| Author | Message | ||
     Colin Leslie (Blackabyss) Username: Blackabyss Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 86.132.7.139 |
Anyone else appalled at the BBC's condescending and discrimninatory coverage of World Book Night. What was meant to be a celebration of books turned into a festival of cultural elitism and the emperors new clothes were firmly on display. Not one piece on Fantasy, SF or Horror. Stephen Hunt has written an excellent piece with some pointers to action which I urge you all to read http://stephenhunt.net/?p=403 | ||
| Colin Leslie (Blackabyss) Username: Blackabyss Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 86.132.7.139 |
So angry I couldn't even spell discriminatory! | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.109.152.230 |
I only really caught the doc on What Books We Really Read. Which was utterly excrable. Sue Perkins reading out bits from bestsellers in silly voices in order to be as condescending as possible. However, Lee Childs and Joanne Harris were very interesting. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Didn't bother watching because I expected it to be exactly as you state above. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.19.134 |
I watched the programme that chose 12 writers of new novels this year who, according the the jury, were the 12 writers to watch for the future. The only positive thing I can say about it (not having read the novels in question) was that Kazuo Ishiguro was interviewed during this programme who was on previous such listings in the eighties and nineties. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.253.77 |
Is anyone really suprised by all this? Considering my tastes are largely non-mainstream, the last thing I'd watch regarding books is a show on the establishment-biased BBC. | ||
| Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 09-2010 Posted From: 81.155.19.134 |
When I say 'new novels' above, I meant to say 'first novels'. Sorry. One of these authors was aged 60 and he was so proud about having a first novel at his age! I am 63, equally proud I'm going to have a first novel published this year! | ||
| Colin Leslie (Blackabyss) Username: Blackabyss Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 86.132.7.139 |
I had hoped that with things like the Mark Gatiss series on horror films the BBC might actually be prepared to do a decent book programme. How they can justify ignoring genres which account for 30% of sales is beyond me. | ||
| Colin Leslie (Blackabyss) Username: Blackabyss Registered: 02-2010 Posted From: 86.132.7.139 |
"Sue Perkins reading out bits from bestsellers in silly voices in order to be as condescending as possible" I always thought Mel was the funny one  | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.109.152.230 |
She is. She replaced Sue on Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show and to great effect. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.176.0.60 |
I think the main problem with the programme was the choice of presenter. Perkins is mainly known as a comedian therefore it's likely anything she presents will be humorous and therefore will come across as not taking the subject seriously. | ||
| James Armstrong (James_armstrong) Username: James_armstrong Registered: 10-2010 Posted From: 86.160.22.42 |
I watched it for a couple of minutes and switched off after losing count of how many times the presenter had used the term "Literary fiction". That phrase never fails to fill me with uncontrollable rage. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.70 |
I watched the whole shebang. I'd seen the adverts for the Perkins show and was fully prepared for what came, so no real surprises. Nice of her to lower herself to see what the prols were reading, though less impressive was the way she patronised that hairdresser by assuming the woman didn't know Crime & Punishment was a big, clever Russian novel. To be fair(ish), Perkins did finish her piece by saying she thought both literary mainstream and pop fiction - for want of a better term - had much to learn from each other. As for the vast gamut of exciting new novelists, as Ian Rankin pointed out, it seemed mostly composed of nice, white middle-class people. Up the underclass! Let's see how Cameron and the Bullingdon Boys like a bit of what Gaddafi's getting...! Uh... |