the city-lit cafe

city-lit Berlin 'A fascinating cornucopia of Berlin writing' Real Travel magazine, Winter 2009

 

 

 

city-pick Dublin - introduced by Orna Ross, author of A Dance in Time

Some years ago, I had occasion to bring a visiting creative writing professor from Chicago to visit Dublin’s Writers’ Museum.  I still recall the wonder and delight with which he paused on its steps.  “How wonderful it must be,” he breathed, “to live in a city that so reveres its writers.”

    Well sometimes, maybe, yes.  All Dubliners, from politicians to taxi drivers, are proud of the city’s literary reputation.  When ranked No 4 in a survey of literary destinations recently - behind London, Stratford-Upon-Avon and Edinburgh but ahead of New York, Paris and St Petersburg — the general feeling in Dublin was: shouldn’t we have been No 1?

    Okay, London might have its share of good writers and yes, Edinburgh is a UNESCO City of Literature, and all right, I suppose you have to hand it to Shakespeare but in a straight contest — great writers per head of population — isn’t Dublin the clear winner? 

    Haven’t we four Nobel prizewinners (Shaw, Yeats, Beckett and Heaney) out of only a million or so inhabitants? As well as the world’s best novelist (Joyce) who should have got one too?  Isn’t our national theatre (the Abbey of Synge, Yeats, Gregory, O’Casey, Behan, Friel, Roche) known the world over and didn’t we have enough playwrights left to storm the English stage while we were at it (Congreve, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Shaw, Wilde, McDonagh)?

    Haven’t we given the English language its best satirist (Swift) and a string of superlative short story writers (O’Flaherty, Lavin, Joyce, O’Connor, O’Faolain, Enright)? And let’s not even get started on the novelists (Edgeworth, Stoker, Bowen, Murdoch, Keane, O’Brien, Toibin, Banville, O’Connor, Doyle, Enright again. And Joyce of course.  Have we mentioned Joyce?) …

 

city-pick Dublin is published on 11 March 2010 with over fifty writers on the most legendary writers’ city of them all. Dublin is expected to be chosen as a UNESCO World City of Literature in 2010 and we think city-pick Dublin will show why the city is such an excellent choice for this honour! And we’re very excited that well-known Irish writer and journalist Orna Ross has written the introduction, offering many insights into the lives of the Dubliners, famous, not so famous and the famously fictional.

 

Orna Ross is a novelist and writes and speaks on the subject of Creative Intelligence. She founded, and for some years ran, Font Writing Centre & Literary Agency in Dublin.  She now lives in London where she is at work on a third novel. Her most recent book is A Dance in Time (Penguin 2008). Her website is www.ornaross.com.

city-lit Paris - nice review in France Magazine

 

Indiebooks.net - something fiction, something true, something classic, definitely something new

We thought you might be interested to hear about another way to buy our titles - postage and packing free - with the launch of a brilliant new independent publishers website www.indiebooks.net

It's the brain child of Legend Books and the intrepid Tom Chalmers and Lauren Parsons who, at a time of some doom and gloom in the publishing business, bring a welcome dose of inspiration and innovation. There are some great publishers and titles on this site do do check it out - we're not even going to mention the 'C' (or do we mean 'X' word). Here's an introduction to the site from Tom ...

'It's been a challenge to develop this fantastic idea, if we can say so ourselves, so promptly, but it's done and IndieBooks - the UK's first collective independent publisher retail site - is live!

With a wide-range of books offering something for everyone, this site is for the many millions of book lovers on the lookout for memorable, even life-changing book - and we strongly believe that independent publishers offer that quality of book in abundance.

The system is almost as beautiful as the books - there will be 50 books on offer from a vast array of publishers and each month the 25 bestselling will remain along with 25 new titles. That way publishers have the chance to showcase and the public can influence the selection by voting with their purchases. All orders will go to the publisher you will dispatch within two working days.

This is truly the alternative place to buy your books and we are hugely excited by this project - it's now down to the customers to make it a huge success.'

city-lit Berlin Goethe Institute launch 27 November - see the photos!

Thanks to everyone, writers, translators, readers and partners, who made our sell-out event last Friday such an evening to remember. We hope to put our recording of the panel discussion between Katie Derbyshire, Chloe Aridjis and Rory MacLean on this blog soon.

 

 

 

 

Muswell Hill Bookshop wins city-lit Berlin trade competition!

Nylon Communications Ltd and Oxygen Books were very excited to present the prize of a weekend break for two at Berlin's fabulous Hotel Concorde to Carole Treasure from the Musewell Hill Bookshop. The photo shows Nylon's account executive Victoria Booth presenting the prize to Carole last Friday at the launch of city-lit Berlin at London's Goethe Institute.
 

city-lit Berlin down and out in Berlin with Inka Parei

 

It was in January.

    January in my third winter here, the harshest I can remember. The whole city is caught up in the brace of the cold. There are traces of snow everywhere, on fence posts, the tops of trees and in the gutters. Like today, just not melting, but freezing stiff as remainders for an endless time because the temperatures have fallen too low for more snow.

In the front building of number fourteen, Lehniner Straße, a hard core of residents holds on that year, each of them sticking it out for a different reason despite the first cracks in the walls.

    Two gay variety artistes live on the third floor with a four-metre-long brown and white spotted boa constrictor. I can see into their back room, which has been converted into a kind of terrarium and must be damp and humid, deteriorating the building’s substance even more. I hear them arguing long and often over the great deal of housework their zoo requires. At night I see the glowing openings in their small stove, which has to be fed around the clock. They also keep tarantulas, a parrot and a docile-muzzled black mastiff. The dog follows them like a calf-shaped shadow when they carry their snake basket down the stairs towards the Friedrichstadtpalast on Mondays and Thursdays.

    Opposite them lives a nun from an Indian sect, a subtenant of one of her fellow believers who has gone away to Southeast Asia. When she walks across the yard with her head held high early in the mornings, her orange habit shines out like a clear flame amidst the greys and browns of rotting urban substances. Now and then we chat in English. I find out she’s actually Jewish and comes from Argentina. Giggling, she tells me about the stains she found under the carpet in her hallway, sniffing with her nose to the floor, the contours of the last tenant but one – a suicide whose putrefying body ruined the paint.

    The third flat that is still inhabited is on the ground floor on the right and is the headquarters of a group of mainly homeless alcoholics. Some of them have keys, others ram bottles against the door at night until someone wakes from their alcoholic daze and opens up. The gas and electricity have been cut off; you can see them walking around in there with torches. The actual tenants are a bearded Saxon and his pointy-nosed, swollen-eyed female companion, half of whose body has strong shakes. They have a child, about six years old with a pointy nose of his own. Luckily, he only has to come here at weekends. In the brightly knitted threads of his plastic hat, his face always looks very pale. Mechanically and reluctantly, he takes pigeon steps between the childishly swaying adults.

Inka Parei, Die Schattenboxerin

city-lit Berlin launch in Berlin - Christopher Isherwood was there!

No doubt all my readers have organised hundreds of book launches in the past and will be thoroughly bored by what's to come. For me, though, last night was a first: My First Book Launch. The plan was to showcase a range of the writing in the city-lit Berlin anthology, including a couple of my favourite German books that made it in.

But of course we couldn't exactly fly authors in from around the globe or raise them from the grave, so a few of the writers in the book had to be represented by stand-ins. That meant the genuine articles who attended - Rory MacLean, Michael Wildenhain and Jakob Hein - had time to read a good chunk of their work, while the audience also got a taste of some of the other "perfect gems of city writing". And we also had a bonus track courtesy of the translator and historian Pam Selwyn, who read one of Johann Friedel's Briefe über die Galanterien von Berlin all about the depravities of Berlin's 18th-century male brothels.

At this point I have to thank all those involved, especially the writers and Lucy Renner-Jones who played the part of Kate Adie with aplomb, John Manning who swapped hats for a very convincing John Le Carré and Len Deighton - and Steph Morris who stole the show as Christopher Isherwood, plus-fours and all.

The other part of the fun was a quiz with copies of the book as prizes. Unfortunately, I made the questions rather hard, which meant that newcomers to Berlin had no chance of a free copy. But the answers are all in the book...

Anyone who wants to get hold of the anthology in Berlin should mosey over to Saint George's Bookshop, Wörtherstraße 27, Prenzlauer Berg. But wait a day or so first, as Paul has to replenish his stocks - they sold out last night.

Finally, my trade secret for anyone else planning their first book launch: make sure you feel a million dollars. I bought a new dress that made me think I was Shirley Bassey and Fiona Bruce all rolled into one - although Jakob Hein seemed to think I was more like Ann Robinson. I graciously allowed him to sing a song though, as well as his very entertaining reading.

Thanks again to all those who attended, practically spilling out the front door. You were a great audience!

http:lovegermanbooks.blogspot.com

Katy Derbyshire will be a panellist at the Goethe Institute with Rory MacLean, Chloe Aridjis and Heather Reyes at city-lit Berlin's London launch on 27 November.

city-lit Berlin - 'an almost perfect, and very moving, slice through history'

‘Another in this sterling series of city-writings compilations, this one follows the pattern of short excerpts gathered into chapters, that this time vary from the arbitrarily-themed to the perfect. The simplest one is also the most gripping: it's called 'The past is another country', but don't let that put you off. Its well-chosen pieces take you through Berlin's history from the early 19th Century to today, and make for an almost perfect, and very moving, slice through history. (It's interesting to note that even in the 1920s Berlin was a place renowned for building over its history.) The book choices are as eclectic as you could wish for, taking in most of the authors listed above - including the obvious choices like Isherwood, Kerr, Le Carre and Deighton - and some stuff new to me. Top of the list of latter include Ian Walker's 'Zoo Station' and Beatrice Collin's 'The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite'. Further interest is added by co-editor Katy Derbyshire's translations of bits from works not otherwise available in English. This manages to be not just a fine and fascinating introduction to the literature, but to rise above its expected status as a dipping thing to become a mighty fine cover-to-cover read in itself’ Jeff Cotton, Fictional Cities, Amazon UK review ****

www.fictionalcities.co.uk

 

Forethoughts: city-lit Berlin

So it’s Hey-O and away I go as I head off to Berlin for my next read, with the latest city-lit edition from Oxygen Books.

If you’re a regular reader of RobAroundBooks then you’ll know that I’m a bit of a fan of the city-lit series. For those not wholly familiar with it, the city-lit series utilises specially selected extracts of pre-existing literature, to illustrate some aspect of a featured city’s life. To date Oxygen Books have published city-lit editions on Paris and London, and this, the third title in the series, focuses on Berlin; a city which can definitely be considered as having an extensive and chequered history to its name.

So with such a rich history to tap into what lies ahead for me in the pages city-lit BERLIN, a book I’ve been gasping to read ever since I first received it? Well the promise is immense. As with the other two titles in the city-lit series, BERLIN is packed with an eclectic mix of literary extracts (both fictional and factual), from an equally eclectic range of writers. This edition of city-lit features more than 60 of them, from German literary greats such as Hans Fallada and W G Sebald, to more cosmopolitan novelists such as Belgian Paul Verhaeghen and Bulgarian Nobel Laureate, Elias Canetti. city-lit BERLIN isn’t just about novelists though, and it’s great to see journalism featured heavily in this new edition (as it should be), with German journalist and historian Sebastian Haffner, British journalists John Simpson and Kate Adie, and contemporary Berlin-based blogger and journalist Simon Cole, all adding their thoughts and impressions to the overall mix.

That ‘overall mix’, like the other titles in the city-lit series, is organised into themed chapters (nine in total), with a different aspect of Berlin and/or its history being explored under each chapter. Chapter headings such as ‘Come to the cabaret…’, ‘The Past is another country’, ‘Out and About’, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ and ‘And the Wall came tumbling down’ all offer a strong indication of what belies the contents, while at the same time giving some notion of the breadth and depth of exploration that can be expected from this edition. To me it looks like the whole spectrum of Berlin’s twentieth-century history is touched upon in city-lit BERLIN, which is incredibly exciting. But of course that’s something I can only fully comment on after reading it.

BERLIN also brings with it a new city-lit reading experience for me. In a first for the series, BERLIN is the work of joint editors. The previous publications have been solely compiled by industrious editor Heather Reyes. But on this occasion Reyes has been joined by Katy Derbyshire, whose translation skills have apparently been invaluable in bringing a more comprehensive work to publication. Being a fan of the city-lit series I’m obviously already a fan of Reyes as an editor. She has a knack of selecting extracts which, when grouped together, give a well-rounded and pleasing snapshot of some aspect of city life.

In other words Reyes is a good editor, and taking the old adage ‘two heads are better than one’ into account, it’ll be interesting to see if Derbyshire has made a positive improvement to this new city-lit edition, or whether in this case ‘two is a crowd’. Ahead of reading I can see that it is most likely going to be the former. In her notes in the opening pages of city-lit BERLIN, Reyes credits Derbyshire with bringing close to twenty extracts to city-lit BERLIN, many of which (all?) have been previously unpublished in English. That equates to almost a third of the book – all extracts which wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t for the assistance of Derbyshire. So on the face of it I think we can regard the employment of a second editor as being a positive move. Ultimately though only a read through will confirm this.

And so the ‘read through’ begins and although I’ve missed filing a review of city-lit BERLIN in time for its publication (5th November – to coincide with the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (9th November)), I’ve started to read city-lit BERLIN now to coincide with the official launch party for the book, which takes place in 10 days time (at the time of writing), on Thursday 27th November at the Goethe Institute, London. That gives me just enough time for me to work my way through what looks to be an immensely exciting reading experience.

So I’m planning on reading through city-lit BERLIN as follows – one themed chapter per day for the next nine days. All being well that means I will finish the book on Wednesday 26th November, one day before the launch party, when I’ll post up my ‘afterthoughts’. Meantime you can follow my progress through my reading journal, where I’ll also offer up daily comments on each section as I complete it.

http://robaroundbooks.com