Anything you fancy? (part of import week)

The long list for The Orange Prize for fiction 2009 has been released today:

http://www.orangeprize.co.uk/show/feature/orange-prize-2009-longlist

I have to confess to not having read any of them; I'm having a manly man reading year and enjoying the pleasures of David Peace and Philip Hensher. I'm not sure I could tell a woman's writing from a man's in a blind practical criticism taste test, but when I know it's a male or female author, I think I'm expecting something different from each one.

In an interesting bout of literary sycnronicity, The Man Booker International Prize also released its long list today. Unlike the standard Booker this prize is awarded for continual success in the field of fiction, rather than one novel in particular. Unexpectedly the Booker heavyweight that is Peter Carey features, but, more oddly, James Kelman gets a nomination. Kelman unexpectedly won the prize in 1994 with How Late it Was, How Late; Julia Neuberger allegedly stormed off the panel when the book was chosen as the winner. Her brief but pithy assesment was: "Frankly, it's crap."

I've actually read this book and I enjoyed it for its experiemntation in form (stream of consciousness) and particularly for its use of Scots in a literary context. I didn't expect anyone else to like it, which begs the question why was he nominated? This year's Costa winner Sebastian Barry's the Secret Scripture was announced with what could only be described as embarassment, chair of the panel Matthew Parris admitted no one liked the ending and described it as' flawed'. Rather odd, for a winner. Perhaps I should pen a deeply flawed, confused novel with an unsatisfactory coinclusion and wait for the shiny medals to roll in. If they don't have chocolate centres, I'll send them back.

Thinks: I always associate Booker with cash and carry, can't seem to shake it.

Public lending right: Richard and Judy skew results? (part of import week)

I was very happy to see that Janet and Allan Ahlberg are still in the top ten borrowed books from public libraries in the UK. For those of you not in the know, the Public Lending Right provides a small payment to authors each time their book is borrowed, 6p per loan up to a maximum of around £6.5K I think.

The lending stats for last year saw the top three positions going to the same authors as last year: James Patterson, Jaqueline Wilson and Daisy Meadows; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was the most borrowed individual item. I always find it heartening to see so many childrens authors in the top 10, I think it counters the usual news stories of obese children whose fingers are too fat to play their PS3s.

Here are the charts in full:

http://www.plr.uk.com/mediaCentre/mostBorrowedAuthors/mostBorrowedAuthors.htm

The Indy has an interesting article on the value of cooperative writing/ fiction factory farming:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/the-author-of-choice-for-britains-library-borrowers-779792.html

The article of the day for me has to be about Richard and Judy's Book Club recommendations. It seems the good folk of the South are lapping up their chioces, whereas the Northerners content themselves with hot romance and gripping crime yarns. Any article in which Stuart Maconie describes the nation's favourite/ most loathed sofa-sitting couple as "the greatest arbiters of literary taste since F. R. Leavis", is certainly worth a read.

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article5671940.ece

I used to have Latin seminars in the old kitchens of the original English Faculty building in Cambridge. There used to be a rumour that every creak, rumble, and bump was the ghost of F. R. Leavis turning in his grave about how underappreciated he had been, and, no doubt, how critically unaware the current batch of undergraduates were. If he reads the Times then I expect the English Faculty will be a-creakin' and a-groanin' all morning with the power of this unfortunate uneven juxtaposition. Who needs Richard and Judy when you could have Frank and Queenie, now there's daytime TV I would pay to see.