 Good evening and welcome to Books to make you smile on this very special evening World Book Night. I'm your host for tonight, Sandy Toxby, and this evening is presented by the Reading Agency in partnership with SpexSavers. I hope you managed to watch Kate Moss in a fascinating conversation with Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro, but don't worry if you missed it, as it will be available to watch later on the British Library Player. I'll be honest, I didn't know you could be a British Library Player. Finally, a sport I might have excelled at. So then, April 23rd, we are live from the British Library, where I have penned many a word myself. I feel any mention of writing means I must mention that today marks the passing of William Shakespeare, who died on this day in 1616, possibly from over-celebrating his birthday. And there's a lesson there for us all, but I have no idea what it is. Shakespeare was of course a prolific writer, why by the time he was my age, he'd been dead for 10 years. I mean, that is remarkable. The British Library, apart from being the national library of the UK, is also the largest library in the world by number of items catalogued. There's about 14 million books here, which even the dedicated reader might take some time to get through, but there would certainly be something for everyone. I am a passionate advocate of literacy. About a third of adults in England don't regularly read for pleasure, and sadly that number goes up with young people. So let's encourage everyone towards this calorie-free delight. The Reading Agency's annual World Book Night celebrates reading for pleasure, encouraging conversation about books and for everyone to spend time reading. World Book Night covers the whole reading journey and is accessible for everyone from less confident readers to those who read regularly. It's a community celebration, bringing people together to share the joy of reading. And tonight we're celebrating 10 years of this life-affirming event. Since 2011 people across the country have come together on the 23rd of April to celebrate the books they love to encourage others to read more and to experience all the benefits that reading has to offer. We'd love you to join in sharing what you love about reading on social media using hashtag World Book Night. First I'd like to introduce Karen Napier from the Reading Agency, the national charity that brings you World Book Night. Good evening. I'm Karen Napier and I'm the Chief Executive of the Reading Agency and happy World Book Night. At the Reading Agency our mission is to tackle life's big challenges through the proven power of reading and we're thrilled to be celebrating 10 years of World Book Night tonight. Thank you to the British Library for hosting us in their magnificent building and I'd like to give a special mention to public libraries across the country watching tonight's events through the Living Knowledge Network. I'd also really like to thank our partners SpexSavers for their support of World Book Night as well as publishers and all of the many people and organisations involved in reaching readers across the country through our giveaway of a hundred thousand books. This World Book Night is all about books to make you smile and our book list is full of exciting recommendations. There's something there for everyone so take a look and choose your next read. Happy 10th World Book Night. Look, fantastically exciting. I have said I could almost stop and read them all right now but I've got work to do. You will have seen there a very special book, Stories to Make You Smile. It's published by Simon and Shusta in partnership with SpexSavers which is available as a free e-book, an audiobook download. It's available to download today and we're going to be hearing some exclusive readings from the book a little bit later on. First of all, let me introduce my guests. I've got three guests. First of all, screen writer and best-selling author David Nichols whose novels include One Day, Us and Sweet Sorry, Bolly, Babalola, a self-coined rom connoisseur whose first book Love in Colour has been an instant hit since it was published earlier this year and finally, now I know, Jamie Bing. CEO of Cannondate, an independent publisher and founder of World Book Night. Now before we come on to World Book Night, I was just thinking we should decide what it is makes us smile. Jamie, is there something that makes you smile? Quite a few things. My daughter, my youngest daughter who's only 14 months old makes you smile every time I look at her. That's something sort of instinctive, isn't it? Yeah. She smiles a lot too and she just has an energy and joy that radiates out of her beautiful face and spirit. So that's the one that's probably most precious in terms of the things it makes me smile. Yeah, no, I get that. My grandson who's four, I said to him recently, I said, what's your favourite animal? He said, I like mainly the nocturnal ones. That is my grandson right there. What about you, David? I really missed the countryside. I'm very happy outside London. That makes me very happy and I'm desperate to get out of this city, much as I love the city too, but I can't wait to actually get out in nature. It's what the Japanese call forest bathing. That's what I need. That's what I need. Yeah, you need a bit of that. Neboli, what about you? You look like you smile all the time, so I don't need to ask you. Being in Lagos and my family compound in Nigeria with my cousins, that makes me smile. It's just very always a joyful reunion with them. A lot of family stuff. Anyway, Jamie, first of all, congratulations because you founded World Book Night just over 10 years ago. I mean, it's now an massive nationwide annual celebration. First of all, tell us how it came about. Well, when you say I founded it, I had the idea because we were talking about World Book Day and how if there were ways in which World Book Day could be made more relevant to adults because it had become an extremely successful initiative for encouraging children to read. It just kind of dawned on me that World Book Night would be a kind of obvious way to distinguish World Book Day from another initiative to encourage reading. And I also had published a couple of years prior to this kind of light bulb moment, a book called The Gift by a man called Louis Hyde. And it was a woman called Margaret Atwood who, obviously, you will know, great Canadian writer who told me about this book and said to me, Jamie, if you like this book as much as I think you will, do you promise me you'll publish it? And I said, of course. And we did end up publishing it at Canongade. And when we paperbacked it, we gave 1,000 copies of this book away because it just felt like an essential thing. The book almost kind of insisted upon this kind of way of promoting it because Louis's whole thesis was when you give something, you actually alter the thing that is being given by the act of giving. So, and I thought with books, that is so true. If you give someone a book, it's different from if you buy it. You have a different relationship with the object. So, we had this crazy idea that why don't we do a mass giving? Instead of just the thousand copies we gave away of The Gift, why don't we try giving a million books away? Which sounded insane. And it was insane. But luckily, the whole publishing community got behind it. All the authors were involved in it. We had 2,000 book shops and libraries involved in it. And we had the two biggest printers in the countries. And it was just a mass initiative. The BBC were essential to the whole project. And we did indeed give a thousand, a million books away, 25 titles. One of which was David Nichols' One Day, which was a brilliant book to have in the opening. Yeah. So, it was on the very first World Book Night List, 2011. What did that mean to you? So, you're talking about, Tim, you're talking about giving away all these thousands of copies that it shared across the country. Yes. I mean, that event was amazing. And to sort of sit next to people like Alan Bennett and Nick Cave and not really be able to say anything to any of them. But to be there was real thrill and this huge event. They felt like that about you. I'm sure. But this extraordinary event with all these people and more than that, just the idea that 40,000 people were being handed that novel that very night is amazing. I mean, reading is a solitary act. But once a book is shared and spoken about, it becomes part of the reading community. And that's a real honor. So, it was a great thrill for me. Jamie, why did you feel it was necessary? I mean, I get about getting kids reading. What was the reason? Well, you know, as someone who'd been publishing for quite a while by that stage, I realised there were a lot of hurdles from when a book gets written to it actually being read. One of which is to get it published. But even once it's been published, it has to be sold into the bookshop. Someone has to go into a bookshop. Someone has to have money. Someone has to get the copy of the book and then have the time to read it. You know, these are all sorts of ways in which books don't get read. And I felt we could short circuit the whole process in a very dramatic way by giving a passionate lover of a particular book to give that book to someone they don't know and say, have this as a gift. I love this book. You might love it too. It's a very simple idea. And I think it does something beautiful, that sharing of what is innately an act of giving. I think a writer gives something just by the act of writing. And so, it felt true to the spirit of what literature is and the very essence of what that kind of exchange that goes on between a writer and a reader. So, that's the most beautiful, one of the most beautiful gifts I think there is. No, I can understand that. I walked past a bookshop in Brighton the other day and I saw a handwritten note clearly from the bookseller that said, please buy this book. It's really good. And I just thought, yeah, that's a handwritten, yeah, why not? Absolutely. Now, Bolly, you've had no trouble having to sell your book even when the bookshops have been closed because your first book, Love in Colour, it's, am I right? It's a collection of rewritten love stories. Is that right? Yes. Do you want to describe it for us? Yes, an anthology that takes inspiration from folklore, mythology from around the world. They're original, but I made an effort to pay homage to the roots and the cultures that they came from. But crucially, it centres women and their desire. And I think it's a feminist angle and it's not about damsels and the stress and princes coming to save the day. It's also about their journey of self-love and self-knowledge. Well, I think it brings romance novels into the present day, do you not think? I mean, because romance novels have always been very popular, why do you think that is? And why did you choose to write romance? I think people are always looking for something that brings them hope and joy and hope and joy that they can bring to their daily lives. And I think that's why I was drawn to romance. It wasn't even something that I actively chose. I think in the media that I consumed, I was drawn to that. And so when I started writing and figuring out that I could actually make up stories and put pen to paper, that's just what fell out of me. I think it's just something that felt very natural to me. I love exploring connection and what draws us to people. And what were the things that inspired you? You say the media that you tended to look at, what was the sort of things? I was always drawn to rom-coms, always. So I started off stealing romance books, romance novels, my mother's library and hiding them under my bed because I was way too young to be reading them. You were a child of the Disney movies as well. I loved Disney movies of course. And I think also that's where I started becoming interested in folklore and mythology because of course that's where the origins lie. And I just loved, I watched when Harry met Sally when I was 10 or 11 and I was like, yes, this is what I want to do. I want to tell stories like this and I like stories like this. I was way too young for that. I didn't know. So talking about human connections and love, your books are also about human connections and love. Your most recent novel, sweet sorrow, is about a first experience of love. Can you tell us a little bit about it? Yeah, I mean often that the idea for a book comes in reaction to what you've written before and in one day, one day it was very much about relationships in your 20s and 30s and the novel that came after us was about the 40s and 50s and marriage and family and what that means for romantic relationships. And I thought I'd go back to the initial experience. First love is by very definition something that only happens once and it's overwhelming for good or bad. It's like learning a new set of emotions. And I felt that there was a lot of comedy in that and a lot of pathos and I wanted to write a very classic coming-of-age summer love story. So it's about a boy who hates the idea of romance and particularly is very intimidated by the idea of books and literature and culture but he meets a girl who's playing Juliet in an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet. There's no greater story of first love, I think. Definitive first love. It's chosen well there. And he realizes that the only way he's going to get to see her is by joining in the production. So reluctantly he takes on the part of Benvolio and it's a very classic kind of Gregory's Girl type summer love story but contrasting Romeo and Juliet, that very heightened classical notion of first love with the kind of the mess and embarrassment and unawkwardness and gochness and ecstasy of first love in real life. I'm really interested that you both have taken inspiration from other writers and from other stories. Has that always been the case? Everything that you've read so far, is that a thing that spurs you on? I think, so I'm Nigerian and our storytelling tradition in a lot of places in Africa is an oral storytelling tradition. So you hear a story and then in retelling it you put your own spin on it and you bring it to the times that you're in. And I think I kind of think that's what I'm drawn to. I like taking inspiration from things. In the process of writing Love and Color I found that I really enjoyed taking inspiration from things and the roots and then kind of translating them with my own kind of flair and the way that I see the world and the prism within which I see romance. And I think you discover so much about the world but also yourself and how you see what's presented to you and the stories that came before. But it means presumably if you come from an oral tradition where as it were improving around the riffing around the thing is fine you don't feel constricted by the original story. Exactly. There's a freedom within that kind of formal storytelling I find. I mean David did you feel anyway there's Shakespeare's going I wouldn't have written it like that. Well I think that's the that's the joy of it. You're sort of having a conversation with this. I mean if you take Romeo and Juliet and you pinch together the Romeo and Juliet scenes there aren't that many and the scenes where they're happier they're even fewer but it's such a beautiful eloquent exciting evocation a universal evocation of the experience of falling in love and Shakespeare was someone that I was initially very scared of as a teenager. But once you overcome that anxiety I mean it's great to see Much Ado About Nothing in this year's selection because everything I've ever written has stolen from Much Ado About Nothing when Harry Met Sally is you know is a modern twist on Much Ado About Nothing it's the great original romantic comedy and so even though Shakespeare can feel quite imposing and monumental and intimidating if you take a deep breath and overcome those little moments that perhaps you don't understand keep going he's a wonderful incredible inspirational writer and everything I've ever written I've stolen from Shakespeare and Hardy and Dickens and all of these wonderful writers it's all it's all fuel. I think it's such a and it's great to say it I think is really honest and wonderful. I have to make a confession years ago I was in the theatre company at Regent's Park for the Shakespeare and there was a it was we were doing comedy veras and there was two pages that clearly had got big laughs in Shakespeare's time and that's all Shakespeare would have cared about and it was just dying on its thing. So the director said to me could you write two pages that we could go in here got massive laughs not one critic noticed so I think it's fine I've actually Shakespeare with additional material yeah additional material but I mean so Jamie World Book Night is all about encouraging more people to read there's fantastic recommendations aren't there each each year on the annual book list and people are encouraged to share if I always wonder if you were talking to somebody who wanted to read more and didn't know where to start I never like to be prescriptive I never I mean so that the list is a great place to start but how do you sit down with somebody and say okay I hear you want to read more this is what I'm going to recommend to you oh it's such a difficult one isn't it because uh it's a very subjective thing reading and different books uh do different things to different people at different ages so there is a kind of randomness about it and your connection with the book is is one that you can't predict so it's it's something you have to kind of think carefully on which is why I think trying to uh recommend writers who are accessible is the and to me there are writers who are great writers who are also reading right incredibly readable and accessible books and certainly for someone who doesn't regularly read for pleasure I'm always going to be recommending something that is narrative and a brilliant story with great characters and something that is going to hopefully make you laugh and cry because I know if a book is doing isn't doing both to you I think something's missing because that's what Shakespeare did you know it's the it's the gamut of emotions you want to take a reader on and I think I would always be urging those kinds of books like one day well actually um David's new novel I was listening to Rory Keneer's brilliant reading of it on the way and just the way you described it it was just it's it's there's so much pathos and so much humor in it and the relationships are so good and it's who doesn't relate to the experience you're talking about a kind of disco at school that kind of so it's it's that stuff that it's all about connection and so the reader's got to feel some sort of connection with the book even if it was written centuries ago and the person was a different gender a different background different whatever they've got it's the inner humanity of the book that's what we are any book that has that is a great book I think do you know what it made me think of when you were saying that there was a great a choreographer called Bob Fosse and he always had a good musical you have a good time in the crying scenes and maybe it's the same with the book you should still be having a good time even in the crying scenes maybe that fits yeah it's cathartic and you it makes you feel and that's what you want when you read a book and that's the incredible thing about a book it can make your heart race it can make you laugh out loud and it can make you cry and it is just it's it is alchemy the words on the page can transform your state of mind kind of if that's not alchemy what is alchemy I don't know but that to me almost is the definition of alchemy which is why I'm in awe of all writers and the readers who turn the writers books into the things that they become which is the thing we must never forget the readers make the books what they become and do you feel a responsibility now Bolo now that you've had a success with your book that people will come to you and say will you obviously know about books what shall I read dude it's apart from saying my own book do you feel a sense of responsibility and what would you recommend to people I think people fear that they need to read things to impress other people I would say what do you normally like what are you interested in even in film what are you interested in and I would go from there because reading like he says a very subjective thing and you I don't want you to feel connected to it so what I like might not necessarily be what you like but I can recognize a good story and if it has a subject matter that you're drawn to I will recommend it but I would say it's not shouldn't be a restrictive thing or something that you feel like oh I need to read this because it's the classic and everybody says it's good okay but are you interested in the subject matter if you're not don't don't force yourself because it's also great to be surprised exactly yeah yeah what's the book about the bees what was it called just called the bees it was the one it was set in did you read that it was a sue mutton but yeah just set in a hive of bees and I thought oh and I hadn't got anything to read and somebody and I was on a train and I was wonderful absolutely so surprise yourself although I have to say when in doubt I would recommend the classic I mean you mentioned Hardy and so on I would always say to people well Dickens is a classic for a reason yeah I mean I love Dickens I don't know if he's read and loved in quite the same way I mean my way into Dickens was actually through TV adaptations and and screenplays which perhaps made him seem more accessible but reading great expectations was a real breakthrough for me I'd always imagine the classics were inaccessible and intimidating and I'd never had such a strong sense of identification with the characters with with Pip his confusion the unrequited love that the ambitions that aren't really thought through the the vanity the self-loathing all those anxieties seem to me extremely relatable this is not a great word but I didn't find the work as intimidating as I'd expected to so I which isn't to say that I'm constantly pushing classics on people I think as Bobby said you know we should not be snobbish and read widely and read all kinds of books but but those books did have a huge effect on me at a very particular age when I was 14 and also I think it's important to remember with Dickens in particular written in magazine installments and written to be read aloud and actually if you read it as it was originally intended in those like it's almost like a soap opera then you only get a little bit and you've got to wait for the next bit and you hear it read aloud I think it's absolutely wonderful yeah that word cliffhanger comes from Thomas Hardy there's a I think it's one of his two on a tower ends with someone hanging and so there's the constant sense of set pieces and excitement and tension just in chapter after chapter which is I think just pulls you on yeah having said that yeah I do I think when I read Pride and Prejudice for the first time at 14 it opened up a whole new world to me but I think people just disregard classics they think oh rom-coms like why would a book set then be have the same tenets as a rom-com and I say well Pride and Prejudice to me is the blueprint you know and I think that's why I say what are you interested in and I will then go back and see if what lines up with that because I think people cut off classics because they feel like it can't be relevant to them so it's about opening up new worlds I think and can you remember a book that you read when you were young that you thought actually I want to do that what that book has just done to me I want to do that to other people yes it was Pride and Prejudice actually yes because I because obviously it's a world completely different to mine as a British Nigerian girl living in East growing up in East London but I related to it and I fell in love with the characters and not of course not Elizabeth but not just Elizabeth the people who populated her world and it was so witty and she was so sharp-tongued and sharp of mind and I just fell in love with it and I didn't and I was so perplexed by the idea that I understood it because it didn't make sense for something so old to be so relatable to me and I think it really taught me the power of literature and writing in general but I love that that you can read something from a completely different culture completely different age and find something of similarities in it yeah absolutely because we're people and I've been struggling to read The Tale of the Genjai which is the very first novel ever is a thousand years old written by Lady Murasaki but there's bits of it I find very difficult bits of it I just think oh yeah I get that it's a thousand years ago you go oh okay thank god you what about you Jamie was there a moment when you thought you did you did you want to be a writer or you wanted to no uh no I never kind of I've always been kind of in awe of writers I've always read quite a lot I talk about early books I remember vividly finishing the first book I really felt I read on my own a chapter book which was Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl and that was a kind of that began a real uh long love affair with Roald Dahl's running which led through all his children's books and then I started reading his short stories and actually he was one of the writers who helped me kind of migrate from kind of children's literature to to more adult stuff and I think he's um a consummate storyteller but um now I kind of write a lot in small bits and I and I work a lot with words but I um I first of all I don't have time but I don't I don't also believe I have the the the talent I I know what an extraordinary difficult thing it is to write good books or great books and um I think my my kind of skills are better used kind of helping promote and publish writers rather than trying to come on myself it may be being very modest it's hard for me to say what about you David early book that made you think wow this is a thing uh I mean to begin with I remember reading the Moomin novels and really loving them and as they went on they became more and more melancholy and it was a strange kind of pleasurable melancholy so very strange as the mother wants to go and live in the kitchen wall and stuff it's very all very odd and then the ones in November and winter and they have a kind of almost a kind of Bergman-esque gloom that that I actually found really really enjoyable that's that's a Scandinavian and touching and I think comedy as well was a big way and for me um Sue Townsend's uh Adrienne Moll was a massive influence I mean my first novel Start of a Ten is is is obviously influenced by Adrienne Moll and Great Expectations um Douglas Adams was a great way in I would suggest to you know to people who are wary of reading that that comedy is a is a great way to go and Helen Fielding, Douglas Adams, Nina Stibby I think is a wonderfully accessible witty funny writer who also has terrific pathos which I think was Sue Townsend's great gift uh so um for me comedy on the page was was a was a big inspiration and a great way into books and I think it's it's there even in some of the most serious books so you mentioned Margaret Atwood earlier on and um I once had to do a double act with Margaret Atwood and it was a nightmare she was hilarious she's really funny really funny I just thought this is not what I was expecting I was expecting somebody doing something about you know rather do her life but no no she was funny other me she's on the annoying side uh Jamie I just want to talk briefly about Letters Live um which I have been involved in for anybody who doesn't know look for it not that it's inspired Letters Live or Letters of a Note here's one on Dogs which I brought for you actually Letters of a Note Dogs and Letters of a Note Space which is for you David and I brought you grief which is so beautiful it's anyway Letters Live sorry Letters Live um I'll trade you my dog one what would you like to know about Letters Live anybody who doesn't know about it just just tell us a little bit about it uh really simple idea we get brilliant performers such as yourself to take to the stage and David's done this well you did the second ever Letters Live so but it's mainly actors we get we get brilliant actors to read letters to a live audience but no one in the audience ever knows which actors are going to be coming out onto the stage or what letters they're going to read and um yeah we did the first of these in 2013 and we've done about 80 of these shows and we do a lot with the National Literacy Trust with it we always support different literacy charities through them but they are a brilliant show the last big one we did was at the Royal Albert Hall and we're doing another one back there on the 30th of October and if you've never been to Letters Live they are talk about the roller coaster of emotions one moment you are laughing out loud and then you are honestly you have people weeping in the audience and that was always the it might sound um quite sadistic but we did really want people to kind of uh emote and go through a an intense experience both uh positive and and and kind of moving in in in the Letters Live show well I love it and one of the things I was just thinking is encouraging people to read that if people feel that maybe you know a large novelist too much for them reading a selection of letters of which are so varied is a wonderful way in completely agree and I I think um there's they also are they're these little time capsules letters and there's something what I loved about Letters Live is that we were taking this most private form of correspondence unless it's an open letter to a newspaper it is particularly addressed to one person and then we were putting that out into the kind of the outside world so in a very public space you are having this per a personal letter read out and that did something very interesting for the audiences because they kind of zone in on the letter almost as if it's being addressed to them the performer is also zoning in on the letter as if they are the writer of the letter and yet so you're taking this very personal very kind of minute kind of intense interaction really between one person and another and you are kind of sharing it and I think it's as you say the letter is a beautifully accessible form of narrative as well and some there are brilliant novels written through letters and the letter not least in Jane Austen often plays a crucial role within within the within the plot so because I keep trying to think about different avenues in Bolo I'm very taken with your idea of your telling us about the oral story tradition because it seems to me if there are adults who say listen I don't read I don't read for pleasure but telling a story is a great way in to hook people in do you think I I wonder if we should have we should have adult storytelling we have lots of kids get told stories but when's the last time an adult sat down and told you a story that's true actually and I but thing is I think we tell each other stories all the time but we don't think of the value of it that's why people people love Twitter people love red anecdotes on Twitter because it draws people in and it's also opens up an experience as well and it really is it builds a community because people are like oh I relate to that I understand that and it opens up the world to people I think and also I think for me storytelling goes hand in hand with comedy I think it I couldn't I couldn't imagine reading a story and connecting to it without kind of a dose of humor I actually adored Adrian more when I was when I was growing up and I also love Louie Louise Rannison who is kind of like who wrote almost a female version of Adrian more because it was Georgia Nicholson series because it there's such a human there's such an element of pathos in in humor and I think being human is so humiliating that if you don't you don't have an awkward and appreciating yes you don't have humor is just see how do we survive yeah I mean I've only got a sense of humor because I went to boarding school that's literally how I got through it and David tell me about I think it's sometimes difficult for writers to talk about the role of reading for them because presumably if you're writing you don't want to be influenced by somebody else's style you don't want to go oh well they're just brilliant so I'm going to stop now or you know is it difficult sometimes it's a difficult balance every book I've ever written has a kind of mood board of other books that I've read and admired and I want to take a little bit from you know sweet sorrow is is a little bit of the go-between meets a little bit of goodbye Columbus it's a kind of there are their influences and that's great but quite often I have to put writers down and because it's too close to what I want to achieve or there's a kind of a sort of creative envy that that means that it's not a good idea to be reading that writer while I'm writing and I've often found myself taking on a particularly with comedy taking on some of someone else's comic trips tricks and foibles and tone because I admire it so much so I haven't written original prose for a while but when I go into that mode I I tend to read perhaps novels from abroad or novels in translation or novels that aren't anywhere near what I'm trying to achieve while at the same time carrying with me all these other great books that I've read which are fuel you know it's it I can't imagine a day without reading for me it's it's essential and everything I've written has drawn from experience from life from people I've met but but for the most part from other wonderful books and what about you are you able to to to read while you're writing I'm precisely the same I prime myself mimicking authors that I really admire so I try to just stick to nonfiction a book that I always return to is all about love by bell hooks because my subject matter is romance and love so explores love but it's nonfiction so it's in a very practical way and it's very lucid and it's and it draws on the beauty about love but in a very kind of it's clinical without being cold and I think I need that and it helps me excavate the emotions that I need to excavate without mimicking another another author because that is the difficulty isn't it yeah you I'm sure you're too young to remember but there was a wonderful writer called Alan Coran he was a great journalist and show you remember we published a collection of his his pieces he was brilliant he was genius hilarious hilarious you didn't know Alan Coran's work anyway um I we were great friends and I said to him why don't you write a novel Alan you're a wonderful writer and he said because I can't write the great Gatsby and I said well that's all right it's already been done um but he just it was he was blocked by the fact that he so admired this one book that he couldn't then decide to sit down and write a book um when it comes to publishing jemmy you were responsible for the UK public publication of jan motel's life of pie which did yep quite well um it was a happy experience happy experience this book was born as I was hungry there's the opening line of it which uh which I always like how how do you know because you you love to read how do you know that a book is good and that you think I'm going to put my energies into making sure that this gets shared you don't you don't know it's going to be successful all you can know is the effect it has on you that that's the only thing and of course the longer you publish the more experience and you know I work with a brilliant team of people there's not only a great editorial team at canning gate but just brilliant colleagues across the departments and I was thinking about I'm not actually in a book club but except I feel like I'm in a constant book club at canning gate it's just like because the acquisition meetings where we're talking about a book and everyone's read the proposals it often is for nonfiction or if it's a novel you're reading the whole novel and you're discussing the book and there's fantastic you know divergence of opinions at least sometimes people feel really strongly it's a great book someone else just might leave them a little bit cold doesn't happen that often it's like unless it's you know a kind of what classic kind of marmite book of some sort but there's all sorts of interesting kind of things you have to weigh up as a publisher when you're working out are we going to give this particular book a slot on our list or make an offer to the author doesn't necessarily we'll get the book because there might be several of other other publishers also wanting to publish it but you just have to trust your gut I I you know life of pie was turned down by a great number of publishers in this country and that's why I mentioned it I thought you could feel it and it was and it was only Faber and ourselves who bid on the book and to me I read the book and it was I had a beautiful experience with life by because I was in New York seeing an editor a wonderful woman called Anne Patty was an editor at Harcourt Brace and she had inherited another author we published called Michelle Faber so she'd been very keen to find out what Michelle was writing next and it was before he wrote his incredible Victorian novel The Crimson Patel and the White and at the end of this lunch she says to me you know God I should have told you about this book earlier yesterday I preempted the rights from this young Canadian writer he's never been published in America before he's called Yamartel and she starts pitching me life of pie the story and I'm like fuck that's a great story you know and I say can I get the book and she says I go back to her office after lunch and she's got a really slow printer in her office and after 150 pages of printed of the book I'm like I've got to leave here otherwise I'm going to miss my plane tonight I'm flying out of back to London so I do get to the airport just make my flight I'm on the plane I literally turn page 150 when I in my head I'm somewhere above the Atlantic and Richard Parker and Pie are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and I turn over the 150th page I'm like that talk about cliffhanger I was like what is going to happen what is going to happen anyway that's how life of pie came it was a recommendation but it was a recommendation from the editor board it said you must read this book and as Michelle Faber's publisher I have a feeling you're going to love this novel and I did and my colleagues loved it and we ended up making an offer and Jan decided to go with us and then we got lucky it won the Booker Prize that that we couldn't have predicted that although I did say in my pitch letter I think this could win the Booker Prize to Jan when I said because I thought it had all the elements in fact full circles Margaret Atwood was one of the first great champions of that book she she wrote an amazing review for it in the Sunday Times of that novel and I I'm sure that was one of the things that was in the ether with the judges when they were you know because uh yeah but that's some of it isn't it things that are in the ether finding the right happy connection did you you've clearly had a happy publishing experience with your with your book and has that made a big difference to you that you've made those relationships with the equivalent of Jamie as it were at your absolutely I have a very close relationship with my editor and I think she trusts my voice and I trust her voice and in her I have a great advocate so um nothing unpleasant can get to me because it gets to her first and she's like no no no he's not exactly firewall firewall and it's really the ideal relationship because if she suggests something to me I know it's because she trusts my capabilities and my talent and it makes me challenge myself so it's been very very and she's publishing we're publishing my next novel with them as well and um it's it I think has made me a better writer yeah I think you need that you need a bit of pushback do you think that's a yeah I mean it's horrible you never really want to have any any response except this is amazing but it's absolutely necessary yeah good good editing good notes uh and the desire also to make it as good as it can be you're not allowed to take the book off the shelf and tweak it you know once it's out there it's it's done so it's in your own interests to challenge yourself and make it as polished as it possibly can be at that particular time my my father was I come from a long line of writers my father was also a writer and he always used to say to me when he was writing a book he said the thing is that he first you decide what kind of fish you're going to catch and then you catch your fish and then you fillet it until you present to everybody the finest piece of the fish you decided to catch and I really like that so I enjoy the process of rewriting and and the editing process I think it's a really nice bit um let's come on to inspirations uh start with you David anybody in your life who inspired your love of reading is there a family member or a teacher that you say I had I had good teachers I mean for me it was absolutely about libraries at Eastley public library uh was my second home really and it was it was as much a part of my education as as school I mean I I spent three or four nights a week there I loved it there I worked my way but initially at random but but then with more focus through the shelves working out what I loved and it was uh to have access to such a wide range of literature to go from James Herbert to Dickens to you're to anywhere to it was was was really thrilling and exciting and I owe such a huge debt to the library system in general but but that particular library in particular terrible sentence anyway the important thing is that yeah it's right Jamie's is that um is that it was I wouldn't dream of being a writer without without access to the library system but isn't that wonderful isn't it wonderful as we're sitting here that libraries are reopening doesn't that make you isn't it wonderful just to be here yeah because we're not we're not virtually speaking to each other from our homes and so on I think it's uh I think it's fantastic I think it's a really wonderful thing what about you Molly is it an inspirational member of your family or a building or yes my both my parents are are massive readers my father in particular and he is a storyteller he's a real all-star storyteller and I think um so what is showing her I think is the first African person to win a Nobel Prize for literature and he's actually from my hometown in in Nigeria for my family's hometown um I think even from the same village there um and so I grew up around his books and I my parents were very they they didn't hide things for me which is why I watched when Harry met Sally when I was 10 years old um and so I always had access to these books they were always on the shelves and I think it was really pertinent for them to be black authors and African authors and I joined authors um because I was like oh I can do this and um African literature was so poetic and so rich um and so when I write like that I feel like I'm part of a legacy and it was really important to me to be around that but it's really important isn't it to find those role models for yourself exactly so great what about you Jamie that uh that you decided to talk about libraries David there's a quote in David Mitchell's novel the Thousand Orthums of Yack of the Zoo where this guy Dr. Marinus talks about growing up in a house that had was full of books and he says to this printed library to this printed garden I was given the keys and I feel I was like that as a child I was lucky enough to grow up in a house that was full of books so there were books on so many shelves of books more than I could ever read in my lifetime in the house I grew up in so I was surrounded by books I was I was given you know access to this printed garden as a child so I was they always seemed very familiar to me and then I was lucky enough to have some great teachers I had one particular teacher this guy called Robert Waik who excited in me I read Vanity Fair our class read it with him and he he got me excited about Thackeray and about kind of Victorian literature in a way that no one else had and then you know I just was lucky to end up being a book publisher because it feels like I'm constantly surrounded by writers and books and I feel very blessed in that way so I feel I've been I continue to get a lot of inspiration from those people and isn't it wonderful when somebody can encourage you like that I mentioned I was at boarding school so we were allowed downtown for 40 minutes on the left hand side of the high street on a Saturday morning and we didn't have very much money and all the girls would go off and buy suites and magazines and stuff I went to a place called Thorpe's bookshop and they realized they got to know me in there and a secondhand bookshop and they realized I didn't have any money and strangely things like Jane Austen would appear in the 50p trade just as I came in and it was they just kept feeding I realized after a while they'd been feeding me all these books because I couldn't have afforded them as they managed to put them in the 50p thing so I will be grateful to them for the rest of my life um any special memories of reading or being read to when you were younger? I think I always nagged my dad to read to me always always and whenever we went to on family holidays to Nigeria he would give me a ten pound note and let me go to Stargate Smith and buy my book for the holiday and when I went back to Lagos in December I found like a massive box of all these books that I had when I was growing up and I kind of built my own library so um yeah that's my that's that's my memory just not even being excited about the holiday just being excited about about the book that I get to pick for the holiday um yeah it's very special to me but any of those books when you were younger make you cross make you think actually this doesn't represent me or I don't want the girl to be saved or I you know um I read a lot of I read a lot of radar and I read a lot of make habit and I have to say my taste was quite good oh good because a lot of those a lot of those authors also write adult books that I still read and I and now I realize I was drawn to them because the girl always had a strong mind which was really funny and she wasn't necessarily fawning over the the love interest he had to kind of earn his way into her life which I didn't know then but I was drawn to no wait I can see that I remember my very first book that I read was Janet and John does it a little bit no I'm Jamie's anyone nodding Janet and John yeah thin on plot and Janet gets a little or nothing to do it's very irritating um what about you David I really got into American Literature when I was 15 or 16 I read a lot of John Irving I love John Irving I was found very emotional in the way that Dickens is as well I I remember reading Ken Keesey's one throw over the cuckoo's nest and being absolutely devastated by just sitting and sobbing at the ending uh and so it was Steinbeck as well Steinbeck I I loved Steinbeck it was an elated man yeah so those realizing that again these these marks on the page could have this huge emotional effect on you as well uh that was uh that was a real breakthrough for me now we're talking here all the time about encouraging people to read um Jamie what about the people who who have perhaps had struggled with reading how can we reach out I'm a big advocate for literacy and I know what a big issue it is in this country what do you think there are any ways in which we can I know that libraries do the best they can to reach out hi it's been interesting during the lockdown and it's happened over the last few years there's been this extraordinary kind of growth in in the listening to of audiobooks and I I I call that reading I know on one level it's listening so a patent could say it's not reading but actually you're doing many of the same things you need to do as a reader which is to be attentive and be and you're transported by the text I suppose and you have to use your imagination and I I think audiobooks is a brilliant way in for reluctant readers because that is what hooks you into store makes you realize oh my god a book can do this much for me it can take me all these different places it can affect me I can learn for I can grow with it it can make me feel connected with things and people and ideas I didn't know other people were thinking all the the many things that we all love because we read loads but people who don't realize that books contain everything they contain everything that's ever been imagined or dreamt of is in a book and you know and you can become things through reading that you know it can allow you to grow in ways and I think audio is one of the most brilliant ways to do it I also think you know I'm a fan of classics but I think sometimes classics can be dangerous for at a school level and the way they're taught and and you know so I think we have to somehow make the joy of reading is the thing that if that ever gets squeezed out and it can be squeezed out for lots of reasons and some people just might not have the attention spans to want to read some people are dyslexic they reach struggle to read and stuff so I think you have to just recognize that everyone's an individual everyone needs possibly different things to make them tick but I think audio is one of the great ways to kind of encourage literacy I completely agree and also you mentioned you said you feel like you're in a reading group when you're at your book club that is another way isn't it have you had any association with any book clubs don't you sort of think that no I've gone as a as an author right and been presented to the book group and I always lose sleep the night before and it's always a real pleasure you know I'm gonna get a lot of notes so I'm just gonna get a lot of a lot of criticism for things that I can't fix it's going to be a really rough ride and they're not going to like it and it's terrible to be in a confined space with people who are going to point out the thing you go oh no that is right that is a mistake yes but my experience has always been really good and actually while we've been in lockdown I've been able to do more than than usual because it's very easy to jump on the zoom call and talk to people about the book and it's it's enjoyable I think it's a wonderful thing to be able to discuss things the other thing don't like it you pull up the the wife yes sorry I'm sorry lost connection spinning the reading agency has revealed today that 53 percent of people have reread at least one book over the past year if you could reread a book what would it be um because it's going to be embarrassing for you I always read one day I always read it one day I love this this is loving I do one day um I read it when I was I think I was 19 or 20 and I was like this is it it was so full of warmth and joy and very much and so emotionally intelligent and I was like these these are the kind of stories I want to tell um so yeah I always reread reread one day thank you that's a compliment thank you that's wonderful thank you what about you Jimmy is there a book that's a go-to for you uh well the trouble about being a publisher is that there are lots of things you have to read manuscripts and I say have to as if it's a a a burden or some sort of onus and it sometimes does feel like that but it's not often it's things I really want to read the book I've actually just started rereading it's a bit of a pitch for a book but it's something by this one called Ruth Ezekie and I've just started rereading her novel which we're publishing in September called the book of form and emptiness and sometimes you have to reread a book to start to realise quite how brilliant a book is quite what the author was intending at the beginning of the book because you can't appreciate it till you've ended the book finish the book so that's the thing I I'm actively in the process of rereading the moment and uh but I don't reread as much as I'd like because there's so much stuff out there I still want to read that I haven't read that could have been written I've got my reading list has has hundreds and hundreds of books on it and that sadly means that it's not often that I want to reread things because there's other things I want to experience for the first time yes I was trying to look today to see who was the last person to have read every book that had been printed and you do have to go back pretty much to Gutenberg's time I think in order to we're never going to we're never going to come I think I was in Eloise and Abelard I think Abelard's went to the last person I know it's a it's a while ago um have you found writing during lockdown difficult has that been a tricky thing David yep yep straightforward answer okay yeah I mean it's it's been impossible for me I mean there's lots of people have pointed I I've written a lot about the past about the 80s and 90s and I thought I should write something contemporary and suddenly the word contemporary doesn't really mean what it used to and I don't know whether to write something said in 2019 or 2023 I don't really want to fiction particularly will have a dividing line now isn't it yeah yeah I mean it's fascinating in a way but I think that this whole experience perhaps needs time to percolate a little bit um so I found it very hard I've also found um the lack of contact with people very difficult I've realized how much I don't think I steal stories or ideas from people but I'm definitely stimulated by contact with lots of people and conversation but a bit of a magpie as well taking little pieces that all writers do that and having spent most of the last year with the same three people even though I love them and that's been an experience in itself it hasn't been stimulating in the way that contact with my friends and strangers and just being out in the world it is for me so I've been I've found it quite difficult yeah no I could understand that didn't they discover that JD Salinger after living in isolation for about 40 years had written a lot of books and I always thought well I wonder what he had to say because he lived entirely by himself so what's he drawing? Well I see she's I love Emily he's awesome had story days oh I think she's a genius um I presume romance is going to be pre and post-pandemic there's not going to be is it's going to be a tricky thing during the pandemic yeah it was it was tough it was tough um you have to remind yourself what it feels like to be at a party and to feel that spark and the connection and being in even the chemistry of being around people that you really enjoy and really like I had to remind myself of so it was definitely tough as a writer you kind of have you have to experience the world in order to put it to page um so yes definitely something that I struggled with um but also that's when re-reading came in just to remind myself what it's what the world is like it opens up the world in a in a different way when you can't actually be in the world do you know what sitting here just chatting about books it's just been the loveliest thing and looking people in the face and there's a new thing you just see the bottom the top half of the face I have absolutely loved it um unfortunately we are out of time I'm pretty sure that's right and thank you so much uh Jamie and Bolo and David was really lovely sharing your thoughts with us um so I hope that everybody at home has been inspired to read some more and also to share your reading with people around you because that is what World Book Night is all about we mentioned earlier that we would have some exclusive readings from stories to make you smile so we have a special message from the Reading Agency's partner for World Book Night SpecsAvers and some special guests sharing extracts from their stories with us uh don't forget to download your free copy of the book right now to end your World Book Night with a smile thank you so much everybody it's lovely thank you reading has always been such a popular pastime and it's certainly a passion of mine this year more than ever being able to escape with a good book has been a lifeline for so many people especially when we've had to spend more time at home and having something to smile about during these challenging times remains absolutely essential which is why SpecsAvers is delighted to be working with the Reading Agency to help make that possible by bringing you not only good vision and hearing but our free short story anthology stories to make you smile now this is published by Simon and Schuchster and edited by Fanny Blake the collection features some amazing authors including Katie Ford Dorothy Coombson Richard Madly Veronica Henry Rachel Hall Vassim Kahn and Eva Verdi and we are guaranteed smiles from such witty writers such as Jenny Eclair Helen Lederer and Mark Watson now you can download it for free as an e-book or you can listen to the audiobook and that audiobook has been narrated by EastEnders actor Matt of Sharma, Downton Abbey Stars Hugh Bonneville and Samantha Bond as well as that star from Bridgerton a Joa Ando and we really hope the stories bring a smile to your face it's true the interview has been a complete shambles but he can't afford to vocalise bewilderment at how badly things have been run this is the horrible position that it puts you into job seeking somewhere between a polite visitor and appreciative tourist and a supplicant even when you're seeing competence around you even when it's almost embarrassingly clear that you would add value to the setup because almost anyone would quite honestly a badger in a suit would you still have to feign admiration and respect when the person interviewing you makes spelling errors in the introductory email when the firm gets the time wrong and double books you however amateurish the team and their actions you still have to act as if it would be a privilege to join their ranks because you are separated from them by one of the starkest measurements that can divide people they have a job and you do not the best thing mar does these days is to turn any small worry into something for sky one small things of the day is never completely black that keeps their small world turning free from interference the dreaded club sky somehow loves the library a bus ride now it's a nice bum on the way home that the bread man always gives sky to free since miles pride melted enough to say thank you chopper looked thoughtfully at the man opposite him joshie was a bear dressed in a navy safari suit saddlebags of sweat under the arms the air conditioner was out again and the office was full free may in Mumbai just before the monsoon we're a lending agency clarified joshy we lend money who do you lend it to whoever needs it the most there was something evasive in the man's manner chopper thought what exactly did Mirza take the documents valuable documents chopper watched him swat away a fly and why do you suspect him because I terminated his position a month ago at the agency he was unhappy revenge revenge clarified joshy emphatically it'll take your mind off things Janet's voice sounded so definite down the phone I don't feel like shopping Gemma screwed up her tired eyes besides I've no money we can at least look I don't feel like looking or even leaving the house Gemma you can't stay in forever but what if I'm recognised it was eastern gazette not sky news cat litter by now the port of her photograph lying under a feline bottom did not reassure Gemma I must say though she's side I am getting cabin fever all right I'll meet you at the bus stop in half an hour they knew the game already this lot they had to pretend to gnaw at the savory before the sweet stuff was brought in the troughs of their pelican bibs filled with crumbs I relented pretty quickly and brought in plates of pink panther wafers jammy dodgers and chocolate fingers it was half past three I looked around at my new friends the dark circles under their eyes the unbrushed hair the baggy sweatshirts over the jeans the air of slight desperation but also the love in their eyes as they wiped tiny fingers with a damp flannel or brushed a look of hair across the sweaty forehead as the children grew tired of eating we all clawed at the remains of the food casually unable to resist the synthetic lure of children's party food we needed the sugar too to keep us going until bath time it seemed an awfully long time away as the hands of the clock dragged themselves around I made an executive decision we deserved a treat too our grain up equivalent of party food does anyone fancy a glass of wine