Hello I'm Bridget Collins and I'm the author of The Binding. The Binding is
set at the end of the 19th century and it's about a young man Emmett, who's
grown up on a farm and has kind of had his life completely mapped out for him.
Like, he knows he's going to be a farmer but at the beginning of the book he's
recovering from a sort of mysterious illness and he's summoned to
be the apprentice for the book binder. And because he knows he's ill he kind of
has to go and so he goes off and he knows from his parents' reaction to this
that there's something a bit kind of taboo and sinister about books but he
doesn't exactly know what. And it's only when he goes off to do this
apprenticeship that he starts to realize that actually, in this world, books are
people's memories. So that if something terrible or traumatic happens to you
that you don't want to remember, you can go to the binder and she will take that
memory and put it in a book and for as long as the book is safe, you won't
remember. So it's obviously, it's a book about memory and identity and the way
that the stories we tell ourselves kind of make us who we are. But it's also, I
think for me the heart of the book is that it's a love story. So it's a book
about two people who meet and fall in love and betray each other and forget
each other but not necessarily in that order. So I'm here in Waterstones, Covent
Garden and I just wanted to share with you a few books that have really
inspired me as a writer. So the first one is Sarah Waters' Fingersmith which if you
haven't read it then you are in for an absolute treat. I love it. It's basically,
in some ways, it's like a pastiche of a sort of sensationalist Victorian novel.
So it's got kind of allusions to Wilkie Collins and it's got sort of amazing, an
amazing plot about sort of mistaken identity and a love affair,
and then, you know, kind of major revelations. But it's also, it
seems Victorian but actually it's got this really lovely kind of modern, sexy,
subversive thing going on. And I think maybe the thing I like most about it is
it starts with a very slow burn. So it's got this long kind of build up where the
the main characters, and I think also the reader, are basically being kind of
seduced and so when it gets to the end and there's this kind of amazing denouement
she has absolutely earned it, you are totally on board with it. So I
recommend it to you all. So we've come down to the nonfiction section for
my second book which is the amazing book The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew
Crawford. And this is something, I picked it up in the library just on
the off-chance and sort of took it home and read it and brought it back to the
library and then took it out again and read it again and then I was like no at
this point I I have to buy a copy. And it's basically, it's difficult to
describe, it's I suppose it's sort of political philosophy but it's much more
readable than that makes it sound. And it's about sort of the way we interact
with the real world and it talks a lot about technology and how
technology sort of seduces us into thinking that we're interacting when
actually we're not really and what we do with that. And also I think one of the
things that I really love about it is it talks about how valuable our attention
is and how people are trying to monetize it and kind of you know there's sort of
a kind of predatory society that wants us to pay attention to it so it's a
brilliant book. I'm slightly incoherent because it's so good and I don't know
what to say about it but it's so rich and it's so thought-provoking and yet
it's actually you know it's very readable and it's also quite funny.
So the last book I wanted to finish with is a book that inspired me when I was a kid
and I actually inherited it from my father who loved it when he was a kid.
And it's the Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliffe which is, it's about,
in some ways it's a kind of classic adventure story. It's about a young man
who's a centurion and is kind of wounded and has to leave the Roman army
and then he goes up north to try and find the lost eagle of the Ninth Legion.
So basically the Legion sort of marched off into the mists and the eagle
was taken over and captured and became a sort of symbol of their honor and so he
goes and looks for it. But although it's a classic adventure story
and it's brilliantly written but it's also, it's very subtle. And it's so
lyrical that the prose is just amazing and I kind of feel like you know if
there was a book that I wish I'd written, it is this one. So I recommend it to
anyone. It's sort of a kid's book but it's actually, you know, I
think anyone who reads it will love it. And the other thing I wanted to talk
about is The Eagle of the Ninth is actually the
a trilogy. And the trilogy kind of follows the same family over centuries.
And at the end, it's the end of the Roman Empire and it's about
the moment when the legions leave and Britain is sort of taken over by the
Saxons. And it's an amazingly resonant book. It's actually
called The Lantern Bearers, the last book in the trilogy, and it's
about sort of standing on the edge of the abyss where you think the world is
ending. And it ends with this wonderful scene where somebody talks about the
importance of carrying the lights through, after the sunset, and you don't
know whether it'll still be there for you but you're passing it on to the rest
of the world in the hope that the sun will rise again.