Bookworm: Tentpole attraction

Published on 23/02/2013 00:00

LET’S face it: book festivals have grown too staid. What they’re missing is the young, and it might indeed take a different, T in the Park-type vibe to lure them along. Congratulations, then, to the Boswell Book Festival, who are at least trying something different this year – glamping.

They’re still working out how much to charge for a weekend of glamping – luxury camping – but I don’t see why it couldn’t work. Firstly, because you’d be pitching your tent in the grounds of Auchinleck House, taking a shower inside it, and having breakfast in the festival cafe, There’s even talk of using some of the yurts – there will be four or five on hand – too.

And while the Boswell Book Festival is meant to be strictly about biography, they don’t mind letting their hair down in the evenings. A ceilidh night and music gigs are also promised – although they probably won’t go as far as at the Jaipur Literary festival, where book talk stops at 6pm and music and dancing take over.

Could glamping bring book festivals to a new audience? Nobody knows. As Boswell’s marketing manager Carol Carr points out, this is “not just a first for Ayrshire but for book festivals everywhere”. Full details, along with the programme for the festival – which takes place on 17-19 May – will be announced next month. Incidentally, “glamping” isn’t a new coinage, but “dramping” – which Carr dreamed up the other day – could well be. If you’ve a distillery and you fancy putting on a weekend camping festival, this could be the word for you.

PULP FRICTION

The London Bookshop had got its Pulp! The Classics edition of Pride & Prejudice (“Lock up your daughters ... Darcy’s in Town!”) out in time for the Austen bicententary, and is gearing up to give yet more classics the retro treatment, complete with sprayed colour edges, pulp-style covers and irreverent taglines. For The Hound of the Baskervilles, this reads “Murder, Mystery ... Walkies!”. For Robinson Crusoe it’s “Solitude Was Driving him Nuts!” You can even have a 
go yourself by visiting 
www.pulptheclassics.com

COLD CASE

Finally, what’s all that fuss in the papers last week about Truman Capote exaggerating the importance of his sources in In Cold Blood? That’s old news. Doesn’t stop it being the best true crime book ever written though.