The power of paper in a digital era | Robert McCrum
As more and more archives are digitised, with many benefits, it's worth being reminded of the value of traditional recordsThis was supposed to be the paper-free generation. But what do we find? Sometimes, it seems as if we are like Shakespeare's school...
As long as words are cool, the novel will flourish
When the novel was young and confident, inventiveness was its raison d'etre. Not nowAbout 80,000 new novels were published in Britain last year, from Booker winner The Sense of an Ending to Costa children's book winner Blood Red Road. This looks like a...
Independence for Scottish literature
If Scotland gains full autonomy, its literature won't be far behind and 'British' writing will look rather thinner as a resultLast night, as I listened to Alex Salmond give a cunning and subversive account of his plans for Scottish independence, in the...
Costa prize’s appeal court can deliver a proper verdict
The Costa prize has an impressive track record. The 2012 shortlist for its top award proves whyCosta is the odd man out among the big literary prizes. More populist than Man Booker, but not as cool as Orange, it still hasn't outgrown its parochial, ale...
On margins | Robert McCrum
Marginalia, of the kind scratched all over Graham Greene's library by the author, can be fascinating – but aren't they also a little disrespectful?I've been sorting through some old papers. In the process, I've turned up a piece I wrote in 1994 abou...
McCrum: Traditional books, dressed to kill
Luxury craftsmanship and an eye for aesthetics are just the thing to give hardbacks an edge in their battle with ebooksElectronic time moves faster than real time. Just three years ago, the book world was having a collective nervous breakdown about "th...
Are you ashamed of skipping parts of books?
A quick skim through the reasons why it's not always a good idea to read every pageOver recent days, I've been reading Somerset Maugham's Ten Novels and Their Authors in the Vintage edition (a Christmas gift).Before he gets stuck into the lives and ma...
Are you ashamed of skipping parts of books?
A quick skim through the reasons why it's not always a good idea to read every pageOver recent days, I've been reading Somerset Maugham's Ten Novels and Their Authors in the Vintage edition (a Christmas gift).Before he gets stuck into the lives and ma...
A new map for the books world
A structure for the books industry which worked for a century doesn't any more, and publishing has yet to find a fresh modelAt the end of the first decade of the 21st century, book publishing finds itself trapped in a perfect storm of economic and tech...
Fifty things I’ve learned about literary life
There's no magic formula for success, and no one person knows best, but for what it's worth…From time to time, this column is asked for advice, sometimes obsessively, about decoding the many mysteries of "the world of books". There's a widespread vie...
The worldwide upsurge in demand for English versions of foreign bestsellers, coupled with the growing power of Google Translate, suggest we may be closer than ever to escaping the age of Babel
The 400th anniversary celebrations for the King James Bible and the constant presence of Stieg Larsson in English bestseller lists have contributed to a new appreciation of the art of the good translationWe are told, in chapter 11 of Genesis, that once...
Great Scott! Fitzgerald is enjoying a third act