READING ROOM
I’ve read that one
Are you one of those who claims to have read books that are actually strangers to you? Don’t worry; you’re in good company. A recent survey in Britain says that two out of three Britons lie about reading books.
And the one that tops the “I’ve read it” fibs list is George Orwell’s 1984 (42 per cent); next in line was Tolstoy’s War and Peace (31 per cent) and in third place was James Joyce’s Ulysses (24 per cent). Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father also featured in the list – at ninth position (six per cent).
The organisers of World Book Day, who commissioned the survey, also found that the one people actually liked to read is J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame.
When asked for the reason behind the lie, the answer was ‘to impress another person’.
Others who featured in the top 10 included Salman Rushdie (Midnight’s Children); Marcel Proust (In Remembrance of Things Past); Stephen Hawking (A Brief History of Time); Richard Dawkins (The Selfish Gene) and Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary).
Wolff’s the winner
Author Tobias Wolff is this year’s winner of the annual $20,000 The Story Prize for his Our Story Begins, a collection of short stories. The Story Prize, given for short fiction, has earlier gone to lesser known writers like
Edwidge Danticat for The Dew Breaker and Jim Shepard for Like You’d Understand Anyway.
This year’s finalists included Jhumpa Lahiri for Unaccustomed Earth and Joe Meno for Demons in the Spring. They received $5000 each.
Our Story Begins has stories that have appeared in earlier collections but 10 have never been published in book form before. Wolff’s coming-of-age memoir and fourth book This Boy’s Life was made into a film starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo di Caprio.
Reacting to being chosen as the fifth recipient of The Story Prize, Wolff said, “I can’t tell you how moved I am by this.”
Make it to the movies?
Jeffrey Archer’s latest venture is to climb Mt. Everest; not physically but through his latest work. Paths of Glory, released recently, is based on the life of George Mallory, whose 1924 attempt to scale Everest continues to
tantalise. Mallory died on the mountain slopes in June 1924 and his frozen body was found 75 years later below the peak. So the question remains: was he the first reach the top — or not?
Archer admits that he would not have been drawn to Mallory if not for his friend, the late Chris Basher. Once he began researching, he was hooked.
The bestselling author also hopes that this one will see him sign the movie deal that’s long eluded him. “I agree with my son on this. He has a marvellous expression: ‘Dad, we’ll all believe it when we’re eating the popcorn.’ And I think that’s right with films. I’ve had disaster after disaster in the sense that people pay for the rights, I’ve had three mini-series, I’ve never had a film.”
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