Nevertheless, as a writer, I’m all for the idea of more prize money being given out to writers So welcome to the world, Literary Prize! May I win you one day. On a more serious note, I do like the idea of establishing a standard of excellence, with the judging panel influenced by what they call the “French model” of a permanent “academy” of judges, rather than the Booker’s system of appointing quite varying panels each year. It’s quite old-fashioned, and some would say elitist, but I personally like the idea of a body of experts producing a view on the best novels of the year, especially since there are so many avenues these days for us to be more democratic and agree or disagree, pour scorn or praise on their decisions.

What do you think? Has the Booker lost its old priorities of excellence, as the Literature Prize founders claim? Is it a good thing for it to have a rival? Do you follow literary prizes closely, or tune them out? Do they affect your reading choices?

I’ve been to many of them, but there are some new ones to me as well, like Magma and England’s Lane Books. Also good to see new places opening up, like Clerkenwell Tales, established 2009. Am definitely planning a visit to those three at least.

I was also reminded how lucky I am to live within walking distance of four good independent bookshops: Muswell Hill Bookshop, Highgate Bookshop, The Big Green Bookshop and New Beacon Books. My favourite is The Big Green Bookshop, which is run by two former Waterstone’s employees who set up their own place when Waterstone’s moved out of the area. It’s got a friendly feel, a good selection for a small place, and they run a LOT of author readings and other events. I used to have an excellent one, Prospero’s, just around the corner, but it closed down about a year ago now.

Of course the outlook is still not great, especially with the advance of e-books, but still I enjoyed reading about so many independent bookshops and planning some bookbuying trips. Maybe I should be depressed that all of the bookshops in London can now be listed in a single article, something that would have been unthinkable a decade or two ago? Maybe, but I’ll choose not to think about that too much.

Do you have a favourite London bookshop, one that I should definitely visit? Or please share one from your own town or region, wherever you are in the world – I am a keen traveller, and always like to stop into a bookshop while I’m away!

I checked various online stores, and unless I wanted to pay a lot for express shipment, none could guarantee delivery in less than a week. When I emailed my local independent bookshop, though, they replied quickly to say that the book was not in stock, but they could order it for me and it would arrive the following day. One day after deciding which book to buy, I was able to walk over to the shop and have the book in my hand. I also had a nice half-hour chat with the bookshop owner about the state of the publishing industry and the world in general. The shop in question was the Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green, which I can really recommend, but any decent local bookshop will have a similar service.

Of course, Amazon’s great for a lot of things. I love the amount of information and reader reviews, which in fact helped me decide which book to buy in the first place. They can often give you a cheaper price due to the volume of books they sell and the discounts they negotiate with publishers. The same goes for other online stores like the Book Depository and Books etc. But there are certain things that local, independent shops are just better at. Everyone talks about the friendliness, book recommendations, etc., and that’s all important, but to me the fact that it’s often quicker and easier to buy from them is often overlooked.

“Now each of us is preparing to die … This is truly the moment to remember love. Did we love enough? Did we spend hours a day marveling at other people, being happy together, feeling the value of contact? Did we know how to devote ourselves to tenderness? Because there is nothing else”.

So it was nice to read an article in the 8th issue of Five Dials about the French bookselling industry, which seems to be in fairly good health. There are a startling 792 bookshops in Paris, and 3,000 independent bookshops in France employing about 13,000 people. In New York City there are now only 10 independent bookshops.

This is not an accident. The French government (both national and local) has taken the view that books are not a commodity like any other, but are important enough to national culture to be given special status. Bookshops, too, are seen as valuable, desirable things, and 2007′s ‘plan livre’ set out  a series of measures to help independent bookshops survive (e.g. tax relief, interest-free loans, etc.). There’s also a law preventing the big chains from indulging in massive discounting (it sounds a lot like the old Net Book Agreement in the UK, which was abolished in 1997). The City of Paris actively intervenes to protect the character of certain neighbourhoods, for example by buying up buildings and renting the retail space to bookshops for minimal rent. The idea is to stop gentrification and rising rents from pricing out the traditional businesses that make the place what it is.

French publishers, of course, are suffering from the economic downturn like anyone else. But they took on less debt than their Anglo-Saxon counterparts, so have taken less of a hit. I’m sure that there are other problems and that the French publishing industry is not a perfect model, but it does seem to be in better shape than ours. Perhaps instead of penning more articles about the dire straits we’re in, we could instead look across the Channel and get a few ideas?