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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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