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March 2010

I'm thrilled to say I've just signed a film option deal for my latest novel, Remarkable Creatures. It is with Galvanized Filmgroup, a small Australian production company. The film would be a joint UK/Australian production (the way, for instance, Jane Campion's Bright Star was). I think there's more chance of it being made this way than if it were with a big Hollywood studio. Now at work on the screenplay is the talented Jan Sardi (Oscar-nominated for Shine). It took 4 years for Pearl Earring to go from signing to screen, and that was quick. So, sit back and watch and wait... 

 

February 2010

Reading in 3D

Over the last year I've often been asked what I think of e-books. I merrily made pronouncements - mostly sceptical - even though I had never used one. I have decided finally that I need to speak from a position of knowledge rather than speculation. So I borrowed a friend's Kindle and read Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest. I already had it as a physical book, so I was able to read it partly on real pages, partly as an e-book.

Did using an e-book change my attitude? No. It confirmed what I'd already suspected: the only thing an e-book has going for it is its size. Hornets' Nest is a hefty tome, hard to carry in a normal-sized handbag and a little awkward in bed, whereas the Kindle is slim and easy to handle.That was also one of its problems, though: the Kindle felt flimsy and insubstantial, making the book I read seem flimsy and insubstantial too.

In fact, it was a fascinating experiment because it made clear to me that reading is a three-dimensional experience.When I read I'm not just taking in words on a page. Also affecting me is the geography of the two-page spread, where I can see more of the text than I'm reading. I can look ahead and notice dialogue coming up, or how long or short paragraphs are, or how someone's name is recurring a lot on a page.

And then there are the physical pages, the heft of the book that physically represents the heft of the story. I can literally feel how far I am into a story, when I'm halfway, when I have just a little bit left.

On a Kindle the screen is smaller than a standard page, so I was only ever seeing a couple of paragraphs. The idea of pages disappeared; the Kindle told me I was on, say, "locations" 5432-37 out of 12,789, and that I'd read 42% of the book. Such numbers were meaningless and left me floating, disconnected from the larger arc of the story. When I got to the thriller's climax I wasn't even sure it was the climax.

With a book, my brain automatically calibrates my 3D reading experience and mixes it in with what I'm getting intellectually from the words on the page. Hence my experience of the book is about more than just the meaning of those words.

The brain learns this early on. You see it when little kids are first learning to handle books. Turning the pages for them is as important as the words being read to them. It's about timing and spacing - words mixed together with physical movement. With an e-book you lose a lot of the physicality of your reading experience.

I suspect the Kindle, the Sony E-Reader, the Ipad, have been designed by people who don't read a lot. Me, I do read a lot, and I'm sticking with the Real Thing.

 

January 2010

New Year's resolutions time. I have come up with plenty I am sure to break shortly, but two are about my literary life.

1. Read one book from the library each month. In England the library service is stumbling, with use down and book stock decreasing. I owe a lot to libraries - it's where I got my books as a child, I used them when I was a reference book editor (in my life pre-writer), and I use them lots for researching my novels. The best thing I can do for them is to start taking out books from them again.

2. Write a paragraph about each book I read, saying what I thought of it. A friend gave me a notebook last year for this purpose (thanks, Felicity!).  I keep track of what I read here, but after a year or two I forget what I think about a book, and and it's useful to have a record to look back over.