Running a little late...

...but I have been busy. What with all my news and getting manuscripts (why do we still use that and the equally redundant 'typescript'? who knows) ready and all the other stuff I'm doing in a massive deck clearing operation, I feel like I'm busier than ever.

And happy as a larrikin (although why a hooligan would be any happier than anyone else is as much a mystery as most of the rest of life has and continues to be to me).

Anyway, in case you are interested, the series of mine that HarperVoyager have acquired is to be known as 'Shadow in the Storm - the Chronicles of Jeniche of Antar'

The first book will be out in November of this year. Initially as an ebook and followed by a print run in May of next year.

Harper have acquired the first three titles (there are seven in total) and have first refusal on the rest.

Book 1 - Stealing into Winter (already published by Roundfire and reacquired so that HV could have the series from book one).
Book 2 - Exile and Pilgrim (the book that wowed Natasha Bardon at Harper and led to the offer).
Book 3 - Players of the Game
Book 4 - Thunder on the Mountain

Books 5, 6 and 7 are planned but have yet to be drafted. That's my next big task - hence the clearing of the decks so I can sit down and get all three books first drafted in a single session. Watch this space for more news as and when it becomes available.

All that work also explains why my reading rate has dropped a bit.

Books read in August

Any Old Iron – Anthony Burgess

Groaning Spinney – Gladys Mitchell

Late, Late In The Evening – Gladys Mitchell

The Dancer At The Gai-Moulin – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Black Dogs Circled – Mick Farren

Vic And Blood – Harlan Ellison

The Wave In The Mind – Ursula K Le Guin

Cheek By Jowl – Ursula K Le Guin

The Ferguson Affair – Ross Macdonald

NEWS!

I can finally announce my big news (on which I've been sitting since I first heard in February).

Not only do I now have a literary agent - the wonderful Leslie Gardner at Artellus, but HarperVoyager have finally announced my signing. I have a three book deal on a series (with first refusal on the rest).

More details will follow when I have them.

Another month...

...another... er.

Well. What do you expect. I'm a writer. I write. And I read. I rarely leave the house. Nothing much happens.

Which is not strictly true. Things are happening and I am hoping that if you come back next month, you'll be able to read all about it.

In the meantime...

Books read in July

The Word For World Is Forest – Ursula K Le Guin

Nest Of Vipers – Gladys Mitchell

Fault In The Structure – Gladys Mitchell

The Secret Commonwealth Of Elves, Fauns And Fairies – Rev Robert Kirk (Andrew Lang)

The Wild Girls – Ursula K Le Guin

Monkey Planet – Pierre Boulle

Linger Awhile – Russell Hoban

A Man’s Head – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Dance To Your Daddy – Gladys Mitchell

Unlocking The Air – Ursula K Le Guin

Not Just A Witch – Eva Ibbotson

(which list brings this year's reading to 101 books)

Time flies...

...buzzing around as time decays. The whole thing made worse by the fact that we are moving in a different time stream to everyone else. This has always been the case, but it seems worse when you are packed up and ready to go and the others are, metaphorically, still scratching their arses as they climb out of bed.

Still. At least I can write and read as I wait for my home to be torn apart and put back together (such joy).

With writing, I’m at the bitty stage. A bit like all the preparation you need to do for decoration (to stick with a theme). All the choosing and buying of stuff. Going back cos you forgot the right sort of glasspaper (not sure of the metaphorical value of that, but there you go). And then stripping everything down to the bare bones.

As for reading, that is also back to basics in a fashion. I am replacing all my worn out and falling apart Ursula Le Guin books and re-reading most of them as they arrive. It is an education (or re-education). Not least because some of these books are out of print and I’m scouring the world (courtesy of that interweb thingy) looking for pristine copies. They have to last me the rest of my life and whilst I am happy to have second hand copies of some things, these I want new.

It was a blow to realise that a writer of such talent should have work that is out of print in an era when no book need ever be out of print, but not altogether a surprise. It is that sort of a time.

And as I get older, I was thinking about what will happen to my books when I’m gone. I’d hate to think they ended up in bins or the collections I have built up over the decades are dispersed. Although I don’t suppose I’ll be unduly worried.

And on that cheerful note… I’ll buzz off.

Books read in June

Brazen Tongue – Gladys Mitchell

Enderby’s Dark Lady – Anthony Burgess

Dead Men’s Morris – Gladys Mitchell

The Abominables – Eva Ibbotson

The Grand Banks Café – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Rocannon’s World – Ursula K Le Guin

The Wind’s Twelve Quarters – Ursula K Le Guin

Hangman’s Curfew – Gladys Mitchell

Planet Of Exile – Ursula K Le Guin

The Compass Rose – Ursula K Le Guin

Buffalo Gals & Other Animal Presences – Ursula K Le Guin

City Of Illusions – Ursula K Le Guin

The Eye Of The Heron – Ursula K Le Guin

Little boxes...

Packing continues with minor interruptions along with bad news and good. Pretty much everyday life, in other words. It is an aspect of the paradox that is the writer’s life. Many people consider it a desirable life, yet I suspect that for many they have an unrealistic view of what goes on. Champagne for breakfast, chauffeur driven limos, long lunches with one’s agent and/or editor, literary soirées… Sorry. Not even for the successful ones (although they probably do see a bit of that, who knows there might even really be one out there who gets to hang out with the NYPD and solve cases). For the most part, however, the writing life means dragging your half-awake carcass from bed to keyboard, probably not changing along the way and then sitting in your spare room for hours on end suffering angst whilst fling irate birds at porcine adversaries (so I’ve heard).

All of which is just one side of the story. The other side is that you go places no one has ever been before, or if they have been there, the reports you bring back cast a whole new light (sometimes the eighth one in the spectrum) on things. Writers are explorers, adventurers, people who can, even if they are sitting in the middle of a huge pile of boxes that contain everything they own, create the most wonderful of places, characters, and events. And they conjure this out of the thinnest of air – true magicians.

Books read in May

The Longer Bodies – Gladys Mitchell

The Devil At Saxon Wall – Gladys Mitchell

I, Vampire – Jody Scott

A Crime In Holland – Georges Simenon [new tr]

A Delicate Truth – John le Carré

The Cat – Colette

Inside Mr Enderby – Anthony Burgess

Here Comes A Chopper – Gladys Mitchell

The Treasure Hunt – Andrea Camilleri

Enderby Outside – Anthony Burgess

The Clockwork Testament – Anthony Burgess

Moving along...

...slowly. 

Trying to work when you are packing everything away is difficult. Quite apart from living surrounded by boxes, it's the psychological disruption, knowing that any time you are going to want a particular book and having no idea which box it is in. And it's not even as if we were moving to a new place with more room and no neighbours walking overhead at six every morning. Still, we are getting a new kitchen, bathroom, and wiring out of it; and the new porch has already been fitted (just waiting for a storm now to give it a proper test).

I also managed to get out from behind the desk yesterday and zipped down to Wigtown. What a place. A book town. It's full of book shops. Stuffed with books. And the sun was shining. If I ever get to heaven (doubtful), that's what it will be like.

Surprisingly, I didn't go down there for the bookshops (although I may have wandered into one or two, judging by the little pile of fresh titles beside me here). I went to the 2nd Wigtown Writers' Gathering and met lots of writers and listened to lots of writers and had a day of nattering with writers. And we had a superb lunch laid on as well.

See. Told you it was heaven.

Books read in April

Chéri – Colette

The Last of Chéri – Colette

Gigi – Colette

echo’s Bones [short story] – Samuel Beckett

The Ripening Seed – Colette

The Carter of La Providence – Georges Simenon [new tr]

The Yellow Dog – Georges Simenon [new tr]

The Ides Of April – Lindsey Davis

Clochemerle – Gabriel Chevallier

Speedy Death – Gladys Mitchell

Night At The Crossroads – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Stuff goes on. I write (although not as much this month as I'd hoped). I read (although not as much this month as I'd hoped). Whole days get lost hanging around waiting for other people or putting right what they should have done correctly in the first place. Being lost in a sea of stuff that needs sorting out doesn't improve tempers. The refurb to the flat later this year will entail packing up most of our belongings and seeing them put in storage, which is good. Us humans, on the other hand, have to wander the streets for a couple of weeks. We have been told there is a portakabin (as if it were some luxurious pad that we should be grateful for). The portakabin is a steel container - no windows, no seating, no loo, no heating. The thought of hiring a caravan sprang to mind, but the refurb takes place during the height of the holiday season and we get four weeks notice. Not looking forward to that. Oh well. Onwards...

Books read this month

The Collected Short Stories – Colette

Exploits & Opinions Of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician – Alfred Jarry

Ubu Rex – Alfred Jarry

Ubu Cuckolded – Alfred Jarry

Ubu Enchained – Alfred Jarry

The Jagged Orbit – John Brunner

Pietr The Latvian – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Bonjour Tristesse – Françoise Sagan [new tr]

The Late Monsieur Gallet – Georges Simenon [new tr]

A Certain Smile – Françoise Sagan [new tr]

On The False Earths – Mézières & Christin

Retreat From Love – Colette

The Vagabond - Colette

The Hanged Man Of Saint-Pholien – Georges Simenon [new tr]

Duo - Colette

Le Toutounier – Colette

Slightly derailed

I meant to blog a bit earlier, but things happened. They were good things. However, they resulted in a slight derailment of ordered life [ordered? are you sure?]. The worst of it is, from the point of view of blogging is that I cannot, as yet, mention what the good things are. But I will. Oh yes. When the time is right, I will blog about it.

What with that and the monster biography of Colette (and very good it was as well), my reading has dropped. I tackled the biography because I went back to the Claudine novels. And from there I’ll probably revisit the rest of my Colette collection; maybe even fill in some of the gaps.

Future upheavals to look forward to this year include various refurbishments by the Council.

Future events to look forward to include our 25^th wedding anniversary (later this month) and Barbara’s tieth birthday.

And someone said we might get a summer this year, but I’m not holding my breath.

Books read this month

Mary Poppins Comes Back – P L Travers

Three To Kill – Jean-Patrick Manchette

Mary Poppins Opens The Door – P L Travers

Claudine At School – Colette

Le Grand Meaulnes – Alain-Fournier (tr Davison)

Claudine in Paris – Colette

Claudine Married – Colette

Claudine And Annie – Colette

Dirty Snow – Georges Simenon

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette – Judith Thurman

Money matters!

Please read this.

Shock of the new(ish)

One of my all time favourite books (which I re-read on a fairly regular basis) is Alain-Fournier’s Le Grand Meaulnes. I first read it as an impressionable adolescent and it has haunted me ever since. Anyone who has read my novel, Wealden Hill, will know that.

I grew up with the Frank Davison translation. I have struggled through a French edition, but my command of the language is nowhere near good enough to be able to enjoy the book as a pure read. So I always go back to my battered and falling-apart Penguin Modern Classic, the one with Sisley’s ‘Small Meadows in Spring’ on the cover, the one that cost me 30p, the one that replaced the previous one which did fall apart. And as always, when it gets to the point where Seurel finally gets to hold Yvonne in his arms, I choked up.

This time round I choked up for a different reason as well. I had a copy of the new(ish) translation by Robin Buss, published as a Penguin Classic in 2007. I thought I would try that version. So, when I had finished Colette’s Claudine at School as a kind of appetiser, I turned to this new Meaulnes.

It was like watching your best friend being knocked into the gutter and kicked in the head. The differences are subtle. It may well be a technically competent (and possibly more technically accurate) translation, but that’s all it was. I gave up on it before the end of part one as it was like reading someone’s homework and went back to the Davison translation. That older version reads like a novel written with passion, which is what the story deserves.

But there were other problems with the new version (and which a glance at the original French confirms). The first is the appalling level of proof reading. Penguin used to be a first rate publisher that produced quality. They have clearly dispensed with a lot of the backroom work that earned them their reputation. The result was me howling over basic errors – bits of text that hadn’t even been edited properly, let alone picked by a proof reader.

And then there was the Introduction. It was the sniffiest, snottiest, most dismissive piece about the book it was introducing whilst trying to display to all and sundry what a clever fellow the writer is. Well, sorry, but to me it made you look spiteful.

I know M. Fournier’s first (and only) novel is flawed, but if you are invited, for whatever reason, to write an introduction to a work, what I want to read is an introduction to the work, a discussion of its context (rather than all the American books it inspired), the writer’s potential, the wider resonance occasioned by the horror of the years that followed its publication and, yes, its flaws. That can all be done without a look-at-me parade of one’s own erudition.

That seems to be quite commonplace these days, and it is boring. I do not need people to show off about how clever they are; I can judge that for myself from what they offer in terms of illumination of the subject they discuss. In this case, it was very little beyond an absurd discussion about the difficulties of translation that Davison ably dealt with.

So that newer Penguin is going in the box with other stuff for the charity shop and I will treat myself to a hardback version of the Davison translation that was published last year on the centenary of the book’s first publication. That way, I know my favourite version of the book will last as long as I do.

2014

This blog has been neglected to a disgraceful degree - as were those who commented on the last entry seven months ago. Seven months!

I have no doubt it will get neglected in the future. I tend to moan a lot, and that doesn't make for edifying communication.

So. 2014. I'll be using this blog to post a list of books I have read each month (taking over from my other blog - Grumbooks - which has also been neglected). And if I have anything useful to say, I'll also post here.

Books read in January of 2014

The Shape of Water – Andrea Camilleri

The Terracotta Dog – Andrea Camilleri

The Snack Thief – Andrea Camilleri

The Voice of the Violin – Andrea Camilleri

Excursion to Tindari – Andrea Camilleri

The Scent of the Night – Andrea Camilleri

Rounding the Mark – Andrea Camilleri

The Patience of the Spider – Andrea Camilleri

The Paper Moon – Andrea Camilleri
August Heat – Andrea Camilleri

The Wings of the Sphinx – Andrea Camilleri

The Track of Sand – Andrea Camilleri

The Potter's Field – Andrea Camilleri

The Age of Doubt – Andrea Camilleri

The Dance of the Seagull – Andrea Camilleri

The Bull and the Spear – Michael Moorcock

The Oak and the Ram – Michael Moorcock

The Sword and the Stallion – Michael Moorcock

Eduardo Paolozzi at New Worlds – David Brittain

Shaman Pathways – Yvonne Ryves

Mary Poppins – P L Travers

The Jewel In The Skull – Michael Moorcock

The Mad God’s Amulet – Michael Moorcock

The Prone Gunman – Jean-Patrick Manchette

The Sword Of The Dawn – Michael Moorcock

The Runestaff – Michael Moorcock

Count Brass – Michael Moorcock

The Champion Of Garathorm – Michael Moorcock

The Quest For Tanelorn – Michael Moorcock

From this you might gather I got a set of the first ten Camilleri's for Christmas (and treated myself to the others). Excellent stuff. Not sure I'll keep that pace up all year, but 29 books is a good start.


At some stage I will also be updating my CV and other stuff.