Bookworm

Published on Thursday 14 May 2009 14:56

A FLASH OF GOOD NEWS

THERE'S a taxi running round Edinburgh right now with a question on its side that could never have been more pertinent than it is in these dark, recessionary days: When Will There Be Good News?

This is, of course, the title of Kate Atkinson's latest novel, and the taxi is advertising the paperback version, published by Black Swan in January and still happily selling 44,000 copies a week, thanks in part to endorsement on Richard & Judy's Book Club.

There was no good news last week, either for Richard and Judy's show, which was finally scrapped after the number of viewers on the digital channel Watch dropped to a mere 8,000, or for the UK economy, which according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, is now in the middle of the worst recession since the 1930s.

If there's a title that mirrors the times quite as perfectly as Atkinson's, Broswer has still to discover it. When will there be good news indeed?

In such a gloomy climate, therefore, even the faintest of green shoots has to be welcomed. One such could be plans for a new bookshop in Edinburgh. Although this is definitely going ahead and plans to open in September, Bookworm has been sworn to secrecy about its whereabouts. Although if it's heading south from the city centre, Kate Atkinson's taxi will most likely pass it.

RESISTANCE IS NOT FUTILE

ONE thing we could certainly do with in the recession is the sangfroid of the generation that fought the Second World War, a reminder of which comes next month with Ebury's publication of a book based on government wartime posters. It's called "Keep Calm and Carry On" – the bright red poster which was intended for display only if Britain was invaded.

In France, when invasion actually happened, carrying on as if nothing had happened became impossible. For a record of those times in 1940, the diaries by French art historian and member of the Resistance Agns Humbert, are invaluable.

Her book, Resistance , charts how she and her fellow Paris academics became urban guerrillas – often dying for their country or, in her own case, being a slave-worker in a German rayon factory. Barbara Mellor, the Borders translator who discovered the long out-of-print book on French eBay, and turned it into a worldwide bestseller for Bloomsbury, will be talking about it at Mainstreet Trading Company, St Boswells, on 26 May at 7pm.