My trials by jury service
I wanted jury service to be profound – Clarence Darrow is a hero – but the only revelation I can testify to was about Groucho MarxWhen I was in high school, my two heroes, and role models, were Bugs Bunny and the lawyer Clarence Darrow. They may se...
Beautiful bookshops? No thanks!
At best, the attractiveness of a bookshop is beside the point. At worst it's a positively bad signAccording to William Morris, one of the major thinkers, and designers, of the Aesthetic Movement, you should "have nothing in your house that you do not k...
When novelists reach the end of their stories
Whether their material has been exhausted, or they have, very few writers reach old age at the top of their gameWhen I was doing my DPhil on Conrad, one of the seminal texts, (now, I suspect, largely unregarded) was Thomas Moser's Joseph Conrad: Achiev...
Some of my worst friends are books
They offer consolation, wisdom, company of a kind, but they're really not interested in youA number of modern novelists have remarked on the profound oddity – or "madness", as Henry James (among others) once described it – of the way in which a nov...
What’s the definition of a great book?
As the inevitable rows on prize juries testify, it's not easy to say – but well-informed argument does provide some useful pointersMartyn Goff – formerly the administrator of the Man Booker prize, a puckish and highly literate man about town, novel...
The law of the included middle
I'm a firm believer in high literary and educational standards, and I feel strongly that they are empty values. Where's the problem?I'm not sure if it is said much any more – the phrase has an archaic feel to it – but we sometimes, still, refer to ...
The bibliophile on holiday
Jolly pastimes, fine scenery and sociability are all very well. But they can't really compete with readingI'm just back from holiday, as it's called, sailing on a gulet in Turkey with my wife Belinda and our friends the New Zealand artists Boyd Webb, G...
Am I a writer? | Rick Gekoski
I've written five books now, but that still doesn't seem to be enough to qualify meMy daughter Anna, who is just about to submit her PhD thesis in forensic psychology, has been writing for most of her working life. After finishing a degree in philosoph...
Why is there no good sex in fiction prize?
As the bad sex prize rather unnecessarily highlights, it's very difficult to write well about this subjectMy biblomemoir, Outside of a Dog, has just come out in paperback, and on the rear cover it says "Shortlisted for the PEN/Ackerley award." No one w...
Fact-check fears
Going back over early work on my new book, I'm shocked by how easy it is for inaccuracies to creep inI am just starting a book about lost works of art, called Lost Stolen or Shredded, or Has Anyone Seen the Mona Lisa? a few sections of which once forme...
It takes judgment, not taste, to pick a Booker winner
The challenge facing this year's Booker judges reminds us that recognising excellence in literature is about far more than personal opinionThe longlist for the Man Booker 2011 came out last month, and I don't even recognise half the names. Some of the ...
A new chapter for rare book collecting