28/11/2013 Newsnight Scotland

beings. That is nasty. I did think that is a fair reading of his

speech. That is what people hope he said but it is not a fair reading of

what he said. Thank you all very much indeed.

Newsnight Scotland, what is the best Scottish novel written in the last

50 years? We will reveal all and ask whether it really matters if fewer

and fewer of us are reading any books at all. We will discuss that

with Christopher Brookmyre and Irvine Welsh among others. If you

are fed up with a high pressure political debate, pause for a

moment, sit down and read a good book. But not now, please! Thousands

of readers have just voted for their choice of the best Scottish novel of

the last 50 years. We will announce the winner in a

moment. But first Huw Williams has this report. So what is the Scottish

novel? The Scottish Book Trust decided it is a book written here or

by an author born or who now lives in Scotland. These are our top ten

favourite titles as voted by nearly 9000 people from a long list of 50

contenders written over the past 50 years. This is where I'll live. My

family. My mum and dad run the shop. This is my brother's bedroom. Katie

Morag first delivered the mail back in 1984, but stories of life on this

fictional isle off the West Coast continued to captivate generations

of children. Hello! These youngsters met her creator at the BBC in

Glasgow today. There was not much enthusiasm for the idea of a beauty

parade of books here. In this particular poll there are no

children's books. It is just adult books. I wonder at that. I do have

that kind of stigma that I do actually do grown-up books that they

are never commented on. It is just children's books. I have come to

meet some students of Scottish literature at the University of

Glasgow. I am delighted that there is science fiction there. Iain M

Banks is probably my favourite Scottish author and I am delighted

that he is in the list. Why is that important? The way that he writes

science fiction is how it should be written. He has no careful scale. He

creates a fantastic world where you can do or see anything but he

manages to keep tension and drama in paradise, where you think it would

not exist. I am delighted he is on the list. Anything strike you about

the list, anything that is there or not there? I am not surprised

Trainspotting did so well. I think it has become one of those books

totally synonymous with Scottish identity. Whether or not that is a

good thing or a bad thing is not relevant. I think Scots identify

with the voice in Trainspotting and many people view it as Scotland

being encompassed by Trainspotting. No doubt the film being so popular

was something to do with it as well. Only one woman on the list. Is that

a surprise? Tricky To Keep Breathing is very good. Psychological but very

good. I don't know if other writers have fallen out of the 50 year

timeline, like Muriel Spark. If you go back a bit further back there are

many good women. I think more women could have made the list but it

could be because more women write poetry, like Liz Lochhead and

Kathleen Jamie for example. They could have made the list if it was a

poetry one, no doubt. What does the poll and the books that made it into

the top ten tell us about the state of literature in Scotland today? I

think writers take Scotland seriously and Scotland takes its

writers seriously, as it should, looking at the legacy of Scottish

writing, especially in the last 50 years, which this legacy has

covered. We have seen a flourishing of talent. Not just fiction but

academic writing, poetry, and let's not forget playwrights as well. So

it must be boomtime for publishers, two. They are two very different

things. Writing always continues. Writers inspire writers, books

inspired books, poets inspire poets, but publishing is a very

different beast. We see publishing model is changing. Next week

Mainstream is having its closing party. Things are changing. There

are new publishers in Scotland like Cargo and Freight, but publishing is

much more perilous than writing. Only one of these ten titles can be

the ultimate winner, so which one will it be? If you are sitting

comfortably, we will tell you in a moment.

I am joined in the studio by Marc Lambert, Chief executive of the

Scottish Book Trust. We are on tenterhooks. We are such cheapskates

that we do not have an envelope for you to pull out a card! We will use

our imagination, literary spirit. Who won? Trainspotting came out top,

so it is the overall winner. 9000 votes cast from 57 different

countries, which is pretty remarkable. This was an internet

thing where anyone could join in? Correct. It is fantastic that people

from 57 countries were voting for their favourite Scottish book. Hey

presto we can talk to Irvine Welsh because he is on the line from

Chicago. Congratulations. Thank you. Why do you think Trainspotting hit

the mark with people in the world in general in the way that most novels

just don't? It is almost impossible for me to answer that question. A

fine new, I would replicate that formula. -- if I knew. You write the

books that you want to write and anything that happens afterwards is

not something you have any control over. I think any books that has

very strong characters, that people can instantly identify with, that is

what I hear everywhere I go, whether it is in South America, the United

States or South Africa or Australia, Russia, Eastern Europe. Everybody

says they recognise Renton, Spud, and Sick Boy. They are archetypes.

They recognise the flush of youth. Like catcher in the Rye. That time

when everything is possible. If you mess up it does not matter that much

because you get second and third chances. I would say that is the

appeal but I really don't know. OK. We have Christopher Brookmyre, too.

Don't look downhearted because your book was number five, One Fine Day

In The Middle Of The Night. Title Normal Top Six Finish. Do You Think

There Is Any Point To This Sort Of Exercise? One Of The Immediate

Successes -- one of the immediate successes is generating publicity.

We are also joined by Professor Linda Dryden from the University of

Edinburgh. Do you think there is any point in this sort of exercise? He

is right because it has got us talking about books, which is always

a good thing, and it makes us concentrate on what is happening in

Scotland in the book trade, which is a good thing. Would you like to have

a stab at telling Irvine Welsh what he himself says he does not know,

quite Trainspotting is such a goer? I was thinking about that. I thought

the young people on earlier were interesting because they recognised

Trainspotting as a great book. I think it appeals not just to adults

but young people as well. They find something in that book that they can

identify with. The subject matter is terrific anyway, which is part of

it. You all have a problem. I think I am right in saying that reading

rates are going down. That is true. The latest survey of literacy from

the Scottish Government, published in May, shows that Scottish

teenagers and Scottish children as they progress through school are

losing their enthusiasm for reading. That is a thing we have to take

seriously. I wonder, Christopher Brookmyre, our youngsters not

reading or are they just not reading books? I am conscious of the fact

that we live in an era where young people communicate via the written

word anyway that they did not 20 years ago. Perhaps, MA seem

surprising, that they are therefore resistant to reading fiction or for

pleasure but it may simply be that when it gets to the end of the

school day, or the end of their other activities, the notion of

reading more prose is unattractive. Irvine Welsh, youngsters read in a

different way perhaps and perhaps maybe writers like yourselves and

others, it is something you have to come to terms with, perhaps read

shorter verse. Again, I don't either. I think that one of the

interesting things now, you have this tremendous plethora of, this

already end of courses and Master of fine arts programmes and people want

to be writers. They don't necessarily want to read. When I go

and talk to people, it is like surprising how many people you meet

that are actually doing postgraduate courses and wanting to be writers

but they have not actually read. Some of the novelty would probably

describe as indispensable. So that is a kind of interesting phenomenon,

we have less readers but more writers. Or more people wanting to

be writers. Why is that? There must be an incredible dispersion of what

was once a fairly unified industry, people self publish on the

Internet, OK, much of it might be rubbish but some of it has become

good and commercially successful. That is done for the publishing

industry but everything is much more dispersed. Yes, it is. I don't know

that we are not reading as much as we used to. Some of the figures that

the Scottish Book Trust published an interesting and in Scotland, it

seems there is more reading taking place than other parts of the UK. If

you like, the Harry Potter books, they do a lot for children's

literacy and getting children reading. Candles, whether you like

or don't like them... -- Kindles. Should we give it a virtual prize?

That is unanimous. Sorry. I see a lot of people that reading on

Kindles and I see that as a good end. In the sense that they are

reading. -- I see that as a good thing. There is lots of stuff

available on the Internet to read. People might not read books but they

go and read articles on the Internet. They have got access to

the printed word and probably use the printed word compared to 20

years ago, when youngsters might spend four hours in front of a

television, now they are spending four hours on the computer and the

art in front of text. That is true but it also is important what text

they are in front of and while it is very true to say that a lot of

children are reading and writing more than they would have 20 years

ago because of social media and because they are organising their

lives and constructing their personas online, if you like, there

is not any substitute to actual engagement with a fantastic novel.

Whether that is on a computer, a Kindle or in printed format, it does

not matter, what matters is engagement with books. Children are

inclined to associate text with communication or work and they are

not encouraged enough to associate the written word with entertainment.

They do not categorise... When I grew up I categorised the fiction I

was reading alongside movies, television, pop music, I saw it as

part of popular culture, one of the things I looks for to spend my free

time on. That is one of the things that is missing now. -- one of the

things I looked for. Tell me if you think I am wrong, but it strikes me

that we are now in an age when perhaps the whole future of the

novel is at stake. There probably is not as much experimentation with the

form of the novel and what a novel should be as there was in the 1960s.

I don't know. I dispute that. There is a lot of great experimental

stuff. If you look at, one of the great books, it was not on the list,

it probably should have, was a book that came out last year or the year

before last called Tales from the Mall die UN Morrison. It was a very

innovative experimental book. -- by Ewan Morrison. He used lists of

websites that you keep into. It was exploring the story. And so there is

innovative work. It just is not necessarily embraced are accepted.

All right. Unfortunately, you just pre-empted my next question. I was

going to ask you, ask all of you, you are not allowed to say one of

your own books or one of Christopher's. If there is a book

that you think, other than the one you have just mentioned, should have

been on that list of 50 books, that has been published in the last 50

years, what should it be? I think there is quite a few I would love to

have seen. I think it is sad that a writer of James Kelman's stature, I

know he is not everyone's cup of tea, he has contributed so much to

Scottish writing. I would have loved it to have seen that one of his

books, probably A Disaffection, on the list. I am delighted William

McIlvanney and Alistair Gray made it onto the list. I think that there

are other books. Alan Warner is, his book, The Man Who Walks is one of my

favourite Scottish novels. You pick one book from everybody, you choose

Iain Banks because he writes in a John and he is also a mainstream

writer, but what is interesting is that a lot of books have become the

first novel, a lot of books selected have been the first novel of a

writer. Like myself and Alistair Gray and Alan Warner. You don't want

to have more than one, it kind of splits the ticket, basically, in

terms of the book. I think that is interesting, the way that it tells

you something about the novel, especially if you are not writing

genre fiction. William McIlvanney's novel Doherty was a Scottish novel

as well. It is accepted that you have to make... I am sorry to cut

across you, but I want to get the first choice from everyone else. We

are almost out of time. Linda Dryden. I think James Robertson, his

novel And The Land Lay Still Sent In Smack. -- And The Land Lay Still. I

would suggest a novel by Iain Banks. And so would I. One of his books has

the greatest twist I have ever read. Thank you all very much indeed.

Let's have a look at tomorrow's papers. The Guardian, bank puts

brakes on fear of house price bubble. The independent, there we

have it, the new MI6 connection. That is all from me. Join Gary on

Monday for a special debate on Scottish media. Until then, good

night. Hello. Quite a change for our

weather on Friday, brighter and breezy for many. Strong winds very

much a feature across Scotland, sunny spells and scattered showers.

The cloud being chased away by the strength of that wind, sunny spells

and scattered showers likely across England and Wales into the

afternoon. Most frequent to the north and west of the Pennines,

sheltered eastern areas should do better with some sunshine, it will

feel pleasant but add on the strength of the winds, Devon or 10

degrees, you will need an extra layer. A few showers clearing the

south coast. -- seven or 10 degrees. A few isolated showers throughout

the afternoon across the North Devon coastline and through much of Wales.

As for Northern Ireland, sunny spells and just a few showers to the

coastline, further inland it should be largely dry but it will feel

quite cold because of that strong north-westerly wind and if you get

caught in the rash of showers across the Western Isles, here it will feel

disappointing. Some of them