I was sent this link by the managing director of John Wisden. You have to be a little patient but the denouement is worth the wait. I don't think that the scene is from our Basingstoke customer services department but...
The Richard and Judy book club isn't everybody's cup of tea. I was at a meeting where a distinguished publisher blamed it for the decline of almost everything in the book trade - a mite extreme I thought. Clearly it (and other similar ventures elsewhere in the world) tend to make a very limited number of titles best sellers and this might to some extent draw sales away from other equally worthy books. On the other hand the TV show itself has done more for the profile of books and reading than anything else I can remember (except perhaps the Harry Potter phenomenon).
It's not surprising I feel positive about R&J. Here are some quotes from yesterday's show about Kate Morton's The House at Riverton:
'I really enjoyed it' 'Completely my sort of book' 'It's like Titanic without the boats' 'It keeps you guessing - I couldn't put it down' 'A page-turner' 'An excellent book' 'If you like lying on your sun lounger for hours getting lost in another world, you'll love this book'
And Judy said:
'It's a corker ... probably my favourite of all the Summer Reads'
Thinking about fiction I remembered that Tim Coates wrote this a few days ago in the comments section of this blog. Nobody has responded. I think what that council is proposing is outrageous, illogical, counterproductive and wrong. What do you think?
Hampshire County Council, in England, is proposing that its 54 public libraries should no longer stock works of fiction.
The argument is that "people buy fiction in book shops now - there is no need for libraries to do the same job"
The proposer is Yinnon Ezra, who is head of the library and leisure service and he is supported by his council and his chief librarian, Richard Ward.
Is this an action your readers would endorse?
You can read more about this and other attacks on libraries on Tim's Good Library blog. I don't suppose it will ever happen but wouldn't it be great if R&J launched a campaign to save public libraries from the ravages of inefficient bureaucracy and political correctness.
A book which will definitely not make the R&J club is Thirty Secret Years by my former boss, Robin Denniston. I wrote about it back in May when it was first published. It is great to see that a serious book from a serious but small and independent publisher Polperro Heritage Press has been picked up and reviewed sensibly in the Spectator. All is not lost.
