Authors Electric

  Imagine you’re a you ng journalist from  The Times , reporting on the Hay literary festival. Nice job if you love books and writing – which journalists do, or they’d be doing something else – and you should enjoy it while you can, as literary festivals are sadly in their   Götterdämmerung   p eriod, what with no corporate sponsor being pure enough to be allowed to fund them, and grants from such lofty organisations as the Arts Council being extremely unlikely, owing to books being lamentably highbrow and middle class (not!). Anthony Horowitz By Edwardx - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0,  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=126308848 So there you are, listening to Anthony Horowitz speak on a panel on the subject of rewriting classics by dead authors in order to remove ‘offensive’ language ( as Puffin did last year with a new edition of Roald Dahl’s works ), and you hear him say he doesn’t approve of burglarising books.  Yup, that’s what he said. Well, h...

 I very much doubt if anybody will take the trouble to update or censor my books after I'm no longer around to object, although of course you never know which topics are going to turn out to be contentious and what kind of descriptive language might be considered offensive by later generations. I've seen several examples of this kind of thing lately in the press and social media, and also of people pushing back against it, sometimes with a degree of success. Of course there are always topics that naturally go out of fashion and books that are no longer bought for various reasons, but this latest trend is something a bit different. I have an instinctive dislike of updating something that's already been written, which I think is partly based on my having studied history and having lived long enough to see parts of it re-written several times over. At one time this was something that was mostly thought to be done in Communist countries but I think it happens everywhere. In som...

Oh Puffin books. For heaven’s sake.  Is this how it’s going to be, from now on?  Writers date, of course they do. Orphans are no longer sent home from British India to live with reclusive uncles in Yorkshire ( The Secret Garden ), or imprisoned in the workhouse, from which they might escape to join a band of pickpockets ( Oliver Twist ). Yet no one is suggesting – I hope – that the works of Frances Hodgson Burnett and Charles Dickens should be rewritten to suit the sensibilities of present day children (as perceived by adults, of course). So why Roald Dahl?  Dahl’s style has always been irreverent, bordering on the crass, and children love it. If you, as a teacher, don’t think it suitable for children, don’t teach it. Give them Eva Ibbotson and Joan Aiken instead. Or Katherine Rundell, Jacqueline Wilson, Malorie Blackman, Rick Riordan, Jill Murphy, J K Rowling, Robin Stevens. There’s a whole host of wonderful children’s writers out there who will not distress you by using...

The more I write about history, the more I love it. Considering my school tried everything they knew to make me hate the subject, I consider myself extremely lucky that I got there in the end. Kings and queens meant nothing to me until a history lecturer at University – the great and sainted Ian Kershaw – told me that William the Conqueror fell off his horse and burst. Now that for me, is a proper kingly way to die. The real beauty, and frustration, of history is that an extraordinary amount of it is guesswork. That's why I've always been wary of biography. Somebody spends many years examining everything recorded about a certain personage, and is confident at the end of all that they have drawn a perfect picture. Sadly, that is balderdash. I don't even know myself why I do most things that I do, and looking back on them, the problem just gets murkier. Take Nelson. One of Britain's most authentic heroes, still revered, still cited in any naval argument. Then ta...

Wordsworth's Couch - not very comfortable. This month, I'm in vacant or in pensive mood, reflecting on reviews and reviewing. This is because I was mildly (but only mildly) irritated by a doozy of a review on Amazon for one of my books. Somebody or other really didn’t like it. And in a general sense that’s fine. As business guru Seth Godin says, sometimes you just have to shrug and say ‘in that case it’s not for you,’ and let it pass. Mostly, that’s what I do. And I’d never leave a comment on a bad review. It’s impossible to have an optimum number of sales and NOT get a few horribly negative reviews. There’s one somewhere on The Curiosity Cabinet by a woman who at least likes my book a bit better than her one star iron – but not a lot! If you don’t believe me, just look up any massively successful and much loved author, and scroll down to the one star reviews. Sometimes they can be quite informative. Sometimes there’s a writer who comes very well reviewed, not to say ...

Doug Mildew Mr Dale! Come in, Mr Dale! Sit down, have a Scotch. Dahl. Sorry. Or Roly. May I call you Roly? No problem, Mr Dahl. Sometimes I try to say your first name and I get caught by a yawn, you know what I’m saying? But sit! Cigars to your left. What can I say? Your debut’s still rocking at the top of the paperback charts! James and the Giant Peach. What a concept! Where do you get your ideas? No, don’t tell me. Leave the lightning in the bottle. But the public, they love it. And I for one couldn’t wait to see what you’d write next. Before you say anything, Ronald, I do think the new book is great. Just great. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? That’s some title. Nice affiliation there, with the ‘chuh’s. And kids love chocolate, don’t they! Boy, do they love the chocolate. And some of us love charlie, too… but we won’t go there. What was I saying?  Oh yeah. The thing is, Rolf, I gotta tell you. James and the Giant Peach, it sold like Del Monte tinned peaches. It ...