Some Romance for Valentines

It's been a long time since anyone's written a great love story, Literary writers are failing to address the subject. I sometimes think that they are more interested in 'writing' than in understanding the human heart – they've lost touch with a fundamental element of what it is to be a writer. I don't really buy into it any more; I go and watch an episode of The Shield or something. I look to drama, TV and film. Literary writers have lost their mojo when it comes to this subject.

So says Tim Lott, the president of the Le Prince Maurice Prize for romantic fiction in a piece in The Independent on romantic fiction by Katy Guest who lets us have a list of her own romantic recommendations :

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (1813)

Often copied, never forgotten, Austen's Mr Darcy was the prototypical romantic lead who would raise women's expectations to unrealistic levels ever after.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë (1847)

The brooding hero, the tremulous heroine, but perhaps not the happy ending that would make it classic romantic fiction in the Mills & Boon manner.

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (1877)

'Anna Karenina' was praised by Fyodor Dostoevsky as "flawless as a work of art". Not a good Valentine's gift for trainspotters.

For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway (1940)

'For Whom the Bell Tolls' saw a young couple falling in love against the unromantic backdrop of the Spanish Civil War. The earth moved.

Gigi - Colette (1944)

'Gigi' could have fitted perfectly into the Mills & Boon stable, featuring a young Parisienne glossily groomed and then married by a wealthy man.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernières (1993)

This book gave us the lines behind many a modern wedding ceremony: "You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is."

Inconceivable - Ben Elton (1999)

'Inconceivable' was possibly not written with romance in mind, but it fulfils all the criteria, according to the Romantic Novelists' Association.

We Are Now Beginning Our Descent - James Meek (2008)

Last year this became the first winner of the Le Prince Maurice Prize for literary love stories to have been written by a man. "Compellingly authentic," they said – and set in Afghanistan.

East of the Sun - Julia Gregson (2008)

The winner of this week's RNA Romantic Novel of the Year award – "A model of a romance, well written and memorable with a clever plot featuring a lovely heroine and a gorgeous hero."

The Prince's Waitress Wife -Sarah Morgan (2009)

'The Prince's Waitress Wife' is the first in a new series of rugby-inspired romances from Mills & Boon. Moral: enough wild sex can make a man love you.

Put Some Romance in Your Life ...

Valentine's day is coming up soon and ... well, do you need a little more romance in your life? Forget hoping for some of it from the significant other, and curl up with a novel instead.

The finalists for the UK's Romantic Novel of the Year Award 2009 have been named. They are :

• Star Gazing - Linda Gillard
• Sophia's Secret - Susanna Kearsley
• Before the Storm - Judith Lennox
• The Last Concubine - Lesley Downer
• Thanks for the Memories - Cecelia Ahern
• East of the Sun - Julia Gregson

Michelli Pauli in The Guardian looks at the nominees and explains how they were chosen by a panel of members of the Romantic Novelists' Association from a longlist selected by 80 members of the public.

You can read extracts from all of these novels here.

Anyone being sniffy about romance in fiction should take judge Fanny Blake's words to heart :

Love is central to all our lives ... yet romantic literature is often dismissed as secondary to great fiction despite the fact that most classic literature we love features romance in all its guises, from Jane Eyre through Howard's End to Atonement. Well-crafted romantic fiction is eternally relevant and I'm excited to be a judge for this prize that draws attention to the best of the best.

The winner will be announced Feb 10th which gives the guys just enough time to track down a copy to present to their loved one with some nice roses, a box of chocs, some sexy lingerie ...

Winners and the Rest

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Robert McCrum quotes "the laureate of literary failure" Samuel Beckett in this Guardian piece about the value of literary prizes and how most literary endeavors are doomed to end in failure ...:

First, there are the countless manuscripts completed, but never published, and the hours of frustrated composition tossed into the wastepaper basket. Then there are the thousands of books published, but not reviewed. These, in turn, are matched by the scores of titles reviewed, but scarcely sold.

So ... erm ... why are you still writing?

McCrum notes that this is the season for the longlists and shortlists for all kinds of awards, and I've been very slipshod missing some of the news, so this is a catch-all catch-up!

Remember I posted the shortlist for the Ondaatje Prize the other day? Well, Hisham Matar walked away with it for In the Country of Men. (Am applauding for a book I love.)

Remember I mentioned the National Short Story Prize? (Of course you do - after all the argument about whether Kureishi's story being pulled by the BBC was censorship or not.) Anyway it was won by Julian Gough with David Almond being named as runner-up.

And I thought you might like to know that Rosie Thomas (right) won the 2007 Romantic Novel of the Year award for Iris and Ruby!

But the pleasantest award surprise has to be that a Malaysian won a Pulitzer Prize!

More award news to come ...