A Typo Can Make You Cry for Joy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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