A year of reading the world

I didn’t expect to be doing this. I thought when I finished my last post on 31 December 2012, that would be it – I would close the door on A Year of Reading the World and venture off to pastures new.

Then a few things happened. Firstly, after I finished the adventure, nearly 1,500 more of you signed up to follow the blog and it seemed a shame not to say ‘hello’ – hi, great to have your company.

And secondly, UK writer Rebecca Wait, whose novel The View on the Way Down comes out next month (preorder it now why dontcha?), invited me to take part in ‘My Next Big Thing’. It’s an internet meme apparently (sounds very grand), which is passed from writer to writer allowing each to talk about his or her next project.

The idea is that I answer the questions and then tag three more writers to do the same on their sites at the end. It struck me that this might be a nice way to connect you with three of the writers whose work I enjoyed reading last year, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Bear with me.

What is the title of your next book?

The title of my next (and first) book is Reading the World: Postcards from my Bookshelf.

The title of my next blog, which you can get your hands on much sooner, is If Women Ruled (hence the picture at the top). I’d love it if you’d join me for that adventure – any ideas much appreciated!

Where did the idea for the book come from?

About four months into A Year of Reading the World, I wrote an article about the project for the Guardian newspaper (I was working there at the time so I managed to collar the literary editor and convince her to let me do it). Interest started to pick up off the back of that and I began to wonder if the story of the project and the stories behind the stories that I read might make a book.

Then a friend, writer Rosie Fiore (her latest novel Wonder Women came out on ebook last week), introduced me to my now-agent, Caroline Hardman at Hardman & Swainson. Caroline thought the project would make a book too, so we put together some sample chapters and a proposal, and Reading the World was born.

What genre does your book fall under?

Technically speaking, it’s a narrative non-fiction blook (a blog that’s turned into a book). It’s part memoir and part literary criticism.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Gosh. Well, in my daydreams Kate Winslet would play me, but in reality – particularly when the going gets tough – Woody Allen is probably nearer the mark.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

The story of my quest to read a book from every country in the world in 2012.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It’s being published by UK publisher Harvill Secker (part of Random House) thanks to my agent Caroline Hardman.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

About three months.

What other books of the same genre would you compare yours with?

Tricky. I’d like to think it’s a bit Bill Brysony and others have compared the style to Elif Batuman and Anne Fadiman.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I was very lucky to have a publishing deal and a deadline – wonderful for focusing the mind!

 What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

It contains an account of my extraordinary meeting with the ex-lover of my Swiss author, Aglaja Veteranyi, and the story of how Honduran writer Guillermo Yuscarán (formerly William Lewis) got his name.

 When and how will it be published?

Reading the World: Postcards from my Bookshelf will be published by Harvill Secker in 2014.

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And here are my tags for three of the writers whose work I read last year:

Giovanna Rivero is a Bolivian writer. She has published numerous books in Spanish and took part in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program in 2004. I was lucky to be introduced to her work by leading Bolivian writer Edmundo Paz Soldán and read her 2006 short story collection Sangre dulce/Sweet Blood for A Year of Reading the World. She’ll be talking about her Next Big Thing on her blog.

Ak Welsapar is a Turkmen poet, journalist and novelist. He represented Turkmenistan in London’s Poetry Parnassus event in 2012. He writes in Russian, Turkmen and Swedish and his novel Cobra is due out in English soon. I was delighted to be able to read an unpublished manuscript of a translation of one of his other novels, The Tale of Aypi, which he emailed to me.

Danderma is a prolific Kuwaiti blogger and novelist. She has drawn considerable attention in the region for her self-published series, The Chronicles of Dathra: A Dowdy Girl from Kuwait. The books are written in a mixture of English and Arabish – a way to chat online using English letters and numbers with Arabic spelling – and Danderma was kind enough to send me the first volumes so that I could tuck into one for A Year of Reading the World.