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THE BIBLIO FILE is a podcast about "the book," and an inquiry into the wider world of book culture. Hosted by Nigel Beale it features wide ranging, long-form conversations with best practitioners inside the book trade and out - from writer to reader. Why listen? The hope is that it will help you to read, write, publish, edit, design, and collect better, and improve how you communicate serious, big, necessary, new, good ideas and stories...

Feedback or suggestions? Please email notabenebeale@gmail.com 

Dec 24, 2018

Hannah Knowles, Senior Commissioning Editor at Canongate Books in London, tells me what she does. I question her with the help of Geoffrey Faber. We talk, among others things, about track records, The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump, books with legs, back-lists, bestsellers, Robert Webb's How Not to be a Boy, selling rights internationally, inclusive lists, illustrated books, the right length of a book, redundant and obscure passages, the first 50 pages, popular culture, being on the writer's side, auctions, lizards and sex in Cold Skin, Rob Sears, libel, parody, the wallpaper in Canongate's London boardroom, editorial and acquisition meetings, florid style, the best literary agents, great works seeing the light of day, idealism, Tom Jones's Tired of London, Tired of Life, Gina Miller's Rise, people who live their lives for the good of others, advances (a slightly irritating and discursive diversion), I Go Quiet by David Ouimet, and the power of books to show us all that we have a place in the world.