A book lover suffers

Just a quick report from the London Book Fair today. I go every year and every year I feel more alienated, more sad at the hellish vision of the book industry. I absolutely love books, they're my oxygen, but I don't love the spectacle of the book business, the countless recycled ideas, the sheer excess of books being churned out in the hope of keeping too many businesses afloat. Having said all that (which I haven't thought about carefully enough, I suspect -- just splurging after a long tiring day), the freedom to publish another six thousand cookbooks is the same freedom that we (happily) extend to pretty much anyone who wants to write a book in this country, so I wouldn't have it any other way, however dispiriting it may be to see the massed ranks of erotica and poorly illustrated children's books on the stands at Earls Court.

It was hard to take photos as people are mostly in meetings on their stands and it's business as usual. However, there are side events which are more public. Above is the extraordinary sight of the actress Fenella Fielding, who is 86 and in some strange state of preservation which makes her resemble one of those very expensive Japanese surrogate humans made of silicon. I assure you she smiled and spoke, in spite of appearances to the contrary. She was giving an inaudible talk about correct pronunciation of English. Surreal.

Turkey was the 'special guest' at the Fair this year and there were lots of Turkish publishers with stands. Above is the Turkish author Elif Shafak who was very beautiful.

Some books, like this one, were unbelievably expensive. Some not so pricey. I picked up the catalogue of Shire Books who publish the marvellous short guides to thousands of lovely old things, from Airfix kits to Wrought Iron, all priced between £4.99 and £6.99. I would like to own almost every single one of them -- their lovely illustrations and businesslike texts usually match the depth of my interest in, say, village shops or shell grottoes perfectly. I can't believe how many volumes they've racked up now -- and all with great covers. I covet them. I was particularly taken with this one, below.

And now to sleep.

A Day at the Fair

I've had a day out at the London Book Fair today. If only the fair consisted of piles and piles of lovely vintage books, as in the picture above. Alas it does not. It is ultra-slick with massive stands put up by the big publishers that are just like big offices, full of execs beavering away trying to do deals. You can't wander onto them to look at the books or anything. There is a constant hubbub of voices which is at exactly the right pitch to activate my (very) partial deafness (ie too much time listening to John Peel on giant headphones as a teenager) so I spent the whole day feeling slightly out of it.
     It takes place at Earls Court and this is what it looks like:

There are many stern young women guarding the entrances to the stands and lots of middle-aged men in serious need of haircuts pulling little wheelie trolleys round. The food costs an arm and a leg and there aren't enough places to sit down. 'Why do you bother going?' I hear you ask. Good question. I did manage to spend most of the day feeling somewhat alienated and had to retire several times to neglected corners to have a read of my book, but I had some meetings in the afternoon with our US distributors and with our sales representatives, all of whom are extremely nice, and after that I felt more human.
     Funnily enough, one of the things you can't do at the fair is buy books, but I did manage to buy one, unexpectedly. I was admiring a gorgeous book on vintage packaging on one of the smaller stands where you can actually look at the wares. I asked the person on the stand whether they had a catalogue, so that I could track the book down later (it was a Spanish publishers). She said, no, but I could buy the book now if I wanted to and she knocked a few quid off the price. So it's mine:

Now that I'm home and looking through my carrier bag of free bookmarks and obscure catalogues, I feel more generous towards the whole event and am glad I work in this industry (you can be in no doubt that it really is an industry after a day at the book fair).