Belfast with Medieval Murderers

Starting and Ending Books for Christmas!

Belfast with Medieval Murderers

Medieval Murderers with Sharon from Northern Ireland Library Service

Last week I was enormously lucky to be invited to Northern Ireland to talk to some library audiences.

I confess, I have never been to Northern Ireland before purely because the stories of bombings and shootings made it a less than attractive proposition. Still, I remember distinctly my brother telling me that he had met an American on a plane.

‘Where do you live?’ Keith asked.

‘I’m from Chicago, but I live in Belfast.’

Keith was shocked. ‘Belfast? What about the bombings, the terrorism …?’

The man looked at him pityingly. ‘The crime and murder rate’s a lot lower than Chicago.’

And that is the silly thing. Although, yes, Belfast and the North suffered from being much more violent than the rest of the United Kingdom, in fact it tended to be safer than most other countries. I have a suspicion that even at the height of the Troubles, Glasgow’s own murder rate may have been worse. It’s long been called the Murder Capital of Britain with good reason.

But none of that bothered me when I landed last week. I had the great good fortune to be travelling with Susanna Gregory and Karen Maitland, and Karen had a wealth of memories. Back in the 1980s she took advantage of a scheme whereby people could have their university degrees paid for. She worked for six years in Belfast, and spent a fair time working in the Falls Road.

Karen had been looking forward to her visit, although she was shocked to see no police officers (armed or not) at the airport. Then, driving out of the town, she expected to find roadblocks, but there were none. Even the sentry-watchtowers looming over the countryside were conspicuously absent. She found it all very perplexing and confusing.

I didn’t. I found the whole visit wonderful. The people were friendly, welcoming and couldn’t have been kinder to we three waifs. I have to say that the libraries were fabulous – Holywood was the more gorgeous library I’ve ever visited – and filled with dedicated, enthusiastic staff. I and the other Medieval Murderers were truly overwhelmed with their generosity.

Of course, things are changing. Already there are chilly winds blowing through the library services. They’ve been hit with a horrible budget cut that must hit staff and probably buildings. When finances are tight, libraries are an easy target, I suppose, for politicians without much imagination.

Doing the touristy thing with Jo and Sharon at Stormont

Our last day in Ireland was spent walking all around Belfast and seeing the sights with the delightful Jo, who gave up her entire afternoon for us. We were hugely grateful.

And last of all, we visited No Alibis, a fabulous little bookshop in the city, where you can buy anything. I proved that to myself because I was able to buy a copy of Laurence Block’s first Burglar story: Burglars Can’t Be Choosers. I’ve been trying to get that ever since having supper with Larry some fifteen years ago when he was passing through London!

What was shocking, though, was to hear that No Alibis is now the last independent bookshop in Northern Ireland. It is a terrible thing, to travel through the United Kingdom and see all the places where little bookshops once were.

In France, there was a similar experience. They had a book price-fixing policy. They stopped it so that books could be discounted, and swiftly saw that numbers of bookshops closed. So they brought back their price-guarantees and banned any discounting or even free postage.

The result?

Karen was at a French festival recently. There, buyers were walking out of shops with armfuls of books. The higher price does not deter purchases over there. If anything, it leads to buyer valuing their books more.

Here in England we probably could not bring back the Net Book Agreement for the simple reason that Amazon would make it unworkable. It is the problem with a vast corporation that can control all sales over the English speaking world.

But I look at what has been lost. In the past a small shop could afford to stock the most bizarre and eclectic collection of books to suit varying tastes, because they made just enough from the sales of the latest John Grisham, JK Rowling, or even Agatha Christie, to cover the cost of holding on their shelves the stranger titles that were not so much in demand.

With the end of the NBA, that protection disappeared. That meant little corner book shops have to compete with Amazon and supermarkets, who can sell the books at less than the corner shop can buy in the titles. In America this problem was fixed, to an extent, by ensuring that there was equity of discount. So if you have three stores, you must be offered the same discount as Waterstone’s or Barnes and Noble. In Britain that’s not the case. So while a local shop can get 40-50% discount, bigger chains will receive up to 80%, like Amazon.

Publishers have had to rationalise their lists. Now only the very top authors receive marketing and PR budgets. All the books that used to bring in their profits, the mid-listers, get no support. And the authors at the bottom – well, they don’t get new contracts. When I started, new authors were taken on because there was a view that they had potential. Now, if you aren’t selling, you’re out.

Which means that the number of books on the shelves will reduce. As fewer and fewer authors get contracts, so the books available must decline.

However, to counteract the gloom and doom, last week I learned of a new bookshop in Sidmouth: Winstone’s. Well, I’ll be going down there to check it out, as well as the existing Paragon Bookshop as soon as possible. Hopefully they’ll both thrive.