Chain reaction

It can be interesting - well, OK, only marginally interesting, to come across stray connections in books. I've just read Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes. I'd dissent somewhat from the 100% glowing reviews, though I'm glad I read the book. The lives of the swinish rich rarely appeal, and the Ephrussi banking dynasty, whose story this covered, behaved badly at times. The next book I read (yes, I have been on holiday) was the Complete Works of Isaac Babel, which included a short piece about when Babel was bounced as a child in pre-Revolution Russia when only 5% of the Jewish children in his school could go on to the next level of education because of anti-Semitic quotas. There were forty Jewish children and Babel was determined and successful in becoming one of the top two. He succeeded, but lost his place when an Ephrussi bribed some official to ensure that his child was promoted instead of Babel. No doubt this is a useful model for Conservative policies in higher education. Moving on, the next book was Stalin Ate My Homework, an autobiographical memoir of Alexei Sayle's childhood. Alexei was so named in honour of Maxim Gorky, born Alexei Pehkov, by his Communist parents. Gorky was a mentor of Isaac Babel and published some of his early work in Novaya Zhizn. I am sure that there are greater connections in this world than these three books, picked up by chance, but there you go.

On holiday again

One of the great advantages of living in a world of books is that wherever you go there will be something of interest. Two weeks in Youlgreave/Youlgrave (people spell it different ways) then. The old Co-op building, now the YHA, was used in the filming of The Virgin and the Gypsy, as was the unfortunately-named Raper's Lodge. The village also has a Reading Room though is nothing on display (or on line) giving its origins other than being listed with the village's four dissenting chapels in the 1870s. I just missed a performance night from the local writing group in the village. A short walk up Lathkill Dale brings you to Over Haddon, the former home and burial place of Maurice Oldfield, the proto-type for Le Carre's Smiley. The nearest bookshop is the excellent indie in Bakewell (http://www.bakewellbooks.co.uk/) which manages to have an excellent local stock for visitors, and a wide stock for the eclectic book buyer. That it stocks our three books set in Derbyshire (Claws by Stephen Booth, A Beautiful Place for a Murder by Berlie Doherty, The Naming of William Rutherford by Linda Kempton) was noted.

But the main book connection for me was a visit to my old friend David Lane in Bakewell. David was once a stalwart of Nottingham CND, Nottingham Veggie Soc. and an astonishing amount of national organisations concerned with peace and animal rights. He'd cut his teeth as a conscientious objector and as a member of the old Pacifist Youth Action Group. When I moved to Nottingham his Concord Bookshop (one of the astonishing number of five radical bookshops in the city at the time) had just closed. The shop reflected his main concerns but was in the way of developers. David continued his involvement with the book trade wholesaling vegetarian, environment and peace books, mostly to wholefood shops. Though David never made much money (capitalism was never his forte) he did chomp his way through a lot of books and cheap pamphlets, especially at Christmas. I know this as I was a volunteer packer from time to time: anything for a good veggie meal. David would often surprise far flung accounts sending in big orders by turning up the next day with a trolley, having worked out it was cheaper to take the goods by train than use a carrier, giving himself a day out for the hell of it. Even better if he could take in some petitioning or demonstrating while he was at it. Sadly, with the closure of some key accounts and others moving to more commercial suppliers Concord had to close, having a useful half-life selling books at stalls and festivals. It was good to see David again, not least to hear his standard opening remark... "Did you see that article in Saturday's Guardian..."

States goes west

Advance notice that States of Independence, our free, day-long event promoting indie publishers, has developed a sibling, with States of Independence (West) due in Birmingham on 8th October. The day will include stalls from many publishers from the West Midlands, and some from elsewhere (including Five Leaves and Shoestring from Nottingham and Happenstance from Edinburgh), readings, panels, talks and "flash fiction". The venue is Eastside Projects gallery, in Birmingham's creative quarter and forms part of Birmingham Book Festival. The main organiser is Jane Commane, of the energetic Nine Arches Press in Rugby, and Writing West Midlands. We'll include material on the day in a later blog posting, but meantime anyone from those parts interested in indie publishing should note the date.

Jewish Socialist mag

Here's a shout for the new issue of Jewish Socialist magazine (issue 62). The issue includes a couple of pages by J David Simons on the background to his two Five Leaves' historical fiction books set in Jewish Glasgow, The Credit Draper and The Liberation of Celia Kahn. The former stemmed from stories of members of his own family selling drapery on credit door to door, or more exactly croft to croft in the Highlands; the latter stemming from a meeting with me at Jewish Book Week when I talked about one of the characters in his first novel (the Celia Kahn character) "as if she was a real person" and that not enough had been written about Jews and socialism in Scotland, which "simple remark heralded the birth of a novel". I'm now worried that he was thinking I could not tell the difference between characters in novels and real people. (And that was before I mentioned my imaginary friend...). But he did write the second novel.

Elsewhere in the magazine our Jazz Jews writer Mike Gerber explores the connection between Jews and boxing, while the writer of our forthcoming Battle for the East End book on Cable Street, David Rosenberg argues with David Cameron about multi-culturalism. The other stand out pieces in a very good issue of the mag includes a long report of a speech by Afif Safieh, the PLO's Roving Ambassador for Special Missions (an old friend of the Jewish Socialists' Group) and an article by Paul Collins on Victor Gollancz, founder of War on Want, the Left Book Club and the once influential publishing house that carried his name. The current issue costs £2.50 including postage from Jewish Socialist, BM 3725, London WC1N 3XX and a four issue subscription costs £10 from the same address.

Academy?

You know all those glitzy awards on television for films - BAFTAs and the like. Have you every wondered who is in the various "Academies" that select them? No? Nor had I until I discovered that I had become a member of the Academy of British Crime Writing (Publishing, Film & Television), or at least I will be when I cast my vote for the shortlist of the Specsavers/ITV Crime Thriller Awards to be held on ITV 3. The invitation to vote comes with no mention of why I have been chosen to join this prestigious Academy, though I can guess it is because a couple of years ago one of our titles was short-listed for the book section of the Awards. But I've not been invited to vote on books, but on film and television. Do I really care who wins the Best Actress Award for a television crime/thriller programme? I don't even watch television but here I am, a member of the Academy. I hope I am given a casting couch.

Virtual book launch

We'd like to have given all you some cake and let you explore Sue Dymoke and David Belbin's allotment yesterday, at the launch of Dave's Secret Gardens, but we could not get you all in their neighbouring house if it rained, and it did, but here's the start of the event: http://bit.ly/6efz0J.

The book is partially set in the ancient Hungerhill gardens in Nottingham, where I used to have a couple of allotments at one time. Hungerhill gardens are very secret - high hedges, mysterious winding paths, old brick sheds. You could hide there, and Aazim does, for a while. He is a refugee child. At one stage in the story he is asked "Why did you come here? Were you escaping something? Or did you come for a better life" [Aazim thinks} She doesn't want me to tell a story that will make her feel bad. I can tell. She doesn't really want to know. "Everyone wants a better life," I reply. "Don't you?"

I don't like Murdoch either

... not that anyone does, of course, now. But there are reasons beyond the phone hacking. Rupert Murdoch owns HarperCollins, one of the UK's major publishers. HarperCollins publishes some great books, including - great irony here - Naomi Klein's No Label. It also publishes some terrible books, like the great unsold autobiography of John Major which netted Major a £400,000 advance. If you look at the HarperCollins list you will find that Murdoch has used his publishing firm as a kind of outdoor relief for politicians heading past their sell-by-date. Add in the serialisation of such memoirs in the Sunday Times and you can see that many politicians have had sizable contributions this way. In 2004 Ian Jack, in the Guardian, referred to Robin Cook getting an advance against royalties plus serialisation fee that topped £400,000 for a book that did not even earn 10% of the advance alone. And there is David Blunkett writing for the Sun. Now, why would any media mogul chose to give politicians far more money than their words could possibly be worth?

There is one exception. Chris Patten, an honest man among Conservatives, wrote a book about being the last Governor of Hong Kong, on a realistic £50k advance from HarperCollins. The book was however never published as it included some of Patten's comments on the Chinese government. Murdoch was at the time getting into bed with the Chinese government on some business deal and did not want to publish anything critical of that Government. So Patten was dumped, and his book went on to be published, successfully, by MacMillan. I can only hope, as the Murdoch empire fades, that the excellent Times Literary Supplement survives, under new ownership.