Mind Your Manners | Litopia Daily & Litopia After DarkMind Your Manners
Welcome, dear friends, to our weekly literary soirée! We’re worried about manners this evening – not the Emily Post variety, although heaven knows we need ‘em, but the trap that all creative souls can easily fall in to: becoming mannered, repetitive, creatively vacant. It’s the trailer for the new Tim Burton film “Alice in Wonderland” that sets Dave Bartram off musing in this direction. “Something is beginning to bother me,” says Dave. “There is a point where ’style’ becomes ‘manner’ - a set bunch of tricks and stylistic flourishes rather than true creativity. To me Tim Burton is looking increasingly mannered and less accessible and interesting as a result.”
John Quirk is setting out on an epic voyage this week: over the next couple of years, he intends to read every one of the world’s 113 greatest books. It will certainly change him – we’ll insist he keeps his satnav on during the journey and we’ll be following closely and with great interest.
Donna Ballman tonight pursues the question of how much input ought authors to have on their books’ design, particularly the cover. And we’re delighted to welcome back our publishing business guru Martyn Daniels – a kind of literary Donald Trump crossed with Alan Sugar – who’s dissecting author royalties in the digital era. “It’s a dog’s dinner”, says Martyn.
Topics covered and links include:
- Boycott the Kindle?
- Meta-list of the world’s greatest books
- Authors not getting a say on covers
This week’s hypertitles for the alarming Commissioning Meeting are:
“The Romance of Rubber”
John Martin 1865-1947“The Rubaiyat of a Huffy Husband”
By Mary Wallace Bundy Little, 1857-“The Remarkable Adventures of an Old Woman and Her Pig, an Ancient Tale in a Modern Dress”
By Anonymous“Roughing It in the Bush”
By Susanna Moodie, 1803-1885
