Webchat with Jonathan Freedland, author of The 3rd Woman, on Thursday 6 August at 1pm

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with Jonathan Freedland on Thursday 6 August at 1pm.

Jonathan Freedland is an award-winning journalist, No. 1 bestselling author and broadcaster. He is the Guardian's Executive Editor for Opinion, and also writes a weekly column. He is a regular contributor to the New York Times and the New York Review of Books, and presents BBC Radio 4's contemporary history series, The Long View. In 2014 he won the Orwell special prize for journalism.

Since 2006 he has published five internationally bestselling novels under the pseudonym Sam Bourne, which have sold over two million copies and been published in over 30 languages.

Jonathan has recently published The 3rd Woman, listed in our Summer E-book Reads. Set in an alternate universe against a background of political upheaval and corruption, journalist Madison Webb is on the trail of the serial killer who murdered her sister.

You can read an extract of The 3rd Woman here, and buy a copy here.

Please do join us on Thursday 6 August at 1pm - or if you can’t make it, leave a question for Jonathan below.

Thanks
MNHQ

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@tinygorilla

Hey Jonathan,

Thanks so much for coming in. What would be your desert island books (and indeed discs, if you have the time and inclination to tell us)?

Lovely question, tinygorilla (and you lot are asking me about my pseudonym?) Books would have to be books you don't just love but you'd want to read again. I think I'd want Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina in there, and I'd see the Desert Island as a chance to get to grips at last with War and Peace. Friends tell me Vassily Grossman's Life and Fate is essential too. I could read John le Carre's Smiley's People again and again: the sheer complexity of it is a pleasure. For non-fiction, I might have to bring my father's memoir – Confessions of a Serial Biographer by Michael Freedland – as a way to remind me of all those family stories. As for music – too many to choose from, but Beth Orton's Sweetest Decline is a cherished song.

[DuchessofGrumpyCat]

Wow, that's a lot of politics in your life. Doesn't it ever make you rage/despair/hide on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean?

[MyCatIsBatman11]

Thumbs up for Smiley's People - have you seen the BBC version with Alec Guinness? Brilliant TV, I don't think the Beeb would be able to do something like that nowadays

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@EarlGreyhamGreene

Welcome Jonathan! Good to have you here.

What piece of journalism has impressed you recently? Anything you'd recommend reading?

Thank you! Lots of good stuff around, but if you haven't checked out the Guardian's long read slot, I'd really recommend that. The pieces are long - but often just brilliant. You can see them here www.theguardian.com/news/series/the-long-read But I'd give a special shout out to this recent example, partly because it relates a bit to the backdrop of the 3rd Woman www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/28/whats-behind-beijings-drive-control-south-china-sea-hainan

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@MyCatIsBatman11

Thumbs up for Smiley's People - have you seen the BBC version with Alec Guinness? Brilliant TV, I don't think the Beeb would be able to do something like that nowadays

Total classic. Was too young at the time - but so atmospheric

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@mrspricklepants

Hi Jonathan - welcome.

You said recently in your article about US gun laws that Americans must find 'the courage to say that the US is not the country it was more than two centuries ago, and can no longer be bound by those rules'.
Do you think this is something that can realistically be done? It seems like the NRA and the GOA will always win out in the end.

Thanks so much for coming to chat!

Tough question, mrspricklepants. Not sure that view I expressed is strictly realistic – and not just because of the NRA etc. It's hard because Americans regard the founding documents as almost sacred texts that cannot be challenged. So it would require a massive cultural shift. When you consider that even the massacre of elementary school children at Sandy Hook did not prompt gun reform, it gives you a sense of the scale of the task.

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@SoupSnake

Hello!

I don't know if you've heard this George R.R. Martin quote but he once said there are two kinds of writers: gardeners and architects. Meaning the architect likes to plan their novel vigorously, knowing exactly when and where every detail will be, whereas the gardener just digs a hole, drops in a seed and just sees what comes out.

Which of these two would you class yourself as?

Thanks, SoupSnake. I'm a bit of both. I have a broad plan – but nothing so meticulous as an architect's blueprint. I know how it has to begin and how it has to end. As for the middle, there I'm a bit more like George RR Martin's gardener!

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@DuchessofGrumpyCat

Wow, that's a lot of politics in your life. Doesn't it ever make you rage/despair/hide on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean?

It does a bit -- but that's what family and friends are for, no? (Not to rage at, I mean, but to take you out of the madness a bit.)

[TheSandmansSon]

Hi Jonathan! The Guardian's really been on a roll for the last few years - you must be very chuffed. How are you feeling about the paper's future, especially after Alan Rusbridger's left? Thanks for coming on

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@addingtothenoise

Hi Jonathan, I've just started reading The 3rd Woman and really enjoying it so far, my question is, how did the idea for this book come to you?

Also, how important is sense of place when writing this kind of dystopian fiction to you? Did the characters shape the space, or did the dystopian world come first?

Thanks, addingtothenoise -- and am so glad you're enjoying the book. What got me started on this was hearing a lot of the discussion in the US about the 'coming rise of China and what America can do to prevent it' - tons of ink spilled on that, but not many people asking: Ok, but if it happened, what would it be like? That's what interested me. I began thinking of what such an America would look and feel like it. And sense of place matters a lot for that. I'd once briefly lived in LA so I had a feel for that, but I then travelled to China to help me imagine what a China-infused LA might be like.

As for characters, they shaped it a lot - especially Madison Webb. A thirty-ish tenacious investigative reporter and insomniac who's a bad girlfriend, a bad sister, a bad daughter but a brilliant journalist: once she was in my head, I couldn't get her out

[TheSandmansSon]

Agree about Smiley's People - that and the BBC version of Tinker Tailor wipes the floor with most TV made these days.

Just thought of another question not sure if this has been asked before, but would you be interested in writing a screenplay for film or TV? I read the extract from your book and enjoyed it, it seems like it would fit really well onscreen

[MissPiggyandKermit]

I like “Don't write a woman, write a person.” Sage advice.

Thanks for being here, hope you have time for my Q.

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@TheSandmansSon

Agree about Smiley's People - that and the BBC version of Tinker Tailor wipes the floor with most TV made these days.

Just thought of another question not sure if this has been asked before, but would you be interested in writing a screenplay for film or TV? I read the extract from your book and enjoyed it, it seems like it would fit really well onscreen

Would love to do that - or at least to try it. Would be a whole new challenge

[caramelshortbreadnowplease]

Hi,

About what you said about letting go of Sam Bourne, do you think it's a good thing that as readers we can now chat to authors, journalists etc on Twitter 24/7? Do you ever worry about what you say? How does being on social media affect your writing (novels and articles)?

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@MissPiggyandKermit

Thanks for coming on!

Hope you don't mind a non-book question (I'm enjoying the extract - thanks for that!). I'm an ex-publishing bod who saw the book industry change dramatically as it (v-e-r-y slowly) embraced all things digital.

I just wonder where you think it's all going - does the future lie with Kindles/reading newspapers online, or is there still a place for print? I still love paper books but so rarely read newspapers in print now.

Hi MissPiggyandKermit - and thanks for reminding me about this question. My view is that print has a future, but it'll be a different future. For news, it's true that digital now dominates: the Guardian readership is so much bigger online than in print. And yet, at the weekend, people still love to read a paper over breakfast or on a lazy afternoon (those are rare, I know.) In books, that's surely even more true. E-readers are great for convenience and when travelling - but there is still something physical, sensual even, about reading an actual book. It may become rarer than it is now - but it won't disappear.

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@caramelshortbreadnowplease

Hi,

About what you said about letting go of Sam Bourne, do you think it's a good thing that as readers we can now chat to authors, journalists etc on Twitter 24/7? Do you ever worry about what you say? How does being on social media affect your writing (novels and articles)?

I think it makes you more careful. As a journalist, I know I have to check and triple check everything now - if I don't, there'll be someone pointing out my error within minutes. That vigilance is a good thing on accuracy etc. But it can make people more guarded, more wary, more timid -- and that can shut down debate. Because you know that one word out of place, or misunderstood, and you might be spending the next few hours defending yourself.

For all that, I don't think it's affected my novel writing -- partly because reactions to books is not nearly so instant.

[DontTellTheBride]

Am I allowed to ask whether BuzzFeed have been a-calling?

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@EverythingsShinyCapt

Hi Jonathan. The 3rd Woman would make a great Netflix-style political thriller. Have you ever fancied getting your work made into TV series?

Thanks EverythingShinyCapt (great name) I'd love that. In fact, I think the 3rd Woman would be great as a Netflix type show. Readers seem to like Madison Webb a lot and the setting – an America that is now dominated by China, with its food, language, culture even its calendar all influenced by Beijing – would , I think, be very striking on TV.

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@EarlGreyhamGreene

Hi Jonathan, thanks for coming on

I've seen The 3rd Woman described by several people as "dystopian" - what's your take on that?

Thanks for another interesting question -- it's dystopian in the sense that it's set in an imagined future – or really an ”alternative present” that has some chilling aspects to it. Americans especially might find the idea of a world in which they are no longer number one rather troubling....

[EarlGreyhamGreene]

Thanks for answering my question really interesting Qs and answers here

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@DontTellTheBride

Am I allowed to ask whether BuzzFeed have been a-calling?

You can ask! But after 22 years, the Guardian really does feel like home.

[addingtothenoise]

Thanks for answering these questions so far Jonathan, it's really interesting...being immersed in writing a book like 3rd Woman, did you ever begin to get slightly paranoid?

[DontTellTheBride]

[JonathanFreedland2015]

@TheSandmansSon

Hi Jonathan! The Guardian's really been on a roll for the last few years - you must be very chuffed. How are you feeling about the paper's future, especially after Alan Rusbridger's left? Thanks for coming on

Thanks, TheSandmansSon -- thanks for what you say about the Guardian. It does feel like it's on a roll. And the mood here is very chipper with the brilliant Kath Viner now at the helm as our new editor. Alan Rusbridger was and is an exceptionally gifted journalist - and, luckily for all of us, so is Kath.

[DannyTorrance]

How do you feel about books being adapted for TV, film etc?