Culture

Holker Hall is situated in a beautiful Cumbrian landscape within sight of Morecambe Bay, and in 1950 it became the second stately home, after Longleat, to be opened to the public. The house itself dates back to the 16th century, with a Victorian west wing replacing one that burned down in 1871. It is, however, the extensive park and gardens surrounding the house that have made it famous. Several generations of the Cavendish family have left their mark on this land, but the present garden is largely the creation of Hugh Cavendish — who was brought up at Holker and inherited it on his father’s death in 1972 — and his wife Grania. Taking on an historic garden involves one fundamental decision: whether to preserve or to evolve.

Gore Vidal was famously waspish or infamously nasty, depending on your point of view. Most outspoken (and successful) writers divide opinion, but Vidal does so more than most. His distinctive prose and the righteous fashion in which he expressed his liberal opinions are not for everyone; one man’s crusading iconoclast is a preachy monomaniac to those of different inclinations. In all the dense weight of recollections and memorials published since Vidal’s death on Tuesday, I have not seen a sharper criticism of his writing and its preoccupations than that made by Spectator reader Walter Taplin in a letter to the magazine in 1982. ‘Sir, On page 13 of the Spectator 23 October there was a cartoon of Mr Gore Vidal holding a cane.

Whatever Mitt might think, if there's one thing that makes us proud to be British, it's the fact we're not American. Alright, it's true we don't have a black president but we still think we're cooler: less brash, more sarcastic and ready to give Tim Berners-Lee a starring role in the Olympic show. The differences are particularly obvious when it comes to the holy trinity of American life: guns, god and portion sizes. And Ben Fountain's debut novel - at the age of 48, he's a honed late developer after the excellent short story collection Brief Encounters With Che Guevara (2006) - rips into all three over-indulgences.

An easy, sure-fire way of generating a bit of publicity is picking a fight with a provocative public intellectual. Rather than criticising Bernard-Henri Lévy's blow-dry, or kicking David Starkey in either of his legs, Pankaj Mishra memorably attacked Niall Ferguson in his review of Civilisation in the LRB last November. So the threat of a lawsuit from Ferguson now means we all vaguely know who Mishra is. (And that he's married to David Cameron's cousin.) His latest book From the Ruins of Empire - part biography of three prominent Eastern thinkers and part historical analysis - tackles the difficult relationship between East and West taking the Japanese destruction of the Russian warship in the battle of Tsushima in 1905 as its starting point.

Don Paterson was born in 1963 in Dundee. He moved to London in 1984 to work as a jazz musician, and eventually began to write poetry. In 1993, Faber published his debut collection, Nil Nil, which won the Forward prize. In total, he’s published seven collections and three books of aphorisms. Paterson has won the prestigious T.S. Eliot prize for poetry twice. Other awards include: the Whitbread prize, and The Geoffrey Faber memorial prize. He received an OBE in 2008, and teaches poetry at the University of St Andrews.

Is there any chance that you might, at any point in the next three weeks, be talking to anyone? About anything, in any setting, for any length of time? Then you’d better get a copy of The British Olympics by Martin Polley. Because it won’t matter what the primary purpose of your conversation is supposed to be — you will, in addition, be obliged to talk Olympics. Just a given, I’m afraid. Accepting that, you may as well have something interesting to say. And Polley’s book narrates a very interesting story: the one of how Britain invented the modern Games.

Here is the Booker longlist, announced earlier this afternoon: The Yips by Nicola Barker (Fourth Estate) The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman (Sceptre) Philida by André Brink (Harvill Secker) The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon Books) Skios by Michael Frayn (Faber & Faber) The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce (Doubleday) Swimming Home by Deborah Levy (And Other Stories) Bring up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate) The Lighthouse by Alison Moore (Salt) Umbrella by Will Self (Bloomsbury) Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil (Faber & Faber) Communion Town by Sam Thompson (Fourth Estate) As expected, the judges are clearly determined to avoid last year's 'dumbing-down' controversy.

Authors are getting cross. Generally a polite bunch, authors are alarmed at the ongoing, serious threats to libraries (which they continue to campaign against) and also the knock-on effect for the lowest-earning authors. The Government is encouraging libraries to replace paid staff with volunteers. Such “community libraries” currently account for less than 1 per cent of British libraries but their numbers are increasing. The concept chimes with the Big Society philosophy and the need to make the most of shrinking budgets. However, there has been little advice or oversight from DCMS as councils rush to increase the use of volunteers.

London doesn’t really have a literary hipster scene, but if it did, Ned Beauman would be centre stage. The 27-year-old novelist may look like he’s crawled out of an evolution of man diagram, but he’s very clever and very trendy and, despite having gone to Cambridge, knows a lot about ketamine. His show-offy but energetic first book, Boxer Beetle, came out in 2010 to deafening acclaim and earnt him a six-figure publishing deal, unheard of in these austere times unless you’re a dog who’s won a talent contest. After spending a couple of years hanging out with cool, arty people in Brooklyn and Berlin, Beauman is back in town to promote his new book, The Teleportation Accident.

This week, Jamie Reed, the Labour MP for Copeland and Cumbria and shadow health minister, is in the hot seat. He is big on books about American politics, and reads poetry occasionally. 1) Which books are at your bedside table at the moment? Most books now on my iPad... but Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 is always present on the bedside table. Have just begun – finally – Team of Rivals. 2) Which book would you read to your children? They have different tastes. The Fantastic Mr Fox is always loved, along with The Hobbit. 3) Which literary character would you most like to be? Nick Clegg... or Nick Carraway. 4) Which book do you think best sums up 'now'?

I’m off for my annual digital detox: no ConservativeHome, no PoliticsHome, just my wife’s family home in Stockholm and swapping my Blackberry for a primitive mobile with a battery that lasts a week. But before I sign off completely, I’d like to abuse my position to ask CoffeeHousers for book recommendations. I’ve done this for three years now, and each year the results pretty much give me a reading list for the next 12 months. I’ve only now finished the last of summer 2010’s suggestions (Exodus, by Leon Uris.) I’m midway through Max Hastings brilliant All Hell Let Loose, which I’m interspersing with the restored World at War on DVD (a Pete Hoskin recommendation). They go brilliantly together.