Come On Then if you Think You're Hard Enough...

If you've been paying attention (which I'm sure you have!), you'll know that I'm currently reading John Guy's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots, 'My Heart is My Own'.  This is the first hardback book I've read in a while (hopefully not the last, there are another 28 on the list!) and having one playing such a big part in my life has made me think about the plight of the format.

 People have been worrying quite a lot about hardbacks in recent years.  Although paperbacks are only about 80 years old and ebooks much less than that, their lower price and convenience means that readers have switched to them in droves.  For example, 78% of my unread books are paperbacks, 16% ebooks and a rather sad little 6% hardbacks.

The change is completely understandable really.  As someone who reads a lot on the go, at lunchtimes, on buses, while waiting for Prince Charming to fill the car with petrol, it's a real nuisance having to lug a great tome around with me.  The other day, I actually found myself thinking how much easier it would be if my 'My Heart is My Own' was on wheels!  It's much easier to shove an e-reader or paperback in my bag than heave a hardback around with me.

Also, a writer's latest may come out first in hardback, but you end up paying quite a premium to be one of the first people to read it, perhaps £20 compared to a paperback's £8.99.  And for someone like me with plenty of other things to read, it certainly makes more sense to wait for the paperback!

It does worry me, though, that cheap books are disposable books.  There is still a thrill to buying or receiving a hardback that you don't get with other formats.  Because they've been around for so long and I've seen so many shelves of them in stately homes and National Trust properties, they somehow feel grander.  Protected by a beautifully designed dust jacket, it's hard not to feel that a hardback is something special, something precious.  I wonder if when an author imagines their book in print whether a hardback is what they see.

Despite its two big problems, however, it looks like the hardback is finding its niche.  As well as publishers such as Penguin producing some really lovely special edition hardbacks of classic books, collectors' items waiting to be cherished, there's the annual flood of hardbacks for Christmas.  Often including fast-buck celebrity biographies, they're almost the other end of the literary spectrum, but they make great gifts and because of the quality associated with the hardback, receiving one can feel more special than getting a paperback.

So, in their own way, hardbacks are fighting back.  Perhaps they'll become like vinyl, the preserve of a certain type of connoisseur.  Although I'm not sure we'll ever hear anyone say "Everything reads better in hardback"!

Now, back to Her Majesty, the Queen of Scots..!

The Man with No Shame...

I've been offline for about a week, so you should be getting two for the price of one today!

Last Sunday, Prince Charming and I finished a talking book version of 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People' by Toby Young.  I've seen the movie (can't remember a thing about it) and heard the rumours (allegedly, Young was annoying people so much, he got banned from the film set), so I was a bit quick on the draw when I started the book and thought I already knew what I was getting.

'How to Lose Friends and
Alienate People' by Toby
Young  (Film tie in, published
by Abacus  2008)

For those of you unfamiliar with it, 'How to Lose Friends...' is the story of Toby Young's time working in New York in the 1990s and early 2000s.  It begins with an unrefusable offer from editor Graydon Carter giving Young a chance to work on Vanity Fair magazine.  It's basically downhill from there for Young due to a weird combination of culture clash and Young's inability (or refusal) to read situations well.

In the end, this book was a bit of a surprise.  After everything I'd heard, I'd expected the tale of an arrogant, low rent, gossip column hack marauding around New York like a bucking bronco, deliberately stepping on toes and upsetting egos to get a good story.  Although the results were sometimes the same, Mr Young came across as something very different, a flawed character who wants to do well, but somehow manages to mess it up.  It felt a bit like he'd gone into a Wild West saloon for a quiet drink and somehow ended up in a gunfight at high noon.

Although he comes across as undeniably arrogant, the character portrayed in the book is also hopelessly naive, desperate to be loved and respected and a hopeless romantic.  He's well educated and self-aware, but somehow this all deserts him the moment he's face-to-face with anyone famous.  As such, he almost seems to lurch from calamity to calamity until he is inevitably fired from Vanity Fair.

To find out whether the book ends with self-realisation and redemption, you'll have to read it yourself!  I would recommend it, though,  because it's a fascinating read, particularly if you're interested in journalism and the magazine publishing industry.  I'm certainly intending to read it properly at some point.  I really ought to get through some more of my other books first though!