What is the difference between literary or popular fiction? Let me tell you, therefore saving my rant about women’s writing being categorised as ‘chick lit’ for a rainy day. (I cheered when an academic recently argued that the oeuvre of Jilly Cooper should be studied at university in his long review of Mount! – a title which is both an order and the surname of this magazine’s editor). The difference is not seriousness, importance, or even quality. It's sales. the most bankable, bestselling authors are almost always the worst writers. Wilbur Smith, Dan Brown, Jeffrey Archer, Stieg Larsson – I pray none are subscribers – are awful ‘wordsmiths’. Only a handful of world-class storytellers, among them Jo Nesbo, JK Rowling and Stephen King, can actually write. With pop music there is a key difference. The authors I’ve listed hook you in on the first page and then deliver plot, lickety-split...
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