[Codex]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

They are sure serious about books in the UK.

I suppose the French have always seen themselves as culturally superior in terms of art, the Italians have their great opera, artists and music, whilst the Germans and Austrians great orchestras and composers.

In terms of the British and indeed Irish (whilst we had some fine artists and musical composers) it was really in the field of the written and spoken word that we excelled.

Britain is defined by it's great writers, poets such as Rabbie Burns (Scotland), Dylan Thomas (Wales) and of course famous literary figures such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Jane Austin, the Bronte sisters, Dickens etc, whilst the Irish have had such literary greats as Keats, Yates, Shaw, Joyce, Wilde etc etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_literature

More recently authors such as C.S Lewis, J.R.R Tolkien, Roald Dahl, Philip Pullman and J. K. Rowling have had their work made in to lavish big screen productions.

Britain has also been home to a flourishing theatre culture, with London's West End being one of the great theatre centres of the world, along with New York's Broadway.

http://www.london-theatreland.co.uk/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End_theatre

There are more than 900 bookshops in London (twice as many as New York), ranging from quirky and accentric independent shops through to large chains, and from the very exclusive such as Hatchards through to the second hand book shops around Charing Cross Road,Camden and Blooomsbury through to the Southbank Centre Book Market.

As a country we have a vast array of literature festivals such as Hay, Edinburgh, Oxford, Cheltenham etc as well as world famous literary awards, such as the Man Booker prize and Orange prize, the winners usually being annouced under baited breath in some lavish ceremony broadcast on BBC2 every year, and reported across the news channels.

http://www.thewordtravels.com/literary-festivals.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/bestbookshops

http://themanbookerprize.com/

Of all the other European Nations, the other great literary nation are the Russians, who are also defined by many of their great authors and who have always had a fascination with and appreciation of great literature. It's quite ironic I suppose that Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto in the British Library, although I suppose the Americans have also been heavily influenced by the written word and indeed British writers such as Thomas Paine 'The Rights of Man' and of course the moral and social commentary of Victorian England as presented by Charles Dickens. Whilst Hollywood has long held love affair with British writers, the latest Hollywood production of a much loved British book being Michael Morputgo's 'War Horse' which is being released on to the big screen shortly, in a lavish Steven Spielberg adaptation. The again films are just a modern day extension of the theatre and of plays, and much of what is presented on the big screen starts out in the form of a book or script.

http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/british...n-bestsellers/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...s-about-russia

http://www.warhorsemovie.com/

Daunt Books which specialises in travel books - Marylebone High Street, London

http://www.dauntbooks.co.uk/


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