Getting a grip

Can be harder than you’d think.

I’m currently reading a great book, and by that I mean I like the contents. But it is also great in size. And that’s my problem. I can’t get a grip. I literally can’t pick it up with one hand, and to use both hands can occasionally be a little inconvenient. To do that I’d need to pick it up before I sit down, in which case I have to sit down while hugging this great book to my chest.

It’s a hardback so won’t bend. It probably has to have every one of its 600 pages. Even if more densely typeset I imagine it’d be 500 pages. The size of the pages is also large, but less of a problem than the thickness.

I know. It seems churlish to moan. But in this instance I have to claim to have hands the size of a child. It is a children’s book. If you want to encourage small-handed readers to read, it looks like a mistake making books so outsize that they dwarf the child. On the other hand, I suppose it could make you feel you’re getting good value for your money.

Speaking of money, it will also cost more to store this great book. More centimetres widthways and a couple of extra ones heightwise. It’s not my fault that our recently vacated bookcases could only accommodate the larger (=newer) hardbacks lying down. The books, not the bookcases. In the last ten years or so, hardbacks have become more XXL in size.

I just hope the largest size doesn’t become larger still. I’ve grown almost fond of my lying-down novels, but it has to stop now. Or I’ll need to employ a bookholder to sit in front of me when I read.

You know how books for dyslexics have been adapted to make everything easier? Well, I think having a spot of RSI/arthritis in my fingers should qualify for grippable books that won’t make the pain worse. I know, I could Kindle. But I don’t want to! I like book books.

My Christmas conundrum

I know it’s still September, but only just. The shops are already full of Christmas stuff. Saw some ugly trees at Dobbies the other day, and was disappointed, as this year I might actually be interested in a new tree (on account of the old one possibly not fitting into the new house so well). But I wouldn’t dream of buying it now.

Though that is perhaps my problem. I should buy now, while stocks last.

It’s not trees I wanted to discuss, of course, but books. In the book world they start being sold in October. It will be October in only a couple of days. I have had a pile of Christmas books lying around for weeks and weeks. The latest one to arrive I browsed through and found myself slipping into a Christmassy mood and that was way too early. Off to the premature Christmas pile with it!

I used to think that if I read them early and wrote reviews I could then post them on the blog close to Christmas. Handy. But I worked out that by the time we all feel more or less Christmassy in mid-December, no one will be reading reviews or going out to buy seasonal books for their little ones.

So December is too late. Maybe. When is the right time? If you ever want to read reviews of books with a Christmas theme, rather than suggestions of a book to buy as a Christmas present, when do you want it?

When would you buy it?

And who buys them and for whom? Is it as a Christmas present, or just as something December-ish to read to your tiny person (or give a slightly bigger tiny person to read themselves) to get into a Christmas mood?

I don’t remember Offspring being given anything like that, even by me. I think that any books featuring Christmas I got for me to read to them, to enjoy as December strolled along. So perhaps they aren’t presents?

It seems stupid to ask, but I just don’t know what purpose the books have, or who would buy them. Or when the ultimate time for reviews of them would be.

I have blogged before about my fondness for Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice which is the perfect book to read in December. Or the various Advent-y books to read a little bit of every day, like those by Cornelia Funke or Jostein Gaarder. Those you do need to know about in time, or it’d be too late when Christmas arrives.

I’m not ready to read or review the Christmas pile yet. Are you?

Bookwitch bites #127

You know books? There is money in them. Sometimes, at least, and not only for author and publisher, although I’d wager Michael Morpurgo has made a reasonable sum from War Horse the book. Possibly more from the play and the film.

War Horse the play has just finished its second run at the Lowry, hopefully pleasing the 200,000 people who came to see it. But what’s more, it hasn’t merely earned money for Michael or the theatre. It has been estimated that Greater Manchester is better off by £15 million. And it’s pretty good that books can have such an effect.

For the last performance in Salford they had a Devon farmer as a Devon farmer extra.

Not a farmer, nor a twinkly old elf, is how Neil Gaiman doesn’t describe his friend Terry Pratchett in the Guardian this week. Terry is driven by rage, Neil claims, and I can sort of see where he’s coming from with that. I reckon Terry got pretty annoyed to hear me say that my local library service banned him from the under 16s. (Correction, it was their representative who did. Not the whole service. But still.) And any person with any decency would be furious about what’s wrong in this world. And luckily we have the non-twinkly Terry to write wonderful books about it.

Someone who scares me much more is Kevin Brooks. I know. He seems non-scary, but his books deal with people in circumstances I find hard to cope with. Kevin has just written a book for Barrington Stoke, to be published in January 2015, and it might be short, and it might be an easy read. But it’s also not an easy read, in that it deals with the hard reality for young, male, teenagers. A typical Brooks, in other words.

Barrington Stoke make books accessible to readers who would otherwise not read. Daniel Hahn was on the radio this week, talking for 13 and a half (his own description) minutes on the importance of translated books. They make books accessible to people who would otherwise not be able to read French or Finnish, or any other ‘outlandish’ language.

Daniel has also worked hard on the new Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature, to be published in March 2015. I’m looking forward to that, and hopefully this new companion will pave the way for a few more readers, too.

Whereas authors playing football will achieve exactly what? OK, let’s not be negative or anti-sports here. I did actually want to go and see the football match between English crime writers and their Scottish counterparts. It was part of Bloody Scotland last weekend, but unfortunately the match clashed with an event, and being lazy, I chose to sit down in-doors instead of standing on the side of a rectangle of grass watching grown men kick a ball around.

I understand the Scottish team won. Ian Rankin is looking triumphant, and I can see Craig Robertson, Christopher Brookmyre and Michael J Malone, plus some more people I don’t recognise in shorts.

The two Marys travel back in time

The two Marys, Hoffman and Hooper, have unravelled some more history for me in their new books for Barrington Stoke. Mary Hoffman writes about the war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire in 1571, and Mary Hooper visits plague-ridden London in 1665.

Both historical events are ones I ‘know’ of, especially the plague. But that doesn’t mean I know all that much, so I’m grateful for some fiction to help me learn.

Angel of Venice features Luca who dreams of running off to war. But he’s in love, so can’t quite make his mind up, until it’s forcibly made up for him. And war is not at all as you tend to imagine, but hell on earth and he soon wishes he hadn’t gone.

Lovely romance and history lesson all in one. The Ottoman Empire is no longer as hazy to me as it was, and Venice with Mary is always good.

Ring of Roses is pretty scary. You imagine that ‘your’ character will be all right because it’s fiction and you can’t kill off the main character, can you?

Abby has come to London to look after a rich woman’s baby, and she stays well while the rest of London succumbs to the illness. Mary describes graphically what happens to the people in houses where someone dies of the plague and it’s not good.

Very realistic, and very informative.

The Marys do this so well, and I’m pleased they have written these dyslexia friendly books. They are much needed.

Skink No Surrender

‘Don’t fart on my Steinbeck.’ Who could not love a book with a sentence like that in it? It is genius in its simplicity. The phrase, not the book. Well, that too is genius, but not simple. Carl Hiaasen’s book might appear simple, but is really very complex, and in that respect Skink No Surrender is no different from his other fantastic novels.

I was looking forward to reading it from the moment it arrived, in all its anonymous glory. Would you believe, they didn’t put his name on the book? At first I was outraged by the description of the plot and the characters, because it was a total Carl Hiaasen rip-off. And then I twigged that it was Carl, and his finest creation, Skink himself.

This is about the danger of strangers, and in particular going off in a car with a man you don’t know. Richard’s cousin Malley has done exactly that. She seems fine at first, but soon it becomes apparent that things have turned bad. And to help Malley, Richard goes off in a car with a man he’s just met. So, parents might not approve of this scenario, and they’d be right not to. In a way.

Skink would agree with them, and he’s the one who drives off with Richard to find Malley. Hiaasen aficionados will know Richard is perfectly safe with Skink. And Richard feels safe, despite his new friend’s lunatic behaviour. But he can’t actually know that!

Skink No Surrender is yet another mix of crazy, kindness and saving the environment. It’s an odd mix, but it works so well. Skink can’t tolerate people who steal turtle eggs or shoot at herons. Or throw drinks cans from their cars. So don’t. Just don’t, if there is any possibility of Skink being in the vicinity.

The adventure of finding Malley, and saving a little bit of Florida, is as fun as you’d expect, and you sit there laughing helplessly, or seething over human folly. And you know Richard will be fine, and that Malley will be found, safe and sound.

With a bit of luck, Skink will survive the tale too, with most of his body parts almost intact and not too much missing.

The Case of the Bogus Detective

Imagine the joy of finding that the trilogy you liked so much didn’t, in fact, end with the third book. There is a fourth! The last one, from what I’ve heard, but very nice all the same. (And I don’t think we should rule out more from the way things were left…)

Caroline Lawrence’s very likeable aspie detective PK Pinkerton is back, in The Case of the Bogus Detective. We now know what sex Pinky is, but that only adds to the fun. PK’s long lost dad, the famous Pinkerton detective turns up, and together they set out to solve the robberies on stage coaches carrying valuables. Pinkerton Sr wants PK to dress as a girl, and goes so far as to teach Pinky how to act like one, how to walk, and so on. He doesn’t appear to have much dress sense however, which is so like a man.

Jace seems to have let PK down and the relationship with Ping sours somewhat, and Mark Twain, as he now calls himself, sets off for San Francisco. Pinky isn’t far behind, on the trail of the stage coach robbers.

So this time we have a true western adventure on a stage coach, followed by more adventures in San Francisco. We’ve heard so much about the city, and now PK can see what it’s like, as well as solve a mystery. Things are tied up most satisfactorily.

I have loved these westerns with a difference, and would happily read more. And I’ll have my own Sioux outfit now, thank you. I’ve always wanted one.

Books To Die For, again

Hot on the heels of Bloody Scotland comes the paperback version of Books To Die For. You know, the book about crime writing by crime writers for crime readers that I love so much. (I’ll tell you a secret. When I picked the books I just had to have with me during my temporary home displacement, BTDF was one of the few I simply had to have by my side. It is that wonderful.)

So two years after John Connolly and Declan Burke travelled round talking about their beautiful collaboration, here it is for anyone who managed to miss it first time round. Who wouldn’t want to hear about Sara Paretsky’s favourite, or find out whose favourite Sara herself is? And so on and so on.

The main danger as always, is finding more people whose books you must read than you have time.

And that leads me to the – slightly horrifying – thought I had on Sunday when listening to Sophie Hannah talk about her admiration for Agatha Christie. Because a lot of the writers in BTDF started their careers in crime by liking Christie’s work.

Like me, Sophie began reading Christie around the age of 12. It was the natural thing for people that age with a taste for reading and that inexplicable spare time we all seemed to have, to do. You looked at your parents’ shelves, or maybe the neighbours’ shelves or anyone else among close grown-ups. And you’d find Christie and you’d try her and most likely be hooked.

After that, you’d go on to more crime, and more, and more.

We didn’t have all those books children today have, and I’m all for pointing the 10-year-old reader in the direction of Artemis Fowl. But will the Artemis Fowl fan grow up to be a fully paid up member of crime reading? Do 20-somethings read a lot of crime today?

I have no idea, and I’m the first to admit I’ve not been pushing Agatha Christie at young people, either. Offspring know her through television. Will she be known mainly for ‘screenwriting’ for Joan Hickson and David Suchet? And what will happen to that natural progression towards all kinds of – written, fictional – crime?

Books To Die For could take over from those parental bookshelves. I hope it will.

Demon rules and the Glasgow underground

Did you know there are rules for summoning demons? And that crime writers all refer to the same rules?

I trust I didn’t imagine this. Michael J Malone chaired the Bloody Scotland Sunday afternoon supernatural event, talking to Alexandra Sokoloff, Gordon Brown (the other one) and James Oswald. Actually, I don’t suppose the event was supernatural. It was the topic. Although, Alexandra was described as the daughter of Mary Shelley, so I don’t know.

After a ‘warm bloody welcome’ Michael asked the three to blame someone or something for what they are doing. Gordon Brown didn’t know he wanted to write crime, but worked out that he could do a lot of horrible things to people if he did. He described a Glasgow pub fight he’d witnessed once, where one man was sitting reading a book, completely oblivious to the fighting going on around him.

Alexandra said that although she had a past working with juvenile crime in Los Angeles (where she’s from), it was the Scottish who led her to crime. Hearing Denise Mina and Val McDermid talk at BoucherCon one year, she realised that crime writing was the best way to address social issues, tired of the endless slaughter of women in books, and she wanted to turn that around, writing about a female Jack Reacher type.

James blames (hey, that rhymes…) Stuart MacBride. James was writing his epic fantasy series when Stuart told him to stop doing that. So James wrote a few short stories to see if he could write crime, but he hasn’t been able to totally shake off the fantastic element. Hence the demons.

Is evil a noun or an adjective? It can be both, but James uses it as an adjective. And he says that publishers want something different, as long as it’s the same as everything else. Gordon has a plan for putting two politicians into the same room, having the First Minister murder another Minister…

Sex? Well, Gordon doesn’t think he could write it very successfully. And can you let your mother read it? James doesn’t believe the reader should know about the detective’s sex life. They can have one, but you don’t need the details. Whereas Alexandra likes sex and so do her characters. She wants the stories to have erotic suspense, and besides, the books go on for too long for the characters not to have sex. But James said he feels the suspense can still be there with clothes on.

Have they met evil people? Gordon said you can’t possibly know. Alexandra thinks you can, and she has encountered many evil people in the past. James has led a sheltered life, but has come across evil intent, even if people are not evil.

Gordon said that if something feels gratuitous, then it probably is. It’s better to imply than to describe. It’s harder, but better, to get inside people’s heads. Alexandra gave up screenwriting because she didn’t like the ‘torture porn’ she was expected to write. She writes about violence, but doesn’t like to read about extreme violence. Humour, according to James, is true to life, so you need it in a book. If there is none, it makes the book hard to read.

Writing series – Alexandra has written two books, and is working on the third, but doesn’t know how long she would continue. Feedback from readers is a good thing. Gordon will write more if he likes the characters, but if he tires of them it’s hard to make it fresh. James doesn’t know. He’s got a contract for six McLean novels, and since his detective doesn’t die at the end of book six, there is scope for more. He gets to know him better with each book, so could go on forever.

Have they researched the supernatural? Well, there seems to be some ground rules about demons. Alexandra has read up on the rules. James relies on Buffy, and Gordon talked about getting the Glasgow underground wrong. The trains might go round and round, but you could still be on the wrong platform.

Sophie Hannah on Poirot

Sunday morning at Bloody Scotland just had to mean Sophie Hannah on writing the new Poirot. As Alex Gray who talked to Sophie said, it’s the kind of thing that will make you very excited. There had been a lot of serendipity involved in her getting the job, which involved Sophie’s crazy maverick of an agent (a man with hints of Sophie’s mother, Adèle Geras), a HarperCollins editor, Agatha Christie Ltd, and the fact that Sophie already had an idea for a plot that she simply couldn’t make fit into her own novels.

A life-long Agatha Christie fan, Sophie knew the books very well (and hearing her talk about them made me want to rush home and start re-reading), and like Poirot she is rather OCD (in her case about the tassels on her Persian rug). She reckons that David Suchet is Poirot, but she didn’t write with him in mind. There is a strong film interest in her book, The Monogram Mysteries, but as she pointed out, David Suchet has said he won’t do more Poirot.

The novel is set in 1929 in the gap between The Mystery of the Blue Train and Peril at End House. Poirot has gone on holiday, to temporary lodgings opposite his own flat (which seems to have been inspired by Sophie’s father, Norman Geras), in order to be free from people seeking his help. The story is told from the point of view of a young detective called Catchpool, to avoid Sophie having to try and imitate Agatha’s style of writing. Catchpool is there to offset Poirot, to be bright, but obtuse.

One of the many coincidences in her being given the task of writing the book was that long before this she had booked a family holiday staying at Agatha Christie’s house, Greenway. Another odd thing was that the week they were there, the filming of Dead Man’s Folly took place on the property. Sophie worked every evening, and by the time the holiday was over, she had the whole novel in her head. She is ‘very serious about crime fiction’ which is the best kind of fiction.

She accidentally invented a new way of writing while jotting down her ten page plan, when it became 100 pages with every detail of the book. Sophie found that this meant she could forget worrying about plotting while also trying to write nicely, as the job had already been done. (She has since written her latest novel in this way as well.)

Before Sophie was allowed to go public with the news about her book, she discovered on Twitter that feelings go very deep when it comes to people taking over writing somebody else’s work, and she was shocked but not worried. She sat down and thought about it and came to the conclusion it wasn’t morally wrong, and that real fans would want to read a new book, and others were free to not read it. Most of her Twitter followers have since come round, with the help of tea and scones, except for Troy in Minnesota.

There was no reason to list what had to be in the book; she knew instinctively what it needed. She’d be happy to write another Poirot, but does not feel she should be the one to write about Miss Marple – a shrewd old bat – but this would be better done by someone else, like Lee Child…

Her Christie favourites keep changing, but Murder on the Orient Express remains on top, along with Sleeping Murder, and more recently Lord Edgware Dies (it’s got the best murderer in it) and After the Funeral (best motive) and Appointment With Death (psychological tyrant).

People who say Agatha was not a terribly great writer are wrong. There’s a reason Agatha Christie sold more books than anyone else, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare. The books can be read by a 12-year-old ill in bed, or a middle aged professor. They are the perfect blend of simple and complex; funny but filled with darkness, suffering and torment. Sophie reckons that people who say the books are no good ‘might just be a bit stupid.’

The last question of the morning came from ‘Troy  in Minnesota,’ or so he claimed. Probably here for his tea and scones. Sophie said she likes rules, whether for poetry, crime or Agatha Christie. And her own next book has a bit of Golden Age Mystery in it, now that her appetite for such things has been awakened.

Alex Gray spoke for all of us when she said that we would happily have stayed another hour. At least. I feel sorry for anyone who didn’t get out of bed early enough to hear Sophie talk Christie.

Into the unknown

The day had its ups and downs. Twice, in fact. I’d carefully chosen my morning event at Bloody Scotland to be down at the Albert Halls, so you can work out what had to happen. Had to collect my ticket at the Stirling Highland Hotel first, way up where I was on Thursday. The Resident IT Consultant drove me there, and while I got the tickets and hobbled down the hill again, he drove home, parked the car and walked back to the Albert Halls. (Because, yes, I had given him permission to join me.)

Apart from venue, I had chosen events with people I don’t know. Leaving your comfort zone and all that. The day began with Domestic Noir as written by Sharon Bolton, Helen Fitzgerald and Julia Crouch. They each read a short piece, and that was pretty chilling stuff. I’m not sure I’d have the guts to read the whole book, by any of them.

All three believe in starting with a punchy first sentence, because you can’t afford not to. The reader should be able to tell it’s not chick lit, but hard-hitting crime. It’s the editor’s job to tell them when there is too much housework in a book. Well-ordered tins of food is very scary, and so is an unreliable narrator. Sharon even has an unreliable main character.

None of them reckon they need to write about feminism. It’s obvious from their books. Helen spoke of Australian radio announcements when there are bushfires. If you can see flames, don’t leave your house. It’s too late. Sharon talked about snakes in Midsomer country, and Julia has a past travelling in Greece that involved drunken, unseemly behaviour. (She looked so nice, too.)

They find their children useful as sources of information and style, and while Julia had borrowed a friend’s Cath Kidston type house for a book, Sharon went out of her way to find a ‘skanky’ riverside setting.

Helen works part time, having gone crazy, alone in her attic. Sharon said she’s an unsociable creature who works best alone, with the dog to tell her it’s time for lunch. Although Twitter is good to check when things aren’t going so well.

Both Sharon and Julia know how their books should end, but will often change as they go along. Helen knows where she is going, and even has a last line that she aims for. Humour is necessary and contact with readers is good. They all listen to their editors, and writing can be ‘sheer hell to go through, but worth it in the end.’

Afterwards we repaired to the bookshop for signings, and I enjoyed a mug of tea and cake, and a good read. As I left, I found Peter Robinson, whose event came next, sitting incognito-ish in the foyer. I think that meant he wasn’t really there, but his fans recognised him and came up to chat.

I climbed up the hill, having sent the Resident IT Consultant home, wondering why the Back Walk gave me vertigo going up, when down had been OK. My afternoon event was about Glasgow Gangsters with Andrew Davies and Bryan McLaughlin, chaired by Douglas Skelton. Andrew is a crime historian, specialising in street gangs,  and Bryan is a retired Glasgow detective, who has written a book about his work.

Street gangs happen because of poverty, over-crowding and unemployment. Andrew compared the smaller number of gang members in places like Coronation Street, small streets of terraced housing, with the Glasgow tenements, where you could literally be on the wrong side of the street, on someone else’s turf, and be killed for it.

Bryan, who hails from Easterhouse, reckoned the 1960s weren’t as dangerous as the 1920s or 30s, and that it was mainly territorial fights rather than other crimes. Andrew has scoured newspaper libraries for everything on crime and gangs in Glasgow, including moving there for six months to learn more. Chicago crime featured heavily in the papers, and both authors reckoned newspapers could have been partly to blame for the reputation of gangs and individual criminals.

According to Bryan, Manchester’s Moss Side is worse than Glasgow is now. There is less violence, now that it is mainly drugs, because you’d be stupid to attack a potential customer. Questions from the audience covered things like human trafficking and what gangsters did in the war.

Then there was more signing, in yet another bookshop, with people doing literary chairs to fit in behind the available tables. I did that thing I rarely do, which is buy a book. (For tomorrow. James Oswald. Thought I’d better be prepared. As I exited the bookshop I found myself face to face with James. As you do.)

Came across Bloody Scotland’s Lin Anderson, who had been collared by someone outside the Ladies (which might not be the best of places to waylay people). After which it was time for me to make my second descent of the day. I won’t be able to keep this up…