The Books Desk at The Irish Times has been almost drowning in an unprecedented flood of books this autumn and we're not the only ones.
After the deluge . . .
The book trade has now even come up with a name for it The Great Autumn Flood, which is being perceived as such a problem that the Booksellers Association will hold a seminar on its merits, or more relevantly, demerits, during the annual London Book Fair next March. "From March to May there was a dearth of new titles," Charles Powiesnik of W.H. Smith bookshops told Danuta Kean of the Bookseller adding that this was now leading to an autumn torrent with everything suddenly emerging in the run- up to Christmas.
The problem is that the reading public may be overwhelmed by this feast of often very fine titles emerging at the same time. Booksellers have trouble stocking them, and book page editors, who can only review so many books at a time, will have to let some fine, deserving titles go un-noted. It's partly happening because, like everything else in this market-led world, books, according to Amanda Ridout of publishers HarperCollins, are getting a shorter and shorter life-span; publishers are fearful that books published in spring will be forgotten when people stampede the bookshops at Christmas. Sadbh is delighted to see the problem identified; there is welcome talk of growing the market throughout the year and hopefully next year's conference will go some way to actually making this happen.
Found: another Irish writer
The Irish writer that IMPAC forgot - sounds like the title of a whodunnit, but it's actually what happened to Belfast-born novelist Simon Kerr, who was inadvertently omitted from the original list of Irish authors among the 125 writers longlisted for The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2003. There are not five, but six. "Nationality is a bit of a sore point up in the North because there is this question mark and I just seem to have fallen down the hole," said Kerr. His first novel, The Rainbow Singer, made it because it was nominated by the MI Rudimino State Library in Moscow. Thrilled to be on a list that includes Delillo, McEwan and Franzen, it's the fact that he was a hit in Moscow that pleases him most.
German-Irish alliance
Hugo Hamilton, who has recently returned from a stint in Berlin and whose memoir about growing up in a household presided over by a German mother and an Irish father is due out next year and Jamie O'Neill, whose novel, At Swim Two Boys, has been translated into German by Hans Christian Oeser, will be among the Irish participants at a link-up with German writers later this month in Dublin and Galway. There will be events in both cities between November 28th and 30th which will include German- language writers Tanja Dückers, Sherko Fatah, Antje Ravic Strubel, Peter Weber and Joachim Helfer. Details from the Goethe-Institut, Dublin, 01-6611155. E-mail: goethe@iol.ie