Irving's own struggle

Censorship is an amusing liberal conundrum. Do you ban books that are obviously offensive or support their availability under a blanket support for freedom of speech? When you allow the sale of Mein Kampf, are you entitled to be worried if it goes to the top of the book charts as it did in Turkey this year? When David Irving comes to speak in Trinity should he be allowed to perform as you hope he will self-immolate?

All these issues became tied up last month as Irving was arrested on a visit to Austria and incarcerated in Vienna. Bankrupted by a court case in 2000 where he spent also £3 million defending allegations that he denied the Holocaust, the same allegation has him arrested and facing 20 years in jail. His fate is unsure and his situation made ridiculous by him finding two of his own books available in the prison library. How are those supporters of Orhan Pamuk (in jail in Turkey for allegations of genocide against the Turkish state) to deal with Irving's situation? Does one support only the freedom of the right speech? Tesco found themselves in the middle of this public moral dilemma when their online book site was found to be selling Irving's books. They removed the books from availability, something Amazon has been unwilling to do. Goebbels: Mastermind of The Third Reich and Hitler's War, amongst others, remain on unfettered sale.

The Whitbread Nominees

Once the Booker has passed, prize junkies like ourselves know that the Whitbread prize won't be far behind. The Whitbread panel announces five shortlists, one each in fiction, debut fiction, poetry, biography and children's books containing four book each. These are whittled down to a winner in each category by January. These winners then compete against each other for the grand prize of £30,000 and the title of Whitbread Book of the Year, to be awarded at the end of January next. Front runner for the fiction prize is Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown although some lukewarm reviews suggest this may not be the book with which he will win. Nick Hornby is the populist choice on the list, included for his decidedly average A Long Way Down, the meeting of four people atop a tall building famed as a jumping point for suicides. It's a long way to the end. This leaves the smart money on Ali Smith's The Accidental, the experimental story of a holidaying family and the 12 year old girl they meet which was also in the shake-up for this year's Man Booker. Most promising from the non fiction list is Alexander Masters' Stuart – A Life Backwards, a biography of a homeless man recommended by Village in April.

Hosing Salman Down

Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown despite inclusion on the Whitbread shortlist has been passed over for another major award this month as Giles Coren's Winkler took the Literary Review's nod for The Bad Sex in Fiction Award in 2005. Coren, better known as a food critic for the London Times will now be forever known for the hero whose penis leaped about like a dropped shower hose in the bath. He joins his fellow gourmand at the Times, AA Gill, who previously was victorious for his novel Sap Rising. They must get better restaurants to review than us lowly hacks at Village. The book beat John Updike, Ben Elton and Paul Thoreau to the prize which is awarded annually to draw attention to the crude, tasteless often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel – in an effort to discourage its use in case you found it a rather laudable pursuit. Readers will remember that the award was the most notable thing about the 2005 winner, Tom Wolfe's I am Charlotte Simmons which was subsequently taken on holidays by no less than George W Bush.

Curious Career Choice

A little part of Book Notes sees madness in Mark Haddon's decision to move from the adult-friendly The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime to publishing a book of children's poetry. No collection of verse will ever equal the worldwide reach of millions achieved by the young detective Christopher. But what do we know? Curious Incident has brought Haddon success that must have been unimaginable when he was an established and comfortable author of 17 children's books that had rarely exceeded expectation. His book of poetry has as charming a title as its Whitbread winning predecessor: The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea. He told the BBC World Service that the success of Curious Incident had freed him to do whatever he wanted while also allowing him a chance to challenge himself. He is not foregoing fiction altogether as this compendium of verse has been in progress for years, only finding a true voice with his new-found confidence. His next novel, tackling cancer and mental illness is nearly completed. As a pitch it doesn't sound very attractive but neither would a brief synopsis of his last book.