Category: words

Author and translator Tim Parks writes of taking part in a recent London panel discussion: “It was evident that we were expected to find Brexit detrimental. … All the same, none of us were quite able to conjure up the required predictions of post-Brexit literary decline.”

Bestsellers are different from fast sellers, cult favourites or the brand known as “instant classics”. They bear no relation to those books we call “the canon”, such as Pride and Prejudice – which became a “bestseller” relatively recently, when it was remodelled as chick lit. The term has become a slippery one and is often used to describe the thing it’s not. Most of the books promoted by Waterstones as bestsellers are nothing of the sort. They don’t come close to the sales figures required (4,000 to 25,000 copies a week in hardback). Bestsellers are not simply the summer’s top beach reads; they are cultural phenomena, and we like to think that they come, like J K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone or E L James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, out of left field.

“While browsing shelf after shelf of interesting finds is the foundation of an inspiring bookstore experience, it takes a secret sauce of qualities to make the best of the indies: a charming ambience complete with homey touches—think cool and comfy seating plus resident four-legged friends; a welcoming and shockingly knowledgeable staff, the quirkier the better; and a dedication to cultivating a community of book lovers, whether of the local or traveling variety.”

It’s all fun and game, of course, but the point is larger: “The goal of these special sections is to reimagine the possibilities of print.”

The Observer critics give you ideas for all kinds of 2016 books that, as one critic says, “should have been huge.”

This is how culture rebirths itself: With a literary festival. “There were stalwarts from the Cambodian literati, cult-classic Australian crime writers, Academy Award–winning filmmakers, feminist Khmer rock bands, and cutting-edge spoken-word poets — all generating a significant buzz as they idled around town.”

A new investigation indicates that the arrests – and eventual deaths – of those living in Anne Frank’s hiding place could have come from an investigation into illegal ration coupons.

It has made available more than 100,000 of the “top” books worldwide to readers. “It should not be important whether you are a member of an institution and whether you live in a city with bookstores and libraries in order to have access to books. We still approach the book depending on where we are and which institution we belong to. We still read what others dictate to us rather than what we find ourselves. There is still a very small number of writers who get a chance to publish. When the books are opened in a digital format, it creates new opportunities that will maximize every evolving society.

“Traditionally, writing and teaching at the university level have been the career paths of choice for English majors. Nice work if you can get it. I never could, which is why I’ve spent most of my life as a librarian. My up and down career as a writer, on the other hand, has afforded me much satisfaction and very little money…  My real career as a librarian is all very well, but since it’s fundamentally a paycheck, I can’t muster excessive enthusiasm for an institution that provides a lifelong education free of charge for the broadest conceivable public and generally represents American values at their best. I didn’t major in English to serve American values. I majored in English so that I could spend the rest of my life arguing about books and culture, even if I had to do so in my off hours, even if the argument was chiefly with myself. I still think it was the best decision I ever made.”