Over at Fourth Estate, which turns 25 this year, they've set us a literary challenge which I'm slightly concerned could end up whiling away much of my day. Posing the intriguing question of how much we judge books by their authors, they've launched an experiment to "assess the importance placed on name and reputation over quality of writing".
Nine of their writers, from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Joyce Carol Oates, have penned a short story, and Fourth Estate has published them anonymously online in Anonthology. Our challenge is to identify the authors, who as well as the Orange-winning Adichie also include the Booker shortlisted Philip Hensher, Guardian first book award winner Yiyun Li, bestselling Richard and Judy author Patrick Gale and 29-year-old Rebecca Connell, plus Rudolph Delson, Christopher Nicholson and Laura Spinney.
"When you go into a bookshop, how often do you look for the author's name before you look at the title? How much value do you place on literary prizes, or Richard and Judy stickers? Do writers' reputations matter? Should they? Can you really judge a book by its author?" Fourth Estate asks. "We have one author who's sold over half a million copies, another who's written over fifty books. But you tell which is which? And how does it change the reading experience, not knowing if the author is young or old, male or female?"
A few hints are provided - see if you recognise the way the writer uses syntax, adjectives, verbs or tenses, look for recurrent themes, for US or UK spellings. We've got until 20 October to work it out, with those who get it right to be entered into a draw for some Fourth Estate special editions.
Even if you don't fancy the challenge, the stories themselves are worth reading. I think the answer to their question of how much importance we place on name and reputation is an obvious one – we can't help but place a great deal, because we're not reading in a vacuum, we're not approaching each visit to a bookshop from first principles. But it's fun to enter the vacuum for a bit, and I'm certainly going to be puzzling over who wrote what for a while. Any thoughts?
