. But I do not expect to stop using physical books.

Lisa Jardine in A Point of View on BBC Radio Four

'They are the story'

12 April 2010

'You could argue that all novels stand or fall on how convincing and engaging their plot and characters are, but with crime fiction and thrillers these ingredients don't just underpin the story: they are the story. Choosing your detective character is crucial; a quick glance at the successful crime series of recent years suggests that he (or she, but not so often) should be a loner, a maverick, fiercely intelligent but compromised by some character flaw, a little melancholy, attractive but a bit down at heel, bruised by love but grudgingly open to the possibility...

My one anxiety when I first started writing crime fiction was whether people - including myself - would think I had sold out. But as I began writing and researching the Bruno books, any such worries evaporated. Apart from enjoying the writing process more than I had with any of my previous books - killing people in inventive and grisly ways really is an entertaining way to spend the working day - I began to rediscover my former love of murder mysteries, but with a renewed sense of admiration for just how difficult they are to do well.

The best crime and thriller novels, though they may work within certain parameters, can offer just as much scope for psychological depth, tenderness and a critical perspective on society as "serious" novels.'

Stephanie Merritt, aka S J Parris, the author of Heresy, in the Observer

'Still going uphill'

5 April 2010

I have a vivid memory of when Curious Incident took off, which was very early on, before it was published here, and it was quite scary. It's like having one of those dreams in which your car starts to fly. They're great, but if your car starts to fly in real life, it scares the living daylights out of you. And you know fairly quickly whether it will wreck your life, or whether you're going to ignore it. These days I ignore it completely.

What keeps you writing is that you don't ever enter a place that feels like home at last. You're still going uphill. There's still a little glowing light in the distance that you're trying to get to. I was writing something recently and I was chuckling at something I'd written, and my wife looked across and said, "Do you think that real writers do that?" And I didn't even notice it was funny at first, because I still think, "Oh, one day I'll be a real writer."

Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time in the Daily Telegraph