David Blackburn

I’ve come late to this, but the trailer for Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of The Great Gatsby is striking. It is everything that you would expect of Luhrmann: sensational, self-conscious and hysterically camp. I doubt that anyone expected a literal interpretation from Luhrmann, but few can have anticipated this total re-imagining of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s beloved classic. The modern score, the cavernous nightclubs, the idiomatic speech — it’s more Gossip Girl than Gershwin. Doubtless, there will be those who decry Luhrmann’s audacity.

A publishing bonanza has erupted. Every living literary luminary one can think of has a novel coming out soon in either hardback or paperback: Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Jeffrey Eugenides to name just three of the heavy-weight men. Of the giants of popular non-fiction, Anthony Beevor is back for another series with his one volume history of the second world war (a competitor for Max Hastings’s revered All Hell Let Loose: The World at War 1939-1945, which is available in paperback as well as on digital platforms.) In the video above, Beevor explains why you should read his book.

The Orwell Prize was awarded this week, which gives cause to consider Orwell himself. Biographer D.J. Taylor tries to delineate the myths that have arisen around Orwell in the film above, but can provide only an impression. Lack of evidence is, of course, a major problem. Orwell’s archive, though extensive, seems incomplete, and no recording of him survives, not even of his voice. He remains a tantalising figure. The body of Orwell’s writing proves similarly problematic. It is far from consistent philosophically or stylistically, and veers with equal brilliance between prophesy and paranoia. This is not altogether surprising. Much of Orwell’s work was reportage or a fictionalised account of the world around him, of which he was trying to make sense.

Well, that was a turn up for the books. The expectation was that Waterstones would join forces with Barnes and Noble to compete in the digital market; it was almost a certainty. But, those predictions were dashed yesterday when Waterstones announced that it is going to get into bed with the digital devil itself: Amazon. The two companies have agreed a deal that will allow Waterstones to sell Amazon Kindle e-readers in its stores for the first time, while also offering free Wi-Fi in store as part of an extensive store upgrade funded by the company’s new owner, the Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut. Precise details of the deal have not yet been released, which has prompted speculation across the trade press.

Sun Tzu is responsible for the age-old cliché about knowing your enemy. I wonder, then, what he might have made of Poetry of the Taliban, edited by Alex Strick Van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn. This is a new collection of verses translated from Pashtun and Urdu. The poems originally appeared on Mujahedeen websites, in newsheets or on scraps of paper. You might expect the poems to be reactionary or propagandistic — and, for sure, there is blood and thunder. But reviewers also talk of empathy, aesthetic sensibility and the familiar worries of young men in love. Michael Semple, the EU’s former representative in Afghanistan, said: ‘This is an essential work.

‘I did not know about sympathy or sadness. They educated us from birth so that we were not capable of normal human emotions. Now that I am out, I am learning to be emotional. I feel like I am becoming human.’ You may have heard of Shin Dong-hyuk, the man who feels he is becoming human. He is the only person born in a North Korean concentration camp to have escaped to the West. He was 23 when he fled. Ten years before, he betrayed his mother and older brother’s escape plans to a camp guard in the hope of winning favour. He was pleased when they were executed, pleased that a threat to his safety had been eliminated. North Korea breeds children like Shin.

What’s happened? Carlos Fuentes died on Tuesday night. Who was he? He was a revered Mexican novelist, a crucial part of the literary movement in Latin America that came to be known as ‘El Boom’. What was ‘El Boom’? It was an artistic movement that emerged in the ‘60s. The writers were mavericks who defied the conventions of Latin American literature. They emphasised the modernist traits found in earlier European and American literature, and many of them experimented with form: they were exponents of magical realism, stream of consciousness and dialogue through question and answer. What about substance?

The Observer’s William Skidelsky has taken it upon himself to list ‘The 10 best historical novels’. The usual suspects are present: War and Peace, The Leopard, I Claudius and The Blue Flower. There are a couple of surprising inclusions, too: Eliot’s Romola, for instance. And, of course, there are some glaring omissions — of which, more later. Above all, though, Skidelsky’s subjective list suggests that historical writing is fashionable. He picks Wolf Hall at number 2 — a demanding book that may prove too demanding for future readers. And he also says a word for Andrew Miller’s Costa prize winning Pure — a slight book that may prove not demanding enough for future readers. And so to the omissions.

It is upon us: the dreaded London Olympics. I’m not against the sport, not really. But the wall to wall advertising, the endorsements and the cultural tie-ins leave me totally cold. London is soon to be awash with Olympics-inspired arts exhibitions designed to snare the thousands of IOC plutocrats who will be attending the Games and overwhelming the transport system. I’ve been to the press launches of most of these exhibitions and can report that they are to be avoided at all costs. I won’t go into details because I’ll just get bilious, but suffice to say that these shows combine the trivial with the artificial to contrive something wholly forgettable. They are also achingly correct.

Maurice Sendak, the writer and illustrator of such dark children’s classics as Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen, died on Tuesday. Sendak, though hugely popular, always alienated a section of the American public because his books did not conform to their view of childhood. His stories were fantastical, but he insisted that he never lied to children – his grotesque scenes were infused, he said, with reality and fundamental truth. In the video above, he explains that his books were inspired by the memory of what his childhood was like – a mess of vague signals and misunderstandings, a world where poverty created dreams of sensual excess and otherness.

It’s a dangerous business: rereading books you loved first time round. I found myself with some time on my hands last week and so returned to The Hare With Amber Eyes, Edmund de Waal’s award winning family history, told through an elaborate collection of netsuke, which he inherited from his great uncle. The book was published to fevered critical acclaim. There is evidence of this on the copy I bought last week. The inside and back covers are crammed with luminaries gushing superlatives. It is masterpiece, everyone said. I agreed with them then, but, having taken a more leisurely second read, I’m not so sure. De Waal’s book is certainly original. It is certainly captivating in parts.

Three clichés walk onto a stage and start telling bad jokes. Welcome to Love, Love, Love, the newish play by Mike Bartlett, playing at the Royal Court until 3rd June. It is 1967, on the night of the first global TV show, when the Beatles sang All You Need is Love. Still reading? Here are the characters. Henry is Jimmy Porter, but 10 years out of date. His younger brother Kenneth, a self-absorbed Oxonian, has pitched camp on his sofa for the summer. Henry is planning a date with Sandra, a tarty waif, also down from Oxford. While Henry’s out buying fish and chips, Sonia and Kenny get stoned, cop-off and vow to embark on a life of adventure. Fresh, they say. But the facts of life are little more conservative. It is 1990.

Hilary Mantel dominates the bank holiday books pages. Bring Up The Bodies, the sequel to the Booker winning Wolf Hall, will be published this Thursday, and the acclaim has already begun. Mantel has been interviewed for the Telegraph by the renowned Tudor historian Thomas Penn. They talked of history and fiction, very carefully and very slowly: Penn says that Mantel speaks in ‘perfect paragraphs’. The Telegraph also carries an extract from Bring Up The Bodies. It has the searing pace and all the subtleties that characterised Wolf Hall. Cromwell travels to see Katherine of Aragon, and the two speak of the king’s latest woman problem, in this case Anne Boleyn’s childlessness.

You know the script by now: the world’s economy is being built by the BRICs. It has been the standard analysis for more than a decade, but flailing western countries have come to place evermore trust in the enterprise of Brazil, Russia, India and China. But have expectations become excessive? Ruchir Sharma, author of a new book called Breakout Nations, believes so. He argues that the last decade was exceptional and that we need to recalibrate our approach to emerging markets. He identifies a number of nations which are ripe to breakout in the next few years, including Indonesia and Nigeria. His economic case is compelling, but its political underpinnings are shaky at times.

A major business deal took place in the United States yesterday that could revolutionise the books market. Microsoft has invested $300 million (£185m) in Barnes and Noble’s Nook eBook reader. The two companies have created a subsidiary, named Newco for the time being. Microsoft controls 17.6 per cent of the equity. The standard analysis is that this is a win for Barnes and Noble in its battle against the Amazon Kindle, which is scarcely surprising given that Amazon holds perhaps 60 per cent of the digital market. The key for B&N is a prominent place in Microsoft’s next version of Windows, which is due to be released in the autumn. The deal has boosted Barnes and Noble’s value by 76 per cent, up to $1.

Don’t be fooled by the incessant rain and your resurgent rheumatism, the summer literary festival season is upon us. The line-up at the Hay Festival is old news; the hotels of Edinburgh are preparing; and anticipation fills tea rooms from Warwick to St. Ives. The festival market is flooded, but there is one new festival to which I will draw your attention. It is in London, so you may be able to go to it at the drop of a hat. The team responsible for Way With Words (the very highly regarded show in Devon) are taking over the canopy of Opera Holland Park from 18th to 20th May. It will be more relaxed than the flesh-pits of Cheltenham, Oxford and Aldeburgh, offering only a few choice speakers per day. Festival regulars such as P.D.