The Book Depository blog

From the Bookseller:

Alain de Botton, the philosopher and author, is the latest author to launch a counter-offensive against a book reviewer, responding online to a New York Times reviewer with the following words: "I will hate you until the day I die".

The outburst followed a poor review of de Botton's book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, by Caleb Crain in the New York Times on 24th June. Earlier this week author Alice Hoffman apologised after using her Twitter account to call on her fans to hit back at "snarky critics", and posted contact details of a reviewer she had taken issue with.

Speaking to the Telegraph, De Botton said he posted a response that was intended for Crain alone to read. "It was a private communication to his website, to him as a blogger," he said. "It's appalling that it seems that I'm telling the world." However, he said authors had a right to be angry with unfair reviews. "The New York Times is in its declining years. They don't really care, they quite like to cause a storm."

In the review, Crain accused de Botton of indulging in a "kind of mockery" of those he had interviewed; of "losing track" of the book's aim and reaching "superficial" judgments about people.

What the Bookseller article doesn't say is that de Botton has form here. In February, he had a spat with the blogger infinite thought (the full transcripts of the email conversation between them can be read on the excellent IT site).

To be honest, bloggers who indulge in ad hominem attacks on authors deserve to be taken to task but, simultaneously, authors who let bloggers' attacks bother them need to grow a much thicker skin.

Oh, I've got one right at last! On Friday, I suggested that you read Philip Hoare's wonderful Leviathan. Seems I'm not the only one who thinks it's a fab book -- yesterday it won the prestigious Samuel Johnson prize!

This from the Times website:

An author who has been obsessed by whales since childhood was rewarded for his fascination last night when his book about them won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize.

Philip Hoare, who has dedicated the past eight years to watching and writing about whales, won the £20,000 non-fiction prize for his book Leviathan, an exploration of society's relationship with whales.

He was previously known for his biographies of aesthetes such as Noel Coward and Stephen Tennant but began writing about whales after he was convinced by his friend John Waters, the American film director best known for Hairspray.

Well, those of who love Charles Bukowski always knew he was on old romantic!

This from the Guardian:

He was a poet, a novelist and a short story writer described as the "laureate of American lowlife" by Time magazine, but it turns out that Charles Bukowski had another string to his bow: agony uncle.

A typed letter from the author to his old friend and fellow poet Ann Menebroker was sold last week by online retailer Abebooks for $1,500 (£900) and shows Bukowski advising Menebroker to "hold yourself together, the glue may arrive to keep you and Wayne going". (More...)

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Adventure, mystery and heroes have always fascinated and thrilled Pauline Rowson. That and her love of the sea has led her to create a completely new genre of crime fiction -- the marine mystery. Her family of tough South Welsh miners and her fire-fighting husband and his Portsmouth watch, have all been influential in creating brave earthy characters like the ruggedly seductive detective, Inspector Andy Horton whose patch is Portsmouth CID, and who were the inspiration behind Pauline's fast-paced, controversial thriller, In Cold Daylight.

"What are my top ten favourite books? Blimey, where do I start? I have so many favourites, some of which are sadly no longer in print, but many, I am pleased to say, are very much alive and kicking. Here is a tiny fragment of them."

A Clubbable Woman by Reginald Hill

I first discovered Reginald Hill in 1979. My husband bought me this book when I was ill and boy am I grateful for that illness. A Clubbable Woman was Hill's first crime novel to introduce the ill-matched pair of Dalziel and Pascoe. This book is shorter than Hill's later ones but it remains one of my favourites, along with many of his early crime and thriller novels.

Sight Unseen by Robert Goddard

Goddard was recommended to me by a client when I was running my marketing company and now I can't get enough of him -- Goddard that is not the former client. Sight Unseen, like all Goddard novels, is fast-paced, action-packed and full of amazing twists.

Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons

A classic, hilarious, off-the-wall and enduringly entertaining book. This novel was recommended to me by a former boss who was a bit of a maverick himself. The fact that he had never read a book in his life except this one, and sang its praises whenever he could, made me extremely curious to know what was so special about it and why he kept saying, "I saw something nasty in the woodshed."

Green for Danger by Christianna Brand

I am a huge fan of the golden age of crime novels. I discovered this book through watching the film adaptation of it starring the marvellous Alastair Sim who played Inspector Cockrill. The book was first published in 1945 and is set in London's war time blitz. A patient is murdered and the theatre staff are all suspected. Soon the whole hospital seethes with mystery. It's packed with clues, red herrings and marvellous characters and I defy you to guess whodunit and how.

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations

I love quotations and dipping into this wonderful book not only provides a writer with ideas for plots, titles, characters even, but gives hours of amusing and thought-provoking entertainment. It contains memorable quotes from politicians and poets, actors and advertisers, with some great slogans of the past and a section on famous misquotes: "Crisis? What crisis?"

The Yellow Dog by Georges Simenon

I'm back in the golden age of crime for which I make no apology. First published in 1931, this Penguin Red Classic was reissued in 2006 and despite the progress of the years Simenon still weaves his magic, for me at least. His sentences are razor sharp, and his descriptions are so moulded into the narrative that you don't read them you feel them. The Yellow Dog is an eerie murder story set against the atmospheric backdrop of a French harbour.

South Riding by Winifred Holtby

Written in 1936 and posthumously published after her tragic death at the age of thirty-seven from kidney disease this is deemed to be her greatest work. Set in the 1930s, it has a strong cast of characters full of ideals, hopes, ambitions and jealousies. It tells of their tragedies and joys, and highlights the poverty and the social injustices of 1930s England.

Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

Not everyone is grateful to their A level English reading list, but I am for introducing me to this novel so evocative of a lost era. Flora Thompson's autobiographical volumes, Lark Rise, Over to Candleford, and Candleford Green were reissued in this one volume in 1945 two years before she died. It is a thoughtful, precise and endearing record of country life at the end of the nineteenth century. A picture of a fast dissolving England, beautifully told and very moving.

Bright Day by J.B. Priestley

This is one of Priestley's shorter novels. First published in 1946 it's about a disillusioned Hollywood scriptwriter who, while struggling to find inspiration in a Cornish Hotel, meets a former acquaintance there. The encounter takes him back to the days of his youth before the First World War. As with all Priestley novels the characters are larger than life and the narrative engrossing.

A Killing Frost by R.D. Wingfield

And finally, another detective novel. The late R.D. Wingfield is reputed not to have liked the television adaptation of his Frost novels starring David Jason, and although he said he had nothing against Jason playing Frost, he just wasn't his Frost, but I think he was perfick! This is his sixth and last Frost novel and like the others it is coarse, fast-moving, full of black humour and lots of scene changes. Reading Wingfield is like watching an episode of The Bill only much, much better.

Each Monday, here on Editor's Corner, I run through the latest issue of the Bookseller magazine and pick out the bits and pieces of book industry news that catch my eye.

This quick round-up of book stuff is culled from the pages of last Friday's 26th June issue:

• supermarket chain "Sainsbury's is to relaunch its adult book club and introduce a children's book club as part of its increased focus on books"
• Russell Brand's "'My Booky Wook 2: This Time It's Personal'... has been pulled from the autumn schedule. The flamboyant comedian has been unable to write the sequel to his bestselling 2007 memoir... 'because of his work commitments'"
• Random House company "Cornerstone has announced a new internal structure, which has seen Kate Elton, the current publishing director for Arrow, also take on the role of publishing director for Century. Century publishing director Mark Booth has resigned"
• the "exclusive foreign travel book deal brokered between Penguin and W H Smith Travel has been branded a 'retrograde and regrettable step' as the row about the exclusive tie-up continues"
• Edward Hogan "was revealed as the winner of the second £10,000 Desmond Elliott Prize for his debut novel Blackmoor"
• Roy Clare, "the chief executive of the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA), has rejected as 'wounding and untrue' the accusation that the MLA's response to a recent Freedom of Information (FoI) request on its dealings with Swindon libraries was incomplete"
• Phaidon "is to publish a book in which art collector and advertising guru Charles Saatchi answers 'with brutal frankness' some 200 questions put to him by journalists, critics and members of the public"
• The Curzon Group, "founded to revive interest in British thriller writing, has secured a deal with W H Smith Travel to hold what is thought to be the first ever writers' airport tour"
• a "buyer may have been found for the Methvens bookshop in Chertsey"
• and the most exciting news of the week... The Book Depository (yes, us!) "has begun testing a new North American website"