Leopold Borstinski's Blog, page 39

Website Launch

I know this is a terribly self-referential post but I’m pleased to announce that this website has been launched and is now live. This has taken several weeks of work to get it to this rudimentary point but now it exists on the internet.

The site’s aim is to act as a conduit between readers and places to go to obtain Leopold Borstinski writings – and to offer a locus for dialogue between those readers and Leopold. Over the coming months there will be a series of book launches and I hope to offer at least one blog posting a week to give a taste of what is happening behind the scenes.

Enjoy!

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Smiley :-)

A double whammy: John le Carre releases a new book containing what must count as his most famous character: George Smiley. Then he announces he is going to appear in public at London’s Royal Festival Hall. Back of the net!

The joy of le Carre is in the journey, not the destination, to my mind. Watching the world unravel and swirl around Smiley is where I derive the pleasure. The wrap-up at the end? Lovely. Nothing against it, but the route we took to get there is what appeals to me.

Of course, the other thing I love is that I believe le Carre’s depiction of the spy world is what it is really like. I don’t mean he just builds a believable fictional world. A bit like the early Fleming Bond novels, I feel there is reality at the heart of the way the characters behave and the bureaucracy they follow.

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Electronic reading and the printed page

Interesting to read that eBook sales are apparently on the fritz – at least according to the news report I read today in The Guardian.

Recently, I found myself back on the London Underground for the first time in a year and noticed there were very few people reading a tree-based book, but it felt as though everyone had some kind of device they were staring at. Most were on their phones but there were still a significant proportion of e-readers. Now, this is hardly a large or meaningful sample but I’m forced to question how much I believe the stats.

Wouldn’t want to sound cynical but is there any way to see how traditional book sellers might want to promote the idea it’s cool to read tree books again? Surely not.

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