Culture

Mark Mason has written this week's Bookend column in the magazine. Here it is for readers of this blog: London has been the subject of more anthologies than Samuel Pepys had hot chambermaids. This is fitting, as an anthology’s appeal — unexpected juxtaposition — matches that of the capital itself. But it does mean that any new contender has to work hard to justify its publication. Irreverence is one possible route, and here the Blue Guide Literary Companion: London scores well, with Trollope spilling ink over a pompous colonel, and Keats struggling not to snigger as Wordsworth is buttonholed by a tedious fan.

David Philipps’ Lethal Warriors opens with the true story of the discovery of a dead body by the roadside in suburban, white-picket-fenced America. One naturally thinks, given the subject matter, that this dead man is a traumatised soldier who has taken his own life. It is not – it is the body of a traumatised soldier shot dead by three his comrades on home soil, just one victim of the spree of beatings, assaults and six killings committed by the veterans of the 506th Infantry Regiment – the “Band of Brothers” – on their return to Colorado from Iraq in 2006.

The bell seems to be tolling for the high street bookshop. The HMV Group, which owns Waterstone’s, has issued its third straight profit warning. Waterstone’s is supposedly on target for this financial year, but 11 of its branches were forced to close across the UK and Ireland in February alone and the company has conceded that it can’t compete in the mass market. Therefore, managing director Dominic Myers has decided on a strategy that challenges readers to escape the ‘stifling homogeneity’ of Dan Brown and Katie Price. The latest campaign will push 11 exciting first time novels on a public that largely ignores new novelists. Admirable though this plan may be, it is accompanied by the whiff of panic.

Kazuo Ishiguro has written screenplays, but baulks at adapting his own novels. Faber and Faber are publishing Alex Garland’s script for the film, Never Let Me Go, which went on general release last week. Ishiguro has written the introduction to the edition of his friend’s script. It is a quietly evocative meditation on friendship, creativity and collaboration. Here it is for readers of this blog: Perhaps you’ve heard that the cafés of North-West London, especially in its leafier districts, are filled with writers in earnest discussion about their work. This of course is largely myth.

The Telegraph has an exclusive extract from Henning Mankel's latest book, the last to feature Kurt Wallander. 'When Wallander arrived at Ystad police station, there was a message waiting for him at the front desk, from Martinsson. Wallander swore under his breath. He was hung-over and felt awful. If Martinsson wanted to speak to him the moment he arrived, it could mean only that something had happened that required Wallander’s immediate presence. If only it could have waited for a couple of days, he thought. Or at least a few hours. Right now all he wanted to do was to close the door to his office, unplug his phone and try to get some sleep with his feet on his desk.

At more than 700 pages including appendices, Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey’s 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs (Faber & Faber, £17.99) certainly can’t be accused of skimping on the details. Adherence to the pun of the title has resulted in a thorough if necessarily left-wing history of political dissent since the Thirties, but don’t expect much emphasis on the music. There’s a reason polemical songs are the ones you admire for their commitment rather than sing in the shower. But it’s precisely because there’s more protest here than song that the book does such a good job of exposing the poseurs.

Andrew Petrie has written the Bookend column in this week's magazine. Here it is for readers of this blog. At more than 700 pages including appendices, Guardian writer Dorian Lynskey’s 33 Revolutions Per Minute: A History of Protest Songs certainly can’t be accused of skimping on the details. Adherence to the pun of the title has resulted in a thorough if necessarily left-wing history of political dissent since the Thirties, but don’t expect much emphasis on the music. There’s a reason polemical songs are the ones you admire for their commitment rather than sing in the shower. But it’s precisely because there’s more protest here than song that the book does such a good job of exposing the poseurs.

That, anyway, seems to be one of the things to come out of Terry Eagleton's new book, Why Marx Was Right. It's not published until May but Tyler Cowen reports that it contains these winning arguments: But the so-called socialist system had its achievements, too.  China and the Soviet Union dragged their citizens out of economic backwardness into the modern industrial world, at however horrific a human cost; and the cost was so steep partly because of the hostility of the capitalist West. [...] Building up an economy from very low levels is a backbreaking, dispiriting task.  It is unlikely that men and women will freely submit to the hardships it involves. [...

Susan Hill once wrote that ‘a prize is a prize and when it is a lucrative and highly publicised prize, it matters a lot in the book world. Not many affect sales directly and hugely but one which now does is the Orange Prize for women writers.’ This year’s Orange Prize longlist has been released. There are some familiar faces on it. The Booker nominated Room, by Emma Donoghue, is on the list. Natalie Fast reviewed this strange and discombobulating story for the book blog in the autumn and the Bookseller reckons it stands a shot at glory. Previous Orange Prize winner, and regular contributor to the Spectator, Joanna Kavenna has been nominated for The Birth of Love, a many stranded but clear narrative through different times and places.

Foreign fiction gets a raw deal. It's usually quarantined away in the dustier enclaves of the bookshop, along with all the other worthy but immovable fare: short story collections, regional poetry and non A-level drama.   Perhaps buyers and sellers think that ‘non-UK stuff’ has been dealt with by that merrily inclusive idea of ‘world literature’ – the prose often still in English, but with a refreshingly exotic spice (see Salman Rushdie). But the size of the knowledge gap, mine included, is frightening. The Independent recently announced the long-list for their Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011. Scanning down the chosen fifteen, the alien names brought a blush to my cheek: Jenny Erpenbeck, Marcelo Figueras, Per Wästberg, Juli Zeh etc.

Strand magazine is to publish a recently discovered short story by Dashiell Hammett, 'So I Shot Him'. ‘He gave us both Sam Spade and Nick and Nora Charles — so for a generation of readers, Dashiell Hammett more or less defined both "hard-boiled" and "suave." Not bad, that. Now, from the long-deceased author of The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, comes a never-before-published short story: "So I Shot Him." It's suspenseful, full of secrets no one's telling, and — according to Andrew Gulli, editor of the mystery magazine that's publishing the story — somewhat more than what you might think of as vintage Hammett. "Vintage in that you have the great vivid characterization that Dashiell Hammett is so famous for," Gulli tells NPR's Robert Siegel.