Free Books And A Winner

Tonight is the third annual World Book Night during which an army of “givers” will hand out 25,000 free copies of each of these books:

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry

Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory

A Little History of the World by E.H Gombrich

Little Face by Sophie Hannah

Damage by Josephine Hart

The Island by Victoria Hislop

Red Dust Road by Jackie Kay

Last Night Another Soldier… by Andy McNab

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

The Reader by Bernard Schlink

No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Road Home by Rose Tremain

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

Judge Dredd: The Dark Judges by John Wagner

I applaud anyone who will be handing out books tonight.  I’m not a giver this year; once was definitely enough. But the timing couldn’t be better because the results are in from the latest writeitdown-ith karma contest. There were only two contestants this time: Sarah W and my Mom (via an email entry). This blog is 100 per cent nepotism free so Sarah is the winner by default.  (Yes, Mom, I know the rules didn’t specify no nepotism, but let’s put it down to blog despotism.) Congratulations Sarah !

Oh, and speaking of despotism, I just discovered that World Book Night has spread to Ireland, Germany (Welttag des Buches) and the United States.** Free books in different countries –  that’s one form of world domination I can get behind.

Happy World Book Night!

**For a list of the books to be given away tonight in the United States, click here.

Better Late Than Never

I just got this email from Amazon UK:

Hello Downith,

An updated version of your past Kindle purchase of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn is now available.

The updated version contains the following changes:

• Typos have been corrected.

Well thanks, guys!  But shouldn’t you be taking care of stuff like that first time round?

Close But No Cigar

Smoking is bad for you anyway, right? Am I right?

I was recently named one of 20 semi-finalists in the Jeffrey Archer Kobo short story competition.  My story, along with 19 others, was selected from almost 1000 entries and compiled in a free e- book, which you can get here.

The only stipulation  for the competition was that the stories had to be 100 words (or less**). Reading the other stories in the collection, I was sometimes amazed at how much could be conveyed in so few words – humour, horror or sentiment, whittled down to the bare essentials.

The winners were announced today at the London Book Fair. Sadly, I wasn’t one of them, but congratulations to:

• Timothy Reynolds
• Robert Maslen
• Patsy Collins

who will each submit a 3000 word excerpt of their novel in progress to Curtis Brown Creative for feedback. One of them will then be lucky enough to win a spot on Curtis Brown Creative’s on-line novel writing course.

I encourage you to download the e-book and read the stories. They are all worth reading. One story, included as an honourable mention, was only six words long, but what staying power!

If you don’t have a Kobo (I don’t, so I asked) you can  download a desktop app to read the e-book on your computer. There is also a Kobo app available for smartphones and iPads.

Instead of smoking that cigar, I’m going to hold a karma contest. Everyone who enters a short story – maximum of 50 words – in the comments below (or by emailing me at downithm at yahoo dot co dot uk if you’re shy) will have their name entered into a draw for a book of short stories (to be selected by me later.)

** I missed that bit. You don’t want to know how hard I  worked to make mine 100 words exactly.

This Website Uses Cookies

I think there’s been progress since Hula Girl? Maybe not.

My kids have already had a week off, but there’s two more to go, so I’m taking a blog break. If I survive, I’ll be back mid-April.

Happy Easter!

The Storyteller Comes to Town

When I heard that Jodi Picoult was coming to read in my little town, I thought it was a joke. Nobody comes to my town. NO. BODY.  And certainly no best-selling author. But when I went down to the little independent book shop I saw this outside:

So I went in to buy a ticket for the reading (the price of which included a copy of her latest book, The Storyteller) and spoke to the owner.

How did you persuade  Jodi Picoult to come here?!

I asked. We ask lots of people but they usually say no.

And she said yes?**

Well, her publisher did. Provided I sold 150  copies of her book.

And he did. Now no way could 150 people fit into the teeny bookshop so he convinced the bar/restaurant around the corner to host tonight’s event.  Presumably the fire marshalls weren’t around because it was pretty cozy. No seating. Standing only.

Picoult read an excerpt from The Storyteller, followed by a brief talk. She is a polished speaker: funny, engaging, confident. I could see the audience loved her. She told us that The Storyteller was inspired by Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower and the notion of forgiveness – who can forgive?  She talked a bit about the research she had done for the book, interviewing Holocaust survivors and using some of their experiences in the book. This anecdote was my favourite, although I don’t know whether it made it into the book:

When the concentration camp that held her was liberated, a young Jewish woman was surprised that an American soldier held a door open for her. After years of being kicked at, spat upon and treated like vermin, she was flummoxed. “Don’t you realize I am a Jew?” she asked the GI. He smiled at her and said, “I am too.”  When Picoult concluded simply, “They later  married,” there was a collective swoon.

Picoult  talked about using storytelling to bring important issues to the fore – like the Holocaust and gay rights which she treats in her book Sing You Home. As she said, “I have a gay son. I want him to be able to get married in any state.”

Someone in the audience mentioned they didn’t like the book cover for The Storyteller.  I thought Picoult dealt with this diplomatically, stating that she leaves “all that ” to the marketing people who she thinks do a good job. But she added that she found the UK cover beautiful and preferred it to the US one.  (Me too – US on left below, UK on right)

Following the talk we had to troop around the corner and queue outside the bookshop to pick up our books and get them signed. It was all very slick; the reading started at 6 p.m. and I think I was back home  just after 7 p.m. But I was glad to go to support my local bookshop, the arts, and an author who was prepared to make the trek to a little town in the middle of nowhere.

This is a bit from the excerpt read tonight, about Minka, a girl in a concentration camp who dreams of being a writer:

But I knew what she was asking. For the narrative to exist, so that it could be read and reread even if I was taken away. Stories outlive their writers all the time. … 

I was just another prisoner, another number. If I had to die in this hellhole, and the odds were very good that would happen, then maybe someone else would survive and tell their children the story a girl had told at night in the block. Fiction is like that, once it is released into the world:  contagious, persistent.

Here’s to storytellers everywhere.

(**Obviously she was already in the UK.)

Just Drive

I recharged my Kindle last night and finished reading The Getaway Car by Ann Patchett. I think  Laura recommended it awhile back.  Oh my; so much of it spoke to me. I could probably cite the entire essay, but will limit myself to these:

Do you want to do this thing? Sit down and do it. Are you not writing? Keep sitting there. Does it not feel right? Keep sitting there. Think of yourself as a monk walking the path to enlightenment. Think of yourself as a high school senior wanting to be a neurosurgeon. Is it possible? Yes. Is there some shortcut? Not one I’ve found. Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.

I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.

These next two are  going on my wall:

Novel writing, I soon discovered, is like channel swimming: a slow and steady stroke over a long distance in a cold, dark sea. If I thought too much about how far I’d come or the distance I still had to cover, I’d sink. 

…

The part of my brain that makes art and the part that judges that art had to be separated. While I was writing, I was not allowed to judge.

 

And finally:

Maybe everyone does have a novel in them, perhaps even a great one. I don’t believe it, but for the purposes of this argument, let’s say it’s so. Only a few of us are going to be willing to break our own hearts by trading in the living beauty of imagination for the stark disappointment of words. This is why we type a line or two and then hit the delete button or crumple up the page. Certainly that was not what I meant to say! That does not represent what I see. Maybe I should try again another time. Maybe the muse has stepped out back for a smoke. Maybe I have writer’s block. Maybe I’m an idiot and was never meant to write at all.

(emphasis in that last line may partially explain my accidental post yesterday-Oops.)

Addicted to Blog

Awhile ago Cat of The Divorced Lady’s Companion to Italy tagged this as an addictive blog because the way I write about my children “cripples” her. Maybe so, but trying to keep up with them is killing me.

Some new anecdotes for Cat:

The Boy

Right this way!

The Hub and I were forced to move out of our bedroom for some unscheduled renovations. (At some point can we move back in, Mr Builder?) On the evening of the first night we would spend in our temporary bedroom, I went up for lights out/good night.  Propped against the wall  in the hallway outside The Boy’s bedroom, I found this:

What’s that arrow for?

So I remember which way to go tomorrow morning when I wake up.

b) Devolution of a Word

The Boy is in bed reading and calls me.

Mummy, can you come here. There’s a type error in this book. 

I inspect, agree and explain that the correct term is typo, short for typographical error. A few nights later he finds another typo in this damn book (I know) and calls me back up.

See, here’s another type faux.

I love it. It’s perfectly wrong, if you see what I mean. And as a former French teacher I’m impressed with his inadvertent use of faux.  Utterly charming, just like him. (Am I allowed to say that?)

Missy

Oh my. Where to begin. She calls a spade a spade, that girl:

(yes, another science test)

I found this on her desk:

What’s this list? I asked.

Stuff to write if I’m bored.

Writing prompts ?! Well, she is a budding writer. Remember her story about Puddles the Dog, who would love to be adopted by children, but  ”they have parents who want something small.”

If you look in the  top left corner you’ll see she’s written “Chapter One.” If that was Chapter One in the subtle hint department,  she upped the ante  last weekend with a full scale marketing blitz.  Sunday morning as I went to get milk for my coffee, I found this note on the fridge:

These notes were EVERYWHERE.  On book shelves, tables, my keyboard,  the Hub’s screen, the bannister…

Here are a few of them:

Now I’m supposed to nominate ten blogs that I’m addicted to. Gah! Cat has stolen tagged loads that I would have, so I’ll limit myself to three:

Earful of Cider – from the delightful Sarah W.  Unless you have hours to spare, do NOT click on her Time Suck Random Thursdays posts. You have been warned.

Sarah Salway – her 50 word stories leave me breathless.

Blog About Writing – an invaluable resource for writing advice and news of competitions from the generous Helen Yendell.