NextRead

Alright, I’m feeling a little guilty about yesterday’s outburst. Still not sure what got me so incensed. So to make up for it I’ve ordered a copy of Heaven’s Delight to see if it is worth the fuss or if it’s a case of style over substance. And I’ve got second reader lined up who is quite into romantic comedies to give me a second opinion.

It’s also a debut, but I’m not sure that romantic comedies are good things to make into trilogies though. To make up my £15 order on Amazon I also ordered Look We Have Coming to Dover! a debut poetry collection by faber, which if I’m honest, I’m looking forward to much more than Heavenly Delight. I did like some of the stuff by Mike Gayle. I’m wondering if HD is going to be similar?

And in Tesco I committed the Cardinal Sin of buying a £3.73 book. I couldn’t help it. I bought a copy of The Testament of Gideon Mack from the strength of the cover design and the blurb. I’m looking forward to it though I have to finish Vicious Circle first.

I’ve officially given up on The Dante Club and it’s back on www.readitswapit.co.uk I’m so behind on reading and I’m itching to read some more of Haruki Murakami short stories. All that and I might, and I mean might, be writing fiction again. Gods willing.

Guardian Unlimited: Arts blog - books: How to sell your debut novel
A publisher doesn’t invest that much PR in first-time writers unless you’ve been recommended on Richard and Judy’s Book Club or been hailed as the next best thing. However, there are options available that can help dramatically increase sales.

I hope this blog entry on the guardian’s website is preaching to the converted. As Guardian blog posts go it’s not the most thoughtful or insightful. I’m not sure that sales figures of over 1,300 copies of a book in the first two months is something to promote in a blog post about promotion. But then I thought that Niraj Kapur was published by a mainstream publisher, but no he’s self-published:

The Matador imprint was specifically founded for authors who have been unable to publish their work through a commercial publishing house and who do not wish to pay the large charges levied by vanity publishers.

So I think the post is a little bit misleading. The post has good advice for anyone who wants to ramp up a few more sales. I just don’t think that he’s qualified to comment on what mainstream publishers do or don’t do to promote their debut novels.

Edit:

I don’t know why this has annoyed me.

Domain name - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For instance, Experts Exchange, the programmers’ site, for a long time used expertsexchange.com, but ultimately changed the name to experts-exchange.com.

Wikki has more examples. Spaces are a saviour it seems.

The Web’s Most Humongous Collection of Writing Quotes
I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others. - Moliere, from The Ridiculous Precieuses

This is my favourite one. What’s yours?

Every Dead Thing
John Connolly
Coronet Books
£6.99
Published 2000

John Connolly has created a dark and flawed detective with Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker. After the murder of his wife and daughter at the hands of the Travelling Man, seemingly Parker  will stop at nothing to find him.

In Every Dead Thing we follow Parker from the streets of New York to swamps of New Orleans and the bodies pile up. He’s looking for a missing girl but instead finds more than he probably wanted to know.

Charlie Parker is not your classic detective. He is violent and dangerous. He moves easily with the criminals that as a police man he would have been duty bound to arrest and convict.

The power of this first-of-a-series novel is the pace. Nothing lingers too long but no details are skipped either. The descriptions of bone and rotting flesh are pungent and stomach churning but like any good horror you’re unable to look away. John Connolly shows you the reality behind murder and those who find pleasure and business in committing it.

This review was originally published on NextRead in Oct 2006

Well, it’s not that I’m not writing at all. I’m writing this of course, and I’m writing the odd e-mail and things but I’m not cracking on with any stand alone pieces. There isn’t anything as boring as a writer wingeing about writing. I don’t have to do it after all. All the world needs is another writer, right?

I’m having the urge again. But what to write about. I’ve been looking for ideas in the boxes that I packed up after moving out of student digs. I’d forgotten how much good stuff gets handed out in class (I did a degree in Creative and Professional Writing in case you didn’t know). Any way what I was actually looking for were the scraps of paper containing ideas. Here is a selection:

What if you rented a room in a strange house?
What if a painting came to life?
What if you could enter a photograph?
What if you caught you partner cheating on you?
What if aliens landed?
What if you could talk to the dead?
What if you could see things in mirrors?
What if you had a double?
What if you died and went to heaven?
What if yo died and went to hell?
What if you met…the devil…god…your future husband..a witch?
What if you could hear wolves/rats/… in the walls?
What if you lost your job?
What if you found out your girlfriend was a boy/alien?
I’ve got another page full here but I think that’s enough to both you and me started.

Anonymous Lawyer
Jeremy Blachman
Vintage Books Original Fiction
£7.99
Published 1 Feb
Review Copy

The cover gives you some idea about the character of the Anonymous Lawyer He has horns, a devil tail and what could be a good suit. Though to be fair lawyers aren’t known for buying halo polish. AL is a hiring partner at one of the world’s largest law firms and he starts a blog. Everyone has a blog: I’m expecting The Queen to start one, anonymously of course. Well she couldn’t be that anonymous; there aren’t that many people who do her job.

We’re presented with a series of blog posts and email exchanges as AL butts horns with ‘The Jerk’. And they do feel like blog posts. Everyone has a nickname matching their character. My favourite being ‘The Woman That Hugs Everybody’. He changes the places, dates, and outcomes of events to remain anonymous. But he worries for how long it will be before he found out.

If it was an actual blog printed out I could see this being less exciting. But it’s not just a blog. It is a novel with a plotline and character development. And that’s what makes it very readable.

Each of the posts give you a glimpse of behind the scenes of a law firm, at least it sounds convincing like a real law firm from the descriptions of the counting of Post-Its to the billing clients for researching in the bathroom.

But most convincing is the character of AL. He does start off as a bit of Devil, but through the posts and more usually the e-mails he seems to be as human as the rest of us, if a little cynical, and a bit too rich.

It’s not all successful. Making it blog-like with a compelling character and a plot that doesn’t seem too extreme for the world it inhabits doesn’t need to be promoted for having “up-to-the-minute references”, which are going to date it more than it needs to. It gets a little too soft in the middle when AL seems to run out of nasty things to torment the ‘summers’.

Anonymous Lawyer is also a live a blog (anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com). I’ve not read it yet as not to effect my impression of this debut. I’m hoping there’ll be a sequel. For writers of anonymous blogs there could even be few writing tips to be had.

Overall, an enjoyable and non-taxing read that had me laughing out loud more than once. Highly recommended.

I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that debut novels aren’t flagged as well as they should be. I managed to miss the announcement in December of the Guardian First Novel Award, which according to wikipedia is:

awarded to a work of fiction by British or Commonwealth writer and published in the UK

None of them are books I’ve heard much about. And they’re not really ones that I’ve choose on an average bookshop buying spree. Though this year’s winner sounds like an interesting read:

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers by Yiyun Li (Fourth Estate)
Yiyun Li’s short story collection brings us a modern China facing up to a complex history of repression and guilt, and conveys a sense of a country undergoing tremendous change

Though I did spot another début today also from the Guardian:

Patrick Barkham on the poet Daljit Nagra | By genre | Guardian Unlimited Books
Having the countrys biggest poetry publisher take on your debut collection is a dream come true for an unknown poet. But Daljit Nagras greatest feat is capturing the experience of British-born Indians, says Patrick Barkham

I’ve also been looking at Macmillan New Writing and quite fancy:

The Secret War — M.F.W. Curran

For thousands of years a secret war has been fought between Heaven and Hell. Daemons and angels, vampyres and knights, clash for the future of mankind, and as the two sides wage war across the world, innocent people are caught up in the conflict – men like Captain William Saxon and Lieutenant Kieran Harte, two great friends who have recently survived the horrors of the Battle of Waterloo.

Though on limited funds, and I’m not angling for review copies though it would be nice, I’m not sure I want to invest £12.99 on something I’m unsure of when I can almost get two books for the same price.

Speaking of review copies and debuts and the reviews in the title. I got sent a review copy of the Anonymous Lawyer last week. And I think a review of it would be a good way to start my year of the debut. Post to follow tomorrow.

If you want to read a debut you have to hunt for them which is a shame. And then find time to actually read them.

A little test

Books Wot I Have Read

Books Wot I Have Read

Does what it says on the tin. I’d love to be able to do this. Must read more. It does though give me great ideas on what I’d like to read next.
On a parallel, I’m currently reading:

The Dante Club
Things That Never Happened
Letter from America
Smoke and Mirrors

Smoke and Mirrors I’ve had since the American Edition was published way back when and I’ve read half of it I think, but now I’m reading the paperback, which was on the bargain table at Waterstones. My reading habits have changed. I find it really hard to read hardbacks now, which is my excuse for being three books behind in the Discworld series.I must admit I’m not enjoying the Dante Club; I’m hoping that it’s just a slow start. I love stories which as character driven and I’m having problems connecting to any of the characters. I’ll give it some more time.

Letter from America is quite spooky. I’m only on the first few ‘letters’ from the 40’s but the parallels between now and then seem to suggest that nothing really changes.

M.J. Harrison I’m not enjoying either. His writing style is strange and muddy. Again only a few stories so I’ll give it chance.

I did stop reading Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell last year and I still feel guilty about it. I got half way in and it wasn’t working for me. The novel changes the formula that ran for the previous ten or so books and went from first to third person. It completely removed me from the character. I think that and the long gap between books broke the connection I had with it.

Here’s a question.

Should you finish every book you start?