Historical Readers Day raises the temperature

Almost 100 keen readers packed a very warm room in the Mechanics'Institute, Manchester, eager to take part in the Pages Ago Historical Readers Day, programmed in partnership with Manchester Literature Festival and the Historical Novels Society. The audience was a happy mix of readers and writers- some with an expert interest in historical fiction and some attending a readers' event for the first time.

Alison Weir gave a keynote speech, in which she outlined her writing career, explaining how she now alternates writing biography with a linked fiction. Over the course of this talk she covered some of the key debates which dominate the territory- does historical fiction "dumb history down"? how much imagination is it OK to use? How do you fill in gaps in knowledge credibly?

This led seemlessly into a panel debate facilitated by Jerome de Groot. Describing the panel of Alison Weir, Douglas Jackson, Robyn Young, Maria McCann and Sarah Dunant as the "dream team" he asked them each to talk from their perspective about the renewed and very current popularity of historical fiction. A question about historical romance led to an impassioned conversation about researching sexual behaviour in the past. There is what we are told happened and what we can learn from pictures , but much harder to know is what actually went on.

It is what actually happened to ordinary people which is of most interest to most authors of contemporary historical fiction and everything has to be credible within what is known about the period. Passions ran high as each writer talked enthusiastically about their own work.

Following this very inspirational discussion everyone dipersed to lunch then into separate workshop sessions with the individual writers. These were intended to give participants opportunities to find out more about writers and their work. Our "celebrity" panel were joined by 4 other published writers who led workshops on specific aspects of historical writing; Adele Geras spoke on writing history for young people, Mary Sharratt talked about being inspired by place, Sarah Mallory talked on research for historical romance and Andrew Martin covered creating atmosphere.

People bought books, had them signed, met the writers as well as friends. The atmosphere was lively and the impression of an enjoyable and spirited day lingered in the room .

Mounting Excitement

Two busy weekends are approaching.

Lots of Pages Ago activity around the North West currently. Library staff are so busy delivering events, they aren't finding the time to tell me very much about them. I'll see if I can get some feedback in to post here very soon.

In the meantime, those of you with children aged 7-11yrs should note our Pages Ago Family Day taking place at Tatton Park on Saturday 23rd October. There will be lots of reading and writing-related activity taking place in the Tenants' Hall with NW Library staff on hand to encourage participation.

Children will find out about researching, illustrating and writing about historical characters and events. They will have the chance to make up poetry, listen to stories and browse books. Parents will also enjoy all this I'm sure and be able to take part in our quiz.

Normal Park entry charges apply, with no additional costs for the Big Family Book Day.

Don't forget the Pages Ago Readers' Day and the Bernard Cornwell Book Launch both taking place on Saturday 16th October. Book your tickets now. Details at Manchester Literature Festival

Looking forward to....

Time is marching on and there are lots of good things coming up over the next few weeks. This is just a selection:

19th Sept Jane Eagland talks about her cross-over novel Wildthorn in Bolton Council's Smithills Hall.

24th Sept Mary Sharratt runs a creative writing workshop in Blackburn's Museum, using some of their artefacts as inspiration.

Tameside libraries have a whole programme of historical activities going on, including on 28th Sept academic and historical fiction expert Jerome de Groot leads a readers discussion of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels in Tameside's Hyde Library

16th October- a historical readers' day at the Mechanics Institute in Manchester. An opportunity to hear, talk to and meet a host of writers- Sarah Dunant, Alison Weir, Douglas Jackson, Robyn Young, Maria McCann, Adele Geras, Andrew Martin, Mary Sharratt, Sarah Mallory - and who knows who else will be in the audience?

Then in the evening a unique opportunity to hear Bernard Cornwell launch his latest book The Fort Details of how to book for both these can be found on the Manchester Literature Festival website.

If you have stamina and want to make a weekend of it, the next day the Historical Novel Society annual conference is at the same venue.

23rd October, one week on and we host a big Family event at Tatton Park. This is a day full of activities for children all focused on the history of writing and hopefully inspiring participants to read and write more.

26th October and more to go to in Cheshire East as archaeologist Stephen Dean presents an illustrated talk in Macclesfield Library about the now famous anglo-saxon Staffordshire Hoard.

The Flashback Fiction writing competition runs to October 31st and Pages Ago events run on to the end of November.

I hope to write up something about all these events as they happen, but I do hope to see lots of other people at them as well.

More writers discovered

On Saturday I attended an event in Liverpool, set up by Liverpool Libraries in partnership with the World Museum. The location was timely as some Central Library services have just moved on to the 2nd Floor of The World Museum, while their own building next door has closed for a major refurbishment.

Two Transworld published authors, Nick Drake and Paul Sussman,came along with their publicist Ben Willis to talk about their latest titles, both of which feature Ancient Egypt. The event was enhanced by the availability of Ancient Egyptian handling objects from the museum service.

Ben questioned both writers about their writing careers and their fascination with Ancient Egypt and gave them the opportunity to describe and read from their books. While both are passionate about the ancient past, their books and writing styles are very different which made for a lively discussion.

With a background in archaeology, and making his real living from Journalism Paul Sussman's title The Hidden Oasis links a contemporary suspense story with a mystery from the ancient past.
Believable characters, fascinating history and an evocative sense of place - especially Cairo and the dry heat of the Sahara. There's nothing dry about the visceral violence and thrilling action scenes, however, and best of all is the terrifying secret at the heart of the story - The Hidden Oasis itself. Michael Cordy, author of The Messiah Code

As a real archaeologist and someone who still spends 2 months every year in Egypt, Paul's attention to detail and accuracy is impressive. He told us how he broke an arm in 5 places earlier this year while trying to obtain a photograph which would give him the detail he needs to give his writing authenticity.

Nick Drake's style is more reflective of his other life as a poet and winner of the Foward Prize for best first collection in 1999. At this event he was promoting his second novel to be set wholly in Ancient Egypt, Tutankhamun . While Tutankhamun is a name we all know from our limited awareness of Egyptian history, in reality little is known about this character beyond the wonderful artefacts which were found in his tomb. As in his first novel Nefertiti, Nick Drake has been blessed with the opportunity to invent plausible solutions to real mysteries, while using his poet's ear for language to convey his stories.

I brought both books away with me and am looking forward to reading them as soon as possible. This was a great example of how hearing writers speak about their work can inspire readers to want to read books they didn't know about before they arrived.

Both writers and audience alike took the opportunity to look at some of Liverpool's World Museum's fantastic Egyptology collection. Through this event the library service has strengthened its link with the Museum Service and given the current increasing public interest in history and archaeology, there will surely be other mutually appropriate events which could be arranged in the future.

Historical Fiction gets academic

I must thank US blogger Sarah Johnson for highlighting 2 interesting articles in the recent UK press which discuss Historical Fiction. Pages Ago is all about finding links between factual and fiction books, so seeing a current debate in the press is rewarding.

In the Independent Saul David illustrates the potential difficulty academic historians such as himself face when trying to turn to writing fiction. His particular struggle seems to focus on the amount of accurate detail it is appropriate to include and what sorts of detail bring fictional writing to life.
Historical facts are the vital framework around which non-fiction writers construct their narratives; they are, quite simply, indispensable. Yet now I was being told that if I wanted to write decent historical fiction I had to avoid being constrained by events as they actually happened.

Eventually I saw the sense of this. I wasn't being asked to sacrifice historical accuracy per se. Just to accept that a historical novel, or any novel for that matter, stands or falls on plot and characterisation; period detail is important, but only in so far as it gives a sense of authenticity. It must remain in the background and never be allowed to dominate the story.

It was gratifying to see that 2 of the authors he quotes have both appeared in NW libraries recently. Kate Williams- see blog entry for 15th July and Harry Sidebottom- see blog entry 5th August. Both these writers are academic historians who discovered that they needed to research new aspects of history to animate their fictions- essentially in both cases, the domestic detail, sights, sounds, smells of the periods they are imagining.

We must read Saul David's book Zulu Hart for ourselves to see whether or not his cross-over from academia has been successful.

The other article was from A.N Wilson in The Financial Times
He takes Wolf Hall as his starting point but also points us towards other recently published novels such as Sacred Treason by James Forrester (aka Dr Ian Mortimer) and The Courier's Tale by Peter Walker. He highlights the same issue as Saul David above, saying
If reading a work of history is like being guided round an old house by an expert, reading a good historical novel offers the illusion that we have stepped back in time to inhabit that house with its original residents.

He is less convinced by Phillipa Gregory's The Red Queen but seems in sympathy with her approach to challenging accepted historical fact. In a lengthy article which points us towards a number of older books and writers, Wilson celebrates Historical Fiction for its imaginative and creative use of historical fact.

These books surely contribute not merely to our enjoyment but to our historical understanding. Mantel, too, has shown that the phenomenon of genuine historical understanding conveyed by art still has effectiveness. Perhaps, then, the ideal holiday reading would be one history book for every historical novel – David Starkey’s volumes on Henry VIII, alongside Wolf Hall. Or you might decide that you have had enough of “Enerey the Eighth” for one summer and turn back to War and Peace.

I think A.N Wilson might like our Pages Ago promotion!

Holidays are over, the future is almost here

My re-awakened interest in history was indulged on a trip to The Trossachs last week. As well as lots of fresh air on some not-too steep hill walks, we also visited Stirling and Doune castles which couldn't have been more different from each other, as well as the towering Wallace Monument which can be seen across a huge area. We used the very informative audio-guides on visits, but still came away with questions which need to be followed up., so Neil Oliver's History of Scotland should be a good starting point. If I still want more, Christopher Winn's I Never Knew That About Scotland, sounds entertaining and Nigel Tranter's The Wallace, though old now, sounds as if it would satisfy my need for fiction.

I was delighted to find a copy of the brochure for Manchester Literature Festival on my desk this morning. Saturday 16th October is going to be a very indulgent day for anyone who loves reading history. You can find full details of the readers' day, the historical & literary pub walk and the visit by Bernard Cornwell here. Book now to be sure of your places.

Warrior of Rome

Harry Sidebottom isn't the most glamorous name a best selling novelist or senior academic classicist could have, but Harry is proud of his name and was determined that it was the one he wanted on the cover of his books, when offered a 3 book deal by Penguin.

This was just one of the personal asides offered during 2 talks given yesterday on a visit to Macclesfield and Bury Libraries to launch no 3 in the Warrior of Rome series Lion of the Sun. Harry spoke with honesty and humour about the apparent ease with which he got published, the downsides of academic life (yes, even at Oxford), some of the plotting and character decisions he took in planning this series and some of his literary heroes ( Patrick O'Brian and Mary Renault are top of his tree). All of this underplayed his expert scholarship and facility with language, which has so obviously contributed to making his books into the best sellers they are. Lion in the Sun has gone straight into the top five best seller rankings and is the current Waterstone's book of the week.

The Warrior of Rome novels are set during the great crisis of the Roman empire in the mid-Third Century AD and Harry admitted that this period has not had much written about it. Easy therefore to write what he wants without fear of contradiction. However, Harry is a serious historian and gets deeply annoyed if he discovers that he has made a factual error, as he did in No 2 King of Kings with some Eucalyptus Trees which he has since been told would never have been found anywhere but the Antipodes at this time.

In Lion of the Sun, the series' central character Ballista is facing up to threats to the survival of the Roman Empire- from an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman! Yet, while Harry can't resist these moments of playfulness, these are hard-hitting books tackling serious subject matter, such as how far can the west go to protect its freedom before it destroys the very thing it is defending? He says on his own website All the novels seek to raise big questions, but each is driven by suspense and action.

Both audiences seemed enthralled by Harry's talks and had plenty of questions for him. While there were some existing fans in the audiences I think many people will have been introduced to this writer for the first time and inspired to go away and read his work.

Read this with Robin Lane Fox The Classical World: an Epic History of Greece and Rome