Is this to be the future of reading?

Not since the advent of the Gutenberg press has there been an event such as this: one which has made typesetters, editors and copywriters across the land gnash through their red pens and has forced booksellers to torch their stock simply to keep warm. Shelving systems can be heard splintering up and down the country, and each bin is overflowing with library cards and bookmarks. The eBook is here to stay, and the humble, dog-eared paperback is no more.

You only have to open a paper – sorry, flip your laptop open – to see it. In the past month alone, HMV has announced Waterstones may be sold after staggeringly low profits, Amazon has reported that its new Kindles are their “fastest selling ever” and the Oxford English Dictionary, that venerable, traditional old Grandfather of the book world, has virtually ruled out the possibility of publishing the next edition in print form. US Borders, whose sales are down 11.5% on last year, is in such turmoil that it has had a hissy fit and is refusing to talk to the press. 75 years on from the first Penguins going on sale, the once indispensable travel companion, bedtime ritual and posing tool for intellectuals everywhere – the paperback – is in dire straits.

In fact some bloggers (and aren’t they the wise ones) are predicting that it may soon become the equivalent of the cassette or Betamax video: obsolete, binned, and seen only in the cardboard bargain box at a jumble sale. Authors who have been shunned or shafted by major publishing houses are indignantly self-publishing online and more and more people are downloading classics for free. Publishers have gone beserk about all of this, releasing statement after statement about how continually relevant their work and talents are and desperately trying to work out how to code apps. Meanwhile, hordes of armchair pundits, bloggers and internet trolls have leapt into the fray, variously displaying anti-corporate zeal, romantic attachment to the smell of paper or Steve Jobs-level geekish obsession with the latest technology.

But why? Why such strife, such obsessive pondering over the future of publishing, such worry and nail-biting? The transition from CD to MP3 was a big one, but didn’t create half as much fervent blogging and arguing: whilst the music industry had histrionics about supposedly falling profits, music buyers and fans themselves carried on as normal: their music sounded more or less the same, cost around the same amount (if they chose to pay for it) and the overall quality, as before, still depended on the artist composing and recording the tune.

There we have one of the main reasons why people are objecting to the eBook and eReader: the quality. The logicians and the practical amongst us argue that it’s content that counts: as long as the overall structure, narrative, tone and style of the text itself is of high quality, it matters not what it’s read on. Most eBooks don’t change the style or structure of already published books: the texts of Dickens, Shakespeare et al are so well known that only an editor of the lowest order would dream to fiddle with much about them. But for books being written now, and books currently which are no more than a sparkle in an author’s eye, this may be far from the case.

Historical novelist Regan Taylor blogged last month: ‘I recently had an editor ask me to cut down my paragraphs into four, maybe five sentences. To find a break point in ones [which] were longer and limit the number of sentences. The reason – they play better on an e-reader. The size of the screens is conducive to shorter paragraphs rather than longer ones. So instead of describing a room in terms of sight, sound and smells, I needed a separate paragraph for each. It made sense in that context but it made for a change in my writing style.’ It certainly would, and it’s difficult to imagine a future James Joyce, Jack Kerouac or William Burroughs being able to flex their creativity – complete with page long paragraphs, stuttering text and sometimes deliberately incomprehensible prose – if text is to be edited for ease of access rather than for quality of expression.

A screen isn't quite like thumbed pages...

The eBook may provide the cash injection that the publishing industry currently needs, but this seems to be making many editors forget the basic rules of their profession. The editorial process exists to hone the text not to a level of lowest common comprehensibility, but to ensure the true nature of the text shines through. If eBooks mean that texts have to be edited ruthlessly simply to ensure they’re read easily, then perhaps they’re not the best medium for releasing future Booker prize winners through.

Some users even go so far as to say however a text is edited or written, Kindles and the like simply ruin it: that the experience of reading something on a screen is infinitely different to reading it in print. Will Self, recently interviewed in The Guardian, said: ‘I’ve unwittingly acquired a Kindle…and I find that everything I read on it, especially Stieg Larsson, becomes drivel. I’m inclined to blame the technology. With no physical analogue I think the text loses its weight.’ I myself once downloaded all the Sherlock Holmes short stories onto my iPhone, and found them incredibly tedious. Flicking through leather-bound copy of A Study in Scarlet a few days ago, however, I was hooked.

The argument then is that technology, for whatever reason, simply can’t transmit a book properly. There’s a second argument, though, that may have more weight. This is the really quite eerie fact that if you download a book from Amazon, or buy it through iTunes, someone, somewhere, can open up a datalog and see what you’ve bought, what you’ve read, and where you’re storing it. This may seem no scarier than the voluntary abandonment of privacy we all succumb to on facebook and foursquare, but someone tracking books – if they choose to – is infinitely more scary than someone tracking your drunken pictures. Books are what make you, and help you, think and hence some giant corporation or the government knowing what you’ve recently bought is a little creepy.

Added to this is the fact that if you’ve bought a book which the seller then doesn’t want you to have, they can snatch it back. This isn’t just a technological possibility but historical fact: last July, Amazon remotely deleted some digital editions of two George Orwell books (oh the irony) from customers’ Kindles. According to Amazon, the editions were added to the store by a company who had no rights to do so. The reason isn’t known for the deletions of Harry Potter books and Ayn Rand novels which some forum users have reported, but it’s likely to also revolve around copyright issues. This is perhaps understandable (Amazon could have been sued for distributing “stolen” goods) , but what would happen if a book was banned overnight – a latterday Lady Chatterley, for example, or a modern Howl, facing obscenity charges? The same shaky legal arguing – in this case distributing offensive material or that inciting hatred – could be used to declare digital copies of these texts illegal, and then POOF! Bye-bye intellectual freedom. Texts considered unfit for consumption or illegal could be simply wiped away: pressing delete doesn’t seem quite as taboo as burning piles of books, but it’s much the same act.

And then we come to the last reason, and the one which seems to be cropping up the most in debates, internet forums and the hearts of most avid readers: books are so much more than text, reading one is so much more than, well, an act of reading. The eReader can’t show jammy fingerprints on a childhood copy of Winnie the Pooh or adolescent pencil marks in the thumbed margins of The Catcher in the Rye. You can’t hold an eBook in your hand and remember discovering it in the corner of some dusty charity shop, or having it pressed into your hand by a smiling relative, teacher or friend.

Bedtime stories wouldn't be the same...

The pages on an iPad may be brighter and the illustrations sharper, but these are simply two reasons why books are preferable to most people. What will we fill our walls with when eBooks take over? You can’t run your fingers over a shelf of lovingly arranged eBook spines, colour coded or arranged by favourite author, savouring the decision of what to take to bed or enjoy on holiday. All you can do is morosely jab at a screen displaying miniature versions of lurid covers, whilst fretting about scratching the glass or spilling your bedtime cocoa over a charger.

Books are an aesthetic, personal and physical experience and every generation up to us has known and celebrated this. Why else would Sterne leave blank pages in Tristram Shandy for readers to add their own illustrations? Why else leather-bind Shakespeare and Dickens? Why else emboss the font on the front cover of a book, or spend thousands of pounds designing two separate covers for each Harry Potter volume? Imagine your favourite book, strip away the message written in the front of it from the person who bought it, take away the scrap of price label you couldn’t quite get off, take away the stain left from when you spilt some cola, scrape the sand, blown there on a beach holiday, from the creases of the margin, stop yourself sticking your finger in the pages to relish how much you’ve got left to read, and all you have are words on a screen.

Golding's iconic novel Lord of the Flies

If you were asked to compile a list of iconic novels, William Golding’s Lord of the Flies would be an obvious choice. It’s a classic tale signifying the rise of anarchy and the fall of civilisation – they even teach it in school. But would you compare a Nobel-prize winning author with the twenty-first century’s most notorious facet: Reality TV? And more importantly, should you?

First, let’s make an important distinction. People talk about iconic literature as having a direct influence on other important authors, musicians and creators. Is Reality TV important? Well, no, not in its current guise as a dumping ground for celebrity wannabes/has-beens. I’m not suggesting that Big Brother is a timeless piece of artistic genius, but its presence in the modern world is undeniable.

But think back to its first tentative steps, when Big Brother was more of a study in psychology and socialisation. Okay, so it’s unlikely Channel 4 came up with idea purely to investigate the intricacies of human nature. But it was an interesting experiment: lock a group together in a confined space; follow their every move with video cameras; tell them their behaviour will ultimately determine who stays the distance and wins the prize.

Here’s where Golding’s influence comes in. Lord of the Flies works on the assumption that the basic human condition is fundamentally flawed. Strip away our societal laws and norms, and we’re left with this primal state of aggression, chaos and disorder. Moral decency is not inherent, but forced upon us by the great wide world.

Sound familiar? More interesting still, Big Brother ‘housemates’ are fully aware that their time in the house and their chances of winning come down to popularity. The polite, the charming, the helpful and generous will surely survive over the selfish and aggressive. But even with this in mind, there seems to be a certain deterioration of human decency beyond the contestants’ control. Screaming, shouting and plate-throwing have escalated so fast that police have been called in to investigate.

In a competition that’s supposed to run within the confines of one house, only the intrusion of the outside world can break up the anarchy of an otherwise ‘lawless’ society.

Of course, people chosen to be Big Brother contestants are notoriously extreme. As the series progressed, it became clear that people with contentious views and a tendency toward aggression were being selected to create must-see TV. But that said, even in the first series of UK Big Brother we had ‘Nasty Nick’, who chose devious manipulation over any form of natural charm or decency.

And the influence of Big Brother himself is an important factor. The programme makers take great delight in stoking an already roaring fire with their own devious schemes. Revealing ‘private’ nominations, forcing contestants to play pranks on each other, asking leading questions about relationships in the house – the perfect catalysts to drive fear and suspicion.

In his afterword, E. L. Epstein said that Golding’s Lord of the Flies “is an attempt to trace the defects of society back to the defects of human nature”. Note that the rise of ignorant and fame-hungry contestants is often used to mark our own society’s general demise.

Now for the big question: is this the default condition that people refer back to when they are plucked from society and forced to create new laws and hierarchies from scratch? Or is the influence of Big Brother – and one or two malicious contestants – enough to send the whole house spiralling into chaos? I imagine Golding’s response: If we didn’t have an inherent tendency towards anarchism, we wouldn’t fall so easily when pushed.

The Big Brother house spirals into chaos…

Schoolboy and... Stalin fanatic?!

There is nothing quite like the power of a book. From the hallowed pages of a much-loved tome, you can be moved to inspiration, tears and – as we are about to discover – laughter. Some books are so amusing, hilarious and just plain laugh-out-loud funny that they will have you chuckling from start to finish, and trying desperately to memorise particular lines or quotes to impress your friends with. But there’s nothing quite like reading it for yourself, and if you’re looking for a laugh-a-minute read, we recommend the following witty works. Reading in public may not be entirely advisable…

My Affair With Stalin - Simon Sebag Montefiore

‘My affair with Stalin surprised both of us. I was still a child and he was already one of the most powerful men in the world…Love crept upon us and caught us unawares, that balmy summer in the years before the Revolution. A sentimental ambush – that’s what Stalin called it.’ So begins one of the funniest history lessons you will ever read. Montefiore’s novel mashes fact with fiction via the narration of school-boy Stalin-fanatic William. A student at an English boarding-school in the early 1970s, eleven-year-old William is unexceptional aside from his desire to imitate Stalin, and throughout the novel he endeavours to do so at every opportunity. He applies the policies of his hero to the school environment, and sets about destroying the sporting stars amongst his classmates. The cunning and calculation behind each of William’s plans, each drawn on from incidents in Stalin’s own life, serve simply to make their thwarting even funnier; the fact that he is so young and yet can quote chunks of Stalinist speech and speak of Communism, Bolsheviks, et al. adds to the overall hilarity, and it’s also got a Lord of the Flies twist to it.

Three Men in a Boat – J.K. Jerome

‘Everything has its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses’ writes Jerome via his narrator, J, in his 1889 tome Three Men in a Boat. A fine example of observational Victorian humour, the novel depicts the adventures of three men – J (based on Jerome himself), Harris and George – plus Montmorency the naughty dog. They set off on a boat trip for a week, deciding to travel along the River Thames to Oxford. Naturally, hilarity ensues, but rather than being overly obvious humour the beauty of Jerome’s wit is that it seems entirely organic. The totally O.T.T. musings of J – ‘and so we stood beneath a blasted oak, and took an awful oath’ he says, describing the group’s decision to never, ever camp again – are glorious and the book’s sequel, Three Men on the Bummel is just as fun.

Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

Stella Gibbons is my hero but regardless of my own bias, Cold Comfort Farm is undoubtedly one of the funniest books in English literature. Orphaned Flora Poste moves to the fictional Sussex village of Howling to live with the Starkadders, relatives on her mother’s side of the family. Very much a thoroughly-modern-Milly, rational Flora aims to help her stuck-in-the-past relatives come into the present, but predictably it is not an easy battle. With a batty aunt, Ada Doom, who ‘saw something in the woodshed’ during her childhood, an over-sexed cousin named Seth and a nonagenarian farm-hand obsessed with Flora’s cousin Elfine, the character list is full of memorable and amusing personalities who live on long after the final chapter has been devoured.

If On A Winter’s Night A Traveller – Italo Calvino

This is a book, within a book, within a book, within a book…well, I could go on indefinitely. The story follows ‘you’ and your bid to track down a recently released and much-anticipated novel. However, every time ‘you’ think you have purchased the book, it turns out to be a different story to the one you have been expecting, and so you keep returning to the bookshop to swap it over, falling in love with a woman – and fellow reader! – as you do so. The humour is subtle and intelligent, and the inclusion of a cheeky translator serves as a platform for further hijinks. The fact that we read the opening chapters of a variety of different books means that our imagination is stretched to full capacity.

Fischer's darkly comic Under The Frog

Under the Frog – Tibor Fischer

Booker Prize shortlist-nominee Under the Frog was published in 1992 by British-Hungarian Tibor Fischer. The darkly comical plot is set in the years following the Second World War, culminating with the real-life Hungarian revolt in 1956 that saw 2,500 Hungarians killed. The lead protagonists, Gyuri and Pataki, dream of escaping their humdrum lives and following their dreams of playing basketball professionally. They regularly travel to basketball games with their friends, but rather bizarrely choose to do so in the nude. Sounds bizarre, is bizarre, but is also very, very funny. Fischer’s dry humour runs deep and comments such as ‘The Hungarian Second Army, like all Hungarian armies, had the unfortunate habit of getting wiped out’ and ‘The old joke about two Hungarians on a desert island resulting in three political parties…’ show that he is unbiased in who, or what, he mocks.

The Diary of a Nobody – George and Weedon Grossmith

Diary of a Nobody was written towards the end of the 19^th century and is a further example of that quintessentially English observational-humour that was so joyously rife in that era. Via his diaries, the reader is given an insight into the life of Charles Pooter, a middle-aged Victorian accountant. The first-person narrative often screams with Pooter’s indignation regarding the stupidity of those around him, the need to feel socially ‘on top’ and the evident pleasure Pooter gets from his own silly jokes (‘Must remember to get the scraper removed, or else I shall get into a scrape. I don’t often make jokes’). Despite his own self-importance, Pooter is also realistically modest. ‘Why should I not publish my diary?’ he muses. ‘…I fail to see – because I do not happen to be a ‘Somebody’ – why my diary should not be interesting’. And it certainly is!

Candide – Voltaire

A neat little satire parading itself as a moral tale (an obligation to avoid trouble), Candide is a topsy-turvy fairytale. Banished from his castle for kissing the wicked Baron’s daughter, Candide travels around Europe in a fast-paced plot that sees him encounter the Lisbon earthquake, a visit to the bejewelled El Dorado and even a quick dash  to Transylvania. Despite its surprisingly disheartened ending, the book is a delightfully wicked look at 18^th century Europe (it was published inFrance in 1759) and the satire makes the stupidity of the story seem that little bit more believable. Bizarre anecdotes abound – for example, Candide bumps into a woman who tells him she is miserable as one of her buttocks were cut off to feed some starving peasants. Voltaire creates a rather grim world and despite Candide’s pathetic attempts to see the good in everything (‘Candide’ translates as ‘optimism’) the contemporary reader would have been uncomfortably familiar with the familiarity of the sordid characters and ridiculous events. A modern reader, however, is able to read it for what it is: a big, bad satire.

The Pursuit of Love – Nancy Mitford

Despite its tragic undertones, Nancy Mitford’s 1945 The Pursuit of Love is regarded more widely as a comedy. Similarly to Cold Comfort Farm, the heroine Fanny has to live with unfamiliar family members, this time as the result of her selfish parents abandoning her. The action is set mainly in the Oxfordshire countryside, and the family regularly hunt (despite their desire to avoid cruelty to animals); deranged Uncle Matthew occasionally goes so far as to hunt his own children, setting bloodhounds out to find them. The characters live ‘always either on a peak of happiness or drowning in black waters of despair they loved or they loathed, they lived in a world of superlatives’. These extremes add to the comedy of the novel, as well as drawing out the eccentricities of the characters.

Pigs, lust and transformation...

Pig Tales: A Novel of Lust and Transformation – Marie Darrieussecq

When published in the mid-1990s, French writer Marie Darrieussecq’s debut novel was met with pleasing criticisms from around the world. “One laughs, yet in terror, for the metamorphosis of the narrator-as-pig reveals, in counterpoint, the aimless drifting of a society in which the pig is not always the pork,” wrote one critic, neatly surmising the whole plot of the novel in one sentence. A young woman manages to make a fortune working as a masseuse; she is literally – please, please excuse the awful pun -‘bringing home the bacon’. The fairytale kicks in with the woman’s gradual transformation (‘I’d noticed my thighs had grown pink and firm…’) into the literal pig that society has made her become. She is dumped by her boyfriend and forced to forage with food along with a werewolf that she becomes chummy with – modern-day morality tale or what?

Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes

Middle-aged Alonso Quixano renames himself Don Quixote in his bid to find chivalrous adventure (and love). He becomes so fixated on the idea of the heroic knight that his neighbours believe that he has turned insane, and his only loyal companion is his weedy horse. In his bid to become like the heroic men he reads about in books, Quixote puts himself through a series of tests and along the way meets a variety of colourful characters (from comical priests to spurned lovers). Bawdy humour lurks throughout, with Sancho declaring at one stage ‘Now that I’ve to be sitting on a bare board, does your worship want me to flay my bum?’ The book pokes fun at the dying idea of chivalry and Quixote ultimately ends the book a broken man: disillusioned by the fact that heroism seemingly only exists in stories, mocked and rebuked, he dies in the final chapter.

Barbery’s food descriptions are astounding

Muriel Barbery’s The Gourmet is a memoir without a memory. Pierre Arthens, France’s greatest food critic, is on his death bed: the novel traces his search for a vital taste that lingers on his tongue, but escapes his memory.

The story is narrated in alternating chapters by Arthens and the people who populated his life, including his wife, children, mistress, his cat, housekeeping staff and even a marble statue of Venus that sits atop his mantelpiece. Arthens portrays himself as a demanding but fair restaurant critic, righteously in search of culinary perfection, whereas his loved ones experience him as a selfish, misogynistic despot who cares for nothing more than his next forkful of food. The reader therefore finds themselves in the curious position of following a man they wouldn’t even want to have dinner with.

Arthens scorns his trade of a restaurant critic as a pathetic sorcerer’s trick just to “make the reader believe they have been eating.” A reader may enjoy consuming restaurant reviews, but after the adjectives and verbal melody have died away, nothing of the actual food remains. Each chapter ends with a similar culinary disappointment; the reader tastes a pivotal food in Arthens’ life in each chapter – bread, mayonnaise, pan-roasted breast of Peking duck rubbed with berbère – only for him to reject the dish, as it’s not the taste-memory he is looking for. Although at first this structure of anticipation and dissatisfaction is quite enticing, by the eleventh time it becomes a little tiresome.

Although Arthens revels in his magic as a food critic, the ultimate sorcery is cast by food itself. Early on, Arthens realises that his “memory may merely be associated with some mediocre dish, and it is only the emotion attached to it that remains precious”. Only on his death bed does Arthens understand that when we eat, we eat the moment in time as much as the food on our fork – and it is often the moment which has the most delicious taste of all.

The elusive taste of memory is not a new idea, however. The French novelist Marcel Proust famously dipped his madeleine cake into a cup of tea, and was involuntarily taken back to his childhood as he reflected on the power of food over feelings. The Gourmet suffers from its own elusive taste, however; whilst reading, it was the taste of Proust that kept returning to me involuntarily, as Barbery’s book is essentially one long reworking of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past.

Barbery’s array of food descriptions are astounding and original (who would have thought a sardine was “cruel” or tasted like “marine ash”), but the family’s emotional reflections are trite and overworked. The language is archaic and awkward at times, although this may be partly due to Alison Anderson’s translation from French.

Arthens does remember his treasured taste in the end – but I’m not going to tell you what it is. For those who enjoy wallowing in the flavour of food they cannot taste, and perhaps even meditating on food-memories of their own, The Gourmet is a thought provoking digestif – even if it has been on the menu before.

The Gourmet by Muriel Barbery is published by Gallic Books, and available to buy online here.

Is Lolita a victim or a predator?

There’s nothing like a cathartic read, but what happens when a female protagonist behaves like a five dollar whore, a complete wet rag or is just simply a total bitch? Whether bad girls in books either remind you of how not to behave; put you in touch with your shadow self; downright disgust you; or represent nothing but role model material, literature’s love affair with the anti-heroine keeps them fictional femmes as the captors of many imaginations; not least because their badness generally pivots around sex. Running In Heels bring you its ten favourite ladies of literary disrepute…

Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

Let’s get the socially spurious out the way, shall we? Vladimir Nabokov’s complex woman-child, Lolita, star of the book she gives her name to, has critics split as to whether she’s victim or predator. As she embarks on the highly-famed, highly controversial sexual relationship with her step-father, Humbert Humbert, the barely pubescent “nymphet” Lolita protests at Humbert’s – yes, massively perverse – obsession with his step-daughter, while at the same time seems to manipulate and exploit his bent worship of her to get her own way. Um, let’s just say it’s very unlikely you’ll meet any regular gal called Lolita anymore.

Venus In Furs – Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

Running with bizarre sexual persuasions, how about Wanda von Dunajew? Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s kinky 19th century novel-within-a-novel sees the character of Wanda humour the submissive Severin von Kusiemski as she plays out sex-oriented charades of male domination. Yes, she wears furs: dressing up is all part of Severin’s ‘humiliation’, and her props and scripts get riper as their odd relationship develops. However, when the furs are off and the relationship’s out of the bedroom, Wanda herself admits to feeling degraded about being the degrader. All very figure-of-eight, but nowhere near as explicit as Lolita above. And if you don’t already know, Venus In Furs was the book which led to the coining of the expression ‘masochism’. Obviously.

Vanity Fair – William Thackeray

William Thackeray’s novel about material, marital and social dynamics amid the upper class in 19th century England (surprise surprise) centres around the arguably ultimate anti-heroine, Becky Sharp. Much like her contemporary, Emma Bovary, Becky is also pretty adept at ‘working the room’ of its men, conducting outrageous self-serving affairs and all but abandoning her child in favour on her own material interests. Yep, she runs up debts too; out and out lies to procure herself various chattels; and by gum! Even gambles heavily. Another of literature’s manipulators and users, rather boringly, she ends up pretty sorted. Thackeray could have at least killed her off through alcoholism or something. That’s what they’d do on Eastenders.

Bovary: shopaholic and social climber

Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

Gustave Flaubert’s magnus opum tells the story of Emma Bovary, a shallow piece of work who falls well and truly foul of the human condition. Well, arsenic really. Here we have a bosomy diva who uses people for her own social ambitions and behaves like a monster at parties. Not only that, she’s married to a lovely bloke (okay, he might a bit boring if you’re into Napoleonic disco dancing) but “takes piano lessons in Rouen”; a euphemism for shagging a bloke called Leon in a hotel room once a week. Oh, and did we mention her other bit of extra-curricular muscle, Rodolphe? Emma – who also can’t stop shopping – runs up a bunch of debt, not a good thing back then. It all gets too much for her in the end. Shame…

Breakfast At Tiffany’s – Truman Capote

Much better known for its filmic incarnation, with all this sex-crazed, self-absorption, Truman Capote’s 1958 book featuring the literary Holiday Golightly levels us a little reprieve. So Holly’s also a bit of a gold-digger too, but she’s pretty moralistic on the mattress front. Here we have an expert agent provocateur who’s both charming and despicable. She’s seemingly ashamed of her history, gives little about herself away and keeps erratic hours. Indeed, she might be out for material gain, but at least she realises in the end that friends are all that matter. Show us a woman who doesn’t want to be her.

Moll Flanders – Daniel Defoe

In modern day terms, the character of Moll Flanders would be Social Services’ worst nightmare. Daniel Defoe’s rood gurl protagonist, from his 1722 novel of the same name, is born into crime to a colonially transported mother; marries her own half-brother; abandons her kids in America as she takes off to England to seek wealth (yeah, in the shape of a rich bloke); gets by for the time being by falling back on her skills as a thief and whore; sleeps around with moneyed men; gets sent to jail; tries to reunite herself with her sons years down the line; and all in between this, she gets through five husbands. Quite the little 18th century livewire, we say.

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

Leo Tolstoy’s novel of 1877 is terrifically meaty. Thing is, there’s something marvellously readable and accessible about the Russian epic. Anna is the centrifugal character but it’s not like she’s a complete harpee or anything. What she represents is courage, integrity and rebellion – against what’s essentially totalitarianism – taken to its limit. There’s adultery, politics and religion. Oh, yes: and more abandoned children. It doesn’t end up well for her. Self-sacrificing or self-centred? Hard call.

Lady Chatterley likes a bit of rough...

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

Although Charles Dickens’s Victorian novel is centred around a little chap called Pip, the character of Estella – somewhat of an ice maiden – is a fascinating one. Without wanting to get too Carl Jung on you, the unwitting anima/animus parallels between Pip and Estella are compelling reading and Estella plays out her subconscious identity crisis in ways that generally involve guys. She loves to be desired, plays with men’s affections and then gets pissed off with them when they get pissed off about it. Mind you, if you’d been brought up by Miss Havisham, you’d probably be a little, erm, ‘eccentric’ too.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover -  DH Lawrence

Famously banned in Britain until 1960, DH Lawrence’s ‘racy’ novel about the carnal affair between Lady Chatterley and a working-class employee was an outrageous notion back when it was written in the ‘20s. Moreso was the employment of relatively graphic narrative – there’s sex galore. Again, Lady C isn’t a hateful character by any means: it’s more the controversy of her infidelity upon her incapacitated spouse, Lord C, and her rip-roaring inability to keep her passions under control. Forget Me Nots adorning one’s pubic hair? She’s one naughty Lady…

Macbeth – William Shakespeare

Try as one might, steering clear of Shakespeare in any literary run down is difficult. Needing no introduction, Lady Macbeth is perhaps Shakespeare’s most formidable female character out of his whole works. Although she’s not the play’s protagonist, pretty much everything that happens in it can be traced back to her and her frightful capacity for manipulation and hunger for power. It turns out she’s not very stable (duh!) and so in the wake of the murder of the king, which she to all intents she orchestrated, she tops herself, defeating the object of her whole modus operandi. Psycho.

Emma and Harriet in Austen's classic

Friends – love them or hate them, we can’t do without them. The subject of Aristotle’s scrutiny, friendship is at the heart of some of the world’s greatest, and best-loved books. Whether we’re shedding a tear over Jane Eyre and Helen Burns, or revelling in the exploits of The Famous Five; it’s often the relationship between the characters which directs the book and which stays with us long after we’ve put the book down. Great literature has exploited the triumphs and travails of friendship for hundreds of years. Let’s take a look at some of our favourite archetypal friendships from the bookshelf….

Emma Woodhouse and Harriet Smith - Emma, Jane Austen

We all have one: the interfering friend who dishes out advice even when you don’t ask for it. She claims to know you better than you know yourself and to be fair, she’s only trying to help. One meddle too many though, and your friendship will end up on the rocks, just as it did for this pair as Emma persistently tried to set Harriet up with the wrong men. This is one of the many reasons why Austen remains relevant for young women nearly two hundred years after her death – check out Clueless for a wry update on the Regency classic.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza - Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes

The Spanish epic is infamous not only for the imaginative use of language by Cervantes, nor for being one of the founding works of Western European literature but also for the detailed portrait of the friendship between Quixote and Panza. Sancho may appear to be only Quixote’s inferior ‘sidekick’ but it is in fact his undying devotion and sympathy towards his master that proves Panza to be the perfect friend.

Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger - The Harry Potter Series, J.K. Rowling

The classic ménage-à-trois reinvented for a new generation. The unlikely hero, the beauty with brains and the comic relief stood by each other through thick and thin and despite the odd hiccup, remained the best of friends nineteen years later (and if you didn’t know that already, you must have been living under a rock for the past few years). Having followed the Hogwarts Three through their adolescence and near-apocalypse (courtesy of ‘You-Know-Who’), the reader feels as though they have donned the Invisibility Cloak and spent those seven years with the indestructible trio.

Narcissus and Goldmund – Narcissus and Goldmund, Hermann Hesse

In this 1930 novel set in Medieval Germany, Goldmund is supported through his search for the meaning of life by his mentor and friend, Narcissus. The pair converse and debate their ideas of the world from their perspectives of the ‘artist’ and the ‘thinker’ respectively, demonstrating that the perfect intellectual partnership is formed through a combination of both the right and left sides of the brain.

Lennie and George in Of Mice and Men

Lennie and George – Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

Blind devotion, unconditional love, mercy and sacrifice are at the heart of this tragic tale set in the Great Depression.  A sort of idealised friendship is formed between the two men as they cling together to escape the bleak monotony of their existence on the farm they work on and the pair dream of a better life. Their touching friendship, however, is soon torn apart by society as George commits the ultimate sacrifice and kills his best friend in order to save him. This affecting novel stays with the reader and provokes reflection on how far you would go to protect a friend.

Celie and Shug Avery - The Color Purple, Alice Walker

Walker’s empowering tale of black women fighting against racism and sexism in the Deep South endures as it suggests the possibility of both sexual and platonic love between females. The relationship between Celie and Shug explores the roles women play in everyday life of mother, daughter, lover and wife and ultimately reasons that these facets are in fact interchangeable and equally of use in homosocial and heterosexual relations. In so doing, Walker highlights the truly nurturing aspect of female friendship.

Tinkerbell and Peter - Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie

Can men and women ever be just friends? Just as Harry and Sally found out, platonic friendships can be difficult and Tink and Peter’s relationship demonstrates this beautifully (who knew a fairy and lost boy could be so human?). Threatened by the arrival of another woman, Tinkerbell plots to get rid of Wendy and so keep both Peter and Neverland for herself. Unfortunately for the fairy though, as a boy who’ll never grow up Peter is incapable of feeling anything other than friendly love towards her; Tink’s love continues unrequited.

Willie and Mr. Tom - Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian

For a friendship that spans generations, you can’t do better than Mister Tom. Willie’s initial fear of his guardian mirrors the older man’s distrust of his charge but their relationship soon blossoms into one akin to that between parent and child. Faced with the harsh reality of the world outside of their village, Willie and Mr Tom lean on each other for support and it is here that Magorian paints a glorious picture of what the best friendships can do: change people for the better and make them stronger.

One for all, and all for one!

Aramis, Athos and Portos - The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas Père

The brotherhood between these friends is evident in their infamous catchphrase “Tous pour un, un pour tous” (All for one, and one for all). Demonstrating solidarity, compassion, loyalty and love; the trio show us the true meaning of friendship. D’Artagnan is also worth a mention as he joins the merry band of musketeers, but it is the triumvirate who are synonymous with friendship – referenced even in the 2009 Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire.

Tintin and Milou - Tintin by Hergé

The rapport between man and his best friend is explored in every Belgian child’s favourite comic. The white fox terrier might not speak to his pal much and it’s not an entirely politically correct notion that a dog with a taste for Scotch is friends with a young boy. However, the valiant duo show how much they really care for each other by frequently saving each others’ skin (or should that be pelt?).

Carrie Bradshaw, but not as we know her

Sometimes in a television series, flashbacks really hit the spot. Who can forget a young Monica Geller running around in a fatsuit on Friends, the schoolboy Jed Bartlet sparring with the young Mrs Landingham on West Wing, or the glimpses into Don Draper’s background occasionally shared by the Mad Men writers. Unfortunately, sometimes they take away all the magic.

And sadly, it’s very much the latter when it comes to Candace Bushnell’s eagerly anticipated Sex and the City prequel, The Carrie Diaries. The premise of the book is simple – what was our favourite frizzy haired floozy like in high school? Temptress or teen tearaway? Gorgeous, glamorous or geek? Ugly duckling or swan?

Any Sex and the City fan wants an answer to these questions. Bushnell’s book fails because it doesn’t give one.

Sure, we learn lots about this youthful incarnation of ‘Carrie’; she’s an individual, a feminist, a pot-smoker and underage drinker (shocker). Her love life is busy but not plain sailing – another surprise – and her friends are neither as loyal nor as likeable as those she will later meet.

Future Carrie – the one we meet on the show – can be a pain; whiny, self-indulgent, not to mention she’d be in debt because of her shoe collection. But she’s ours, for all her flaws dedicated viewers have their own idea of her. This Carrie isn’t anything like her – short of a quirky fashion sense and a writing ambition. She could grow up to be Carrie Bradshaw, but she could just as easily grow up to be Miranda, even Samantha.

Her hobbies (swimming) and hangouts (a seedy bar or burger shack) bear no resemblance to Carrie’s world of Cosmopolitans and Manolos, Mr Bigs and brunches. Obviously, 17-year-old Carrie wouldn’t be living that lifestyle, but through the book you never get the sense she’d want it either. Her outré wardrobe and writing dreams are there as plot devices to connect the two, yet if The Carrie Diaries was really Carrie’s story, those links would be seamless. And for a book entitled ‘Diaries’, it is bafflingly written as a basic first-person story. Carrie is Carrie for her columns and the way they transition from personal experience, to philosophy and finally snappy ending.

Perhaps the worst part about the book is that it is only about Carrie, when really she is a quarter of a whole. Whatever Sarah Jessica Parker might believe, what makes Sex and the City so brilliant is that as much as it’s about the men, it’s about the friends too. Carrie’s friends in her old life are meaningless – intriguing at times but without the emotional pull. Rather than read a whole book about Carrie, I’d rather have been served a four-way flashback, telling me why Charlotte is so prissy, Miranda so angry, or Samantha so liberated. Maybe even how Stanford coped with his teenage years.

What I wanted when I opened the book, admittedly appealing with its sparkling gold cover, I wanted to be taken into a world in the same way an episode of the show compels you. I wanted to get to love Carrie for longer, perhaps tp hear where she bought the pink tutu or what her first pair of designer shoes looked like. What I got was a book about a generic teenage girl, with generic friends in a generic town – characters with as much dimension as those in Twilight or Sweet Valley High. The great thing about Carrie et al is how dimensional and flawed they were. Bushnell offers us cookie-cutter, instantly forgettable characters.

On a long flight, perhaps curled up on a deck chair with one eye closed and the sun beaming down, you could do worse. But don’t kid yourself. She might be called Carrie – but she isn’t.

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell is published by Harper Collins and available to buy online here.

Candace Bushnell talks about her conception of The Carrie Diaries

A tale of money, fame and power

“It all began, they say, with an unknown 19-year-old posing in a bikini for photographers who had nothing better to do during the 1953 Cannes Festival. She immediately shot to stardom, and her name became legendary: Brigitte Bardot. And now everyone thinks they can do the same. No one understands the importance of being an actress; beauty is the only thing that counts.”

“That’s why women with long legs and dyed hair, the bottle blondes of this world, travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to be in Cannes, even if only to spend the whole day on the beach, hoping to be seen, photographed, discovered.”

After thoughtful musings on life in Like the Flowing River and tales of white and black magic in The Witch of Portobello and Brida, one of the world’s most popular authors is back with another exceptionally well-written book, this time exploring the glitzy world of the Cannes film festival and its darker secrets.

The Winner Stands Alone interweaves stories of people involved in the film festival in different ways: the up-and-coming actress getting her big break; the aspiring filmmaker trying to make important connections; the young African model preparing for her first big fashion show and then there’s Igor. The Russian millionaire is on a quest to win back his ex-wife and the love of his life, Ewa, who’s now married to superstar designer Hamid. And to get Ewa back, Igor will stop at nothing.

Many might be surprised by the abrupt lack of spirituality in The Winner Stands Alone, but Coelho never fails to offer excellent writing sprinkled with life lessons – this time on the subject of money, fame, and, above all, power.  Although one might deem the fashion and cinema business easy targets, Coelho doesn’t sink into clichéd territory. His characters are never heroes or villains – they’re simply human beings, in this case blinded by the glamorous image of fame and the dream of joining the “Superclass” – the ones who have made it and reached that desirable celebrity status. The envied, admired, loved. But how high is the price of fame?

The chapter in which the young actress signs a contract handing over her life to the film company without even reading it – driven by her desire to succeed – pretty much sums up Coelho’s views on today’s celebrity-obsessed culture. Throughout the book, a dark, cold undertone is bubbling below the surface to remind us that all that glitters is rarely gold, and as Gabriela signs her life away with a “the sky’s the limit” smile on her face and a couture dress in her goodie bag, Coelho’s point is that she’s lost herself. Do we lose ourselves in our endless chase for superficial success and recognition? Is modern society encouraging us to sell our souls for money and power? The questions are left hanging in the air after the last page is read.

If you’re looking for a feel-good book with a happy ending, look elsewhere. But if a haunting, elegant read with a strong message does it for you, look no further. A winner indeed.

The Winner Stands Alone by Paulo Coelho is available to buy online here, on you can read extracts on his blog.

Paulo Coelho experiences the red carpet

Alex Garland's cult classic The Beach

Whether you’re headed to warmer lands or stuck in a more modest climate this summer, get your dose of sunshine through these ten summertime novels.

The Beach – Alex Garland

The original gap year story that inspired and encapsulated a generation of young travellers has become a modern cult classic. Twenty-something Richard sets off on the familiar search to get off the beaten track in Thailand and finds himself armed with a secret map, heading to a real life desert island paradise.

The beach community he finds live in tranquil, island bliss in one of the most beautiful places on earth. However when the group starts to crack and Richard’s infatuation with the Vietnam War starts to play out in his insanity, the islanders begin to pay the price for paradise. Despite the rather uncomfortable ending, it’s impossible not to be transported to sunnier places though Garland’s images of the Thai beaches, lazy days and banana pancakes; and the hints of danger will give even the tamest reader a taste for adventure.

Amours de Voyage – Arthur Hugh Clough

“Over the great windy waters, and over the clear-crested summits,
Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,
Come, let us go,–to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered,
Where every breath even now changes to ether divine.”

The first lines of Arthur Hugh Clough’s epic poem whisk us off our heels and away to Rome during the revolutionary summer of 1849. A spirit of uprising is in the air and poet Clough has come to Rome in high spirits to uncover the city that inspired so many others. Clough reports his experiences through short letters, beautifully woven together to create the fifty-page poem.

Whilst Byron, Shelley and Dickens regaled us with the splendour of Rome, Clough’s emotions remain modest, often comical (his first impressions of Rome are “RUBBISHY”). However as a love story intertwines with his travels though Italy, Clough ponders emotion and reason, action and hesitation, all under the Mediterranean sun. Something of a forgotten classic, Clough the romantic anti-hero will revive your own amour de voyage.

The Summer Book – Tove Jansson

Finnish author Tove Jansson may be most famed as the creator of The Moomins, but her novels for adults are just as magical and compelling.

In The Summer Book, Six-year-old Sophia is sent to a remote Finnish Island to spend the summer with her elderly grandmother. Picking flowers, watching sunsets and storms, taking trips on a rowing boat around the island; the two while away their days in this beautiful and mysterious place. A deep and affectionate relationship forms between the two somewhat estranged figures. The charming combination of Sophia’s naivety and her grandmother’s wisdom complement each other perfectly as the two spend their time exploring and discovering not only the island, but themselves. The sunshine isn’t the only thing that you’ll warm to in this book…

Travel to the French Riviera with Sagan

Bonjour Tristesse - Françoise Sagan

When in 1954, at just 18 years old and brooding over her rejection from the Sorbonne, Françoise Sagan penned her first novel; little did she know it would become a cult summer read for generations to come.

Cécile is seventeen and has been sent to the French Riviera to spend the summer with her wayward father. As a stream of beautiful women pass through her father’s villa, Cécile slowly settles down into, and embraces, her father’s dissolute lifestyle whilst struggling to understand the world around her. Her sexual awakening culminates in her falling in love with law student Cyril and uncovering the emotions a relationship brings. But as the summer heats up, the plot thickens. Anne, an intelligent and cultured woman falls in love with Cécile’s father, and as jealously takes over and tensions grow in the house, Cécile sets about ruining her father’s relationship.

Blow Up and Other Stories – Julio Cortázar

Julio Cortázar’s diverse collection of fantastical short stories is like no other. From Paris in the original version of Blow Up (made famous by Antonioni’s film), to a summer house inhabited by a roaming tiger, to the side of a railway track where three girls entertain passing passengers during their summer holiday; Cortázar transports you into countless different worlds and lives. No story is without some fantastical element, from the man who vomits rabbits to the avid reader who becomes the victim of his own crime novel; this is thought-provoking escapism at its finest.

The sun may not be shining in all of the stories, but it’s the magical flashes of summery memories that Cortázar provides that will take you back to warmer times, to childhood memories, forgotten places and beyond.

The Drifters – James Michener

Six strangers, all running away from something cross paths one night in The Alamo bar in Torrelimos, Spain. Soon they find themselves thrown into the ultimate journey across Spain, Portugal, Mozambique and Morocco in a yellow VW van. The politically turbulent year of 1969 provides the chaotic backdrop for the youngsters’ journey, travelling to more peaceful parts of the earth to make sense of the worlds they’ve come from. Amidst a haze of drugs, dreams and breathtaking scenery, the six characters come to realise that the one thing you cannot escape is yourself.

The Graduate – Charles Webb

Benjamin Braddock has just graduated from college and moved back to his family home. Disillusioned, he begins his lazy summer of pondering what he should do with his life; go to graduate college? Embark on a soulless career? Lost in inner turmoil, cynicism and ambivalence, Ben embarks on an affair with the older seductress Mrs. Robinson, and a summer of seduction, deceit and frustration ensues.

This book really couldn’t have been set at any other time of the year and conveys perfectly that feeling of limbo which summer holidays often provoke. If you loved the film, do Webb the justice of reading the original story.

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Long Island, summer 1922. Post-war America is thriving, the Jazz age is swinging and Long Island sizzling. Despite the recent Prohibition law, the enigmatic, self-made Jay Gatsby incessantly throws the sort lavish parties at his mansion that would make even Evelyn Waugh blush. Gatsby, it would seem, has it all, but soon reveals his desperate love for pre-war girlfriend Daisy Buchanan. In pursuit of his old flame, now the wife of brash bully Tom, Gatsby is lured into a dangerous quest of desire and wealth in Fitzgerald’s dressing down of the American Dream.

Part one of Célestine Vaite's trilogy

For an insight into the excessive, but often vacuous worlds behind the doors of the mansions which line the Long Island beachfront, this summer read has no competition.

Frangipani: A Novel – Célestine Vaite

The first in a trilogy of novels, Frangipani certainly merits Tahitian Célestine Vaite’s numerous literary award nominations.

“Professional Cleaner”  Materena Mahi is one of the most vivacious characters on the island of Tahiti, but also one of the wisest. When she discovers she’s pregnant just after her husband Pinto leaves her, Materena sets about creating a new life for her and her daughter, Leilani. Fast-forward twelve years and Materena is struggling along, trying to instil traditional Tahitian values into the free spirited, often unruly teenager. The novel’s is the island setting is integral, and Vaite’s descriptions of the sunshine, the beaches and especially the food will ignite your summery senses.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – William Shakespeare

No other play brings the magic of summer to life more than this one. If Shakespeare seems too heavy for summer reading, think again; this play is genuinely hilarious. Four lovers coupled with the wrong partners enter a magical woodland where the Faerie King and Queen and servant Puck stir up mischief. Throw in Bottom and his troupe of actors who arrive in the woods to rehearse their farcical production of the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, and an enchanted yet comical night ensues in the forest. Shakespeare’s comedy is really an ode to nature, manifested in the beauty and power of the woodland on this summer’s night.

Writing the character of a teen girl presents challenges..

Male and female authors have written in the voice of their counterparts since the dawn of literary time. At the very least, male writers have had to imagine the psyches of their female characters, with the same going for female writers.

This makes Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane’s comments regarding one of his principle characters, Meg Griffin, all the more amusing. Considering the reason for 17-year-old Meg being the victim of her family’s constant bullying, MacFarlane quips that his screenwriting team simply “don’t know how to write for teenage girls”.

MacFarlane may have commented in jest, but when it comes to characterisation in print, getting the right voice is a make or break challenge. How successful can you be when narrating as your diametric opposite?

A quick search on Google generates an array of booklists and chat forums around the subject of writing as the opposite sex. Intriguing; apparently it’s relatively easy to brainstorm female voices portrayed by men – but much harder in the other extreme. Lesa Holstine lists 24 male authors with female protagonists, but only five female authors with masculine lead characters. A defining factor seems to be whether the author writes in first person, creating a direct voice, or tells the story in third person, from a male or female perspective.

A contemporary male-on-female work which springs to mind is Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha from 1997. His early 20th century saga details the transformation of Sayuri, from hopeful, sold-into-slavery child to graceful, ambitious geisha. Sayuri is one hundred percent believable as a person, let alone a woman, which makes Golden’s twist all the more startling. Exotic and olde-worlde, she is captivating and evocative of sympathy and laughter – just what a character is supposed to be.

Golden himself has said, “As an American man of the 1990s writing about a Japanese woman of the 1930s, I needed to cross three cultural divides – man to woman, American to Japanese, and present to past.”

This is arguably why we read; the author can ‘cross’ the frontiers of imagination, taking the reader with him or her. In a CNN interview, Goldman specified that earlier drafts of Sayuri’s story were deemed “dry” in the third person – but first person forced him to “make this kind of imaginative leap into the mind of the character.”

Frantz & Rennhak's "Women Constructing Men"

What of the girls? Sarah S.G. Frantz and Katharina Rennhak’s hot-off-the-press work, Women Constructing Men: Female Novelists and Their Male Characters, 1750-2000” dives in. According to her interview with literary blogger Laura Vivanco, Frantz says that throughout the past 250 years, “the impulse to write Mr. Right is a strong one and seems to be universal”. Female novelists enjoy the luxury of creating “their own romantic ideal”. We are, at least from a heterosexual perspective, “attracted to men and enjoy their attentions”.

This constant amongst many female writers often fuels efforts to create the perfect masculinity – the guy who makes everything fall into place. Frantz fondly notes that “Sometimes their construct succeeds and everyone lives happily ever after, but often it fails and that spirals everything in the book down into destruction”.

An interesting aside to this issue is reader response to an author’s sex. On the Literature Network Forums, poster Subterranean muses that “from all the books that I read so far, the best description in female characters are given by female authors, like the Awakening or Jane Eyre. Same thing with male characters, like the one I’m reading now (Jude the Obscure)”.

The success of male characters by women from Harper Lee to JK Rowling implies that such observations are not necessarily true (though Subterranean praises Gustave Flaubert’s portrayal of a woman’s “sensibility and sufferings” in Madame Bovary). Another poster, EAP, suggests that there are also “people like Robert Jordan and even Charles Dickens who can’t portray a female character without submitting to the most blatant clichés”.

Thomas Berger says, “Why do writers write? Because it isn’t there”. But Samuel Butler believed that “Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.” It seems that masquerading as the opposite sex – and making readers believe it – is possible. Though you’ll probably prove both Berger and Butler right.