Don’t Judge Me

Linda Strachan has gone from knife crime to arson with her latest book, Don’t Judge Me. It’s short, but hard-hitting. While I was reading it, I woke up one night to find someone had been making toast at three in the morning. At least, I hoped someone had. I was feeling vulnerable, and there is nothing quite like the smell of something potentially burning, to scare you.

It starts with the arsonist and continues with someone throwing their baby out of a window. It’s everybody’s nightmare.

There is a group of four teenagers who witness the fire, as well as an independent witness. The police speak to all of them, several times, in order to work out who started the fire.

Part of the questioning reminds you of Murder on the Orient Express, in that you see everybody’s story and you feel that any one of them might have done it. Either because they seem rather crooked, or because it appears no one saw them when they said they did.

Is it one of them? Is it an Orient Express situation where lots of them did it? Or is it something else entirely? Despite short chapters letting the reader see the thoughts of the various characters, you just don’t know.

As usual, the adults are rather idiotic. But maybe that’s what we really are like. These teenagers feel let down by their parents and carers. Maybe someone was looking for attention?

This is an exciting read, and a way of examining different minds. Seeing how they think. Seeing how easy it is to turn to crime, when you least expect it.

Bookwitch bites #91

She lives in London now, but from her blog post for David Fickling, you can tell that much of Candy Gourlay is still in the Philippines. And who can blame her? You will never get a new past, and Candy has left five siblings behind, one of whom she writes about in the David Fickling family themed blog trail.

What is amusing is how she felt she was second fiddle to her sister Joy, while it seems Joy felt the same way about Candy. I particularly enjoyed seeing the photo of their parents, and perhaps the blatant 1980s outfit Joy wore back then. Really OTT, like the decade itself.

As for me I have just turned down yet another book launch* invite in Scotland. I do that a lot, and not because I don’t want to go. They do seem to have a lot on up there in the wilds of kilts and heather. It’s enough to make a witch want to move.

But I’m sure if I did, then stuff would start happening in Basingstoke. Maybe it already does.

Another launch I won’t be going to in Edinburgh, is Philip Caveney’s for his latest novel Crow Boy next week. The reason I’m moaning about this one is that it’s a bit much to have fellow Stopfordians launch their books ‘up there.’ Philip had a good reason for it, though, which is that the book is set in Edinburgh. I have almost forgiven him.

But one more thing like that and I’ll start looking for a house in Scotland. Just saying.

Maybe it’s simply a case of the grass being greener and all that, but it strikes me they are very active, those Scots writers. Perhaps it’s being a smaller (I mean less populated, of course) country. You try harder.

*Linda Strachan’s Don’t Judge Me. (Don’t tell anyone, but I believe there will be cake. Waterstones, Princes St, on November 15th at 18.30.)

A day of politics

I’m afraid we swapped allegiance by going to the Scottish Parliament on Saturday morning, instead of to our intended event in Charlotte Square. (It was sold out, anyway, so we weren’t missed.) Theresa Breslin was talking in Parliament about The Importance of Reading to Children and to Society, along with a few others, and had invited us along.

So down to Holyrood we went, subjecting ourselves to airport style security to be allowed in. Found Mr B in the foyer, and he wished he’d stayed in bed an hour longer. I think we all did, but this was a good cause. As we lined up to go in, Daughter asked me who the people behind us were. She could recognise their voices. I turned round to look (why didn’t she do it herself?) in order to tell her she was hallucinating and why would she know anyone in Edinburgh?

The voices turned out to belong to Linda Strachan and Julie Bertagna, so she was right and I am an idiot. Sigh.

There is a convenient bus between Parliament and Charlotte Square, and we got back fairly painlessly for an afternoon with Lee Weatherly on the subject of Angels. After her signing, and before she rushed off home, Lee posed for photos for us.

We had intended to go ‘home’ after Lee’s event, but when we found that both Steve Cole and Joanna Nadin were taking part in the Amnesty International reading, we went and got tickets and joined them.

Afterwards it struck me that it’d be a good thing to take some photos of Jo (Steve very wisely disappeared…), so we walked over to the yurt area. It turned out to be covered with photographers taking pictures of Seamus Heaney, and there was simply no room for us.

My bright solution was to invite Jo round the back, as it would be empty. Which it was, and we got started. The famous Irish poet must have been quick though, because soon the full set of paparazzi were upon us, and more specifically, on Jo. They wanted in as well. (They do have a soft spot for a pretty woman.) So through no fault of her own, Jo turned this way and that way, and posed like crazy.

Once the mayhem we’d caused was over, we hotfooted it out of there. If I’m lucky, Jo will even remain on speaking terms with me.

Blowing bubbles and buying boats

I suppose it’s good for the constitution to start as you (don’t) mean to go on, i.e. doing lots and lots, leaving us witches totally exhausted. Although Daughter says we can sleep some other time.

We began our Saturday book festival with an interview. Andy Mulligan has returned from the Philippines and I really wanted to catch the man behind those crazy, lovely Ribblestrop books. Sitting in typical Scottish sunshine behind the yurt was good for the soul and very entertaining.

I ordered Andy not to give anything away, since I’m only part through his third Ribblestrop, and he was reasonably good about that. If I ever have to go back to school, I want him for my teacher. As for finding out more about the boat buying you will need to arm yourselves with patience.

There followed a quick dash ‘backstage’ for a photo call with Jacqueline Wilson, who was back in black, looking absolutely fabulous. She has a new book out for Puffin, and her fans lined the square as they always do.

There was no time to hear the Scarrow brothers talk, although when I think back, I find this just isn’t true. We heard plenty, because they were very noisy indeed, in their tent event. We just didn’t pay to go in, seeing how we were more intent on wolfing down Friday’s pizza, sitting outside on the grass.

We caught the brothers at their bookshop signing session, where we also noticed Linda Strachan engaged in some furtive signing. Good for her!

Post-pizza we went to hear more from the accident obsessed Andy Mulligan, who was talking ‘health and safety’ with Vanessa Robertson. He used to play with Action Man, which taught him early on that when imagination takes over, the game starts inventing itself. Just like writing books. He was a useless theatre director until Mrs Thatcher axed funds, and he ended up in India.

Basically, Andy says we want to watch the knife thrower because he might miss, not because it is guaranteed to be safe. He is beginning to run out of ways to get rid of parents (in books). More knife throwing, maybe?

Since it was a day for dashing, we caught Simon Callow’s photo call, where he posed both with a mug of something, and without. He posed for a good long time, and we now have more Callow pics than we can use in a lifetime.

This time jigsawing allowed us to catch Meg Rosoff just before her event, where she talked to Eleanor Updale about God. Meg got the idea from a dyslexic atheist joke she once heard, and managed to remember, and she unwisely let her daughter name God Bob. Meg’s books  ‘might not be great, but at least the chapters are short.’

She forgot to bring her Eck, and described how she once pulled the plot out of There Is No Dog, which is the same as pulling the skeleton out of a chicken. (I rather wish she hadn’t mentioned that.) Meg admitted that her next book was relatively easy to write, but also talked about the importance of composting when you write. (I think that means you shouldn’t be too young.)

And I had no idea that when ‘proper, adult’ authors are given wine, children’s authors get orange juice…

Back to the bookshop we found Cathy MacPhail signing at the table next to Meg’s. Meg spent a long time talking to all her fans, which allowed us time to chat to the Parents of Dodo, who suddenly materialised in the children’s bookshop, of all places. They were going for Alexander McCall Smith, which reminded us we needed to rush off for his photo call. It was our first time, having spent every year always missing Edinburgh’s great man.

Once she had avoided the orange juice hazard, and enjoyed something a bit more Scottishly grown-up, Meg got the Chris Close treatment and posed willingly, blowing bubbles and other stuff. I’m afraid we piggy-backed, because for a favourite author Meg always manages to escape the best photo situations. She also always disapproves of any photo we publish, so she’ll hate this one too. Except I hope not.

We spied ‘Mr Updale,’ aka James Naughtie, who had been broadcasting from Edinburgh. All the ‘Puffins’ disappeared off for dinner somewhere, and so did we, but without much luck. Edinburgh is very busy in August, isn’t it?

(While internet connectivity remains a problem, we will post at funny hours. If we post at all. And, if we can’t blog, we can always tidy and clean. At least until the Parents of Dodo come and take over.)

The Bloodstone launch

We had a lazy – well, lazier – sort of day yesterday, mainly attending the launch of Gillian Philip’s Bloodstone at the Edinburgh Bookshop. Hadn’t been there since it was enlarged, and I have to say the shop looked good.

People came and people mingled, and the able bartender served red and white and soft with aplomb. If anyone saw me with two glasses in my hands that’s because I had to hold the photographer’s drink. Nothing else.

Keith Charters of Strident Publishing hopped into the shop window and spoke. Not too long, and really quite well. They publish good books at Strident.

Then it was Gillian’s turn, but before she hopped her shoes had to come off. (Always consider your choice of socks in these circumstances!) Gillian read from Bloodstone and a pretty good piece it was, too. The one about the bloodthirsty ‘horse’. That kind of reading is likely to make people want to buy, and even read, Bloodstone.

We mingled some more. I spoke to Vanessa about her plans for the bookshop, and I talked to one of my faithful blog readers, before attempting to get her run over on the street outside.

And no, Seth wasn’t there.

Janne Teller, controversial jet-setter, continued

So there I was, not quite on the floor. Which is good.

Janne was our third foreigner in around 24 hours, although with not a single interpreter in sight. Not necessary, as Janne divides her time between Denmark and New York, which as chair Gill Arbuthnott said is so glamourous. Janne looks glamourous, too, but actually seems nice despite this. And those boots…

We sat in the adult’s row at the back with Janne’s publisher Keith Charters and authors Gillian Philip and Linda Strachan, who are both quite good with knives and swords.

But nothing beats the (mental) goriness of Janne’s Nothing. She suggests. I faint.

I blame it on the fact Janne has no children. I think you can be much scarier if you don’t have them, and as we had agreed while waiting outside, parenthood makes a wimp out of you. She had been asked to write a children’s book, and first she thought she couldn’t, until Pierre Anthon (the boy who sits in a plumtree) spoke in her ear.

Then her publisher said the book was too strange to publish, so there was a delay until a teenage publishing offspring had been found who liked Nothing. At first the book sold badly and then it was banned in several countries. After which things appear to have picked up somewhat.

Janne read to us from the beginning, introducing the ‘heap of meaning’. It’s a weird feeling when someone reads softly and beautifully from what feels like a quietly menacing story, and doing so on what is really a glorified roundabout, with the traffic roaring extra loudly for Janne.

The end of the book was so hard that Janne wrote several. She was surprised by the reactions to her book, as she was under the impression she had written a ‘nice book’. This ‘nice’ book has been dramatised and has even been done as a musical in Denmark.

Her favourite character is Pierre Anthon, and she doesn’t particularly like her narrator. The humour in the story is absolutely necessary, she feels, although she is amazed at all the surveys that portray Danes as the happiest people. They ‘never’ smile, and she believes they just tick the happy box because it’s what you do.

There will be more YA novels from Janne. She has a short book about refugees (inspired by the xenophobia in Denmark), which features a Danish family fleeing to Egypt. And in every translation she changes the refugee family to one from the country in which it is published.

That’s what we need more of; something to make us think.

Afterwards I told Janne where I had given up reading. She told me nothing bad happens after that. Am I expected to believe her?

Leeward? Windward? Who cares?

Not Celia Rees, anyway. She’s made of stronger stuff, and we’re only slightly scared of her. Celia’s event with Nicola Morgan was full of not worrying about anachronisms, and how you can become a historical novelist despite being rubbish at history at school. (That’s Nicola. Celia did history at uni.)

They know that you must occasionally include Johnny Depp types in your books, and performing operations without anaesthetics might be required. Nicola has been known to stroke old newspapers for period ‘feel’, while Celia told of the decline of ‘lunch with the editor’. These days you meet up for coffee.

Both are into cross-dressing (for their characters, and only for practical purposes), and they keep track of wars and things in order not to ruin timelines in their books. Nicola is too impatient for research, while Celia starts writing and finds out what she must find out. And just as you’d not explain McDonalds in a modern novel, you mustn’t explain too much in historical writing either, since the characters will already know.

After the signing after the event, we were treated to tea in the author’s yurt, where we stood around sharing deep thoughts on blogging. Also got to see the cover of Celia’s new book, out early next year. Very different!

Kurdo Baksi kept running around in the background, so post-tea we went out to see if we could run him down. We succeeded just as he was about to take a big lick at an ice cream, but he was happy to pose for a photo, and the ice cream only started to drip a very little.

Generally it was a day for dragons and ducks, which are much bigger than last year. But then so is the mud. Much bigger. With jaunty little hats. The ducks, that is.

We actually arrived in time to partake of press brekkies, with the most wonderful herby, cheesy scones, and croissants and other pastries. I blame the Guardian. They clearly have needs for proper feeds. Also worked out that the old bit of the yurt is larger than before. The better to accommodate the pastry filled press, I suppose.

Ran into Egmont’s Vicki and Bloomsbury’s Flora, which is a most appropriate name! After the bookshop and before the tea (mentioned about four paragraphs ago), Celia and Nicola, along with Linda Strachan agreed to a private photocall by the willows. They’re a good-looking bunch of authors, whether shot singly or grouply.

Did I mention that it’s warm and sunny? It is. Two lovely days we’ve had. After all, we’re in Scotland. Neil Gaiman did an extra event, after which he needed a drink before signing. Understandable when the man has a queue all over Charlotte Square and back. And did you know he can shrug out of his jacket and place it on the back of the chair, and sign? We caught Nick Sharratt again, doing his resident illustrator bit with little children in the bookshop. Bet they didn’t understand quite what a great deal they got. While still in the shop we saw Patrick Ness again, alongside Moira Young.

And I might just have to take a break here and get some sleep… Back soon.

The second day

Here we are again. How did you get on yesterday? Did you have to queue for the toilets? No, I didn’t, either. Nor did I wear Lucy Coats’s pyjamas all day. (Not even part of the day, I’ll have you know.)

What did I do? I watched Mary Hoffman and Anne Rooney drink coffee. (It’s the personal touch that makes festivals such fun.) I watched Lucy Coats reading to three dogs.

And Sam Mills was interviewed by Tyger Drew (whoever he might be), and then she interviewed him back. I’m unsure of what Sam said to make Tyger want to poke his eye out, but there you are.

I entered competitions to win things. I never do, but then I seem to own most of the books on offer, so I’m best to let others, more needy than myself, win.

And here’s today’s programme for the ABBA online blog festival.

I’ve got all my books ready to be signed today. It has to work!

And at least they aren’t starting too frightfully early. I might make it down to the kitchen for 10.30.

Bookwitch bites #38

January brings not just bad weather and the opportunity to send Offsprings everywhere back to school, but paperbacks galore. Or it seems that way. Candy Gourlay’s Tall Story is out in soft version, with the same cover except for the changes. Jon Mayhew’s Mortlock is also out there somewhere, but I’ve just heard the rumours. Not actually seen it. Marcus Sedgwick’s Ghosts and Gadgets have likewise been paperbacked. Hair raising cover.

If you don’t like paperbacks there is always the Kindle. Philip Ardagh was back on morning television this week again, to talk about Kindling. It was very early, and all he did after travelling across Kent (or whoever it was he crossed well before dawn – who is she?) was sit there on the sofa and say that he doesn’t want a Kindle. Luckily they had a JKR lookalike to tell people all the techy details about bookless reading.

There are new books out there, too. Marie-Louise Jensen’s Sigrun’s Secret has arrived, and I’m in the midst of reading. A more contentious ‘new’ book is Huckleberry Finn without the n-word. A pc world is a much better world, or so some people believe.

You can clean up too much. At university I read Under Milk Wood. An English friend made a joke about reading the placename backwards and how I’d see an interesting word. I read and I read and saw nothing terribly fun at all. You try backwardsing on Llaregyb. I had been sold a sanitised version! B*gger.

How I Live Now is about to become a film, at long last. Possibly. Probably.

And finally, Anne Cassidy, Keren David, Linda Strachan and Gillian Philip have clubbed together to become Crime Central. I will return to them soon, but have to reflect a little on what is meant by crime. Books for oldies still seem to be more about solving the crime. These ladies are more into committing the crime, which is an admirable way to go about things. True role models. ; )

Bookwitch bites #30

I was getting ready to tick ‘like’ on facebook on Friday, and to leave a comment, but within a minute it became clear that most of my facebook friends appeared to be on the Carnegie longlist, and the liking and commenting that would have been required to cover them all was more than I could manage. So you can go and have a look yourselves, because just listing them will be a who’s who for children’s authors. Suffice it to say that most of my own longlist for best of 2010 were there. Well done everyone, and good luck!

Linda Strachan is already lucky, having just won the Catalyst prize. She beat Tim Bowler and Paul Dowswell, which is good. That didn’t come out right, did it? Lovely for Linda that she won, but I’m not saying Tim and Paul deserved to be beaten. I’ve not read Spider, but if it’s anything like Dead Boy Talking, then I’m not surprised.

Another Scottish piece with a link to a short story by Keith Gray for the Edinburgh International Book Festival. There is a list of specially written short stories by some of the authors who were at the book festival, and I’m linking to his since it was Keith who drew my attention to this. The other stories might be quite good, too. ; )

Meg Rosoff has been blogging about how she writes and getting very poetic about it. Although the next day she posted more on writing, so perhaps she’s just too preoccupied with the subject. Or procrastinating.

In a recent review of the latest Artemis Fowl I read that The Atlantis Complex is the penultimate Fowl. I had no idea Eoin Colfer has decided to ‘end it’, but some people are better informed than others. I just wish she hadn’t given away so much of the plot, though. And I liked Orion. Sometimes you need a complete change in plot pattern.

Also new is the Harry Potter website which was unveiled this week. It has games and stuff, and a facebook page. Naturally. I can’t say I’m into games, but I do like the next generation covers. If it wasn’t so ridiculous to fill one’s house with multiple copies of the boy wizard books I’d say I want the new books, too.