Fleur Macdonald

The Guardian currently seems to be embarking on more crusades to save literature than Salman Rushdie's Twitter account. Last week's post by blogger Sam Jordison was no exception. He asked whether book reviews are "bland, boring and formulaic". Fresh from judging Not the Booker (a Guardian online award designed to champion independent publishers and celebrate the vox blogerati), he should really have had something interesting to say. Instead Jordison committed many of the sins which crop up in book reviews. He offered a couple of cute observations, hesitated a few suggestions, registered bemusement and skilfully evaded reaching any kind of conclusion with a hexacolonic crescendo of rhetorical questions (as painful as it sounds).

Stephen Vizinczey, whose 1960 classic In Praise of Older Women was re-released last year as a Penguin Classic, is next in the hotseat. 1) What are you reading at the moment?  Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam   2) As a child, what did you read under the covers? I was lucky that I never had to read under the cover. From the age of 5 my mother was glad to see me reading. She didn’t care what I read, as long as it was a book.   3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one?  The Diary of A Madman   4) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose?  The complete works of Shakespeare, Attila József and Auden.

The English have never been ones for lounging around in black polo necks, chain-smoking and discussing the Marxist implications of a full stop. Intellectualism is a habit we leave to others. Compared to friends across the Atlantic or over the Channel, the rare beast we call the English literary intellectual has been starved. Until recently, their means of sustenance has been limited to a few publications. The London Review of Books is an oasis in the intellectual desert of the British Isles, even the cakes in the café are “independent-market, surprising and energetic”. Recent issues included a spat between Establishment figures Pankaj Mishra and Niall Ferguson and a poem by the late WG Sebald.

Next off the shelf is actor Tom Hollander. He tells us what children ought to read at school, which party from literature he'd most like to attend, and that his dream is to play Victor Hugo's most tragic hero. The first episode of the new series of 'Rev.', in which he stars, airs tonight at 9pm on BBC2. 1) What are you reading at the moment? London Fields, by Martin Amis   2) As a child, what did you read under the covers? The James Bond books   3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one? One Day (I know, I know)   4) You are about to be put into solitary confinement for a year and allowed to take three books. What would you choose?

Jane Asher is second in the hot seat. She tells us how to get children reading; who she would have a literary fling with and what exactly would make her end a friendship. 1) What are you reading at the moment? Inspired by seeing her interviewed recently, I’m catching up with Diana Athill’s collected memoirs: I’ve got to half way through ‘Instead of a Letter’. She writes so beautifully and frankly that she makes the most mundane events completely fascinating. 2) As a child, what did you read under the covers? Sherlock Holmes; Frances Hodgson Burnett (particularly A Little Princess) and the Dimsie books by Dorita Fairlie Bruce 3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one?

'I have to apologise to Jane Austen for involving her beloved Elizabeth in a murder investigation but this fusion of my two enthusiasms - for the novels of Jane Austen and for writing detective stories - has given me great pleasure which I hope will be shared by my readers.' When you’re over 90 and have received seven honorary degrees from various universities without ever having gone to university in the first place, you can do pretty much whatever you like. And if it’s prolonging the life of one of English literature’s best loved heroines, so much the better. (Especially if you’re Faber & Faber.

The charming novelist Michael Arditti kindly offered to answer a few questions for Shelf Life, the new feature where we ask literary people impertinent questions about their reading habits. He also posed for a photo in a rather debonair fashion on his sedan chair with his bookshelf in the background. He mentioned that he does — and always has done — most of his work in bed. That explains answer number six then. 1) What are you reading at the moment? Jeanette Winterson’s memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? 2) As a child, what did you read under the covers? Oliver Twist  3) Has a book ever made you cry, and if so which one? Too many to list, but Joseph Roth’s Job springs to mind.

Alice Hoffman's The Dovekeepers marked something of a departure for the hugely successful American novelist, better known for magical realist holiday fodder like Practical Magic or The Story Sisters. Her latest novel plunges us into 70AD, into the midst of Jewish resistance to the Roman siege of Masala, and into the lives of four women who meet in the dovecot used for processing the manure needed for ye-olde fertiliser. When the Romans finally manage to prise the fort open, they find 2,000 defiants dead; the only survivor, from whose account this whole story stems, is Josephus – once a Jewish freedom fighter, now a Roman emissary – and he's hardly a reliable witness.

A certain literary prize announced earlier this week received a lot of flak because the shortlist was deemed too readable. I want to know what books they were reading. The Barnes was as cold as a washed up kipper; the Kelman featured a pigeon as a narrator and most of the praise heaped on deWitt said it would make a good Coen brothers film. I'd rather just wait for the film.  Speaking of which, the film adaptation of We Need to Talk About Kevin is belatedly out today; its original release date delayed after events in Norway. The 2005 Orange Prize winner is perfect example of a page-turner by a mediocre writer which thoroughly deserved said gong. And that's not intended as a back-handed compliment.

It's easy to blame the Americans, but sometimes — as the courts ruled in Perugia last week — they're innocent. The case brought to mind another instance of injustice meted out to our transatlantic cousins, all in the name of that most exacting of mistresses: grammar. Of the many linguistic crimes we've accused them of committing, the most awful is the genocide of the suffix "ise". We tut over spell-check, remark on the aesthetic superiority of that line of beauty — the curve of an "S" — and stand aghast at the cheek of attempting to deface their mother tongue. Replace the elegant slip of an "ise" with a clunky utilitarian "ize"?! But we got it wrong.

This is the second instalment in our Bookbenchers series. What book's on your bedside table at the moment? There are two books on my bedside table. I'm a Gemini so one is never enough. I am simultaneously reading The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre. The Book Thief is the story of a young girl whose parents have been taken to a concentration camp and who is fostered by a family in Nazi Germany. The book is narrated by death, which is both peculiar and gripping. It’s a wonderful insight into humanity in the most extreme of circumstances. What book would you read to your children?

Inspired by Boris's recent oration, I was going to compose an epigram in praise of his prose, a dirty limerick in honour of his hobbies and a white paper for the promise of his politics. That was until I came across the unthinkable: Boris Johnson split the infinitive. He'll probably try and defend himself: the Mayor of London can't proof read every Greater London Press Release - and Greater London isn't even really London - and so it's unfair to hold him directly responsible. But, it happened on his watch. Last week's press release "Mayor tightens grip on disruptive roadworks in London" contained not one but two horribly dismembered infinitives, namely: "to now use" and  "to properly charge".