Book events across cultures - Clémentine Beauvais

A while ago I wrote a blog post for ABBA about the differences between school visits in France and in Britain. Today I thought I’d write one about the differences I’ve observed between book events open to the public in Britain, France and Germany. 

My experience isn’t entirely representative, of course, but I’ve now done quite a few book tours/ book events (at fairs, in bookshops, or in other contexts) in those three countries and there are some striking differences that are quite revealing, I think, of the ways in which authors, books, and reading, are positioned and thought of in those three contexts. 

I’m here mostly talking about single-author events, not round tables, which are (as far as I can tell) quite similarly run. And my experience is of children's and YA literature events, not adult.

celebrating Franco-Germanic friendship on my birthday last year...

France: The author as mysterious authority

The vast majority of public book events in France take the form of an interview, with a bookseller, journalist, moderator, chair or other literature expert asking the questions. As I mentioned in my other blog post, the author’s position in such events is one I’d characterise as a subject supposed to know, in an almost oracular position, authoritative and mysterious, full of potential answers that the interviewer’s questions may or may not unlock.

Authors in France, as far as I can tell, generally don’t have firm ideas of the main points they want to convey in an interview. They wait for questions, and they answer them. Their personas on stage tend to be pretty much reflective of their personalities. They might be cheerful and communicative, or shy and fearful, or haughty and snobbish, or dull and boring. They certainly, as far as I can tell, don’t consider the interview to be a performance, but very firmly a literary discussion. There is an expectation that the book event will be informative.

The questions are generally highly complimentary - it’s very rare to hear trick questions, or criticisms (even veiled) of the book. They tend to be very respectful of the author’s private life and very rarely intrusive; any biographical interest is generally motivated by the contents of the book or by general discussion of writing. Most of the questions are quite literature-focused.

The book event may or may not be followed by a signing. While the promotion of the book is evidently an aim of the event, it is rarely clearly foregrounded as such. It would be considered, I think, quite distasteful for an author to self-promote during the event, actively encourage listeners to buy the book, or sing the praises of their own work.

Britain: The author as show/wo/man

It is, of course, very frequent in Britain to have interview-format book events, too. But even in those - and, even more so, in other types of events where authors actually put on a show (with or without Powerpoint), it is clear that the author’s role in British book events is more proactive, more promotional, and more performance-driven than in France.

The author in Britain is here to sell their book, and the narrative they build around the book - which may lead to some quite private information to be given - is part of the publicity for the book. There is an expectation that the book event will be entertaining.

The questions are generally complimentary, as in France, but I have observed that they tend to be less specific than in France - questions are willfully quite broad, in order perhaps to serve as platforms for the author to tell the story of their book and of their writing.

I would say that doing a book event in Britain feels like much more like acting than in France, with the drive to make one’s personality considerably sunnier and funnier than in real life (this, of course, with variations to match the contents of the book).

Authors in Britain, it seems to me, have quite a clear idea before going on stage of the main messages they want to communicate about the book; its pitch; its unique selling points. Those things are, it’s worth saying, much more part of the genesis of the book and the publishing process in the first place: in Britain, you know your pitch, in part because the agents, editors and publicists have been refining it for months. In France, where pitch-driven writing is less a thing (even in children’s literature), there isn’t a huge expectation that you should be able to sum up the book quickly.

The book event is almost always followed by a signing and generally, that aspect of it is considered as perfectly natural. The author’s self-promotion and encouragement to the audience to buy the book is not seen as weird.

Germany: The author as builder and sharer of words

My first book events in Germany puzzled me utterly. I was expecting a French-style interview, the only difference being the presence of an interpreter (I don’t speak German), and the slightly odd labelling of the event as ‘Reading’ didn’t register with me as being an actual thing. This was a book fair with teenagers, there was a fee, it was an hour long - it obviously wasn’t going to be a Reading.

It was. In Germany, very many book events involve remarkably long readings from the book that the author is promoting. Not only that - from a very young age, children get accustomed to sitting in rooms listening to people reading from books. Reading, I mean, sitting down at a desk, with the book. That’s it. The first time, I thought - there is no way in heaven that those teenagers are going to listen to 15 minutes of reading out loud, with no acting, no background, no nothing. But they did.

Normally, events with young people consist of brief-ish readings - 10, 15 minutes, and in between, some questions. Still, that is a much longer amount of time than either France or Britain would normally consider feasible. For adults, I’m told, book events in Germany can consist of literally one hour of reading. There is an expectation that the book event will expand one's imagination.

In such events, the author, I think, is positioned principally as a builder and sharer of words, someone whose creation of an atmosphere, a world, a cast of characters, will fill up the whole space for considerable amounts of time. It is less about talking around the book than about entering the book - letting it speak for itself. 

In-between the reading, there may be questions, and questions in Germany tend to be more thought-provoking and more critical than in France and Britain, I’ve found. There’s less of a sense that the interviewer should always be adoring. You can get quite tough - though always kindly worded - questions on anything from your literary choices to your ideological viewpoint.

As in France, the author doesn’t put on a show for such events; I would say that their ‘usual’ personality, give or take the inevitable alterations induced by being on a stage, is generally what you see. A signing generally follows the book event, though, like France, I have a sense that it wouldn’t be considered very tasteful to advertise that fact too strongly.

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Again, those are generalities, not absolute facts, and they’re drawn from admittedly limited experience, but such experience tells us a lot about the cultural scripts that define in a given country at a given time what an author is, what kind of knowledge they’ve got, and how a book is considered in relation to the audience, the market, and its genre. Let me know in the comments what it’s like in other countries, too…

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Clémentine Beauvais is a writer and literary translator. Her YA novels are Piglettes(Pushkin, 2017) and In Paris with You (trans. Sam Taylor, Faber, 2018).

Only Disconnect - Liz Kessler

As writers, one of the things that lies at the heart of our intentions is connection. We write books that we want people to read. We share our thoughts, our fantasies, the products of our imagination, sometimes our biggest secrets and the deepest angst in our souls - and we put it all out there for the world to read about.

‘Only connect,’ said EM Forster, and, over a hundred years later, this is still what drives us. And I don’t think this desire is restricted to writers. We all want it. That’s why telephones were invented. It’s why the internet has pretty much taken over the world. It’s why Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc etc etc are as massively popular as they are. They allow us to reach out, communicate, share, meet, interact…connect.

So what happened? How did these means of connection suddenly become the very things that keep us isolated and disconnected?

Actually, it didn’t happen suddenly at all. It sneaked up on us so gradually that most of us don’t even realise that it has happened to us.

I used to live on a narrowboat on the canal. I remember the day BT put a line across the farmer’s field and I plugged a phone into it. Out there, on a boat on a canal in pretty much the middle of nowhere, I was connected. It was incredible. (Till the day the farmer ploughed his field and cut the line to shreds – but that’s a different story.)

Me on my beloved boat, Jester. Crikey, my hair was short back then.

I remember my first mobile phone. I remember the first time someone showed me how to send an email – and my awe at the notion that the recipient could read it from anywhere in the world moments later. It was all very new at that time, and I’m glad that I am part of a generation that still remembers a time before these things were taken for granted. I still am in awe of the internet and what we can do with it.

But sometimes I wish we could all take a couple of steps back.

Phones today can do SO much – and the problem is that, nowadays, we so often use them to separate ourselves from the world around us, rather than connect us to it.

A couple of examples.

I was catching a train yesterday. Whilst I waited for my train, I looked around. On the platform opposite there were about eight people. A few of them in pairs and a few on their own, waiting for the same train. EVERY SINGLE ONE of them was looking at their phone. Every one. Not talking to the person they were with. Not smiling at a stranger. Not noticing anyone or anything around them. Each of them was locked away on their own with their screen.

The night before that, I’d been to a Lady Gaga concert. (It was amazing, by the way. The woman is utterly bonkers but WOW – what a show she puts on!)

The best decision my partner and I made (other than to buy 'Early Entry' tickets and get a great spot!) was to leave our phones at home. We met a couple of guys on our way in and became instant friends. The four of us watched, listened, sang, danced and loved every minute of the concert. I took it all in. Gaga, the dancers, the crowds, the outfits, the music. I was there.

Around us, probably half the people I could see spent most of the evening holding out their phones to photograph and record the gig – presumably to then share it on some social networking site and say ‘Look, I was there!’

But were they? Were they really there?

Generic photo off the internet - as I didn't have my phone/camera to take a pic!

We’d been chatting with a young woman beside us before the show began. Once it started, she was one of those who brought her phone out. At one point, when Lady Gaga was behind us, the woman videoed her back. At another point, when Gaga was too far away to get a decent shot, she videoed the dark stage with the blurry figure at the edge of it. When Lady Gaga and the dancers were out of our sight completely, the young woman held her phone out at the big screen and videoed that! 

She wasn't the only one; far from it. All these people around us, so busy framing their shots, zooming in, zooming out, focussing, refocussing, they weren't even aware that in their haste to show they were there, they actually weren't there at all. They were watching an event via a tiny screen held up in the air that they could have watched for real if they put their phones away.

This isn’t a criticism of any of these people. Heck, I’ve done it myself. I’ve experienced something and started composing a Facebook status about it in my head before the moment is even over. I’ve half-watched a TV programme whilst on twitter and spent as much time reading tweets about it as taking in the programme itself. I’ve even sent a text to my partner from one end of the sofa to the other, asking for a cup of tea. (Only as a joke, I should point out.)

But I can’t help thinking that we have to start reversing things before it’s too late and we forget the art of human interaction altogether.

Last weekend, I was told about a site that I’d never heard of, but which apparently most people in their twenties already know about/use, called Tinder. The idea is that you log in to the app, tell it who you are looking for (gender, age group etc) and what kind of radius you are interested in, to a minimum of one kilometre, and the app does the rest. Any time someone fitting your wishlist comes into your specified zone, you get a notification. You check out their photos. If you like them, you give them a tick. If they like you, they give you a tick – then you can ‘chat’ and arrange to meet or whatever. (And I imagine that for many of the users, it’s the ‘or whatever’ that interests them.)

At the risk of sounding like the oldest fogiest old fogey in the room….

REALLY?????

What happened to looking around? To conversation? To gradually getting to know someone? I’m not against online dating. Not remotely. I’m not, in fact, against any of this, and like I said, I'm as guilty of iPhone overuse as the next person. But I'm concerned by the constant speeding up of everything, and the taking us out of our surroundings to make us look at a screen instead of the things and the people around us.

So here’s my challenge – and I make it for myself as much as for anyone reading this. It’s not a super-radical idea. It’s about taking small steps.

Each day, use your phone a tiny bit less than you used it the day before. Make one decision a day where you say, ‘No, I won’t take my phone out of my pocket, I’ll smile at a stranger instead.’ Or one occasion where you decide, ‘I will allow myself this experience without having to share it online afterwards’. Just one small decision a day. Before we know it, we’ll all be connecting up again.

On which note I’m off for walkies with my partner, to chat, look at the waves, feel the salty air in my face and throw some stones for the dog.

And no, I’m not taking my phone.

Here's one I took earlier. 

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To Share or Not to Share - Liz Kessler

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about sharing recently. How we do it, where we do it, who we do it with, and why?

Thanks to the technology that exists today, particularly the internet, we live in times where we could in theory share pretty much anything with practically anyone in the world.

So how do we work out where to draw the line?

Obviously, we each have a different reply to this. My dad, for example, doesn’t really like it when I share what he considers to be overly personal Facebook posts (that are only seen by my friends). Equally, I don’t really like it when he shares what I consider to be overly personal photographs of other people (that are only seen by people who visit the exhibition that the photos are part of). Somewhere along the way, we have each made our own rules about what we feel is and isn’t acceptable to share. As has everyone else in this modern world.

Luckily, my dad and I have found that the occasional discussion over these differences of opinions has never done our relationship any harm! But it’s not always as easy as that. The very nature of ‘sharing’ is that it’s not something we keep to ourselves – and so, ‘our’ rules about it will constantly bump up against other people’s.

In recent weeks, I have come across this issue numerous times, in numerous different guises. Authors arguing over what some consider to be excessive levels of self-promotion. Heated debates about whether moaning about toothache on twitter is strictly necessary. Discussions about people not getting jobs after their potential new boss found what they believed to be unacceptable photos online.

It’s a minefield. It’s worse than a minefield. Most of us don’t have to walk across minefields to get anywhere, but most of us do use – sometimes depend on – these sites in our daily lives.

So what do we do? ‘Unfriend’ ‘Unfollow’ and ‘Hide’ those who post things we don’t like, and risk losing touch with people we are otherwise fond of? Challenge them on what they share, and risk falling out over something so trivial we probably won’t remember it in a year’s time?

Or perhaps work extra hard within ourselves to understand, accept and live alongside everyone’s different definitions of what is an appropriate level of sharing. Make our lines more bendy so they can accommodate each other’s more comfortably.

Think of the world today as a tube train, where it used to be a horse and carriage. In the past, we would only have shared our journey with one or two fellow travellers. Now, we might be squeezed into a tightly packed chunk of metal with a hundred others. We’re all going somewhere. We each have our own journey. But for those few moments, we have to share it with other people. So we do what we can to make it more comfortable. Move our bags closer so someone can get past. Shuffle along so more people can get on. Stand up for the elderly couple. Possibly, even – shock horror – smile at the stranger sitting across the aisle. We adapt, because we know that our journey means sharing a few minutes with these people and, more often than not, we don’t hold that against them.

The point is, our world enables us to reach more people, and whilst some of the time, this might be hard, mostly it offers opportunities.

Opportunities to read articles that stretch our minds; to congratulate family members on their achievements; to wish friends happy birthday even if they live on the other side of the world. And a million other things, besides. Sharing can in fact be the most amazing thing a human being can do. It connects us, brings us closer and allows us to relate more deeply to our fellow travellers.

And I don’t think it’s too much of a coincidence that this issue is so prevalent amongst writers. After all, what are books but the ultimate sharing of the truths we carry deep inside us? No wonder we are so often the ones who get accused of ‘over-sharing’. It’s what we do for our day jobs. In many cases, it’s what we live and breathe.

I don’t really have a perfect solution for how to keep everyone happy on this issue. Perhaps we never will. But in the meantime, how about we simply forgive each other the occasional difference of opinion on the matter? Try to engage fully with the person doing the sharing, rather than stand back and judge them for doing so. 

Let’s make our lines more flexible. And while we're at it, let’s go ahead and smile at the stranger on the tube. It’ll make the journey much more pleasant – for us as well as them.

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