Event Preview: Interview with Mari Strachan

We liked Mari Strachan's debut novel, 'The Earth Hums in B Flat' so much that we've invited her to come and talk about it at Mr B's on 16th September (www.mrbsemporium.com/events.htm). We're so excited about her impending visit that we've asked her a few taster questions. Here's what she had to say.....

Mr B: One of the things I loved about the 'The Earth Hums in B Flat' were the smaller characters who made the small-town Welsh community come alive. Do you have a favourite of those non-central characters and if so would you describe him/her in a few words?

Mari: I loved writing all the ‘smaller’ characters: each one had a history, although it never appeared in the book, but I guess it informed the character and made that character into a real person. My favourite is the farm-wife at Penrhiw Farm, Bessie Williams, with her soft and scented bosom and her non-stop talking. She’s lived at the farm since she was married and she’s of the same generation as Gwenni’s grandmother. She’s bewildered by all the changes that are taking place and uncomfortable with them. The farm is a little way outside the town and she doesn’t see anybody for days on end sometimes so when she’s in company she can’t stop talking. I see her as the Greek chorus in the book; she has a little speech in each of the three parts where her comments on what’s happening are spot on. I loved writing her, I thought she was kind and caring, and, although her appearances are few, I felt that she played an important role in the book as a comic character and as a commentator.

Mr B: If you had Gwenni’s tendency to fly at night and you swept over a literary event and saw yourself giving a reading from 'The Earth Hums' and answering questions, what interesting question would you want to hear an audience-member ask you that you haven’t had up until now?

Mari: This is cheating a bit – but I’ve just had a question (one among many!) from an Italian magazine (EH is to be published in Italy in September) which no-one has asked before about an aspect of the book of which I was not particularly aware. And this is it:
‘Gwenn, Bethan, Mam, Nain, Elin Evans, Alwenna, Catrin and Angharad etc...... The central and most relevant actors of the novel are women. Women who act, take decisions, make mistakes, bring on the plot of the novel..... It sounds that men are mostly "spectators", they watch and suffer the consequences of women's acts (like Tada, for example). What can you say about that?’
Well, what can I say about that? It’s fascinating isn’t it? I’ll have thought hard about it and will have written the answer by the 16th September and, if you like, I’ll share it with you all then and see what you think!

Mr B: On your website (http://www.maristrachan.info/) you’ve got a page called “Reading: A Page for Bookworms” with a photograph of a stack of books. It’s got a real range of titles - from Obama to Watchmen. Are they your books? Was that a random selection or can we get a good overview of your reading tastes from that photo?

Mari: A bit of a work in progress, that website! The books in the stack are mine, pulled off the shelves and from under chair cushions especially for this photograph. They are fairly representative of my reading tastes, which is quite catholic as I tend to read whatever takes my fancy. There are some books there which were to hand because I had/was about to read at events with their authors and had just been re-reading them. Maybe my addiction to ‘crime’ novels is slightly under-represented! I usually have more poetry books around to dip into than the couple in this stack. Watchmen was a present from my youngest son. I struggle with the combination of words and pictures in graphic novels, and I can’t think why that is – I was very fond of my ‘comics’ as a child.

Mr B: Another one on reading if I may….I guarantee our audience will be interested in asking about your influences and your all-time favourites and I won’t spoil their fun. But perhaps you could tell me a couple of things that you’re read and been impressed by this year in between all the interviews and events you’ve been doing since the release of “The Earth Hums”?

Mari: The ones that stand out are Pat Barker’s Life Class: no-one does this period better than she does with her pared down style which makes everything so moving, and which I so admire; Kate Atkinson’s When Will there be Good News: I’ve loved her convoluted plots and her clever style since I read Behind the Scenes…; and Fred Vargas’s The Chalk Circle Man (this is the first written of the Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg crime novels, though not the first published in English): these novels are the epitome of Frenchness for moi (who knows little about France or the French), Adamsberg is delicious, and the plots completely wacky – fantastique!

Mr B: We sometimes try to playfully theme the nibbles that we serve with an event. What nibbles would your wonderful heroine Gwenni like to see at your event do you think?

Mari: Gwenni has such a sweet tooth, doesn’t she? I think she’d love a big chocolate cake with lashings of buttercream (my mouth is watering) or maybe biscuits like Mrs Sergeant Jones’s famous vanilla biscuits. If that is just overly sickly for an evening do with a glass of wine, then I’m sure she’d be quite happy with something made with red cheese. But absolutely NO minced mouse sandwiches, thank you.
I’m very much looking forward to my visit to Mr B’s Emporium and to meeting you all and answering any questions you may have.

Event Preview: Interview with Sophie Hannah

In anticipation of the fabulously multi-talented Sophie Hannah's upcoming visit to Mr B's (www.mrbsemporium.com/events.htm) we asked the poet and short story/thriller writer a few warm-up questions...

Mr B: You’ve written many different genres including poetry, short story collections and of course thrillers such as “The Other Half Lives”. Does your writing process differ greatly from genre to genre?

Sophie: In some ways, I think writing poetry and writing crime fiction are very similar processes, because, in both cases, structure is paramount. In a poem, if one word isn't right, or if one line has a dodgy rhythm, it can bring down the whole construct. In a crime novel, if you want to have a big moment of revelation in chapter thirty, you have to lay the groundwork (ie plant the relevant information) in chapter three. Whatever form I'm writing in, I'm quite obsessed with structure, with the skeleton behind the story or poem, as it were. I think that's true of my short stories as well. I like the things I write to have proper shapes. In terms of the process, writing a novel is a full-time job - when I'm writing the first draft of one of my thrillers, I'm at my desk for at least seven hours a day, typing away. When I write poetry or short stories, because they're shorter, there's less of a stretch of hard labour involved. I might sit at my desk in front of the computer for eight hours a day, but perhaps only for one or two days instead of a hundred and fifty days!

Mr B: In a novel as complex as ‘The Other Half Lives’ with regards to plot and character development, how on earth do you go about mapping and structuring the writing process? Is it necessary to have a very firm idea of the ultimate plot destination?

Sophie: I like to have a firm idea of the plot and character development before I start, because I don't want to invest any time in writing a novel that I might have to give up half way through. So I like to check before I start that the plot is feasible and will work from start to finish - that's why I tend to plan it all out. The plot of 'The Other Half Lives' is very intricate, but I don't remember working it out as such. One minute all I had was the opening mystery - why would anyone confess to the murder of someone who isn't dead? - and then, about six months later, an entire plot, complete with fully fleshed out characters, simply appeared in my head to go with that opening idea. My ideas/plots often arrive like that - as if by magic. The hard part is then making the idea that I've been 'given' into as good a book as I possibly can.

Mr B: Perusing your website (http://www.sophiehannah.com/) we also noticed that you have written the English versions of some of the classic Tove Jansson Moomin comic books. How did that come about? Do you have any Finnish heritage?!

Sophie: No, I'm not at all Finnish. My verse versions of Tove Jansson's Moomin books were based on literal translations of the original. I was chosen because the originals had a jaunty rhyme and rhythm, and I'm known to be the sort of poet who doesn't baulk at being asked to write jauntily and metrically. Originally the publishers asked another poet to do it, but she couldn't promise that her version would rhyme - she suggested me to the publisher, as most of my poetry rhymes, and for me it's easy to write in rhyming verse.

Mr B: If we ask you nicely will you also read us a poem during your event?

Sophie: Yes - I often start and end my fiction events with poems, so that will be no problem at all!

Twitter and Shelfari and Leah

Embarassing lack of blogs recently on this so-called blog of bloggy delights. Blog of not much going on more like. 

Well we've got an excuse or two:

Here's the main one. That's Leah B, now 2 months old and already finished 4 of the 6 Jane Austen novels of course. Although she found them a bit fussy and intends to try something 

Another one is that we've been playing a bit on twitter. If you're not already following our twitrevues and other musings and chat with author types on twitter then get in amongst it now by going to www.twitter.com/mrbsemporium. 

Another thing we just came across was www.shelfari.com which lets you put up piccies of your books and reviews and what not. We're going to add stuff we read or want to read on that too. There's a widget to our first few shelfari books on the side bar of our blog...see it?....go down a bit...there you go. Just a few recent great reads so far.

  

World's Second Best Book Shop

One of our customers went on hols to Buenos Aires and we told her that we'd heard about a fab bookshop in an old theatre over there. So she sought it out and brought us back some great photos of it. Thanks Emma!

Ask the Author - Marie Phillips

Ask the Author - Marie Phillips

Mr B's Tremendous Tuesday Book Group recently discussed "God's Behaving Badly" by debut novelist Marie Phillips. We put together a few questions based on the lively discussion that was enjoyed by all present and put them to Marie by e-mail. Here's what she had to say:

Mr B - Some of our book group members wondered whether Terry Pratchett’s book Small Gods provided any inspiration for Gods Behaving Badly?

Marie - Not directly. I have read it, when it first came out, but I don't remember much about it, and I deliberately avoided reading anything similar to the idea of Gods Behaving Badly once I had decided to write that. But Terry Pratchett's writing style was definitely an influence of me, I read the early books in the Discworld series when I was in my teens and first writing my own stories, and I think the sense of humour and skewed view of the world have stayed with me.

Mr B -Are you planning a sequel to Gods Behaving Badly? If not, what do you think the world of GBB would be like now that the gods have regained their powers?

Marie - I've got no plans for a sequel as yet, though never say never. I did, in an early draft, write an epilogue about the world now that the gods have got their powers back. Perhaps depressingly, I thought that things would carry on pretty much as before. I can't imagine that lot effecting much of an improvement. And humans will always find things to argue about (with a little help from Ares).

Mr B - Where did the idea behind GBB come from?

Marie - The idea for the book came when I was helping a friend make a documentary in a school, and the teacher was talking about the differences between the gods of the ancient world and the modern Judeo-Christian God, and I found myself thinking: 'what if the Greeks were right?' But lots of other things inspired me once I'd got the idea.

Notably childhood memories: of stories from Greek myths which we were read at primary school; of movies like Clash of the Titans with their Ray Harryhausen monsters - which is utterly how I imagine Cerberus; and of the Offenbach operetta Orpheus in the Underworld, of which I saw a fantastic production designed by Gerald Scarfe when I was around ten years old. So the gods have been sitting in my mind all this time, waiting for their moment...

Mr B - Religion, except for Christianity, doesn’t really come in to the book. How would your gods have viewed other world religions?

Marie - With a mixture of resentment and contempt. Although Aphrodite might have liked some of the nude artwork.

Thanks very much indeed to Marie for taking time to answer these questions and to her publicist Chloe for arranging the e-interview.

That's all, folks

Right. Sunday done. Nine days of Festival fun been and gone in a flash. So what was the best bit? Who's the best person to ask? If you're looking for a bit of insider knowledge, who you gonna call?

You could start by leafing through somebody's diary for starters. Or, ask Frances Wilson, author of The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth, who has done the leafing for us.

Ms Wilson doesn't think Dorothy Wordsworth and her brother William had an incestuous relationship. In conversation with Christopher Cook this morning, she asserts that although their relationship was peculiar it was never sexual. Hm. Peculiar is the word though, folks. Their mother died when Dorothy was six and William seven and immediately Dorothy was separated from her brothers to live with an aunty. Wilson attributes Dorothy's separation and subsequent return to the bosom of her family as the catalyst that drew her closer to her brother.

The story has death, love, jealousy, grief, all set against the backdrop of the Lakes. This is romanticism of the highest order. All of the characters come across as melodramatic, prissy fops except William's eventual wife Mary who somehow manages to deal with Dorothy's clawing presence in their small Cumbrian home. With Coleridge included, this lot practically had a scheduled timetable for melodramatic headaches.

Dorothy herself has a 'sensibility' - a hyper-sensitivity to colour - that Wilson attributes to migraines but that inform much of WIlliam's poetry. Despite purporting to be a lonesome Romantic who 'wandered lonely as a cloud', William was dependent on the people around him for ideas, support and poetic nourishment. Daffodils for example came from an experience shared with Dorothy and lifted from her journal later.

I could go on to tell you how cerebral and astute Richard Mabey is today but that'd just tell you about my last day at the Fest.

Who else could we go to for an insider's view? Who knows everybody's private and personals? The barman, of course. The Highland Park team reveal that they got through 1300 samples of Highland Park last weekend alone. There are 28 samples per bottle. Crikey, Bath. That's pretty good going.

But the final word about the best of the Fest goes to the two people who've seen the most of it. Between them sound engineers Paul Sparrow and Dan Gruner have, after all, seen everything that's been on within the walls of the Guildhall.

After a moment chewing on some tasty-looking shortbread, Paul gives me his highlights. 'Fenton on Blake. Aside from being a poet and a critic and all the rest of it, he's a gardener. He wrote a book called A Garden From A Hundred Packets of Seed which is a good winter read.' Anything else?

'It shows how radical the Bath audience is that Robert Fisk got the biggest round of applause - verging on a standing ovation,' he reveals.

'I also enjoyed Andrea Wulf, being a keen gardener. It was a story I knew nothing about. She was very good.'

Thanks Paul. And Dan? 'In no order - Hugh Lupton and Chris Wood; Battling For the Real England was very disturbing and worrying; Misha Glenny. Those are definitely my top three.'

Fine stuff indeed. I'll see you all next time around - but don't be a stranger! Pop in and see us some time.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Blogs of Inexperience: A Retrospective

It is a Sunday morning in the year 2109. The last day of the Bath LitFest. Coffee cup in one hand, croissant in the other,  you're stumbling dozily out into the morning air. You're hung over. You may have had a one too many tots of Highland Park last night. You're late for a reading. You're writing a blog for the official booksellers of the Fest and need some material for today's post.

It's just a hop, skip and jump down the jetty before you cast off your rowing boat. You're running ten minutes late already and you've still got half the Bath Lake to cross. Soon though, the imperious grey towers of the Guildhall Globanational Multiplex loom above you.

You moor up, flash your badge at the Harbour Master and hot-foot it into the Multiplex. You know the speaker is due to start at 11 but you can't remember which floor he's on. Check both pockets. Nothing. Your notes are at home, sitting happily underneath the cat on the kitchen table. Above you is a Festival schedule in Cantonese. But you're old-generation and don't read Cantonese. A beep on your digital watch tells you the speaker is about to start, probably walking on stage right now, probably now being introduced, probably now receiving a warm welcome, probably now clearing his throat, getting the nod from the sound engineer, shuffling his papers (his hi-tech digital papers)... No time to lose, you choose the first seminar room that you come to.

The automatic doors of the auditorium close behind you automatically. Automatic doors, you think, this truly is a wondrous futuristic age we live in. An Usher stewards you to a seat.

And that's how you've found yourself in the wrong room. This isn't Nettle Soups of the World: A Travelogue, you think. No. This is Blogs of Inexperience: A Retrospective.

'Although he was thought to be a prodigious madman in his own time,' the speaker intones, 'it isn't until now, long after his death, that we truly appreciate the importance and resonance of the first-time blogs of Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader.' After preamble, introduction and amble, footnote, fumble and folly, the reader finally reads from the Blogs themselves:

'Monkey, monkey jumping good

In the morning of the wood.

What immortal thingy-thing

Could shake thy tail and make thee sing?'

After the reading, you shuffle out, somewhat perplexed. You'd fallen asleep half-way through. As you head towards the book stall, your boss, Mr B Jr Jr Jr, shoots you a look. His Look-Shooter 3000 beams a message into your Look-Receiver X-Series.

The look says, 'Well?'

After a moment you reply, 'I've got this idea for a retrospective based a hundred years in the future...'

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

PS

There's a Sunday summary post coming later based on actual events. I'm definitely going to try to squeeze in to see free food pioneer Richard Mabey if it doesn't sell out and later I'll check out some pomes with Wendy Cope if I can. See you in Jika Jika anon.

Think global, drink local

I've had goose-pimples twice already today. Perhaps a literature festival wouldn't be an instant thought for thrill-seekers but two talks today really got my blood flowing.

Firstly, a talk with Justin Marozzi and John Gimlette, chaired by local travel writer (is that an oxymoron?) and lecturer Joe Roberts. Both writers have documented their experiences with interesting travelling.

An encounter with an American GI led Mr Gimlette to retrace the US Forces' path up the Western Front in WWII with this 86 year-old veteran of the campaign, Putnam Flint. Gimlette chronicles the journey in Panther Soup, the soup of the title being the muddy mess that the American Panther Division left in their wake. This is an insight into the war and a personal story of a soldier coming to terms with the actions, both necessary and repugnant, of his army.

Justin Marozzi's wingman for his book The Man Who Invented History was Herodotus, the much-maligned Exaggerating Great-Uncle of History, or the Father of Lies, as some would have it. Amongst academics, Herodotus is seen as a fine stylist but a 'bullshit artist,' Marozzi explains to those of us who don't know (don't tell me I'm the only one never to have studied Greek classics.) But Marozzi likes the old chap for the very reason Plutarch et alii show such disdain for him - he's readable, he's an 'amiable buffoon' and he is a 'barbarian-lover'. A story-teller with an actual interest in the peoples he visits? Yes, he sounds like a decent sort to me as well.

Goose-pimple No 1: History reclaims some sensory, human detail.

Later, author of Real England Paul Kingsnorth and photographer Adrian Arbib give a rip-roarer of a seminar on the branding and blanding of the British landscape. Not for the first time at the Fest, we're talking about the effects of globalisation here - homogenisation, the dilution of culture and the death of the community as the supermarkets and developers roll out their grey monoliths. Two case studies from Kingsnorth laud the diversity of British apples and the importance of the good old-fashioned British pub. This is a popular theme in the media at the moment - recent noises have come from, amongst others, long-running activist Prince Charles - and more power to them.

Arbib further illustrates the importance of this activism with examples close to home (Solsbury Hill) to those further afield (developers in Oxford feeling the full force of the opinions of the British public.)

Kingsnorth feels vindicated by the recession. As a Marxist friend joked recently - capitalism is a lovely idea in theory but it just doesn't work in practice. 

Goose-pimple No 2: the battle for English culture puts my dander up.

My hunger for rabble-rousing whetted, I hit the streets. And, after a big, long, late lunch with two American MA Writing students discussing drinking culture home and away, I'm feeling like a big, long, late nap. When I wake up, I think it would only be right to show my support for my local ale house.

In between, my tip for the evening slot is more pomes. Claire Crowther and Greta Stoddart read from their own work and talk to poet and lecturer Carrie Etter, 7pm in't Guildhall. Have a good Saturday night - the week has whizzed past hasn't it?

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Fambly

More queue-based gossip for you, fellow book-worms. Young actor, writer and all-round good-egg Ben Crystal caused a bit of a stir at book-signing time. His energetic, interactive talk was so poular that theme-park style queues quickly formed.

It's been a bit of a week for dynasties. It's something writers will often, understandably, distance themselves from to prove their own worth but, just for some factoid-fun... Harry Mount is the cousin of a Mr D Cameron, Ruth Padel is of course the great-great grandaughter of old Chazzer Darwin, John Hemming's mother was a well-known journalist, Misha Glenny is, of course, married to Kirsty Lang, and vice versa. And Ben Crystal is son of living-linguistic-legend David Crystal. With a gene pool that deep, no wonder the autograph-hunters have been out in force. No diving from the shallow end and no heavy petting, please.

Last night I went for some poetry. Tim Liardet kicked off the start of a new season of Bath Spa Stand-Up Poetry with Vicki Feaver and Catherine Smith. It were right good. Tonight, in a continuing of the Focus on Hungary theme, Mr Liardet will be in conversation with Anna Szabó & George Szirtes. For those of you unfortunate folks who missed out on a ticket for George Monbiot, I'd recommend this one.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Longest Line in Guildhall History (and still time for some family advice)

Mr B dropping in to report that the signing line for Alexander McCall-Smith was eventually completed with every customer trotting into the night gleefully clasping their new signed books.

The longest signing line in Guildhall History I overheard one official saying, but the incredibly charming Mr McCall-Smith still had time and energy to sign a mighty pile of them for the Mr B's festival shop for anyone who wasn't able to wait in line.

And even after he completed that Kilimanjaroesque pile of signing, he was still keen to stick around for a brief chit chat about books, bookshops and all sorts, which resulted in me going away with some top tips for my impending fatherhood in May. The sound advice from one of Britain's most popular and prolific novelists is to be there, to enjoy every moment, to cry buckets once it's all over but to stay firmly at the top end of the bed throughout. That sounds infinitely sensible if you ask me.

Posted by 'Mr B'

Blooming heck!

Today's tenuous link: green. The Festival's palette; the seats at the Guildhall; my ill-advised cords-and-wool-shirt combo today (cor, what a scorcher!); the fingers of the British.

Andrea Wulf (favourite flowers - lupin? Ho ho) presented from her book The Brother Gardeners, adding to the Festival's richly global fare. So far, amongst others, we've had a Pakistani talking about America, we've had a Chinese lady talking about Tibet, we've had a Czech-American talking about Germany. Andrea Wulf is an Indo-German talking about us weirdo, lawn-hoovering Brits.

In the 18th century, a key band of botanists exploited the colonial trade routes to nurture their budding (sorry, so sorry) interests in all things green. Our cast: British Quaker, Peter Collinson; an American horticulturalist, John Bartram (incidentally, another Quaker); Philip Miller, Chief Gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden; Swede Carl Linnaeus; Joseph Banks (of Captain Cook and Mutiny on the Bounty fame); Daniel Solunder, another Swede. Check out the book - they're a dashing bunch.

Theirs is a story of transatlantic fraternal bickering. Their legacy is that of an expansive vista of evergreens and spring shrubs. In Andrea Wulf's words, a 'quiet flower revolution.' Look, I can't pretend to be a gardener. I live in a flat. My wife and I buy pots of basil from the supermarket that last a meal and promptly wither and die on us, as if to say 'you're bad parents, you're bad north-facing fungal people'. No, I'm no gardener. But a quiet flower revolution? Even I can dig that. (Yes, sorry.)

The aristocracy of the day had topiaries and straight lines and something close to a modern German garden - Ms Wulf describes how her neighbours in Germany called the police to report a hedge that was too close to the pavement. In the 1780s though, thanks to these early pioneers of gardening, 'the corset that was imposed on nature was slowly opened.'

Here is an aside: does working in mud mean mind in the filth? I'm thinking of Mr Titchmarsh, whose novels have something of a reputation (nudge et wink). Ms Wulf reveals that Linnaeus 'failed to persuade the British to adopt his sexual system' of classification as it was 'too smutty'. Descriptions of plants as mistresses abound. Cross-sections of flowers' licentiousness. Passion. It's all a bit... seedy. (No, really, I'm sorry). And, speaking of the sexual behaviour of flowers, do you remember yesterday's 'fraternal polyandry'? The blushing beetroot? We're coming full circle, dear friends.

But Britain's relationship with green spaces is complicated and strong. I don't need to tell you - just look at Bath's waiting lists for allotments.

Enough now. It's way past your bed time.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Who wouldn't want to come back?

Former child-soldier, writer and rapper Emmanuel Jal told me he'll be back. Bath has clearly made a good impression. Between sell-out readings at the Fest he was at City of Bath College doing some fine work with music students there and he enjoyed himself so much he vowed he'd return.

Meanwhile, Sun Shuyun gave a Chinese view of Tibet free of jingoism, free of the Party line, free of hippy cliches about Shangri-La. Instead we got stories of real actual people in a real actual country - hotelier, shaman, child labourers, monks and so on. Stark economic realities in an occupied country. The quotidian problems faced by a singularly religious, rural population. And I learnt a new word - fraternal polyandry (for mainly economic reasons, very popular in this particular region of Tibet). Forgive me - for my ignorance and my innocence - but it made me blush like a coy little beetroot in a silk stockings factory. A vegetable's silk stocking factory. It could happen.

Um.

Night night.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Wednesday

Morning all.

On Monday at the Festival I bumped into Frances Ann King, a recent graduate from the BA Creative Writing at Bath Spa. She's already making waves as a poet in her own right - see, for example, Editor's choice this month in Rialto magazine. Excellent stuff. If you fancy catching up with what the current crop from the MA Creative Writing are up to, check out New Writing at 8.30pm at the Rondo tonight.


My other tip for the day is Jenni Murray at 4.30pm in the Guildhall. But I'm sure that was already on your radar.

Out of interest - on this day in 1861, Honest Abe was inaugurated (see yesterday's post). On the literary front, on this day in 1852, Gogol died. Meanwhile, John Terry is 30 today.


Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Funny weather we're having

Have you braved the weather then? You brave things!  What did you see tonight? That's not a hypothetical question - let's get some conversation going here. It's strangely quiet, but I know you're out there in the darkness. Don't let me hog all the limelight. I know there were people left itching for the microphone earlier tonight.

Bronwen Maddox, Ziauddin Sardar and Scott Lucas engaged in a discussion chaired by Helen Taylor - The World Today: America and Britain. In a word? Tantalising. As Scott Lucas pointed out, a discussion like this could take seven or eight hours. Look, I know Nic Bottomley had his heart set on going to this one so I'll do my darndest to say something sensible and meaningful with it. Poor old bean was busy orchestrating book sales for three events simultaneouswise. They're like buses, these things. (I think we all know he wouldn't have it any other way really.)

The panel's clear, informed messages did much to elucidate and explore a topic which is at the fore of our national psyche. Its importance permeates our culture. With the current economic situation linking our two nations as much as our recent joint forays into questionable foreign policy and misadventure, the roles and the responsibilities of America and Britain in a global context took centre stage.

With the hour speeding by, this well-structured discourse did occasionally and inevitably slip into cross-firing pub banter, albeit with professorships for beermats and transcontinental experience for session ale.

And that might have been the most interesting aspect of the conversation. We were graced with three forceful academic minds - one whose background is American-English, one whose is more stoutly American, and one whose is Asian-English. And their world views didn't sit exactly how you might expect - with each revelation the shift in  atmosphere was audible. There were mutters of approval. Sighs and  fidgets as knickers twisted and untwisted. At one point there was an uncontrolled bark of disagreement and later relieved laughter. At the close, two hearty rounds of applause.

This one could've run on into the night. Please do commit finger to keyboard if you'd like to continue here.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

A rose by any other name

Ah. The breath of the morning. The sparrow's croak. Breakfast. On Radio 4, UniversityChallengeGate rages on. Ah. How are you feeling today?

Last night whispers were circulating around the Festival about authors (who will remain anonymous) suffering from Repetitive Signature Injuries. One signed a book to the wrong person, one signed a book to himself... Well. Sometimes a name just slips out of reach. I suppose it's an understandable symptom of the leviathan workload that comes with a commitment to one's art and one's fans.

On an unrelated note (although I am sure she is just as committed), Yasmin Alibhai-Brown last night proved herself a fluent and instantly loveable raconteur. She describes herself as a 'national irritant'. Michèle Roberts has another view of her - 'national treasure'. Alibhai-Brown's new book The Settler's Cookbook, which she explains she had to write as a means of making her mother alive again, is also a means of documenting a generation that is slowly passing on without any of their stories written down. When she dies, she jokes, she hopes her (presently indifferent) children will read it and 'feel a bit guilty!' If you missed it, it's Book Of The Week next week on Radio 4. As ever, it's also available at Mr B's Emporium.

Recommendation for the day, as per the advice of Mrs Alibhai-Brown, is another Yasmin. Yasmin Hai and Ziauddin Sardar reading at 1pm today in the Guildhall. 'It's a beautiful book,' she advises of Yasmin Hai's memoir The Making of Mr Hai’s Daughter. See you there.

Meanwhile, the kettle's boiling. Speak later.

Tom Writer

A story I'm not allowed to tell

Day Three. Ron Jonson tells a story that I'm not allowed to write. He's promised his son it won't ever be published. It's a funny, funny story.

Here's my own little kitchen sink drama for you instead then. I'm sitting in the front row of a small auditorium with my pen and my notepad. I'm not a real journalist, and as a volunteer I'm not even a proper employee of Mr B's and, by extension, the LitFest. But the nice Steward (well, they're all nice, aren't they) has sent me to the front where there are seats with 'RESERVED FOR FESTIVAL STAFF' signs. She has done this because when she asks for my ticket at the door I peel back my jacket to reveal my Mr B's badge and coolly say, 'I'm writing a blog for Mr B's.' But I don't say it very coolly. My voice breaks a little. Like a chair being pulled out. And I stutter. She gives me a 'poor love' look and directs me to the front row out of sympathy.

A few seats along, in the front row but not in Festival Staff seats, there are a couple of ladies arguing. This is good, I think. I can write about this. If I write about this in my notebook, I think, people around me will think I'm a writer and won't question why I'm sitting in such a good seat. The women are bickering. I write, 'mad women bickering in the front row' in my notebook and I give a little laugh. Ha ha. I am funny. I am a funny, funny writer. Why don't I send some of this stuff to a newspaper? This is good stuff.

One of the women moves seats and sits behind me. I feel sure she can read what I'm writing. It's good stuff, why wouldn't she want to read it? I look down at the notepad. Mad women bickering, it says. I put my notepad away.

After introducing the speaker, the Festival Producer sits down next to me in one of the seats for Festival Staff. I stick out my chest a little to show my badge off. It's suddenly awfully small. Has she seen it? She hasn't seen my teeny tiny badge.

At the risk of a face-off with the bickering woman, I pull out my notepad and, quickly flicking to a page sans mad women bickering, or shopping lists, pretend to write about what the speaker is saying. The audience chuckles. The Festival Producer chuckles. I chuckle knowingly and smile at her. And go back to the notepad with a face that says, 'this is good stuff, this is a funny, funny speaker.'

But I haven't been listening. So I draw a bad picture of the speaker. Here the speaker tells a story that he's promised his son he won't publish. It's just too good. But, because I can't write the story, I carry on drawing my silly picture of the speaker.

Afterwards, I ask one of the pretty members of Mr B's happy helpers (i.e. not me) to ask the speaker for a sound-byte for the blog. She doesn't have any paper so takes my notepad and pen.

Opposite me, there's a group of Festival Staff. The Nice Steward, the Festival Producer and some other women that I don't know. I get the feeling they're talking about me. One of them comes over. I sit down and try to look really cool, thrusting out my chest. She asks if I'm a journalist. 'I'm writing a blog for Mr B's,' I say, patting my pockets. But my notepad isn't there. I shift in my seat and its feet creak against the floor. For a moment I wonder if I'm going to be thrown out for pretending to be a real writer. But she's very polite. We chat and she doesn't give me a 'poor love' look. We shake hands and she leaves. Well, I'm with Mr B's now, after all. What was I expecting? Derision? I've arrived.

The girl from Mr B's comes back. 'Jon says he likes your picture,' she says.

Good night.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Jika Jika. That's coffee to you or me.

Thanks, Mr B.



Sam Reader here, back on the digital ivories. Just a swift tinkle before I post my concerto later tonight.

It's time for a snackerel, I reckon. If you like your coffee, it's worth checking out Jika Jika in the Festival Hub run by Bath's very own Matt Stevens. As a precursor to the grand opening of the cafe in late Spring 09 (Stevens and business partner Lee Mears are awaiting the final touches to their renovated premises on Princes Buildings), Jika Jika is offering a snappy little coffee right at the heart of Bath LitFest.


I caught up with Matt yesterday. "We're passionate about a high quality product," he told me, "and we think Bath deserves an alternative to the High Street chain cafes." Independent retail rather than the big homogenous chains? Yes, a fine idea. And the coffee's pretty darn good. Mr B's staff all highly recommend the brownies.


Has he taken any time out to enjoy the Festival? Only to see Jonathon Coe. "I loved The Rotters' Club," Stevens told me, "but he didn't talk about it!" C'est la vie, uh.

Back to it then, dear friends. Speak later.


Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Northern Roots in a Southern Green Room

Mr B here, invading Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader's rightful blogging place, to report on desperate scenes from the Lit Fest Green Room on Sunday evening. Leaving Team B (in the lurch) to bench-press stacks of Gerald Scarfe's absolutely colossal books into happy customer's bags, I took a rare opportunity on Sunday evening to pop down to the Green Room - that happy refuge of incoming and outgoing authors, and of festival team members in various states of collapse after the successful negotiation of 25+ events in a single weekend.


I chose that moment hoping to catch top radio DJ, walking music encyclopedia and author of brilliantly named North/South divide classic, "Pies and Prejudice", Stuart Maconie supping a brew before his event. Armed with a mental list of my not inconsiderable Northern credentials (complete with Bradford wool-milling Grandfather, Reg) I sailed into the room only to find myself in a queue of other wannabe Northerners, headed by Bath Big Read author and Mr B's Emporium favourite (and, I'm proud to say, fan) Jonathan Coe. As Maconie enjoyed a glass of Stout (I'm lying, that would be too good, it was Merlot) I jockeyed for position with the Lit-Fest's superhero organiser-in-chief Zoe Steadman-Milne who, it turns out, was also keen to talk whippets with the great (although actually quite little) man.


But no, Zoe and I were soon united in disappointment though as it became clear that it was taking Coe so long to convince Maconie that he was even a tiny bit Northern that he was going to hog him right up until he was dragged away for his Southern softie soundcheck.


Never fear. I got my Northernness pitch in later on. That's the thing about being a bookseller. Authors can't run away from you when you're having them sign a whopping big pile of books.


Posted by 'Mr B'

Rose George puts the 'log' in 'blog' - A Sunday Summary

Okay. No more Mr 'Sports-fans'. If you'd wanted a celebration of Middlesbrough's exploits you'd be reading the Tees Mouth blog. Today is all about the books and the lovely sunny festival vibes. Also on a point of style, Mr B (here B stands for Boss) kindly advises me that yesterday's post was 'macro'. In response, here's a mere snippet of my Sunday best.

Firstly, the most sprightly of speakers I've seen so far. Dr Ben 'Bad Science' Goldacre is a fierce, frizzy mop of intelligence in a tanktop who is cool and nerdy and righteous (dude). Check out his stuff in the Grauniad, online or, even better, buy his book from Mr B's Emporium. Science or statistics classes across the country are sorely missing the enthusiasm and incision this chap has at his finger-tips. Cue a mile-long line to get autographs - or is that medical advice? - from the goodly doctor.

Shoes of the day? Jonathon Stubbs, Development Officer. Effortlessly brown leather and apparently from a charity shop. Well done.

The Poetry Taxi - winsome undergraduates lure unsuspecting bloggers into the back of a taxi whereupon they unleash a tirade of abuse. 'You're a drawing-pin stuck in my sock,' I was told, 'you're a serious mistake in a nightie.' Oh. I get it. It's a poem by James Fenton. But I saw him speak this morning. He seemed so nice. But here's a pome by Mr Rosen. Now you're talking at my level! (Precisely down behind the dustbin.)

Nod Knowles, Chief Executive, kindly gives me a moment out of his busy schedule to provide you his top tip for the week: Hugh Lupton and Chris Wood, Sunday 8th March in the Guildhall at 5.30pm.

'I know that's going to be brilliant,' Mr Knowles tells me. Unfortunately, 'I know that's sold out,' the website tells me. 'There's something here for everyone,' says Mr Knowles. Quite so. And very generous to give me his thoughts in the middle of a very busy day.

Personally, I'm looking forward to Jon Ronson, Monday at 7.30pm at the Guildhall. Also, at the other end of the week, two events starting at 7.30pm at the Guildhall - New Writing, The Anthology and Focus on Hungary: Anna Szabó and George Szirtes. What is a blogger to do?

One last thing before I sign off then - there is more but it'll have to wait as I'm already rambling on - Rose George talking to Robin McKie about her book, The Big Necessity. It's about poo. It's a serious thing though - were it not for our First World sanitation and sewage systems, we'd all be in the shit. As t'were.

From the outset, Rose George says that she doesn't like toilet humour as she's 'not a 14 year old boy.' Just to say then, as she has previously published a book, this is her number two release. Sorry.

As always, remember that Mr B's is the official bookseller for Bath Literature Festival 2009 and if you've seen anything you like, do pop in and say so. Or just come and visit us for a little bookish pampering - we're always pleased to see you.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Sunday yummy Sunday

In my rush to get on with more pressing matters last night (empty a bottle of wine in front of the footer) I forgot to mention what a large amount of shoulder rubbing and chin wagging I did yesterday. My upper body aches. I did more networking in an hour than a BT engineer gets to in a year (other telecommunication suppliers are available).

Upper and foremost was bright young thing Tracey Wall, a product of the Bath Spa Creative Writing MA. Currently she's freelancing in an ever diminishing sector - in a recession it's always the arts that get it in the neck first, eh - until her magna opus is published. Keep your eyes peeled back for that one.

While you're waiting though, you could do worse than to catch a whiff of the current crop on Wednesday night at the Rondo.

Right. Coffee - Check. iPod - Check. Cardigan - Check (other woolen products are available). Who doesn't love Sundays? I'll see you out there, page-botherers.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

No more sleeps

Good evening, sports fans. And what a balmy evening it was. The skies cleared, the air thickened and you dear Bathonians swarmed like happy mozzies to the Guildhall to feast on literary veins. A-hem.

Yes, today was a treat. Despite an inevitable draw on the cards in the Windies, England have at least produced a batting performance worthy of a national team. Liverpool, bless them, all but gave up the title ghost at the Riverside. Good old pog-faced Southgate. Rugby? Okay. Today we're Scottish. Pass me the Highland Park, old boy! Don't mind if I do. And another? Ho ho.

But hang on. I've got to at least attend one event at the Lit Fest if I'm to write this blog. And so it is that, at 5.30 your time, Mr B's Blogger finds himself not in front of the goggle-box enjoying O'Driscoll's finest, but instead at the Guildhall awaiting an audience with Auschwitz survivor, Thomas Buergenthal, to celebrate the launch of his new book, A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz. It chronicles his youth under the long, dark shadow of the Nazi regime. A sombre first night then, eh.

Well. No. The atmosphere is as warm as the room. Friendly. The familiar voice of Kirsty Lang (something about it reminds me of washing up). And here to the stage is a chipper old chap who joins our Kirsty on the comfy brown leather sofas. He could your grandpa. Genially he describes fleeing to Poland from the family home in what is now Slovakia. Random killings in the ghetto. The visas that would take them to England on the day that Hitler decided he had other ideas for the Buergenthals (on the day the family were due to ship out, the Nazis invadde Poland). And then Auschwitz. Inmate number B2930 at 10 years old. The Angel of Death. The sounds of screaming through the night. Kirsty Lang tells us that although it is primarily a very optimistic book, it frequently moved her to tears. You aint kidding, missus.

But the atmosphere, as I say, is warm. He talks of a personal battle with the Nazis, a 'wonderful game of staying alive.' Chuckles abound from the audience. 'I won and you lost,' he points at Hitler. The broken innocence of a childhood spent avoiding Dr Mengele and starvation produced this bitter sweet view of his formative years.

Recently we've had gushy Kate in the big shiny rendition of The Reader. We've had Daniel Craig as Partisan and Tom Cruise bashin' the Nuzzies. In modern popular fictions, the Jews in Nazi Germany are sweetly victims or they are action heroes in bristling technicolour. But here is a man who was a child, in his mother's words, a lucky child. (The story goes that a fortune teller told her that although bad times were ahead, Thomas would come out the other end okay.) Importantly, the Holocaust is by no means gone from living memory. Before it is resigned to history, or more worryingly, story and myth, personal accounts of this dark moment in humanity are vital to our understanding of what happened, and vital to what Buergenthal admits he pointedly turns his attention away from - Holocaust deniers. 'They're trying to kill us twice,' quoth he. Yes.

Questions from the floor then. Asked what he most enjoyed once free and reunited with his mother, Mr Buergenthal replies resoundingly 'sports!' With no religious instruction available, he was allowed to play football and go running.

Afterwards, Herr B tells me that he'd very much enjoyed Kirsty Lang's interviewing. She'd brought the best out of him, so he says. I'm only glad I wasn't interviewing him. I completely forget to ask him which team he supports.

Mr B's - the official bookseller of the Bath LIterature Festival 2009

If you've liked anything you've seen today, including A Lucky Child, remember that Mr B's can supply all your bibliotherapy needs: http://www.mrbsemporium.com/.

Good night for now - Match Of The Day calls.

Sam 'The Uncommon' Reader

Two more sleeps until the Bath Literature Festival 2009!

Now boys and girls, I'm sure you're as excited as I am in knowing that this year's Literature Festival is nearly upon us. As of this Saturday, we'll be keeping you up to date DAILY with a super-dooper blog written lovingly by our very own friend Sam, so keep-a-readin' to make sure you're on top of it all. It's mayhem here at the Emporium; we're printing, carting, reading, writing, drawing, cutting - not to mention sweating, bleeding and crying to deliver you the best festival yet.

In the last few days before it all kicks off I thought I'd cease all the rushing, have a cup of tea and tell you what's going down over the next few days of "debate, discovery, passion and inspiration." One of Saturday's highlights sure to set your ears aflame is the Big Bath Read and who have they got talking? Only tip-top titan-of-an-author Jonathan Coe! He'll be at the Guildhall between 4 and 5 discussing his most recent novel The Rain Before it Falls (sponsored by Mr B's and our friends at the soon-to-open Jika Jika Cafe). Not only can you listen and join in the hearty debate, but the following day you can hear the music that inspired the title, Flautist Theo Travis, playing to extracts of the novel at 4:30pm.

Sunday also brings many a literary delicacy for you to enjoy. If you fancy a bit of demonic, Dali-esque satire, then come along and see political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe and admire the work from Monsters: How George Bush Saved the World and Other Tall Stories. Inspired by greed, hypocrisy, power and arrogance, Scarfe tells the tales of Bill Clinton (and how he Did Not Have Sex With That Woman) Margaret Thatcher and John Major in a mad lampoon-athon of a book.

Monday's offerings include not only Chinese Poetry and an extensive workshop on how to edit your own writing for publication (listen up all Creative Writing Students!) but also, at 7:30pm the Guildhall, award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker and all round hilariously witty man, Jon Ronson. He'll be reading from his side-splittingly funny new book, What I do: More True Tales of Everyday Craziness. As a fan, with his old Guardian column ripped out and stashed in an old trunk, I can recommend this event wholeheartedly. Also, you might be interested to know that his previous black comedy offering, Men Who Stare at Goats - a romp of a read about conspiracy in Iraq - is being made into a Hollywood movie, starring none other than Ewan Mcgregor, Jeff Bridges and George Clooney!

Right, where are we? Tuesday. Yes. Well, Tuesday provides us with a fascinating talk by Yasmin Hai and Ziauddin Sardar, authors of Balti Britain: A Journey Through the British Asian Experience and The Making of Mr. Hai's Daughter, respectively. An absolute plethora of culture and identity, wit and religion not to be missed.

Anyway, enough yapping from me. If that all sounded pretty peachy to get you started, then keep clicking on trusty Sam's blog to stay in the know for all 9 days of Lit Fest. See you at the Festival and please do comment at will with your festival experiences and comments. We'd love to hear from you!

Mr & Mrs B's Battle of the Classics

Mr & Mrs B's Battle of the Translated Classics - Andric vs Alain-Fournier

Coming up with a reading strategy is always fun in the New Year but when you are a bookshop owner it presents a real challenge. Where to start with book group books, advance reading copies, brand new, fab looking titles, kids' books etc....and by the end of the year we never seem to have read enough of the classics. So this year, we have a new "classics with a twist"plan. In between the regular book group reads and contemporary titles, we (i.e. Mr & Mrs B) will each read a classic translated fiction title starting with surname "A" and working down the alphabet. And we'll let you know what we thought of them - warts and all - right HERE.

Ivo Andric vs Alain-Fournier

First up for Mr B was Ivo Andric "The Bridge over the Drina"

(Harvill, £10.99. Originally Published in 1945 in Serbo-Croat).

In 25 words: Stone bridge built by C16 Turkish Grand Vezir stands witness to 350 years of Balkan upheaval in fascinating history lesson cum epic multi-character novel.

In more than 25 words: This incredible novel is splattered with eye-opening (and often head-losing) stories illustrating the tension between Bosnians and Serbs and the Turks and then Austro-Hungarians that ruled over them during the second half of the last millenium. A biographical novel of a bridge built at the town of Visegrad by a Bosnian-born Grand Vezir in memory of his last journey from his homeland from which he was plucked by the Turks as a young boy.

Beginning with the long and bloody construction of the bridge and then moving fitfully forward through 350 years, Andric introduces us to an endless stream of sometimes loveable, sometimes roguish Visegrad residents (often cleverly linking back to their descendents who we may have encountered in previous chapters). The bridge often looms large in the stories - a Turkish bride leaps from it to avoid marriage; a comically-described gambler loses his biggest bet (and possibly his marbles) on it; the new governing forces of the Austro-Hungarian empire are met by the town's elders for the first time on it; drunks teeter across its parapet and innumerable people end up impaled, beheaded or even pinned-by-the-ear to it.

Through these vignettes of life in Visegrad and on its stone bridge across the Drina, you gradully gain an understanding of the region's tumultous history right up to the outbreak of WW1 following the Archduke's assassination in relatively nearby Sarajevo. For me the most remarkable aspect of the novel is the multitude of perspectives that Andric gives you on the momentous events taking place in the big and scary world outside Visegrad, as he shows us those events through the eyes of Turks, Serbs, Bosnians and Austrians and Jews, Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Moslems.

Andric won the Nobel Prize for this novel and it really wider recongition as a genuine C20 classic here in the UK.

- v. -

First choice for Mrs B was Henri Alain-Fournier "The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes)"

(Penguin, £8.99. Originally published in 1913 in French).

Among the reviews which paper our downstairs toilet at Mr B's is an article all about this book which few English people seem to have heard of, but which to French people is as famous as "Great Expectations" is to us British. It is billed as one of the defining coming-of-age stories of French literature and the introduction draws parallels with The Great Gatsby. Every time I visit the toilet I am reminded of it and, bring half-French, feel it my duty to give it a go. felt it remiss of me not to have read it and was excited at the prospect.

The narrator is a teenage schoolboy in a French provincial town at the end of 19th Century. His routine life is turned upside down with the arrival at the school of the charismatic, larger than life Augustin Meulnes. The "Great Meaulnes" disappears one evening, returning a few days later telling of a mysterious, candlelit wedding party in a crumbling estate, with costumed guests and an impossibly beautiful girl. As Meaulnes tries to reconstruct a way back to the dreamy lost estate, he manages to alienate his schoolmates and then the visit of a strange gypsy and his friend lead to some sinister goings-on.

I won't give away any more of the plot here. It is a story of nostalgic longing for the past. On the one hand, Meaulnes' yearning to relive his magical experience means he can't move on with his life. On the other hand, he is desperate to escape his adolescence, with all its emotional constraints.

It is an intriguing read which I enjoyed immensely although I must say I think I came at it with my expectations perhaps too high. The atmosphere he creates around the lost estate and the sense of wistful longing I found superb. However it lacked the intensity of other French novels I have read. Although I found it a good translation, perhaps it is a book which should be read in the original if at all possible since its strength lies in the prose and not the plot.