News from the Stormfront

News from the Stormfront
Hurricane Katrina has been to the forefront of the weblogs this week. We thank the Tel...egraph for pointing us towards Elf Cosmetics, which packaged 10,000 make-up kits to help the indigent during their great need. Of more moral help, if not quite practical, were Scholastic, US publishers of Harry Potter, which donated books and educational materials to schools and libraries in affected areas. Scholastic also reportedly donated $100,000, which shouldn't dent Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince profits too much. Random House, as well as donations, pledged 250,000 books from their children's catalogue for distribution to storm-hit kids. Sales of John Barry's Rising Tide, the story of the Mississippi flood of 1927, have risen sharply and publishers Simon and Schuster have rushed it into reprint, while also donating free books (presumably not that title). Rising Tide will be eerily familiar to its readers, focussing on the evacuation of one million people, the death of thousands and the politics behind the flood. We are not good at learning from our history. In a tenuous link to the hurricane, Laura Bush will try to claw back some of the goodwill lost by her husband and his shocking mother when she opens the US National Book Festival in Washington this week. The laudable event aims to bring families together through books and has a sterling supporting cast of writers in attendance, including John Irving, Tom Clancy, Tom Wolfe and historian David McCulloch, author of one of the biggest-selling books of the year, 1776.

Writing murder is easy
I have to confess to a misspent youth: less snooker and cider than coffee and Agatha Christie novels. I had them all, a childhood of constantly re-reading. It was made easy, since Christie's books had titles as memorable as their plots were interchangeable. We all know there was a Death on the Nile and A Body in the Library, but are damned if we can remember whodunnit. It turns out that I wasn't as alone as I felt, since Dame Agatha has sold a staggering two billion books to a world that seems frankly underwhelmed by her popularity. Publishing 78 crime books inevitably devalued their collective legacy, allowing her to be seen as more of a Barbara Cartland than an Arthur Conan Doyle. For the sake of perspective, those sales put her third on an all-time list, behind Jesus and Hamle: what a curious troika they make when joined by Hercule Poirot. It turns out that Ms Marple is 75 years old this year, something that will surprise those who felt she was far older when they first encountered her. This week is Agatha Christie week, also commemorating the 115th anniversary of her birth. Apparently more revered abroad in countries like France than in her native England, this year will also see a new version of And Then There Were None take to the West End, freed from its mid-life crisis title of Ten Little Niggers.

The outsiders
We had planned a few words about Sebastian Barry's A Long Long Way in our Booker round-up, but that fell away after the extensive profile published in Village two weeks ago. Barry has quite a bit in common with one of his fellow nominees, Ali Smith, whose The Accidental rounds off the books vying for the prize. Both were surprise additions to the Man Booker shortlist in a year when the number of heavyweight contenders looked certain to exclude them. He is 50 and from Sligo; she's 43 and from Inverness; but both have come to fiction through drama, Barry most famously for The Steward of Christendom. Both have written two other books, Smith most famously with Hotel World, which was nominated three years ago. Both are also rated as long shots, perhaps gladly for Smith, who avoids publicity and is scathing of the marketing and publicity of the book world in her novel.

Unexpected Man Booker winner likely
Saying the Man Booker Award is a crap shoot does it no disservice, but this may be a great year to be the dark horse. The jury of five differs annually, changing with them their personality, traditions and the chances of being second-guessed. There always seems to be one dominant character on the panel who champions a particular book and forcibly imposes their views on the others. Leaks to the press are common, partisanship almost expected. In 2000, one of the judges did all this and more, eventually asserting that no one really liked the eventual winner, JM Coetzee's Disgrace. We tell you this because that jury member was Professor John Sutherland. And the same Sutherland is back as head of the judges for 2005. In other words, the unexpected is likely, controversy assured, the outsider a real contender. Last time, two fellow judges wrote open letters to the press, distancing themselves from Sutherland's views. The jury announced this week they are still rereading nominees in advance of the televised announcement on Monday 10 October. We're going to look past the favourite, Julian Barnes' Arthur and George and plump for Ishiguro to win, with an outside saver on Zadie Smith. And we promise to not mention it again for 11 months if you promise not to gloat when we're proven hopelessly wrong.