David Blackburn

There was no catch because no one wanted out. The late Joseph Heller has been in the news today. The auction of letters he wrote to an American academic in the ‘70s has revealed that he “enjoyed” the war, which may come as a surprise to those who thought Yossarian, the US Army Air Force bombardier who served in Italy, was a proxy for Heller, the US Army Air Force bombardier who served in Italy. This story raises an old contention: that characters can be engendered simply in a writer’s mind's eye and are not necessarily derived from either the quick or the dead. This was a major bugbear of Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell, who both contested the facile belief that every character has one ultimate source in reality.

Who’s it to be? Becky Bloomwood, Sophie Kinsella’s blabbering shopaholic? Or Old Big ‘Ead in David Peace’s The Damned Utd? The list of 25 titles that are to be given away on World Book Night (23rd April 2012) was unveiled in Waterstone’s Piccadilly shop last night. They are 25 varied books, with a mixture of established classics and cult non-fiction. There are victims and villans, sages and fools, and lovers and mothers. Meanwhile, Colin Firth and Laurence Olivier are jostling to be Leading Man, as Jane Austen's Mr Darcy goes head-to-head with Daphne du Maurier's Maxim de Winter.

It was a quiet weekend on the literary front. The Sundays bristled with reviews, most of them about Murakami’s 1Q84. The voluminous novel has already acquired the sobriquet ‘epic masterpiece’ and breathless weekend reviewers have conferred more epithets on it: read Anthony Cummins in the Telegraph, although he sounds a note of caution, urging the reader not to “think too hard” about “this mammoth shaggy dog story”. Cummins also says that this is perhaps a publishing event masquerading as a literary event, which qualifies his enthusiasm a little more.

Here is A.D. Miller, whose book Snowdrops was shortlisted for this year's Booker prize, talking about the art of writing fiction. Snowdrops, if you haven't read it, is very definitely worth reading and not just because it's "readable". Charlotte Hobson wrote in her Spectator review that Miller's book was "a heady noseful of Moscow, an intoxicating perfume that will whirl you off your feet and set your moral compass spinning."  On a related point, it's notable that the book has one of the most arresting covers I can remember. It suggests a foreign and perhaps superficially beguiling atmosphere and place; themes with which the book is deeply concerned. The snazzy website for the book also draws on the alluring cover.

The news from Libya is bound to spark a flood of literature about Gaddafi, Libya and the Arab Spring in general. Here is a selection of published books and forthcoming releases on the subject: Gaddafi’s most famous work is The Green Book, which details his political philosophy. Its subjects range from breastfeeding to racial supremacy, and it has been variously described as “insane” and “surreal gibberish”. It may appear to be a psychotic symphony, but, as Andrew Roberts has noted in the Daily Beast, irrationality was Gaddafi’s leitmotif and it became an agency of his power. Christopher Hitchens touches on this theme when discussing the unstable nature of tyranny in his autobiography Hitch-22.

Fleet Street's reaction to Julian Barnes' Booker win appears to be one of relief and no small amount of applause: The Times' literary editor Erica Wagner and the Guardian's Mark Brown both sound an enormous "phew" in their columns this morning. The dissent about the Booker Prize in general and "readability" seem to have subsided for the moment as Barnes soaks up the praise, which you can see in the video clip above. Mischievously, he said that The Sense of an Ending is the best book he's written in the last five years. He even declared it to be "readable". Barnes deserves to have won just for that irresistible cheek.

It wasn't a turn up for the books in the end: Julian Barnes, the odds-on favourite, has won this year’s Booker prize for his novel, The Sense of an Ending. The award has been marred by controversy this time round, with a rival prize now expected to be established, one that recognises outstanding literary achievement. The Booker's self-defence has been supremely confident: Ion Trewin derided his critics as “lovies” and told them to quit bleating until judgment was passed, sure that the result would quell dissent. Apparently, it won't be enough to call off the dogs because Barnes, in that great Booker fashion, is an overdue winner.

Andrew Motion has joined the chorus of disapproval against this year’s Booker shortlist, saying that it has created a “false divide” between highbrow literature and accessible books. He went on to describe the split as a “pernicious and dangerous thing”, adding that it was “extraordinary” that authors like Graham Swift, Alan Hollingshurst, Edward St. Aubyn and Philip Hensher had not been shortlisted.    Stern stuff from the former Poet Laureate, who was chief Booker judge last year. His words will further inspire those who think that a new prize should be created, one that recognises an “uncompromising standard of excellence”.

Calm reigned outside Kensal Rise Library this afternoon, following the dramas of the morning. Contractors arrived at 6am to board up the building after a court decided that Labour controlled Brent Council could close six libraries as part of its austerity drive. They discovered two people standing guard at the front door, who immediately stood-to and barred the way. The same scene was repeated at 8am, when a posse of locals descended to defy council workers. They were bolstered by a phalanx of 140 or so primary school children from the nearby Princess Frederica CofE school, dragooned into action by their parents. The burly contractors slunk off with their chip-board and haven’t been seen since. The mood was quietly upbeat when I arrived just after midday.

The prognosis is grave for the Booker Prize, say more than a few literary commentators in response to the news that a cabal of publishers, authors and agents plan to establish a “well-funded prize” that would have a “different set of priorities” to the Booker. For different "set of priorities", read “high-brow”; the prize may also be open to American authors. Spokesman for the nascent Literature Prize, Andrew Kidd, told the Bookseller that the prize would: ‘establish a clear and uncompromising standard of excellence...For many years this brief was fulfilled by the Booker (latterly the Man Booker) Prize.

Over at Guardian Books, Irish playwright Belinda McKeon has picked her top 10 farming novels. Here’s her list: 1. Stoner by John Williams 2. Tarry Flynn by Patrick Kavanagh 3. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather 4. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans 5. That They May Face The Rising Sun by John McGahern 6. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff 7. Foster by Claire Keegan 8. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons 9. God's Own Country by Ross Raisin 10.

It is National Poetry Day, so, dear readers, let’s have a frivolous competition. There’s a bottle of Pol Roger for the person who composes the best poem on the theme of this year’s NPD: “games”. As this is a blog and things ought to be snappy, entries should be in the form of limericks, sonnets and so forth – an epic on the misadventures of Mike Tindall will, reluctantly, be disqualified on grounds of length. Please leave your contributions in the comments section below. The competition will close on Sunday 9th October at 23.59. Good luck. If you're looking for inspiration, what better place to start than John Betjeman's Seaside Golf.