Bookend
Bookbuyer
In temper with the cold and miserable weather, Bookbuyer proposes some distinctly Scrooge-like resolutions. He resolves: — that he will comport himself more restrainedly over the iniquities of the year's literary awards, both in their management and in their choices; hoping that the Nobel Prize committee and the Booker Prize judges will have learned from their unsatisfactory efforts last year to politicise their awards, and that the first of these will eventually find its way to the greatly deserving Patrick White and the second, at the least, to a novel that is a pleasure to read; and finally that the Royal Society of Literature will one day consider conferring its ponderous honours upon an author under the age of fifty;
— that he won't object in public to W. H. Smith's ingrained habit of putting books on sale before their publication date, the two most recent examples he has seen being Henry Cooper's autobiography and Arthur Bryant's Jackets of Green; — that he won't pray too fervently that the annual flood of novels will continue to reduce itself (a slight rise last year after a considerable fall in 1971), realising that the passably competent works of fiction are as likely to be squeeze i.; out as the potboilers;
— that he won't let himself be enraged by the .sales staff at Foyles, and will understand that if they were given a better bonus scheme (now worked out on the basis of each individual book sold) they might occasionally be helpful; — that he won't take it upon himself to warn Bernard Levin off writing a television play (it's too late anyway); — that he will make an effort to resist the temptation to impart more scandalous news about Tom Stacey Ltd in the very near future; — that he won't pass on booksellers' grudges about their parlous delivery service to Hamlyn, Penguins and O.U.P.
And a final resulution? Bookbuyer resolves that in the new year he will be nice to the book trade.
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