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