The Talent

I don’t watch talent programmes. Can’t stand them. I’m also becoming wary of too many dystopias, so an ebook that combines the two wasn’t going to be at the top of my shopping list. But since it’s that very busy bee Philip Caveney who wrote The Talent, I decided to give it a go. Published a year ago, you can see how long I’ve taken getting started, but I had my reasons.*

Set in Manchester some time in the not too distant future (a parent character recalls going to the kind of concert we have today), people are hungry and poor and live in crowded conditions, sharing flats with strangers. Tobacco and alcohol are illegal, and corruption is rife. Joining the Army is almost the only guaranteed job, but a very bad one. Police brutality is a daily possibility.

Josh plays the guitar, and caterwauls his own songs on the roof of his block of flats. His grandfather believes in him, and now that Josh is old enough, he will try for The Talent, the television programme the whole population follow avidly. If you win, you have a future.

If Josh didn’t get in, there would be no story, so it’s no spoiler to say he ends up taking part. I won’t say too much about what happens, but Philip has added all those things we already worry about, or can see are happening, and this makes his future vision a very realistic one. I can see all this coming, rotten tomatoes and everything.

Not quite totalitarian, but close. Many of the characters are stereotypes, but I believe that’s what makes this effective. We already know these people. We see them on the news and in the talent shows today.

The plot has several interesting angles apart from the competition itself. Is it rigged? Will they fall in love? Is Josh’s MIA father dead? What to do about Holly’s father? Can society even survive?

There are some surprises, and some fun solutions to the problems. Mostly it’s simply an exciting story about musical talent and honest behaviour.

And it’s not only the dystopian future that Philip has portrayed accurately (as we see things today). One of the characters says that he ‘could eat a horse.’ I wonder how he knew?

—-

*Somehow I had mixed in some of the ingredients from the Hunger Games with this book. To put it bluntly, I was under the impression that anyone who didn’t sing well enough was likely to be shot. Or something like that. Not tempting. Sorry to be such an idiot. (And now that I have done all the silliness for you, you can just get on with the reading.)

… and rock ‘n’ roll

This week we’ve mentioned the sex, and the alcohol. That leaves the rock ‘n’ roll. Wine, women and song. All bad stuff.

There’s so much music in novels these days. Perhaps there always was, and I’ve been deaf and blind. Adrian McKinty (yes, him again) puts lots of music in his books. Sergeant Duffy listens to a wide repertoire. He’s a bit of a show-off, that Duffy.

In Adrian’s YA novel The Lighthouse Keepers, which I’ve read but not yet reviewed, the young main character raves about music. Not so sure he’s not too precocious in his musical taste, but never mind.

Might be an Irish thing? When I first ran into John Connolly – outside the Ladies, before an event, and before he knew who I was – he pressed a CD into my hands. I gather he listens to a selection of music each time he writes a book, and those tracks end up belonging to that particular novel.

I added John’s favourites to my iTunes, and every time a track I can’t identify pops up on shuffle, I can be certain it’s one of his. I only added the CD because it contained a Lee Hazlewood track. I used to be a great fan.

A Jodi Picoult novel from a couple of years ago also included a CD. I passed the book and CD on to someone else, while making sure I put the tracks into iTunes first. I like them a lot.

It can be inspiring having an author’s choice of music for when you read. But what if you don’t like the music that helped them write? If every time the characters play their favourite tracks, you just can’t stand the music? Would you rather do without it?

Rather like when you find out which actor inspired someone’s character. If it’s the ‘wrong’ actor, you’ll have to quickly re-imagine them as someone you’d prefer. (Nobody tell me their heroine was inspired by that Keira woman! I’d have to burn your book.)

Music is an age thing, too. Adrian – again – is the wrong age for me. He doesn’t pick the music I listen to, nor the stuff forced on me – I mean, made available to me – by Offspring. I have a whole decade, that’s been almost completely blacked out. (When Son did a GCSE project on a decade in pop music, he was given the 1980s. Naturally. And we could offer no help.)

It’s not only the music behind a book, or the albums enjoyed by a fictional character. The whole book can be based on music. Obviously. Recently Son translated extracts from a couple of music based novels written by a Norwegian author. That was 20,000 words featuring an opera and all the backstage stuff. Luckily it was a made-up opera, so it ended up being less of a fact checking nightmare.

And we get YA books about pop groups, and wannabes. With the current talent programme epidemic on television we will probably end up with many more of them. It beats vampires, though.

Although having said that, I seem to recall that one of Anne Rooney’s vampires played in a band.

And Elvis lives.

Bookwitch bites #90

I’m very grateful to my faithful and hardworking commenters here on Bookwitch. Hence Seana’s link yesterday to a profile of Hilary Mantel in the New Yorker, was most welcome. I was going to say it was surprisingly timely, as well, but I’m guessing it was actually in the paper because of Hilary’s second Man Booker win.

Congratulations! I’m not a Hilary Mantel reader (yet) but I gather she is marvellous. The profile was a thorough and interesting one, and Seana suggested it on account of similarities she could see between Hilary and J K Rowling. Perhaps J K will win the Man Booker at some point in the future. Personally I hope for more children’s books from J K, but you never know.

Somewhere to rub shoulders with great names in the book world, is at next year’s Crimefest in Bristol. I have been reminded that if you book a place before October is out, you can buy it with a discount. And once you have your pass booked, you can also have the hotel booking cheaper. Win-win situation, in which you get all those lovely professional murderers. Just imagine; you too can meet Søren Sveistrup, the man behind Forbrydelsen (The Killing).

What goes on in people’s brains could be interesting, too. Sorry, not people. Teenagers. Slight difference. Nicola Morgan is going to talk brains in Edinburgh next month. She’s good on brains. I was feeling all nice and safe from this lovely event, until I realised I could probably actually be there. But it will be fine. Interesting, and not gruesome. That’s when Nicola operates on people without anesthetics. I pass out and that’s that. This will be most civilised.

The Royal Institution is also about brains. They are making it easier, or more accessible for smaller brains perhaps, with a series of one minute videos. On real subjects!

And to usher in the weekend, here are a pair of almost identical interviews with Swedish singer Lena Andersson. You might prefer the one in English. But should you be feeling adventurous, the Swedish one is here. (They are not identical. Obviously.)

The YouTube clips should have you singing.

Bookwitch bites #72

Today will be mainly about what happens in toilets. And I’m relieved (no, not in that way!) that some of you love me a little. Thank you to all five who like me. I’m actually ecstatic to find I have more fans than Declan Burke on Crime Always Pays, who only has ‘three regular readers.’ Or so he claims. And I’m one of them. Not sure who the other two are.

My tale about the sweet singing in the Ladies at the Lowry caused the nice press person from the Theatre by the Lake in Keswick to send me a very kind email. This in turn made me aware of the theatre’s book festival, Words by the Water. I know, everywhere does them, but it feels rather special to have something bookish in that lovely theatre setting. I just wish I could go. It started yesterday, and whereas it mainly seems to be adult authors, I did notice Annabel Pitcher in the programme.

The next toilet ‘incident’ also involves a lovely email (perhaps I shouldn’t have asked for sympathy?), from a librarian I encountered in the toilet queue at the Philippines Embassy (as you do) at the launch of Candy Gourlay’s Tall Story a year and a half ago. Her school – where she does her librarian stuff – has a novel (to me) kind of book competition to encourage reading. And I’m proud that I inspired one of the books to be picked. (That would be the one I never finished reading.) I’d like to think I’m also partly to blame for the school’s newly started blog. I wish them the best of fun with their Battle of the Books.

I believe I will now move swiftly and virtually seamlessly from toilets to libraries. Blue Peter was broadcasting live from the John Rylands Library in Manchester on Thursday. (And I wasn’t there! Small sob.) Both their book awards had reached a conclusion, so Gareth P Jones was there as his werewolf mystery The Considine Curse was voted Blue Peter Book of the Year. He looked quite happy.

And the Best Children’s Book of the Last 10 Years was won by Jeff Kinney for his bestselling Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He looked quite happy too. And like me, he wasn’t actually there. He spoke to the assembled Blue Peter children in a recorded message.

I really need to remember that Blue Peter broadcast from Media City in Salford these days. And that is relatively close. Oddly enough, I had been to Manchester earlier on Thursday. And to end this post in a vaguely toilet related manner, I almost passed the John Rylands after stuffing envelopes for the Hallé, in the company of a volunteer from the Lowry who was enthusing about the Media City gardens, and the ‘celebrities’ one can see there. One of the stuffings was for Wonderful Town, the collaboration between the Royal Exchange Theatre, the Hallé and the Lowry. And it was the toilet from the launch which featured in my second paragraph above, and the volunteer also experienced a slight incident with the Bridgewater Hall’s facilities on Thursday. It was a mere misunderstanding, and she wasn’t in the dark for long.

I know. Things stopped making sense about 100 words ago. Sorry.

Launching mcbf, again

You can never launch a good thing too many times. You might recall I ‘helped’ launch the Manchester Children’s Book Festival 2012 back in January last year. It was very nice. That’s presumably why they did it again.

Yesterday’s launch at New Charter Academy in Tameside (Ashton-under-Lyne) was properly executed, despite this being the week of throat infections and other kinds of bad throats. The member of staff at NCA who was to lead us to the auditorium had to whisper, hence the few followers. Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy fared only a little better, but was assisted by microphone and water.

But we did it, and that’s the main thing. With the help of my chauffeur, aka the Resident IT Consultant, I made it to this far flung outpost of Greater Manchester, and it was my very first academy visit. It was nice. No sooner had I braved the cold winds of the car park and made it inside when I was shanghaied into a – mercifully brief – interview with Radio Tameside (I conduct the interviews here, thank you very much!), as well as been begged for a contribution to the mcbf blog.

I was introduced to MMU Vice Chancellor John Brooks, who might be the one who said that well behaved parents could be permitted to accompany their children to the mcbf in the summer. (If not, someone else said it. It’s all a blur at the moment.) Nearly everyone spoke at some point or other. A few specially invited NCA students asked Carol Ann Duffy some extremely good questions. Kaye Tew enthused about their schools programme and James Draper (wearing truly cool socks) introduced the second half of the launch.

Which was Carol Ann Duffy and her best friend John Sampson, doing a similar show to the one I saw last year. But you simply can’t have too much of The Princess Blankets (the end of which I had already *forgotten…) read by Carol Ann and with John playing a lot of different flute-y instruments, including something looking like a walking stick. (The Resident IT Consultant nodded approval for every outlandish and ancient music contraption brought out.)

Noisy audience participation (by this time the audience had grown with the arrival of pupils from nearby primary schools) complemented a successful show. It included much worthy learning, but also a sign bearing the words ‘Bloody Hell.’ And I don’t think that was an accident… Mozart was there, not to mention his older colleague Johann Sebastian Baah, the famous sheep.

I could go on. And on. But to save you having to switch off your computer, I’ll leave you with the link to the brand new and freshly produced mcbf programme. It contains many witchy favourites. Some only in school events, however. I will work on my witch-to-school transformation for daytime use.

(And I’m sorry, but my photos are as rubbish as last week’s were. I suffered a ‘technical hitch’ which has now – belatedly – been rectified. Suffice it to say I am an idiot. Sorry.)

(*As for my concerns about early dementia, I have looked at last year’s launch blog. It seems Carol Ann never read us the end. Hardly surprising I couldn’t remember it.)

Just One Cornetto…

Feeling small

Meeting people who read ‘worthy’ books can be quite stimulating, albeit a little like a washing machine on too hot a setting. You shrink when you realise quite what an abyss there is between what you read and what they read. The trick is not to let on just how big the gap is.

The trouble is, I don’t have the gift of the gab. I can’t persuade people that I have read Milton, while making them feel ashamed because they haven’t. That sort of bluff is best left to Son.

I’m thinking here of my biannual meetings with Mr P Tuner. He reads. (As if it wasn’t enough that he has a perfect ear for music, and plays the piano very nicely, just like that, as if it’s not difficult at all.) It’s the Bookwitch Towers book room (aka the music room) that usually sets him off. He is under the impression that because we have lots of books, that he and I are similar.

Happily I’ve forgotten most of the worthy books he’s mentioned over the years. I doubt I’ve read a single one of them. Last year I gave him a list of what I read (best of), because he asked. When Mr Tuner called before Christmas he reported on having checked these suggestions out. Very decent of him.

Then he went on to tell me what he was engrossed in. Herodotus. Of course. And a little Edward Gibbon. Apparently his style is witty and modern. (I was once told that Pope was nice and light. I had to disagree.) Finally, for lighter moments Mr Tuner was reading Tolkien’s letters. (He’s never sent me any, so I haven’t.)

It really is fascinating quite how different we are. I might shrink temporarily when I have this kind of conversation, but for the most part I’m happy with what I read. If I weren’t, I’d change. I reckon it’s like with driving. If I suddenly felt the urge to drive a car, I would take lessons. Similarly, should Herodotus strike me as an essential read, I’ll go find him.

I have to say Herodotus seems a good sight more likely than the driving lessons…

A Christmas medley

It’s Christmas. I suppose there’s practically no one here, so let’s have some fun and relaxation with music.

I never imagined I’d even think of offering you the Smurfs singing Christmas songs in Danish. (I had a weak moment at Kastrup airport one December. In case you wondered.) But then I thought, you all love The Killing, and go round trying out those very Danish sounding Danish words and names. So you will adore the Smurfs. Won’t you?

Here are Smølferne with Så er det jul alle smølfer, aka Merry Christmas Everybody.

I went travelling at Christmas time again and bought a Swedish Christmas CD.  I especially liked one track. Still had no idea quite how fun it would be to actually see The Real Group sing, rather than just listen to them. And this is top quality singing. (Sorry about the Smurfs.)

Here you have The Real Group with their Christmas medley. Four of them sing a mix of hymns and lighter seasonal fare, while the fifth member of the group keeps trying to sing his song. The other four constantly interrupt him, until they finally give in…

God Jul! And Hej!

The Selfish Giant

I rarely respond well to offers of books through my contact page. Usually people are either offering perfectly fine books, but not what fits in here. Or the books seem anything but perfectly fine.

This one however, being a fairy tale written by Oscar Wilde himself, sounded quite promising. And no, Oscar didn’t email me. Dan Goeller did. He’s an American composer, who has put music to Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant. Chris Beatrice made the new illustrations for the story, and then they roped Martin Jarvis in to read the audio version with music.

I thought the concept sounded OK, so said yes to the offer of a book. I read it and enjoyed it, which is hard not to with a tale featuring giants and ogres and sweet little children.

What makes this new book stand out, though, is the CD and the music. It is absolutely fantastic! I’m no expert, but the music (played by members of the Nashville Symphony) sounded just right. And I would guess that this could easily become a real favourite with young children. Parents may read bedtime stories the best, but I have to say that Martin Jarvis read this one even better.

If you’re looking for fairy tale entertainment, then The Selfish Giant is a good place to start.

100% Justin Bieber

I was teased when I asked to read the Justin Bieber unofficial biography. Coming from the publisher that’s a bit much, but it’s always possible it wasn’t meant seriously. I’m too old. Then I was subjected to more mental abuse when Daughter found the book in my possession. You see how I suffer for this blog.

When I visited Random in January, one of the books discussed in the meeting I was at, was this book, which had then barely been conceived. Someone had cottoned on to the new and growing phenomenon of Justin, and it was seen as a good thing to have some sort of biography of this 15-year-old to sell, and as soon as possible. (Maybe they go out of fashion as soon as they come in?) I was fascinated to see how books like these may be dreamed up and planned, so was very keen to see the end result.

If I was ten or twelve I would most likely adore Justin, too, and in that case I’d love this book. It’s very colourful in cerise and pink, red and blue, with absolutely masses of photos of the boy and his hair that blows forward from the back. Good teeth, too. According to Daughter the page layout has been executed in a pleasing manner.

The book is like a thick girls’ magazine (ahem, I mean a thick magazine, not that the girls are), and if anything like it could conceivably have existed of Svenne Hedlund in 1966 I’d have been in heaven. So it follows that this should put a few girls in a Justin heaven, a few decades on. You get quizzes and wordsearches and crosswords and all that kind of thing. There is even a colour-in Justin. Did I mention all the photos? And there is a detachable poster of this Canadian teenager, too.

Have looked him up on YouTube, which is where it all started (Mums rock, is what I say), although I didn’t fall into raptures over him, if I’m to be perfectly honest. And Daughter and I have an argument over how to pronounce Bieber. I say I’m right and she’s wrong.

I reckon a lot of girls could be made tolerably happy with a copy of this book.

But how does he do that hair?

Who’s the best?

If Jacqueline Wilson, who has a few books behind her, and a million or two in the bank, and who is worshipped by thousands, can meet a blogger as an equal; why can’t her musical equivalents do so? How low do you have to go not to be too grand?

Are performers in music, film, television and the theatre worth more than a ‘mere author’? And how does one judge the greatness of either? Apart from how I may feel about them personally, I mean. Does this greatness automatically preclude any contact with lowly individuals such as bloggers? I can see that if you are Sinatra (and not dead) you need an agent or two between yourself and the fans and the journalists (those properly trained professionals). But at what level do you feel able to step down from those high horses, or whatever, and meet normal people?

I find the gap between people in the book world and the world of culture surprisingly wide. As a bit of a nobody I felt it was worth trying to get an interview with Roger Whittaker last year. I mean, you can always ask. RW may be a top level singer (well I think so), but I got my interview, very much to my surprise.

I keep trying it with other ‘grand’ people. The ones I like the best are those where at least you get a reply. The bizarre thing is that it’s often the promoters who are too grand and not the ones they work for.

Late one night some time ago I accidentally found myself in direct email contact with the ‘star’ I was after. Star was positive, but said it had to go via the promoter. The vibes from the office were very polite, but you sense how unimportant a blog is, compared with even the Smallsville Times. I was given a short telephone interview slot, but I turned it down. I was sent photos which I was then not allowed to use because I couldn’t guarantee that someone else wouldn’t ‘steal’ them off the blog. Anyone can steal any photo on the internet… To be fair, I suspect I was given the photos for free where someone like the Guardian would have had to pay. But neither of us can safeguard a photo put on the web.

My interviews continue getting hits long after the day I published them. If the interviewee can link to it, there will be even more interest. You can’t photograph someone over the phone, and if using official photos comes with impossible caveats, that means no pictures at all.

I’m a witch. I will continue to pester the great and the good. But to my mind they are not worth more than the people who write my favourite books.

(The rather badly done links in this post take you to older blog posts where the lack of professionalism at Witch Towers gets discussed. I ‘reviewed‘ a concert recently, but it seems I got all of it wrong. Which is unfortunate. And here is a link to some concert photos taken by Daughter. I’d love to publish many more. Except you’re not allowed to take pictures of ‘stars’. Despite being taken with a simple camera they are far better than the ones I was offered in the case above. As you can see there was such a scrum this time that nobody minded.)

That’s quite enough ranting for one day. Apologies for my unprofessional behaviour. I’ll go out now. Maybe do an interview. Or something.