Walker Books and a witch with wet hands

As usual it was a case of waving your hands (or in this case, my hands) under the drier for absolutely forever, wipe them on your clothes, or go wet, hoping there’d be no hands to shake. You can guess which I chose, and what happened next, can’t you?

I was at the presentation of Walker Books’ and Constable & Robinson’s Autumn Highlights in Manchester on Wednesday evening, when I came face to face with Jo for the first time, and had to quickly get out of the handshaking she had in mind. This flustered me so much I forgot to mention my name. (But everyone knows me, right?) Besides, I’d already got the decrepit old woman treatment. Staff at the venue saw me negotiating the steps outside (which had NO handrail) and quickly bundled me into the lift before I caused more trouble.

Super-Jake was there, but I forgot to check his footwear. Representatives of our local LitFest and bookshops and that most Wondrous of blogs could also be seen. I was quite restrained prior to the talk, as I noticed there were partybags in one corner, which meant I did no stealing or anything beforehand.

Constable & Robinson went first, and I’d not realised that books on prescription, which I have heard of, is for non-fiction self-help type books, rather than patients being made to feel better after a dose of Pride and Prejudice…

They are big on halogen oven books. (Don’t ask.) They are the leaders in cosy crime. You can have books on WWII pets for Christmas. Obviously. C & R have begun offering children’s books, and they had an instructive video on how to fight zombies. (Head removal is recommended.) Gross. Shaun Ryder on UFOs. (It would have helped if I knew who Shaun Ryder is.) Joan Collins is nearly 80, in case you wanted to know. They have a book titled Going on a Bar Hunt. Droll.

This being very much a presentation for booksellers, I now know a lot more about which books are commercial, something I rarely consider in my narrow little world. There will be joke books for Christmas. And they have just begun a relationship with Brian McGilloway, who I am very interested in.

On to Walker Books, who are planning a picture book party. I think that means they have lots of picture books to offer. Vivian French has something new going; Stargirl Academy. Looks good. Pink. Anthony Browne is a Marmite author, which I can understand. That gorilla still scares me.

Cassandra Clare was there last year, before she grew so big that she doesn’t do this kind of talk. She has a film on the way. Nice for her.

Walker have travel guides, and there is new stuff for fans of GHMILY (Guess How Much I Love You books). Mumsnet have done a story collection. In fact, I reckon there is one thing parents want more than anything else. They want their children to fall asleep. Lots of books for that purpose.

Manatees and bears. A book about someone pecking (I’m thinking – hoping – woodpecker) all the way through.  Going on a Bear Hunt is out again. Michael Morpurgo will be 70, and four of his books are being re-issued, including one about funny old men who are famous artists.

Speaking of funny, Tommy Donbavand has a new series called Fangs. Walker are really really really really thrilled to be working with Anthony McGowan and his new book Hello Darkness. Patrick Ness wasn’t there except on video, where he did his best to sound interesting while not giving too much away about his new novel More Than This. His Chaos trilogy, meanwhile, is being revamped for old people.

My notes say ‘spider skeleton.’ I think there’s a book about things like spider skeletons. Kate DiCamillo and her dog spoke to us all the way from their Minneapolis dining room. While the dog made dog noises, Kate told us about her mother’s obsession with her 1952 vacuum cleaner and what would happen to it after she died. Kate’s new book Flora and Ulysses also features squirrels.

Anthony Horowitz has finally come to the end of his Power of Five books, so has had time to write Russian Roulette, the Alex Rider prequel he has had in mind for absolutely ages. He is quite satisfied with it.

Lizzy Bennet (I apologise for sounding so informal) wrote a diary in her pre-Darcy days, which will give us an opportunity to find out all kinds of stuff.

Finally, Walker are publishing the Little Island imprint, which is foreign fiction. I spied a Swedish title in among the covers they showed us, and think it’s high time there are more books from other countries.

As you can see, they had a lot to tell us. They hadn’t rehearsed, so were surprised to find it took them so long. But at the end there were canapés and more drinks and even a few authors; Steve Tasane, Sarah Webb and Katy Moran. Someone else, too. At least I think there was.

I grabbed my partybag and hobbled away home. There was NO handrail on the way out either…

Blame My Brain – the review

I can safely say I have never felt the urge to crawl into a supermarket trolley. And doing so with vodka, would appear to make it more crowded, so I don’t really think I will bother. While on the subject of trolleys and supermarkets, I enjoyed visualising Mr M and his wife out hunter gathering in their local Sainsbury’s. (Wine and cheese hunted down by Mr M, and porridge oats successfully gathered by the wife, as she’s been programmed to do. Or so I imagine.)

Mr M’s wife, Nicola Morgan, has written a book about brains, as humorously as ever. It’s a bit of a trademark of hers; humour and wit. And lots of it. There is a new edition out of Blame My Brain, which contrary to what I’d imagined has actually been written for the teenagers themselves. Those with the brains in question.

It explains a lot, including why I was a perfect teenager (as elaborated on here by Nicola yesterday), and why I am also such a perfect parent. It’s not easy (actually, it is) but someone has to be.

BMB is very interesting, and should be extremely helpful to those in need. Teenagers with teenage brains, and their parents who have already forgotten what it was like to have one.

There is science to base almost every fact on, and the best thing is that even if you don’t fit the stereotype, it doesn’t matter. The world has a use for all sorts of people; the perfect ones, and those temporarily a little bit odd. (I believe that’s the one with the vodka in the trolley.)

I can’t decide who will benefit the most from reading BMB. The young person who needs reassurance that they are totally normal, or the unsympathetic oldies who don’t think they are. Both probably.

And seeing as you not only get better at something by doing it – repeatedly – but you can learn to do quite a bit of it by watching someone else do it, I’d say us oldies have a duty to perform, and to do it well. That way we will be looked after by someone in our even older age. Someone looking after us as well as we do our own oldies.

Or some such theory.

(At no time when chased by a lion have I felt so depressed that I have fallen asleep. Which could be why I’ve made it this far.)

The Asperkid’s Secret Book of Social Rules

This book struck me as such a good idea when I first encountered its author Jennifer Cook O’Toole in a Guardian article about her own family. She is an aspie, married to another aspie, and with three aspie children. So, plenty of aspie experience to build a book on.

For the most part it lives up to that promise. It is primarily for younger people, and it has lists of pitfalls to keep in mind and learn coping strategies for. There are short chapters dealing with each individual problem area, with amusing illustrations to bring the message home, and making it easier to remember.

Most of the advice is very good, and coming from someone with personal experience it rings true. It will even work for people who are no longer children, setting aside any particular school age advice. Because it is aimed at children the book has some definite dos and don’ts. I feel they are a little too prescriptive, though.

I know aspies need rules, but if the suggestion is slightly ‘wrong’ or not appropriate for an individual (since even aspies are individuals) it could be taken at face value and steer someone in the wrong direction. There were one or two rules I disagree with, and someone else might find others they would feel were not quite right. And since Jennifer is an adult telling a child reader things, we are sort of back to square one again. (My other thought is that as Jennifer is an aspie, she could have got hold of the wrong end of the stick on occasion.)

This book is also very American. It makes the advice not useful for some aspects of normal life for the rest of us. And, Jennifer is writing for the most able aspies; the ‘close to being normal’ people. Advice on using makeup will not sit well with typical aspies. Social rules must not overrule someone’s comfort to the extent they can’t function. In Britain we don’t have the kind of sales staff who can be expected to advise on someone’s complete wardrobe.

And you mustn’t be poor, or have a non-typical family surrounding you, which will rule out many on the autistic spectrum.

But, it does have some great lists! I’d like to be able to pick my own favourites from those lists, to personalise a guidebook for someone. But short of rewriting it all, or cutting the book to pieces…

The book is best for urging young people to carefully consider who they trust, and who is a real friend. Not to think negative thoughts about yourself. Above all, to say no to anything and anyone if something feels wrong. Things don’t have to feel wrong. Better friendless than surrounded by the wrong people.

Nordic Noir

Before I knew what I was doing, I was hauling a Nordic (well, Swedish) crime novel off the shelf to read. That’s how fired up I got once I started on Barry Forshaw’s Nordic Noir guide book.

He knows a lot about this subject. More than most. Certainly more than I do. And that made me envious and I wanted to begin my new career as a Nordic crime specialist, which is when I discovered the book I’d found was in English. So I put it away again, and I will pick something else. Later.

I will never be an expert on Nordic crime. Barry didn’t set out to be. It just happened to him. Now he has read quite a bit, and he has met most of who’s who in this genre. And in Nordic Noir he shares it with us.

This slim volume is probably more for looking things up in, than to sit down and read from cover to cover. Barry lists books from all six countries, includes interviews with authors, as well as talking about recent films and television shows. There’s not much that’s missing.

The Swedish section is the largest – naturally – and the Faroese is definitely the smallest, with the other four countries nestling in the middle. For a non-Nordic speaker Barry has steered an almost perfect route between å and ä and ö, past ø and ð. The few near misses could be due to printers, and not the author. Only the one Norwegian writer has ended up listed as a Swede, but these things happen.

And when Henning Mankell saw mice, he did so in a posh London hotel. These things happen, too.

Any fan of Nordic darkness could do worse than equip themselves with Barry’s guide. You know, you could show off a little next time you’re in the right kind of conversation.

Rat Runners

What a marvellous film Rat Runners would make! It’s a great book, but I spent my time reading it seeing the film it could be turned into. Daughter won’t like me saying this, but it’s precisely the kind of thing she likes watching on television. (So read the book!)

This must be Oisín McGann’s best book to date. I have enjoyed all the ones I’ve read, but do feel Rat Runners has that little bit extra. Set in a slightly futuristic London, it’s much as we know the place, except for the way everything is policed and what people can do. They have a kind of robotic – but live – watcher who can see everything, bar your thoughts. Possibly.

Nimmo is under age and isn’t allowed to live on his own, but he does anyway, having made a deal with the scientist Brundle who owns the building. When Brundle is murdered Nimmo wants to find out who did it and why. He also ends up having to search for something that Brundle had, which it turns out all the crooks in London want.

He is made leader of a group of three other adolescents – Scope, Mannikin and FX – and their job is to find this item. The four each have special skills, taken straight from your favourite thrillers. The youngest is twelve, and they all have something that their ‘boss’ can use as leverage to force them work for him.

Very exciting, and I am more than ready for the next one. I can’t see that we are done yet.

Bookwitch bites #97

Let’s start with a stolen photo, shall we? (My thieving is getting worse. Or better, depending on how you look at it.) Here is a photo, which might have been taken by Gill Lewis, winner of the Salford award last week. It was on her Twitter, anyway. And the lady between Jamie Thomson and Josh Lacey is not Gill, but Barbara Mitchelhill, who narrowly avoided that dinner.

Another award is Sefton Super Reads. They have announced their shortlist for the summer, and it’s pretty good. The lady above is on it, for instance. And so are some of my other favourites, and some unknowns (to me).

• Ruth Eastham, Messenger Bird
• Fabio Geda, In the Sea There Are Crocodiles
• Caroline Green, Cracks
• Barbara Mitchelhill, Road to London
• J. D. Sharpe, Oliver Twisted
• David Walliams, Ratburger

In fact, there are awards absolutely everywhere. Declan Burke could be in for an Edgar for his hard work on Books To Die For, along with John Connolly. I don’t know who or what they are up against, but if ever a book and its creators deserved an Edgar, Books To Die For must be it.

While we are in an awards kind of mood, it appears Adrian McKinty is on the shortlist for The Last Laugh for The Cold Cold Ground, which will be awarded at Crimefest later this year.

Finally – in more ways than one – Nick Green’s The Storm Bottle is available to buy. That’s over three years since I reviewed it, which happened by some odd fluke (me looking into the future, kind of thing). So far it’s ‘only’ on Kindle, but if you only ever buy one Kindle book in your life (although that sounds a bit unlikely, now that I stop and think) this has to be it. The Storm Bottle! Very good book! Sad. Funny. Exciting. Does not end the way you expect it to.

Dolphins can definitely talk.

Two more bests

There are two more books I really feel deserve another mention for their general excellence. My ‘best of’ for the year is for children’s books. But 2012 had a lot of good books to offer, and some of them are for the ‘older reader.’

If I had had a best adult novel category, the award would go to Adrian McKinty for The Cold Cold Ground, which is as close to perfect as you get with a crime novel.

And I don’t often read reference books, but Books To Die For, edited by Declan Burke and John Connolly, is just that. A reference book to die for. Except we don’t want to die. We only want to read about the most fantastic crime novels, in which people might well die.

Those Irish know a thing or two about crime.

To finish off in style – it is the weekend, after all – I give you the glamorous face of Irish crime. The other one just writes books.

Animal Magic

I feel for the little Polkadot Frog. I really do.

You know me. I’m not good with poetry, but I still wanted to read Liz Brownlee’s Animal Magic. It sounded all right. And it’s poems about endangered species, with one page of facts about the animal in question, and a poem about it on the next page.

Some of the poems, no actually, quite a few of them, are shaped like their animal, which makes for fun reading. The giraffe poem has a giraffe-shaped poem. That sort of thing.

The poems come with illustrations of the animals as well, very nicely done by Rose Sanderson. She’s good with frogs. There are lots of frogs.

Except, soon there won’t be. The humans are misbehaving and far too many animal species will be gone forever.

That’s where poor Polkadot Frog comes in. He is not merely endangered, but he was only discovered recently because his habitat was chopped down to build a road. Just imagine, you’re only found when it’s already too late!

So it’s rather sad that we get to read these poems, and then the ‘main characters’ will disappear. Some already have.

(The fact pages have been checked by experts on each animal, and it looks to me as if there’s a lot of useful stuff there. At the back of the book you will also find a glossary and reference lists, as well as advice on who would like your money to try and stop this dreadful behaviour of ours.)

Animal Magic would do well in schools. If they have any sense.

The 19th edition

of Brewer’s Dictionary of Phase and Fable is here! Happily for me it comes recommended by Philip Pullman* and Terry Pratchett. Also by the Resident IT Consultant, who yet again has been permitted to take over. This time he has really gone to town, but a reference book like Brewer’s deserves it.

My ignorant immigrant self has never quite worked out what it’s for. Because I seem to have been adopted by an old looking version of Brewer’s, I got it out again for comparison, and I noticed it even smells old. It wasn’t until I read the review below, that I grasped it is a facsimile edition. (Doesn’t explain the smell, but…)

Anyway, this very useful book has been subjected to a harsh test, and it seems to have come out of it fairly unscathed. Funny that my very own King had something to do with it, but there you are.

“I first discovered Brewer’s Dictionary of Phase and Fable in my local library more than forty years ago and have owned a facsimile of the 1894 edition for many years. I have always regarded it as a reliable source of arcane nineteenth century facts so I was rather surprised to discover that new editions have been published every three or four years since 1959. This latest is edited by Susie Dent and published by Chambers Harrap.

A new edition implies new material and there are indeed new entries for such terms as ‘quantitative easing’, ‘Tea Party’, big society’ and ‘app’ together with new lists of Internet social networking acronyms (so there is no excuse for misunderstanding LOL) and eggcorns (phrases which enter the language as a result of linguistic errors by speakers who have misheard an original).

How do you review a reference book like this in an age when it seems as if any question can be answered instantly on the Internet? I decided to pick ten entries at random and explore how easy it was to learn about them on the Internet.

First came the Geneva Bull, a nickname given to the seventeenth century Presbyterian divine Stephen Marshall. You can find this on the Internet (mainly in 19th century works in Google Books), but it’s not in Wikipedia, or in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica from which Wikipedia derives its entry.

Next was half-blue. This is easy to find. Wikipedia provides a detailed account of the operation of the Oxbridge blues system, though you have to dig around in it to find out what a half-blue is. Most online dictionaries provide an equivalent definition.

My next selection was the hero of medieval English romance, Guy of Warwick. Brewer’s provides a succinct synopsis of the stories and legends surrounding him, mentioning the works in which they are to be found. Wikipedia provides more detail, and traces the role of the story in literary history.

Fourth was the Cabbage Garden, a nickname applied to the Australian state of Victoria. This would be hard to find from the Internet. Wikipedia has an entry for the Cabbage Garden but it refers to a burial ground in Dublin! Only when you know to look for its use in the context of Victoria can you find it using Google. Even then there is some dispute about its age as a nickname, though Partridge agrees with Brewer that it comes from the 1920s.

‘Sac and soc’ is a phrase used to describe rights in private jurisdiction conveyed in land transfers around the time of the Norman Conquest. You can find references to it in online dictionaries but it is only when you realise that it’s the same as ‘sake and soke’ that you find a more thorough account in Wikipedia.

My next choice came from a list of famous last words. Gustavus Adolphus, the Swedish king killed at the battle of Lützen in 1632 (during the Thirty Years War) is reported to have said ‘I am sped brother. Save thyself.’ I cannot find these words anywhere else. There seems to be fairly clear consensus that Gustaf Adolphus’s last words were Gud vare mig nådelig, literally translated as ‘God be merciful’ or simply ‘My God’, which is what most Internet sources report.

Next was yellow card, as used in football. Wikipedia provides a detailed account of yellow and red cards in different sports. Most online dictionaries explain what a yellow card is but Brewer’s goes slightly further by explaining its use in relation to a subsequent red card.

The eighth entry was one of several under Two, The two-legged mare, said to be a sobriquet for the gallows. It’s fairly easy to discover this from the Internet, though some confusion arises from the fact that the gallows that stood at Tyburn (roughly on the site of the modern Marble Arch) in London until 1783 had three verticals and was called the ‘three-legged mare’. This is presumably the origin of its use as an inn sign. Partridge confirms that both nicknames were used, and dates their use from 1565.

Liberty ships came next. Brewer describes them as ‘standardised prefabricated cargo ships of about 10,000 tons, much used by the USA during the Second World War.’ Online dictionaries tend not to provide so much detail, particularly in relation to their prefabrication or their size. Wikipedia, as usual, provides much more detail.

Finally came ‘Shurely Shome Mishtake’ included in a list of phrases from Private Eye that have entered popular culture. The origin of this phrase is fairly easy to find on the Internet though Wikipedia cites it as ‘shome mishtake, shurely’ and it is difficult to establish which form has priority. Possibly both were used.

Only four of these entries can be found in my 1894 facsimile. Two-legged mare and Geneva Bull have had their language updated but are essentially unchanged. Guy of Warwick has been completely rewritten and is now much more concise and less flowery, though without its former literary references. There are no entries for half-blue or sac and soc (despite the fact that both terms must have been current in 1894). Gustaf Adolphus’ last words, listed in 1894 under ‘Dying Sayings’, are ‘My God!’

This randomly chosen list of entries gives a good indication of the range of subjects covered by Brewer’s though there is no attempt at completeness: Bonnie and Clyde, Bonnie Dundee and Bonnie Prince Charlie are included but not the Bonnie Earl O’ Moray; the Dashing White Sargent is included but not Strip The Willow; God Particle is included but not Higgs Boson (a cross reference would be enough).

Nevertheless the book is tremendous fun to browse in, and I think that is its main strength. It is generally very well cross referenced so, for example, ‘Geneva Bull’ is referenced from the heading for ‘Bull’ as well as ‘Geneva’. This makes it easy to find an entry and often tempts the reader to follow an intriguing cross reference.

It would make a good source of quiz questions. For example, what links James Hogg, Sir Walter Raleigh and the eighteenth century prime minister George Grenville? Their nicknames. They are, respectively, the Ettrick Shepherd, the Shepherd of the Oceans (Edmund Spencer) and the Gentle Shepherd (William Pitt).”

* As Philip says ‘before you know what’s happened, it’s time for lunch.’ I know that feeling. Except at Bookwitch Towers it was more like next week.

Bookwitch bites #87

As you might have noticed, I have found Terry Pratchett’s horses. Go back to Thursday’s blog where the lovely horses, and the carriage, have been added. Oh, go on, I’ll put the horses here too.

While I’m feeling a bit Pratchetty, I’ll post this link to an interview Terry did in the spring, on the Late Late Show. Me being me, I thought of the American Late Show. Was very relieved to find it was an Irish namesake, because the quality of the interview was rather better for it.

My journey to Soho on Wednesday wasn’t quite in the style of Sir Terry’s, but it was OK. You know how I am a witch? I looked at the London train before mine (Is it only in the UK you worry so much about your connecting train being late, that you catch the one before?) and thought to myself I had never seen the 11-coach Pendolino. (Is this too geeky?) So, obviously my train when it arrived turned out to be an 11-coach Pendolino.

That means that coaches E and G no longer join together, but have coaches F and U between them. (Fascinating, isn’t it?) I sat in E. In case anyone is interested.

So that’s where I ended up assisting in the translating of a Danish press release about the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and you-know-what. At the time I thought ‘oh, it will be some sort of homework,’ until I recalled the caller no longer is in a place where homework is handed out.

I’m going to have to find some sort of Danish-English dictionary if this is going to go on. (It has, already. Gone on.) I have done deeds, also in Danish. And I don’t even ‘get’ them in Swedish.

The travelling has been paused. I need a rest. Although, I am considering ScareFest 3 on Saturday 6th of October, in Crosby Civic Hall. At least if my horse and carriage will get me there. If it does, I will be entertained by Philip Caveney, Curtis Jobling, Jon Mayhew, Tommy Donbavand, Joseph Delaney, Barry Hutchison and David Gatward (who I don’t know at all).

Apparently it’s Halloween come early. You need to catch the little ones before half term.