Today Cowdenbeath, tomorrow the world

World Book Night

Arguments are raging about the value of World Book Night, though I get the impression the doubters are using WBN as a lightning conductor to focus their rage about other things making the life of a bookseller pretty tough right now. WBN was all over the press and radio, and 19,999 people gave away a million books selected from 25 great titles. Yes, there were glitches - the WBN website was late and not the best, and on Friday I got an email saying my books had been delivered to somewhere miles from where I live and work, and even further from the bookshop I had nominated as my delivery point. Except they haven't been delivered anywhere as yet. But anyone trying to deliver 20,000 parcels with a million objects is bound to have teething problems.

I joined forces with another "giver" who had received her books and we gave our titles - The Spy Who Came in from the Cold - at a special showing of the film of the same name. Except they were furtively handed over by a fairly unconvincing looking spy wrapped in a brown paper bag marked "World Book Night 2011. Classified papers. Authorised readers only. TOP SECRET". We also gave away a mixed box of the 25 titles and toasted World Book Night with some sparkly stuff. In what way could this be bad for bookselling?

The doubters are meantime arguing whether giving away, say, tens of thousands of copies of Toast will lead to better sales of the book in the long run. No, WBN was not about whether Toast shares will go up 3% or down 3% but whether you can get people excited about books. It worked.

Don't get it right, get it writ.

As my old and now late friend and novelist Les Williamson used to say. So here's J. David Simons' notes on how to do or not do research for historical novels: http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/

Commedia dell'arte

It's been a few years since I've been to Nottingham Writers' Club. I went along to support our Maxine Linnell, author of Vintage and the forthcoming Closer. Pitched up early, didn't recognise anyone but noticed there was a bookstall to check out during the break, and made myself comfortable. "Are you the speaker?" asks one of the women present. "No, I'm her publisher." Blank look. "You are the Writers' Club?" "No, we're the Harlequin group." Oops. The only Harlequin group I'd known in town had been for TV/TS people so I wished I'd had time to look at the bookstall but didn't want to be late for the meeting I was supposed to be in. Got into the right meeting, said to the bloke next to me that I'd gone first to the wrong room. "Ah - the Harlequins - they used to be Ladies' Gas, but they changed their name." I could hear the next part of the conversation, though it did not happen. "Not transvestites then?" "Nay, lad, I don't think so. They used to work for British Gas."

Maxine was very good.

What the papers say

February was an interesting month for Five Leaves in the press. Yes we made the crime reviews in the Hull Daily Mail (thank you Nick Quantrill) but I hope Nick and the entire Hull population won't be upset if I class the full page in the current Times Literary Supplement as being more of a winner. The page, by Roz Caveney, was about our Roland Camberton books, especially Scamp. Unfortunately not online, the review spots a lot in his books that made us want to publish them after sixty years of unavailability, pointing out that "Scamp feels more interesting than it perhaps did on publication". Alone this looks like damning with faint praise, which is not the tone of the article. She ends saying "Like Scamp, Rain on the Pavements belongs to a tradition of London fiction which is partly journalistic; its consolations are not plot and character, but observation and vivid recall." Our New London Editions have been covered well in Hackney Citizen and Camberton again in Jewish Renaissance.

At the other end of the country, Zoe Wicomb hit the Sunday Herald with The One that Got Away while J. David Simons had a perfectly formed and good review for his The Liberation of Celia Kahn in the Herald guide. David's book is getting coverage in book blogs including Vulpes Libris, while the Jewish Telegraph gave a big spread to the Glasgow book launch. Our Crime Express series is starting to get coverage on specialist crime blogs, with http://www.spinetinglermag.com/ writer "Nerd of Noir" taking a big liking to Graven Image by Charlie Williams and California by noirista (a word borrowed from Mike Ripley) Ray Banks. John Lucas wouldn't know an e-zine or a blog if it came up and hit him but was very pleased by the print out of Michael Bartholemew-Biggs' review of Things to Say in London Grip, which has reached 27 issues but was new to me. B-B's review is on http://www.londongrip.com/LondonGrip/Poetry_review_Bartholomew-Biggs.html. More conventionally, by Lucas standards, the great Jim Burns reviewed the same book in the current Ambit. Parochially I was pleased to see a review of Ray Gosling's Personal Copy in The Nottinghamshire Historian. Because of that other business with Ray his book has not had as much attention as it deserves so it was nice of Denys Ridgeway to ignore that other business remarking that "His memoirs really do capture the mood of the younger generation [of the 1960s], how they lived and behaved."

All of the day and all of the night

It's World Book Night this Saturday. I'm joining with 19,999 other people to give away 48 books, part of a million being given away from a set of 25 very good titles reprinted specially by big publishers. I should have subverted it slightly and given away 48 Five Leaves' books. But I'm mean that way. I'll be giving The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, mostly to people attending a showing of the film by the same name at Flicks in the Sticks, Lowdham Book Festival's film weekend. Is it a good thing? There are quite a few people in the book trade complaining that flooding the market with free books at a time when shops are under pressure is crazy. On the other hand, in Lowdham village there are quite a few givers, and the local bookshop is handling the distribution, as part of its general promotion of a reading culture. I'm with them on that. Two of our writers are taking part in WBN events - J. David Simons will be doing a late night at Sauchiehall Street Waterestone's in Glasgow and Russel McLean will be strutting his stuff at Dundee Waterstone's, together with other local writers in each city. Some, backed by Susan Hill, argue that - as they do in Catalonia - there is a day where everyone buys a book to give away. This is the first WBN - I'm happy to go with the flow for next year, but there is a day Five Leaves' will be backing for sure. The Campaign for the Book is proposing a national library day, on the first Saturday of February, following the 110 events of protest against closures this February just gone (see this blog passim). The Campaign is suggesting a celebration of libraries - as the day of protest turned out to be - as part of a longer term campaign to keep libraries open, public and popular. Five Leaves can sign up for that without any need for discussion.

Leeds Jewish Historical Society Essay Prize

Five Leaves is pleased to have been one of the sponsors for the essay prize inaugurated by our friends at the Leeds branch of the Jewish Historical Society. The winning entries covered: The Jews of Leeds; The Synagogues of Huddersfield; The York Massacre of 1190; and The Jewish and Yorkshire Identities of William Rothenstein. The overall winner was Dr Samuel Shaw, recently-conferred with his PhD for his essay 'An Uneasy Adherent: The Jewish and Yorkshire Identities of Sir William Rothenstein'. Four entrants will receive books from our backlist.