Bookworm news: Saturday, 23 November

HOMER COMFORTS

Cut on one side by the swinging Axe of Austerity and on the other by the Digital Divide, it's no wonder publishers look for safe options. The fact that "a" book rather than an iBook or an e-Book is being published still seems cause for a minor celebration.

You probably can't get safer than Vintage's latest: endorsed by Aristotle, Longinus, Dante, Milton, Pope and TS Eliot it has enjoyed a near-continuous 2,500 years in print (or papyrus): yes, it's Homer's Iliad. (The sequel is available too. And it's out of copyright). Newly translated by Caroline Alexander, who wrote the excellent The War That Killed Achilles on Homer, it joins other classics such as Don Quixote and War And Peace. They're also reissuing Platonov's The Foundation Pit, an underappreciated Soviet-era masterpiece that was only allowed in Russia in 1989.

ALTERED STATES

No doubt the cuts topic will feature at this year's Independent and Radical Book Fair, which starts on Wednesday and runs until next Sunday at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall on Dalmeny Street in Leith. Speakers include Andy Wightman on Scottish land ownership; Alasdair Gray on his "autopictography", A Life in Pictures, and most likely a thousand unrehearsed digressions, plus Polly Toynbee and David Walker on the legacy of New Labour.

Organiser Elaine Henry, of Word Power books, says: "Whose voices, whose words prevail in the mainstream? From corporate hymn-sheet singing to the 'official' line, we are seldom allowed to hear alternatives … this is a rare opportunity to discover new writers and writing, and be part of our veritable flea market of books and ideas."

IVANHOKEY

I was in Melrose last week to speak about Walter Scott to the rather august-sounding Literary Society, and a very well-informed group it was. Dennis Wood, father of the Bookworm's critic-idol James Wood, read from the society's minutes from 100 years ago, on … Walter Scott. Things in the Borders don't change that rapidly, although they were slightly more technically advanced a century back: the talk boasted "lantern slides" and piano accompaniment.

It struck me that to his other achievements, we might add Estate Agent Weasel Words. His address was "Abbotsford, Melrose", even though Galashiels is far closer. A bit like calling Niddrie "West Duddingston".