Writers Unite Against the BBC

Reading is great and all - but many times I find that people do not read enough non-fiction. There are people who do an awful lot of reading but don't actually get any smarter or learn anything new in the process.

I love Science fiction and fantasy books like Isaac Asimov and the Lord of the Rings, but I balance it with a healthy dose of non-fiction about many things. I have books ranging from Lord of the Rings and Foundation to others such as "Cod: A Biography of a Fish that Changed the World", and "Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba."

I have books that talk about foreign policy in the Middle East, or about life in the Middle Ages, evolution, the biology of jungles, the Silk road, and the Napoleonic Wars alongside books by fiction authors. I have shelves of books of a very diverse range of topics and it makes me a better more well-rounded person.

I think we need to encourage not just reading - but reading for education. Otherwise, we just have a bunch of people who read a lot, but who do not know anything. More often than not I am disappointed when avid readers prove to be no smarter than the average Joe on the street.

from the link...

A recent special edition of the Culture Show by the BBC showcased fantasy, science fiction and horror books. The special was called The Books We Really Read. A group of 85 authors have complained to the BBC about the way the shows spoke about genre books. I agree with what the authors have done here and support them 100%. Below is the press release.

EIGHTY-FIVE AUTHORS HAVE SIGNED A JOINT LETTER OF PROTEST HANDED IN TO MARK THOMPSON, THE DIRECTOR GENERAL OF THE BBC, COMPLAINING ABOUT THE BBC’S SHABBY TREATMENT OF GENRE FICTION DURING LAST MONTH’S WORLD BOOK NIGHT COVERAGE BY THE TV STATION.

The signatories to this letter range from Gold Dagger-nominated crime authors such as S J Bolton, writers of children’s fiction such as Debi Gliori, as well as many fantasy, science fiction and horror authors – from Iain Banks to Michael Moorcock.

The BBC programming which has raised their complaint was the state-sponsored television channel’s coverage of fiction during World Book Night, with programmes including The Books We Really Read: a Culture Show Special and New Novelists: 12 of the Best which went out on BBC2 on the 5th March 2011.

Fantasy author Stephen Hunt, who organised the protest, commented, “The sneering tone that was levelled towards commercial fiction during The Books We Really Read was deeply counterproductive to the night’s aims of actually encouraging people to read novels. The weight that was given to the single sub-genre of literary fiction in the remaining programmes was unbalanced and unrepresentative of all but a small fraction of the country’s reading tastes. And closest to my own heart, the failure to feature a single work from the three genres of horror, fantasy, and science fiction was a disgrace. The official World Book Night list included Philip Pullman’s fantasy novel, Northern Lights. It is a shame the BBC could not.”

Hunt went on to say, “There have been weeks when one in three books sold in the UK were Harry Potter novels, or more recently, Twilight novels. The sweeping under the carpet of the very genres of the imagination which engage and fire readers’ minds shows a lot more about the BBC production team’s taste in fiction than it does about what the general public is actually reading. If the BBC really wishes to support reading in this country, then they should produce a literary version of The Film Programme, or commission a modern updating of the Bookworm show that had Griff Rhys Jones as its lead presenter in the ‘90s. A series with a mainstream slot. Then perhaps the BBC can do what it said on the tin the first time around: cover the books we really read.”

+^d

One hell of a line up of authors signing on. +^d Added to "Culture".