Ben Schott: A Schott of enthusiasm

In a world where all authors aspire to be brands, Ben Schott has mastered the art. It is not just the personal miscellanies, designed by the author, piling up by the Christmas tills year on year. You can also buy a Schott's Miscellany Diary, produced by Smythson of Bond Street. And this autumn, Schott's Almanac (Bloomsbury, November) will offer a new take on the venerable tradition of a guide to the past year and events of the future.

At his flat in Highgate, the author excitedly fingers a dummy of the new volume. As usual, he has designed the book himself--Schott's Original Miscellany was first self-published for his own amusement, with a print-run of 50 copies, and very little was altered when Bloomsbury took it on.

"I literally typeset onto Quark and make the PDF," Schott explains. "In this book, every single sentence finishes flush right. And that's because I write sentences so they finish flush right--if you're typesetting it onto the screen, you just add a word if you need to."

Schott's Almanac is intended to reflect modern realities rather than the traditions of the form. Out go the lists of peers and peeresses, and in comes a "Media and Celebrity" section in which there are details of the top 10 disgraced celebs (Hugh Grant makes number one) and the facts not only about who won the Oscars, but who wore which frock on the night, designed by whom.

Schott says he's thoroughly enjoyed his new departure. "You can try to step back a bit and say, what is it about this year? There's an entry in the 'Society' section which is about coloured wristbands, which is an interesting little vignette about this year. I wrote it, and then probably rewrote it about six times as different bits of information came in. They're a fashion item, and then you discover that in classrooms they're being worn to indicate sexual preferences. And then you find that in Niger aid agencies use coloured wristbands to indicate how much food a child should get, so for them the colour of your wristband is life and death."

Now 31, Schott spent most of his 20s as a photographer, taking portraits of politicians and businessmen. "Enoch Powell was an astonishing person to talk to, a man born in the wrong century," he reminisces. "Gordon Brown was fascinating to photograph, too."

His publishing career came about almost by accident, when he was encouraged to send a copy of his self-published jeu d'esprit to the friend of a friend, one Nigel Newton.

Now he is so busy that he scarcely takes a holiday. Schott's Original Miscellany has been translated into 13 languages, and foreign editions of the subsequent titles are still coming out. The author keeps an eye on them all: "I have to, they've got my name on them."

He remains passionate about the concept of small snippets of information. "I dislike trivia, it's competitive. I'd never appear on a quiz. What I like is when people are enthusiastic about things. The world is rich with the most astonishing amount of information, like when you suddenly realise there is a Glasgow Coma scale for measuring head injuries.

"And quite a few things only need 250 words said about them, and that's it. Much as I love Longitude, Cod or Salt, you can't help feeling with some books of that type that there's a very good 1,000-word article that's been expanded into a book. Some things only need a paragraph."