Bookbuyer's
Bookend
If the Observer thought it could quietly drop its fortnightly bestseller lists without anyone noticing, it was oddly mistaken. Both the Bookseller and the London Evening Standard were in at the kill and both in their different ways carried astounding quotes from the Observer's literary editor, Terence Kilmartin, a man not noted for his interest in popular books. If he actually said what he is reported to have /said – and neither the Bookseller nor the Standard is noted for inaccuracy – then Observer readers must have wondered just why their paper started a bestseller list in the first place. "The lack of variety in the lists was a disappointment," he said. "What stuck in my gullet was all those television-based books which dominated the lists to an absurd degree." The distinguished author of The Ascent .of Man, the late Dr Bronowski, would hardly have been delighted by Mr Kilmartin's remarks. Nor, one suspects, will the no less distinguished Alistair Cooke, author of America. Nor will the newscaster Robert Dougall On and Out of the Box), nor Mr Kilmartin's fellow journalist Mark Arnold-Forster, who wrote The World at War, nor the Somerset Maugham award-winner Julian Mitchell who edited Jennie. . . None too pleaded either are the editors of the Gee Report which has been compiling the Observer's bestseller lists. In their naivete, they thought that bestseller lists were supposed to include books which were bestselling, rather than books which Mr Kilmartin liked.
Bookbuyer does not normally venture out into the daunting world of the Literary Luncheon, but an exception was made for the Yorkshire Post's 'Book of the Year' luncheon, held in the Leeds University refectory earlier this month. The Post's lunches are always well-organised affairs – not quite in the same social class as Miss Christina Foyle's Dorchester extravaganzas, but fielding a pretty useful line-up of titled dignitaries all the same. Among the special January guests were Lord Longford and Lord Bethel], whose book The Last Secret., a documentary account of the post-war repatriation of the Russians, was recently published by Deutsch.
For an author, one of the hoped-for bonuses of a trek to Leeds is an appearance on Yorkshire TV. Despite the optimistic reassurances of Deutsch's PR girl, Lord Bethell seemed slightly put out by the fact that he had not been invited to appear before the cameras – the more so since his neighbour Lord Longford had already referred on more than one occasion to his own invitation to appear on Yorkshire TV later that afternoon. Halfway through the main course, a note passed along the top table informing lord Bethel] that the producer had been persuaded to change his mind and would indeed interview his lordship at 3.30 p.m. Smiles, sighs of relief, . honour satisfied. Some minutes later another note travelled along the table, destined for 1.ord I.ongford. The producer regretted very much that Lord Longford would not, after all, be required to perform.
Previous page
