Swiss Book Prices: to Fix or Not to Fix

So. Like Germany and Italy, Switzerland used to have fixed book prices and then scrapped them. Then it reinstated them at the beginning of this year. And now there's a referendum to get rid of them again. Those in favour of fixed book prices say their purpose is to protect books as a cultural asset. Those against, including the Swiss Pirate Party, say literature is not under threat and does not need protecting.

Let's take a look at one country with which I'm familiar that doesn't have fixed book prices - the UK. Looters have been avoiding Waterstones like the plague, but over the last couple of decades the bookstore chain has become pretty much the last place on the high street you can buy literature. Why? Because they do cheap deals, for which they charge publishers zillions of pounds. Which means everyone ends up reading the same stuff in a scary literary world run by people with MBAs. And that independent bookstores go bust and small publishers have less of a chance on the market. And then in an oh-so-ironic way, the supermarkets have got in on the bookselling game and begun undercutting the chain bookstores in terms of both price and taste. Glittery pink books about flying ponies "written" by glamour models, anyone? Waterstones' latest reaction? Reintroduce centralised buying. Yay. Even less choice and variety.

Not being an economist, I have no idea whether it's a bizarre contradiction that a lack of state regulation (since Britain abolished fixed book prices) has not led to greater competition and greater choice for the consumer but to a near-monopoly. Maybe it's just me who finds that odd.

So now let's take a look at Germany, a land of evil state intervention. While the largest chain, Thalia, is present on most high streets, there are still plenty of independent bookstores on the ground. It's hard to find statistics but this 2007 NY Times piece on the subject quotes a figure of 2600. Independent publishers are, if not exactly flourishing, then at least holding their ground. And Katie Price's books have not been translated.

Now, books are not an expensive commodity in Germany. It's not in publishers' interests to set their prices too high, and there's still a subjective pain-barrier at around €20 for a hardback. Because they don't have to discount their bestsellers, publishers can keep prices for smaller print-runs low. But the best argument against the anti-fixed-pricers is libraries. If you can't afford to buy new books, buy them used or borrow them for free.

This is a bit of a rant, I admit, what with the lack of facts to back it up. So I won't attempt to suggest that the high quality and wide variety of German-language writing is due to fixed book prices. But on the other hand, nor can I see any evidence to uphold the argument behind the Swiss referendum - that fixed prices ultimately harm books.

And Win a Trip to Berlin

The Goethe-Instituts across Europe want to know what you think about Germany. And they're giving away a trip to Berlin to everyone who responds to their online survey. Or something like that.

Text and the City

London's Goethe Institut has uploaded a magnificent and truly wonderful project: Text and the City. It is a collection of English translations that present German cities - from old favourites such as Thomas Mann, Alfred Döblin and Heinrich Böll, but also a good few contemporary writers like Sibylle Berg, Sarah Khan and - I have to point out - Clemens Meyer on Leipzig.

Take a good hour or two to scout around for a whistle-stop literary tour of Germany. Just don't click on the map as it'll take you back to the German site.

Quotidian Poetry

No matter how long I live here, there are still things that strike me as odd about life in Berlin. One of them is the role of poetry in everyday life.

I don't mean subsidised campaigns like Poetry on the Underground, although these do exist. What I mean is poems that crop up in everyday life. The first recent example was my daughter's school Christmas do. Instead of all that tear-jerking/vomit-inducing* nativity stuff, most of the classes recited poems. Either all together in a big shouty chant, or one line per kid. It certainly had the advantage of being mercifully short. Traditionally, in fact, children are encouraged to recite poems here in exchange for presents. For several years, a friend had a job as Santa, biking round to people's houses on Christmas Eve in a red suit and listening to breathless poetry recitals from terrified minors.

Not much after the Christmas concert, a sign was hung up in our corridor. The company that cleans the stairs once a week cordially wished all us residents a peaceful Christmas, accompanied by a poem. I forget what it was now. And that called to mind the little ceremony, which I sadly missed, when a new roof was put on our building. The boss of the roofers apparently hoisted a heathen-like garland onto the roof and recited a poem, which tradition demanded he wrote himself especially for the occasion. I don't know whether he actually did, or just dipped into a handy compendium of Poetry for Roofers. The poem itself has been lost.


*Delete as appropriate.

Aravind Adiga: Nie Wieder Deutschland

Julia Kospach of the Frankfurter Rundschau interviewed the Booker Prize winner Aravind Adiga, asking whether he'd cancelled his readings in Europe because his novel had prompted so much criticism in India that he couldn't leave the country (perhaps revealing a rather interesting view of Indian literary culture). The answer (in my translation):

No, I'm leaving for Spain and Holland soon. I've only cancelled Germany and the other German-speaking countries. To be honest, I wasn't very keen to come to Germany in the first place. During my degree in England I travelled a lot and stayed in Germany as well. I had a lot of trouble all the time there because they thought I was an illegal immigrant. It was very unpleasant. At the time, I broke off my stay after three days and went back to England. I have no interest whatsoever in ever coming back to Germany or Austria. I think I won't ever do it. And apart from that I can't write while I'm travelling.