More parties, and some observations about black dresses and post-colonial literature

I went to a couple more parties last night, and have observations both fashionable and literary.

As far as the eye could see were women in little black dresses, almost no colour at all. A woman in a red suit, and an utterly delightful 14-year-old in a gold dress, broke up the gloom. One literary agent was wearing a black dress with gold shoes, but how ordinary everyone looked. I say that because in a crowd of people, one LBD looks much like any other and without some very strong interest such as cut, or a stand-out piece of jewellery, you really don't focus on what anyone is wearing, because it has turned into a uniform.

The first party was held at the October Gallery by my literary agents, A.P Watt. There, as ever, one of the nicest men in Britain, Philip Pullman, the film of whose children's novel Northern Lights renamed The Golden Compass opens this week, starring Nicole Kidman. I asked him if he was happy with it, and he said he was, particularly with Kidman. But already in America and Canada Catholic fundamentalists are organising a boycott of the film, claiming that it will lead young, impressionable souls to atheism. Normally, these boycotts backfire, but the worry is that because it is a family film, the campaign may well do a lot of damage. It opens this week so go and see it if you don't like Puritan busybodies and want to put their noses out of joint.

Five minutes walk away in some cavernous space in Bloomsbury, was the Guardian First Book Prize, won this year by Ethiopian-American Dinaw Mengestu. You can read an extract, here. And a Washington Post interview with him here.

On leaving, we were handed goodie bags with a silver-wrapped copy of each shortlisted book, and mine was A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam. I can't help but be struck by the numbers of novels set during civil wars and the births of nations that are being published right now, as history bears down so hard upon us, penetrating our inner lives.