“Anyone who really cares about books is bound to find the way in which they are sold and marketed deeply depressing. To walk into the average high street bookstore at this time of year is to beinstantly assailed by a riot of three-for-two promotions, Christmas catalogues packed out with what Victorian scholars used to call biblia abiblia (“books that are not books”), Robbie Williams, the two motor-cycling actors, and cookery gurus. A glance at this week’s Bookseller chart, meanwhile, discloses that of the country’s 50 bestselling titles, exactly two might possess some kind of literary merit.”