Book ideas

Not SF, so parked here rather than anywhere else. A novel about an imaginary literary prize, covering the six judges' different, intertwining backstories; also including detailed accounts of the six (imaginary) novels on the shortlist, enough detail that actually writing any of the six would be a doddle. Lots of space for intrigue, plotting, human interaction of the love and the hate varieties.

Also: one of the six; a novel called 'The Apologiser', about an individual hired by businesses, or a political elite, to shape and deliver apologies in a way that limits fallout and feels genuine. The rationale for such a person would be: even the most efficient organisation, committed (as we certainly are) to getting it right as consistently and completely as humanly possible, will occasionally mess-up. Even achieving 95% leaves a 5% residue, and for the people affected by that the failures in question have a much more than 5% impact on their lives, and therefore have a more than 5% impact on our continuing smooth operation. It is therefore only good practice to dedicate a proportion of our resources to that 5%: more than just a call-centre voice on the end of a phone.