Afternoon:
10°c
The booksellers are still looking forward to Christmas, if nobody else is. No fewer than 800 new titles were published yesterday, including most of the publishers' best shots at the all-important present market.
There's Jamie, there's Nigella. There's Dawn French and Parky. There are a bunch of sports memoirs. The booksellers, looking determinedly on the bright side, decided to call this log-jam “Super Thursday”, like some kind of “Black Wednesday” come good.
What's common to all these titles, hoping to catch the buyers who only head to the bookshops once a year, is obvious: television connections. So far from proving the vigour of publishing, they demonstrate its subjection and impoverishment. The book trade is now television's slave. It's like the remora that attaches itself to a shark hoping to pick up a few stray scraps from the kill.
I hate to say this, since I derive most of my own living from playing a tangential role within the books business, but I am constantly astonished by how much attention is still paid to books, when the sales figures are so tiny, for most of the year. A hardback book will get into the Top 10 bestseller list by selling just a few thousand copies in a week.
Given the price of theatre, sports, even cinema, tickets, it's not because they're expensive. They really are the interest of a tiny minority — except when they manage to hook up with a much bigger beast.
When television actually deigns to nurture the books market, as has happened with the Richard & Judy Bookclub, the results are phenomenal by book trade standards.
Everyone acts delighted — somehow managing to ignore the fact that it's just more conclusive proof of who's boss.
Of course, there are some bestselling books that don't depend on television — as well as some remarkable one-offs, like Harry Potter, that drive all other media. But they are few and they mostly seem now to come out of another era entirely.
On Wednesday, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, it was moving to see John le Carré who, at 76, has just published a very interesting new novel, A Most Wanted Man, talk about his whole career, saying: “I've had a wonderful time with a very faithful readership — writing has been very good to me and I'd like to leave on a decent note.”
He seemed anxious not, because of his age, to produce work below his best, as happened at the end of Graham Greene's life.
He should take comfort from the example of PD James who has just brought out an enjoyable new Dalgliesh novel, The Private Patient, at the age of 88. Both their books are selling strongly — not because they are TV faces but because they have had long literary careers, earning the love and loyalty of their readers, quite independently of any other medium.
That deserves more celebration than the Gadarene rush of the publishers on “Super Thursday”.
