An Eventful Month
November 28th, 2009 by Andrew
I first discovered Aly Monroe’s thriller, The Maze of Cadiz, back in the halcyon days of buying fiction titles for BCA. The rights team at John Murray, her publisher, were so keen to get more support for the first title in the Peter Cotton series of espionage-thrillers that I was lucky enough to read her novel in manuscript form.
That you may not have heard more about Aly says a lot about the stranglehold that one chain of bookstores currently holds over new writing in Britain than any in-depth analysis on the BBC’s business news. We have three branches of Waterstones in Edinburgh and so introducing Aly, a local author, to an Edinburgh audience just as her second novel is published, felt like we were breaking new ground.
The role that we hope to play in Edinburgh’s book-loving community in the future was perfectly encapsulated by an evening where Aly felt encouraged to be reading from her work to an audience who not only understood the historical context of Aly’s writing but who appreciated thrillers more intent on characterisation and narrative than the whizz-bang effects of lesser writers.
Aly’s second novel, Washington Shadow, sees Peter Cotton accompany Keynes’ post-war mission to the United States. Cotton has completed his term of National Service and is now a civil servant. His wartime experiences have changed him, his youthful naivety is beginning to turn to mature cynicism and now he must watch the century’s great economist beg for aid from the new master of the world even as others attempt to derail the democratic partnership. It is a time of new fears: the decline of empire, the rise of communism and the threat of perpetual war. Through solid research and a sure sense of time and place, Aly’s books capture a period of history with a fraught tension not seen since Eric Ambler.
Just a week later, we welcomed back the first author to appear at our shop, Edward Hollis.
Our first event with Ed, back in October, sold out very quickly and as we had more than enough people on the waiting list to sell-out again, we invited Ed back to give another talk. When you consider that Ed’s book, The Secret Lives of Buildings, is a book on architecture, then you may share our pleasant surprise at how popular his book has proven.
The Secret Lives of Buildings was long-listed for The Guardian First Book Award – but really, it should have gone on to be the eventual winner. The prose is so rich and so finally-tuned that it compares to the folk tales of Italo Calvino.
Ed is one of those extraordinarily gifted people who is able to share his passion for architecture in a way that audiences find infectious. Some in the audience found some of Ed’s opinions controvertial but Ed made an impassioned argument that rather than memorialise old buildings, we should celebrate when new or contemporary cultures adapt ancient places to modern uses. Buildings are nothing so much as the people in them and it is the magical heart at the centre of Ed’s book to which readers are responding so eagerly.
What’s this? “back in the halcyon days of buying fiction titles for BCA” Is not running Edinburgh’s finest independent bookshop not halcyon enough for you?
Could take offence…
Very jealous of all these interesting events that would have been on my doorstep if I was still in the ‘Burgh! Please post pic of the Christmas window sometime, it sounds beautiful.
May I just say that some of us who worked for the afore mentioned chain and organised the events did make a point of supporting local authors at all times. It didn’t matter if they were big names or not, I’d always try to offer them a platform.
You make a valid point Sarah. Waterstones – as it was when it was owned by Tim Waterstone – was the inspiration behind my wanting to get into bookselling and promotion of new and local authors was always a great strength. I think the nostalgia for how great Waterstones was in the late Eighties and early Nineties fuels a lot of the dislike for the way that Waterstones is mistreated by its own board now among book-lovers.
Our opinions as independent booksellers regarding Britain’s last book chain is formed not only by talking to authors who turn up at events in Waterstones stores only to find that sufficient numbers of their books have yet to arrive thanks to ‘The Hub’, publisher representatives who are sent into Waterstones branches to do compliancy checks because Waterstones doesn’t currently employ sufficient numbers of experienced, knowledgeable full-time staff to roll-out the promotions that publishers have paid to push author’s works nationwide and finally, from current Waterstones staff. These are our most important source of information, a valuable resource who are denied the right to read trade paper The Bookseller online at work (and to leave informed comment on the current state of their company), who are expected to work overtime in lieu of time off (which, when taken, will leave other members of their team short-handed) and who are working to share their love of great books albeit at close to minimum wage (because one side-effect of Watersones’ take-over of Ottakars was the collapsing of Ottakars’ eight-tier pay structure down to six grades of pay).
Be assured that whenever I – or any indie bookseller – criticises Waterstones, I mean the current regime who to all appearances seems to believe publisher marketing-spend on UK-wide book promotions changed weekly can be called ‘profit’. What happens when publishers realise that this money has not contributed to their own profitability (as in this article?
Fair enough but I did leave the company more recently than the early nineties (ie this year!) and right up until I left I was organising local author events. It was pre-hub though so I can’t comment on the past 9 months.
I’m not sure I’m enjoying being in the position of defending Waterstone’s so I shall stop now!