Me And My Big Mouth

Guest Blogger: Martha Eleni Pack

Daddy said I could tell you all about a book I have just finished. Prince Jake: Knighty-knight by Sue Mongredien is all about a prince who is the prince of pranks and is quite naughty.

In this book he was going to a party and wanted to wear the black knight costume but his mum, the queen, got him a different one. So Jake called the shop and ordered the black knight one instead.

Also, his dad, the king, had a bet with his Uncle Cosmo that he would win the jousting competition but the king was a bit rubbish at sports. So the queen dressed up in a knight's costume instead and beat Cosmo.

I thought it was really good. My favourite bit was when Jake was riding and fell of his horse. I am 7 and I think boys and girls my age would like this book.

There are lots of other Prince Jake books and I am looking forward to reading more.

The Bloomsbury Group

Bloomsbury are soon to publish a series of 'lost classics' that have been recommended to them by bloggers, authors and others as worthy of rediscovery. Lots of publishers seem to be doing something similar and they all have their own take on how to do it. Anything that brings back wonderful books that may have been temporarily forgotten is fine by me.

You can check out the series, The Bloomsbury Group, here. There is also a questionnaire you can fill in to win a free set of the books.

Happy reading.

The Writing Life: Matt Rees & Warwick Collins

Crime writer Matt Rees has interviewed Friday Project author Warwick Collins for his blog.

Do please pop over and take a look. It is part of an ongoing feature called The Writing Life in which Matt asks other writers all the questions he himself gets asked the most.

Warwick's latest novel, The Sonnets, is out in paperback this week. It is in the Waterstone's 3 for 2 if that floats your boat, it is also in the Borders multibuy. Independent bookshops have been very supportive as well so if you have one nearby do pop in and check The Sonnets out. It is short, sweet and somewhat saucy.

Copies of the limited edition hardback sold out months ago, perhaps they will become collector's items at some point in the future. Anyway, it is a fine read that I hope you find time to peruse.

It Isn't Even Published For Another Month

 

Big Mouth Works Outing

I have been thinking for some time that we should have some sort of Big Mouth get together. Problem is, I can't stand pubs, clubs, bars or large groups of people. So it won't happen.

But perhaps the occasional small huddle would work?

On Tuesday 16th June the BFI are showing a number of films by BS Johnson: You're Human Like the Rest of Them, Paradigm, Fat Man on a Beach, BS Johnson on Dr Samuel Johnson, footage of the author speaking about The Unfortunates and the cinema premiere of the recently rediscovered short film Poem. The evening will be introduced by Johnson's biographer, Jonathan Coe.

As a big Johnson fan I absolutely have to be there. As a BFI member I can pre-order tickets and get priority booking. I was thinking of ordering 4, if I can find three readers of this blog to come along with me. If not, I'll just book the one and be Billy No Mates. Either is fine with me.

But if you are keen then drop me an email. There is an email link somewhere on the sidebars, I am sure you can find it. Tickets would be about £8, I think.

By the way, there is a Nick Cave event with a Q&A the night after. I think MOTC will be going to that one, but look out for it if you are a fan.

New Jelly Belly Flavours

While polishing off a pack of that popular health food snack Jelly Belly at the weekend, the kids and I starting inventing new flavours. Our favourites were:

Emo
Pumice
and
Despair

I tweeted our results and have had lots more suggestions back:

Trouser, Bingo, Crayon, Limescale, Tickle, Dirty Nappy, Ferret, Man Flu, Battery, Nail Polish Remover, Morning Mouth.

Yum yum. Any more for any more?

The Fjords According To Barnum

About a quarter of the way through The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen it dawned on me that I was effectively reading a Scandinavian John Irving novel. Seeing as Irving hasn't exactly been firing on all cylinders of late, finding alternatives strikes me as a worthwhile pastime.

Vera is raped by a stranger just as the church bells of Oslo start ringing to mark the end of World War Two. She refuses to speak a word to anyone, including her mother and grandmother with whom she shares a small aparment, until she gives birth to a baby boy nine months later. She names him Fred, Norwegian for 'peace'.

A few years on and Vera is successfully wooed by a short, round former circus performer turned travelling salesman. They marry and our narrator, Barnum, is born. Destined to inherit his father's lack of stature, Barnum is picked on at school but learns to revel in his role as an outsider, an attitude that colours his entire life. Although he will never become quite as distant and removed as his half brother. Troubled, disturbed and moody, Fred becomes mute after witnessing a family tragedy, a silence he maintains for several months. He is only promoted into speaking when Barnum plays Living Doll on the family record player one time too many.

The book's narrative spans three or four decades and we follow Barnum from birth to adulthood, witnessing the highs and lows of his unorthodox family, his relationships with Peder and Vivian, his only, and lifelong, friends and the comings and goings of the mysterious and influential Fred.

At nearly 800 pages, The Half Brother is an epic, an absurd epic in places with tiny, seemingly insignificant events sparking consequences years later, just like Irving at his best. And I kept coming back to that comparison while reading the book. If, indeed, it had been a new book from Irving himself it would have been hailed as a mighty return to form, which suggests that his fans will have a great time with this. Even though it is long it never feels laboured and I am not sure I could identify any sections that need cutting. Some of the praise for this must go to the translator Kenneth Steven who has done a wonderful job ensuring this is an effortless read.

The Half Brother was originally published in the UK by the independent press Arcadia back in 2003, and they deserve a mini-ovation for having the balls to bring it to these shores. But a £12.99 trade paperback with an austere cover was never likely to become a bestseller, although it did make it into four figures which is no mean feat. The mass market rights were picked up by Vintage who put together a far more commercial package. It has gone on to sell four times as much but it deserves a much wider audience than that. When you consider that Until I Find You by John Irving, his most recent novel, sold close to twenty times more it would suggest that there are a hell of a lot of potential fans for Christensen and this wonderful novel.

I would urge you to check it out if any of the above has tickled your fancy. It is certainly a book I shall try to foist upon anyone who will listen for some considerable time to come.

A Song For Sunday

Loved this lot on Jools Holland the other week. March of the Dawn by The Mummers.

With Frenemies Like These...

The authors of Bullies, Bitches and Bastards wrote an amusing piece for the Daily Mail yesterday. At least, I assume it was amusing, I found myself gazing longingly at the picture of Winona Ryder instead. I am only joking, of course I read it (just don't test me, OK?) Amanda and Eileen provoked a strong response with dozens of comments online and the book has been pootling up the Amazon sales ranking ever since.

The article is all about frenemies. A frenemy, as you may have guessed from the name, is a pretend friend who secretly hates you. I don't think I have any of those. People who hate me are usually quite open about it.

We approached the people who make The Apprentice: You're Fired! and suggested the authors go on there and pick out the different types of bullies, bitches and bastards amongst the candidates. They let us down gently by saying they were fully booked for this series but they didn't completely rule it out for the next one. We shall see.

We'll try Big Brother next, they might be up for it.

The good news is that we have had lots of request for radio interviews since the piece ran so Amanda and Eileen will be gracing the airwaves over the coming days.

It is rare for a book to get a second wind like this. BB&B was published last Christmas and did pretty well but it is nice to have the chance to get a few more readers several months later. It seems that there is a market for a frenemy spotting guide.

Wizard Of Oz

The lovely Louise Tucker has interviewed me for the 5th Estate blog.

One Hour Orange Freebie

Full marks to Bloomsbury for this excellent initiative. For one hour, starting now, you can download a completely free copy of the newly Orange Prize shortlisted novel Burnt Shadows by the delightfully named Kamila Shamsie.

Click here for details and instructions.

A neat idea which lots of us will now copy.

UPDATE: I am an idiot. It is available for 24 hours. Enjoy.

The Lost Symbol: The Real Losers

My inbox is full of emails from internet retailers trying to convince me to pre-order the newly announced Dan Brown novel for half price.

Half price? How very generous of them, especially when they don't yet know what discounts they will be getting from the publisher when they buy it. They might end up making very little money indeed on the transaction.

But, let's face it, half price is going to seem bloody expensive by the time the book is actually published in September. I'd bet anything that the supermarkets go below that, perhaps way below that, in an attempt to lure customers into their stores where they hope they will spend money on higher margin items like bananas, toilet cleaner and cotton buds.

With Harry Potter now off shagging whoever it is he ended up with in the final book, the supermarkets will, I am pretty sure, jump on any 'event' title with glee and do their level best to sell as many copies as possible. And love him or loathe him, a new book from Dan Brown is definitely an event.

At least, it is for the retailers who are prepared to discount the arse out of it. It will be a complete non-event for all independent bookshops. They will probably get a better deal by purchasing their stock from their local Asda than bothering with the publisher or wholesalers. Many will buy just one or two copies, some won't bother to stock it at all.

Is that a problem? Does it really matter? Certainly it feels wrong that a major new book, one that could well sell millions in the opening few weeks, will bring little or no benefit to hundreds of bookshops who either can't compete on price or, if they do, won't make any money from it. But that is just the way of things now. We can moan about it all we want but do we stop buying loo roll on special offer from Tesco because we feel sorry for the nice man at the corner shop? No, we are happy to wipe our arses on a good deal. It is the same with books. If someone wants to use The Lost Symbol as a loss leader then what that actually means is that hundreds of thousands of avid readers will snap up a bargain, save some vital pounds during difficult economic times and they certainly won't be losing any sleep over some chap in an independent bookshop who is being priced out of the game, no matter how attractive the carpet or pleasant the staff.

Forget about it. Move on. This is going to happen with every major blockbuster. The sort of books we are talking about stop being books and become something else. They are the new hot commodity, the latest fad. They are Delia's cranberries or Beyblades or GoGos. Everyone wants a piece of them and are prepared to use them to entice people into their emporiums to buy other things. If that rules out the more traditional retailer then that is just tough. It isn't fair, it doesn't really help but it is the way things are and they aren't going to change.

Bloody Kids

Watched Let The Right One In last night.

Best vampire movie ever.

A Song For Sunday

There aren't many clips of Phil Ochs that I can find online but here are a couple.

And one more that has no video but is just a great song.

Do Books Get Bored?

This is Modern Japanese House by Naomi Pollock. It is published by Phaidon at £45. I have a copy in my living room bookcase. It has been there for 4 years. I have never read a word of it. And yet it is taken out and used more than any other book in our house.

We lean on it.

Ethan will take it down, spread a sheet of blank A4 across it and sketch his manga characters, colouring them in with his pro-markers and spending hours creating a vast portfolio of drawings. Despite his repeated claims that they are nothing to do with him, the cover of the book is heavily marked with pencil lines and dots of ink.

Martha will balance it on her lap when she is doing her homework, usually spellings. It is wider than she is and forms the perfect portable table.

And I do likewise when I am in the living room writing. MOTC will be watching ER or something and I will do the sociable thing and stay in the room working on something else, glancing up occasionally when someone is spurting blood or that woman who played Velma in the Scooby Doo movies is on screen.

If you ever visit Pack Mansions you are just as likely to see Modern Japanese House lying on the floor, or on the sofa, as up on the shelf where it belongs.

Of course, upstairs is a different matter altogether. Upstairs we use Warriors of Medieval Japan by Stephen Turnbull. It is a bit smaller than Modern Japanese House but is the biggest book on the bedroom shelves and does the job nicely.

Books are for reading, yes, but most of the time they are for decoration. Every book is destined to spend most of its life sitting on a shelf and only a few days or weeks out and about being read. Having them sitting there is a comfort, an orderly array of reading memories.

But they must get a bit bored up there, why not offer them some extra work? In the past week I have seen a pile of them used to raise the height of a computer monitor, one used as a doorstop and another as a flower press. I bet if you look around your home or office you will find one moonlighting in such a fashion. Do report back.

Free Soldiers

I have six signed copies of Soldier Boy by Danny Rhodes to give away.

Danny's first novel, Asboville, was one of my top ten reads of 2006 and I am very much looking forward to reading this follow up. We have quite a crop of promising young writers in this country at the moment and he is right up there with the best of them.

Soldier Boy is all about Scottie, a young man who joins the army to get away from the tedium of dead-end jobs and killing time at home. His experiences in a foreign land have a profound effect and stay with him long after he returns home. It is a timely and relevant story which will resonate with many who read it.

As usual, if you want one of the six copies that are up for grabs then email me and keep your fingers crossed. The deal is that you have to read it soon and review it somewhere online - you blog, Amazon, wherever.

In Haste

A bit busy at the mo, and the kids are coming home today, but to tide you over...

I have added quite a lot of stuff to the sidebars, do take a look if you have a sec.

Visited a friend's house at the weekend and gave their HD telly a close inspection. Couldn't really tell any difference, or not enough to care about, so won't be coughing up for one till I have to.

Am reading the 700 page epic that is The Half Brother by Lars Saabye Christensen. It is taking a while but is really rather special. A Norwegian John Irving.

Found an old letter from a long lost acquaintance while tidying the attic over Easter. Yesterday she emailed me out of the blue having discovered my blog through the Michael Kimball interview. We were last in touch 15 years ago.

More anon.

Interview: Michael Kimball

I loved Dear Everybody by Michael Kimball and reviewed it last week. Today he pops by to answer some questions.

SP: I really enjoyed the book, one of the best things I have read this year, and I am intrigued by how you went about putting it together. Did you have a storyline which you then broke down into letters and documents or did you do it the other way around?

MK: It happened with the letters first and the storyline came out of that. I learned about Jonathon as the reader does, letter by letter and document-by-document. I made it up as I went along, though in no particular order. I never outline what I’m writing and I try to not know what is going to happen next. I try to keep that from myself for as long as I can.

SP: It is probably lazy shorthand to describe Dear Everybody as 'experimental' but I am lazy, so I will. Are you concerned that in choosing an experimental way of presenting the narrative that you might scare off more mainstream readers? Perhaps you don't give a shit?

MK: I know you’re not lazy. There’s no way you could read and write as much as you do and be lazy. Regardless, I wasn’t worried. It’s never been something that I’ve worried about. I write the books exactly as I want them to be and then hope that they find a publisher and an audience. I feel lucky that I’ve been able to this. Besides, it’s not as if Dear Everybody is difficult to read; it just looks different.

SP: If Jonathon were to leap from the page and take corporeal form, do you think you'd want to hug him or give him a slap?

MK: I would have to start with a hug and then I would help him to find a good therapist.

SP: A question about the mechanics of writing. Are you a 9-5 desk man? Longhand on pads? Coffee shop scribbler? Laptop? Mac or PC?

MK: It depends on what stage I’m in with a novel. The first draft is mostly written longhand on legal pads in bed. After that, I type everything into the computer and print out those pages and then revise and rewrite and reorganize. I’m willing to change anything. And I can write anywhere. Much of my first novel was written on the subway in NYC. Lots of my work has been written on trains or planes. Also, Mac, definitely, and desktop, mostly.

SP: So I am now a convert and want to read more of your work. What do you recommend I try out next?

MK: I would say work backwards and try How Much of Us There Was. Also, if you like the short form, there is the ongoing postcard life project.

SP: Dear Everybody would make a great movie, any studios sniffing round at the moment? Or would answering the question jinx it?

MK: Let’s not jinx anything. In the meantime, there is this brief film of a book trailer:

SP: Last of all, visitors to my blog are cordially invited to name a favourite book for my readers to check out. Care to suggest anything?

MK: I just finished Leanne Shapton’s Important Artifacts, the story of a failed relationship told as an auction catalog. That’s worth a look.

---

Michael Kimball’s third novel, Dear Everybody, was recently published in the US, UK, and Canada. The Believer calls it “a curatorial masterpiece.” Time Out New York calls the writing “stunning.” And the Los Angeles Times says the book is “funny and warm and sad and heartbreaking.” His first two novels are The Way the Family Got Away (2000) and How Much of Us There Was (2005), both of which have been translated (or are being translated) into many languages. He is also responsible for the collaborative art project Michael Kimball Writes Your Life Story (on a postcard).

Oh, and he has a lovely website and blog.

A Song For Sunday

You Are Loved by the lovely Victoria Williams.

One That Got Away

I wanted to publish this book during the previous incarnation of The Friday Project but sadly it wasn't to be. I was delighted to hear that it has now seen the light of day with the Word Of Mouth imprint. It is a really clever idea and is destined to have a loyal, if cult, following.

Alice and Jack tell the stories of their past lovers through a series of, somewhat mutated, Rorscharch inkblots.

It is funny, irreverent, and rather rude in places. The perfect gift for the one you love.

The Inskpot Monologues is out now. A PDF sampler can be viewed here.