BooksThatMatter (Adrian's Random Rubbish)...

MURDER IN THE NAME OF HONOUR

2009-10-07T19:20:00.002Z

I am temporarily reverting to the original purpose of this blog which was to talk about books of significance. Very few books matter quite as much as Rana Husseini's book MURDER IN THE NAME OF HONOUR which is a truly significant book about so-called honour crimes by one of our bravest human rights journalists. Rana is someone everyone should know of, listen to, think about and read. Yes she is a client of mine but I consider that to be a true priviledge ... click here for information about MURDER IN THE NAME OF HONOUR (Oneworld Publications)

The So-called Hub

2009-10-06T07:27:00.002Z

Waterstone's are doing a stunning job of making book publishing, selling and buying harder for all. Many of my clients are in a considerable state of anxiety about where their new books are, why they can't find them in store, why stocking across Waterstone's seems completely random. This piece in the current Bookseller:

Publishers Voice Fears Over Hub

casts some light. The thing that I think is most horrible about it is that it undermines authors' confidence in what their publishers tell them and it is completely invidious. Sure all new systems have teething problems - I sincerely hope these are over soon ....

The Mail on Sunday Section 2, 27 Sep 2009. Pages 14

2009-09-27T20:08:00.001Z

The Mail on Sunday Section 2
27 Sep 2009

It's been a while ...

2009-09-13T20:40:00.003Z

... since I gave any thought to this blog - but I've just spent some time updating all the links on my work blog The Raft Blog which made me start looking at some of my authors' blogs and then that made me start thinking about this blog and that made me start thinking about blogging. Even though I am convinced that I have nothing worth saying. Even though I'm feeling professionally credit crunched out of existence. Even though I seldom do anything other than read a slush pile largely filled with unpublishable books (although the mountain of slush does make the rare rare rare exception a jewel beyond reckoning). Even though I've spent most of the summer sending my fellow musicians out to play fabulous gigs in wonderous locations while I've stayed behind. Even though, even though ...

So I've given it some thought.

And some more thought.

And yet some more thought.

And have to admit that today I don't have a great deal to say - but what I would like to say is that I have discovered the joy of rosehips (the most delicious and delicate conserve known to humanity) and also the joy of Daniel Ehrenhaft a writer I've only come across because he has had the huge wisdom and foresight to buy my author Helen FitzGerald's debut Young Adult novel Amelia O'Donohue is SO not a Virgin for the North American and international markets. So he's well worth discovering.

Oh and I've had an idea for a novel I want to write (not sure if I'm still allowed to write novels now that I'm a literary agent) - but it's the very first time in a very very very long time that I've had even the tiniest urge to splurge in prose. I'm rather excited by this and, heck, I might even do it. So be warned.

CC at Coalition

2008-06-17T09:47:00.001Z

Leftfield 027
Originally uploaded by carnival collective

Our LeftField warm-up gig from Friday last week ...

BIG SPLASH SPLOSH

2008-05-27T08:56:00.001Z

Fire escape 3
Originally uploaded by carnival collective

Well, we played Brighton Marina on Saturday night as part of the finale of Brighton Festival - and praise B it did not pish down as forecast and there were THOUSANDS of punters watching us across the water, and we DID have a ball - but twas also muchos muchos difficile as we were strung out on a floating pontoon that bounced back off the beat under our feet and also one end of the band couldn't hear the other end ... but still LUVERLY to be playing ...

Tired now :)

Anne Weale's Death: Farewell Bookworm

2007-11-09T16:06:00.000Z

I've just cast a glimpse at Anne Weale's marvellous blog Bookworm on the Net to see whether she has posted any new thoughts on the world of books only to learn that she has very recently died. What a terrible piece of news for books, for publishing and for the blogosphere. Anne's bracing and intelligent views have been amongst the most refreshing I've encountered - she was a lovely writer and very, very wise. We also periodically chatted on email, usually about pet authors who are wrongfully neglected and I shall miss those exchanges enormously.

What a sad piece of news to get unexpectedly at the end of a Friday ...
There is a small catalogue of appreciations of Anne's life/work/thoughts starting to appear on her blog

I can't think of anything else to say except how sad I am for her family.

Crusoe George & Frankfurt

2007-10-16T12:40:00.000Z

Well, while I've been at the frankfurt Book Fair plying my wares, son Crusoe's continued his media rise - getting pieces in local papers, on the BBC and now on Meridien. I've also had a few emails from people asking for links to his tunes - so here's a link to The Jazzy Letter Jay which is my favourite of his tunes. And now that he's all famous like, he's disgruntled that it's Soulful Swing, one of his oldest tunes, that's at no 1 in the Amazingtunes.com download chart - so he's hoping some people will start to listen to his other stuff...

Frankfurt was a total hoot - mad parties, lots of jaw ache - but sooooo much work to do now. I'm also reading my way through a pile of books written in Dutch which I can only read at a snail's pace, to assess their viability in the UK & US markets ... in between this I DID manage to read one for pleaure/leisure. Mary Lawson's The Other Side of the Bridge, which I bought on the Ferry despite the R&J book club choice sticker on the front (Something usually guaranteed to send me skedaddling away double quick). However the competition in the spinner was sparse and I needed to pay on card rather than use a 50 Euro note (change in sterling)> Yes, such is the basis of the modern impulse book purchase. The beginning did not engage me, I have to say - too many coming of age stories have passed through my shelves, and the brooding sense of tragedy whether past or present would have stopped me in my tracks had I any choice. But a couple of chapters in and it worked itself beneath my skin and in the end it turned into a profoundly moving book. It's odd about it's start - I did wonder whether it had been her first novel (in terms of writing chronology) rather than her second as it had a lot of the characteristics of the strong debut. Anyway, I ultimately liked it - to the point of tears...

Crusoe George does it again

2007-10-08T08:32:00.000Z

As I busy muself getting ready to depart for the Frankfurt Book Fair to try and earn the family a crust, my eldest son Crusoe is in the papers again, apparently this tim starting to earn money off his music downloads (see the Saturday Guardian)

I think I'm going to have to review the rental arrangements on his bedroom - sorry - make that Recording Studio ... cor blimey, maybe I can retire after all.

Crusoe George AKA Rebrand

2007-09-24T13:05:00.000Z

Ahhh - my little boi has done it again, bless him, warming every one of my fatherly cotton socks at once. The flagrant little self publicist has a rather good write up in today's Metro about his music c/o Amazing Tunes..

Apparently my no. 1 son is s new star in the making with his piece Soulful Swing featuring at no 5 on the Amazing Tunes download chart. He even has his picture in the paper too...

He IS clever...

Carnival Collective Rocks Glastonbury

2007-06-26T14:07:00.001Z

Carnival Collective at Glastonbury and in THE INDEPENDENT

It was soggy, boggy madness - but fun.

Barbara Nadel: Better Voice than Plots

2007-06-28T15:28:00.001Z

I've probably read too many books by Barbara Nadel too quickly. She's regularly compared to Donna Leon and sets all of her books in Turkey - mostly Istanbul. The cumulative effect of binge-reading her works is most peculiar. After 5 books I really love her writing and have grown to like her characters hugely. Also interesting for detective-based crime fiction, they don't actually have a single dominant character which I think is quite unusual: they are much more ensemble pieces. I also find her Turkey very convincing - I spent a great deal of time in Turkey some years ago - and when I'm feeling literary I regularly return to the fiction of Orhan Pamuk and Yasar Kamal. Nadel summons Turkey up with her pen every bit as well as these serious, major writers. Nadel's Istanbul is exquisitely evoked, as is her Anatolia. Now, as Meatloaf might put it two out of three aint bad - but that's as far as I can go. Weirdly, I just cannot get to grips with her excessively baroque plots. In this incredibly human, real, breathing world, Nadel spins some of the most ghoulishly excessive twaddle (plotwise) I've ever encountered ranging from a teenage boy who believes he's a Vampire to a mad artist who kills and embalms his own young children to incorporate them in to an artwork (with the support of his doting wife). There's also one with a deranged super-spy on a moral quest to purify society. Just bizarre. Any way it's a bit like overdosing on sweets - and left me feeling very groggy and more than a littel queasy. Strange strange strange. Am I missing something here?

Glastonbury 2007: Left Field, Circus Field, Small World Stage: Carnival Collective

2007-06-14T15:23:00.000Z

Me & some of my CC colleagues at a gig in Stanmer Park last Sunday

My semi-annual step away from things literary and a massive reminder to anyone venturing to Glastonbury. Check out Carnival Collective's web site for details of all our gigs at the 2007 Glastonbury Festival.

We're gracing various bits of the Theatre & Circus Fields - as well as Left Field and the Small World Stage in Green Futures. And mighty excited. No matter how many times I play there, each one makes me feel like a child anticipating a very special treat.

Post Glasto, we'll be at Larmer Tree and sundry other venues...

Back to books... this weekend's Blog will be a Barbara Nadel's Turkish novels' analysis.

Orhan Pamuk Nobel Win

2006-10-12T11:31:00.000Z

Just came across the following news story on The BBC

Pamuk wins Nobel Literature prize

Pamuk has been famous in his native Turkey for decades
Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk has won the 2006 Nobel Prize in literature.
The result was announced by the Swedish Academy, confounding pundits who had made Syrian poet Ali Ahmad Said, known as Adonis, favourite.

Like the other Nobels, the Literature Prize comes with a cheque for 10m kronor (£740,000).

The Academy said: "In the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city, (Pamuk) has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures."

I would sound cynical to suggest that being persecuted was a good career move in Nobel terms - and Pamuk has been that. I do admire his writing which is rich, unusual and thoughtful. I will be curious to know what the response is in Turkey: hero, or greater criticism for making visible Turkey's problems both historical and contemporary.

Since posting this I'm starting to find links to the reaction in Turkey - best describled as "mixed" - reference this piece in the International Herald Tribune marking an unsurprising polarisation in opinon.

ISSUE THREE OF THE Book Magazine is now out with (I think!?) a couple of articles from me in it - one on Lian Hearn's striking Japanese continuation of The Tales of Otori and another on Chris Stringer's archaeo-wonder-book Homo Britannicus...

Post Glastonbury

2005-06-29T09:42:00.000Z

Not had a very literary week, spent at the muddiest Glastonbury of all time... We survived though spouse daily feared going into labour in the clay-swamp the site had become so we were confined to a small radius around our camp. I certainly didn't see as much as I usually do, having a much more hunter-gatherer existence between those of our gigs not flooded out. The playing was good though - definite highlight was a collaboration with Orkestra du Sol on the Drifts Stage at Lost Vagueness. The whole scene of glamorous squalor made me think of an Eighties counter-culture film: lots of bonfires and people trailing evening dresses through deep mud. Carnival Collective played a storming set and it was fantastic to double the size of our brass section with the ODS crew - even if they were rather too good for us. I didn't get much reading done though.

However I did return to the office to find that all had not sunk into chaos ... and also to get a call from the agent who I hope is going to sign my novel: The Symbol Stone - setting a meeting for the 20th of July. Hooray, hallelujah and other declamatory excitement. She also wants to see outlines and sample chapters of the other two books I've had basting for a while. The agent (who shall remain nameless until contract is inked) made encouraging noises but also hinted at needs to rewrite... I think I'm going to find it hard to concentrate for the coming three weeks and suspect I'll resort to comfort-reading: I spied a copy of Rumer Godden's The Greengage Summer on the bookcase at the top of the stairs so maybe that's where I'll start. Any other suggestions?

The Man on the Balcony: A Nicci French Precursor

2007-06-11T21:39:00.000Z

The Man on the Balcony (Martin Beck)by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

I was really interested to discover and read a 1960s Scandinavian detective novel by a husband-wife team in the style of Nicci French meets Henning Mankell. A lot of 1960s/70s crime fiction doesn't stand up to modern scrutiny, marred by among other things casual racism and sexism. The Man on the Balcony is a marked exception - and a fascinating one. The authors' biog (which is quite brief) passes an interesting comment - identifying them as lifelong Marxists. An unusual statement in a crime novelists' author blurb - a context which usually tends to more anodyne comments. But it is, I suspect, quite significant.

The Man on the Balcony ticks all the crime/thriller boxes of plot, characterisation and atmosphere, but more interestingly it provides an understated but compelling critique of modern (or at least post-War) society. Throughout the book the reader is made aware of the corrosion eating away at social structures, mores, workplace, family relationships. It is incredibly well done - not an in-your-face lecture, just a gradual accumulation of inference. Like Nicci French, there is no sense of two authorial voices or any division of purpose and it is a very smooth and convincing read. I believe Sjowall and Wahloo wrote 10 novels in the series before Per Wahloo died and the books stopped. There's quite a lot about them on the internet including this Britannica entry, and there is a lot of comment on both their literary and political legacy. I am very excited to have found them by chance and can't wait to get my hands on the other 9 books. They also appear to have influenced some fairly awesome literary luminaries (according to Amazon at least, for what that's worth!) including Grahame Greene and Henning Mankell.

Adam Thorpe's The Rules of Perspective & Chuck Palahniuk's RANT

2007-06-02T20:13:00.000Z

Another hasty library dash where more of my attention was devoted to preventing diverging children vanishing off the radar than to an actual, informed choice of books. Fortunately this week's haul contained gold in the form of Adam Thorpe's The Rules of Perspective (Jonathan Cape, Hbk 2005) which pulls off the challenge of finding something fresh to say about the human condition and the Second World War.

This is an extremely powerful novel, compellingly written and completely devoid of resistance workers, farmers wives hiding airmen or any of a dozen cliches of that conflict. Thorpe skilfully interweaves two stories - one of a young American soldier taking part in the liberation of Germany, and the other of a group of German art gallery staff taking cover in their museum under the Allied bombardment. We know from the very outset that they do not survive the ordeal as Parry (the American) finds their corpses as the novel begins, but we do not know how or to what purpose their stories will unite. Because the reader knows of the Germans' fate, the whole book is infused with a disturbing sense of doom - but Thorpe exhumes more than just their final hours and the conclusion of the book was, to me at least, totally un-anticipated.

Thorpe is a very poised and considered writer. I knew of him, but I shall now be seeking out the rest of his books (except, perhaps, the poetry as a long stint of helping my eldest revise for his GCSE English Lit has killed any interest in verse I might have once had.).

Post Script No sooner have I posted this than I find Thorpe has a new novel out reviewed in today's Observer by Adam Mars Jones. It's called Between Each Breath and Mars Jones gives it an ambivalent review comparing it unfavourably to The Rules of Perspective. I'll still look it out, but it sounds as though I've begun reading Thorpe with one of his stronger books.

SUNDAY'S ADDENDUM: RANT by Chuck Palahniuk

And as I am updating Saturday's post on Sunday - I'll take the opportunity to review one of Thorpe's stablemates at Cape: Chuck Palahniuk's RANT which I read hell-for-leather at the park today while I was being slack-dad with my two youngest.

I've not read Palahniuk before or, even more unusually, any reviews of his work. All I knew of him was that his novel Fight Club had been adapted for film. The Brad Pitt toned, half-naked film posters remain a clear image of personal inadequacy (proving that it's not only women who can be victims of poor body image as a result of depictions of 'ideal' body shapes in the media) and consequently never saw it. Never will. So I came to this with no expectations beyond a worry that it might be a bit too slick or gimmicky. Instead I found a deeply disturbing, but highly addictive, fast-paced postmortem of a very strange life - that of Rant Casey (or Buster or Buddy depending on who is talking to the reader). Palahniuk describes the book as an 'oral history' and has pulled off a very zesty multiple-voiced account - bystanders, friends, relatives, teachers, cops, academics all chip in to tell it how it was through their eyes.

Rant is an enigma - a violently damaged, yet strangely moralistic character, charismatic and repellent in equal parts. He is the product of a white-trash 13-year-old's pregnancy with more than a little hint of Rosemary's Baby about it. He is also the vector for a horrific mutation of rabies that is incurable and highly contagious - a typhoid Mary for our times. But is it our times?

Palahniuk deftly plays with the reader's realities - this world is our own, but there are ways in which it is either a dystopic future or an alternative present. Society has become stratified with a whole opt-out subclass of night-timers opposing the more 'normal' daytimers, and also carrying out appropriate menial and degrading jobs. Party Crashers are like escapees from David Cronenberg's imagination and have a horrendous road-tag game that plagues the night-time freeways as they careen through the traffic dressed in wedding clothes, or with baby carriers bolted to their car's roof, wielding destruction as they go. And everywhere, the rabies spreads.

There are elements of RANT that making me think of other books, writers, thinkers. Of recent books it's most akin to Melvyn Burgess's reworking of Icelandic legends BloodTide but also there is the obvious Hunter S. Thompson comparison, but Palahniuk's voice is original and very much his own (excuse the tautology)and the world of RANT creeps into your thoughts. It chilled me even as I burned in the sun in a playground full of happily squealing toddlers and kids. In his world - whatever world it is, everything is horrible. But it is a compelling, breath-taking horrible: the horrible that makes you suck through your teeth with admiration for Palahniuk's creation and nerve. Rant is risk-taking fiction at its best.

Blog Failings...

2007-02-04T23:02:00.000Z

Recent Reading I want to Blog about but haven't had a chance...

It seems like only a few days since I was moaning about not having time/insight/inspiration to read anything - now I've been reading but haven't managed to write a word.

The most recent stash of books that I most want to write about properly are:

Suite Francaise Irene Nemirovsky

Gatty's Tale Kevin Crossley-Holland

The Chateau William Maxwell

Glass Books of the Dream Eaters Gordon Dahlquist

I will - but first, so much else to do...

Donna Leon, Suffer the Little Children & the Copy Editor, and the missing children...

2007-05-28T21:27:00.000Z

Donna Leon is one of my indulgences - a pleasing recreation like a glass of that other Venetian beauty, a good prosecco. While I have suspected that Donna Leon owes more than a little to Andrea Camilleri, she is none the worse for that, and I have become deeply attached to her Commisario Brunetti over the years.

I was pleased to find out that my literary heroine (admittedly one of many!) Ursula K. Le Guin is also enamored of Brunetti and his brood in her recent review in The Guardian. And like Le Guin I also regretted the palpable absence of Brunetti's children from this narrative as Leon evokes the dynamic of Brunetti's family superbly. I also felt quite chuffed that Ursula likes the same things about Donna Leon as I - like getting a sort of seal of approval from someone terribly grand.

Much as I enjoyed it (and my moment of connection with the creator of Earthsea) Suffer The Little Children, which is vintage Leon in all other ways, was badly let down by something that makes me feel a bit pooterish. It is chronically affected by sloppy copyediting and proof reading: too many literals by half. Worst of all was a key scene where Brunetti is interviewing Marcolini - a nasty neo-fascistic politician cum ceramics mogul - and Marcolini's name is replaced with Marvilli - a Carbinieri captain who has appeared in the book at length - causing momentary confusion for me. It made me wonder how something that glaring could have slipped through the editorial net and it marred my enjoyment of the book.

It also made me reflect upon the places where I most often encounter really bad typos, sloppy editing, inconsistencies, etc .... yes, crime novels. Am I imagining this or is there a lower standard of desk editing in that sector of the industry? Surely the sort of audience that is poring over hints, clues and innuendo is going to be enraged by glaring glitches? Or am I unusual.

I don't think so.

But anyway, Suffer the Little Children gave me a weekend of pleasure, but Donna, do please bring back Raffi and Chiara, Ursula and I miss them.

authorsites launches

2007-04-26T15:41:00.000Z

Just come across an interesting new service for writers that ISN'T some self-publishing con in disguise (myGODhwmanyofthosearethere???)

It's called authorsites and is pretty much what it says on the tin, which is always encouraging. Basically it seems to be a fairly idiot proof tool for authors to create and run a website for their books and is cheap as chips with no catches and/or strings. All round a good thing I would say.

Book worldily I've been too busy to do much more than read

1) THE SLUSH PILE - oh my, please spare me from books by 'high-class-call-girls' - although it is interesting that obviously there is a common (mis)conception in call-girls' circles that books pay better than dating dubious business men

2) My lovely clients finished books: Helen FitzGerald has delivered the sequel to her marvellous Little Girls (coming out in the UK from Faber) which has a very special place as she was the first author I signed to the agency and the 1st book deal the agency did...

3) A bit of train reading to-and-from the London Book Fair. I have to say I most enjoyed Ian Rankin's piece of juvenilia The Flood which was a dark and disquieting journey through a tight-knit Fife community and also had a hilarious preface about its original publication by Polygon (then a student-run publishig house at the University) which I read out with much glee to the rights director of Polygon who had the table next to me at the Fair.

My book purge is going to resume next week - inspired by Brighton's launch of the new Amnesty bookshop in the North Laine.

Books That Don't Matter (Really)

2007-03-26T13:11:00.000Z

I've decided to purge and clean - the advent of new shelving in my life is the catalyst, so I have begun the painful task of pruning the library.

Books to BITE THE DUST

Family Food by Heston Blumenthal Heston, I am sorry. I really liked this book and gave it a glowing review on amazon when I bought it, but it has never once been used. I think because there is nothing in the book that I haven't got a dozen recipes for elsewhere. It's actually a good book but more for the beginner cook (or family!)

Behind the Scenes at the Museum I can't remember which prize this won (Booker?), but it's sat sadly and once-read for far too long. It has no real sins as a novel but what does it offer me now? I can remember its contents too too well.

Blanche McCrary Boyd passed through my consciousness without troubling it deeply. The time of the Little Girls' revolution is up. It's languishing at 860,000 on amazon and unlikely to shift from my perspective. A book about which I felt nothing at the time, so why did I keep it?

Out out out

So that's 3 books culled out of, errrm, somewhere round about 1,500 - 2,000.

The new minimalism, not for me... this process might take some time.

But if the UK book retail trade totally collapses I might be glad of them all, for the warmth and company if nothing else as I read in Friday's Guardian that BORDERS MIGHT PULL OUT OF THE UK MARKET - which is fairly dramatic and might have my publishing clients anxiously checking their returns forms in coming weeks... more on that one later...

Sybille & Some Blog Browsing

2006-08-04T13:40:00.000Z

Just discovered a rather fantastic blog by a novelist and academic called Jenny Davidson packed with trenchant comments and very pleasurable reading. I commented on her observations on Sybille Bedford that she posted earlier this year and got the following reply on an email today ...

--she is a phenomenally good writer, and
absurdly underrated. I have a theory that those novels of hers like A
Legacy and A Favourite of the Gods suffer from the same neglect as
Rebecca West's novel The Fountain Overflows (though that's had some more
attention in recent years), and that it has to do with the books being
(a) too delightful for the stringent (b) written by interesting
border-crossing figures and (c) (most important) historical novels set
in the early years of the twentieth century, so that it is easy for them
to be misremembered/neglected as older/further displaced from our time
than they actually are, in any respect. I still haven't read the
autobiography, I've got a copy but just haven't had time--but one day
sometime in the next six months I am going to have a serious binge on
Bedford, her sentences make me want to lick them!

How true, how true...

Perhaps now is the time to get a Sybille Bedford movement going - save for the fact that la Sybille would consider such a notion both absurd and vulgar. So all I can do is continue to urge people to read her and publishers to keep her in print...

Man Booker 2006 Long List

2006-08-15T09:18:00.000Z

The judging panel for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction this week(Monday 14th August) announces the longlist of books for this year.

The longlist of 19 books was chosen from 112 entries; 95 were submitted for the prize and 17 were called in by the panel of judges.

Chair of judges, Hermione Lee, comments:

"Judging the Man Booker Prize puts you through almost as many emotions as there are in the novels. We’ve tried to be careful and critical judges as well as being passionately involved. We have many regrets about some of the novels we’ve left off, and we could easily have had a longlist of about 30 books, but we’re delighted with the variety, the originality, the drama and craft, the human interest and the strong voices in this longlist. It’s a list in which famous established novelists rub shoulders with little known newcomers. We hope that people will leap at it for their late summer reading and make up their own shortlist.”

The judging panel for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Hermione Lee (Chair); Simon Armitage, poet and novelist; Candia McWilliam, award winning novelist; critic Anthony Quinn and actor Fiona Shaw.
The 2006 shortlist will be announced on Thursday 14th September at a press conference at Man Group’s London office. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 10th October at an awards ceremony at Guildhall, London.

The longlist for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2006 is as follows;

Carey, Peter Theft: A Love Story (Faber & Faber)
Desai, Kiran The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton)
Edric, Robert Gathering the Water (Doubleday)
Gordimer, Nadine Get a Life (Bloomsbury)
Grenville, Kate The Secret River (Canongate)
Hyland, M.J. Carry Me Down (Canongate)
Jacobson, Howard Kalooki Nights (Jonathan Cape)
Lasdun, James Seven Lies (Jonathan Cape)
Lawson, Mary The Other Side of the Bridge (Chatto & Windus)
McGregor, Jon So Many Ways to Begin (Bloomsbury)
Matar, Hisham In the Country of Men (Viking)
Messud, Claire The Emperor’s Children (Picador)
Mitchell, David Black Swan Green (Sceptre)
Murr, Naeem The Perfect Man (William Heinemann)
O’Hagan, Andrew Be Near Me (Faber & Faber)
Robertson, James The Testament of Gideon Mack (Hamish Hamilton)
St Aubyn, Edward Mother’s Milk (Picador)
Unsworth, Barry The Ruby in her Navel (Hamish Hamilton)
Waters, Sarah The Night Watch (Virago)

I know that it's just more hype, but I'm really glad the long list gets released now as often the more interesting books are to be found here. I also know how frustrating it was for novelists who found out that their book had made it on to the long but not the short list by word of mouth but never accrued any profile benefits for that. My late friend the great Tom Wakefield suffered this with his underrated book Lot's Wife which came out from Serpent's Tail in 1989. He was tipped the wink by contacts on the judging panel that he'd made the long list, but that's as far as it went and it could only remain a rumour, never in the public eye. Had its status been noted in some way it might have transformed his profile.

Any way, a pleasant if unchallenging mix of obvious/not obvious and serious/light(ish) books on the long list. A few I want to read, only a couple I have read....

Post Script - see the views of the papers in The Guardian. So, I learn this is the longest it's ever taken to decide a Booker Long List - storm in teacup, given that it seems quite an uncontroversial (albeit pleasantly Amis-free) list.

Grumpy Old Bookman: Groan groan

2006-09-07T09:25:00.000Z

Grumpy Old Bookman

My favourite publishing blog site - grumpy old bookman - has got a great rant about one of the more galling pieces of publishing hype - and a fast-one pulled on retailers to get them to buy a totally unappealing book (yet another Diana book by none other than Paul Burrell - a man who makes one wish to put a pox on the citizens of Cheshire and ashamed to hail from that county myself long long ago...). Grumpy is well worth visiting and always guaranteed to have some diverting snippets ready to set the reader off on their own hobby-horse-derby....

Rebrand: Change of Direction

2007-02-14T15:02:00.000Z

OK - family hype time... so, son no. 1 has put up a seriously good new track called 'Change of Direction' on his Myspace, featuring husky voiced Kassia on vocals - click HERE for a listen. Poor guy's not rebuilt his fan base since someone hacked in and deleted his whole site a while back. It's cool stuff, worth a listen!

And then to complete a family sandwitch with me generationally hovering in the middle, my dad Neville Weston has a presence in the Tate Liverpool exhibition
Centre of the Creative Universe. Always hard to accept hipness in an elderly parent (except in the hip-replacement category) but he was one of the movers and shakers on the Liverpool scene during the '60s and a show about that avant-garde era opens next week at Tate Liverpool.

And then to complete this familial thang, I've also just realised that it's Valentine's day and my entire family save for me are asleep and I'm doing what? Sitting up blogging. This is perhaps the saddest moment of my life!

I'd better fix a mug of cocoa and pour out a bowl of shreddies at once. And while in my (Cocoa)Cups (mebbe I'll moisten the shreddies with single malt) I'll ruminate on the sad news of Grumpy Old Bookman slowing down his blog-rate after contributing a million words to cyberspace. A MILLION WORDS...

But actually, I haven't only been blogging. I've read two prospective authors' manuscripts and practically wet myself laughing at a slush-pile proposal for a sort of romance/adventure that is the funniest bad book synopsis I've ever read... sadly I can't post it for your delectation as that would be extremely cruel to the wannabe author who is destined to stay a wannabe... but my it made me laugh. I wonder if "The Worst Books Never Published" might have the makings of a christmas hit. Hmmm.