LooseLeaves:While the limelight was on the 2003 Man Booker-winning Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre midweek when a British poll of 4,000 adult readers revealed that it was top of the list of novels people didn't finish, the detailed poll had other startling revelations.
Chief among these was the confession of 55 per cent that they buy books for decoration, status symbols to blend in with the curtains and loose covers - the kind of squirming fact one suspects but that few proud householders would usually admit to. Top choice - at 21 per cent - of novels acquired by the owner in order to appear more intelligent was Ulysses by James Joyce (above), while critics who occasionally opine on newspaper books pages about books that are overlong will find vindication in the amount of readers (34 per cent) who said they wouldn't buy a book that had more than 350 pages.
Two myths were dented by the poll, which was commissioned by Teletext: firstly, that riding high in the bestseller lists, as many of the unfinished titles have done, means a book is being devoured from cover to cover; and secondly, that getting a huge advance - as many of the writers did - means a book is an unputdownable gem. A big surprise on the list of top 10 unfinished novels was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling, in second place after DBC Pierre. Given the devotion of fans to the Harry Potter series - which has at times approached mania, with queues outside bookshops on publication night - this stood out. As the poll was only for adult readers (though many adults swear by the books), maybe some just couldn't hack Harry.
While it was inevitable that a book such as Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment would turn up on a list like this (in 10th place), another surprise was to see Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières there (in fourth), given its page-turning accessibility and moderate length, which had the masses heading to Cephalonia in droves. Maybe too many people just gave up on it because they'd seen the movie.
Vindication, too, in the unfinished non-fiction list for those for whom celebrity biographies or life stories of Big Brother personae are anathema. My Side by David Beckham came in at number three, with the autobiography of Jade Goody coming in at nine. Aspirations to improve one's lifestyle showed up hollow too - books about quitting smoking and dieting were also in the top 10.
While watching TV and playing computer games did, predictably, emerge as reasons people abandoned books, another factor topped the list; 48 per cent of would-be bookworms were just too tired. One good thing for authors, however; readers may not finish them, but plenty of them are still buying the books and there is still a majority of diehards left: 56 per cent of those surveyed said they had never given up on a book.
Step into Haverty's workshop
The school of English at Trinity College Dublin is offering a free six-week creative writing workshop with its current Arts Council of Ireland writer fellow Anne Haverty (below), to start on April 11th. Though primarily a novelist and author of the novels One Day as a Tiger, The Far Side of a Kiss and The Free and Easy, Haverty is also a poet - her collection The Beauty of the Moon came out in 1999 - and a biographer of Constance Markievicz. Submissions are currently being invited for places on the workshop, which will take place on Wednesdays at 6pm. Samples of work of 1,500-2,500 words of prose are being sought, or four to six poems, as well as brief CV including details of any workshops attended. These should be sent to Writer Fellow's Workshop, Oscar Wilde Centre, school of English, Trinity College, 21 Westland Row, Dublin 2, by March 30th.
Prize for finest foreign fiction
Fin-de-siècle Paris, and the pubs and football clubs of London, are among the backdrops to the six novels that have made it onto the shortlist for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. They are the Portuguese The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated by Daniel Hahn; the Swedish The Story of Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist, translated by Tiina Nunnally; the Greek Four Walls by Vangelis Hatziyannidis, translated by Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife; the Spanish Your Face Tomorrow, Vol 2: Dance and Dream by Javier Mariás, translated by Margaret Jull Costa; the German Vienna by Eva Menasse, translated by Anthea Bell; and the Norwegian Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad, translated by Sverre Lyngstad. A prize of £5,000 (€7,300) each (to both author and translator, that is) will go the winner on May 1st.