Readers' Day 2011

If you want to get a reader on your side, give them free books, preferably in an attractive and sturdy bookbag. Such was the thinking behind the free gifts pressed on happy attendees by Vintage Books, partners with the City and  County Libraries for the day, at this year’s Readers' Day at County Hall. Containing a copy of Vasily Grossman’s monumental Life and Fate and one of twenty-one different classic titles handsomely redesigned for Vintage’s 21st birthday, the bag went down very well (though the t-shirt bearing the front cover of Ian McEwan’s novel Solar was met with some scepticism). Free tea, coffee and biscuits also help.

 

Local writers Mike Wilson and Paula Rawsthorne were among those giving talks in the morning, but I stuck around the Assembly Hall to listen to the staff from Vintage Books and Eve Griffith from local bookshop The Bookcase chair an illuminating session based around the importance of cover design in publishing. Ever stroll through the crime section of Waterstones and wonder why every second book has practically the same cover (black and white image, possibly featuring a man in an overcoat – often the same man - in silhouette)? It’s because that’s what you want, or what you respond to, at any rate. We are creatures of habit, and the easiest way to get us to pick up a book is to have it look like another book we have already bought. Hardly earth-shattering news, but it’s a little depressing to learn that the old adage about never judging a book by its cover is ignored by most of us.

 

Given the opportunity to voice their opinion on seven proposed covers for a new book by Karin Fossum (“Norway’s Queen of Crime”), the audience was only too happy to weigh in on the depressing similarity of the designs to those of existing books in the same genre. One particularly irate reader expressed horror at seeing the title written entirely in lower case. Proof, if any were needed, that a bad cover (or a dull one) can dissuade someone from picking up a book as surely as a fine one can convince you to pick it up. Also proof that readers can be incredibly picky.

 

The biggest draw on the day was undoubtedly David Lodge, here to talk about his fifty years as a writer and plug his latest book, a biographical novel about the frankly dumbfounding  sex-life of HG Wells. For a man who wrote over a hundred books, Wells got about. The highlight of Lodge’s talk was a reading of the justly famed scene from Nice Work in which the sexual connotations and origins of the Silk Cut adverts are debated at length by a feminist lecturer and a deeply uncomfortable businessman.

 

Competing against panels on the future of publishing, crime in literature and a discussion based around the Booker list (co-hosted by LeftLion’s own James Walker) was a Scottish Gothic storytelling session hosted by the Scots writer and performer Marty Ross. It was a treat. Waving his arms and relishing each word with a rare delight, he told two long spooky stories, one from the pen of Robert Louis Stevenson, and one by Ross himself. If you’re going to tell a ghost story, a deep Scots burr is a definite advantage.

 

The day closed with a trio of eminent historians (Alison Weir - pictured, Tracy Borman and Annelise Freisenbruch) attempting to win the hearts and minds (and votes) of the audience for their chosen heroine from history. The absence from historical accounts of women like Matilda of Flanders was apparent. She was William the Conquerer’s wife. No, me neither. 

 

Women in history have recently been the subject of far more academic attention than has been the case for centuries, but our knowledge of their role in history remains, obviously, sadly lacking. Livia of Rome (mother of the emperor Tiberius who gave her name to Tony Soprano’s terrifying mother) and Eleanor of Aquitane were more recognisable candidates, but the details of their lives were far less familiar (though no less important or amazing) than their male contemporaries. After the audience was polled it was too close to call between Matilda of Flanders and Eleanor of Aquitane (with my personal choice, the deliciously amoral Livia, trailing in a distant third) and it was diplomatically determined a draw.

 

A few attendees left their complimentary copy of Life And Fate on the book-swapping table, perhaps lacking the necessary fortitude to tackle almost one thousand pages of a novel set during the jolly, carefree days of WWII in Stalinist Russia. Still, many more took their copy home to plough through on the long winter evenings, and it was obvious that the 150 or so attendees felt they had had their money’s worth from the day.

 

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