Binge reading

Why am I such an idiot? (Only answer that if you’re going to be nice to me.)

I’ve been getting too carried away with reviewing, and doing so as close to the publication date as I can, feeing stupidly unhelpful when I post a review six or twelve months afterwards. I tell myself no one objects to a review of their book, whenever it happens. But you know, I’m good on guilt.

So, with a view to changing my behaviour, I stared at my TBR piles, and thought ‘I’ll begin with all my favourites or books I know for certain will be top notch.’ How that will go is anyone’s guess, but for today, my sixth birthday, I am indulging in Hilary McKay. I have been stringing her darling Casson books out for far too long. I shall binge!

For someone who as a child would neither save her sweets nor share them with others, I don’t know why I’m not bingeing all the time. (I suppose I do. I’m an idiot.)

Before my interview with Debi Gliori a few years ago, I Strega-binged over a relatively short time, to make sure I had read all the Pure Dead books; the better to interrogate her.

And thinking back to that happy spring, I don’t reckon I’ve suffered any ill effects.

Perhaps I don’t need to dole out a book per annum when I happen to have some lovely stashes of ‘I know I will love these’ books?

Hilary today, and then who knows?

Although I am aware that some new favourites might have gone undiscovered if I’d only stuck to certainties. I shall have to improvise. Old books, new books. Anything that’s good.

I’ve been feeling a bit blue. I will treat myself to a four-author book event later today, and that snow had better not get in my way!!!

Bookwitch bites #92

Thank goodness for these bites where I can complain on a variety of subjects almost every week. Occasionally I have lovely news as well. Let’s see if I can find some.

I don’t often (like never, obviously) receive invitations from the Canadian High Commission in London, but this week I had to make myself say ‘no thanks’ to them. But as Disney’s Cinderella says, what could possibly be nice about a visit to Canada House? (Only all of it…)

Came across the programme for Book Week Scotland at the end of November. Can’t go, even though I can be found north of the border that very week. So no Frank Cottrell Boyce. No Debi Gliori and no Steve Cole. Nobody.

Offspring are my reasons for travelling, and Son had some news this week, relating to the literal translation he did earlier this year. We are finally able to say it was Strindberg, for the Donmar at Trafalgar Studios. The Dance of Death. Will get back to you on that.

Before leaving Scotland, let me just mention the Grampian Children’s Book Award 2013. Apart from Patrick Ness who is on every single shortlist these days, the shortlisted authors are Barry Hutchison, Cathy MacPhail, Mark Lowery, Dave Cousins and Annabel Pitcher. Tough competition.

South to Newcastle, where the good news is that Seven Stories can call themselves National Centre for Children’s Books, as the only ‘national’ place in the Northeast. Well done to a special place!

Actually, I am coping with the happy business, after all. We’ll finish with a decisive jump across the water to Ireland, where they have The Irish Book Awards. You can vote, but you might want to follow my example and only vote in categories (they have so many!) where you have read the books. Luckily I didn’t have to choose between Declan Burke and Adrian McKinty. Not quite so lucky with Eoin Colfer and Derek Landy, though.

A witch can always flip a coin.

The Tobermory Cat

He’s not exactly cute, the Tobermory Cat. But he’s persistent, feisty and rather orange, and much loved and admired in Tobermory. Because he’s their cat.

Cats in Tobermory are just plain ordinary and they do cat-things, rather than touristy stuff. Which was the problem. None of the other cats could be bothered to even try, but Tobermory Cat searched for a way to satisfy his people, and what better way than to fall asleep in the road? Eccentricity wins every time.

Debi Gliori’s new picture book is a cat story with a difference, and as usual she has illustrated it with the flair she has for seeing tiny details the rest of us tend to miss. I loved the woolly cats of Loch Ba. Cute, and soft. (Sorry, TC!)

Unlike some picture book stories, this one is based on a real (or is it several?) cat, so there is a curious blend of the ‘real’ Tobermory, and traditional nursery rhymes. We have Tobermory Cat himself consorting with the cow who just might have jumped over the moon, and there is a dish and a spoon. Also, TC appears to play the fiddle.

Lovely pictures of Mull and Tobermory town, which make me want to go there, and if that’s the effect it has on me, I’d expect lots more people might want to go for a holiday, with or without TC.

Rally round, readers

Please spread some love and good vibes in the direction of Debi Gliori. It seems my post from ten days ago was far too mild. If you want the whole story, then Debi’s own blog post is required reading.

You might have noticed that I am doing a Scottish-themed midweek on Bookwitch, but I would rather not that Debi should feel she has to defend herself like this. Actually, she’s not defending. She’s telling her version of how Tobermory Cat came about.

It should be enough that TC lives dangerously (see above). Writers and illustrators are entitled to work quietly in their sheds, making books that help children sleep. (Rather like the train poster, how railway staff should be allowed to go to work without expecting to be beaten up or threatened.)

How can someone who runs a business in Tobermory – an ‘adult’ – bully a decent woman like Debi? The fact that TC’s fb-’owner’ is behaving threateningly is one thing. For him to have a band of badly informed online followers joining him in his threats is just unspeakably dreadful.

If you are a facebook user, please like Debis’ TC page.

Troublesome cats and other airborne coincidences

I own two books bearing the title Cat’s Cradle. One is Nick Green’s soon to be published final Cat Kin book. The other is by Julia Golding, in her Cat Royal series. No, I lie. I believe I also have a copy of Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle somewhere.

I don’t mind. If there are only seven original plots, it stands to reason there are only so many book titles as well. Obviously more than seven, but anyway. I doubt Nick or Julia are about to sue each other.

Nicola Morgan has told us about her first novel, Mondays Are Red, which features synesthesia, and its main character Luke. It was published almost simultaneously with Tim Bowler’s Starseeker. Same topic. Same character name. They didn’t sue, either. But when both proceeded to write novels with the fabulous title Apocalypse, one of them changed it. Great minds think alike.

Adèle Geras wrote an adult novel with a similar plot to one by Marika Cobbold. I asked if she knew Marika’s book. She didn’t. It was another of those ‘it must be something in the air or the water’ coincidences. Happens all the time. It’s not plagiarism. Zeitgeist, maybe? (We have to keep in mind the number of plots available in this life.)

When I read Lee Weatherly’s Angel I half thought that she might have been after ‘the next Twilight’ by going for angels instead of vampires. But Lee had the idea 15 years ago, before the world was gripped by vampire fever, and well before all the other angel books we now see in bookshops.

Some writers do jump on bandwagons, because it’s what publishers want. The next wizard, another vampire. And now it’s dystopias. Julie Bertagna barely got the OK for Exodus, because back then dystopias weren’t in. Now they are. And not all of them could possibly have got the idea from reading someone else’s book first.

It takes time to make a book. From author’s idea to bookshop is usually a lengthy process. People don’t plagiarise on a whim. Coincidences happen. Recently I mused about the number of wolves I had reviewed in a short time. There are also several books out now with the name Grimm somewhere in the title.

Coincidence.

What I am working towards here, is a troublesome cat. He is causing considerable concern for Debi Gliori. She has a picture book soon out, featuring a cat in Tobermory. The title will be Tobermory Cat. At least it will be if someone in Tobermory stops being unpleasant about it. Debi, who is one of the kindest and most fairminded people I know, has been accused of all manner of things by the ‘owner’ of the name. Not the owner of the cat, mind you.

The links to this public argument can be found on Wikipedia, so I might as well add them here. Link 1. Link 2. Link 3 with a reply from publisher Hugh Andrew of Birlinn. TC even has its own facebook page, but I don’t recommend a trip there if you value your blood pressure levels.

I am really, really against bullying.

Apart from the books and coincidences above, I am reminded of another touristy cat at the opposite end of the country, in another picture book; The Mousehole Cat by Antonia Barber and Nicola Bayley. I imagine that book has not exactly damaged the tourist business for Mousehole. I also imagine this was the idea for Tobermory. The new book could have been called something else. And then the tourists could go there instead.

Co-operation is a good word here. Not that I’d want to co-operate with TC’s ‘owner’ if I had a choice, but before this argument began, just think of the effect they could have had together, for Tobermory.

Could there be more than one Bookwitch? Unfortunately, yes. There are. There were some before I went public, and more have popped up over the five years you and I have known each other. But the point about it is that I sat down and thought long and hard about what to call this blog, and once I’d arrived at the answer, I went online and found I wouldn’t be alone. But I am a Bookwitch, so couldn’t – wouldn’t – have picked another name.

I can co-exist.

Will leave you with one more cat. In fact, I give you a book idea for free. Here is the Linköping Lynx. At this point I must point out I’ve not checked* if there are any other LLs out there.

The more the merrier? Surely one of the seven plots must fit? It’s my firm belief that Lynxes are the next big thing. Remember that some time in 2014 or 2015.

*Oops.

What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?

We’re on a wolfie theme just now, with almost every other book title having a wolf in it somewhere. But wolves are nice. Very nice, sometimes. And so are Debi Gliori’s picture books. So nice that if I don’t get sent one, I feel the need to ask for one, because I love them so.

What’s the Time, Mr Wolf? lived up to my expectations. It’s the perfect book for young and old, with the added bonus that you can – probably – send your young ones to sleep by reading it to them at bedtime. And if that doesn’t work, at least they will have learned to tell the time.

Mr Wolf sleeps a lot. Or he tries to. His neighbours are a noisy lot, waking him every hour, on the hour. Every hour there is some new noise, and something is happening. And every hour there is a nursery rhyme, somewhere. Blackbird pie, bacon sandwiches (three little pigs), Little Red Riding Hood, dishes running off with spoons. That kind of thing.

Our Mr Wolf has a bath. He gardens. He goes shopping. The baker bakes his cake as fast as he can. Mr Wolf’s afternoon nap is interrupted by a cat with a fiddle. The cow on Mr Wolf’s roof is conveniently close to the moon.

When six o’clock comes round, it’s party time! (I was gratified to note I had been invited. Or perhaps I invited myself? Lovely witch, regardless.)

It’s the attention to detail that is so wonderful; the teeth (wolf’s ones) in the glass by the bed, the way the cuddly rabbit tries to sleep on by covering his ears, or Mr Wolf’s tears when there is no post for him. Aahhh.

Covered

I am obviously wrong. But I still have an opinion. It is mine, and it is not my intention to insult people. In the end a book is a book, and it’s the contents that really matter. Not the cover. If I don’t like the cover, it is the artist’s work I am complaining about. Not the author’s. Unless they are one and the same.

And whereas I’m mainly thinking of what might put me off buying or reading a book, the same could be said for the prospective reader whose taste in covers is the opposite to mine.

Until just the other week I was so certain of how right I am. Then Adèle Geras went and informed me that I was wrong about the new covers of Ann Turnbull’s Quaker books. (I thought the old ones were better.)

My main hang-ups are the covers featuring a girl’s face. I’m not anti-girl, or even anti-face, but if they don’t look like they’d be my friend at school – and they usually don’t – then I feel alienated. (I know. I’m no longer at school. But you never lose that sense of insecurity.) But if the face appeals to countless of young readers, then that’s good.

The book which demonstrates this best is Witch Child by Celia Rees, which is a marvellous novel. I have always hated the cover. I understand it’s reckoned to be a perfect success. But it’s actually a book where I’d want to cover the book in brown paper. (And wouldn’t that lead to misunderstandings on the train!)

It’s the historical teen novel that I feel suffers the most from these girl-faced covers. The girls are modern girls, looking nothing like the period of the story within or even like the heroine. On the other hand, if she looks like a potential friend, you’ll want to read the book, won’t you?

When I got Anthony Horowitz’s More Bloody Horowitz I thought it had a fantastic cover. So did the Resident IT Consultant, who as you will recall liked the book enough to want read it anew. But when I asked Daughter if it would make her read the book, she said it would do the opposite. And she’s a fan of Anthony’s.

Then there are the nostalgics. I used to love (still do) the Swedish cover of Five on a Treasure Island as it was in the early 1960s. I’d have wanted that book even had I not seen and loved the film first. I like the old British cover too.

You have the new-old nostalgic covers that can sell almost anything. At least to us old ones. Maybe today’s young readers only want modern pictures to describe their books, whatever they are about.

I like the new Harry Potter covers, despite having ‘grown up’ (yeah, right) on the original ones. Whereas my faithful commenter Cynical didn’t. Perhaps it was too early to redesign them?

How about the covers that look good enough to eat? Or to stroke or just generally slaver over? Those covers can never be wrong as far as looks are concerned. They might just be covering a story that you don’t like, of course. But at least the book looks lovely.

Perfect to caress and perfect to read, describe Debi Gliori’s Pure Dead series.

For the most part, the covers don’t really matter, as long as they don’t prevent you from buying an extremely good book.

One of my childhood favourites, which I can no longer recall either the title of or its author, came with no cover. And no end. Ouch. It was ‘inherited’ from Eldest Cousin, who had presumably cut it out of a magazine, published in bits every week, to be collected in a Dickensian fashion. (No, she’s not that old.) Hence the lack of cover. And possibly also hence the lack of an end, whether she never got it, or it was lost. Still, it was a very good book. You could sort of imagine the end.

And as I finish this post I will endeavour to remind myself that I am not young. These books are not made for me, however much I like them, and make me forget myself. So my opinions are irrelevant. (I just wanted to share.)

Christmas beans

The trainee witch once (almost twice) worked in a bookshop in the weeks leading up to Christmas. This was in the days of Christmas Eve getting the Saturday treatment, shop hour wise. So we closed at twelve, and I recall I had a Saturday bus to catch soon after, where I was the only passenger, on the last bus for a couple of days.

Where was I? Oh yes, in the bookshop, before the last bus. It was quite nice working on Christmas Eve (well, one had a Mother-of-witch doing the kitchen stuff at home…), and something I noticed was that the world is full of people who don’t shop until there are mere hours between the buying of and the opening of presents. It takes a cool and steady mind to be that late.

They come in and spend anything, just to get the deed done. And obviously they require wrapping and all that.

According to Son it seems the wellknown online bookshop can offer the same these days, as long as you live somewhere civilised. Order on Christmas Eve morning and have it delivered that afternoon. It will cost you, but as I said, the Christmas Eve shopper can afford it.

What I’m trying to say here, in a roundabout and waffley way is that you could still manage to buy Magic Beans. I’m truly sorry for being so late mentioning this perfect Christmas book, but I’ve been feeding the cake brandy. And various other minor things.

In Magic Beans you have absolutely the cream of children’s authors doing their thing with classic fairy tales. Adèle Geras retells the The Six Swan Brothers. It’s wonderful with such sibling love. But I wonder what happened to the old King and his witchy wife? It’s funny how Princes and Kings wander around finding themselves wives all over the place.

I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Henrietta Branford before. Here she retells Hansel and Gretel, without too much gruesomeness. And why do witches and stepmothers get bad press all the time? Berlie Doherty’s The Snow Queen is icy and season appropriate. And below you can listen to Jacqueline Wilson talking about Rapunzel.

Other particpating authors are Anne Fine, Philip Pullman, Michael Morpurgo, Kit Wright, Alan Garner, Gillian Cross, Susan Gates, Malorie Blackman, Linda Newbery and Tony Mitton. And since it’s not only writers you get, every single fairy tale has been illustrated by some pretty creamy artists like Debi Gliori, Ian Beck, Lesley Harker, Nick Sharratt, Patrice Aggs, Peter Bailey, Nick Maland, James Mayhew, Siận Bailey, Ted Dewan, Michael Foreman, Sue Heap and Bee Willey.

By good fortune I have also just found out that some of these stories can be bought as ebooks, so if you’re really desperate…

Don’t say I haven’t provided a useful suggestion. And if you were to go for the old-fashioned dead tree version you get a nice, fat volume with pictures. I’ll even wrap it for you. If you come here, that is.

The Scariest Thing of All

That will be me. That’s the only explanation I can give for Debi Gliori sneaking into my neck of woods on a mini book launch tour, when my back was turned. One doesn’t like going away, only to find the queen of the loveliest picture books arriving in Bookwitchshire. And departing just as one returns.

Only joking. Well, nearly.

The Scariest Thing of All (sorry, I simply have to use capitals for this) is a sweet little rabbit called Pip. No, silly me. He isn’t scary. He is scared. Of absolutely everything. His list of scary things is almost as long as mine. I love him.

Pip gets more and more frightened, until he realises that there really isn’t anything to be scared of (I wish it was that easy!). The gobblers and the hissters are not dangerous (although they sound as if they are), and possibly they don’t even exist.

As usual with Debi’s picture books there is a lot of wisdom here, and the pictures are wonderful. I love the little rabbit lady reading in the bath, with a cup of tea by her side. And those musicians. I think I know where they came from. Rabbit life is pretty good. If you’re not too scared, that is.

This book, and its tummy aspects, was inspired by a tummy close to Debi. Or so I’ve been told.

The Amnesty International reading – Taslima Nasrin

I admit I only went along to the Amnesty reading on Saturday because Debi Gliori was one of the readers, and I wanted to catch up with her. But it was good, and I think I’ll go to more readings if and when I return.

Saturday’s author was Taslima Nasrin from Bangladesh. She’s not in jail, but she’s been banished from her country.

Between them Debi Gliori, Regi Claire, Chan Koonchung and Belinda McKeon read a number of poems and longer pieces, and they were wonderful. Not what I usually read, which made it all the more interesting.

Another positive experience was the feeling of international solidarity through having authors from different countries do the readings. It’s what Amnesty is about.

The one thing that marred the evening was that they over-ran and the last reading was stopped rather abruptly. I can see that they have other events starting, but considering the reason for the reading, it was unfortunate, and in this case I’d have preferred for the ‘advertising’ of the next evening’s reading to have been curtailed instead.