wouldn't do all they thought said he was married to a german princess but william for legitimate children died, and it was only the duke of york, his won daughter victoria who survived to take over the throne and mrs. jordan was cast aside. wretchedly she ended her days in paris. but her story is a really wonderful story so i enjoy doing that as all intelligent people are there are denigrated or four gotta lummis represented it's

very important for me. >> host: what is your current project? >> guest: i am having a rest. i spent the whole last year writing about dickens and i need to recoup i think. >> host: have any more ideas for me? >> guest: i would like to go back to writing a woman as a central character but it's a very crowded field, and it's very difficult to find a subject that hasn't written about already i have friends >> host: this is book tv on c-span2 and we have been talking with claire tomalin, author in london. now from london, booktv interview robert mccrum on the

current publishing the art of evaluating others writings and of the worldwide importance of the english language. this is about a half-hour. >> host: this is book tv on c-span2. every weekend 48 hours of nonfiction books and authors degette and we are in london interviewing british authors and we are pleased to introduce you to robert mccrum. mr. mccrum, what is your day

remember when they didn't win the prize 1980. or when that kind of thing i'm good at. >> if you would, how would you describe the book publishing industry in england today in 2013? >> guest: the thing about publishers they are a bit like farmers always complaining about the season. for as long as i can remember,

book publishers have always been complaining. and now more than ever the sky is falling and they are like a bunch of headless chickens. actually, the truth is that this is a golden age of reading. there is more reading going on in english and french and god knows what and then more people around the world are looking at words on the screens, on the phones, and books, all kinds than ever before so you wouldn't think so in talking. >> what do you think about the new formats especially the digital formats? >> that's what they are they are just new formats and they are no different. they are essentially books. the page hasn't changed. there have been much bigger changes from the scroll to the manuscript to a much bigger

change than we are going through this is the biggest change and is like an earthquake in the middle of the landscape. some are the bookstores in london closing? >> that isn't true here this is a much smaller country and smaller culture it's much more integrated and we all go to the bookshops and talk about books and they are the part of the way of life. so the great deserts' of the book free territory you find in america i believe are quite the same problem here.

>> one of them is my year of recovering life after a stroke cannot in 1998. what happened. what happened was 1995, the 29th of july so they see them holding my hand, it isn't functional. and i walk with a slight limp. >> how old were you at that time? >> i was 42. >> what happened? >> they have yet to discover the cause. i had what was called a right side stroke and i was paralyzed on the left side, couldn't speak or span debate could stand up or move. gradually i made a slow recovery >> what did that experience mean to you today?

having had that at such a young age? >> can i just interrupt you to say this is a bit of propaganda? buffing with strokes is one-fifth take place with people who are under 40 so it is associated with old age. actually one-fifth of all such orders are under 40. so i was a young age but it wasn't that uncommon. it's amazing statistics. in this country in any given year something like 150,000 people will have a stroke. that's one every four minutes, during the course of this interview, say about ten people will have a stroke in england. it's a common reflexion and its of the third killer after cancer and heart failure. so when you ask the question how do i look back on it, first i

extremely grateful and glad to be. second, it does give you -- it makes you look at things in a slightly different way. >> robert mccrum, your most reck is called globish. what is globish? >> it is a fancy term that i don't think has called on all the way did very well when it came out. it was by a frenchman to describe what other people would say around the world. it is a phenomenon that i'm sure you would have experienced in your travels riches that the default in a situation they can't communicate.

you can be almost anywhere in the world and using some kind of anguish. >> how did that happen? >> it is a long story of empire, conquest, a trade and also the story of america because it was first spread by the british empire and then in the beginning of the 20th century as the americana took off they were spread all over the place and in a sense that is where the region is today. >> are people speaking english because, and teaching english and other countries at a younger age because it is the language of the future? >> it is more of the language of the present. there is no doubt at all i seen

chinese people learning in a sort of football stadium they gather and there is a huge crowd they repeat english sentences and then they will will back i would like a cup of tea. then the crowd rolls back i would like a cup of tea. it's funny but what this shows is people want to learn something in the world because at the end of the day it's about lots of things. it's about communicating and making a connection but it's also about upward mobility. and people can -- in the less-developed world people can see that english is a way of developing your situation and improving prospects to be and now the language of the future, i mean who knows. as i've often said in these situations, the landscape of

language studies lit heard with burnt out predictions and i would be reluctant to say english will become a world language but at the moment it looks like a very powerful one. historical the if you go back thousands of years, it lasted for a long time and then of course there was left in that lasted for at least a thousand years until the 15th century. and now english is at an early stage in its career. so whether in 700 years' time they will be sitting and talking in some kind of anguish or chinese or spanish or arabic, who knows. estimate does the current popularity make us native english speakers will easy to learn other languages? >> i think it does come in yes. whenever i travel in europe, a

-- de speak french, german, an italian, place in spanish. he or she will switch very easily, but french, german and spanish are very well known. a well known by telling americans which between any language very easily. so i think that we are a bit backwards. >> can you see norwegian, hungarian, german to be dying language as? >> no to read it is an issue, it is a real issue in the remote rural communities especially places like canada and australia , particularly big countries people are remote and you have three or four people who are the last speakers of the

language then you were down in a big rock but generally speaking, there is a thing called the mother tongue. they speak the language they were born with and so and norway there will always be a body of norwegians learning from their mothers and fathers and then in some ways small countries are dedicated to the supporting of the language, the orland for example it's forced a lot of the island is now the english society. on the west coast you can find whole communities speaking irish and they cling on to it as a symbol of their irishness. the small communities where the languages flourish as long as the community does not die out it always will and if it doesn't -- this does happen.

in australia there has been a lot of number of aboriginal languages spoken by a dozen people. >> this is book tv on c-span2 in london and we are talking with the observer, former literary editor, robert mccrum also and author. globish is one of his book, the story of english, my year off and another book he's written. who is p.g. wodehouse? >> the greatest comic writer and probably one of the all-time coming writers and i am glad you pronounced his name correctly. people who don't know about him would say p.g. wodehouse and i have to sit politely i'm very sorry but it's pronounced wood house. he's a great writer and he died in 1974 and i was lucky enough to be asked to do his life.

>> why do you consider him to be the greatest comic writer? what is he known for? >> one of the things he is known for is inventing at least two and maybe more like six or seven but at least two great comic characters who could be written into a script. i'm sorry if i'm going over familiar ground but these names are part of the concept and he created these characters in the 1920's. there are others but bertie and jeeves. >> when i hear jeeves i think butler and former and when i hear bertie, i think silly. >> so the young man, wasteful.

when i was promoting the book that came out in 2004, i could go around and do talks all over america and i came up with a lot of people who had seen jeeves on tv so for them it was a tv show. actually it follows the books. >> host: how important are the states to british authors when they go on tour or the one to promote and sell a book? >> guest: the american market is a very big market. it's five or six times and you can sustain a way of life in america which you can't do as a writer. ever since they made trips in the 19th century it's always been a place where you can make

an honest living which you can't really do here. i said i work for the observer and i'm also a writer and it's very common to be a writer and do something else is unusual to deutsch to kinds of writing to be a writer and also work -- many writers do other things but you always have to have a backup plan. in america you can i think generally speaking if you put your mind to it you can quite easily sustain a way of life writing books with films and so forth. >> why did they often change the name, the title of the book? kunin the u.k. it will be one name. >> it's the american publisher wanted to say it's off and so

often a disaster by the way but it does happen. sometimes it has to do with the fact -- i will give you an example there is a writer hanif that wrote a book on suburbia that makes complete sense here and less sense in america because although you have suburbs, the idea of suburbia is and so common. anyway. when the book came out the publisher is frankly an american tied themselves in the box to find another title because they thought that would make no sense the reasons for the title changes and i had this experience myself i had a book called the psychological moment and when it was published in america, knopff called it

jubilee. i don't know why. >> you seem to like to make lists. they include the 50 greatest moments in anguish literary history. i just want to have to expand on a couple. >> can i say that i do these from time to time. >> they are a way of generating feedback you think a tremendous tidal wave of which you are about to refer because i was neglectful of the women writers. >> we will go over the second list after this one. but you began with the death of christopher in 1993. who is christopher marlo?

>> guest: william shakespeare's great rival and a contemporary. it's never really been told in fillmore book form. they come from english towns and become successful but marlo has been to cambridge and educated at cambridge university and is in the short term successful and shakespeare follows his career so when he writes edward ii i'm not kidding. all the way through to 15 90's, he was a very exuberant spine

playwright, aggressively, sexual, atheists and he was a dangerous character. and he got mixed up in a slight what involving elizabeth i. and the next thing you know, he is killed in what was a tavern brawl. how he died hasn't been explained. suddenly, shakespeare is standing alone and his nearest rival killed in a brawl and also that is used in that film shakespeare in love. if you remember he's played by rupert everett and is killed and the plot turns on the hero in thinking it is and marlo but a joke so i started with that because in a way -- shakespeare's career takes off

it is quite remarkable marlo was killed in 1597i think. >> you have 1593 on your list. >> he was killed in 1593 and within five years he's written hamlet coming to know, all, henry v, it's all tumbling out. so in some strange way his career was released by the death of his rifle. >> number three on the list of the literary events in english history, the king james bible 61. >> that's important because i think certainly here i'm sure someone like toni morrison or alex walker would acknowledge the power. in this country, for certain generations up until recently it is the kind of source in the language it is a source of many

allusions and it is a linguistic treasure trove. >> who wrote it. >> this is the amazing thing. it is a great story because you can do anything and if you have a committee to a translation of what you get? you would get terrible anguish and in those days it was done by the committee in fact several committees and polished up by two or three good writers at the end that was a work of the team in the way that hollywood does accommodate the fact. >> the autobiography of benjamin franklin in 1793. >> i put that in and this is the list -- i put that in because i wanted an american example. when i left cambridge, i did a

postgraduate degree in philadelphia and i sort of fell in love with the american revolution particularly jefferson and franklin. they were a great character and so there was a private joke really. it's an important book in the sense that it's the first -- it's one of the first autobiographies that is complete. he just lets it all hang out. it is incredibly frank and in very ways modern. >> that is the only example on the 1950's? you have truman capote that as well. >> that is why it is a silly thing to do because they must have put mark twain down there. >> know, maybe one of your readers suggested. >> i think that he should be in there. this is the list. >> you finished the list with j.k. rowling.

>> the list was designed to provoke a response. how can you wind up the blogosphere efficiently and it definitively. first of all i can defend the choice because whenever you think of the books and a generation of kids that thinks she is a great writer -- i'm not one of them, i think she's a great storyteller but whatever you think of the books, they have sold globally to come back to an earlier point on the scale. they sold millions and millions of copies around the world in a way that hasn't been true really ever. it's true for decades. there are some writers that have

done very well, but j.k. rowling took the world by storm, and i think she's a very -- what you think of the books? per career is unique and important. >> robert mccrum, it's often been said that a whole generation of kids learn how to read because of the harry potter story. >> my kids were born during the first -- i have two girls and they were born in the late nineties and they grew up with the first and the youngest one read them all. >> following that, you did a list of the greatest literary events in english history involving women authors, correct? >> yes. sort of correct, yes, correct-ish. >> so the first list there is another list which is the rest of the 100 greatest novels of all time which we probably don't have time to go into. but the second was a result of

the first list and the second inlaid the hell out of a lot of people. i got jane austen and emily dickinson. i have a few but about 20 said that it wasn't a quality and i thought well life is too short and these other ones are historic. whenever you want to say about the struggle of women to achieve recognition, and that is a very important thing to say. on the context of their time they were more influential. so that having been challenged by the blogosphere on this point i thought electorally i can. >> one of the women on that list, the female advocate in 1774. what is that? >> it is kind of of her day she

was an early feminist and it was -- i haven't been all of its. i've read some of it. it is an assertion of women's rights. it is an assertion of women's rights and it's very much ahead of its time. so there are quite a few of those actually. when you drill into the subject you find a lot of good stuff. >> fanny. >> do you know where the word trolop comes from? >> i have no idea but she was his mom and was -- when she got left by her husband and she lost a lot of money so she went to america to reinvent herself to make a fortune so she landed in the plantations in the deep south. and she was appalled by the south and she wrote this book.

>> of the domestic manners believes committed as a travel book and it's a very suited account of traveling through the south. it's good fun actually but it's pretty in perfect. >> we have time for one more mengin and this would be germane greer the female eunuch 1970. >> in the english world, not the american world, she is the first feminist, the first and the most eloquent and they went around the commonwealth on the colossal scale. it was a kind of cry from a movie and painful but it was a

cry of let us be freed and the intensity did and liberated, let us see ourselves and equal and it stands up a very well actually. >> we invited her for this and unfortunately we were not able to get -- >> if you can get her, she is terrific. ..