‘This is a book for those who are neither ashamed of being Englishmen, nor satisfied with England as it now is.’

the ‘Drabble’, or a ‘microfiction’ of 100 words. Many writers have tried their hands at Drabbles, including Neil Gaiman, who, he says, ‘failed miserably’ and couldn’t get his below 102 words. Eventually he gave up, and made the first two words the title of his story, ‘Nicholas Was’. It is a gleefully sinister Christmas tale.

Every film, TV series or book can be reduced to a pitch. If you recall, the novelist Elizabeth Buchan memorably called it the ‘backbone’. It forces us to think about what really matters, the kernel of a plot or idea, and the key to this should be opposition. What’s that snap of tension; that point of conflict; that frisson of the unexpected? Which

There have been hundreds of jacket designs for Nabokov’s novel over the years, in fact so many that an entire book has been dedicated to them: Lolita – The Story of a Cover Girl. As the book’s Introduction says, ‘If there ever were a book whose covers have so reliably gotten it wrong, it is Lolita.’ Lolita herself has continually been

I try to follow the ‘minimal adjectives’ advice as much as I can when writing blurbs. When I recently had to introduce the heroine of a coming-of-age novel called The Island, I decided it would be better to say she had been thrown out of a convent for kicking the prioress, rather than describing her as ‘spirited’ or ‘rebellious’.

As the writer Sam Leith says of good prose, ‘You are not only making a case or imparting information; you are cultivating a relationship.’ The aim is to connect.

‘The le Carré covers were a conscious attempt to revive the copy style of the type-only Gollancz covers from the early 1960s, when book covers were used as marketing vehicles, often written directly in the voice of the publisher. The language is high-flown but has an appealing authenticity to it – you feel the enthusiasm of the publisher for the

there are seven basic plots running through human history: overcoming the monster (think Beowulf or Jaws); rags to riches; the quest; voyage and return; comedy; tragedy; and rebirth. The Irish playwright Denis Johnston identified eight: unrecognised virtue; fatal flaw; debt that must be paid; love triangle; spider and the fly; boy meets girl plus

Fast forward to the Renaissance, and Thomas More was taking quote whoredom to a new level, asking his friend Erasmus to ensure that his book Utopia ‘be handsomely set off with the highest of recommendations, if possible, from several people, both intellectuals and distinguished statesmen’.