On the Celebrity of Writing These Days.

Celebrity books are ghost written and if that's what sells, who am I to object, its not as if good literature is edged out by this kind of thing. Even less so with online bookshops...there is no limit to the number of titles sitting on a virtual bookshelf. I used to sneer at this kind of thing but as I'm getting a little bit nicer in my old age I am realising that 'live and let live' is a good motto to live by. Who am I to say what people should and shouldn't eat, wear and indeed read. And I myself recently had a flick through a celebrity photobook about Oasis so I am hardly adhering to a high intellectual bar. but that doesn't really address your question 'do you need to be able to write to be a writer?' I would say 'yes' but you do not have to be a writer to produce a book. Photo books have been around for a long time and before that books with colour plates or woodcut prints or other visual art. Paper and therefore books are not the exclusive reserve of the written word nor should they be. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

You need to be able to write to be a writer. You need to be able to write well to be a good writer. It's not rocket science.

on a slight tangent, apparently poor old Jane Austen would have problems finding a publisher today: http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2129738,00.html

a bookshop will order any title you ask them to order. Amazon, ABE will probably stock it anyway. If you want to browse without anything specific in mind, Oxfam and other second hand bookshops are brilliant and cheap. Foyles is a very good independent bookstore and even the chains like borders on the Charing Cross road are well stocked. That your average suburban town's Waterstones is a bit limited is nothing new. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Still an awful lot more space devoted to literary fiction in my local waterstones (Staines, harldy a cultural hub) than there is to celebrity biography.

Incidentally Patmac, have you read the House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewicz? Never underestimate the power of fools in large groups. graffito in bar outside US Air Base in Turkey

'Let's include hand prints, thumb prints and the potato cuttings that we did in primary school in the definition of modern writing'. No...it would go into the definition of modern art. I think you've completely missed the distinction between 'books' and 'writing'. This was an excellent project championed by Sir John Bird and ABCTales ran a competition to include some writing alongside the photographs but essentially it remains a piece of visual art garnished with writing... http://www.amazon.co.uk/London-at-Dawn-Anthony-Epes/dp/1843580756/ref=sr... and yes, I saw a copy on the shelf in Oxford Street's Waterstones! Harbouring a resentment against the publishing and book selling industry does you no favours. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

... and I would add that there has always been pretty dire writing around. Enid Blyton? Or how about this classic "It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness." jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

What do you mean by literature? My mother tongue is not English so no doubt, I will make awful mistakes in writing. I feel literature very much relates to time and style…for example: Bob Dylan lyrics are not all that proper English Language. I’m only suggesting, I could be wrong…I like to hear some definition.

True. Even images of a single video song got a whole lot of items in it.

"I say let the market run free. Lets explore the possibilities of total commerce, and have live erotic displays in bookshop windows." Wouldn't work from a commercial point of view. Lots of people would be offended and others would just stand outside the shop looking in rather than coming in to buy books.

Firstly, let me just attempt to correct the over-italicization... Hmm, it didn't seem to work... help?? :-/ Well anyway... Jude... I like how Zen you seem to be these days! "Live and let live" & all that... There is much in life that it is probably quite pointless to moan about - or at least, if one must moan, one ought to do so in a jocular and laissez faire fashion! :) On the subject of literature, books and whatnot... Well, my girlfriend is a photographer, whose work I love, and since she has got into the image-making game, I have a far deeper respect for this particular area of artistic endeavour. An picture can say more than a thousand, ten thousand, a million words - in fact, often words say far more than "needs" to be said. So I would be the last one to, generally speaking, have bad things to say about books full of pictures! As far literature/quality thereof/the Jane Austen thing is concerned... I think it very much serves to demonstrate the subjective nature of literary "quality." Fashion has always played a large part in what (in literature, art or whatever) is deeme "quality." It could perhaps be true to say that, these days, the likes of cinema and (going out on a bit of a limb here) videogames are areas in which dichotomies of opinions regarding "quality" are most visibly evident. Was "The Matrix" (for the sake of argument, the first film)... (A) a multi-layered work of post-modernist genius? ...or... (B) utter shite? Feel free to replace the above question with any number of versions of such relating to particular "pop culture" examples. There are those who would say that quality is quality, regardless of what any number of opinionists (?) may opine. I would challenge such a person to clarify such an assertion by providing a detailed definition of what (in this particular case, in respect of "literature") constitutes "quality"! pe ps oid Blogs! "the art of tea" "that's an odd courgette"

Just a post to sort the italics...

Hurrah! :) pe ps oid Blogs! "the art of tea" "that's an odd courgette"

For what it's worth a contemporary-ish view of Bulwer-Lytton can be found at http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bulwer/mccarthy1.html Always provided it's not a spoof of course :-) Ewan

The Matrix games were pretty good too... ...or shite, depending on your opinion. ;-) pe ps oid Blogs! "the art of tea" "that's an odd courgette"