David Maybury | Blog

It’s not quite everything but here’s a round up from the papers last week – starting at home with the the Irish Independent’s low down on Oliver Jeffers’ The Heart and the Bottle and Philip Pullman’s The Good Man Jesus And The Scoundrel Christ.

Katriona McFadden reviews the latest new releases with the gang on the Afternoon Show

Hughes & Hughes is on the verge of a come back in Dublin – with Easons buying up some of the chain’s stores.

Susie Mesure talks to Brian Wildsmith – who has a museum in his honour in Japan! Who knew?!

Oiliva Laing reads Michael Chabon on entertainment and writing -

Chabon’s brilliant, heartening sense of the writer as swashbuckler, advancing into unmapped territory in search of, if not the truth, at the very least a whopping story.

Mary Hoffman reads Gillian Cross’ Where I Belong and Geraldine Brennan reads John Mayhew’s Mortlock.

Mal Peet reviews David Yelland’s debut The Truth About Leo.

Yelland’s desire to depict addiction and redemption is so earnest that it drives out plausibility. Leo and Flora do not think, act or speak like 10-year-old children. Often, they mimic unconvincingly the dialogue of an AA meeting or some other therapeutic encounter. The portrait of the mother is a sentimental hagiography. The supporting characters, including the PM and his press secretary (both dilutions from The Thick of It), are barely two-dimensional. Narrative incidents are impossible (ever tried to shake an oak tree?).

A charity shop digs up an old Beano issue – that could be worth £2,000!

Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight books joined the ranks of those most frequently requested to be banned from US libraries.

Imogen Russell Williams plays games with the books she reads.

The Sunday Times has a read of the good, bad and everything in between in children’s lit.

Darren Shan gets a leg up from Spurs goalie Carlo Cudicini in a drive for boys to read more books! (Though a Spurs goalie plugging your book might not help sales!)

The folks at MacMillan Kids talk up their visit to Bologna.

Scroobius Pip, rapper and one half of the music duo with Dan le Sac, is hitting the bookshelves with a graphic book of poetry.

Alice hits Wonderland (via the iPad)

Publishers Weekly has their regular Children’s Book Reviews slot – including Bernard Waber, Béatrice Rodriguez, Jennifer LaRue Huget and Paolo Bacigalupi.

And for no reason at all – I really like the look of this!!

The very clever folk over at The Book Smugglers are looking for your thoughts on book covers – how much do covers influence the books that you buy?

And as a reminder of how important covers are – have a look at some of the nastier ones (as covered by goodshowsir)

Or this gem (via Bookdwarf)

This weeks Book with a View features Belgian illustrator and author Kitty Crowther – winner of the Astrid Lindgren memorial award.

More at scamp.ie

There were flights, a stop over in Paris and a very brief sight seeing before Patricia and I made it to the Bologna Book Fair.

There is lots of talk about what is coming – including a new (yes I said a new) Siobhan Dowd book. It is an unfinished manuscript that will be finished by another writer, who I can’t name, but could be Patrick Ness, but I couldn’t possibly confirm that and could be illustrated, maybe by Dave McKean.

There was the announcement that John Boyne and Oliver Jeffers have teamed  up to write Noah Barleywater Runs Away – about a boy who runs away from home and into a forest where he finds a puppet shop, with an old man who has a ton of stories to tell.

And other promises from publisher folk include – Frank Cottrell Boyce’s new book *is* coming – something very fun and top secret!

There is a new Anthony Horrowitz due any month now – called Scorpio Rising. Michelle Gail (of Grange Hill, Eastenders and being generally famous) has her first teenage book out too – and it sounds v good. Plans are afoot for it to go digital first – as an iPhone download. Who could ask for more?

How about – a new children’s book from Terry Pratchett – there is lots of talk about. (I’ll found out more…) and Shaun Tan’s Tales from Outer Suburbia has inspired Eric to be in a book of his very own.

It was a very short visit yesterday – about an hour – but we still managed to take some pics:

And we managed to visit the Whisper Gallery – very impressive!

Philip Pullman is coming to Dublin.

As the teaser for this years Dublin Writers’ Festival the His Dark Materials legend will be talking with Fintan O’Toole and reading from his new book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ.

Pullman will be around on April 17 (3pm in Trinity College) Tickets are available on projectartscentre.ie (under book online) at €12/10.

Get booking – g’wan!!

John Boyne’s Boy in the Striped Pyjamas was named most popular book of the decade, according to Easons facebook fans.

The result comes from a facebook poll where folks were asked to choose their top reads of the noughties from a list of 125 books selected on the basis of sales over the past 10 years.

Easons made the announcement yesterday (at the launch of their Book Club)

Oliver Jeffers – the inimitable creator of some very brilliant picturebooks (and one book-eating pop-up) is set to take over the world in 2012.

Following the release of his current title The Heart and the Bottle, and another picturebook later this year (featuring boy and penguin from Lost and Found) – Oliver has just signed a whopping deal with HarperCollins to release a 4 book series based on the Hueys (a group of quirky creatures with a left of-centre humour).

The Hueys will launch in 2012 and be supported by a high impact, multiplatform marketing campaign targeting parents and their children alongside a high profile PR campaign that will include two visits per year by Oliver to his creative home in the UK from his current base in New York.

Plenty to chew on this morning – starting with life on the dangerous side:

Amelia Hill in the Guardian covers the news that Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do) will be published in the UK – and the rest of the world – after it became an unlikely success in the US.

A new and original Mr Men book (Mr Invisible) is to hit the shelves – along with Andrea Cremer’s Nightshade and Todd Strasser’s Blood on my Hands.

Mary Hoffman reviews Pat Walsh’s début – The Crowfield Curse:

Walsh is an archaeologist and adept at the slow reveal. The scene where the angel’s body is unearthed is far too good to be spoilered in a review but it isn’t the end of the story. In fact that’s my only criticism: there is nothing in or on the book to indicate that it’s the first of a series, but the final pages make it clear that the story of the curse that now falls on Will and Shadlok is far from over. We must wait for at least one more book.

The Crowfield Curse, under its older title of The Crowfield Feather, was a runner-up in the Chicken House/Times competition which was won by Emily Diamand. I haven’t read her Flood Child but it must be pretty good to have beaten this.

It was a slow news day… when Casper the commuting cat made the headlines – as he’s about to take to the page as a children’s book.

Edward Porter review The Princess and the Frog – and comes out liking it, sort of:

Not a masterpiece, then, but still — after the doldrums into which Disney animation fell in the Noughties — a solid return to form

InkPop, HarperCollins’ version of Spinebreakers, has launched. A not-so-new  platform for teen readers and writers – including a combination of community publishing features, user-generated content, and social networking. Looks really interesting – and could be a lot of fun.

And finally – from the realms of weird:

Robert Munsch is a Canadian children’s author whose 54 works include stories about smelly socks and mothers who forget to do the laundry, so he is an unlikely victim of the war against terror. His latest book featured a little girl who smuggled dolls on to a plane but, following the near massacre above Detroit on Christmas Day, his publishers have decided to drop the story. Why? Because nobody, not even kids, can play hide and seek with airline security today. Well, goodbye dolly. – Telegraph.co.uk

Two interesting finds on book covers. First from Floor to Ceiling Books on the difference between US and UK covers:

UK | US

Or how about repetitive cover design? Thought a book looked familiar? Check out these (via @darraghdoyle):

Where I come from, the Trinity Book Sale is considered a two national holiday. And it’s coming up soon!

And the call has been put out for those unwanted books,  journals, (treasure) maps, CDs, telescopes and rare once-in-a-lifetime important papers of ill-reputed scientists.  All of the above and more now being gratefully received at the Booksale Office in Trinity College.

Fancy knowing more? Have a peak here.

Vampires are past it and angels are the love interest in vogue. Or so Anna Carey tells us -

Angels, caught in a timeless fight between good and evil, offer romance on an even more epic scale than vamps. That’s what appeals to some readers — and authors. “The idea began when I came across a line in Genesis that talked about a group of fallen angels who were kicked out of heaven because they lusted after mortal women,” says Lauren Kate, who recently sold the film rights to Fallen to Disney.

Plenty more about the next paranormal romance heart throb on irishindependent.ie – including the news that zombies and shape shifters have love lives too.

As mentioned – there are only 4 sleeps until Christmas… and only 4 sleeps until the Gruffalo hits the small-screen! That very same monster makes the headlines in the Irish Independent, The Times (UK), Irish Daily Mail, The Times (UK) again and in The Guardian (with an interview with Susanna Rustin)

Any house with a small child will have a copy of The Gruffalo and if they don’t they should. It’s one of the most famous picture books in the past 10 years and the most popular in the past 20 or 30. “I’d challenge anybody to say another children’s picture book has sold more. – Dave O’Callaghan (on The Gruffalo)

Robert Dunbar and Geraldine McKenna join Pat Kenny on RTE to choose some of the best books for young readers this Christmas. Click to listen.

In sticking with things on-screen – Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials won’t be making it onto the silver screen. In good news – Lorenzo di Bonaventura has snapped up rights to produce Michael Scott’s six-part fantasy series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

And Steven Spielberg has nabbed the rights to produce Michael Morpurgo’s The War Horse!

Anna Carey reviews some favourite classics for the straightened times we find ourselves in – and Jan Ruffino has a look at the new RTE series – On the Block – with four different kids talking into their webcams.

John Mullan searches for the ten best child story narrators – including Tracy Beaker | Meg Rosoff reviews Wolf Erlbruch’s Duck, Death and the Tulip.

Outstanding books for young people have often proved difficult to categorise and market, and there seems little likelihood of this one taking over where sales of Guess How Much I Love You leave off. Erlbruch’s simple eloquence in the face of life’s most monstrous inevitability, however, suggests that Duck, Death and the Tulip will continue to occupy an important place in the literature of childhood long after today’s bestsellers have been forgotten. – Meg Rosoff

Jean Hannah Edelstein wants to put people right on Enid Blyton while Jenny Uglow looks at the best of old and new picture books.

Jeanette Winterson talks about why she became a children’s writer in the Guardian Author, Author series.

Nicolette Jones covers the year in Children’s Lit over at Book Brunch, Publishers Weekly covers some new picture books and Sam Jordison celebrates Terry Pratchett’s Unseen Academicals.

Are these the best films of 2009?

Where the Wild Things Are – the video game… a little jerky but sounds like a playable adaptation of the film

Publishers across Asia search for local talent to create picture books. Beverley Naidoo visits Yarl’s Wood immigration removal centre.

Only 4 sleeps until Christmas – and the bookstores are finally seeing a small light at the end of the tunnel… Mark Haddon’s Curious Incident reaches the top 10 best-selling books of 00’s (It’s a short list with just Dan Brown and JK Rowling up there)

Reactions to the Amazon e-book war have been mixed – one of my favourites so far has been Matt Stewart in the Huffington Post:

Imagine if airlines gave their biggest frequent flier customers the worst seats on the plane. If iPhone owners had to wait six months to download the latest tunes… …These are all idiotic ideas, certain to ruin relationships with each industry’s biggest advocates, devastate the bottom line, and get top-level executives axed. So why do these publishers think they’re exceptional?

(And speaking of Huggington Post – check out their top ten tweet tips for publishers. Common sense but all very clever)

Rene Russo has joined Anthony Hopkins, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston in Thor.

So… there are two Richard and Judy book clubs in the UK now? Confused?

Meghan Daum talks about the loss of Kirkus – or the lack of a loss… apparently.

I still feel more “Yeah, so?” than “Oh no!” about the end of Kirkus. But for all my indifference, I will say this in defense of Kirkus (and professional review publications in general): At least the critics had some cred – Meghan Daum

Jeanne Mosure (Senior Vice President, Disney Publishing Worldwide) talk e-books in the lead up to Disney’s Digital Book releases.

Gadget Republic features ‘Bully Stop‘ – a new app for all phones to filter texts, MMS and calls to phones. (And on the topic of phones – some new statistics on teenagers phone usage, notably sexting)

The Costa Book Awards have announced their judging panel for this year and the Independent UK has some other event highlights.

Did you know that Jimmy Carter wrote 27 children’s books? UK Soldiers in Afghanistan are reading bedtime stories to the kids – 4000 miles away.

And in my favourite story this week – Phil Earle (S&S children’s sales director) has sold his first YA title to Puffin. Expect to see Being Billy on the shelves in 2011.

John Whelan evaluates the most recent Nielsen’s BookScan figures – including the surprise best-seller by Mr Tayto who is in 10th place overall for non-fiction with a total of 10,793 sales!

Overall, however, the Irish retail book sector remains remarkably buoyant despite the recession, with the latest Nielsen data valuing the fiction market here at just over €37m for 2009 with sales of 3,882,427 to date for 46,929 titles. The non-fiction figures are running at 4,630,297 book sales worth just €65m for 199,377 titles.

This compares with the 2008 total market value of €111.3m (John Whelan, Irish Independent)

It was the week that Amazon hit the headines… repeatedly! First with the statement that the firm will not be opening any stores in the real world any time soon. And then came the real fun…

The Wall Street Journal reported that Simon and Schuster and Hachette would both be holding back digital editions of new books until after the initial release of Hardback editions. Penguin, Macmillan and HarperCollins joined the chorus…

Amazon have hit back by further forcing the cost of digital books down.

And news content has taken a stand against Amazon all of its own. (More on the iTunes-ization of fiction in the Guardian).

Somewhere in the mix of it all – Kirkus fell.

The Independent UK has a list of what’s to come in the world of books.

Booksellers reveal who the winners were this year – and what wasn’t quite right…

Galleycat’s ‘Can Twitter Sell Books?‘ continues – this time with reader responses. And in the mean time – Hachette have created a digital marketing role for Andrew Nolan.

And the mandatory iTablet/iPad rumour of the week: it will be on the shelves in March…

Faber have nabbed Tricia Rayburn for a new YA fantasy series | Random House Children’s Books has nabbed Arsenal midfielder Theo Walcott for a book series | And Lauren Kate’s Fallen has been optioned by Disney |

Neil Gaiman and Siobhán Parkinson talk audio books – separately mind – I don’t know if the world is ready for a Gaiman/Parkinson collaboration…

Siobhán defines an audiobook as:

Right, let’s get one thing straight to start with. Audiobooks are books. They may tend to get grouped, in the adult mind, with other technological enemies of reading, such as DVDs and computer games, but audiobooks are on the side of the angels. An audiobook is a book, if in an alternative form, unlike, say, a film that is only based on a book.

While Gaiman reckons that it is apart from a regular book, something in its own right:

An audiobook is its own thing, a unique medium that goes in through the ear, sometimes leaving you sitting in the driveway to find out how the story is going to end.

Parkinson comments on the scarcity of audiobooks – while Gaiman celebrates the increasing number of writers’ who have caught the ‘tapeworm’ bug… (euw)

There are some drawbacks to having to rely on audiobooks for your literary intake, and the greatest of these is undoubtedly restricted choice. – Parkinson

In the past six years, I’ve recorded six audiobooks, and although it can be exhausting, I’ve loved the process and have been delighted with the result. Author David Sedaris is someone else who records his own audiobooks… - Gaiman

And what of the future of audiobooks? iTunes is seeing a huge jump in audiobook sales (blame the iPhone/iPod) while CD audio sales slump…

I absolutely think the audiobooks are getting better: the level of sophistication of the narrative formats; the ways they are interpreted; the variance in kinds of formats; the decisions within the format. It’s something that adds a whole layer of experience. – Don Katz, president of audible.com (via Gaiman)

And the last word? We’ll go out the same as we started… over to Siobhán Parkinson:

It is just as valid an aesthetic and imaginative engagement to listen to a book as it is to read it, and it makes the same kind of imaginative demands on the listener as reading does.

So – do you listen to books?

The folks at Mercier Press were in touch yesterday to talk covers – what might work, what might not and what covers I really liked. I came up with a pile of options including the eerie Chris Priestley covers, the power house that is Skullduggery Pleasant, the subtle Thing with Finn and the outstanding The Wild Things novelisation cover.

After a chat with Jenny in CBI and the VHC I’m leaning more and more towards something visually text based rather than a character representation. (I really love Skullduggery’s font) Excited and nervous to see what the designers come back with in a few weeks time!

So – what are your favourite covers? Cover elements?

A quick read through the weekends papers – with as much as I could find about children’s lit, writing and bits…

Starting at home – the Irish Times have an anonymous review (I can’t find a byline) of Blood Upon the Rose: Easter 1916, The Rebellion that Set Ireland Free (snappy title!). And with the launch earlier in the week of Campaign for the Arts, Gerry Godley gives us the Five ways culture can save us…

Even four or five years ago, we were lucky to have one shop that did graphic novels, whereas now, 20 of our largest stores have spinner stands, and O’Connell Street now has a shrine, a whole area dedicated to graphic novels, and it’s just growing and growing. It has become cool. If you were sitting on a bus reading Batman 10 years ago you’d have been sniggered at, whereas now if you’re reading it, it’s pretty cool . . . There’s no shame in it. Ten years ago you’d be called a saddo, but now you see men in business suits, everyone delving in. – David O’Callaghan, of Easons fame, in the Irish Times

In the Irish Independent – John Spain rests with the undead and has a chat to Dacre Stoker (Bram’s great gran-nephew) about Dracula: The Un-Dead. And if you were lucky enough to pick up a hardcopy of Saturday’s Independent you could be the owner of the first Disney Literature Classics – a series of 20 starting last week.

Not all is rosy in the comic world – the New York Times (and others) report that Disney are already having rights issues with Marvel characters. Dick Cook is no longer chairman of Walt Disney Studios and the company are looking at buying Vimanika Comics, an Indian based company publishing in English and Hindi. And if that wasn’t enough Marvel fan-boyism… the Independent UK and Guardian both review Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 to boot. (See! Dave O’Callaghan wasn’t lying – even the Independent is reviewing comics/games these days…)

Amanda Craig in the Times UK has a read of Hilary McKay’s Wishing for Tomorrow and Bryan Appleyard has a look at Ian Rankin’s first graphic offering Dark Entries (featuring John Constantine). Lucy Mangan in the Guardian remembers Ladybird Books, Publishers Weekly has a massive review round-up and the Guardian Film Blog review Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.

Geraldine McCaughrean made a brave but doomed stab at a sequel to Peter Pan; this is another questionable enterprise. It’s clever, sweet, lively and well-written — but not, like its original, sublime. – Amanda Craig on Hilary McKay’s Wishing for Tomorrow.

The New York Times has a great story on South African kids protesting for libraries (and librarians!) – Banned Book Week gets a manifesto – The Author Vetting row in the UK is, hopefully, coming to an end – the Booktrust Teenage Prize shortlist is out – and Booktrust had another prize ceremony this week too.

Barbie is finally going to get her own mainstream feature film – Adam Roberts ponders why there has never been a sci-fi Booker Prize winner – Sexism in fantasy anthologies? No, not us… – Rich Pelley talks with The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy – and the Independent UK are offering one lucky divil the chance to be at the launch of And Another Thing!!

In the not-so-distant-past Ugne Rauckyte in UCC asked a few questions of the Irish book-selling world. The results are in and they make for some interesting reading. Below is a very brief synopsis of Ugne’s results – you can read the full PDF here.

As you’re reading – remember that:

• 60% of  respondants are aged 19 – 25 (the original target audience of Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone)
• 60% are female
• 40% are students | 30% work full-time | 17% part-time

How much on average you spend on books in a month?
45% said €1 – €15 and another 31% said €16 – €30 (PDF results has a breakdown by genre)

In your opinion, do you think the books should be:
Given the choice 58% said slightly cheaper – 22% said prices are fine as they are.

If the recession continues do you think you will?
44% believe that they will buy as many books as they do now – 34% will be slightly fewer

Where do you usually buy your books?
52% buy from chainstores (Easons, Waterstones, Borders) Independent and online stores reached 10.8% each (9.7% buy from secondhand stores)

You would buy an electronic book reader if…
38% believe that they will buy an e-reader.

Suffice it to say that the full results are worth reading!

All of these numbers are all very fine  but what exactly am I getting at?

That the primary demographic from the survey would be considered web savvy, technologically aware, social media users – who buy books. (The post-Harry Potter 19-25 yr old generation are still reading.)

There is ample room for both independent and chain stores to pitch books to that readership. With a smart online campaign the rewards could be great…

For example:

Easons* recently launched a new campaign – including a facebook page and twitter account. The initial engagement looked promising – offering the Dublin Twookclub a discount for starters. The account hasn’t been too active since,  now it’s just used as a shouting place for events.

The upcoming event with Cecelia Ahern, for example, could be a great starting point – a quick search for ‘Ceceila Ahern’ reveals dozens of conversations about the author. Now why not get involved in those conversations – offer book recomendations, discounts and the chance to meet her in person?! Become the Ollivanders of online books (to keep the HP theme).

The market is changing – there is greater choice for anyone looking to buy a book. But it is also easier for companies to get in touch, recommend a title, offer a discount or just suggest a visit to the nearest bookstore… All without any fancy whizzbangery or expensive PR – just doing what you do. Selling books.

Chapters Bookstore and Raven Books are both dipping their toes in the water – why not join ‘em?

*Apologies to the lovely folks in Easons for picking on them!

Ugne Rauckyte in UCC is researching the Irish book-selling world and looking for your help – if ye can spare five minutes to answer a few quick questions about what you like, what you buy and how you get it then click.

Go on, take a break, have a kit-kat (or an apple if you’re so inclined) and answer a few questions.

There’s been plenty of talk about ebooks lately – last week Sony launched their new eReaders and the PSP got some decent comic releases – and there are a few ereaders on the Nintendo DS too..

And then there is the iPhone/iPod to consider too… though admittedly it is out of the price range for most young readers, for now.

At the minute, the children’s book market seems to be focusing on picture books – something for parents to give younger children temporarily, but not as a permanent book. As Josh Koppel, co-founder and chief creative officer for ScrollMotion, recently noted during the launch of Curious George books for the iPhone:

I see parents hand their iPhones to their kids. We’re feeling the iPhone is the place to define the products and define the experiences before we move them into other places.

It is a short term idea that could throw up some very useful test data for later projects. (Working on the presumption that smartphones with book software will be widely available, and less prohibitively priced, in the next 3-5 years)

Publisher, retailer and author investment into application development has increased hugely – the last few months have seen the launch of more than a dozen picture book applications for the iPhone/iPod including MobiStories, Winged Chariot, Panelfly, ICDL, and PicPocket. And Japan is testing a live-captioning tool for deaf children.

And while the argument over cost rages on elsewhere – ebooks don’t need printing or distribution (though these are far less expensive than other aspects of publishing) The news that Bob Burke’s The Third Pig Detective Agency is listed at number 21 on Waterstone’s digital bestseller list will be bolstered by the great price that the book is selling at – it helps of course that the book is great fun and Bob has a strong digital presence too!

There’s plenty more to come in digital publishing – and it’d be great to see a platform for Irish books being developed (perhaps multiple publishers all through one application??)

The journo’s have started up the smoke machines, donned their best towels (on their heads, don’t be rude) and polished up their crystal balls to have a look at what is coming up over the next few months in television and books.

TV this Autumn is covered on the times.co.uk – one of my highlights has to be Merlin on BBC One:

No Robin Hood this autumn (that’s back in the new year); Saturday teatimes will instead get a magical, Arthurian makeover. Colin Morgan will star as the fledgling wizard, opposite Richard Wilson, Anthony Head, Michelle Ryan and a dragon sounding suspiciously like John Hurt.

And in books Suzi Feay over in the Indepenent UK has a look at what will be the next big thing -

And the next big children’s book is… about a bunch of kids in a boarding school! Andy Mulligan’s Ribblestrop (Simon & Schuster, April 2009) is a hilarious and morally questionable tale about a disastrous school whose pupils can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The building was falling down even before a disaffected pupil set fire to it. Health and safety is non-existent, rebuilding and DIY forms a major part of the curriculum, and a donkey sanctuary occupies the playing fields. The book’s hapless hero, Sam, is concussed, scalded and stripped of most of his clothes in the very first chapter. Ribblestrop has the “crazy school” appeal of Hogwarts and the grim humour of Lemony Snicket, and looks like a winner.

It’ll be interesting to see how the predictions fair once the smoke clears… In the mean time I’m off to find a beginners guide to tarot cards.

The bestselling Book of Bunny Suicides: Little Fluffy Rabbits Who Just Don’t Want to Live Anymore has come under fire in China after a number of children made serious suicide attempts and one twelve year old jumped from a sixth floor apartment.

Newspapers there are blaming the exam-oriented educational system for excessive pressure on students while the China Mental Health Association has reported that suicide in China is triple the world average for 15 – 34 year olds.

As a reaction to the rising fears bookshops have begun to remove the book from their shelves. (Irish Times)

*September 10 was World Suicide Prevention Day. While I don’t see the need, or the effect, of candle vigils there is a need for people to be more open and willing to talk about suicide. It effects thousands of people each year – in 2005 431 Irish people took their own lives. Banning books that might initiate discussion isn’t helping. Books, like Keith Gray’s Ostrich Boys approach suicide with humour and reality and could, at least in theory, help begin discussion.

Fancy a free read? Harper Collins are offering Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere as a free PDF download. There is a catch though – the PDF will last 30 days before disintegrating back into the ether.

Still, as he says himself, free is free.

Enjoy!

Following on from the success of this year news of the World Book Day Quick Reads 2009 has been popping up around the interweb. John Boyne – I was going to make a ‘John Balde, see-what-I-did-there’ joke, but my heart wouldn’t have been in it – the Bookseller and the Guardian cover it. Apparently, according to Kate Mosse, the guidelines for writing one of the Quick Reads are quite demanding: ” very short sentences and no words longer than two syllables”.

John Balde, see-what-I-did-there*, features alongside Ian Rankin, Kate Mosse and Sherrie Hewson (the lady from Coronation Street).

The full list for 2009:

Ian Rankin – A Cool Head
Kate Mosse – The Cave
Catrin Collier – Black-Eyed Devils
John Boyne – The Dare
Jacqueline Rayner – Dr Who: The Sontaran Games
Sherrie Hewson – The Tannery
Gervase Phinn – All These Lonely People
Patience Thomson – 101 Ways To Get Your Child To Read
Lola Jaye – Reaching For The Stars
Evan Davis – Dragons’ Den

* No John’s were hurt in the making of this post. (I hope)

The annual summer deluge of ‘What to read on the beach’ feature articles have started cropping up (such as – here, here and here). Now it’s the bloggers’ turn to name their books of the summer:

Sinéad C got the ball rolling with Wordpress for Dummies, Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter in the Dark. Monscooch followed up with Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care and a copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and a Jeff Lindsay book too – are these two the blogger favourites?

Rick has his nose in JRR Tolkein’s Lord Of The Rings Trilogy and Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman (nice choice!), as well as some great others. Kevin, the smartest man in blogging, is reading the inexplicable Thom Gunn and Fyodor Dostoevsky. Meanwhile RP has Ray (Carver?), Johnny (Irving?), David (Eggers?) and Chuck (Palahniuk?) all on the back burner…

>> Is there a blogger beach recommendation for the summer?

Meanwhile over my side of the bed is a spring/summer reading collection that amasses to a total of 65 books (not including advance review copies for magazines and newspapers). I couldn’t quite fit all of the leaning tower in one picture so I had to get up on a chair to take the second shot…

Here goes:

Aidan Higgins – Langrishe go Down, Axel Munthe – The story of San Michele Brendan Behan – The Hostage, Brian Dillon – In the Dark Room, Chimnamanda Ngozci Adiche – Half of a yellow Sun, Chuck Palahniuk – Diary, Colin Thubron – Shadow of the Silk Road, Conor Kostick – Saga, David Almond – Heaven Eyes, David McWilliams – Pope’s Children, DH Lawrence – Love among the haystacks (and other stories), DH Lawrence – The Rainbow, Emile Zola – For a night of love, Eoin Colfer – Benny and Omar, Frank Cotrell Boyce – Cosmic, Gabriel Garcia Marquez – One Hundred Yers of Solitude, GW Dahlquist – The Glass books of the Dream Eaters, Herodotus – The Histories, Irvine Welsh – Glue, Jack Kerouac – The Town and the City, Jean-Paul Sartre – What is Literature?, John Irving – Until I Find You, Kate Moss – Labyrinth, Kazuo Ishiguro – Never Let me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro – The Unconsoled, Keith Gray – Ostrich Boys, Kingsley Amis – Jake’s Thing, Kurt Vonnegut – Cats Cradle, Thomas Mann – The Magic Mountain, Marcel Proust – Pleasures and Days, Marcus Zusack – The Book Thief, Marjane Satrapi – Persepolis, Mark Bennett – Joe Rat, Martin Amis – Money, Meg Rosoff – Just in Case, Meg Rosoff – What I Was, Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient, Michel Houellebecq – The possibility of an island, Oscar Wilde – Plays, Prose Writings and Poems, Pat McCabe – The Asylum, Roddy Doyle – Paula Spencer, Philip Reeve – Here Lies Arthur, Philip Reeve – Larklight, Richard Adams – Watership Down, Robert Muchamore – Mad Dogs, Robert Muchamore – The Fall, Robert Muchamore – The Sleepwalker, Ross O’Carroll Kelly – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress, Thomas Pynchon – Slow Learner, Thomas Pynchon – The crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon – V, Tim Bowler – River Boy, Tim Bowler – Starseeker, Toni Morrison – Song of Solomon, Trudi Canavan – High Lord, Trudi Canavan – Magicians Guild, Trudi Canavan – Novice, Truman Capote – In Cold Blood, Umberto Eco – On Literature, Vladimir Nabokov – Pale Fire, Yann Martel – Life of Pi and Zadie Smith – On Beauty…

Lucky it’s raining a lot this summer.

Writers talk about submitting manuscripts and waiting for replies a lot. You hear encouraging stories of manuscripts being accepted by the first publisher who reads it. You hear ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ stories, most famously from JK Rowling, who was accepted by a publisher at the eleventh hour and has gone on to be massively successful. But less often you hear about writers who are plagued by rejection letters, who spend years trying to get off the starting block.

I got my first rejection three weeks ago. It’s taken me this long to write about it – mostly because I wanted to wait it out and see how it affected things (mostly my own outlook). Three weeks on, here is where I’m at:

A rejection comes from a subjective reading. Each publishing house has a different ethos and each reading editor is different. (Just as every potential reader is different.) If one editor, or ten, rejects a manuscript you should take on board their suggestions, maybe redraft, before trying again with a different reader. But not stop trying.

This is all easier said than done. One (now highly accredited) writer I spoke to recently said he has one wall of his office covered completely by rejection letters and prides himself on the collection he acquired when he was starting out. This was meant to encourage me – I think – to keep going.

Yvonne, looking forward to reading that book, posted last week about panicking before she sent out a synopsis. I’m panicking about getting the responses. (That said the letter I did receive was friendly, honest and encouraging.)

So, back on the horse. Anyone have Penguin’s number?

Image © (the brilliant) Andre Jordan
>> click for larger version <<

Alan Moore was on RTE last thursday (the Dave Fanning drivetime show – presented by Eoin Sweeney)

Discussing Lost Girls, his other graphic work, magic and his new novel. Genius (and the only person I know, or well, don’t know really but have seen pictures of, with more beard than Eli Mordino)

Click to listen.

Spotted via Bookslut. An incredibly honest interview/conversation with Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.

I ask him how much happens on the page and how much happens in the planning.

‘Planning, planning, planning,’ he deadpans…

…I don’t know how much is planned and how much isn’t, really, and nor do you and this isn’t the sort of question that one writer should ask another writer because we both know it doesn’t work like that. I can’t explain why one invents a character who is quite interesting but not particularly important, or writes in a little event that, towards the end of the book, turns out to be exactly the right thing, exactly the right person required yet at first you didn’t know why you’d invented them.

I was concerned that I’d find myself talking to a Terry who was less sharp, less smart, than the friend I’d known for quarter of a century, and was relieved to find him as bright as ever. I asked about the Alzheimer’s.

I type badly, worse than I ever did, and that’s a big drawback, as you and many journalists will appreciate, because the process of typing is the process of thinking: one activity drives the other, so I find myself hunting and pecking and that makes the thinking and the flow jerky.

More on the Waterstones website. Terry has a standalone book for children, Nation, due out in September.

Creature of the Night landed on my doorstep on Friday and the only question I can think of is… ‘Is there is no stopping Kate Thompson?’

Following on from last years success with The Last of the High Kings she is back with her fourteenth book for teenagers. This time, with Creature of the Night Thompson recreates a vision of Dublin that is laden with urban grit but at once recognisable.

Bobby’s Ma is moving him and his half-brother out of Dublin to Clare. Moving him away from his mates, Fluke, Beetle and Psycho Mick, and away from trouble. On the bus down he doesn’t waste any time in planning his escape back to Dublin. But he discovers that life in the country is worse than he had imagined – especially when his new neighbours, the Dooley’s, warn him to leave milk out for the faeries.

If I had to fault the book it would be Bobby’s well spoken manner on the page – his narration as an inner-city fourteen year old doesn’t always ring true. (Not that inner-city fourteen year olds won’t understand the language/vocabulary, I’m just not convinced that they would use it.) Like Bookwitch, I had a problem with the epilogue too and personally wish I’d stopped reading at the end of the last chapter.

All that said, the ensuing culture shock ensnares Bobby, his family and the Dooley’s in a gripping story of debt, drugs and murder mystery. There is nothing gracious or whimsical about Creature of the Night and the bleak, austere world that Bobby and his family are trying to leave behind is exposed with brilliant, vivid, reality.

Having already won most major Children’s Books awards, Creature of the Night will likely ensure that Kate Thompson’s name features on most shortlists next year. A mix of stark realities and folklore, Creature of the Night is a compelling book that you won’t be able to put down.

From the pages of Scamp comes the news that Patrick Lynch’s comic Last Bus is being launched tonight at half seven in the Stags Head. According to Senor Lynch himself it deals with ’such weighty themes as public transport, street violence, dream logic and absent friends.’

I’m kicking myself that I can’t make it.

Although, rumour has it that the Stags Head is downright creepy these days anyway. Looking forward to seeing the comic though.