Me And My Big Mouth

Cardboard Man

It was a warm summer evening as I recall, and I recall it very well. I was walking home from work. Work was the HMV store in Queens Road, Southend-on-Sea. Home was fifteen minutes away in Westcliff, which also happens to be -on-Sea.

A few minutes into my journey a curious figure sprung out on me from an alleyway. Approximately four feet in height and vaguely humanoid in form it was covered from head to toe in cardboard and brown paper.

Its feet were two small shoe boxes. The legs were wrapped in parcel paper. The abdomen and torso were constructed out of a large supermarket box, I think it originally contained tins of baked beans. The arms were more paper. The head was another box, only smaller and with eye holes.

Out of this uppermost box came the voice of what sounded like a small boy.

- I am Cardboard Man.

- Hello Cardboard Man, said I. How are you today?

- I am good. What's the password?

- I'm sorry?

- What's the password? I cannot let you past without the password.

- Oh, I see. I'm afraid I don't know.

- I'll give you three guesses.

- But what if I just walk past you?

- You can't do that?

- Why not?

- Because I am invisible.

- You're invisible?

- Yes.

- But I can see you.

- I know.

- So how can you be invisible?

- I just am.

- You can't be.

- I am. Nothing can destroy me.

- Oh, you mean invincible!

- That's what I said.

- OK, sorry. So I can't get past you?

- Not without the password.

- And I can have three guesses?

- Yes.

- Can I have a clue?

- No.

- Right, I see....

... well then, is it...

...could it be?...

...is it possibly?...

...CARDBOARD?

And for this next line you have to imagine the most pissed off voice a small boy could muster up.

- Yes, it is.

Cardboard Man stepped aside, his powers useless against me. I strolled home happily.

I would take the same route home every night for the next year.

I never saw him again.

True story.

Big Pictures

While we are on the subject of graphic novels I wanted to mention a couple of curiosities from a relatively new publisher called Tabella. I suppose they would be classed as graphic novels but I think it would be more accurate to call them picture books, for they share more characteristics with children's picture books than anything else.

Relatively short, only a few dozen pages each, and light on text they are both written by Oivind Hovland. A Day in the Life of Alfred is a Kafkaesque tale of a nobody in a big city. Page by page his monotonous day unfolds but there are hints at something dark in his background. Perhaps this worm is about to turn? It is an oddly endearing tale with striking illustrations that fill each landscape page spread.

Trial and Error: The Aviated Efforts of Jean Babtiste de Bomberaque is a little less straightforward. The story of a fictional 19th century aviator, it follows his many attempts to find the secret of flight. Whereas Alfred can be read straight through and has a clear, if short, story, Trial is all about the illustrations as that is where the plot, such as it is, unfolds.

I enjoyed both although they are probably an acquired taste. The picture book format - the publisher's website describes them as hand-drawn art books - will be hard to shelve with the rest of your home library and the asking price of £11.99 each means you would have to absolutely love them to invest that sort of money. I suspect that they will remain extremely niche, which is a shame.

If you do want to take a peek then you can view sample pages of both Alfred and Trial on Google.

God Bless The Heathens

Thanks to everyone who supported our new book The Atheist's Guide to Christmas after my post last Friday. I know a whole bunch of you ordered it through this blog which is hugely appreciated. I'd like to think that it was all because we have come up with a book that truly captures the zeitgeist and you all felt compelled to purchase it immediately, and indeed we may have done just that, but I suspect some of you were just being nice.

Either way, thank you.

It all went a bit mental over the weekend. First Ariane Sherine, the editor of the book, tweeted about its availability. Then many of the contributors did likewise - Charlie Brooker, Mitch Benn, Richard Herring, Jenny Colgan and others - with each tweet prompting more sales and bumping the book up the Amazon chart.

It was hovering around the Top 20 and then Richard Dawkins tweeted and it shot up to 14, which was pretty much the peak. Not at all shabby for a book that isn't officially published until Thursday.

All of which flurrydom has sparked off a bit of interest in the press with the Guardian running a piece today. Cue the usual mix of comments (do Guardian readers really have nothing better to do than moan online? I swear it is impossible to tell their comments apart from those on the Daily Mail site on pretty much any topic) which range from what a great idea to why won't atheists shut up?

One comment that has already come up three times - on Twitter, in an Amazon review and in the Guardian comments - suggests that Christmas is an easy target and that if we had any balls we'd do The Atheist's Guide to Ramadan or Eid or something similar.

It is a mildly amusing swipe but one that misses some crucial points. With perhaps the exception of Easter, Christmas is the only religious festival that lots of people of many different faiths join in with, even if only for the fun, greedy and commercial reasons (loads of presents, a bit tree and a fat turkey). It is also the only religious season which causes any real spike in retail sales across all sectors. Your don't find Eid decorations going up three months beforehand all over the high street.

The Atheist's Guide to Ramadan might well be a more courageous book to publish than the Christmas one. But it wouldn't bloody sell. Which is why we aren't doing it.

Another point that I think some of the commentators are missing is that the book really isn't anti-Christmas. Sure, it has plenty of swipes at religion, but the bulk of the book is simply looking at Christmas from a different, and often very funny, angle. I genuinely think that most Christians would be hard pressed to get offended by it.

Although I am sure that won't stop some of them.

Serious Comic

This was an accidental discovery. I had taken Ethan to London and we popped into the comic and manga shop Gosh. While he stocked up on new volumes of Naruto I browsed the shelves and found a collection of books by Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Beautiful hardbacks, each of them quarterbound, one for each year of his career starting from 1969.

Tatsumi is often credited with starting the gekiga style of alternative comics in Japan. More serious than manga, these were the literary fiction of the comic book world. He tackled realistic subjects, portraying the dark underbelly of Japanese life at a time when others were less keen to explore such themes.

As a result, The Push Man (the first volume in the collected works), is a surprising and disturbing read. It is effectively a collection of short stories in graphic novel form, most of them only ten pages long. In Test Tube, a young medical student donates sperm only to become obsessed with one of his 'recipients'. Make Up features a transvestite who picks up a woman from his office when out in his female persona. This is a book populated by pimps and sex workers, featuring rape and abortion. It examines sexual politics, class and the life of the working man and woman.

All of which may sound rather depressing and bleak, which in a way it is, but Tatsumi's work goes beyond that. It is fascinating and riveting, and remarkably rewarding. It feels ahead of its time, really rather cutting edge for the form in the late 60s. If you have dipped your toe into the world of graphic novels via Maus, Persepolis, Epileptic or any of the other recent crossover hits, then the work of Yoshihiro Tatsumi is required further reading. If you read manga but are up for something a bit more substantial then this is definitely the way to go. Perhaps, like me, you enjoy the fiction of Murakami and other Japanese writers, The Push Man would be an excellent next move.

American publisher Drawn & Quarterly are responsible for finally bringing Tatsumi's work to an English-speaking audience. They have done a first-class job with these beautiful volumes. I will be investing in the whole set and also the author's autobiographical work A Drifting Life which a number of people here and on Twitter have recommended to me.

A Song For Sunday

Keeping You by Tanya Donelly. Just because she's amazing.

Saturday Round Up

A quick romp through the books I have been reading this week.

The Maintenance of Headway by Magnus Mills

I came late to the Mills party but have loved everything I have read since. This is thoroughly enjoyable and was a delight to dip into, although it wouldn't have been too much of a stretch to polish it off in a sitting. A full review to follow next week.

It's Health and Safety Gone Mad! by Alan Pearce

A couple of years ago the previous incarnation of The Friday Project published a book called Playing it Safe by Alan Pearce. It was a collection of stories taken from the press and media about ridiculous safety rules that defy common sense and clog up our lives. It sold thousands.

This is effectively volume two and it comes from those fine people at Gibson Square. Using the rallying cry of middle England as its title, it is full of jaw-dropping examples such as the publisher removing a fire-breathing dragon from a picture book to Santa having to wear a full body harness before being allowed to drive his sleigh. Most of us have some grumpy old scrote in the house who would love to get all riled up while reading this over their sprouts this Christmas.

William Walker's First Year of Marriage: A Horror Story by Matt Rudd

This has been all over the press in recent weeks and is very funny. Probably not a book to read if you are about to get married. On the other hand...

Change Of Plan, Atheists: Go Go Go!

OK, so the original strategy was to encourage as many people as possible to order or buy The Atheist's Guide to Christmas next week in an attempt to get the book in to the Top 10 Non-Fiction chart. Such a feat would create a bit of a stir, wake up the media and help us to spread the good word of atheism (in the form this hilarious gift book, available in all good bookshops, and very reasonably priced at £12.99) throughout the land.

But Amazon, with whom most of the pre-orders have been placed, have started fulfilling orders this week. Not their fault, they've got stock and are shipping it out. Fair enough. If I had pre-ordered it I would love to be receiving my copy tomorrow. It does rather scupper our plans though. So, if we are going to storm the charts in the grand old tradition of leftfield indie acts suddenly having a smash hit single out of nowhere (think Size Of A Cow, think Feed The Tree, think Birdhouse In Your Soul, if you are old enough) we need people to buy it this weekend.

So please, if the idea of the book appeals and you have a bit of disposable income it would be great if you could snap up a copy or two before the end of the weekend. By all means buy it from your shop of choice, it doesn't need to be Amazon. Your local indie would be perfect.

And do spread the word. Let's get evangelical about this.

Still undecided? Then let me entice you with some juicy morsels. If you visit www.atheistchristmas.org then you can, over the coming weeks, read and download extracts from the book. The first freebie is an audio download of Charlie Brooker reading his contribution, and it is fucking hilarious. You'll laugh even if you are a believer. Probably.

There will be an iTunes download available next week that features loads of the contributors reading their chapters including the aforementioned Charlie Brooker, David Baddiel, Simon Le Bon, Derren Brown, Richard Dawkins and many more.

Hope I've convinced you. Merry Christmas.

Taz Izumi

Just round the corner from our place, over the same weekend as my wife's Open House, our friend Taz Izumi will be doing exactly the same thing.

She is a Japanse artist who makes the most amazing ceramic creations from sculptural pieces a few feet high to tiny little inlaid eggs. 

She has an amazing house for showing them off too, it feels like a miniature gallery.

All the more reason for you to come to Windsor on the 3rd or 4th. Taz has a swanky new website, do pop over and take a look.

Emma Chissett

There is an apocryphal story, one I heard Kenneth Williams tell, about an author at a book signing. He is approached by a woman clutching a copy of his book.

'And who should I make it out to?' he asks.

'Emma Chissett,' she replies.

He proceeds to write 'To Emma..' but is swiftly interrupted by the agitated women.

'No,' she says 'how much is it?'

Priceless. Pun intended.

I was reminded of this the other day when I went out visiting a whole bunch of bookshops. This is something I used to do quite a lot in my retail days but a lot less now I am a publisher. I should do it more. It is most enlightening. It was particularly interesting to see how different retailers were handling the influx of big autumn titles. The answer: some much better than others. Actually having them in stock gave a few of them a keen commercial edge. Funny that.

Anyway, I noticed that Waterstone's had a bay of DVDs front of store. A Top 10 chart in a very prominent position. Now, I have no problem with a book shop stocking DVDs. It strikes me as a reasonable piece of cross merchandising. If you are selling thousands of copies of Twilight why not flog a few of the DVDs as well? Is it that different to selling the audiobook? Not much, I would argue.

So, there it is. The DVD chart at the front of a bookshop. Fine. I might even want to buy one.

But. Emma Chissett?

For some reason book shops seem to alergic to putting the price on the front of things. Hasn't this ever struck you as odd? I mean, they will happily plonk stickers all over the front of a book - 3 for 2, Buy 1 Get 1 Free, As Seen On Richard & Judy, £4 off, Half Price - but never the actual selling price. Why is this? Anyone know?

It is so common when it comes to books that I don't really give it a second thought but when presented with a display of DVDs without a price in sight it really looked strange. I was intrigued. I picked up a copy of Slumdog Millionaire. I turned it round. There on the back was a small, unobtrusive sticker for £6.99. That isn't actualy a bad price. So why hide it?

I don't blame the staff in the shop. I don't really blame the retailer (OK, so I do a bit). I mainly blame the conventions of book publishing. This must be the only industry that goes out of its way to hide the price of the items it produces. Think about it. In pretty much every other area of retail the price is on the front. Sure, it isn't always printed on there but the convention is for retailers to make the asking price very clear - not tuck it away on the inside of a jacket or plonk it at the back.

In the book world it is impossible to know how much a book is without picking it up.

And before you start, I know some retailers do price things up the sensible way - Borders and Oxfam spring to mind - but the really big players, the specialists, do not. Are we surprised that supermarkets have such strong price perception? In many cases their selling prices are pretty similar to those in Waterstone's and Smiths. The difference is they actually tell the customer what price they are paying -  £10, 2 for £7, £3.24 or whatever their mechanic is.

But would it make any difference if Smiths and Waterstone's and the like started pricing things more conventionally? Probably not. Bit late now.

Although it would be fascinating to find out.

Atheists Of The World Unite And Take Over (The Charts)

On October 1st we publish The Atheist's Guide to Christmas. I have a sneaky feeling that we may have a bestseller on our hands.

The book is an irreverent guide to Christmas from 42 atheist celbrities, scientists, comedians and writers. I hope it finds its way into the stocking of every non-believer this Christmas, plus quite a few of the Don't Know brigade. And some bishops.

Contributions include:

The Great Bus Mystery by Richard Dawkins. The controversial scientist's first ever work of fiction. And very funny it is too. In a good way.

On Kindness by Derren Brown. A genuinely moving and thought-provoking piece on being nice.

On Christmas by Ed Byrne. A hilarious rant about Christmas retailing which is the first entry in the collection. Let's just hope the booksellers don't read it when they are stacking huge piles of the book at the front of their shops. We love Christmas retail, we really do. Bring on the tinsel in October.

Losing My Faith by Simon Le Bon. An account of how he stopped believing and is, I think, his first published work of prose.

A Christmas Miracle by Richard Herring. A heartwarming recollection of a particularly memorable Christmas poo.

The Power of Ideas by Ben Goldacre. A brilliant tirade at the Catholic church's ridiculous stance on condoms in the age of HIV/AIDS and a festive message about diarrhoea. This is the last mention of poo in the book, I think.

Thngs to Make and Do at Christmas by Josie Long. Josie channels the spirit of Blue Peter with a whole bunch of ideas for Christmas fun, atheist or not.

How to Decorate the Outside of Your House with Lights and Not Have Your Neighbours Hate You: A guide to turning your home into a festive something that is so bright it can be seen from space by John Holmes. Which does exactly what it says on the tin.

And, as they say, lots lots more from people such as Robin Ince, Natalie Haynes, David Baddiel, A.C. Grayling, Mitch Benn, Claire Rayner, Simon Singh and Jenny Colgan.

One of my favourite entries is by Phil Plait, the man behind the Bad Astronomy blog. He examines the evidence of a Christmas star. Was there any sort of activity in the heavens in or around 0 B.C. which could possibly have sparked the interest of a triumverate of wise men? Fascinating stuff.

You can read the book from start to finish if you like, the pieces are grouped by theme - Stories, Science, How To, Philosophy, Arts and Events - so make sense if read in sequence, but I suspect most people will dip in and out which is what I have been doing with my finished copy.

The whole project has been overseen and edited by Ariane Sherine, the founder of the Atheist Bus campaign. She will shortly be kickstarting some exciting activity online and in the real world. Watch out for Twitter mayhem (you can follow her here), a website full of free stuff you can take away to stick on your blogs and elsewhere, a live event nearer to Christmas and her appearance at the legendary Firestation Book Swap on October 22nd.

I think I am right in saying that all the major book retailers are promoting the book for Christmas so it should be pretty easy to find from next month. It should even make it through the Waterstone's Hub, God willing. It has already made an appearance in the Amazon Top 100. That was the day Derren Brown plugged it on his blog. It has dropped down since but is currently #93 in the Hot Future Releases. I am currently trying to convince the sales team at HarperCollins that we should sell it in religious book shops. They'll love it.

We are trying to encourage as many people as possible to pre-order the book or buy it in the first week. We want to see if we can make it into the Top 10 Non-Fiction bestsellers. It would be amazing if we could do it. The little baby Jesus would be delighted.

I will keep you informed of progress. God bless you all.

A Song For Sunday

Brilliant Mind by Furniture. I remember buying this on 12" from Woolworths Canvey Island when I was 15 years old.

Saturday Round Up

What may, or may not, become a regular round up of what I have been reading this week.

The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha

Over two decades a woman comes to befriend her son's killer on death row, a fact she keeps secret from her husband and family until the execution order comes in. I thought this was very good - well paced and, thankfully, unsentimental. It reminded me a little of Lovely Bones, the bits not set in heaven. Can see this becoming a popular book group selection.

The Celtic Revolution by Simon Young

The author presents three arguments for why we should reassess the role of the Celts in history. It is his view that they should be held up alongside the Romans, Greeks and Etruscans in terms of their influence on the world that was to come. I am not sure I entirely agree with him but he does make a compelling case. This is very accessible and entertaining history which appears to present something genuinely new as opposed to just rehashing or revisiting the same old subjects which, I would argue, is what you will find clogging up the promotion tables of most chain bookstores. Most of us have someone in the family that keeps banging on about their Celtic roots. This book would make them very happy indeed this Christmas.

Tintin in the New World by Frederic Tuten

I have never read a Tintin book so I clearly don't have the required background knowledge for this to make any sense, however I am not entirely sure that would help. The author, apparently with the permission of Herge, has reimagined Tintin some years on, surrounded him with characters from The Magic Mountain and then has him fall in love. I found the style almost unreadable. Painful.

You can keep track of my past and recent reads on the sidebars. Quick Flicks are short reviews of books I have spent some time reading but haven't finished yet, an initial impression. New Arrivals lists all the books I have bought or been sent in the past week or so. Books Read is a complete list of the titles I have read this year, complete with a star rating. And watch out for Hidden Gems, where I pick out some books that I think are wonderful but never really troubled the bestseller charts.

The Day After

Well, it all seemed to go pretty well last night. The authors enjoyed it. The audience seemed to enjoy it. The people who run the Firestation Arts Centre enjoyed it. We sold some books. We swapped lots more.

Let's do it all again next month.

Our guests on October 22nd will be Ariane Sherine, the founder of the Atheist Bus campaign and now editor of the soon-to-be-festive-bestseller The Atheist's Guide to Christmas, and Sue Cook, journalist, TV presenter and more recently a novelist.

In the meantime, Marie has set up a Firestation Book Swap Facebook group. Do please join that if you feel suitably motivated.

Also, the lovely Stephanie who turned up with some wonderful cakes has blogged about her audience experience. She can come again. She took the photo above.

And if all goes to plan we should have a podcast of last night available to download shortly.

See you in October, hopefully. Tickets are on sale now from here.

Last Minute Firestation Links

Our second Firestation Book Swap kicks off tomorrow night at 7.30pm. I hope to see some of you there. If you are going then leave a comment below and make sure you say hello on the night.

One of our guests, historian Helen Rappaport, has been interviewed for the Beat website in advance of the Swap. I spoke with her on the phone the other day and we had a wonderful natter about all sorts of things. I think she'll enjoy herself tomorrow.

And my co-host, Marie Phillips, has been moved to tears by a poem from our other guest, Kate Clanchy. Marie doesn't normally like poetry. I think this experience has confused her. Join me to watch her unravel this enigma tomorrow night.

Hope to see some of you there. Tickets in advance from here but there'll be plenty available on the door.

There will be cake.

The House Of Special Purpose

In April 1918, the deposed Tsar Nicholas II and his family were moved from comfortable house arrest in Tobolsk, near the Urals, to the more austere location of Ekaterinburg. It was here, in the Ipatiev House, that they were to end their lives. The whole family, and their small group of remaining servants, were shot dead in the basement on 17th July.

Helen Rappaport's remarkable book Ekaterinburg chronicles the final days of the Romanovs, explaining the background that led up to them, exploring the events that occured within the house and examining the significant aftermath.

As a short (the paperback is a little over 250 pages) work of history it is informative and concise, telling you everything you need to know to understand what went on. As a fresh look at a crucial point in Russian and world history it presents new evidence and some fascinating first-hand accounts. As a family drama - parents alongside their children unaware of their deadly fate - it is claustrophobic and gripping. I cannot recall the last time I enjoyed a history book as much as this.

Rappaport manages to give us as much chronology and background as we need to set up the remarkable set piece - this previously regal family shut up in a couple of rooms while the revolution goes on outside. She captures the monotony and boredom, the frustrations and fruitless hopes, especially of the four daughters. Given a different turn of events they would all have found themselves married off to the kings and princes of Europe. Instead they are stuck in a confined space with their foreboding mother, increasingly miserable father and sickly brother. It is hard not to feel sorry for them. It is easier not to feel sorry for their parents.

The account of the royal family's confinement is set against that of their guards - the largely shambolic and amateur revolutionaries who don't really know what to do with their charges. Their story is just as fascinating and the author views them all with the same unbiased eye, eliciting your sympathy in places you would not have expected.

What I really like about this book is how it takes a close look at a very short period of time, in a small and precise location, and pieces together a narrative that sets the events alongside the huge international upheaval of the period and does so without losing sight of the simple humanity of those involved. Excellent stuff.

Helen will be on the sofa being quizzed about Russian and other stuff at Thursday's Firestation Book Swap. She started out as an actress so should be able to hold her own in front of a live crowd. Her website if a great source of information on her work. He latest book is Conspirator, an account Lenin's time in exile. I have a couple of days to finish that before the Swap kicks off.

Now That's Magic

My son Ethan picked his three favourite books last week. It was my most popular post for a while. I shall ask him back.

The book he picked as his #1 was Shadowmagic by John Lenahan, a title I publish at The Friday Project. I read it as a bedtime story to him and his sister last year and Ethan subsequently read it again when the paperback came out in August. I don't think he was being biased just because his old man had a hand in it, it is a book he genuinely loves and he has given copies to a couple of his friends who have also raved about it.

And looking online at Amazon, Waterstone's and Smiths it has received a smattering of five star reviews. More encouraging is the list of books people have bought with it, titles by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Cornelia Funke, Kelley Armstrong, Garth Nix and Trudi Canavan.

We didn't manage to get the book into any of the high street promotions which I was genuinely gutted about. I felt sure that if the buyers read it they'd love it. Perhaps they did read it and didn't agree. More likely they had a lot of big blockbuster stuff to read and didn't get round to it. Such is the way of things and we'd be daft to rely on retail support. You always need to have a Plan B.

Which is why it is handy that the author is also an extremely popular and successful magician. He was the man who topped David Copperfield by making two nuclear cooling towers disappear. See!

Not impressed? He can also make shoes vanish.

Anyway, as part of Plan B, John is performing street magic outside, and sometimes inside, bookshops around the country. Hopefully he will impress people so much they will buy a copy of Shadowmagic. He did Harrods a couple of weeks ago and they almost (bar one copy) sold out.

On the Sunday 27th September he will be performing and signing for four whole hours at Waterstone's in Windsor. They have ordered 50 books. We are going to try to sell them all.

Or failing that, I will get John to make them disappear.

His live magic is really breathtaking stuff so do please come along if you get the chance. Or, if you are a bookseller and want John to visit your shop let me know and we will do our best to set it up.

In the meantime, I will give away copies of this wonderfully entertaining fantasy novel to the first five people who leave a comment. Normal rules apply, please make it the next book you read and then review it online and tell your friends.

Oh, and John wrote a wonderful piece for The Times last weekend about encouraging kids to read. Worth a look.

The Poet And The Cleaner

If you want to top the bestseller charts I wouldn't suggest writing a book about your cleaner. But then Kate Clanchy is a poet. An award-winning and critically acclaimed poet. She knows all about not topping the bestseller charts. Poets never do.

Plenty of poets (that's alliteration that is) do make the move from verse to prose. Usually they plump for fiction, and more often than not the bestseller charts remain untroubled. Simon Armitage, Neil Astley and even Philip Larkin have enjoyed only moderate success with their novels. Nick Laird has fared (that's rhyming that is) a bit better but I don't think Dan Brown or Cathy Kelly are exactly quaking in their books.

Not that poets write anything in search of stardom. I am aware of this.

Which brings us to Kate Clanchy's cleaner. In 2001 the author became aware of a family of refugees - mother, two daughters and a young son - that had moved into the neighbourhood. The mother, Antigona, was a striking woman. Their paths crossed a few times and before she knew it Clanchy had offered Antigona a job cleaning her house.

So far so middle class.

But the two women become friends. Close friends. Kate slowly learns about the horrors in Kosovo that caused Antigona to flee for Britain. She helps her to navigate the complex benefits system and immigration rules. She asks her to become a nanny for her small children. She finds herself embroiled in Antigona's family disputes (an ex-husband and various brothers are also in the country) and frustrated by the outdated and outmoded beliefs regarding honour and shame that Antigona still clings to.

Antigona and Me is the story of this fascinating relationship. It is a retelling of a personal, and incredibly moving, history. It looks at the clash of cultures which, like it or not, is present in every major town and city in this country. It can be gossipy. It can be shocking.

It also throws up all sorts of intriguing issues and dilemmas. How can Clanchy adequately comment on Antigona's life from her comfortable, upper middle class position? What right do I have as a reader to judge a woman who had fled torture and near-death when she bans her daughter from hanging out with her black friends from college?

And, to be fair, the author meets most of these head on. She knows she is looking on from a privileged position and doesn't shy away from that, an approach that is essential if the book is to remain credible. She successfully balances the role of friend, commentator, author and poet to create a book that is as unforgettable as it is challenging.

It is not a book that I expected to like but I liked it very much indeed.

The author will be a guest at this Thursday's Firestation Book Swap. I suspect we will have lots to talk about. There will be copies of the book to purchase on the night. She might even sign one for you if you ask nicely.

A Song For Sunday

All That I've Got by Wendy MaHarry. Not great quality this but a very hard song to find on any format. I still have her debut CD somewhere in my collection. Must dig it out again. She is an artist now as you can see via the link.

Rage Against The Machine

I read a bunch of short stories on my Sony Reader while I was on holiday this summer. One of them was a work of science fiction by E.M. Forster. Yes, that E.M. Forster.

The Machine Stops was written in 1909 and is set way in the future. Mankind lives underground. Every aspect of life is automated which has led to a lazy species, completely reliant on The Machine, the computer that controls every aspect of life and communication. A mother receives a video message from her son. He claims to have visited the surface. She is less than impressed and anyway, such an act would mean imprisonment. But if he has been above ground and survived then could Man leave his subterannean home?

And then The Machine starts to malfunction.

I kept thinking of The Matrix while reading this. I don't know if it was an influence on the filmmakers but it is one hell of a coincidence if not. A machine that feeds off the humans that created it in order to look after the humans that created it. Lots of other ways to read it too. A comment on communism, or any totalitarian state. A prophetic vision of our reliance on the internet (the recent Google Mail crash did put me in mind of this story) or technology in general.

Whatever your take, it is a remarkable piece of work, all the more so coming from the man who brought us A Room With A View and the like. As far as I can tell it is OK to read and download the book online. The full text can be found here and various eBook formats can be downloaded here. It is definitely out of copyright in the US and I don't think there is a current UK edition in print. Feel free to correct me.

There have also been a number of adaptations. Below are two of them.

The first is a TV adaptation from 1966.

The next is a more recent, shorter version.

Enjoy.

Big Green Five

Those handsome and charming people at the Big Green Bookshop want you to vote for your 5 favourite books. You can win 20 free books if you take the time to do it.

I am on their blog today doing just that.