Bloggerel - Alma Books and Oneworld Classics

Kick-starting 2012

2012-01-05T17:09:00.003Z

In spite of the Olympics buzz not many are optimistic about 2012 and the howling weather isn't helping much but we're hoping to start positive and prepare for some major changes this year.

To kick-start 2012 Oneworld Classics is running two competitions for UK residents, everyone who creates a free online account on our website automatically has a chance to win a set of five bestselling Oneworld Classics titles (worth over £50):
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Dearest Father by Franz Kafka
Death on Credit by Louis-Ferdinand Celine
Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
No purchase or payment is necessary, simply log in now! Offer ends 29th February 2012.

We are also offering a set of our 10 Overture Opera Guides (worth £120!) plus a one-year free subscription to Opera Now magazine.
The set will include all the titles Overture have published so far:
Tosca by Giacomo Puccini
Idomeneo by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
La bohéme by Giacomo Puccini
Don Giovanni by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Parsifal by Richard Wagner
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten
Simon Boccanegra by Giuseppe Verdi
Le nozze di Figaro by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Eugene Onegin by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Der Fliegende Holländer by Richard Wagner
To win simply tell us which opera you would like to see covered by Overture Opera Guides? Email your answer to competition@oneworldclassics.com (competition ends 15th February 2012).

For Alma Books we have decided to extend our Christmas Gift promotion and are giving every customer who makes a purchase from our website a free surprise book (valid for UK residents only, offer end 31st January).

Both websites currently have a 40% discount for every online order for January only, so this is the last chance to purchase some amazing titles at low prices.

We hope this is the start of many competitions and offers to come during the rest of the year.

Happy New Year everyone!

London's Best Bookshop

2011-12-16T11:08:00.003Z

Our congratulations go out to The Calder Bookshop & Theatre who have won this year's award for London's Best Bookshop by London Magazine, especially considering that among the other nominations were Daunts Books in Marylebone, Lutyens and Rubinstein in Notting Hill and the London Review Bookshop in Bloomsbury.

The Calder Bookshop was founded by publishing legend John Calder and specialises in literary fiction, poetry and drama. In 2010 it become The Calder Bookshop & Theatre hosting a variety of discussions, literary readings, film showings, music events and theatre performances. Visit their website www.calderbookshop.com to find out about latest events and pop in to flick through some extraordinary titles.

The Calder Bookshop & Theatre
51 The Cut, London, SE1 8LF
Telephone: 020 7620 2900
info@calderbookshop.com
www.calderbookshop.com

Where are all the Christmas parties?

2011-11-30T15:34:00.002Z

Over the past few years December has always looked like a minefield – the calendar was chock-full of Christmas dinners and parties. This year we looked at our diaries and the only invitation was from the Elvis Presley Society of Great Britain, which unfortunately we had to turn down as it clashes with Advent Service at our kids' school. Either we have suddenly become personae non gratae or the publishing world has run out of money.

Luckily enough, Italians are not daunted by the crisis and are in as festive a mood as ever (remember the good old days of the Credit Crunch? Sigh. We are now officially in recession until further notice). So it will be a good year for turkeys – and for us there will be a lot of Prosecco, lasagna and panettone.

Cin cin!

The Slowest Order

2011-11-25T22:13:00.002Z

I had lunch with an author at our favourite local restaurant today and, just as we were about to order our food and drinks, a Spanish family of four sat next to us. I found it difficult to talk to my author, as the Spaniards kept reading, translating and commenting the menu. The negotiations carried on until our food was served, then they started joking. We got our coffee and I asked for the bill. When I was walking out of the restaurant, they signalled the waitress that they were ready to order.

The Fastest Reader in the World

2011-11-18T21:54:00.004Z

Coming back on the train from Hull today, where I attended the launch of our Lightship Anthology yesterday, I sat next to the fastest reader I have ever met in my life. We left Doncaster at around 11:00am. I noticed that the woman was reading a book by Michael Connelly – I don't know which one because the publisher doesn't use running headers. I saw she was on Chapter 5 when I sat next to her. Ten minutes later I happen to glance over my shoulder and saw she was at the beginning of Chapter 11. "That can't be right," I thought. So I tried to time her reading and realized that she could read 2 pages in 25 seconds, and 4 pages in 50 seconds. Obviously she was quicker when there was dialogue – and they were fairly normal pages of around 250 words each. When we reached Kings Cross she was on page 300 or something, only around 150 pages to go – about half an hour. I am green with envy, having managed to get through only about 50 manuscript pages in the same time.

* * *

A Greek, an Italian and a Portuguese go to the pub and get something to drink. Who pays?

The German.

The trials and pleasures of a Oneworld Classics’ intern

2011-10-13T13:03:00.006+01:00

In between stuffing hundreds of envelopes with our catalogues to send out to our avid readers, I’ve somehow managed to significantly educate myself about two of the most exciting operas around: Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. The bright yellow Le nozze di Figaro guide is one of the thickest in the series and there is certainly no shortage of material, including alternative ariettas written for the librettist’s mistress, a whistle-stop tour in how to analyze recitative, and a performance history where the author definitely does not lack choice! The guide traces the history from Mozart’s original inspiration by the acerbic Beaumarchais play commenting on French society right through to the twenty-first century productions that seem to favour jocks, celebrity culture and fast cars.

Learning about the tragic antihero Eugene Onegin has been just as rewarding, not least because of my first, rather underwhelming, exposure to the opera. My parents took me to a rather drab local production when I was far too young for it, but, reading about the plot, the characters, and the live wire of emotions that underscores the music and the drama of it all, I still can’t understand how, even aged 11, I managed to be bored by it! Even in the more academic history of the work, I was surprised by the huge variety of interpretations that have been produced, despite most managing to stay loyal to the rural folk setting that is so key to the characters’ inevitable fates.

Discovering the in-depth histories behind these operas combined with a pre-existing love for their music has certainly whet my appetite for ENO’s season. Fiona Shaw, who directs The Marriage of Figaro, demonstrates physically all the madness of the plot in this ‘Folle Journée’ using a revolving stage – watch her discuss it on the Andrew Marr Show here. I’m especially excited to see Eugene Onegin as it features tenor Toby Spence, a personal idol of mine.

Imogen Sebba

Intern

Event: The Tomb of Ugo Foscolo

2011-09-08T09:50:00.006+01:00

We’re delighted to hear that the Tomb of Ugo Foscolo has now been restored to its former glory. To celebrate the completion of its restoration there will be a ceremony at the graveyard of St Nicholas’s Church in Chiswick, London W4 2PJ (please see the enclosed map for directions), hosted by His Excellency the Italian Ambassador on Saturday 10th September at 11 o’clock.

The monument was created by Carlo Marochetti, a sculptor from Turin, on commission by Hudson Gurney who, knowing how dear the illusion of a sepulchre was to the Venetian poet – a symbol of civilization and eternal care – made sure that Foscolo’s earthly remains were not just interred in a common mound of earth.

Marochetti created a granite structure harking back to a Roman altar, with the coat of arms of Foscolo’s family tied by a ribbon with the ensign’s Latin motto “accingar zona fortitudinis”.

After lying in a state of disrepair for decades, the tomb has been restored thanks to the dedicated work of a charity set up for the purpose of recovering this important monument – not just to Ugo Foscolo but to Italian poetry and to all the politically persecuted exiles in the world.

I hope you will be able to come along and, if you interested in finding out more about Ugo Foscolo and some of his major poetical works, why not pick up a copy of our edition of his Sepolcri (Selpuchres), with a selection of his poems.

I Write Like

2011-09-05T17:21:00.005+01:00

During a lovely dinner with one of our authors I was made aware of the existence of I Write Like (incidentally, I love its egotistical web suffix ".me") a website that purports to tell you which writer you are most akin to in terms of style. Our author tried a few paragraphs from her novel and her writing was flatteringly compared to a number of major authors, including Leo Tolstoy – because that's the trick, she told me: you are only ever compared to some of the greatest authors in the world of literature, so there's no chance your ego can get beaten.

Sure as hell that night, before going to bed I put my prose through the acid test of the I Write Like website. I didn't dare try any bits from BESTSELLER, but picked three paragraphs from the first two pages of my new novel.

The results were as follow:

First paragraph: Arthur Clarke. Here my heart sunk – do they mean "Arthur C. Clarke", the science-fiction writer? But I don't think I've ever read anything by him – I've only watched a few times the film 2001, A Space Odyssey, which I don't think it counts as an influence. Or do they mean some other unknown Arthur Clarke, the author of out-of-print erotica? Not a good start.

Second paragraph: Vladimir Nabokov. Oh my God – not a name I wanted to see cropping up! You may remember I said once that I wasn't all that impressed by his prose – at least the prose of his short stories . . .

Third paragraph (brace yourself): Dan Brown! I will add no comments to this – I just hope to be able to make a hundredth of the money he did with his pot-boiler.

Conclusions: either my new novel is going to be a Lolita meets The Da Vinci Code with a sprinkling of 2001: A Space Odyssey kind of novel, or I Write Like is total bullshit.

I tend to favour the second possibility.

AG

PS: What would happen if one were to try with a piece of real Tolstoy?

Exotic Lands

2011-09-02T16:56:00.003+01:00

It’s been a busy couple of weeks for reviews, with two each for Kapka Kassabova’s Villa Pacifica and Stephen Parkin’s new translation of Edmondo de Amicis’s Constantinople.

The Scotsman praised Kassabova’s handling of the dreamlike, fantastical elements of her new novel, set in an idiosyncratic animal sanctuary on the coast of South America, and went on to describe it as “intelligent, psychologically compelling… a truly mesmerising read.” Kevin Rushby, writing for the Guardian, compared Kassabova to Joseph Conrad, particularly in her “accuracy and economy”, adding: “Kassabova unleashes a smart turn of literary speed with a deliciously unexpected ending.”

Time Out recommended Constantinople for its “lavish detail and curiosities of Istanbul”, noting that de Amicis’s two-volume travelogue is “as quintessentially Victorian as Edward Gibbon’s The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and Sir Leslie Stephen’s Dictionary of National Biography.” Over at the TLS, Roderick Conway Morris called Stephen Parkin’s translation in for particular praise, describing it as “assured and lively, catching well the spirit of the original”. On the original itself, he was no less complimentary: “Edmondo de Amicis’s book conjures up the eternal harem of Western imaginings, of alluring Oriental deshabille and sensual decadence behind closed doors.”

He also points out that there's a view of Cairo on the cover, not of Istanbul – well, the image was clearly labelled on Getty Images and it was an intentional licence by our designer – totally lost on our exacting critic of course. . .

Simon Boccanegra

2011-08-31T14:57:00.002+01:00

Opera fans, check out the latest issue of the BBC Music magazine for a rather flattering review of our new Overture Opera Guide to Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. Michael Tanner has lots of lovely things to say, not least that: “All told, this is an indispensable volume.” He’s particularly complimentary about the literal facing-page translation, which will please our editor, who spent hours lovingly tweaking every word to make the lines match up – not a task anyone in the office envied. His highest praise, though, goes to the “exceptionally searching, well-written and cultivated piece” by Desmond Shawe-Taylor on Verdi and his singers, one of a number of essays included in this new edition.

No More Discounts!

2011-08-30T21:11:00.003+01:00

Don't worry – our successful promotion continues.

What I'm referring to is a law that has just been approved in Italy, which makes it illegal (except for art books, second-hand and antiquarian books and remaindered stock) to discount books, both in bookshops and online, more than 15%. The only exception is in-store special promotions, where the discount can go up to 25%. Now imagine if this were to happen in the UK . . . There would be more violent riots than the ones we had earlier in the month.

Another interesting piece of statistics from the Repubblica article where I found out about this: according to a recent research only 46.8% of Italians over the age of 6 have read at least one book (not for work or for study) over a period of six months. Grim. Try to be a publisher in the Bel Paese!

At the end of the article there's a slightly misleading report, showing that Italian bestsellers are sold at an average of 16.1 euros, the second highest average after Ireland, and well above United States (11.1), Germany (13.6), England (14) and France (14.4). I say it's misleading because Italy is a totally different market, with very few hardback non-fiction bestsellers (such as cookery books or celebrity memoirs). It would have been much more interesting to compare paperbacks with paperbacks. You'd have then seen a double digit figure for Italy and something like 3.5 for UK.

Whichever way you look at it, whether you are an Italian or an English publisher, the only thing you can do is to find comfort in the final words of Gogol's How the Two Ivans Quarrelled: "It is dreary in this world, gentlemen!"

AG

A follow-up on Heppenstall

2011-08-26T14:46:00.003+01:00

As it turns out, we’re not the only ones with a fondness for Heppenstall: here’s a fantastic piece from today’s 3. A.M. magazine on the man, his career, and his place within 1930s literary Fitzrovia. Worth reading just for the tale of Heppenstall being given a sound beating by flatmate George Orwell for coming home drunk and disorderly.

http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-connecting-door/

OB

Blaze of Noon

2011-08-25T13:53:00.003+01:00

“For what are the emotions? They are things like anger, fear and curiosity. They are sudden changes in a man’s temper, breaking in upon his existence and distorting his features. […] Love is not an emotion.” So says Rayner Heppenstall in The Blaze of Noon, and the novel is filled with these nuggets of philosophy which both stand alone and illuminate the psyche of their narrator.

At once a love story and a treatise on the power dynamic between men and women, Heppenstall’s tale of a blind masseur staying in a Cornish country house posits a doctrine of emotional detachment which its narrator struggles to live up to. After going blind at the age of twenty-three, Louis Dunkel has exerted himself to make his disability as inconspicuous as possible, making masculinity, rather than infirmity, the driving force of his character. Embarking on a relationship with the beautiful but troubled Sophie Madron, Dunkel is at pains to establish himself as an authoritative male presence, educating and repairing Sophie whilst remaining emotionally neutral himself. “The brute fact,” says Dunkel, “is that man’s pleasure in love is a derivative of the pleasure he gives to woman.” This philosophy – and Dunkel’s emotional distance – is compromised by the arrival of Sophie’s blind and deaf cousin, Amity Nance.

I was ashamed not to have heard of Heppenstall until very recently, but in fact he has been widely neglected. Until now his much-admired early novels had fallen out of print, thanks largely to critical distaste at his later work. In its depiction of the minute-to-minute experience of blindness, The Blaze of Noon represents an intriguing engagement with literary form, and has often been hailed as forerunner of the nouveau roman.

OB

August Discounts

2011-08-22T10:57:00.009+01:00

Yes, this is not a mirage nor a Photoshop job: it’s Céline’s Death on Credit with a 3x2 sticker in a Waterstone’s window display (Richmond). I swear this was not obtained through bribing or coercion – it’s totally the store’s initiative, and must be a sign of the good times ahead.

Incidentally, to celebrate the summer we are offering, for a very limited time, a 40% discount on all online orders of our Alma and Oneworld Classics titles (in addition, there is free postage over a certain amount spent). So please take advantage, as dozens of customers have already done, of this fantastic opportunity and hoard up for the cold and rainy seasons ahead.

A Week in Review

2011-08-19T12:00:00.005+01:00

We were delighted with the review of Peter Benson’s Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke in the Guardian, ‘A haunting tale of love, clairvoyance and cannabis’, although Alma Books got a slight rapping for choosing a comically themed cover and title. Read the full review here. A big thank you goes to fellow blogger Jim Murdoch for dedicating a lengthy review to Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke on his blog The Truth about Lies.

The Restaurant of Love Regained by Ito Ogawa has been wonderfully reviewed by the blogs In Spring it is the Dawn and What Sarah Reads. It has also won the Bancarella prize in Italy for food- and cookery-related books. The Premio Bancarella della Cucina was inaugurated in 2006 and the original Premio Bancarella is one of the most prestigious in Italy. It was established in 1953 and awarded the same year to Ernest Hemingway; other winners include Umberto Eco and John Grisham.

We sent Aharon Appelfeld’s Blooms of Darkness to the printers on Tuesday, and it’s already got a review! ‘With short, simple sentences and a brisk pace, the effect of this novel is reminiscent of a film, except that a film would place greater emphasis on dramatic incident and the horror of the situation. As readers, we are left to reflect on such matters for ourselves.’ This is from the East-West Review. Blooms of Darkness is arguably Appelfeld's most personal novel, and tells the story of an eleven-year-old Jewish boy taken in by a prostitute and hidden in the local brothel from the Nazis during the liquidation of the ghettos.

Also in the East-West Review, an entire page on Roger Clarke’s translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.

And talking of classics, I leave you all with the following letter from our recently published Letters to Friends, Family and Editors by Franz Kafka:

[Liboch; Autumn 1902]

To Oskar Pollak,

It’s a strange time I’ve been spending here, as you must have noticed, and I needed a strange time like this, a time in which I lie for hours on a vineyard wall and stare into the rain clouds which don’t want to leave here, or into the wide fields, which grow even wider when you have a rainbow in your eyes, or where I sit in the garden and tell the children (especially a blonde little six-year-old, whom all the women call adorable) fairy tales or build sand castles or play hide-and-seek or whittle tables that - as God is my witness - never turn out well. A strange time, isn’t it?

Or where I go through the fields which now lie brown and mournful with abandoned plows but which all the same glisten silvery when in spite of everything the late-afternoon sun comes out and cast my long shadow (yes, my long shadow, maybe by means of it I’ll still reach the kingdom of heaven) on the furrows. Have you noticed how late-summer shadows dance on dark, turned-up earth, how they dance physically? Have you noticed how the earth rises towards the grazing cow, how trustfully it rises? Have you noticed how rich, heavy soil crumbles under too delicate fingers, how solemnly it crumbles?

Yours, Franz

Books books books

2011-08-16T17:22:00.003+01:00

Just back from a great trip through France and Germany (Reims, Strasbourg, Speyer, Worms, Trier and Cologne in four and a half days… our approximate itinerary is marked up in black) and was expecting a mountain of bumf on my desk. Surprisingly, and to my great relief, the only mountain on my desk was a tall pile of newly printed books – among them Dante's Vita Nuova, Conan Doyle's Tragedy of Korosko and Kafka's Letters, which I look forward to dipping into.

It's great to get out of Britain every now and again, not only because it's become a riotous place of late, but because you realize that in France and Germany, when people sit at restaurant tables or are on a tram or a metro, they don't muck around all the time with their iPhones and other hand-held gadgets.

Yesterday I went to my local gym and there was a guy on a cross trainer reading on a Kindle. Try to picture that. How much more idiotic can you get? I mean, I'm not trying to criticize Amazon or eBooks here: he'd have been an idiot even if he had been reading a book or a newspaper.

Catching up with the latest trade news, it's refreshing to hear what James Daunt had to say on The Future of the Book (BBC Radio 4, 15th August). I agree with him one hundred per cent. But when will Waterstone's start to buy beautifully produced books again?

Slightly more puzzling is Victoria Barnsley's half-go at Amazon in an interview for the same programme (16th August). "They're 'frenemies'," she said. Now, when HarperCollins shows such reverence, one really starts to wonder. And be scared...

What the Dikkens?

2011-08-08T18:28:00.002+01:00

Can you spot the typo? Good, then you can volunteer to help proofread Household Words (later called All Year Round), the weekly edited by Charles Dickens. In its long history it covered over 30,000 pages of crammed text, which apparently translates into approximately three billion words.

Though fairly accurate, I am probably one of the slowest proofreaders in the world. A 30,000-word text will probably take me the good part of 10-12 hours – i.e. an entire day. Therefore if I were to be assigned the task of proofreading all the HW/AYR issues, I'd be stuck in my job for the next 274 years or thereabouts – and maybe a bit longer, as I would probably need to take a holiday from time to time to rest my eyes.

It's an ambitious project, and a laudable one, but is it worth all the effort? What is the point of having the whole thing at your fingertips if people will only read bits of it anyway? Can't they do it on paper? Is it to make it searchable? Googlable? Twitterable?

Perhaps the promoters of this initiative are secretly hoping to sell millions of Household apps in 2012, the year of Dickens's 150th anniversary?

O brave new world!

PS: Who is going to do second proofs?

William Wordsworth

2011-08-03T08:41:00.004+01:00

"I am sorry that Wordsworth has left a bad impression wherever he visited in town by his egotism, vanity and bigotry. Yet he is a great poet, if not a philosopher." This is what John Keats wrote to his brothers George and Thomas on 21st February 1818. Wordsworth would have been 48 at the time, and at the height of his fame, having published his long philosophical poem The Excursion (1797–1814) in 1814.

I had not gone back to Wordsworth's poems for many years, and as I reread them – from his early attempts to the great poem of his maturity, The Prelude, published only posthumously in 1850 – my own impression is that he is a poet more preoccupied with himself than with the world. There is no doubt he is a good poet – although he often goes on for too long and outstays his poetical welcome – but was he a great poet? His poetry doesn't tell you much about the world or the society he lived in – it's all a bit detached and rarefied. He is, quintessentially, very much the image of the self-centred modern writer.

Do I like him? I like his diction, but his poetry leaves me cold and makes me yawn occasionally. I could not find a truly memorable line in my 400-page Selected Poems.

I know that he is the favourite of some of my authors and translators, so I'll stop here before I make anyone cross. However, going back to Keats, I remember that a friend of mine once told me he agreed with TS Eliot that John Keats, had he lived into old age, would have turned into a boring reactionary such as William Wordsworth (I hope I am quoting correctly as it's from memory). Well, my own take is that William Wordsworth, even if had lived 500 or 700 years, would never have become as great a poet as Keats was in his short life.

What can you NOT find on the Internet?

2011-08-01T19:26:00.005+01:00

My dear little sister alerted me to a You Tube video of my acceptance speech for the Premio Speciale Città di Monselice last year, for my translation of Pope's Rape of the Lock. Even if it's all in Italian (you can skip the first five minutes) I am delighted I can now share it with Elisabetta and many of my friends and family who could not come, due to the short notice.

Here's the link – so you can hear how Signor Gallenzi speaks Italian. I am the one on the right in the photo (hem).

Italian Culture Going down the Drain

2011-07-31T15:15:00.004+01:00

I just came across this on the web – a new commercial for an Italian toilet paper.

In it, Dante writes his Divine Comedy on a roll of toilet paper. Very sophisticated.

They took a few liberties (poetic licence?) too. Dante writes the last words of the Divine Comedy in his house in Florence in 1308... Every Italian knows since primary school that he finished his Comedy in exile (after being banned from Florence since 1302) just before his death in 1321.

His young wife looks suspiciously more like a Beatrice Portinari than a Gemma Donati. She says in the ad: "This Comedy of yours is very nice, Dante – divine [ha ha] – but don't you think it's too long?" To which Dante replies: "It's fits just one roll..."

A better joke, at least in English, could have been: "I'm on a roll."

Shorts

2011-07-25T21:56:00.004+01:00

The other day I was asked to sign a copy of my BESTSELLER, but I messed it up: I'm retarded these days when it comes to writing long-hand. So I crossed out my mistake, then picked up a new copy (I have many) and inscribed it to my admirer. I didn't know what to do with the old copy. I thought I could give it out for charity. Then I thought I could keep it in case an Indian or Swedish blogger asked for a reading copy. In the end, I tore the title page out and a few seconds later, unhappy, frustrated, consigned that copy to the bin.

Hours later the cleaner came in, when I was still in the office (not a rare occurrence). I was on the phone and I saw she hesitated before offloading the bin's contents into the rubbish bag. She took out this gold-foiled book and started to look at it. Fired by a new generosity, I mouthed: "Go on, you can have it, you can take it." The cleaner looked at me and put it in one of the large pockets of her apron, then when I hang up she said: "I'm looking for management books. Management."

I told the story in the office and the comment was: "This is packed with metaphor".

* * *

Yesterday I was sent a submission by one of the greatest writers of the twentieth-century, introduced by one of the best greatest great writers of the twentieth century. So I printed twenty pages, as I usually do when I get this kind of proposal, and took it home to read. I uncorked a bottle of red to be in a good mood and started to leaf through. The first twenty pages after the prelims were blank and they just said: "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction", "Introduction". I guess I'll have to print a few more pages before being able to make an offer.

* * *

A wonderful half-day at work, where I had the privilege of editing Swift's Battle of the Books. What a wonderful little book it is – so funny, so relevant. If you have not read it, please grab a copy once we publish it in October (available September).

* * *

As a cherry on the cake, tonight I had a lovely dinner with John Calder. I had not seen him for a while, and he's still going strong. Today – he told me – he is exactly eighty-four years and a half, which may go some way to explaining (together with his upset stomach) why he limited himself to a Fernet Branca, half a bottle of Chianti and a cognac as an accompaniment to our dinner.

Great anecdotes about Nora Wydenbruck, her husband and their piano-playing au pair, Sonia Orwell, Robbe Grillet, Ionesco and a few other unnamable greats. A truly memorable night.

AG

Half-a-million Book

2011-07-21T19:16:00.002+01:00

We just sent to the printers the longest book we have ever published under the Oneworld Classics imprint, Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. At over 500,000 words, it dwarfs Anna Karenina (merely 320,000 or thereabouts) and Don Quixote (around 350,000 I think). Our editor cried this morning when I pressed the Send button.

But it's not the longest book I've published. William T. Vollmann's Imperial, published by Alma last year, clocks up around 750,000 words, spread out – or rather crammed into – over 1,400 pages.

Other books that went to press today are Antonia Pozzi's Poems, in Peter Robinson's wonderful new translation (with dual text), and two lesser-known gems by Raymond Queneau – We Always Treat Women Too Well and The Sunday of Life.

Me, I've spent the last couple of days wallowing in the many pleasures offered by Anthony Mortimer's new translation of Dante's Vita Nuova (again with dual text), to be published next month by Oneworld Classics.

In other news, Hodder has signed a title by Pippa Middleton's pilates coach Margot Campbell.

AG

We Always Treat Women Too Well

2011-07-18T10:10:00.004+01:00

This morning has largely been spent pretending to correct the proofs of Raymond Queneau’s We Always Treat Women Too Well, while secretly luxuriating in Queneau’s beautifully turned phrases and glorious vulgarity. IRA raids, scenes of a sexual nature, and highbrow literary allusion are perhaps not the most obvious of bedfellows, but Queneau provides just that combination in his smutty envisioning of the 1916 Easter Rising, set in a model of Dublin lifted directly from the pages of Ulysses. The slim novel is peppered with Joycean echoes, most obviously in the name of Queneau’s heroine, Gertie Girdle, who indulges in more debauchery than Joyce’s Gerty MacDowell could ever dream of. Originally introduced as a demure post-office clerk, Queneau’s Gerty becomes embroiled with a gang of dissident republicans who take over the post office, unwittingly taking Gertie hostage while she’s in the Ladies. Her arrival on the scene heralds the disintegration of the group, as one by one they become suffused with guilt-ridden lust for “the English girl”.

The basic plot is loosely modelled on James Hadley Chase’s No Orchids for Miss Blandish, which features a similar hostage situation. Unlike Chase’s passive, exploited heroine, however, Gertie is the instigator of all manner of depravity as she gleefully thwarts the rebels’ best attempts to behave “correctly” towards her in order to bring honour to their cause. The men’s pitiable inability to resist her seductions undercuts the scenes of violent murder played out in the opening pages, puncturing their pretensions to power. Thus, Queneau subverts that model of gratuitously violent genre fiction he initially appears to be employing.

Indeed, Queneau’s trademark humour is very much in evidence throughout We Always Treat Women Too Well; he clearly relishes Gertie’s transformation from prim postal clerk to self-possessed seductress, and her closest parallel is perhaps Ruth in Pinter’s The Homecoming. The most comic parts of the novel are those in which Gertie utterly disarms her captors, confusing and exciting them in equal measure – though among the 124 pages there isn’t one that isn’t thoroughly enjoyable.

OB

Happy 500 Birthday!

2011-07-12T06:46:00.003+01:00

Erasmus's Praise of Folly has just turned five hundred. Although written between 1509 and 1510, Erasmus's masterpiece was published in Paris, by some of his friends, by August 1511. The author apparently did not supervise the printing, which contained many mistakes and omissions. An authorized text appeared only the following year.

Witty, trenchant at times, Praise of Folly is undeniably one of the most important works in the Western canon, giving rise to countless imitations and influencing the culture, theology and literature for centuries to come.

How has it aged? When I read it for the first time in my teens I found it very modern, for some reason. Now it seems to me closer to the Middle Ages than to the times we live in. Its constant resorting to quotation and classical allusion may be tiresome to some readers today. However, most of the truths it reveals are as relevant in our times as they were when the book was first published five centuries ago. (For example this bit about "the ones who are fired with an insatiable zeal for building, constantly converting round structures into square and square structures into round. There's no end or limit to it until they are reduced to utter destitution and have nowhere to live and nothing to eat. Never mind what the future holds: in the meantime they've had huge fun for years." I know quite a few people like these round about where I live...)

As Stefan Zweig once said of this book: "From the terrible hate storm of his age, Erasmus has salvaged this intellectual gem, his faith in humanity, and on this small burning wick Spinoza, Lessing and Voltaire – and all Europeans past and present – could light their torch".

Long may this small wick remain burning.

Ah, the weekend!

2011-07-11T09:20:00.003+01:00

It's gone already, and another week of phone-hacking revelations and Murdoch-bashing is about to begin (don't get me wrong, I enjoy all this). The world won't be much poorer without NoW, but it doesn't seem right to leave 200 staff out of job just like that. In France or Italy you could not do it.

Eleonora made me proud again when she came back home and said that my novel was on display on the counter of Richmond library. "Daddy, daddy, there's a book with your name on it!"

I have spent the entire weekend working on my new novel, which I hope to finish by the end of July. The only break was a BBQ with some Italian friends. One of them, our host, is a wine buff and treated up to ten or more wines during the long evening. I still have to recover.

I'm reading a lovely book, Rilke's Venice by Birgit Haustedt, published by our friends at Haus. It's a delightful book, and I recommend it as a gift to Venice lovers or as a Baedeker for people travelling to La Serenissima.

Coming back from antiblog-block

2011-07-08T12:22:00.004+01:00

I have been rehearsing in my mind how to break my long spell of silence, and trying at the same time to get inspiration from one of the great masters of epistolary justification, John Keats.

Most of his letters start with an excuse for not having written sooner. One of his better beginnings is: "I will not pretend to string a list of excuses together for not having written before – but I must confess the indolence of my disposition which makes a letter more formidable to me than a pilgrimage. I am a fool in delay for the idea of neglect is an everlasting knapsack which even now I have scarce power to hoist off."

But the best one must be: "When once a man delays a letter beyond the proper time, he delays it longer for one or two reasons: first, because he must begin in a very common-place style – that is to say, with an excuse; and secondly things and circumstances become so jumbled in his mind that he knows not what, or what not, he has said in his last—"

That's exactly what happened to me. It's not through laziness or busyness that I have abstained from this page, but rather because after a while the thought of my delay has started to weigh down on me.

There were so many things I would have liked to write or comment about – some foolish, some deeply philosophical – but now they've gone and they're buried for ever in my mind. So you'll have to content yourselves with what I am going to write in the next few days – and many apologies in advance if I am not able to do that.

AG

Lindsay Clarke's The Water Theatre

2011-05-19T12:43:00.005+01:00

The Water Theatre was sent to me by Lindsay Clarke’s agent in February 2010. The book was originally called Sun at Midnight, and it was presented as “a powerful story of loyalty and loss, of betrayal and reconciliation”. It was described as partly being set in Italy, and I must admit this put me off a bit. Being Italian, it’s very rare for me to find an English novel with an Italian setting which feels authentic enough to make me believe completely in the story. Nonetheless I was particularly attracted by this author, compared by the agent to John Fowles, one of my favourite writers. It also mentioned his previous successful novel The Chymical Wedding, winner of the 1989 Whitbread Award, which in actual fact didn’t ring any bells with me, as I have come to this country only fourteen years ago. I started reading The Water Theatre the same day it was sent to me and I couldn’t stop. The story and the writing urged me to read it to the very end. I really loved the power of Lindsay writing. It made me feel I was reading E.M. Foster, another of my favourite British writers.

I felt that Lindsay deserved to be brought to the attention of British readers again, and I am glad we also republished The Chymical Wedding and are about to relaunch Sunday Whiteman and Alice’s Masque, two other acclaimed novels of his. I am convinced that Lindsay is an important author who will be read in years to come.

Elisabetta Minervini
Publisher - Alma Books

Wealth of Reviews

2011-05-16T15:11:00.002+01:00

We're happy to see that our books are getting positive reviews from every quarter, be it national newspapers, academic magazines and/or fellow bloggers. Here are just a handful:

The Water Theatre by Lindsay Clarke
"Bold, tenacious characters and vivid, distinct landscapes give The Water Theatre a strong hold on the imagination as Clarke skilfully draws out the betrayals searing his characters’ lives."
– The Financial Times, read full review
Read Review from the blog The Truth about Lies

All Men are Liars by Alberto Manguel,
"This playful, ingenious but finally tragic novel invites us... into a labyrinth of rival narratives with an all-too-real monster at its heart." - The Independent, read full review
Read Review from Desperate Reader Blog

The Pink Hotel by Anna Stothard
"A gently transgressive, transatlantic quest that conjures up both the languid heat of LA and the confusions of a young woman on the cusp." - The Lady
Portrait of a City: Los Angeles, Anna Stothard writes about her time in LA and how it inspired her novel, article in BA Highlife

The Art of Struggle by Michel Houellebecq
"Houellebecq’s poetry is absorbing and demonstrates a rare tenderness coupled with an unflinching eye that excavates the body, searching for the core of being, exposing the bare roots of feelings." - MPT

The Girl Who Leapt through Time by Yasutaka Tsutsui
Read reviews from Nayu's Reading Corner, The Bookbag, Keeper of the Snails, Bookwitch, The Truth about Books and Writing from the Tub

One final note, tonight is the Bookseller Industry awards, Alma Books is nominated for Independent Publisher of the Year, fingers crossed.

Books

2011-05-09T21:46:00.002+01:00

After a lovely break in Champagne and Bourgogne – oh Reims, oh Dijon!– back to the grind. The burglars hit our building again, this time running away empty-handed after attempting breaking into another office. As a result, the building's manager has employed full-time guards, installed a new CCTV system, scattered a few mousetraps around and asked if we want to take part in a vigilante scheme Rambo-style. We all agreed. I am writing from the office now, with a dagger between my teeth. We can all sleep placidly from now on.

I have been working on my new novel – I'm just about halfway through, and very happy about it. I'll probably destroy it in a week or two. I have also received the Czech edition (hardback) of Bestseller – and what a glorious production it is. Lovely cover too. Unfortunately I can't read Czech, but I have noticed a funny typo on p.38: Cannongate. That doesn't diminish the beauty of the book. And I can see that Talbot's mumblings are not lost in translation: "Grrnf… trrrnf… frrrnf." And I love all those accents.

We had some great books in – for example the Lampedusa paperback, a real beauty – and some excellent books off to the printers – from Peter Benson's Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke to Pushkin's Queen of Spades and other Stories.

We've been shortlisted for the Independent Publisher of the Year at the Bookseller Industry Awards (after being shortlisted for the IPG prize). And guess where the event is going to be held? You just need to read the prophetic chapter 7 in Bestseller again . . .

Went to the circus the other day with Elisabetta and kids, and we recognized Rob Brydon behind us – perhaps getting some inspiration? I hope not. I don't think he found the Dutch clown particularly funny.

We had a few literary luncheons over the past couple of weeks – a memorable seven- (or was it eight-) wine bash in Wandsworth with one of our author and friends, a treat from another author which included artichokes, fragoline, rabbit, borlotti and Sangiovese – and my ears are still buzzing with gossip.

But the talk of the day was of course the royal wedding and Osama's assassination (that's right – that is the word being used by the intelligentsia, which I neither discount nor condone), and it was interesting to hear – as outsiders – the point of view of "real" (not "royal" – in Italian it's the same word) England.

Busy-busy weeks and lots of interesting things coming up. I'll try to blog and tweet a bit more often than I have done recently. Stay tuned.

Now back to keeping watch.

A Very Clean Desk

2011-04-21T22:32:00.004+01:00

Back to anti-blogging after the London Book Fair, a party spree, a bit of writing and the usual deadening busy-ness of modern life.

I was looking forward to today: the last day in the office after completing the thankless job of doing the royalty statements for over a hundred of our classics titles, the prospect of working on the Simon Boccanegra libretto and winding down before the short Easter break.

The desk was extremely clean yesterday when I left the office – still extremely clean when we dropped off the few remaining copies from the excellent launch of Pink Hotel at the Phoenix Artists Club just before 10:00pm – and even cleaner this morning, when I found out we had been paid a visit (at around 11:30!) by a couple of burglars. They smashed one of the doors of our office, took my computer and another one, and in the process they managed to lose their earpiece and mobile phone . . .

One of our authors suggested I should disrupt their lives by sending nasty text messages to their address book: "I have slept with your sister" – "Your mum's ugly" – so that they get beaten up or have an even tougher life in prison. But I don't think we need to worry too much about them – the police will see to that.

They didn't take any of our books. Illiterate thugs – with so many beautiful books around they went for a couple of worthless computers. . .

Now, anyone wanting to read into this that computers and eBooks will triumph over physical books . . .

Review of Bestseller

2011-04-03T10:12:00.002+01:00

Lovely review of Bestseller in today's Independent on Sunday:

"A fine comic caper and a biting satire on the publishing industry. The style is far from literary, but it is cleverly plotted and lands several juicy thumps on its target."

Four Quartets

2011-04-01T23:57:00.002+01:00

T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets has been, for a long time, one of my favourite modern poems. I used to know most of it by heart, and I even translated a few dozen lines into Italian when I was a student.

Now, after a few years, I have read it again, and I am shocked to find that the work is suddenly mute to me. It's lost its fascination – what was original is now contrived, what was deep is now affected. There are still some great lines, but its style and structure don't resonate with me any more. It is unbelievable how taste changes over time.

And the same applies to popular and critical taste: what is acclaimed by one age or one individual is despised by another.

I'm more and more convinced that he's a fool who writes to obtain literary fame.

Death of a Salesman

2011-03-21T22:39:00.004Z

I greatly enjoyed reading this play over the last few days. It's funny, poignant and well observed.

One thing that greatly impaired my appreciation of Miller's masterpiece is the dreadful Penguin Modern Classics edition I inherited from Elisabetta's school days. The paper is the colour of a hepatitis patient's face and the type is pretty crammed. I think I might have preferred a Kindle edition to this.

Our edition is priced at £1,75 UK and I think its publication date is 1986. The copyright page says: First published 1949. Published in Great Britain by the Cresset Press 1949. Published by Penguin Books 1961. Reprinted 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1967, 1968, 1969 (twice), 1970 (twice), 1971, 1972, 1973 (twice), 1975 (twice), 1976 (twice), 1977 (twice), 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983 (twice), 1984, 1985 (twice), 1986 (three times).

But although they've had at least twenty-five years and thirty-five editions to get things right, this edition is littered with a few bizarre typos – bizarre because we are talking about one of the most important texts to come from America since the Second World War.

Linda is made to stutter – but only on page 10 – "be-behind the other..."; a full stop is missing on p.18, ironically at the end of the sentence "I don't know how to do it"; on page 72, "Biffs' in town" and "Yeah, Biffs' in" – and so on and so forth.

Going back to the play, it made me want to go to the theatre and see it. I hope it's going to be on in London soon.

The Two Ivans

2011-03-16T22:26:00.002Z

Lovely review of our How the Two Ivans Quarrelled and Other Russian Comic Fiction in the Guardian (Nick Lezar's Paperback of the Week):

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/12/two-ivans-quarrelled-nikolai-gogol-review

AG

101 Books

2011-03-15T20:04:00.002Z

Actually, 101 + 1 as of yesterday.

It's the number of books we have sent to the printers since the beginning of the year. Yes, it's not a typo – we've been quite busy this quarter.

I'm currently working on the first ever biography of AJ Cronin – and what a wonderful and revealing book it is! It focuses on Cronin's authorial ego and his relationship – stormy at times – with his British and American publishers. There are real gems in his letters and the few other documents he left behind (not much survives – strangely, as Cronin used to sell in the millions all over the world and set Hollywood on fire in the '30s).

But my real hero is Victor Gollancz, his UK publisher, who comes across as a smart, roguish, no-nonsense operator able to deal with Cronin's tantrums and requests in the most subtle and charming way. One bit had me laughing out loud:

Gollancz had no time for agents – Alan Davies writes – to him they were “parasitical nuisances put on earth to foment ingratitude among Gollancz authors”. He preferred to deal directly with authors, behind their agents’ backs if he could get away with it.

Brilliant.

Another interesting bit is Cronin's scepticism about cheap paperback books, which were made available on a mass scale only after his early successes. Cronin kept liking a well-produced book, not agreeing to mass-market paperbacks until after the 1960s (over 30 years after his first book), principally because there was little money in them for him. Looking at the royalty rates he was getting (between 20 and 30% on hardback sales), you can understand why . . .

I doubt he'd have subscribed to eBooks.

The Bunga Bunga Continues. . .

2011-03-03T10:51:00.002Z

"In June Alma Books is due to publish Il Duce and His Women by Roberto Olla, complete with a glowering photograph of Mussolini on the dustjacket looking uncannily like a malign version of the current Italian premier... So whatever Silvio Berlusconi’s legal status come June at least the bunga bunga continues." – The Telegraph

Full article here.

Strange Manuscripts Found in Copper Cylinders

2011-03-02T07:37:00.003Z

I was intrigued by news of the discovery, in the wake of the New Zealand earthquake, of two "time capsules" among the rubble of the Christchurch cathedral – one a bottle containing a scroll, the other a mysterious metal cylinder, presumably also containing some document.

That obviously reminded me of a book we published, A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder, a rediscovered early example of the science-fiction genre by the Canadian writer James de Mille, a cracking story à la Verne.

The discovery in New Zealand suggests that copper (or metal) cylinders were indeed used as an alternative way of sending "messages in a bottle" to distant times and places, just like in the novel. Fascinating.

I can't wait to know what the cylinder contains.

What Remains of the Day

2011-02-21T23:22:00.002Z

So we turn up at the Garrick a couple of weeks ago for a dinner with a friend and we realize we are punctual – i.e. fashionably early. The most English of all English gentlemen welcomes us in Italian and serves us a drink "on the house", then starts telling us about his life – he is a well-known journalist, we discover. He was very communicative – that is to say, fairly drunk. The following day we sent him a thank you note and a book for his warm welcome to the club, and he thanked us and asked us where he had met us. . .

The food at the Garrick was excellent – so was the company. But that was to be surpassed a few days later, when we had our Alma get-together at the Calder Bookshop. About a dozen of our authors came to the party – some of them travelling hundreds of miles – and we had such a good time until Rosie Alison, of all people, told me there was a typo on p.11 of The Very Thought of You. Now, if she had just announced that someone had burgled our flat, I would have just smiled. But that night I didn't sleep at the thought of having made the world 100,000 typos richer – and the first thing I did the following morning was to make the change on our InDesign file. I have never been so keen on a reprint in my entire publishing life. . .

And today we had the wonderful launch of our Opera Guide series at Notes, the café next door to the Coliseum. The crème de la crème of the operatic world was there, and I was a hero for a night, after being such a publishing villain to the series editor in the last couple of weeks. Anyway, all's well that ends well – and well it did end, as we swung round to the Two Brydges club, where the food is excellent, and where you can still, decently, in the heart of London, place your order in Italian.

Got a whole bunch of books during the last week – I must bring you up to date with some of them one of these days.

AG

Name and Shame 2

2011-02-08T20:10:00.002Z

In the past few days Eleonora pointed at mere discrepancies between text and illustrations of some of the books she was reading, so I didn't think it was enough to command a blog about it.

But today she ran to me with MARVELLOUS MAGICAL STORIES, compiled by Elizabeth Holland and first published by Kingfisher in 2007 (printed in China), ISBN 9780753414972. She pointed at the following sentence of the back-cover blurb: "These ten stories will enchant and entertain newly independent readers." Then she opened the book at the contents page:

Chantelle, the Princess Who Couldn't Sing
The Magical Apple Tree
The Three Wishes
The Cletterkin
The Wonder Broom
The Hedley Kow
Baby Wizard
The Queen of the Bees
The King of the Blue Lagoon
Tom Thumb
The Enchanted Princess

"So what's wrong with that?" I said.

"There are eleven stories in the book, not ten," she replied triumphantly.

"Well," I said, "editors are only supposed to 'set commas and points exactly right'. They don't have to be able to count to eleven to do their job."

All I can add, for the benefit of Kingfisher's editors or blurb writers, is: beware of observant newly independent readers.

Name and Shame

2011-01-27T07:27:00.003Z

Great night at the Pushkin House in Bloomsbury Square yesterday, to celebrate our Pushkin in English project – the publication of Pushkin's complete works in paperback by Oneworld Classics – as well as the recent publication of Pushkin's Boris Godunov and The Little Tragedies.

The tube journey to and from Holborn station was marked by a very weird occurrence. On the way to Holborn I stood in a corner of a particular carriage, and on the way back, late at night, I realized I was standing in exactly the same spot of exactly the same carriage, as I noticed the same peeled emergency sticker, the same scratches on the door glass etc. It felt like a scene from Tsutsui's Hell – and there were some strange passengers too: an old woman rolling fags, a boy staring at me threateningly, a man laughing and talking to himself, etc. Spooky.

* * *

Eleonora, our eldest (age 7), keeps coming to me to show me typos in her reading books. This has prompted me to start a name-and-shame campaign. As I mentioned before, we all make mistakes, and I am sure the books we publish have also mistakes – but if someone points out a mistake we are keen to correct it immediately, so that it won't appear at the next printing. In this case we are talking about a 32-page educational book for kids, less than a thousand words long, that has been in print for fifteen years and gone through at least 9 editions judging from the copyright page. So there have been plenty of opportunities (and time) to put this right.

Here we go: Treetops, Stage 10, More Stories A, published by Oxford University Press - 9780199179640.
Purple Buttons by Angela Bull.

Page 30, three lines from the bottom: "It's rim was carved like a shell."

I hope someone is listening at OUP.

Shakespeare's plays to be performed in 38 languages

2011-01-20T23:56:00.002Z

Yes, but which translations are they going to use? I have heard that German translations of Shakespeare's plays are excellent (some say they are better than the original). But the Italian translations are generally abysmal – either overly literal or full of the most baroque flourishes and inversions, so that when they are performed they are hardly intelligible. Elisabetta and I used to read aloud Italian translations of Shakespeare's comedies, and we did laugh a lot, but not for the jokes or the wit of the original.

The very best poetry can only be fully appreciated in the original.

One hundred and seventy-eight years ago

2011-01-18T20:11:00.003Z

I have been reading and rereading with increasing pleasure and admiration the poems of Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli recently – both the originals and the English translations by Mike Stocks, which I think are unparalleled. I agree with Alberto Moravia when he said: "If we think of Belli as the contemporary of the first Romantic generation and the first naturalists, we can assess what an extraordinary phenomenon his poetry is." Here's a poem he wrote on 18th January 1833, exactly one hundred and seventy-eight years ago:

La vita dell’omo

Nove mesi a la puzza: poi in fassciola

tra sbasciucchi, lattime e llagrimoni:

poi p’er laccio, in ner crino, e in vesticciola,

cor tórcolo e l’imbraghe pe ccarzoni.

Poi comincia er tormento de la scola,

l’abbeccé, le frustate, li ggeloni,

la rosalìa, la cacca a la ssediola,

e un po’ de scarlattina e vvormijjoni.

Poi viè ll’arte, er diggiuno, la fatica,

la piggione, le carcere, er governo,

lo spedale, li debbiti, la fica,

er zol d’istate, la neve d’inverno…

E pper urtimo, Iddio sce bbenedica,

viè la Morte, e ffinissce co l’inferno.

The Life of Man

Nine months in a bog, then swaddling clothes

and sloppy kisses, rashes, big round tears,

a baby harness, baby walker, bows,

short trousers and a cap for several years,

and then begin the agonies of school,

the ABC, the pox, the six of the best,

the poo-poo in the pants, the ridicule,

the chilblains, measles, fevers on the chest;

then work arrives, the daily slog, the rent,

the fasts, the stretch inside, the government,

the hospitals, the debts to pay, the fucks…

The chaser to it all, on God’s say-so,

(after summer’s sun and winter’s snow)

is death, and after death comes hell – life sucks.

I've said it once – I've said it twice and I'll say it a full third time: Belli is one of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century, and the beauties and originality of his poetry are unique both in Italy and in the context of European literature.

And apart from anything else, anyone who gets an endorsement from Nikolai Gogol (when he still had his wits about him) has to be the best of the best.

Huzzah Piers Blofeld!

2011-01-17T19:53:00.003Z

Very good blog article in the Bookseller, entitled: Wikicide.

http://www.thebookseller.co.uk/blogs/144435-wikicide.html

Some interesting reflections on the madness of cheapening knowledge, culture and lore under the false pretence of "free to all". We've seen already the consequences of book devaluation – nobody wants to pay for books and newspapers any more, if they can help it, in the same way as people don't want to pay for music if they can download it for free. It doesn't matter if copyright is infringed or the quality is not the same: you don't look a gifted horse in the mouth.

Wikipedia is now the fifth most visited site in the world, apparently. That's pretty valuable in advertising terms, and I wouldn't be surprised, either, if they were to start charging people to access the information one day in the not too distant future . . .

British Bookshops Are in Trouble

2011-01-13T20:25:00.003Z

As if the latest from W's was not depressing enough, there's more bad news from another chain, British Bookshops, which entered administration today. Let's hope something can be salvaged out of it – they had just opened a beautiful shop on Richmond's high street. . .

Lovely to see a second mention of Flaubert's Dictionary of Received Ideas on the TLS. I am curious to see their announced Dictionary of Received Phrases, a spin-off of Flaubert's dictionary of clichéd language. It is true that "mordant wit" or "coruscating wit" or "unvarnished truth" et sim. have been used one hundred billion times, but I think that clichés are nice sometimes – and you can find them anywhere, from newspapers to classics of literature. Take for example the following random passage from Walter Scott's Waverley (1814 – italics are mine):

He gave Edward to understand that the greater part of his followers now on the field were bound on a distant expedition, and that when he had deposited him in the house of a gentleman, who he was sure would pay him every attention, he himself should be under the necessity of accompanying them the greater part of the way, but would lose no time in rejoining his friend.

Clichés are like a cigarette after a long run, or like a McDonald Big Tasty with Bacon in Toulouse at three o'clock in the afternoon, when all restaurants are closed. They are reassuring, they are comfy – and you don't need a brain to understand them. In short, they are needed for quick, ant-like conversation, which is becoming more and more the standard of human communication.

It makes me laugh when authors declare war on clichés and become clichéd in their attempts to avoid clichés . . . I could give many examples but I'll stop here since, as Leonardo said, "I do not meddle with royal decrees, because they are the perfection of truth".

Anyway, moderately good news from Italy today. Cheers.

AG

Waterstone's Woes

2011-01-12T23:12:00.003Z

I have been following with – forgive the cliché – some trepidation the latest on Waterstone's restructuring. I have read comments on the Bookseller website suggesting there may be some grand announcement tomorrow. I'll keep my fingers crossed – a healthy Waterstone's is essential for a healthy bookshop environment in the UK. Without W's it'll be over for many publishers, and that would create some unbalance in the industry. Let's hope they can overcome their problems.

Two more books have gone to the printers, and they're among my all-time favourites, so I am particularly proud. The first one is The Great Gatsby, and the second one is The Tale of how the Two Ivans Quarrelled (with other Russian comic fiction, including stories by Krylov, Saltikov-Shchedrin and Tolstoy).

I have proofread the Gogol story between yesterday evening and this morning, and although it must be the twelfth time I have read it (and the second translation of it I publish), I can't help laughing out loud at several passages, such as:

"I must admit that I don’t understand why things are so arranged that women can take us by the nose as deftly as they do the handle of a teapot. Either their hands are just made that way, or our noses aren’t better suited for anything else. And despite the fact that Ivan Nikiforovich’s nose was quite a bit like a plum, she took him by that nose and led him around like a dog."

Or:

"…he asked, almost with annoyance – something he displayed very rarely, even when burning paper was put on his head…"

Or:

“Ivan Ivanovich is of a rather timid character. Ivan Nikiforovich, on the contrary, wears big, baggy pants…”

Barmy, unpredictable, hilarious – sheer genius.

OK, some bits may be over the top and grotesque, but I think this is one of the best short stories ever written (so thought Pushkin, Belinsky and Nabokov, by the way), and definitely it's one of the best comic short stories ever written. If you haven't read it, do try Guy Daniels' lovely translation – which is going to be available in the next ten days or so.

First Books of 2011

2011-01-10T22:24:00.003Z

Today we sent our first two books to the printer. They are Dmitry Bykov's Living Souls and Swift's Directions to Servants (my second edition of it, after the Hesperus one).

I remember signing off to the printers the hardback edition of Living Souls almost one year to the day, and funnily enough I blogged about it and another book by Swift (The Benefits of Farting Explained) back in February 2010.

So how have those two books fared over the past twelve months? Living Souls has fulfilled our expectations in hardback, and we hope it can now achieve its full potential with the mass-market edition. Elaine Feinstein, in The Times, called it "A Catch-22 for modern Russia" and described it as  "often funny, occasionally moving and possibly dangerous". The Independent said:   "Blending a novel of ideas with a fairy tale and satire with lyricism, Bykov in Living Souls gives a picture of Russia in the near future and – as so many others before him – tries to understand the eternal contradictions of his country", while according to the TLS it is   "A dreamscape, a panoramic survey of the obsessions and illusions that protect Russian society’s sleep".

The Benefit of Farting also gleaned – surprisingly, considering that it first appeared over 250 years ago – a few good reviews, including one in the TLS and one The Times. I am ashamed to admit that, perhaps because of its title, this little book has outsold Bykov's novel almost 2 to 1 – although it is possible that things are going to even up with the paperback of Living Souls.

If you haven't read either of these short works by Swift, I warmly recommend them to you. I think that Swift was possibly a better pamphlet writer than novelist, and his wit may come out more clearly in these unguarded, unpolished jeux d'esprit than in his major works.

Random Acts of Editing

2011-01-07T19:54:00.005Z

When the DHL driver called in to deliver a parcel today, he must have been intrigued by the two hunched figures sitting by my table. I was one of them, and I was reading from an nineteenth-century edition of Wagner's poetry in Gothic script. The other one was our bearded editor Christian. I read numbers and he typed them up at the beginning of lines, querying from time to time bits of German. The spy-like exchange went something like:

AG: "Three, two, three, four, two, four, five, two, six, one, three, three, three—"
Christian: "Sie helfen?"
AG: "Yeah, three, three, four, five, two, two, six, six, five, three, four—"
Christian: "Wohl willst du?"
AG: "Yeah, why are we doing this?"
Christian: "I don't know. It's Wagner. The weirdest job we've ever done."

We spent a couple of hours like this, going through the libretto of Parsifal and making sure that every line was indented accurately, according to the ten levels of indentation devised by Wagner to reflect—

AG: "Bullshit. This is all random."

At that point, the DHL driver, shaking his head, asked me to sign something, before rushing back to the door for dear life.

Now I now why all Wagnerians are a bit mad. Gary – do you hear me?

Have a good weekend.

AG

PC World

2011-01-06T22:48:00.002Z

I laughed my head off when I read about that Twain "scholar" who's had the brilliant idea of replacing some un-PC words in Huckleberry Finn with more acceptable words, on the grounds that the book was not been taught in schools any more because of that.

That's 24-carat bullshit! If there's a place in hell for such stupidity, well, that man and his publishers should be rotting there, head down into the ground.

If you are a writer, a critic or a publisher and cannot cope with words and their meaning in the context of society and history, then my advice is simply: don't go there.

I am not a particularly courageous or adventurous publisher, but when I had to publish Aretino I didn't dream of bowdlerizing it, nor did I hold back from publishing D'Annunzio or Mayakovsky on ideological grounds. Publishing those authors does not necessarily mean sharing their ideas or worldview – and those writers lived in a different country, society and time, so it is stupid and short-sighted to apply our modern judgemental yardstick.

I remember there was a bit of an outcry when we published Virginia Woolf's rediscovered diary pieces in Carlyle's House and Other Sketches. Some of her descriptions were quite unsavoury. In 'Jews' she wrote: "One wonders how Mrs Loeb became a rich woman. It seems an accident; she may be behind a counter… Her food, of course, swam in oil and was nasty." There are even worse bits in other of her sketches and in some of her other works – but that doesn't mean she – or her publisher – was anti-Jewish.

I agree that publishing should be sensitive and avoid any offence, but in the right context, when language is used in an expressionistic way, I believe that satire is acceptable. Otherwise it is all wishy-washy, and writers become censors of themselves.

Music Sales

2011-01-05T20:03:00.003Z

From today's Teletext:

"Music sales in the UK have fallen for the sixth consecutive year, according to the British record industry's trade association.

The British Recorded Music Industry (BPI) said combined digital and physical album sales fell 7% last year, from £128.9M to £119.9.

The 2009 saw an overall drop of 3.5%, despite a rise in download sales.

Digital analyst Mark Mulligan said the figures were not surprising, adding "alternative products are needed".

Like what? Music holograms? The quality of music reproduction has gone down since vinyls, and so have sales. And so, probably, the overall quality and diversity of music being offered to the public.

The publishing industry is the next in line to feel the squeeze from big conglomerates putting all their weight behind all these eBook reading gadgets – which are nothing but a thinly veiled of being able to check and influence what people read and when.

You must have read that the average price of the top 100 books on Kindle is around £2.60. And you must have also read that 20 Waterstone's stores are going to close down this year, with an additional number of independent bookshops, no doubt.

Hearken publishers, lest ye die.

Congratulations to Christopher Maclehose

2011-01-04T19:35:00.005Z

For being awarded a CBE for his services to the publishing industry – and, I may add, to literature.

For once, there's not just news of another footballer or Coronation Street actress being honoured.

Now there's someone else who should have been knighted some time ago, but I think he's persona non grata with most of the establishment, and would probably have spurned such a thing anyway. I am talking about that other wayward genius of publishing, John Calder, full of genio and sregolatezza – especially the latter – well I know it. . .

Christopher, hearty congratulations again!

Top-selling 100 Books of All-time… well, at least since 1998… in UK… excluding the Bible and a few others

2011-01-03T10:18:00.007Z

I was tempted not to gloss on the article appeared in yesterday's Guardian Datablog:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/01/top-100-books-of-all-time#data

but then, having had a look at the list and read the comments below, I changed my mind.

I think the list is actually quite interesting, for all its limitations. It certainly provides a snapshot of the post-Net Book Agreement landscape of British Publishing: the top ten titles are by only three authors; books have been massively discounted, especially hardbacks; there's an abundance of non-fiction (especially cookery books) and genre titles; the 100 titles have been published by a dozen or so publishers; only four or five publishers (Canongate, Profile, Quercus and Bloomsbury – possibly GWR) are not part of some huge media conglomerate.

So, is this also a picture of our future? Is UK publishing hell-bound? It looks more and more likely, especially with the increasing importance of eBooks and the weakening of traditional high-street book outlets – which will mean fewer and fewer big-budget books selling more, with debut authors and mid-list writers suffering the most.

We've seen this happen in the music industry already, and what did we get? Declining sales, less and less diversity, fewer opportunities for people with talent. What else did we get? Simon Cowell, Alexandra Burke, Susan Boyle and Olly Murs.

Can we stop this for books, please?

First Cut of 2011

2011-01-02T09:09:00.003Z

Oooouch!

I'll be forty-one in less than two weeks, I have worked in publishing and with books for over ten years, but it looks like I still haven't learnt how to handle paper. The result is the tiny but EXTREMELY painful cut detailed in the photo. First cut of 2011, but last in a very long line of self-harm accidents involving paper.

I admit that advocates of eBooks gain a point here, as Kindle and iPads are less sharper objects, although it's obvious they are for sharper people.

New Year Resolutions

2011-01-01T09:52:00.002Z

Another year has gone, and what a year it was . . . now it's time for the usual new-year resolutions. As far as I'm concerned, these will be my priorities:

1) To live like a twenty-one-year old

2) Not to buy any iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle or similar devices

3) keep all my hair on my head

4) finish my second novel

5) have more holidays than I had in 2010

Well, that's enough already. I'd be happy if I manage to fulfill two or three of these.

* * *

The editing of Dante's Purgatory has kept me delightfully busy during the Christmas break. It's a book I had read many times before, but having to read it twice again, once in Italian and once in JG Nichols's excellent new translation, was a real privilege.

It is difficult, after working on such a towering masterpiece, not to smirk at some of the stuff that gets published today. Yesterday I went to our local Waterstone's and spent some time browsing the new-fiction shelves. The quality of most of the books, with very few exceptions, was little more than risible by comparison.

I am not saying that Dante's Purgatory is a perfect work, but its ambition and scope, and the almost hypnotic, unrelenting beauty of its terza rima makes it fly well above most other writers in prose or verse.

At this new reading, the last few cantos of Purgatory struck me as a bit compressed and even rushed by comparison with the rest of the Comedy. The allegorical scenes at the end (Christ as a gryphon for example) are not only miles away from modern taste but lack any dramatic drive, and are a bit mechanical. The character of Matelda remains vague, and when she is finally named at the very last canto it sounds almost as an afterthought. Beatrice comes across as arch and wooden – you can't understand how Dante could have fallen in love with her.

But, above all, it feels like Dante had run out of space in the last couple of cantos, and the strict thirty-three-canto structure of Purgatorio didn't allow him to have free rein to let the imagination fly. His own awkward admission at the end of Canto XXXIII may suggest that he was simply too impatient at this point and wanted to move on to Paradiso as soon as possible:

If, reader, I had but the space to write,
Then I would sing, as far as I was able,
The sweet draught that would never satiate;
But now, since every single page is full
Of those ordained for this my second book,
Art's laws demand nothing additional.

* * *

This blog should have been graced with a picture of Elisabetta dancing the Macarena, from last night's New Year's Eve party – but unfortunately I was not able to clear permission with her.

The Last Christmas Party

2010-12-22T18:35:00.003Z

So we had our last Christmas Party yesterday at the Alma Tavern – yes, the Alma Tavern – you know the one, it's just outside Wandsworth Town's train station – and no, we are not connected in any way with that establishment, nor are we branching out in other, merrier forms of entertainment.

It was a very good evening of drinks and food with our staff (which can be counted on one hand) and some of our authors – all the ones who were not stuck somewhere else because of the weather or were brave enough to face the one and a half inch of snow that has brought the London airports to a halt.

It was a shamelessly self-celebratory party – this was by far our best year and we felt we had to splash out a little bit. But after my introductory Alma speech we also talked about Italian politics, Russian literature, computers, dying pets and the credit crunch. No, I'm lying, we didn't talk about the credit crunch, but somehow Wakefield was mentioned, and one of our editors said that it was Gissing's birthplace. At that point I turned towards Tibor Fischer, who was sitting next to me, and asked him if he liked Gissing. There was silence around the table. I repeated my question and everyone looked on even more puzzled and embarrassed.

"Do I like 'kissing'?" Tibor asked.

"No – no! Gissing, with a G."

Everyone swore I had said "kissing". It's true I had drunk quite a bit by that time and I may have slurred a bit.

First thing this morning I wrote to Tibor and confirmed in writing, being totally sober, that – much as I admire him – I had said Gissing, not kissing.

He replied that he was extremely disappointed.

AG

Comical Day

2010-12-15T20:37:00.002Z

I thought today would be panto day, but I double-checked and it was comedy day instead (panto's tomorrow). Well, it truly was a comical day, not just because of the three brilliant stand-up comedians at the corporate event I was invited to, but because my phone went dead, my watch did the same, the event lasted a couple of hours longer that schedule, with the result that by six o'clock I was in no man's land. Everything worked against me – even the notoriously slow Hammersmith & City line seemed slower today – probably was, but it's difficult to know without a watch.

Anyway, I had a great time, and I managed not to get drunk, although there were about thirty bottles of wine on our table, which sat just eight people . . .

AG

Almost there

2010-12-14T23:25:00.003Z

It's getting dangerously close to mid-December, and we're already getting into the swing of that most excellent of British traditions: the Christmas party. For us, it started a couple of weeks ago, interrupted only by a couple of "normal" days. It has resumed in full force last weekend, when we had a delightful dinner with one of our authors, and continued yesterday with another great dinner with an author/friends and today with one of the most elegant parties I have ever been to. It was organized by the excellent Pushkin Press, and it was the launch of Marella Caracciolo Chia's The Light in Between, a book I loved when I first read it in Italian a couple of years ago.

One of the chaps who was serving wine was called Alex Estorick – and his surname didn't strike me as entirely coincidental in the context of the party room (we were at Robilant & Voena), where the most amazing paintings were hanging. He was remarkably slow in pouring Prosecco into my glass, and apologized by saying that he'd been asked to be careful about the seven-figure Boucher behind him. I peered over his shoulder: it was a real one, not a copy – and signed.

To be honest, I was afraid of brushing against some of the guests, which seemed even more precious than the paintings. Sophie Lewis was not so careful and poured an entire glass of red wine on her evening dress, which she said she had borrowed from her sister.

Tomorrow, for a change, it's panto day in Richmond – Thursday we've got a Christmas party in town with some big-shot stand-up comedian – Friday it's school disco I think . . . Thank God our own Christmas party is a full week away.

AG

The Cloud-Cuckoo-Landscape of Modern Publishing

2010-12-11T22:30:00.004Z

The "cloud" is now, officially, the next big thing in publishing. Technology blog Electric Pig says that "the cloud is the new frontline in the war for book sales", and Bloomsbury's Evan Schnittman notes that "anyone that has any platform with any legs moving forward is on cloud". I doubt these sentences would have made sense or been understood only a few weeks ago. And I am not entirely sure I understand them even now.

To Mighty Google's move into eBook sales (in the US, so far) – trumpeted to the world on 8th December – Amazon has promptly reacted by launching its own cloud-based eBookstore.

In the meantime, Jamie's 30-Minute Meals has become the fastest selling hardback book in this country since records began (I think). It clocked up around 735,000 as of last week. I wonder how many ebook copies of the book have been sold – if anyone has that bit of information, I'd be curious to know.

So books are not entirely dead for the time being – at least some books. . . There's every reason to remain cheerful.

AG

Masonic Night

2010-11-30T21:26:00.002Z

Last Friday we all went to the Canonbury Tower, headquarters of the intriguingly named Masonic Research Centre, for a lecture / reading by Lindsay Clarke in front of a select audience who braved the adverse weather and was later rewarded with a meal at The Canonbury across the street. It was a lovely evening, and we met many interesting people such as Sacha Hamilton, Duchess of Abercorn, and her sister, as well as Sebastian Barker, the ex-editor of the London Magazine, who a lifetime ago sent me a lovely letter encouraging me to submit my poetry to some publishing houses and introducing me to the Long Poem Group.

The Tower itself – an unprepossessing red-brick building from the outside – was a true revelation. It appears to have survived unscathed (if much altered) for centuries in the heart of North London, surrounded by Victorian and Edwardian houses and more recent high-rise buildings. The room in which the reading took place, dating back to 1509, was a marvel of pre-Elizabethan wood carving. The wood panels had the texture of very old human skin, and I almost felt I could smell its antiquity. It certainly helped create an eerie atmosphere during Lindsay's reading – the highlight of which was when, asked if he believed in God, he received the first call on his mobile phone for the past ten years, to his consternation and to everyone's laughter.

After a busy weekend cooking a lavish meal for friends and giving the last touches to my Auden translation and an article for an Italian journal, the beginning of the new week was engulfed in a media-created (mainly by articles in the Sunday Times and The Daily Mail) "dispute" between our author Rosie Alison and Amazon. The mini-storm was finally straightened up by a level-headed article by Benedicte Page in the Guardian today. The Guardian also published a lovely review of Houellebecq's The Art of Struggle, as I found out tonight during the launch of the book at the Calder Bookshop.

I am now totally immersed in the edit of Dante's Purgatorio (I'm concentrating on the Italian at the moment), and I have just reached the half-way point. Every time I reread it I just wonder at the sheer quality of it and Dante's incomparable imagination. It's a shame people get stuck with Inferno – for my money (and Gordon Nichols's, the translator) it is the best cantica of the Divine Comedy.

The rest of the week will be as hectic as the first part of it. But I hope I'll be able to catch up with you later on this week.

AG

First Chapter

2010-11-25T20:11:00.001Z

My name is Simon Kerr. I’m guest-blogging for Alessandro today to draw the attention of aspiring authors to First Chapter. Alessandro is one of the three judges and expert mentors on the Lightship International First Chapter Competition. The other two judge-mentors are literary agent Simon Trewin and award-winning author Tibor Fischer. These three professionals are the sort of industry contacts that any aspiring author would kill to have in their email address book, and I’m really grateful for their support!

Like a lot of writers I tend to spend a lot of time in coffee shops, trying to think as I drink. The idea

for First Chapter occurred to me after my second Café Nero Grande Americano. I take three shots of espresso in my coffees, so it was a six-shooter head-rush. I conceived First Chapter as a writing competition – as a means of quality control, and a way of funding the scheme. I wanted the prize to be every writer’s dream: expert mentoring for a year by an awarding-winning author, a literary agent and a publisher. At the end of the mentoring process, if the winner has finished a novel that is as enthralling as their first chapter, I wanted the agent to sign them and the publisher to publish them, using First Chapter as a publicity platform to launch the debut novel into the market.

First Chapter is not the only international literary competition that the Lightship is running in 2010-11 – there’s a short story competition with a £1,000 first prize to be judged by Toby Litt, a poetry competition with a £1,000 first prize judged by Jackie Kay, and a flash fiction with a £500 first prize judged by Kachi A. Ozumba. We have some very distinguished patrons supporting Lightship: Christopher Reid (Costa Book Award Winner 2009), Sir Andrew Motion (former Poet Laureate), Lindsay Clarke (Whitbread Fiction Prize Winner 1989), and Hilary Mantel (Man Booker Prize Winner 2009). For more information or to enter the competitions please visit:

http://www.lightshippublishing.co.uk/

Thanks Alex!

Hendon Library Event 25th November

2010-11-24T18:45:00.001Z

Just a quick blog to reminder that tomorrow night, at Hendon Library (6.30pm), I will be discussing the challenges of translating modern Russian fiction (and, in general, translated fiction) in the UK. I will also address why there is a need for new translations of Russian classics, and talk about publishing Tolstoy’s works and, most recently, The Diaries of Sofia Tolstoy, a hundred years after the death of Tolstoy.

To reserve a FREE place or for more information please contact Hendon Library on 020 8359 2628 or email Hendon.library@barnet.gov.uk Hendon Library.

Hope to see you there!

Amazon launches in Italy

2010-11-23T21:59:00.003Z

How long before Berlusconi owns it?

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry if I have been too "reticent" and not "blatant" enough (to quote from yesterday's instructive talk by Susan Hill, Sarah Waters and Philip Hensher at the Royal Society of Literature) to evoke my own ghost over the past few weeks, but hell – especially the publishing one – can be really murky, and I had difficulties in finding my way to bed, let alone writing a daily blog.

What's been going on during this crazy time? I remember four wonderful days in Palermo – Palazzo Lampedusa in via Butera with Gioacchino and Nicoletta Lanza, dinner with Gea Schirò, twenty-four degrees centigrades, the Sarpotta stuccoes, the paintings in the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, sunshine in Monreale, a storm in Bagheria – then the premieres of La bohème and Don Giovanni, the launch of Lampedusa's Letters at the Italian Institute, dinner at Zafferano with Da Mosto and Ian Thomson, a couple dozen books sent to the printers, launches with Tim Parks, Alberto Manguel, Anne Sebba, AN Wilson, the Stephen Spender Prize, excellent reviews (Julian Barnes, Boyd Tonkin, David Gilmour), some editing work, the final word on my translation of Auden – what else?

Oh yes – all the crap that has been going on in Italy and the world – Berlusconi's government about to go down among an erupting volcano of garbage, the false "diaries" of Mussolini being published, the Pope edging towards and then away from condoms, Ireland going bust, the Eurozone shaking in their boots.

Well, my friends, I am back – and I hope I'll be able to post regularly in the coming days.

Going back to Amazon.it, it'll never work. I remember the story of some Italian migrants settling in Keighley (West Yorkshire) in the late 1980's and calling back home every night from a phone box. They had devised a rudimentary tool made of a 10-p coin and a cord to avoid having to feed more money into the phone slot.

It'll be the same with Amazon – some Italian geezer will find away to order books without having to pay, and then everyone else will do the same, making Amazon bankrupt.

Good night for now.

AG

Cezar Voiculescu – Asking the Big Questions

2010-10-08T22:25:00.002+01:00

As I was researching into the transhumance habits of Romanian nomads along the border with Hungary, I came across this wonderful blog. It is by Cezar Voiculescu, a Romanian orphan who escaped to the West in 1957 and was adopted by a family of jugglers. You can find it here:

http://cezarvoiculescu.wordpress.com/

It's funny, it's fresh and it's addictive. And I love the photographs too.

AG

Una cena tra amici

2010-10-06T22:06:00.002+01:00

Many people ask me if I feel homesick here in England. The answer is no, and I actually

"…like the weather, when it is not rainy –
That is, I like two months of every year."

Italy is a strange country these days, ruled by a clownish dictator and no longer the homestead of Dantes, Cavalcantis, Petrarchs, Ariostos and Tassos – so I don't suffer from any kind of nostalgia at the moment.

England on the other hand gives me a lot of pleasure, especially old, green England. I drove past Stonehenge the other day – now, what is older than that in Europe? Visiting the village of Shaftesbury and Sherborne Castle on a sunny day, visiting the ruins of a Saxon building and sitting on a bench and looking at the same unspoilt landscape that Alexander Pope must have seen in 1724, made me really feel at home, even if Italian blood runs in my veins.

But what made me – and Elisabetta and our children – feel even more at home here was a wonderful evening of fun, laughter and great conversation at Phoebe and Lindsay Clarke's 17th-century atmospheric town house in Frome, in the company of Peter Benson and his wife Valery. We ate fish and chips, drank The Usual (delivered in a four-pint milk plastic bottle by a small pub in Milk Street – how appropriate), saw Emiliano go astraddle Lindsay's strong shoulders, Elisabetta tumble right in the heart of the medieval town and Eleonora produce some of her best drawings to date, admired Phoebe's excellent pottery, talked about past and present literature, discovered that at least three anagrams of Lindsay Clarke's name are well-known writers, etc. etc.

Life rarely gives you more: a lovely country, a ray of sunshine, some good friends and a loving family.

I think I'm going to apply for an English passport next year. . .

AG

On, On and Onwards

2010-09-25T08:56:00.002+01:00

Yesterday books 106 and 107 for 2010 went to press. It's an insane number of titles for a small company to handle – a company who claims to put its focus on quality as opposed to quantity. However, the books we signed off yesterday were truly special.

The first one is Lampedusa's Letters from London and Europe, a project that has kept me busy, and at times sleepless, over the past couple of months. It's going to be a gem of a volume, full of unpublished texts and photographs, printed on Arctic paper to the highest standards. We already have half a dozen high-profile features and reviews lined up – and I am very much looking forward to the launch of the book at the Italian Institute in London on 18th October, when Francesco da Mosto will talk about it in conversation with prize-winning author Ian Thomson.

With a sigh of relief I should also add that this is the last Alma book for 2010.

The second title we sent to the printers is Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground. Without a doubt, it is the novel I have read more times than any other work of fiction – maybe seven or eight times? This is the second translation of it I have commissioned (the first being the Hesperus edition), and it is the book I have most given out as a present – especially to girlfriends (er, including Elisabetta!). There must be at least a dozen copies of the Mondadori edition with my dedication sitting on shelves the world over.

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" – and constantly swept into the future . . .

Cat Power

2010-09-20T21:09:00.003+01:00

I loved the story of the woman who's dumped her cat in a fit of rage or ennui. Cats can be annoying creatures at times, so my sympathy to her. She's been vilified by the press and by animal activists as if she had throttled a pensioner in his sleep.

The Guardian reports that Mary Bale is to be prosecuted "for causing unnecessary suffering and for failing to provide the cat with a suitable environment". He he he.

Sorry, I find this amusing because I come from a country where drowning kittens and torturing and even eating cats is certainly not considered such a taboo. People from Vicenza are nicknamed "magnagati" – cat-eaters. Of course this might well be a legend, but cats are quite scarce on the streets of Vicenza – and I remember people telling me that, during the War, it was commonplace to eat cats in Italy. "They're not bad – they taste like rabbits," an old woman told me once, with a touch of nostalgia in her voice.

OK, this is in bad taste, so I'll stop here.

I love cats, and I have had dozens of cats over the years ("had" as in "owned"). But let's put this episode in perspective, and let's hope the judge shows some sense and does not find the poor woman guilty.

After all, if a rabid cat scratches or bites you, I don't think there's a tribunal where you can bring up felines for crimes against mankind.

And now a sonnet from my Bestiary, in JG Nichols's translation:

The Cat

This is the beast whom most of all I hate:
a glass in which I find myself revealed
a little at a time as I grow old
and see my bourgeois belly rounding out.

A cunning profiteer, she sinks to rest
on someone's useful lap, arrogantly,
to miaow and mew and purr, especially
whenever she has something to request.

She's very careful in her choice of friend:
what point in being fondled and caressed,
if one gets nothing out of it at last?

And, if she tires of stroking in the end,
a swift volte-face is always de rigueur:
she'll bite the hand that feeds, with no demur.

Alma and Oneworld Classics catalogues

2010-09-16T07:22:00.004+01:00

Not sure if I have mentioned this already, but our new catalogues are available for download at the following addresses:

http://www.almabooks.com/resources/Alma_Spring2011_catalogue.pdf

http://www.oneworldclassics.com/resources/OWC_Spring2011_catalogue.pdf

If you are an old-fashioned bugger like myself and prefer a paper catalogue, please email our valiant Marina Rodrigues on "mrodrigues" followed by @ followed by "almabooks.com"

Enjoy.

AG

The Perfect Party

2010-09-13T22:41:00.003+01:00

Just back from the launch of Tim Waterstone's In for a Penny, in for a Pound at W's Kensington – one of the most enjoyable parties in years – which could have been even more enjoyable if I had not drunk so much white wine and Rosie had been there (one of her daughters had been hospitalised for appendicitis this afternoon).

We met some old friends, made a few new ones, and heard a great speech from Tim – who waxed lyrical on how he got the £100,000 lifeline he needed to launch the business from a retiring NatWest bank manager. All this was very romantic, in the context. Many of Tim's ex-employees, now stalwarts in the book or media world, were there and featured in a crowded photo-op.

I pointed out to Tim that behind the copies of his book displayed face out on an entire wall, there were piles of a book entitled Britain's Austerity. Very ominous . . .

I had the pleasure to see there Robert Topping, after meeting them in Ely many years ago, as well as Ed Victor, Jonathan Ruppin, Toby Mundy, Nigel Newton, Jamie Byng, Marion Lloyd and many others.

I bought a copy of the book at full price (I can see it's on sale at £9.68 on Amazon – ahi ahi ahi!) and now I look forward to reading the book. I am already twenty pages into it. Grab a copy – it's fun.

AG

Two Days in the Heart of Bloomsbury

2010-09-10T20:50:00.003+01:00

A busy coda to an extraordinary week. We were in central London yesterday and today for the first sales conference with Bloomsbury. Just before doing our presentation we met Anthony Grayling in a drawing room of the English Speaking Union building, and had a long chat ranging from digital publishing to the bestselling historical romances written by his wife Katie Hickman (who apparently is huge in Italy) to the exploits and mishaps of one of our authors whose name I will not mention as he is an occasional reader of my blog.

After the presentation we walked back to Bloomsbury's HQ with Bill Swainson, stopped for a quick drink at a pub near Soho Square and attended a lovely authors' party, where we were delighted to meet Howard Jacobson and Stephen Kelman (author of Pigeon English – check this one out, it's going to be a winner when it's released in March 2011) and see our old friend Paul Bailey, whose latest book – Chapman's Odyssey – will be published by Bloomsbury next January. I also had the honour to meet Nigel Newton and meet most of the editorial staff of Bloomsbury. After that, dinner at Bertorelli with the reps – a happy, enthusiastic bunch of people. I am sure they'll do well with our lists.

Today, back to the English Speaking Union for another session with the reps. We are absolutely spent and look forward to the weekend. I have just seen a wonderful review of our Decameron in the latest issue of the TLS – the cherry on the cake to an amazing week!

AG

The Descent of Mont Ventoux

2010-09-08T21:28:00.002+01:00

Petrarch's Secretum (My Secret Book) is one of my favourite books of all time – so modern, so revealing, for all the classics quotes and the learned references interspersed in it.

We have just published an updated edition of JG Nichols's wonderful translation, which I originally published during my time at Hesperus.

The book is a beauty, and I hope some of you will check it out. It's out now, and you can buy it from our website or any good book retailer. In it, you'll also find some bonus material, such as "A Draft of a Letter to Posterity" – which begins: "Although I much doubt whether my obscure little name ca have reached you at such a distance of time and space, it is possible that you have some inkling of me – "The Allegorical Ascent of Mont Ventoux", "Books, the Best Company" and "Italy, My Native Land" (the last two pieces were not included in the Hesperus edition).

To celebrate the publication of this book I have decided to buy a bottle of La Tour de Marrenon, Côtes du Ventoux, which I have emptied to the drains one minute past – and which helps me sink gently Lethe-wards.

Goodnight –

AG

A Week in the Life of a Publisher

2010-09-07T23:03:00.003+01:00

A week in the life of a publisher is more like ten days.

Where do I start? Let me look back, in anger, at the calendar – now then, yes, the last few days have been slightly hazy, so you'll forgive me if I just touch upon the main events thereof (is that correct English? I hope so – but then I write "under the influence", as one of my readers recently pointed out, so any slips can be forgiven).

Let's say, then, that my last week begins six days ago – a Wednesday, as I recall it. I had a very pleasant late lunch with Gary Pulsifer and Daniela De Groote of Arcadia. We went through some red wine, a few John Calder anecdotes and a long cahier des doléances éditoriales, emerging from the lunch, if not more perplexed, certainly none the wiser.

Then I went to Foyle's, where I was pleased to see there were still many unsold copies of Blair's book, which had been released that day and was obviously not flying off the shelves – and four copies of my own book (!). I had coffee with Rosie Alison and proudly showed her my latest book acquisition, Tim Parks's Teach Us to Be Still. Her many fans will be delighted to hear that she is working on a new novel, which – she assures – will outshine The Very Thought of You. Music for my ears – I cannot deny that I am lighting up a candle every evening in our local Catholic church.

Then I rushed to a peculiar game of pool: Editors vs Writers. The editors were myself and our valiant classics editor Christian Müller; the writers were the formidable pool players Sean Ashton and Tom McCarthy. We were beaten 6:1 – it was horrible. Our only victory was by default when Sean accidentally potted the black ball. And then – I am not saying this through spite or envy – but everything seems to be going Tom's way these days, from winning at pool to being shortlisted for the Booker . . .

The following day, Friday – no, hang on a sec – Thursday, after a long day at work I went out with Jonathan and Alison of CPI and Louise of Continuum – first to Vallandry in Great Portland Street and then to see a production of Into the Woods at the Regent's Park theatre.

Friday was the day when Elisabetta and the kids came back from Italy. There were two massive accidents on the M25, one clockwise and the other one anticlockwise, and somehow I managed to sneak in and out without too much trouble and get home safely after a short stop at Franco Manca.

Saturday and Sunday were spent reading, writing, watching films, doing a 250-piece jigsaw puzzle with the kids, enjoying our newly decorated flat and going out with our friends.

Monday was when we totally overhauled and redesigned our office and spent one whole day moving stuff in, out and around, knocking down walls, fitting shelves, throwing away books and ending up as tired as the poor Chilean miners.

Today was a quiet day, but in the evening Christian and I went to the Italian Institute for an event on Dante's Rime. What was amazing was not so much Prof. Malato's discourse (speech or talk won't do) or the actress's reading of Dante's poems in Italian and English, accompanied by a young woman playing Baroque music on a theorbo, but the after-event, when we met a boy who'd played Dante's Inferno on PS3 and told us, one by one, all the tricks to get through to "riveder le stelle". I hope I can convince Christian to elaborate on this, and I definitely want to check out this game.

From a strictly professional point of view, we have sent five books to the printer over the past few days, received our latest catalogues (which will be mailed out soon) and seen reviews of Alberto Manguel's All Men Are Liars in The Times and of Lindsay Clarke's The Water Theatre in the Financial Times.

So that's all I think. And if you wonder what I am up to when you don't hear from me on this blog – please keep wondering.

AG

The Water Theatre

2010-08-28T10:04:00.002+01:00

Simply the most wonderful review of Lindsay Clarke's The Water Theatre (which is out in September) in today's The Times. "A stunning, compelling tale that tackles the biggest theme of all: the existence of evil… The Water Theatre should… re-establish [Lindsay Clarke] as one of our most talented, ambitious and ground-breaking novelists. There is nothing small about this book; it is huge in scope, in energy, in heart." Etc. etc. etc. I am so thrilled for Lindsay, and I am sure there is more to come soon.

Also in today's The Times, entirely by coincidence, there is a piece I have written about the new Lightship literary awards for short stories, poetry and first chapter of a novel. I will write more extensively about this soon, as I am involved as a judge of the First Chapter competition, and Alma is one of the sponsors of this wonderful new initiative created by the novelist Simon C. Kerr (www.lightshippublishing.co.uk).

AG

Too Fast

2010-08-24T23:10:00.002+01:00

It's been a while since my last post – such a long time, in fact, that I struggled to remember how to sign in . . .

What have I been up to? Mainly, I have been busy editing Lampedusa's Letters. I thought it'd take me a day or two – it's taken me ten long days of solid work. I am exhausted – but the book is absolutely fantastic, and I can't wait to see it out.

Social and cultural life has been abuzz too. Among other things – such as a visit to Guildford and to the Imperial War Museum – Elisabetta and I had a lovely dinner with Carole Welch (Sceptre), Pete Ayrton (Serpent's Tail), Christopher Maclehose (Quercus), Bill Swainson (Bloomsbury), Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson. It was a glorious evening, and publishing was not the only subject going round the table with the wine – which was even better.

We have sent to the printers another dozen titles over the past couple of weeks, and have received finished copies of many books including Alberto Manguel's All Men Are Liars, which looks fabulous. We were supposed to go to Edinburgh for Alberto's events but had to cancel because of acute Lampedusitis. Oh well – next year.

A few nice reviews of our books have appeared, including a nice mention in the last Saturday's Times by Scott Pack, who has described Bestseller as "a caustic satire on the publishing world" (thanks Scott, I owe you one!).

The Alma and Oneworld Classics Spring 2011 were signed off today, and should be available for browsing online in the next day or two, so please keep your eyes peeled.

Weather is shitty, as you may have noticed, and is making me suicidal. I miss my kids, who are coming back on 3rd September. I try to console myself with a lot of exercise at the gym – followed by Gargantuan meals at home. And readings of Milton. And blogging. Goodnight.

AG

Lunch at the Madhouse

2010-08-11T19:02:00.003+01:00

The ideal place for publishers' or agents' lunch meetings the Ristorante Manicomio (literally Madhouse Restaurant) gets my thumbs up for a lovely "piazza" atmosphere in the very heart of Chelsea (85 Duke Of York Square, close to the Saatchi Gallery) and deliciously simple food. It's a bit expensive, but I don't think rent comes cheap in that area.

I was there with Melissa of Pushkin Press, just as crazily bent on publishing translated fiction in this country as I am. Two like-minded fools having lunch at the Madhouse. How appropriate to eat there.

One of the waiters was the spitting image of Michael Schmidt of Carcanet, and I was slightly taken aback when he came over to our table with the bill. For a moment I thought that Michael had decided to turn to a much more profitable business, after many years of publishing poetry, often in translation.

But it wasn't him and, to our relief, at the end of the meal we were not taken away in a straitjacket.

AG

Rip-offs

2010-08-04T07:02:00.002+01:00

Yesterday evening we went to see Inception. We were very sceptical at first, especially when it started like a film videogame. But as we entered the story we were riveted, and so were the rest of the audience by the look of it. What was amazing, though, is that the book is a complete rip-off of many Yasutaka Tsutsui's novels written between the 1970's and today. Planting ideas in people's minds, sharing and manipulating dreams, dreams within dreams, etc., are all elements you can find in Paprika (which we published in 2008 and was adapted into a spooky but wonderful anime) or The Girl Who Leapt through Time (which we'll publish next spring). The guy who commissions the planting of the idea also looks like he's Japanese, so it's only natural that conspiracy theories are buzzing in my ears. Anyway, the movie is very well done, I must admit, whether they stole the main ideas or not.

For another two alleged rip-offs of books published by Alma, see this bloggerel entry:

http://www.bloggerel.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

and this one:

http://www.bloggerel.com/2009/06/plagiarism.html

AG

Alma is also . . .

2010-08-01T07:45:00.002+01:00

. . . the African Leaders Malaria Alliance (www.alma2015.org) of 30 African countries whose primary strategic goal is to eliminate preventable malaria deaths by 2015 by scaling up coverage of all other available interventions. There are 680,000 African children dying each year from malaria – let's try not to forget this.

I'm praying tonight. . .

2010-07-29T23:52:00.001+01:00

That when I wake up tomorrow morning Berlusconi and his government may have gone, like a terrible nightmare.

A Proud Author, and a Proud Publisher

2010-07-29T18:52:00.002+01:00

Wonderful night in town with Elisabetta and friends, with drinks in a pub near Piccadilly followed by dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. But the highlight of the evening was our visit to Waterstone's Piccadilly, where I had not been for some time, and where I was happy to spot so many of our titles, especially the classics.

I was browsing a table when I stumbled on a copy of my own Bestseller, then I checked on the shelves and it was displayed face out (as in our local branch of W's – I swear I didn't do it myself or asked for it. . .) neatly between the esteemed Galgut and Galloway.

I know that all copies will be gone before the end of the year, but there's nothing that can make you prouder, as a writer and a publisher, than finding your own book in a bookstore. . .

AG

Gordon, Gordon, Gordon. . .

2010-07-28T17:13:00.002+01:00

So the Bookseller announced that Simon & Schuster is going to publish Gordon Brown's take on the financial crisis. Is the guy a masochist? Can't he just sit still and enjoy silence and tranquillity after years of personal and public bashing?

The article says the book is still untitled. May I suggest one?

Autobiography of a Crisis.

PS: I don't vote in this country, and I am neither a Tory nor a Lib-Dem. . .

The Future is Bleak

2010-07-27T19:29:00.002+01:00

The Wylie vs the Publishing World fight is becoming fiercer by the day. I liked the articles in the Independent, especially the level-headed contribution by Profile's Andrew Franklin. I am left wondering too, in such a depressing and difficult market, who the real winner is in all this. Many people say Amazon. But let's not forget the Googles, the Apples and the Sonys of this world – the great behemoths of our digital era, who are well capable to wipe us all out in a short time. Certainly the publishers and the authors are the greatest losers – but agents too, and the entire supply chain, who is not parasitical but instrumental in making a book or an author successful.

I looked at last week's report, and noticed sales of 125 e-book units, just from one supplier. Am I happy? No. Not just because it really goes against my beliefs and ethos, not just because I prefer reading on paper than on screen, but because I can easily see how the digital products can cannibalize traditional sales in the same way as it happened for the music industry. The market will get smaller, the margins will drop even further, and we'll have fewer and fewer large-budget books, which will kill independence and diversity.

Oh well, luckily enough for the time being we still have our literary dinners where we can meet with friends and gossip to our hearts' content. Yesterday we met again with Tim Parks, and he told me stories that I wish I had heard before writing BESTSELLER. This publishing world is a total circus, and perhaps we do need an Angel of Death to force us to a new beginning, after all.

AG

The Plot Is Thickening

2010-07-23T00:29:00.006+01:00

Just back from another odyssey in Central London, where I attended one of the most entertaining readings in years courtesy of Tim Parks and the London Review of Books Bookshop. The place was absolutely crammed, so much so that I (having not booked – dah!) had to wait until everyone was sitting before finding out if there was a seat left. Miranda Seymour chaired the reading, and Tim read from TEACH US TO SIT STILL in his usual inspired fashion. I am delighted to hear that the book is doing well and getting the most glowing reviews. If you want to know everything about meditation, chicanery and anal massage, go out and buy the book before it sells out again.

After the reading, I went with Tim and his friends (some of them mutual friends) to a local pub, and after that to a local restaurant. It was a very pleasant evening, and I am hoping to catch up with Tim again before he leaves for Italy.

Talking about "Odyssey" – as soon as I came back I turned onto the Bookseller website to follow the digital saga instigated by the Wylie agency's launch of the Odyssey digital imprint. It's a total thriller, and I can't see whether this is taking us one step closer to the edge of the abyss or whether this O.K. Corral confrontation will actually be cathartic and help us come to a better understanding of the implication of the new technologies for the publishing industry.

Deep breath.

It certainly questions the role of authors, publishers and agents in unprecedented ways. Can't wait to see the next instalment. Goodnight.

AG

Pool Billiard

2010-07-22T00:42:00.003+01:00

I have just come back (and I am damn lucky I made it, on the last train just before midnight) from East London, where I spent the night playing pool and whoring with S*** A***. No, the last bit is a lie: I meant "boozing" – that's a much more honourable British pastime. Well, boozing – I only had six pints – does that qualify as a refresher in Britain?

By the way, why is it that pool billiards are so small and holes are so big in this country? Is it a game for drunks?

Anyway, it's entertaining whichever way you play it. Hic!

In the afternoon I met John Calder, who gave me the idea for a killer classic. And S*** gave me another killer idea, just when he was about to play the shot of the evening.

So, you see, you don't have to spend your day pent up in a library to come up with a good list!

AG

The Way I Look Tonight. . .

2010-07-19T18:18:00.002+01:00

Picture this: I am at home and I am wearing a mask – one of those masks hardcore cyclists and Japanese tourists wear in big cities. There's a lot of dust in our flat (someone's redecorating it) and I look really stupid.

And it's hot in here, it makes me sweat under my nose when I breathe.

I'll go out in a minute.

AG

Literary Help Needed!!!

2010-07-18T22:31:00.003+01:00

A splendid afternoon in Regent's Park for Pete Ayrton's birthday picnic (with lovely jazz music in the background courtesy of Camden Council, I suppose). It was good to catch up with him and the translator Nick Caistor (who was also celebrating his birthday), and meet some friends and make new ones.

On the way back, just when I felt I had completely forgotten about books, publishing, etc., I noticed an A4 sheet attached to the trunk of a tree as I walking home. The title, in bold letters, said "Literary Help Needed!!!" Needless to say, it attracted my attention.

Basically, it was someone looking for an editor to help him with a book he had recently finished writing. A couple of agents, apparently, had shown interest and hinted that they could secure a lucrative deal for him. The only problem is that they said the book needed some "tweaking" (scare quotes not mine). The prospective author was pleading for someone to come forward and help him put his script into shape. He was looking for someone honest and with an understanding of modern life (if I remember his words). He could not pay much, but was happy to remunerate the editor by exchanging skills – there was a note in the poster saying that he'd been a professional boxer for twenty-five years.

So if you're interested in this job, just let me know and I'll put you in touch. I think I've got the gentleman's email somewhere. Otherwise, I'll just pop down the road and copy it off the poster – I'm sure it's still there.

AG

PS: And I am now informed that there have been sightings of the same posted as far as Kew Station.

There's No Money in Books

2010-07-17T15:06:00.002+01:00

Just skimming through the Bookseller (reading it gives me the heebie-jeebies) an advert in the job section, for a position as a shop assistant at a local independent bookshop, caught my eye. They're looking for someone with two to five years of bookselling experience, with a degree in a relevant subject, who is going to be trained in due course into the role of assistant manager.

The salary they are offering is "to £11,000 a year". Unless there's a typo or this is a part-time position and they forgot to mention it, £11,000 is exactly the same salary I got when I started working for Grant & Cutler thirteen years ago – borderline minimum wages, basically.

I am not sure if they are going to get any applicants, but if they do, then things must be really bad. And this is further evidence – if we needed one – that there's absolutely no money to be made in books.

AG

Recession? What Recession?

2010-07-15T22:51:00.002+01:00

I was queuing to board the 18:28 service to Waterloo this evening when I noticed that all other passengers were staring at a spot on the platform floor near the train's doors.

I looked down and saw a one-pound coin. The train's doors opened, the passengers got onto the train one by one, the doors closed and the one-pound coin was still there on the floor when the train pulled away.

You see, we live in a part of the world where it's uncool to pick up a one-pound coin from the floor – where people can afford to walk away nonchalantly from a one-pound coin on the floor, when someone is getting throttled for even less somewhere else.

Mind you, it could have been one of those one-pound coins stuck to the floor with superglue, like the one I tried to wrangle off the asphalt in Hammersmith a few years ago. . .

Certainly people are even less fussy later on at night. I was queuing before the change dispenser at Waterloo station's toilets before boarding the 10:30 train tonight, and someone in front of me slotted in 50p and left a whole 20p below – two-thirds of a piss's worth – to be collected.

I thanked again London's generosity and moved on . . .

AG

The Longest Journey

2010-07-10T09:00:00.002+01:00

We've just sent to the printers DON QUIXOTE, the longest classics book we've published. Its spine width will be around 52mm, 5mm longer than our ANNA KARENINA, and 9mm longer than our DECAMERON.

But this isn't the longest book we've published – the prize must go to William T. Vollmann's IMPERIAL – a title that could also be applied to its size, which was a real challenge to printers. We intended to print 1,500 copies to begin with, but the printers run out of paper just over half-way through, and we were left with a little more than 1,000 copies. Its spine width is 67mm, and it's 1344 pages long. Vollmann's previous book, published by us in 2006, EUROPE CENTRAL, was a mere 42mm-er.

I must say I love short books. I remember that the initial idea behind our Hesperus series was to only have books which were exactly 100 pages long. We even experimented with a few 100-PAGE logos, but in the end decided against it because it would have limited our choice and diluted the series' branding. I think that was for the best, but the majority of the books we published were just over or under 100 pages, and I remember I was able to edit or proofread most of them personally. The same, alas, I cannot do with our Oneworld classics: the last three books we published total more than 2,000 pages.

In Europe, novella-length books are generally – if not more popular – at least as popular as long ones. In this country there's an 'Eat as much as You Like for £7.99' attitude to books. Enrico Brizzi's JACK FRUSCIANTE È USCITO DAL GRUPPO (1994) sold millions of copies in Italy, although it was only 176 pages long. Susanna Tamaro's VA' DOVE TI PORTA IL CUORE (1994), which sold 14 million copies worldwide, was well under 200 pages long. More recently, Milena Agus's MAL DI PIETRE (2008) became an international bestseller, although it's a novella barely 120 pages long. The first two books were published in the UK a few years ago, but sunk without trace, the last one was not even translated into English.

There is a big problem in this country – maybe it's a prejudice dating back to Victorian times and never shaken off (production - production - production - quantity - quantity - quantity). If you have a new-fiction book that is less than 80,000 words, you'll have an almighty struggle ahead of you to market it effectively in the English language countries. And if the book is, say, 80,000 words, you'll have to show as if it's 120,000 or 140,000 words long using a bigger typeface or bulking up the paper.

The recent winner of the Orange Prize, THE LACUNA, has been described as a "saga" by many commentators and critics, but a quick look at its bulky 688-page format will reveal that it is, more than anything else, a typesetting saga: it could have been set less generously and easily lose between 100 and 150 pages.

But size does matter over here, so on we go, publishers, wasting even more paper than we need!

AG

Head above Water

2010-07-07T22:20:00.005+01:00

I'm finally emerging from a chronic bout of busy-ness. I was hoping I could bring to you, almost in real time, a description of our glitzy Orange nights – where we met and talked with some lovely authors, including Barbara Kingsolver, the deserving Orange winner – of my lightning trip to Monselice to collect a translation prize, of various reviews on our Alma and Oneworld Classics titles (including a couple of reviews of Bestseller by Boyd Tonkin in the Independent and by Jonathan Keates in the TLS), of the premiere of Idomeneo at the Coliseum, and all the latest gossip from the publishing world – but, alas, this is one of those periods where reality goes much faster than my key-bashing fingers. I've been editing two long books and a shorter one, trying at the same time to complete my translation of Auden and get my second novel off the ground.

While I recover and find new blogging energies, I thought I'd share with you a piece that appeared in The Times a couple of months ago, which I fear may be now pay-walled for ever. Talk to you soon.

How to Write a Bestseller

A friend once told me in a conspiratorial tone, handing me a manuscript: “Read this. It’s so bad that it could actually be very good. It could be a bestseller.” Since I started working in publishing, I have heard that magic word pronounced by a host of publishers, agents, writers, scouts, publicists, sales reps and booksellers, as if a number-one title could be conjured up by using some readily available formula. Sadly, there is much evidence to the contrary, as demonstrated by the pitiful state of publishers’ balance sheets. So what is it that does make a bestseller?

Paying six- or seven-figure advances, the method of choice of large publishing conglomerates, doesn’t seem to guarantee success. The inadequacies of this model have been exposed in a much-commented-upon article that appeared in the New York Times last year, which claimed that seven out of ten big-budget books do not earn back their advances but become, at best, prestigious loss-leaders.

Publishing what is fashionable, or trying to copy themes and ingredients of a best-selling title, is also far from foolproof. The minute the Twilight novels swept the top four spots of the UK chart, a flock of commissioning editors duly started looking around for the next Stephenie Meyer, saturating the market with hundreds of second- and third-rate imitations which barely registered on Nielsen BookScan.

Looking abroad for inspiration is another possibility, but what works in one country rarely works in another. Many observers were bemused when Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey stormed to number six in the Swedish charts in May 2009, or when Stefan Zweig’s novella Journey into the Past climbed to number ten in France in February 2009. Out of the thousands of foreign bestsellers only a handful are able to translate their sales ranking into another language. Everyone in this country remembers Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Patrick Süskind’s Perfume and Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s The Shadow of the Wind, for example, but books such as Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones or Paolo Giordano’s The Solitude of Prime Numbers, the fourth-highest-grossing title in Europe last year, failed to reach best-selling status in the English-speaking world.

The truth is that it is hard to predict what readers will like, and that publishing is ultimately a very subjective business, relying on the personal taste of a few individuals who, more often than not, get it terribly wrong.

Personally, I have a fatalistic vision of publishing: I believe that a bestseller is the right book published at the right time by the right people. One of the publishers who turned down Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy recently confessed to me that he still has confidence crises and sleepless nights about his fateful error of judgement. But I told him that he should not kick himself: maybe the book, if published by his company at that particular time, would have sold only a few hundred copies and joined the ranks of millions of other titles that vanish soon after they are published.

It is surprising that someone, almost fifteen years on, should lose sleep over a missed opportunity, but this is perhaps symptomatic of what is a very British obsession, namely sales – possibly a residue of the Victorian-industrialist mentality, or perhaps a consequence our own capitalist society. Otherwise, why is it that readers here assume that what sells a lot must also be good? And why are book-trade awards usually given to celebrity authors and publishers who exemplify commercial success? Dan Brown’s novels may have sold millions of copies worldwide, but what is their literary value or their impact on our culture?

As a small literary independent publisher, my belief and secret motivation is that books can be quietly successful in mysterious and often unforeseen ways: a single copy of one title can transform the life of its reader and even – forgive me the hyperbole – change the course of human history. And the losers of today may be tomorrow’s winners. Jane Austen had to finance the printing of some of her novels, which achieved only average sales during her lifetime. Giacomo Leopardi’s Canti, perhaps the most important volume of modern Italian poetry, sold a handful of copies by the time of the author’s death. Many twentieth-century masterpieces, such as The Master and Margarita or The Leopard, were only published or recognized posthumously, while most best-selling titles of the past are now justly forgotten. This is why I think publishers should take the long view and continue to publish only what they are passionate about, trying to resist fashion and the urge to be populist.

Well before I entered the book business, I completed a long poem in which I lamented that “for reprobates that publish all that counts / is something to attract ‘the much-too-many’ / to swarm like flies around a pot of honey…” Now, more than ten years later, I have written and published, under my own imprint Alma Books, a novel about the folly, the excesses and the sheer desperation I have witnessed in my career as a bookseller, translator, writer, editor and publisher. The book, entitled Bestseller, revolves around the figures of an unpublished writer who’s prepared to do anything to fulfil his obsessive dream of literary stardom and an ageing old-school publisher who is sacked from his own company by a sharkish financial consultant.

Some people may question my integrity as a publisher, and others may wonder how comfortable I am being both the author and the publisher of my own novel. In my defence, I can say that I know quite a few publishers and editors, both in this country and abroad, who have written works of fiction and non-fiction, and that – whatever my talent – I am only the latest in a long tradition of authors turned publishers and publishers turned authors. Samuel Richardson, for example, the author of monumental eighteenth-century bestsellers such as Pamela, Clarissa and The History of Sir Charles Grandison, was also a leading printer and publisher. One can easily imagine him driving his employees crazy with late corrections after his books had already been typeset and signed off to the press. Charles Dickens worked as an editor of journals for most of his life, even at the height of his success as a novelist, and Fyodor Dostoevsky founded and ran two literary journals with his brother Mikhail, Time and Epoch, before running out of money and going back to writing full-time. Not far from our Alma Books offices in Richmond, Virginia and Leonard Woolf set up, from the basement of their house on Paradise Road, the Hogarth Press, which over the years published – originally using a handpress – a number of important European classics in translation, as well as ground-breaking contemporary works such as The Waste Land and most of the couple’s own creations. These included Virginia’s debut collection of modernist stories, Monday or Tuesday, a book she might have found difficult to place with a mainstream publisher. Being able to publish her own work, setting it letter by letter and line by line, she could experiment more boldly and develop her style free from any editorial pressure or deadline.

Others, however, felt they could not reconcile creative freedom with the daily grind of a publishing job. Christopher Potter, who left his position as Publisher and Managing Director of Fourth Estate in 2005 to become a full-time writer (his latest book, You Are Here, will be out in paperback next month), says that his only regret is that it took him twenty years to turn his back on publishing. “I was determined not to become the complaining author of my publishing nightmares, but I have failed. I’ve just given in to the fact that all writers are neurotic.”

T.S. Eliot, another illustrious writer-publisher, once quipped, “Some editors are failed writers – but so are most writers.” Indeed, most of the authors I have met are always aspiring to more success, fame and money – always aiming for the Big Book, for the number-one spot, for the bestseller. Having written the last word of my novel and watched the ink dry on the paper, I am happy to take a back seat and turn my ear to the comforting wisdom of the ancients, who said: “Habent sua fata libelli” – books have their own destinies.

Not a Blog Block

2010-06-19T08:41:00.001+01:00

Simply I haven't had time to write a line, for which many apologies.

Check this space again soon. Now off to Brighton – the sun beckons!

AG

Roma

2010-06-06T11:10:00.002+01:00

Well, Rome was every bit as beautiful as ever under its glorious blue skies and strong sunshine – and I got to see again the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps and the lovely backstreets around Piazza Navona and the Pantheon together with Elisabetta and the kids, who walked with me onto the platform of Bernini's "Barcaccia" and reached out to the fresh jets of water. Ice cream and coffee at Camilloni's on Piazza Sant'Eustachio was de rigueur.

The city centre has all been cleaned up, and pedestrianized for the most part – this enhances the tourist's (and, no doubt, the local's) experience of the city. The recently restored Villa Torlonia park, a few hundred yards from Villa Mirafiori on the via Nomentana (where Elisabetta and I studied languages) was another highlight. Tucked away at the back of the park, an al-fresco restaurant where flocks of children can run amock and play in complete freedom the simplest of games. This is Italy as I remember it.

Back to England now, and the misery of clouded sky, but we brought a bit of Rome back with us, in the shape of porchetta d'Ariccia, corallina, coppiette, coppa, olive alla calce and many more titbits that we are going to share with some Roman friends later on today.

AG

Tuscany

2010-06-03T21:25:00.002+01:00

Four amazing days in Tuscany, starting at Lucca, then down to Florence via Pisa and its Campo dei Miracoli. Then The Uffizi, Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Pitti, Santa Maria Novella, then a chance discovery in the countryside: the Albergaccio owned by Machiavelli, where the great Florentine is said to have written Mandragola and Clizia, and finished The Prince during his exile. It is now a small museum, and across the street from it there's a delightful restaurant too. From there we wandered to San Gimignano, and discovered the beauties of Certaldo Alta, where Boccaccio died in 1375. It was certainly the highlight of our trip so far. Then today the surreal Monteriggioni fortress, Siena, Castelnuovo Berardenga, Pienza, San Quirico d'Orcia, Montepulciano – and we can't have enough of the Tuscan countryside, it's just too lovely. The funny thing is that there are almost more German, Austrian and Swiss number-plated cars than Italian. . .

And tomorrow and Saturday, cherry on the cake of our trip, ROME.

AG

A Typo Can Make You Cry for Joy

2010-05-30T13:17:00.002+01:00

That's what happened to me yesterday. My daughter and I were reading Roald Dahl's Matilda, in the pitifully edited Puffin edition (see my blog on the BFG here), and when we came to page 37, line 6, Eleonora stopped as she read, "There is is – Fred said – It's name is Chopper", looked at me and said with her big child eyes wide open: "Daddy, shouldn't it be 'its', without an apostrophe?"

She'd just spotted her first typo. At six years and a half. A genius proofreader – a Mozart of the copy-editing world . . . Never was there a prouder editor-father . . .

I speak in jest, of course.

AG

Mumm's the Word

2010-05-28T00:19:00.003+01:00

Lovely evening first at the Institute Français, where the Culturethèque project (try it here for free) was launched and a profusion of Mumm champagne served (I had five glasses), and then chez M. L'Ambassadeur for a petit four-course dîner, sprinkled with some of the best wines I've had in years (point No.1: yes, I am not tea-totalling any more; point No. 2: an illustrious publisher – not me – complained that SPANISH wines had been served at the French Institute party during the London Book Fair: I can guarantee these were the very finest wines and champagnes of France – Château Smith Haut Lafitte 2004, Château Léoville Las Cases 2001 and Champagne Ruinart Blanc de Blanc [sic]).

The dinner, by and large, went down very well – the consommé de homard was quite good; so was the poitrine de canette – but a few French noses, as well as a couple of Italian ones, were turned up at the potted tiramisu aux noisettes et pont-l'évêque: the chef could have done better there, sorry. Tiramisu is something else.

However, the coreography was better than La Scala's – so many bouquets of fresh flowers, so many white-gloved waiters serving all sorts of delicacies and topping up your glasses . . . it was an Epicurean's paradise. All in all, it was a great day for French cuisine.

And I am not drunk – amazing. I am simply wasted.

AG

Fickers and F**kers

2010-05-26T22:19:00.002+01:00

There was a brief moment of hilarity today when one of our editors picked up a copy of Tolstoy's Gospels in Brief, which according to the book's back cover was one of Ludwig Wittgenstein's favourite books. So much was he in thrall of this book – according to another of our editors – that when he served in the trenches during the Great War he always kept with him two books: one was the manuscript of what was going to be his masterpiece, the Tractatus Logicus-Philosophicus, the other was Tolstoy's take on the Gospels.

What's so funny about this? What is funny is that to corroborate Wittgenstein's endorsement, the publisher has quoted from a letter the philosopher wrote to his friend Ludwig von Ficker…

I don't know if you have any German, but I'll let you imagine what Ficker means. . . I think I have given you enough clues. . .

AG

The Moonstone Legacy

2010-05-25T13:30:00.000+01:00

Today is an exciting day for Pushkin press, seeing as it does the launch of its first young-adult title – also the first title to be written for Pushkin, rather than translated from a foreign-language original.

The book is called The Moonstone Legacy – inspired by Wilkie Collins’ classic Victorian mystery, The Moonstone it’s a literary sort of young-adult title, but still has a plot as gripping as that of the original, taking the reader on a journey from the Yorkshire Moors to the jungles of Gujarat and back.

Over the next couple of weeks the book and its authors, Diana de Gunzburg and Tony Wild, will be going on a blog tour to promote the book. Diana and Tony are busy preparing for the launch, but Tony sent us this message from his native Yorkshire, home of the novel’s heroine, Lizzie Abercrombie:

“With the Yorkshire launch coming up tomorrow, Diana and I retreated over the weekend to the North York Moors for a heavy dose of Lizzy-land. Thirteen miles of bone-wearying trek around Farndale later, we ended up in Kepwick, the location of our fictional Shalimar. It was on particularly fine form, roasting under the blazing May sun, the early heather shoots on the surrounding moors a startling green, snipes soaring in the blue, blue sky. As the Moghul Emperor Babur said upon his first visit to Kashmir,"If there is a Heaven here on earth, this is it, this is it … !”

Below are the dates of the forthcoming stops on the tour:

Lizzy's Literary Life http://lizzysiddal.wordpress.com 27^th May

Marjoleinbookblog http://marjoleinbookblog.blogspot.com 31^st May

Pretty Little YA Books http://teen.chicklitreviews.com 1^st June

Writing from the Tub http://carlybennett.blogspot.com 3^rd June

J'adore www.jadorebooks.blogspot.com 5^th June

The Truth About Lies http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com 7^th June

Once upon a Bookcase http://onceuponabookcase.blogspot.com 8^th June

Narratively Speaking http://narrativelyspeaking.blogspot.com 10^th June

So Many Books, So Little Time http://solittletimeforbooks.blogspot.com 11^th June

Magic Bean Review http://magicbeanreview.wordpress.com 14^th June

Nayu's Reading Corner http://nayusreadingcorner.blogspot.com 15^th June

Bookbabblers http://bookbabblers.co.uk 16^th June

Book Reviews by Sarah http://bookreviewsbysarah.blogspot.com 17^th June

Ondaatje Prize

2010-05-25T07:23:00.003+01:00

A lovely evening (which spilled into the new day) yesterday at the Travellers' Club for the ceremony dinner organized by the Royal Society of Literature. It was the poshest of occasions in the poshest of places, with many ladies sporting their new frocks, and it was good to meet many friends there, and make a few more. I think I may have been the only one without a black tie. When asked by a fellow guest why I wasn't wearing one, I simply answered: "I'm Italian."

The dinner itself was, according to many, senza infamia e senza lode – quite a few people left their wild mushroom risotto on their plates – but the company was good and although our book (Kachi Ozumba's The Shadow of a Smile) didn't win, we were delighted when our friend Ian Thomson received the prestigious accolade for his book on Jamaica, The Dead Yard (published by Faber).

He also received ten thou from Sir Christopher Ondaatje, and during the improvised acceptance speech he confessed he's going to buy a new car with it – but knowing Ian it's more likely to buy him a new trip to some other hotspot of our planet – or to his beloved Italy.

Anyway, well done Ian!

AG

Florence, Rome, Venice

2010-05-23T09:45:00.003+01:00

By a strange turn of events, I may get to see again (ash clouds permitting) these three most celebrated cities of Italy. Next week, we'll begin a tour of Tuscany, starting from Lucca and driving down to Rome via Florence, Siena, San Gimignano and Città della Pieve. Then, a week or so later, I'll fly to Venice and from there drive to Monselice, a small medieval town near Padua, to collect an unexpected special award from the prestigious Biblioteca di Monselice prize for my translation of The Rape of the Lock.

More Italy, this year, than in the last five years put together!

I have just seen this lovely review of Bestseller by Allan Massie in the Scotsman, and I'd like to share it with you. When you write a book, you always hope that you'll find at least one reader who can understand everything you intended to do. I seem to have found just that ideal reader in Allan.

AG

A Tale of Two Screams

2010-05-19T20:34:00.004+01:00

A very unusual day yesterday.

In the morning, I had a root-canal operation and spent two and a half hours with a dentist's head hovering above me and all sorts of drills, iron clamps, needles and syringes messing around in my mouth, to the grating sound of several internal shrieks.

By contrast, in the evening, two and a half hours of the most melodious high notes: it was the premiere of a new UK production of Tosca at the Coliseum (coinciding with the launch of our Overture Opera Guides series), and Elisabetta and I were kindly invited there by English National Opera. My only regret is that the opera was not sung in Italian, as Tosca is one of those works that don't translate easily into another language: most of the music is in the words themselves, and it gets lost in translation.

It's amazing to think that Tosca was premiered 110 years ago, when my great-grandfather was only sixteen years old (Joyce's Ulysses and TS Eliot's Waste Land were published only two decades later). So much has changed in terms of taste, language, fashion and social mores since then that I had the impression, at times, to be looking at something written in the seventeenth or eighteenth century.

Yet I was glad to see, as I elbowed my way towards the front of the bar during the intermissions, that there are still many people who can appreciate this art form – not all of them silver-haired, which is even more encouraging.

AG

A New Pizzeria in Town

2010-05-17T20:45:00.003+01:00

Our friends Andrea and Lisa took us to a new pizza place in Chiswick, called Franco Manca. It's new over here, but apparently it's been open for eighteen years in Brixton, and they are now thinking to open another five or six shops nationwide. I really hope they do, because they are evangelizing the real Neapolitan pizza. It's sourdough pizza, and the dough is left to rise for twenty hours before being used. The tomato is fresh, the mozzarella is top-quality, and the result is the best pizza I've had in years, not just in the UK. It did remind me of the pizza I used to have in Naples in the early Nineties. If you haven't been there, do try it – it's on 144 Chiswick High Road.

And (I whisper here) it's very very reasonably priced.

AG

Masterclass in Roman Cuisine

2010-05-16T17:39:00.003+01:00

My trip to Rome turned into a masterclass in Roman cuisine. I have asked my mother and aunt to prepare some Roman dishes I had not tried for years, and the result was divine: Roman cuisine is simple and delicious. Here's a brief selection of what went down my throat by way of my palate:

First course
Risotto ai carciofi (mum): 8/10
Spaghetti ai funghi porcini (aunt): 9/10. This could have been a 10/10 if the porcini had been picked the previous night
Minestra di fagioli (mum): 9/10

Second or main course
Bistecca alla brace (mum): 9/10
Scaloppine ai funghi porcini (aunt): 10/10
Baccalà in padella (mum): (10/10)

Side dishes
"Bieda" (Swiss chard) ripassata in padella (mum): 10/10
"Cicoria" di campo (wild chicory) ripassata in padella (mum): 10/10
Zucchine gratinate (aunt): 9/10

So it was a fiercely fought tie. Even more than eating, I enjoyed learning the small secrets which can transform an ordinary recipe into something special.

Should our publishing business fail, we could always turn to cooking.

AG

Roma Caput Mundi

2010-05-13T08:16:00.002+01:00

I had not been to Rome for years, so I massively overestimated how long it would take to get there from Albano Laziale. I had a ten o'clock rendezvous with two American friends, so I got on the car at around 8:15, parked the car at the station, got on the 8:25 train to Rome, and in fourteen minutes I was at Roma Termini. Because it was so early I decided to walk, but I got to Piazza Barberini in less than fifteen minutes. Ridiculous.

Rome is lovely at this time of the year: it's warm but not too warm, sunny but not sun-strikingly sunny. I was prepared to be disappointed after so many years of absence, but in fact I loved every bit of it, from the stunning buildings and monuments to the food. It's true that quod non fecerunt Barbari fecerunt Barberini, et quod non fecerunt Barberini fecit Populus Romanus: the city centre is annoyingly dingy with smog, noisy and overcrowded. But it's also true that there are more beauties than any other European capital I have ever visited put together, and that its atmosphere and charm are unique.

Although I used to be a seasoned Rome explorer, I discovered some previously unknown sites yesterday, such as Sant'Ivo in Sapienza, with the famous Borromini cupola (I only knew the other one, near Quattro Fontane). The beauty of Rome is that you can walk from one place to the other with ease, as it's all so compact. Incidentally, I realized that whereas Roman people walk at normal pace, I constantly found myself marching along: thirteen years of life in London leave a deep mark.

Rome has not changed much: walking from Termini through Piazza dei Cinquecento and Piazza Esedra to Piazza Barberini, I saw the usual second-hand-book stalls - most of which have diversified into classic adult movies such as Il buco del piacere (The Pleasure Hole) - the usual shops, the usual museums and hotels, the usual people hanging around bars as if it were Sunday morning.

The highlights of the day were the discovery of a nice Osteria near the Piramide Cestia and my return to visit Keats's and Shelley's tombs at the nearby Protestant Cemetery. There were also funny moments, such as when a nutcase almost assaulted my friend for not letting him get off the bus, and when there was a popular uprising against a bus driver who drove too fast and too jumpily on the cobblestones around Piazza Venezia and the Coliseum.

In short, a great day, which confirms my opinion that even if I would not like to live in Rome, I'd love to be here more and more often as a visitor and day-tripper.

Tomorrow off to Tivoli.

AG