The Year in Books Review


The Year in Books

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people. Now it is time for a look at the

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books that have topped the bestseller list in 2012, with the

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year-end books. -- The Year In Books.

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2012, the year JK Rowling reinvented herself as an adult

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novelist, E L James Blunt the publishing world that have 50

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shades trilogy, which sold and sold it and just get on selling. Fifty

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Shades Of Grey started life as any book, and 2012 was the year of the

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Kindle and the iPad. Even sales virtually doubled -- ebooks sales

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now account for 10% of all books sold. Let's look back over The Year

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In Books with the aid of highlights from the news channels meet the

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author interviews. Let's begin with a remarkable double. Hilary Mantel

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one of the Booker Prize for Bring Up The Bodies, the second book in a

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planned trilogy about Henry VIII's great minister, Thomas Cromwell, a

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trilogy which began with Wolf Hall, which also won the Booker Prize.

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Well, I don't know. You wait 20 years for a Booker Prize... And two

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come along at once. When the book was first published, we went to

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Cadhay, an Elizabethan manor house near Hilary Mantel's Bevan home, to

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meet the author. I had tried to tease a way Cromwell's reputation

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from the man himself. It appears to me that bumbles of prejudice have

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been handed down the years from one historian to another. And they

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eventually flowed out into the popular perception of a man who,

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when he appears in fiction and drama, he is always a one-

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dimensional, black cloaked villain. And I wanted to lift that black

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cloak and see under there. spent much of your career being

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written about as a widely admired novelist, a little underrated,

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perhaps. Wolf Hall changed that. And you have now made that

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transition to a best-selling novelist. How has that changed you?

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It is sudden success. It seems strange to me. I sometimes feel

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like a cork bobbing on the ocean. But it has not affected my day-to-

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day practice as a writer. Every day, when you sit down at your desk, you

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are made new. And it does not matter what failures or successes

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you have had in the past. All you have to be is that day's work. That

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is all you can do it. That is where you should focus your imagination,

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and let the rest just happen. There were other fine winners among

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the year's crop of literary prizes. Wade Davis won of the Samuel

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Johnson Prize for non-fiction for Into The Silence, his extraordinary

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account of the failed British attempts to conquer Everest in the

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1920s. And Madeleine Miller won the last Orange Prize for Women's

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Fiction for The Song Of Achilles. Orange has pulled out after 17

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years as sponsor, and next year's prize will be supported by

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individual donors, including Joanna Trollope and Cherie Blair. At the

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start of the year, there was the Costa Prize, whose five category

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winners included two first-time authors with very different day

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jobs. Moray Young, whose Blood Red Road won the children's prize, and

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Christie Watson, whose tiny sunbirds far away won the First

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Novel Prize. I came to the UK to go to drama school. I then worked on

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the alternative comedy circuit in the early '80s to get my Equity

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card. I then became a tap dancing chorus girl in the West End in

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high-society. After that, I retrained as an opera singer, and I

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worked on tour with a medium-sized touring company in the UK and

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France for six to seven years. I also did some solo work and a bit

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of singing teaching. I started writing in 2003. Why? I because I

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broke my wrists. I fell off a bus and smashed my head into a wall and

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broke both my wrists. It was one of those existential wake-up calls.

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Christine Watson is a nurse. People have been very interested in me

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being a nurse. But actually, nursing and writing are very

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similar creatures. The thing that made me nurse and the thing that

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made me write are the same. It has an interest in humanity and what

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makes us human beings in life and death and grief and loss. These are

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what I focus on in both jobs. Nursing crosses over into my

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writing, and writing probably crosses over into my nursing.

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Costa book of the Year award went to novelist Andrew Millar the Pure.

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It is a prize, which is lovely. I don't think prizes entirely changed

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people's lives. I shall go back to Somerset tomorrow and carry on with

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the work I was doing. His book is an account based on fact of the

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emptying of a medieval cemetery in Paris immediately before the French

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Revolution. I obviously don't just want to trade in symbols when I am

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writing. It is not some kind of allegory of France before the

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revolution. And yet, of course, it is not just that there was this

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cemetery which was excavated, which is interesting, but it is also

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about when it happened. The clearance was in some way inspired

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by new ideas, no thinking -- new thinking, the stubborn fantasy that

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we can start again. It was a good year generally for

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historical novels. The veteran Thomas Keneally published The

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Daughters of Mars, about two Australian Sisters who served as

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military nurses in the First World War and much of it is based on fact,

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including the sinking of the Dardanelles a hospital ship full of

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New Zealand nurses. But Thomas Keneally is quite clear that he is

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not writing straightforward history. This is about the horror of

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Gallipoli. It is about the Western Front. It is also about some

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specific historical events were due likely disguise. For instance, in

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the idiom of Gallipoli, your nurses are sunk in a hospital ship. There

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was such a ship. How accurate is your account of the sinking of this

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ship? Or well, of course, nothing in fiction... Fiction is lies piled

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end on end. But the recounting of the sinking of the Archimedes,

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would I stole in typical Australian fashion from the New Zealanders, is,

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to a considerable part, based on what at the Young Women wrote about

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their survival. And yet I feel licensed to go beyond that and give

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them reactions, give them subtleties of feeling that are not

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recorded in the journals. We spoke to contemporary novelists, too,

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like Ian Rankin, whose latest book sees the return of Inspector Rebus,

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now retired, sent by his author on a road trip to the north of

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Scotland, a maverick as ever. almost like a private eye within

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the police force. He is never happy to be part of a police inquiry. He

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is not happy being a small cog in a big machine. He wants to be off on

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a tangent, killing his own thing, running his own investigation

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within the police investigation. That makes him more like a private

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eye. The fun thing about not being a cop is that he can break the

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rules a bit more than would be allowed as a police officer.

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there was that case in Swindon not long ago with a murderer who led

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the police officers to the graves of his victims, and yet they could

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not convict him on that evidence because it had been improperly

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gathered. That has brought out an interesting debate. There was a lot

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of support for that police officer. A lot of the time when the police

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officer does not follow the rules, we disapprove. But this time, he

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got a result. It was not like he was roughing this guy up or

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anything you would see in Life On Mars. It was none of that, it was

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just driving the guy about, talking to him, making sure he was

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comfortable and unappealing the layers of the onion until he felt

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the need to confess. That Cobb did the right thing.

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Political memoirs do not often make great literature, but the best can

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be both inspiring and engrossing. Mary Robinson was Ireland's first

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female President and later a controversial UN High Commissioner

:09:52.:10:02.
:10:02.:10:06.

The island I will be representing is a new Ireland - open, tolerant,

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inclusive. The job is little more than symbolic. Did you find that

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frustrating? I found it intriguing. It was much more tangible before,

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but Hira was now having made a solemn promise that I would make it

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a more relevant role, and I had to do it. It was a lonely period.

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lot of it seemed to have been about should you shake hands with Gerry

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Adams, the Dalai Lama, General Pinochet? Why you're a natural

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diplomat? Does that kind of thing come easily to you? I think I am a

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mixture of a diplomat and a passionate human rights person and

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quite a steely character. Those three are combined in different

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ways. It was difficult to go to republican west Belfast, but I

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wasn't going to shake the hand of Gerry Adams. But he was going to be

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there. He was, and they couldn't have a relationship with those

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communities unless I respected where they were coming from and

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their leader. And so I did shake his hand, off the camera, but that

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is what the press were interested in. And I was heavily criticised.

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But I knew I had done the right thing. There are some moments in

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your life, very rare and very special, the sheer joy and sense of

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freedom, since a recognition, it was unbelievable. Something had

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changed in that hall in Belfast for those communities, and they would

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never go back. They belonged in a way that was very special.

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surge in sales of eBooks was driven as much as anything by it EL

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James's 50 shades Trilogy, a mix of Mills & Boon with added sex and

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bondage. Between them, the three books have sold almost 10,000 --

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10.5 million copies alone. The books' worldwide success seems to

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have left the author dumbfounded, judging by this interview with Will

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Gompertz. It all seems to have happened to somebody else. I still

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put washing in the washing machine, make sure the children are fed,

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that sort of thing. And that is the reality. The phenomenon even for a

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time eclipsed JK Rowling's Harry Potter, but she came back strongly

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with the publication of The Casual Vacancy, her long awaited much-

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hyped debut as an adult novelist. Critics weren't entirely convinced

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by the book, set in a dysfunctional English country town, but as the

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author told Will Gompertz, she was always clear in her own mind what

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she was doing. This is the thing I wanted to write next. I had the

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idea for it, I knew I would love to write it. So that is where it all

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started. Why was it the thing you wanted to write next? It plays into

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certain themes in my life, it is quite a personal book, these things

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are think about a lot. It is personal in a sense that it deals

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with broad themes that have affected my life in a very real

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sense. Other children's authors, no matter how successful, have always

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envied JK Rowling's sales. Eoin Colfer published Artemis Fowl many

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years ago, and this year he published his last book about his

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criminal mastermind. We got the new Harry Potter, and we

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came along and did the interview. Ever since, you have been declared

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to JK Rowling, and your protagonist compared to Harry Potter. Did that

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annoy you? After a while I realised that it has done me nothing but

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good. Yes, I will have to bear the comparison. I once said that if JK

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Rowling is the Beatles, then I am the Rolling Stones. I also said

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that if JK Rowling is Madonna, then I am the Spice girls. I am Emerald

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Spice. We spoke to several fine children's writers. Michael

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Morpurgo took Matthew Stadlen to Devon to see the lush countryside

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that inspired his bestseller the War Horse. Since adapted for stage

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and screen. My teacher used to point at me and say, use your

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imagination, Michael! I was hopeless at using my imagination

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until I discovered that all stories that any good come from the real-

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life stories around us. And it is from real life, whether my own life

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or the lives of other people or stories that I hear on the bus, it

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is from real life that my imagination makes the play and then

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makes a stories. Effective you what I'd do is, I dream when I am awake,

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so the stories begin to each other weaving to reach other, and become

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a story of my own. It is what you're always told not to do at

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school. Don't look out of the window and dream, wrong. It is a

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really good thing to do. Michael Rosen, a former children's laureate,

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has written a book for children about one of the greatest

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children's writers of the last century, Roald Dahl. In all his

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books, he knew that in order to engage the sympathy of the child,

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in order for the child actually care about what happens, you have

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to see the world from the child's pointed view, and a lot of my work

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is about looking at myself the way I walls and looking at the world

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through those eyes. It is like putting on a pair of glasses from

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my childhood. And Philip Pullman reworked Grimm's Fairy Tales from

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modern readership. What I have done in my telling us to put it into my

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voice. This is the way I would tell it if I were telling it orally, a

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think. But also, I felt able, licence, allowing to add a little

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:16:45.:16:46.

bit here, cut a little bit there, paper over a join. I felt I could

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tinker with them in a way that I would do again if I were telling it.

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Because in Cinderella, you have added the detailed that she goes to

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the ball on three consecutive nights, each night wearing a

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different dress. Yes, for the British version called Mossycoat, a

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marvellous version. I borrowed that detail, because I thought that

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The year's crop of authors included plenty of eccentrics, and we met a

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few on the news channel. There was the poet Simon Armitage, whose

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walking home chronicled his attempt to walk the length of the Pennine

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Way, giving nightly poetry readings as he went to earn his living.

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You set out without any money except a one-way ticket to Scotland,

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and you end literally to sink your supper by giving poetry readings

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every evening. That was quite a brave thing to do. I suppose I was

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testing my reputation as a poet amongst the small villages and

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communities up in the north Pennines. And also may be testing

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poetry's reputation in general, whether people would turn out on a

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wet Wednesday to hear me read, and to see if I could make a living as

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an old fashioned troubadour. did they come? They came, yes.

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did you make a living? I thought it was a decent living, but it was

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just slightly less than the minimum wage when I added it up, so it is

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not a career path. Is a new Simon Armitage poet emerging from this?

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That might be the case. Increasingly, I spend time in

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places like this. I grew up on the periphery of the moors, but tended

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to spend time in towns and cities. I gravitate towards these places

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now, and it might be that my poetry goes in the same direction. Because

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your poems do appear in the hills. You have written another -- and

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number of poems that have been inscribed on stones up here. He yes,

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of what they call Stanza Stones, and they are dotted around. They

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are there forever, or at least long after me. Another eccentric was the

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art critic Brian Sewell, the second volume of whose memoirs contain a

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revelation of interest to students of espionage. It concerned his old

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teacher and close friend, Anthony Blunt, unmasked in 1979 as a Soviet

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spy. Brown's your claims he had been told of Blunt's secret life

:19:30.:19:37.

some years before. He came to Cambridge to talk to an old friend

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:19:47.:19:48.

and mentor called Andrew Garos. And I went. And Andrew Garos began his

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tail by saying, Anthony wishes you to know... And then told me what

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everybody now knows about the links with Burgess and Maclean and Philby

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and whatnot. So did he say in terms, Anthony has in the past fed secrets

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to Russia? No, certainly not. But if you were given that information,

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that was the only conclusion you can draw. But he left the

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:20:30.:20:31.

conclusion-drawing to me. And you believe that Andrew Garos was

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blunt's mentor and may have recruited him? I do. I see no

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reason why that should not be the case. That would make him a very

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successful spymaster, because he was never unmasked. Do you really

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believe that every spymaster in the country is unmasked? It is much

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more likely that there are a dozen of them who have not been unmasked.

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That is the point of espionage! The point of espionage is not at the

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end of everything to some may create a scandal in the Sunday is

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to remain what you will already The year also saw the 30th

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anniversary of the Falklands war, recalled by Tony Banks in storming

:21:23.:21:28.

the Falklands. He fought in the Parachute Regiment, and after the

:21:28.:21:31.

war left the army to set up a successful care home business in

:21:31.:21:35.

Scotland. These days he campaigns on behalf of the many veterans

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suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I was I naive

:21:41.:21:45.

young man when I went to the Falklands. I was a fighting fit

:21:45.:21:50.

soldier, enjoying my life in the army. I was somebody who thought he

:21:50.:21:56.

had trained for a job he would never do. I was a fun-loving young

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buck, basically. And when you find yourself doing that job, and it was

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a pretty tough job, wasn't it? It was an old-fashioned war, infantry

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battles, close-quarter fighting, and you saw some terrible things?

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Absolutely. We used fixed bayonets. Nobody had had those since the

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Second World War. We were an elite regiment, a brand in our own right.

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And I always believed we would, it successfully in anything we did.

:22:28.:22:35.

However, I was unprepared for the brutality of war, of losing

:22:35.:22:38.

comrades or seeing death and destruction and despair. They get

:22:38.:22:42.

the impression that the most terrible things you saw were at

:22:42.:22:49.

Bluff Cove and Fitzroy, when the Sir Galahad was bombed by Argentina.

:22:49.:22:52.

We had always prepared for things like bullet wounds and blast

:22:53.:23:00.

injuries. But what we weren't prepared for was horrific burns.

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That was something that will stay with me for the rest of my days.

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You came back from the Falklands, and you were affected. A lot of

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guys went completely off the rails, cracked up totally. You, on the

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other hand, didn't. He went on to be very successful and build a

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large successful business. Why didn't you go the way of some

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others? I could lock it away and forget it, where some individuals

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cannot do that. It then becomes a downward spiral, where it is

:23:32.:23:36.

constantly on their mind, and then it manifests itself in alcoholism,

:23:36.:23:41.

criminality, drugs. The highlight of the summer, of

:23:41.:23:45.

course, was the London 2012 Olympics, and just before the start

:23:45.:23:49.

of the Games, I spoke to Chris Cleave, whose latest novel, Gold,

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looks at what it takes to become a champion Olympic cyclist. I think

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there are two kinds of athlete. There are the kind to consider the

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job at least temporarily done when they cross the finish line, and

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will limit the scope of their competitiveness to the competition

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itself, and then I think there is another kind an athlete who never

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goes off duty, who never stops fighting a psychological battle

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against rivals, now and in the future. And a thing as a

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storyteller, we are always fascinated by the people we are not.

:24:30.:24:36.

I wake up every day in thin, who can I imagine myself being today?

:24:36.:24:41.

And these characters, who just have this visceral need to win, began to

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really intrigued me. I started to wonder, what are they feel like

:24:45.:24:50.

when they do win? Isn't that enough? They stand on a podium,

:24:50.:24:54.

what are they thinking? Are they thinking, this is my moment, I am

:24:54.:24:58.

happy now, or rather a projecting strength while on the podium,

:24:58.:25:02.

working out who to be next. So that was 2012, and next year

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promises more treats. New novels from Tracy Chevalier and Kate

:25:07.:25:12.

Atkinson, Jeffrey Archer and James Patterson. Two biographies of

:25:12.:25:18.

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