The Welsh Girl

Peter Ho Davies’s first novel, The Welsh Girl, offers a look at a rather unique World War II home front, the Welsh countryside. The more nationalistic residents of Wales have resented their English occupiers for generations and the onset of a World War in which they struggled for their very survival was not necessarily going to lessen that resentment even though their young men fought along side English soldiers, sailors and airmen for their common good. When a German POW camp is built in the mountains of northern Wales, something that the locals take as a personal insult, even the pubs take sides, one of them welcoming English soldiers and the other refusing to serve them no matter what.

Davies tells his story through the eyes of three very different characters. Esther, a 17-year-old Welsh farm girl and part-time barmaid who lives with her father and the English city boy they’ve taken in, finds herself attracted to the English soldiers she came to know before they were banned from the pub that employs her. To her they represent the larger world she yearns to see and she finds it difficult to consider them an enemy. Karsten is a young German POW who cannot get over the shame that he feels for having surrendered rather than fighting his enemy to the death. He speaks English well enough to communicate with the group of young boys who spend hours taunting the prisoners from the other side of the fence. Finally, there is Rotheram, a British captain of German origin, and a Jew, whose father was a German World War I hero, and who is still ashamed that he and his mother fled Germany and came to England out of fear of what would happen to them if they stayed. He is an intelligence officer who speaks flawless English and German and who resents the fact that he is thought of first as a Jew, not as a British officer.

The Welsh Girl is a coming of age story for its two main characters. Esther’s world begins to come apart when she finds out the hard way that the English soldier she favors is not the honorable man she thought him to be. Ashamed to tell her anti-English father what has happened between them, she nonetheless finds herself reconsidering everything she thought she knew about the world. At the same time, Karsten believes that he has done a cowardly thing by surrendering himself and his men, and the only things that make him even momentarily forget his shame are the memory of the brief conversation he once had with Esther at the prison fence and his efforts to befriend her young boarder.

Peter Ho Davies has populated his isolated Welsh village with complex characters who find themselves fighting their own mini-version of a World War. Each of them has to define loyalty, prejudice and bravery in personal terms and in relation to the world that is tearing itself apart around them. When fate and circumstance briefly throw them together, two of those characters, Esther and Karsten, come to realize what is important and what is not.

This one is not to be missed.

Rated at: 4.0

Oh, N'Oprah, Not Again

Looks like Oprah's book search staff may have let her down again because surely Oprah will take no blame for this...or anything else. USA Today discusses Oprah's latest misstep in the book world.

Could Oprah Winfrey's televised blessing become an embarrassment for recipient Jessica Seinfeld?

After the wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld appeared Oct. 8 on Winfrey's show to discuss her cookbook, Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, online message boards erupted with questions about the originality of the book's premise.

Winfrey extravagantly praised Deceptively Delicious, which explains how to slip healthy food into children without their knowledge.

...

Deceptively zoomed up the best-seller lists. The $24.95 book is No. 2 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list. More than 1.2 million copies are in print.

Soon after Seinfeld's appearance on the talk show, postings at Amazon.com and Oprah.com noted that there is another cookbook that advocates these same techniques and specific ingredients: The Sneaky Chef by Missy Chase Lapine, the former publisher of Eating Well magazine. Published in April by Running Press, the book has 150,000 copies in print.

...

Lapine says she and her publicists pitched the Oprah show five times without success. She also points out she submitted her 139-page book proposal with 31 recipes and 11 purees twice to HarperCollins (Seinfeld's publisher), once in February 2006 without an agent and again with an agent in May 2006.

"The one big fact is that they had access to my manuscript early on," Lapine says. Seinfeld's book was signed up in June 2006.

"There are at least 15 of my recipes that ended up in her book," Lapine says. However, she says, recipes are hard to protect: "If you change one ingredient, you're safe." She says that after her publisher contacted HarperCollins, Deceptively's cover was modified from the one featured on a promotional brochure. The word "simple" was inserted in place of "sneaky."

So the question is whether or not Seinfeld's publisher and Oprah were interested in the book mostly because of her celebrity status and the ratings and sales that her name would bring to the project. I'll admit that I'm not a fan of Oprah's book club, but even her fans will have to admit that this is getting ridiculous.

The Hours

As I listened to Michael Cunningham read The Hours, I found my opinion of the book changing to a more positive one as I finished each of the six discs. Because the audio version of the book does not have clearly defined chapter breaks, I at first found it difficult to keep the three stories that Cunningham alternates separated in my mind. But as I grew more and more comfortable with the three main characters and their separate storylines, I began to realize what a well-constructed piece of writing The Hours is.

Cunningham sets the tone with his prologue describing Virginia Woolf’s 1941 suicide. It is an unflinching look at the mechanics of her death and it leads directly into the three stories that he will intertwine for the rest of the book: Virginia Woolf in 1923, Clarissa Vaughan in present day Greenwich Village, and Laura Brown in 1949 Los Angeles.

None of the three women are particularly happy when we meet them. Virginia Woolf is struggling with the plotline of Mrs. Dalloway and is unhappy that she ever agreed to live in Richmond rather than in London. She feels isolated and uncomfortable and wants nothing more than to return to her old lifestyle in the city. Clarissa Vaughan is planning a celebratory party for her old friend and lover, a gay poet who is dying of AIDS and she is starting to feel the weight of her own years. Laura Brown wonders how much longer she can go on as an ordinary wife and mother of one young son and yearns for a new life of her own. At times, even death seems to be more attractive to her than the life she is living.

The three women have more in common than their discontented unhappiness, however. Clarissa Vaughan, who has always been called “Mrs. Dalloway” by her dying friend, finds herself, as she plans his party, recreating a modern version of the day that Woolf describes in the novel. Laura Brown, desperately seeking some time alone during which she can for a while shed the role of wife and mother, carries a copy of Mrs. Dalloway with her into which she hopes to escape for a few hours.

It may be the sprit of Virginia Woolf that thematically ties the three stories together so neatly, but all three are beautifully told and filled with such interesting characters that they stand well on their own. But it is the clever surprise that Cunningham saves for his last few pages that brings everything together neatly in a way that makes the reader fully appreciate what he has accomplished in The Hours.

Rated at: 4.5

How to Create a Bestseller in Ten Easy Steps

I've been fascinated by marketing and advertising techniques as long as I can remember, and when I can combine my passion for books with my interest in marketing it's a match made in heaven. That's why this lesson in book marketing from the BBC folks caught my eye. In connection with the all the talk about the Booker Prize last week, BBC News offered 10 ways to create a bestseller.

1. Word of Mouth - Who do we really trust? When the chips are down, it's the opinions of our friends and family and colleagues that matter in all things.

But that's not to say that word of mouth is an entirely natural, organic process. Publishers would sell their grandmothers for ways to manipulate it. From viral marketing to social networking, they'll try many avenues of multimedia attack to get the books into the hands of the literary pioneers in any group of friends.

(I think that what we do as book bloggers fits into this category, still thought to be the single most important thing necessary to create a successful book. Publishers have come to understand that the chatter on book blogs can help sell books for them and their working relationship with book blogs continues to evolve in a positive way.)

2. The Book Group - A big part of the word of mouth network are the little reading groups of friends that have sprung up around the country in the past decade. Over cheese and nibbles the fates of novels are decided. Most people are not in a book group but many people know someone who is in one. Book groups are the crucible.

(Maybe it's just me, but I don't belong to any book clubs and I don't personally know anyone who does. I do know that my local library has three active book clubs but their choices have never appealed to me enough for me to join them. But the BBC ranks being picked up as the darling of book groups as the second best thing that can happen to a new book.

3. Richard and Judy - Book groups have to get their ideas from somewhere and many implant themselves into the minds of the members via the Richard and Judy Book Club. Modeled on the fearsomely influential Oprah's Book Club, it has backed many of the titles that have come to be book group classics.

(I know that more than a few of us ridicule the likes of Oprah and Richard and Judy when it comes to their "book clubs" but what we can't argue with is the impact that they have on book sales. I can't help but feeling embarrassed to be seen with a book that has one of those cheesy Oprah stickers on its cover, but plenty of others look only for that sticker before heading to the cash register with the rest of the sheep already in line.)

4. Author - It's almost too obvious to state, but the easiest people to market to are the people waiting for the next installment.

(The very names of a few authors have become brand names. That is not always an indicator that the reader is going to get his money's worth, of course, but in the world of book bestsellers it does tend to keep the sheep heading for the cash register. What I find particularly obscene is when writers like James Patterson and Tom Clancy sublease their names to other writers who churn the books out for them. About all Clancy and Patterson have to do with some of their books appears to be their names written in bright colors and large letters on the covers. Disgusting.)

5. Art of Covers- There has always been great cover art on novels in British mass publishing, particularly on Penguins, but the production quality has now rocketed. "Penguin blazed a trail but everyone else has caught up. The cover can make or break a book. The book as 'object' is ever more important."

(There's no doubt about this one. With the huge number of books being published each week, covers have become the way for books to distinguish themselves from the pack. There is only so much time for a person to browse the shelves of a books store and when unusual and especially attractive covers grab the eye, the hand follows.)

6. In-store Marketing - With the end of agreements that controlled the price of books the key battlegrounds are the supermarket and the chain bookstore. And in these chains if you're not on those pyramids of books in the front of the ground floor of the store, you're dead. Does anybody find themselves flicking through a new novel where one copy has been placed in the far corner of the fourth floor?

(Bookstore placement is critical to successful sales. No doubt about it. But I still can't help but be irked about the large payments that publishers are making in order to buy those front tables and huge displays in the major chains. I don't see how small publishers have much of a chance of producing a bestseller since they don't have the budgets required to get it done.)

7. Rise of Prizes - There is nothing as priceless as free publicity and this is what the literary prizes offer in spades. The trinity in the UK of the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize (for female authors) and the Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread) can get the ball-rolling for a monster-selling book.

(Is there any doubt as to why the number of prizes awarded seems to increase on an almost yearly basis? It's also the reason that so many avid readers have become so skeptical of the whole prize concept.)

8. Unusual Titles - Who isn't tempted to at least pick and have a flick through a Salmon Fishing in the Yemen or A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian?

(No doubt about it. Heck, it's fun to carry around some of those unusual titles just to see if anyone notices them. Two people approached me in two different coffee shops to ask about Reading Lolita in Tehran when they spotted it on my table. They couldn't help but notice that title above the heads of two young Muslim women who were so immersed in the same book that one was holding.)

9. Praise For - Once upon a time in the monomedia world, the reviewer was king. Powerful newspaper literary critics bestrode the world of publishing like colossi. Now not so much.

As Mr Rickett notes: "People themselves are the reviewers now on Amazon and on all kinds of sharing websites. Reader response has almost supplanted the top-down role of the critic."

(Much to the chagrin of professional book reviewers everywhere, this does seem to be more and more the case. I know that I'm much more likely to choose my next book based on what I read in the book blogging community than on what I read in the New York Times book section.)

10. Newspaper Serialisation - One for the non-fiction work predominantly, serialisation delivers a risk-free prospect for the author at least. If the attention brings sales then great. If it persuades people they've had enough then the writer has still got a whacking fee from the newspaper.

(This, I think, is much less common in the U.S. than it is in Britain and I don't think it has much impact here at all.

So there you have it...how to create a bestseller in ten not-so-easy steps. All it takes is money, influence and a lot of luck, so what's the problem?

What does seem to be missing from the list is author book tours. I've read that those are generally losing propositions for the publisher since they oftenfind it difficult to sell enough books to cover the tour expenses. Book tours probably work well for big name authors and not much for the lesser known ones. That probably translates into overkill for well known authors and futility for the little guys.

The Uncommon Reader

Once upon a time the Queen of England was walking her dogs in the Buckingham Palace gardens when they took an interest in the bookmobile parked behind the palace kitchens. When the dogs refused to come back to her, Queen Elizabeth went to retrieve them and decided to borrow a book from the mobile library just to be polite. Before she knew it, one book led to another, and the good Queen became an avid reader and lived happily ever after.

Alan Bennett’s The Uncommon Reader is a laugh-out-loud novella that does indeed read like a fairy tale at times but the little book packs a lot into its 120 pages. Avid readers will recognize themselves in Queen Elizabeth as she exercises her “reading muscle” and progresses from reading anything suggested to her by others to falling in love with “new” authors and more serious literature. They also will recognize the reactions of the Queen’s family and staff who are somewhat bewildered to find that she carries a book with her wherever she goes and has lost interest in many of the things that previously kept her busy. Not only do they not understand her new love of reading, they come to resent her for it, and some even suspect that she is showing the first signs of senility.

Her move along the road to a new sensibility and self-awareness allows Elizabeth to make some observations that are guaranteed to put smiles on the faces of book lovers. At a reception in Canada, for instance, she remarks to one Canadian minister, “Can there be any greater pleasure than to come across an author one enjoys and then to find they have written not just one book or two, but at least a dozen.”

On another occasion, when being briefed by a befuddled member of her staff who does not understand why she suddenly prefers reading to his briefings, she tells him that “…briefing is not reading. In fact, it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.”

For a while, the sheer joy of reading is enough for Elizabeth as she begins to regard the world and those around her with a new empathetic understanding. But, as her self-awareness continues to grow, she comes to believe that she is meant to be not only a reader but also a writer. That is the twist that leads to Alan Bennett’s unexpected, but perfect, ending to his charming little tale. This one will be special to book lovers everywhere.

Rated at: 4.5

OJ Soon to Pollute the UK

From the Guardian Unlimited comes word that British bookstore customers will not be spared exposure to O.J. Simpson's demented mind after all. Gibson Square Books, having reached a publishing deal with the Goldman family, has decided to take some of the blood money for itself and will scatter copies of this garbage throughout the U.K.

UK rights have been sold to Gibson Square Books, an independent publisher which prides itself on publishing books that "provoke", and a British edition is due for publication on November 8. Speaking for Gibson Square earlier today, Martin Rynja rejected the suggestion that the imprint had moved from provocation to profiting from a horrendous crime.

"We publish a lot of books which are controversial," he said. "We publish books which we believe in and are important." He pointed to the fashion for publishing criminal memoirs, suggesting that those who have raised their voices against the publication of If I Did It have been silent in the face of successful memoirs from people implicated in other acts that have left others hurt, a stance he finds "incomprehensible".

According to Rynja, the family's prime motivation was not financial.

"Sure there's money involved," he admitted, "but they didn't think of it." The idea that Simpson should write a memoir confessing hypothetically to the murders did not originate from the Goldman camp, he explained.

...

If it had been a thriller about how to get away with murder Rynja is sure they would not have published it, but faced with a book that could put "facts" that "only Simpson could have known" into the public domain, they had little choice.

I really feel bad for Rynja and Gibson Square Books. The poor babies "had little choice" about publishing this trash and accepting all of that blood money. Isn't that sad?