Independent bookshops are always charming and intriguing; they aren’t usually very big and famous, and you can find whichever gem of literature you are intensely craving for. They are unique and unreplaceable.
Blackwell’s bookshop – although they have a couple of stores in London and a few in the United Kingdom – has been able to maintain these characteristics. The location is quite peculiar – the bookshop is only a few minutes walking from Chancery Lane tube station for readers who come from East, and a few minutes walking from Holborn tube station for book-lovers who come from West. This means that the important London School of Economics is just around the corner and easily reachable as well as the famous and important British Museum which stands only a pair of blocks behind the store. As I arrive in front of the store, I spend some minutes to look interestingly at the main window. The best-sellers and new releases dominate the biggest part of the display. A pleasant and intense smell of coffee and printed paper hit my nostrils as I get through the entrance. An unusual and unexpected shelf immediately catches my attention. I hadn’t ever seen such a rich and varied selection of works focused on London – there are guides books, of course, but there also are collections of short stories and other curiosities on the City (“London’s strangest tales” by Tom Quinn is one of them). A grey moquette softens the thumping of my paces on the floor. A light buzzing of customers’ and booksellers’ voices echoes in the entire room. Big tables with stacks of books stand along the main aisle, and I immediately see novels by H.P Lovecraft – his unmissable collection “The call of Cthulhu” – and Thomas De Quincey. An unexpected surprise immediately catches my eye; on the corner of the table, almost hidden as though it was shyly trying not to get noticed, an English-translated copy of “Inferno” by Dante Alighieri lays lonely. I think it’s the first time I find this work in a bookshop. I quickly go through the rich and valuable fiction section. I freeze – literally – before the assorted ‘Staff choices’ shelf. It is an entire wall, and it contains different varieties of books – from novels to essay, from crime to horror, from romance to sci-fi – but, before leaving, I can’t help detecting two of my favourite readings: “And then there were none” by the incredible Agatha Christie and “1984” by the immense George Orwell.
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As summer is slowly going by, and the hot and suffocating weather is becoming cooler and cloudier, the seasons of literary events and authors’ signing kicks off again.
After months of relaxing time, holidays, and travelling, Waterstones in Piccadilly hosted “Titans of Sci-Fi”, an amazing and very interesting panel in which Peter F.Hamilton (Greg Mandel series, the Commonwealth Saga, and the Void trilogy), Stephen Baxter (Xeelee: Redemption is his new book), Adrian Tchaikovsky (Children of time, Dogs of War, and the Echoes of the Fall trilogy) talked about their experience as leading science fiction writers. Pat Cadigan (The girl who went out for sushi) mediated the discussion. I quickly take a seat in the cosy, but very comfortable, reception hall in the basement of the bookshop – I’m approximately half an hour early, as usual, and the second row is completely available for me. There are only a few people, but the room slowly fills up, and the buzzing of the excited attendees sounds in the air. Suddenly, a grey glass-door on the left wall swings open, and four people march in; I immediately recognise Adrian Tchaikovsky – I had attended an event a few weeks ago (Click here) – and a white curled hair woman leads the party. Her colourful dress billows as she strides to the stage. Pat Cadigan looks around and warmly smiles. Her eyes emanate an involving shining light, the pleasant sensation that this event will not be disappointing crosses my mind as well as, I’m quite sure, the audience’s. To warm up the listeners, the authors introduce themselves and their last works, but, as I thought, Pat dominates these initial minutes. “We’re here to talk about science fiction,” she says, people’ stares fixed on her. “If you’re tired of sci-fi works, you’re tired of life.” The audience burst into a fragrant laughter; the quote has come out completely spontaneous and perfect for the situation. “Creating a world which is huge and detailed allows you to examine the most unique and peculiar characters you created in it,” Hamilton says, replying a question from the audience. “I tend to focus more on scenarios,” Tchaikovsky claims. “Defining the environment helps me to figure out the characters I need for my story.” Baxter, instead, goes in the opposite direction; the multi-awarded writer prefers to begin with the characters and, then, develop the setting. “My books usually come out from a series of short stories combined together,” he says, but he agrees that the scenario is fundamental to make the story great. “That’s why I do love planning,” he claims, his lips curving into a clever smile, “and, to do that, I always wonder ‘who’s hurting?’. It seems a useless question, but it helped me out quite a lot while I was writing a novel.” Hamilton is a planner as well, but he focuses more on the ending; the writer needs to have the finale of a story in his mind to create what he wants. “I do plan everything properly when I’m working on a project,” Tchaikovsky says. “The conclusion of the novel gets adapted to what had happened to my characters.” “I do think that sci-fi is a very visual genre,” Baxter replies the next question. “The trick to make the reader visualise and understand something is to use simple and concrete words. That always works.” “I think that visualising is very important,” Tchaikovsky interjects, “but it’s very indispensable to evoke and transmit feelings for an author.” “I’ve got only one rule when I have to describe,” Pat Cadigan says. “I watch the film of the story I want to write about in my mind. Once I visualise what I want to say, I can describe it.” Hamilton doesn’t think that a novel is concluded when an author writes it; the possibility to get back to a previous book and write a sequel can’t ever be overlooked. “Never say never,” he says, “but the story that pops in my mind needs to fit into the world I’ve already created.” Even though the authors agree on this matter, Baxter has never thought to get back to a previous work, but he thought about developing it from a new and different point of view. The conversation quickly comes to an end; the last question deals with the use of cliché. Cadigan and Hamilton agree that the first contact between humans and aliens is quite common in sci-fi. “I think that the finding of something very old and related to the origin of the human species is my common cliché,” Tchaikovsky says. “I personally used it.” A deafening applause burst into the room; the authors deeply thank the listeners, who were completely focused on their magical and inspiring words. |
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