Across the literary pages: Bumper issues

It’s a fact of life: death and destruction make for compulsive reading. The latest tome in the apocalypse genre is Callum Roberts’s, Ocean of Life: How our seas and changing. The book describes how man has ravaged and defiled the oceans, and explains how our rapacious stewardship is damaging us. Thanks to over-fishing, fossil fuels and lax waste disposal, Roberts says, an aquatic catastrophe looms.

The Sunday Times gave Roberts a rave review (£). A man named Brian Schofield wrote:

‘There isn’t much optimism in Roberts’s conclusions regarding climate change and the oceans, just a declaration that “there is a less dismal future ahead if we quickly wean society off fossil fuels”. But his message on overfishing is much more distinct and direct: “We must set up parks at sea, and lots of them.” Fishing-free marine reserves work: when the Isle of Arran established one in 2008, the undersea “desert” became “lush and healthy” after just two years. He reminds us that our government pledged to create a national network of Marine Conservation Zones by 2012, but that timetable has drifted. Ocean of Life is the sort of book that inspires you to get in touch with your MP. It is elegantly written, at times overwhelming and depressing, but generally urgent and persu­asive. Informed citizens of our watery planet should read it.’

I’d like to read a scientific analysis of Roberts’s book, rather than a summary. But, having flicked through Ocean of Life, I agree that Roberts’s writing is sharp and controlled. He tells an unnerving story without resorting to hyperbole. From that perspective, it is the latest in a long line of well-written science books, published for the popular market. Other recent examples are Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein, Stephen Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature and Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. Some fiction writers have recognised the phenomenon, and see an opportunity to explore science in their novels. Ian McEwan, for instance, has said that the proliferation of accessible literature on science aided his novels Saturday and Solar.

In other news, Jeanette Winterson has taken to the pages of the Guardian to express her expectations and reservations on assuming the post of professor of creative writing at Manchester University. She says that creative writing is changing; therefore, the teaching of creative writing must change. But how? There is no homogenous approach to teaching creative writing — a point that UEA graduate Michael Amherst made on these pages some time ago; and every creative writing student who I’ve met tells a radically different story, not all of them positive. Winterson is certain that she ‘cannot make you a writer’, but she is clear that writing is a mechanical process, which implies that the process can be learned.

‘What I can do is show you how to strip a piece of text like dismantling an engine — and put it back and see why it roars or purrs. My own method is oily rag and spanners. Words and how they work is what interests me.’

Elsewhere, Alan Hollinghurst chatted to the Guardian’s Rachel Cooke. He said that the Booker prize was essentially meaningless beyond increasing sales, which to my mind makes it rather meaningful — nothing comes of obscurity except pity. Other than that, he was his usual charming and wry self. Meanwhile, the same paper has spoken to Chad Harbach, the American author whose novel The Art of Fielding has been a critical and commercial success. In this interview, Harbach refused to answer questions with almost religious devotion. For those who haven’t read it already, Harbach gave an interview to the Spectator in March. He was loquacious by comparison on that occasion.