Since neither Ron nor I could pop over to Sweden to attend (our travel budgets only go so far!) we enlisted Scott Selby to report back from the 22nd annual Goteborg Book Festival, a four-day fair that attracts over 100,000 visitors and 743 authors from 34 countries, including Shirin Ebadi, 2003’s Nobel Peace Prize Winner, and Turkey’s favorite acquitted writer, Orhan Pamuk.
“The first day and a half was just for the industry and seminar
attendees, and once it hit two p.m. [Friday] the general public swarmed the place,” Selby writes. “It’s a bit overwhelming, everywhere one looks there were authors signing books and a wide range of strange giveaways. My personal favorite were the temporary tattoos of some of Sweden’s more popular authors–now I can have a full-color jacket photo of Liza Marklund (right) stuck on my bicep.
“Two of the best talks today were by Julian Barnes and DBC Pierre. Barnes had the droll wit of an Oxford don while “Dirty But Clean” Pierre had the dark humour of a man who had been to hell and back.
Top DBC quotes:
1.”The best way to write a book is to tell all your friends about it.
That way you have to finish it or look like an ass.”
2.”Writing’s very cheap.”
3. “Once I abandoned all notion I could do something, I did.”
4. “I haven’t read that many books. I’ve only read one of those mine
was compared with and that was afterwards.”
So despite the cover blurb mentioning CATCHER IN THE RYE in bold, he’s never read it. I’m not sure if J.D. Salinger would be impressed or outraged.