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.

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.

Good Omens

Should I have words with the person who told me that Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman was nothing special? I wouldn’t have delayed reading it for so long, had I not been convinced it was a perfectly missable book. Couldn’t quite work out why it should be thus, since neither Neil nor Terry have a habit of writing outstandingly bad books. But I suppose it could have been some chemical mix gone seriously wrong.

I found it was a tremendously successful mixture, all things considered, which kept me entertained and smiling all the way through. What balanced the thought ‘I’ve left it far too long’ was that other thought ‘but at least I can read it now’.

I’m always a bit suspicious of two people writing together. How can you manage the practical aspects, and how come the reader doesn’t fall into the gap between one writer and the other? It’s reassuring to se that neither of the authors can remember quite how they did it, or who wrote what.

Armageddon is always a nice subject for a book. A selection of angels and little devils and demons (what’s the difference?), a God or three, people on bikes and some ordinary weirdos make for a fun story. There is a lot of truth in the idea that you have more in common with your opposite number, than with your own superior. And not all angels are totally angelic and there is some good in some devils.

Small children can think and act for themselves. Just look at the Famous Five. Dogs are good fun. Americans and witches are useful plot devices. But I do wonder what happened to the American baby? Did he fall off the continuity sheet?

Love your neighbourhood. Things don’t have to be what someone else says. You can have an opinion of your own, and you can change fate.

I would have liked to put in a quote here, but Good Omens is 350 pages long, and I don’t feel up to retyping the whole book.

New-ish Puffins

Thank goodness Helen Grant had hair! Nice hair, too, in a French plait. The other three didn’t. At all. I’m not being alopecia-ist, I hope. It’s fashionable to be bald.

Anyway, the witch made it to the Strand offices of Puffin on Monday, to meet New Talent. They had a line-up of four, comprising Jason Bradbury, Alex Scarrow, David Yelland and Helen Grant with the hair. The Resident IT Consultant wondered why I was going, but relaxed when he heard I would be meeting the author of The Vanishing of Katharina Linden. ‘That’s a very good book’ he said. (Just imagine – the man remembered it!)

Don’t know Jason Bradbury, though I gather he’s on television. I can believe that. He bounced through his presentation for the new book Atomic Swarm, out early next year. It’s a sequel in his Dot Robot series. He went on about hover boards and tele presence, in a fairly bubbly and crazy sort of way. (Does television make people like this, or do people like this make it to television?) But I don’t want him to operate on me, in any form. Nice cap and Converses, though, not to mention the white spectacle frames.

Alex Scarrow time travels. He also plays with computer games and things. He had played and made an impressive trailer for his first children’s book, TimeRiders. (It’s all beyond me, but what do I know?) He recruits people on the verge of dying, so it’s ‘come and work for us or die’ kind of thing. Alex believes in the ‘what if?’ idea, but I must say that a king called Henry the Ape is too much ‘if’ for me. He’s written for adults, apparently, but it seems that writing a children’s book was more fun. At least I think that’s what he said.

David Yelland seemed to be into revealing new things about himself, and was talking about the three A’s; adoption, alopecia and alcoholism. His first book, The Truth About Leo, is vaguely based on his own life in various ways. It’s supposed to be a very moving read, but I was last to the book table and didn’t quite make it. (One might turn up in the post?) But I do wish he hadn’t told us how the book ends! There’s information, and then there’s information.

Not last and not least, Helen Grant. Helen has a new book out next spring, too, called The Glass Demon. It’s set in Germany, like her first novel. (And, she told me afterwards, the third book too, which she is writing now.) Helen greeted us in German, and was kind enough not to translate what she’d just said. Maybe she thought we were intelligent. She told us more about the town of Bad Münstereifel, and it really does sound idyllic. Apart from the murders, maybe. The first book is just coming out in German translation, so she’s keen to hear what her German friends will say. Perhaps. Someone called Helen the “Stieg Larsson of teen fiction’. Let’s hope so, for her bank balance, at least.

After a few canapés, the witch Cinderella-ed off to her train home. But I did get to speak to Helen.

Meeting Michelle Magorian

The importance of Goodnight Mister Tom is such that I have long had Michelle Magorian on my top level of ‘really good authors’. The kind you need to worship from afar, someone who is unquestionably great. So meeting her in person at last year’s launch for Just Henry wasn’t a case of your everyday garden variety of a book launch. Having found Michelle reassuringly kind and friendly and normal, I came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be out of the question to consider interviewing her. Would it?

When by happy coincidence Michelle turned out to have an event on my home ground, I simply had to ask to meet her again. So you could say that I waited as eagerly to meet her, as I did for Just Henry after I’d read Michelle’s first five novels. I’d been so happy when I discovered her, and my assumption that readers can expect a new book, if not every year, then at least every two or three, meant that my patience wore very thin over the ten-year wait. But as you can read in this interview, it was for a good reason, and it was worth waiting for.

I just ‘happened’ to bring along my copy of the anthology War, edited by Michael Morpurgo, which contains a story by Michelle. It seems we have a lot to be grateful to Michael for, since it was he who got Michelle writing again after her long break.

In her talk at the Imperial War Museum Michelle told us how she first wrote Goodnight Mister Tom, and after that she decided to attend a writing course, which may be an unusual way round to do it. And when she has to write horrible and upsetting scenes, she goes for calming walks in between.

There is another book on the way, but read my interview with Michelle while you wait. And then any book of hers that you have inadvertently overlooked. Perhaps between us we can have a late run on A Little Love Song?

(Photo D Giles)

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.

A Necklace of Raindrops

Some years ago Daughter begged a copy of Joan Aiken’s A Necklace of Raindrops from my friend Pippi when we visited her. It was an old battered paperback, and she just had to have it. I didn’t forget about it, but I must admit to not having looked at it carefully enough to realise it was illustrated. Daughter was past needing it reading to her, so I just didn’t get involved.

That’s why I was so keen to see a copy of the book now that it’s being published again. I somehow thought the illustrations by Jan Pieńkowski were new. They are, in fact, original, and were in the 1968 version as well.

Oh, well. This is a lovely book, and two copies can be better than one – old and battered.

I love Joan Aiken, although I’ve not read much of hers for this age range, which is younger than the Wolves Chronicles. There are eight short stories, which are all perfect either to read to a child or to have them read on their own. I was going to say nicely old-fashioned, but perhaps they were simply normal forty years ago. They are the sort of stories we read when I was young.

This is a larger size hardback, so Jan Pieńkowski’s pictures look marvellous. They have that authentic 1960s half modern, half old style feel to them. If you know what I mean?

Y is for yay!

Unsolicited books get shorter shrift than the ones I ask for. But there can be real gems, that I didn’t even know I wanted. This is one such occasion. There is a pop-up book out to celebrate that Sesame Street is forty years old.

Generally I am more of a C is for cookie kind of person. Offspring and I watched Sesame Street with our lunch for years, and then out of necessity we had to stop. I wouldn’t mind watching it again, but I get the impression it’s no longer on in Britain. Why not?

A Walk Down Sesame Street is some consolation. Elmo walks round, meeting some of the regulars, and doing a little educating as he meets and greets. Good Elmo! There are even pull-thingies to make Grover fly and Cookie stir his cookie mixture. Big Bird is really an awfully big Big Bird.

Ernie has put down his duckie, believe it or not, and Oscar and his trashcan are very much in-your-face, popping out. If only they knew of the agony suffered at witch headquarters over the elephants Oscar keeps. I thought we were heading for a major bin phobia at one point.

As Daughter walked in through the door after college, she jumped on this book. Maybe 17 isn’t too old for pop-ups after all? She made Elmo dance, which was something I had missed.

Oh, now I want to get out all my Sesame Street videos again and watch…

I, Coriander

I, Coriander is a prize in several ways. Daughter won her copy, personally signed by Sally Gardner herself, when the book was new. I forget what she did that was so good, but she won it nevertheless. It was something at the local bookshop, and Sally had been meeting the owners, and so the signed book came this way.

It is a beautiful book, just like Sally’s two later novels, with old pictures of London on the cover and inside. A red ribbon to keep the right place for the reader. Very old-fashioned and attractive. But I could never quite get away from visualising a bunch of green herbs. Extremely stupid of me, but that, and lack of time, meant I didn’t read I, Coriander until now.

The lovely thing about having been a prize idiot over Sally’s book, is that this way I was rewarded – undeservedly – with a wonderful read so much later. It’s set in the era of Cromwell, and I realised yet again that I need to improve my knowledge of British history. Coriander was born in 1643 and the novel ends in 1660. Her family were Royalists, which wasn’t a good thing to be just then.

What actually struck me was that it’d be easy to read the descriptions of what London was like at the time, and what Cromwell’s regime was like, and think that nowadays everything is so much better and more refined. But pessimist that I am, I feel the story describes pretty much what it’s like here and in other countries today. I don’t think we ever improve. We just like to think we do.

Coriander’s mother dies when her daughter is young, and the effects of her death almost ruin the lives of all those around her. There is a lot of fantasy or magic, which is never quite explained. Coriander finds she can do magic, a bit like her mother, but that’s not good. In Cromwell’s England magic is dangerous, and in Coriander’s fantasy world things aren’t so great either.

Sally has come up with an appalling stepmother figure, and her even more appalling ‘helper’. Coriander has a hard time, and it takes her years to find her way back to some kind of normal life. In fairness, she has also created some wonderful and strong minor characters, who all have their part to play. I loved the story, but I must admit to not having ‘got’ the very end.

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.