Bookwitch bites #106

It is – dare I say it? – getting warmer. Let’s throw the covers off. (For me personally that means one layer less. Maybe.)

Neil Gaiman has unveiled his cover for later this year. Fortunately the Milk will look like this:

Chris Riddell made that cover. He also did these illustrations – and presumably many more – for the book.

I was going to say I can’t wait. But I will have to. Fortunately the Milk will appear roundabout the time when I put another layer back on again.

And you know those other kinds of covers? The ones of girls, that scare me a little. Teri Terry’s Slated and Fractured both feature a girl on the cover, and oddly enough earlier this week I had wondered if they were the same girl. They look the same. And they don’t. A couple of days later Teri  blogged about her covers and the model (who is only the one girl). Now that I’ve seen what ‘Kyla’ looks like privately I am less scared. There is something about ‘the cover look,’ though.

I think – because I am quite forgetful – that this last cover comes from my ‘facebook friend’ Arga Bibliotekstanten. That’s Angry Library Lady to you. She used to blog, but got fed up, and now has a large following on fb. Hardly surprising, as she’s forever giving us pictures of handsome men (posing with a book, naturally) to drool over or amusing ones to laugh at, and her acerbic comments about the users of her Swedish library are quite something. I hope I am never one of her customers!

Bookwitch bites #101

Who wants books when they can have videos? You do?

OK, I will let you have book related video clips, then. With real live authors. Who to start with? I know it’s usually ladies first, but let’s get the boys out of the way. Just to get them out of the way.

That Lemony Snicket chap hasn’t given up yet. He has more weird books coming our way, and someone is about to tell you as little as possible about the next one. It’s what’s known as a leak. (No, not that kind of leak!)

http://www.egmont.co.uk/lemonysnicketleak/

Our second boy is less secretive. We can actually see what Neil Gaiman looks like as he talks about his new book (October in this case) Fortunately, The Milk… which is a book about milk, as well as many other silly things. Third boy, Chris Riddell, is doing wonderful illustrations of interstellar dinosaurs to go with the milk.

Moving on to the girls, we have Julia Skott, who will have her first book published later this year (and it has just struck me I don’t know in what language…). It’s non-fiction and it’s about bodies and health. Julia is the daughter of a Swedish journalist and a Russian academic, which is why she sounds like this when she speaks:

http://juliaskott.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/video-bokangest/

Someone who sounds pretty English and also pretty involved with saving libraries, is Fiona Dunbar, being grilled by someone on Sky News (who seems a little anti-library). Very brave of Fiona to venture into a television studio like this. Some of us would have seized up completely…

Finally to our last girls, who are not on video. There is a brand new blog featuring the life and works of Joan Aiken, run by her daughter Lizza. I wasn’t surprised to find a very early story by Joan on there, in facsimile. She clearly had the story-telling gene working right from the start. It’s about a teapot, and Satan. Obvious choice, really.

Joan also has a facebook page now. Please like!

The Bone Trail

It says something about my enthusiasm for the Wyrmeweald trilogy that I was willing to get up close to this A4 sized, one inch thick manuscript of the third book, The Bone Trail, which Random so kindly sent me when I moaned impatiently back in November.

I have to agree with Chris Riddell again. He and Paul Stewart really have written a very fine story. (Maybe he didn’t put it quite like that. That sounds like boasting. He’s a more modest man than that. But I can say it.)

The story carries on exactly where we left the characters in Bloodhoney. Micah and Eli find themselves with another couple of travel companions, and I spent some time working out how people would get paired off. I wrongly sacrificed one of them to a very bad fate.

There is discontent spreading from so many directions, and I worried in case the whole thing had to end in mayhem. It was bad for some. Some of them deserved it. Others didn’t.

When there is love, the love is very tender and good. The hate is pretty magnificent, too.

This is nearly all about migration. People and other creatures want – or need – to move somewhere new, and it doesn’t always work out. But just as in real life, immigrants aren’t to be despised; nor are they always going where they should go.

It’s touching, the lengths people go to to save or improve their lives. Wyrme-weald could be about both the European emigration to the new world in the west, as well as the spread of people from the east to the west, once they got there. Respect the natives when you arrive. Don’t assume you know better than those who have been there longer than you.

As usual, I kept hoping Paul and Chris would have a reasonably happy ending to offer, despite the bleak outlook when all the bad developments gathered. But I really couldn’t see how.

You won’t be disappointed.

The Gaiman effect

WordPress sent me their cheery stats for 2012. There really does not seem to be much one can do about Neil Gaiman. His fans create havoc when they land here, and very welcome havoc it is too.

At least the post about Neil – and Chris Riddell, actually – was written during 2012. As WordPress pointed out, some of my most popular ones are oldies, which means my writing has staying power. Apparently. They suggest I should write more about these topics. Which, apart from Mr Gaiman, seem to have been me (cough), Terry Pratchett, the Barrowmans and Cats with Asperger Syndrome.

Sort of a varied selection, then?

You came here from 162 countries, and Twitter sent you. Or Eoin Colfer, or John Barrowman. But funnily enough you were mostly interested in me (again), Oliver Jeffers, Liz Kessler, Jacqueline Wilson and Michael Faraday.

Stats are weird, but then, so am I.

Here’s to 2013 when I will not be taking things quite as easy as I ought to. You can see how the W – for witch – wobbles above the fireworks. Tired already.

Bookwitch bites #93

Luckily I didn’t run into either of these two chaps as I haunted Edinburgh this week. Twice. That’s twice I didn’t see them. In fact, I forgot to even think about Philip Caveney and whoever that is behind him. ‘He’s behind you!’ Lucky, seeing as I was running around all alone in the dark.

Lucky too, that I had not yet come across Chris Priestley’s A Creepy Christmas, the story he has written for 247 tales. That is another thing you don’t want to have on your mind as you’re out alone, in the dark or otherwise. Good to see that the 247 tales are still going strong.

Pleased to hear that Bali Rai won one of the categories at the Sheffield Book Awards this week; his quick read The Gun. Obviously, other books won too, and even more were commended. Read all about it here.

Have been alerted that Sophie Hannah – who seems to be successful at just about everything these days – has been shortlisted for the Nibbies. The event is on Tuesday next week. Lots of other authors are also on the various shortlists, and pirates would appear to be in as far as children’s book titles are concerned. (It was hard to find the lists, however. Something wrong with google? Can’t be me, can it?)

But I did find it a little tricky to discover the Costa shortlist, as well. (So definitely not me, then.) Sally Gardner, Diana Hendry, Hayley Long and Dave Shelton are this year’s hopefuls. I’ve read two.

And speaking of awards, I was very happy to hear that Barry Hutchison got married last week. He had proposed in a fairly public sort of way, by putting it in one of his books. Glad it paid off, and that he has now been made an honest man of. More good Hutchison news is the arrival of the cover for The Book of Doom. Would quite like for the rest of the book to get here, too. Fast.

Fast is what another book would have managed, had I not been so busy running around a darkened Edinburgh. (See top.) A very early incarnation of The Bone Trail, the last in the Wyrmeweald trilogy by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell has been made available to me. I happened to mention I wasn’t feeling especially patient.

Arrived home to find DHL had missed me. (Miss you too.) I arranged for redelivery on Monday. Except they turned up yesterday. As I squeezed the package (to find out what it might be, the way you do) it felt like a rucksack. Couldn’t see why Random House would send me one of those.

I will now stick a plain sheet of A4 to the back of The Bone Trail to prevent me accidentally looking at what seems to be the last page of the book. A witch likes some element of surprise.

Bloodhoney

‘Do not feel you need to review it’ said Chris Riddell about his and Paul Stewart’s second Wyrmeweald novel. I need to! Badly. Bloodhoney is even better than Returner’s Wealth, and as Chris pointed out ’It doesn’t suffer from the slow start of the first and has some rather deeper subtexts.’ It does. It certainly does.

I should probably not bring up the sourdough bread again, but it works. Now that I know what Wyrmeweald is and that I like Micah and Eli Halfwinter, and Thrace and Aseel, and a few more (not many more, though, because the book is populated by unpleasant people and creatures), it’s like slipping into something comfortable. No further need to get to know this world. You know precisely where you are.

Mind you, it’s not necessarily comfortable knowledge. Eli and Micah and Thrace are under threat, and now that fullwinter has arrived, it seems nowhere is safe. If your enemies don’t get you, the climate will. Don’t get too comfortable; it can’t last.

Kith or kin, you get bad ones and you get good ones. With keld you only get bad. There are good wyrmes and bad wyrmes. And both kith and wyrmes are looking for somewhere safe to stop, where they can live in peace. You can see history repeating itself over and over, and in more than one place.

This is another violent and bloody story, but I think I have an inkling of where we are heading. Eli is a very wise man, and Micah is lucky to have him for his friend. As for the Bloodhoney of the title, you don’t want to know. Stay away from it.

More beautiful black and white drawings by Chris at the start of each chapter make this a very attractive book, as well as a marvellous read. Virtually unputdownable.

Putting EIBF 2012 to bed

At least here. They have a few more days to go in Charlotte Square, but I shall bore you with some photos. Or infuriate you, because it will make your page too slow to load.

We aim to please.

This is what it should be all about. Reading. On the spot.

Jenny Colgan, who so very kindly helped out a Doctor Who fan in distress. Here is a link to what her event was like, courtesy of HG2G. (No, not the hitchhiker…)

Another thing the edbookfest is about. Books.

And the ‘interrogation gazebo’ where interviews can take place.

Stumbling across illustrators illustrating al fresco.

Or being told off for profile photos. Sorry…

The famous water in Charlotte Square, where it hides underneath the walkways and jumps up to get you.

Californian authors can’t be too careful, and might as well adopt the local custom of carrying a brolly.

The competition Hopes of a Nation in the bookshop.

I have absolutely no idea why this photo was taken.

Tree light.

Sitting down on the job.

And the MP for Kirkcaldy dropped in. We nearly dropped. But we are almost rested again, and as good as new.

(That was a lie, intended to make you feel better.)

The other mother strikes back

What I like about Neil Gaiman is his calm. Especially on a night like Monday, when it was touch and go whether we would have an event with him at all. A family emergency meant he had to return home immediately after his talk with Chris Riddell, leaving the latter to do the book signing on his own.

I obviously like a few more things about this unflappable man, and his event with Chris was just what fans want. Both are born entertainers, and worked perfectly together, including their impromptu reading of a chapter in Coraline, accompanied by simultaneous illustrating.

Because that’s what they were talking about; the tenth birthday edition of Coraline with button eye illustrations by Chris. Button eyes were what we got to see as Chris drew for us on the whatchamacallit on stage. I’m sure I wasn’t alone in wondering how he does it, and how he makes it look so easy. I mean, if he made it look hard, we’d all admire him more, wouldn’t we? And the publishers could pay him more.

Coraline is anything but ‘the new Harry Potter,’ which is why Bloomsbury got to publish it. They were the ones who had the old Potter, and could allow Coraline to be Coraline.

The big tent was packed to the rafters, but I was alone. My companion has a problem with the buttons. At first I thought she was missing out on a great night for no reason, but that was until the eyes joined the discussion. Narrow escape.

As Neil said of himself, he is the kind of man who will lead you into the woods, and then let go of your hand and run away and leave you. He is also the kind of man who can go into a bookshop and ask what really weird horror books for four-year-olds they stock. It appears they had none.

Coraline was his answer to the lack of such books, but he was so busy he had to write it in bed, 50 words every night, in place of his bedtime read. And once it was due to be published, Bloomsbury – who had not heard of this Neil Gaiman before – decided on a paperback. Booksellers – who had – demanded a hardback, because they knew they could sell a more expensive book. They could and they did, but the UK edition had no pictures, on the grounds that Dave McKean’s illustrations were too weird. Not so weird that they didn’t make it into the subsequent paperback, however. And now it’s Chris Riddell’s turn to draw those eyes.

Chris had already done the children’s version of The Graveyard Book, so he and Neil knew where they were. He’s almost as weird, actually. He marinates his stories in the 18th drawer, getting them out to look at, before putting them back again. He likes standalone books, as part of trilogies. Well, who doesn’t?

Coraline is a popular book in libraries. It is often stolen.

In a funny way the two men were so alike, I can no longer remember which of them had bought crates of wine called Writer’s Block. But as Neil said, if you have it, you deal with it by drinking your Writer’s Block.

After an hour of crazy talk, we had to get up and leave. There was the time’s up warning in the shape of a low flying plane. Very noisy. As someone said, if that was Neil’s plane, he might as well stay.

He didn’t. He told the story of when his daughter asked him why he signs his books Nell Gurgle, and could she do it too? No she couldn’t, but he left saying Chris was allowed to.

So Chris Nell Gurgled for both of them.

Close encounters of several kinds

Her condition for crawling out of bed early on Monday morning, was that Barry Hutchison should buy Daughter a Coke. Just to keep going. As it happened, Barry needed to keep going as well, so that was two Cokes plus a water for the witch, for our interview at the hotel across the road, first thing. Barry and I have been trying to synchronise our diaries for months, and success finally arrived in the shape of the book festival.

We interviewed and laughed and had fun, even on fairly little sleep. I’m so excited I will have to go and read some of Barry’s Fiendish books now.

With another eleven hours of our festival day to go, we ventured over to Charlotte Square for the morning’s event with Sally Gardner and Celia Rees, chaired by Nicola Morgan.

Towards the end of their fascinating talk, Daughter crept out for one of her most important photocalls. The one with Frank Close, who had been joined by none other than Peter Higgs of Boson fame. The two physicists cavorted and posed as though they were really actors. Well done!

Meanwhile your witch was on camera duty in the bookshop, doing her utmost best to do justice to Sally and Celia. Luckily the real photographer popped up to repair most of my mistakes. The ladies had so many fans queueing that I didn’t even get the chance to chat. I left an incoherent message with Nicola and ran for the sold out talk on Particle Physics (which in turn meant I had to leave Barry Hutchison and his 13 horsemen to their fate…)

It was great. And in case you feel that isn’t enough information about this year’s big happening, rest assured I will follow up with detailed events reports.

We did double camera duty for the queue at the signing afterwards. The queue was as busy as you’d expect for Particle Physics signings. Daughter put her fan hat on and got close to Peter Higgs, who kindly signed his colleague’s book.

Meanwhile I turned 180 degrees and caught Andy Stanton who was signing on the opposite side. Still. He had been there two hours earlier, signing, with enormous queue across the square. Andy was singing and joking and chatting as though he wasn’t even tired. (And the ladies in the Ladies were gushing about how wonderful he had been… Just so you know.)

Not being able to catch Celia still, we departed for lunch. She phoned while we were reviving ourselves, and we agreed that her Edinburgh visit was just too short for that elusive interview. We will manage it one day. Third time lucky, perhaps.

Back to Charlotte Square to catch Sally before her event with Barry (which I also had to miss), to take some much needed proper photos. Her outfit for the day, of which you can’t see much here, unfortunately, was as great as ever.

Daughter wandered off and encountered Chris Riddell drawing in the middle of the square, having drawn a large circle of people around him. And then we went to join the unusually large crowd of photographers in ‘the studio,’ where we stood around for a long while, waiting, and me staring at the FBI type by the gate. But eventually the festival’s director popped along to greet Gordon Brown as he was ushered in. He disappeared after stopping for a split second for photos, after which we hung around for another half hour until the former PM returned and gave us a couple of minutes for proper photos. He was there to give the NLS Donald Dewar Lecture, and his queue was a long one.

Trying to grab some internet, we headed back to the hotel, which we left rather quickly when the fire alarm went. So that was more or less goodbye to the internet again. Michael Palin cavorted outside the yurt, and then for the paparazzi. Daughter went to hear Michael talk, along with a few hundred others. Apparently he was GOOD!

In amongst eating more cold pizza (yes, we do have a large supply of this ancient cheese topped bread) I managed to take some photos of Sjón and Jess Richards. Everybody is talking about this Icelandic author, but I know almost nothing about Sjón.

I was afraid I’d have to do the honours (photographic variety) for Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell, but was saved by prompt arrival of the real photographer. Neil had previously been posing for Chris Close. Lying down. That won’t have done much – good – to his clothes. Black as usual. Black with grime afterwards, I imagine. Edinburgh started Monday with rain, leaving the ground in a eugh state.

I popped along to Neil’s and Chris’s event, which was even better than you’d expect from such a pairing. We were lucky to have Neil at all, since he had to depart for home straight afterwards, due to a family crisis. Chris signed for the two of them. Sort of.

If I paid myself overtime I’d have been rich after a Monday like this Monday. But I don’t, so I’m not. But it was good. Apart from the internet.

Cursed

Did I accidentally point my wand in the wrong direction? At myself, I mean. NOTHING works.

Sorry to moan. People here are so nice. But the technical hitches are driving us mad. Not that we weren’t mad before. We are just worse now. Popped back to the hotel across the road for some internetting.

You can guess what happened, can’t you? The fire alarm went. So out we went. Back to whence we came, which included crossing the road in reading specs. But I could see well enough to admire Baby Gray. Lovely little lady.

Chris Riddell is a very kind man, too.

If I’m sounding disjointed, it is because I am. Could have been my exploding spell.