The Day of the Jack Russell

I’m beginning to feel I can’t stand the man. I can’t tell you who, really, because he has no name. He tried pretending to be Raymond Chandler in this new book by Bateman (I know I said I’d only ever call him Colin…), but he’s not. What he is, is an insufferable bookshop owner (there are a few of those around), with a girlfriend who is far too nice for him, and he has the mother he deserves. And he solves crimes.

He has a touch of Tourettes about him, and he’s a grade one coward (takes one to know one, possibly), and the rest of the time he’s quite obnoxious. But, he does solve crimes.

The Day of the Jack Russell is the second novel about this, well, we don’t know, do we? Private Eye, and ostensibly the owner of Belfast bookshop No Alibis, except he isn’t.

The Jack Russell is stuffed, but you can still be allergic to it. His girlfriend is pregnant. Not the Jack Russell’s lady friend. ‘Mr Chandler’s’ sidekick-cum-girlfriend. If it’s his, that is. She’ll get on well with the mother from hell.

So, stuffed doggie, decorators, Amnesty International, MI5, the Chief Constable and Starbucks combine to make another very, very funny crime novel. It’s the sort of book I could write. If I could write books, which I can’t. But I’d make my ‘hero’ a little nicer. After all, he has to deserve the lady.

The cover has , yet again, been designed with me in mind. I like. Very much.

There is a launch at No Alibis this evening, but Colin has banned all those who listen to jazz.

Auf Deutsch

Earlier this year I was contacted out of the blue by a publisher in Germany, who had discovered the Eoin Colfer interview from Cheltenham last October. It’s the one where I had Charlie to do the actual work, and it is a good interview, if I say so myself.

Anyway, they wanted permission to put part of it in some educational book about Eoin Colfer (great education, I’d say) that they were doing. Charlie’s Mum and I decided it would be OK, and we also asked for a copy of the finished book.

Then we heard no more until the other week, when the parcel from Germany turned up. It’s more of a collection of tasks for students to do, based on Eoin’s The Wish List, discussing everything from Eoin himself to bullying, with wordsearches and quizzes and stuff. I think it’d be good to see something like it in British schools, too.

Quite weird to read Eoin’s answers in German…

A Little Love Song

It was the oranges that did it for me. A few years ago Offspring had some friends round for a sleepover, and the witch was feeling depressed. Not because of the sleepover, but I was left with that kind of feeling where you need comfort of some kind. So I got out Michelle Magorian’s A Little Love Song, which was waiting to be read. Once the young people were busy with whatever they were busy with, there was a whole evening in which to read.

So I read. And I read. When I got to the part where Rose goes to the dance, and is offered oranges, and said oranges gather momentum due to the jitterbug, I began to laugh. Soon I was laughing so much I could barely contain myself. So I stopped feeling depressed. Ever since, when I think of this book, I think of sleepover, and then oranges, and then of the explosion of laughter.

This is the story about two sisters in the second world war, who by accident end up living by themselves in a cottage in the country. They don’t know anything about looking after themselves, cooking and the like, but they learn. The opportunity to live alone seems so great to them, that they grasp it when their chaperone suddenly becomes unavailable.

Both girls meet love, although it’s not straightforward for either of them. There is also a mystery to do with the cottage, which is linked to someone Rose meets in the village.

A Little Love Song is the perfect romantic war story, with the same authentic war atmosphere which all Michelle’s novels have. In a country where television companies are crazy about period series and films, this book would be a very suitable one to adapt. Instead of a new version of Austen every five years (or is it every three years now?), it’d be a really good idea to take on all of Michelle Magorian’s books for a change.

Prizes, television, travels and other news

Philip Ardagh is officially funny, having been awarded the Roald Dahl Funny Prize 2009 on Tuesday. I understand Philip is fairly pleased with the outcome, and he will be on BBC Breakfast this morning, if anyone’s up early enough to catch him. I will have to put my trust to iPlayer or Facebook friends.

I had assumed that Philip would have a cupboard full of prizes by now, but it seems not. So here’s a particularly big, witchy ‘Well Done, Mr Ardagh!’ from all of us at Bookwitch. Champagne receptions! I don’t know what the publishing world is coming to.

This is slightly late, I’m afraid, but I hope people are watching the television series Jinx? It’s based on Fiona Dunbar’s books about Lulu Baker, which I haven’t read (sorry, Fiona!). I enjoyed he first two episodes which were on CBBC at Halloween. The next two have been recorded for when this witch has a spare moment. I think there are 13 episodes in all, broadcast Saturdays and Sundays at 10.30.

Liz Kessler has been blogging about her US tour, at long last. The happy snippets of information that had reached me earlier weren’t enough, so this very long tale of what it was like, swanning around America as the successful author she is, makes up for it. I think I really must try and write some best-selling books so that I, too, can have an experience like hers.

Though I have a dreadful suspicion that I was invited to the National Book Festival in Washington, as well. I just remember thinking that someone was mistaken if they thought I could just hop over to Washington like that. I think maybe I should have hopped. It sounds good. Please invite me again!

Some witchy developments last. A witch can never have too many blogs, so on Saturday night my third witchy blog saw the light of day, except it was well past midnight, and only the kitchen lamp shone, but never mind tiny details. I had come to the rather sudden conclusion that an all-Swedish book blog from moi would be a good thing, and then I went looking for a name. You wouldn’t believe how many combinations of witch and book and reading there are out there. So I’m simply Bookwitch på svenska.

And then, you know how easily a witch gets carried away. Monday morning I set up a fourth blog. Quite quick that time, since I’d not had the opportunity to forget what I did 36 hours earlier. This one is not mine, however. It’s for the church which is still being threatened with closure. As Son said on Skype, what is there not to understand in ‘you are not allowed to sell this building?’.

(Photos; hmm, the one of Philip is by H Giles. Fiona supplied hers, of her own free will, and Liz’s I stole. Sorry!)

More on Stieg Larsson’s millions

This week even the Guardian reported on the state of Stieg Larsson’s money. They didn’t have much to say that I haven’t already blogged about, except that Stieg’s father and brother have now offered his partner Eva some money. Of course, neither I nor the Guardian know all that much. We recycle facts and come up with clever guesses as to what’s what.

We’re all guessing, because Stieg can’t tell us a thing. So it makes a change reading this blog post, written by Annika Bryn, who is a Stockholm based crime writer, and who knew Stieg.  I met Annika over on Sara Paretsky’s blog, and she has previously left a comment on Bookwitch saying it’s true that Lisbeth Salander has Asperger Syndrome because Stieg said so.

This week Annika wrote about her own feelings and ideas as to how all this mess over the Millennium money happened. She says that ethically it should have been Eva who inherited the money, and that it ought to be she who’s in the position to be able to offer the Larsson men 20 million kronor, out of the 130 million total so far, instead of the reverse. Annika says that Eva wasn’t just ‘a part of Stieg’s life’, as his father and brother put it, but he always referred to Eva as his wife, and he felt they had ‘grown together’ and he could never leave her.

Stieg’s brother has said to Annika that the fact there was no will must have meant Stieg didn’t want Eva to inherit him. (But most of us don’t consider our mortality soon enough, do we?) Another thing that is easily forgotten, is that when Stieg died, he had no more money than most people. He didn’t know there’d be millions to fight over. And Annika reckons he also thought the three people in his life would get on better than they do.

She feels that although the offered 20 million is a lot of money, it’s not enough, and that a fifty-fifty share would be the fair way to do it. They should also cooperate over the intellectual property Stieg left behind. She mentions a dispute over the English translation, too. So it seems nothing is easy in this sorry saga. As for anyone finishing the fourth book, Annika reckons this would be wrong, unless it’s practically all finished anyway.

There was a very early will, in which Stieg left his money to a communist organisation. So it doesn’t seem as if he’d intended his father and brother to enjoy whatever he had to leave.

Annika’s blog usually has many, and friendly, comments left by her visitors. This time feelings have run high, and people have left some much more strongly worded comments than usual. Not all are on Eva’s side, and some don’t manage to comment politely, whatever their opinions.

and then I’ll have a book festival

Not content with imagining a bookshop, I need to dream a little about my imaginary book festival. As Amanda Craig said on her blog recently, everyone seems to think they should run a festival of sorts these days. And they don’t always do it well.

That’s the part I don’t get. If you ask people round for dinner, most hosts don’t go out of their way to ignore the guests. So what’s different running a festival? It’s surely just one big dinner party or children’s party or whatever?

I’m too lazy to go ahead with anything like a book festival, but the idea really appeals. Shows how lacking in originality I am; having the same dream as countless other well-meaning idiots. I’d also find it too stressful, but I would want to offer any visiting authors all the comforts of home to keep them happy (and me popular).

Or maybe I just expand a little on my literary Tupperware party? Come and talk about yourself and your books in my living room over some nibbles and wine, with some book sales at the end. Some of the time I even have a spare bed to offer.

In my pink imagination

I walked past the empty shop again. Well, since it’s in amongst our nearby row of shops, I go past it often, so it’s hardly worth mentioning. The shop front is rather pink and purple, which might be because it was a florist’s before. In these hard times it’s not surprising they went out of business, and neither is it strange that the premises still stand empty.

When I pass the shop, or even when I think about it, it turns into our local specialist crime bookshop. My bookshop, to be precise. Well, a person can dream. As someone who had a house covered in vividly pink carpets for a few years in the mid 1980s, I can assure you it is much cheaper to imagine, than actually to do. I never did have pink carpets, really, but in my – inexplicable – pink period I wanted them. Lack of money meant they remained in my mind, although I tried to get visitors to see them too.

So, I have the loveliest little bookshop, a mere three minutes walk from our house. Couldn’t be more convenient. We considered making it a children’s bookshop, but since one opened a few miles away very recently, we felt it’d make more financial sense to pick another speciality. I have already – in my mind – invited lots of authors to come to events. I’ll use the upstairs for my cosy author events.

It’s a far better shop than the one we imagined 25 years ago. I suppose it just goes to show that we don’t change much, just mature a little and improve on the dreams. And they had better remain dreams. I am not a good shopkeeper. I read. I dream. I don’t sell.

But I’ll repaint the shop premises. This time I don’t want pink. In my mind the shop looks like an amalgamation of everything I love in my house magazines. Except it’s a shop, not a house.

Not done with the horror yet…

Now that it’s safely November, I had intended the horror to be over until next year, but then I read Fiona Dunbar’s blog post recommending spooky books. Very good list. And of course she reminded me of that book I prefer not to dwell on. Because there are spookier books than my suggestions this past week.

You know I said before how scary Celia Rees is? When Celia isn’t writing wonderful historical novels, she writes spooky horror stories. I have read  several, and most of them are sort of ‘cosy spook’, which to my mind just means they are good stories with something ghostly, somewhere. Nothing to lose sleep over. Fiona’s recommended Blood Sinister is one of the cosies, to my mind. Enjoyable, but leaving with me with my wits intact.

I had to go hunting in Son’s bookcase for that other scary book. It’s City of Shadows, and I wouldn’t dream of ‘reviewing’ it here. It was scary enough just reading it, all those years ago. It’s a trilogy, and whereas I would normally have hastened out to buy the other two books, in this case I didn’t. Still haven’t. Maybe they won’t be too bad. But you can’t be sure.

(If anyone out there has read A Trap in Time and The Host Rides Out, and found them lovely and sunny stories, please let me know.)

So, that just shows how brave I am. Do try them, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

The Gates to Hell and all that

I should have known you can’t have just one book about dead bishops. Here is another one, although the bishop isn’t the main character, or anything. This is a Halloween book, so go get a copy to get you into a nice demonish mood for the day.

It can be very dangerous for the TBR pile development to go and poke around on other people’s blogs, but when Declan on Crime Always Pays put the first chapter of John Connolly’s The Gates up, I couldn’t resist. And John was extremely charming about being begged for a copy.

The Gates is a very funny book, and very exciting, too. (And what’s more, it’s short, in this age of four-inch thick books.) Samuel Johnson and his dachshund Boswell are out trick-or-treating, slightly prematurely, when they come across something at the neighbours’ house that doesn’t look very good.

It’s not good. Earth is about to be invaded by really bad demons. (But as the more alert readers can work out, Halloween is not a good time for demons to invade anywhere.) 11-year-old Samuel and his friends and his dog have to try and save the world from this new threat. They get some assistance from a friendly demon called Nurd, and information – if not useful help – from the scientists involved with the Large Hadron Collider. Because it just happens to accidentally help the demons find a way in.

John believes in footnotes. Lots of them. They are very amusing footnotes, which is lucky, because I really don’t like the flow of my reading interrupted all the time. But I forgive him, because they are funny. And necessary.

As with far too many authors, I don’t know John’s books at all. In the case of The Gates, think Douglas Adams meets Eoin Colfer. That should do it.

The Meg Rosoff interview

Some of you may have cottoned on to the fact that I’m quite fond of Meg Rosoff. I like her books, obviously, but I also like her as a person – a lot. Our acquaintance began with me writing Meg as level headed a fan letter as I could manage, just prior to her winning the Guardian prize five years ago. Then I believe I went on to tell her I’m a witch, and that I knew she’d win the Costa, too.

That’s why Meg knows not to trust my predictions one hundred percent, but as you will see in the interview, she does believe in witches. Thank goodness.

When we first met, I fully intended to buy her a coffee or something, but she insisted she was buying. Meg searched her jacket pockets to see how much money she had, as she’d come out without her handbag. ‘Let’s see what we can get for £6’, she said. Afterwards she drove Daughter and me to Euston, almost getting us involved in some road rage on the way. Let’s just say that it was a novel experience for us country bumpkins.

The reason I’ve delayed asking Meg for an interview has been that when you have an on-going, intermittent email discussion about anything you happen to think of, it’s actually quite hard to work out what to ask in a more structured meeting. So I kept putting it off, but when The Bride’s Farewell was published I felt now was a good moment. We turned out to be very incompatible for time, so in the end Meg seemed to decide she would be free when it suited me, which was very kind of her, as we were able to meet when I was in London anyway.

Very kind.

Meg’s books are dangerous. I looked through Bride while searching for questions, but found myself just sitting there reading it, again, with no thought of interview questions.

What we have in common, apart from age, is that we are both immigrants, so in the end I felt that was a good point to start our conversation. One thing I didn’t get round to, was seeing how our paths almost crossed as early as 1977-78, when we both ran around London having fun.

Oh, well.