Will Self vs Richard Littlejohn on the Nicky Campbell show.

Transcript be here.

Yes, it's me again. I've been out and planted a greengage and some anemones but I'm back now.

The Orange longlist, with total sales for each of the nominated books.

 A Gate at the Stairs is on there? Seriously??? Worst book I've read this year.

wot I found on the electric interwebs.

6 writers who accidentally crapped out masterpieces.

Why oh why does SF never get the Booker?

Well, they tell me it's Saturday. I suppose they could be lying but then, why would they bother, you know? But then the Met office said it would be sunny and they lie! for it is darkly grey and ominous and suspiciously warm.

A sleepless night after a tiring week has left me a well-knackered bunny. I had planned to use this day wisely and well in printing out the 3rd draft of Entanglement and doing that all-important 4th edit but I'm mildly scared I'll find that it's wall to wall shit now it's been sent to an agent and then worry. Why do that to myself, I cannot help but ask? Also the continuous interruptions - water meter man, post men, couriers, an itinerant hedge cutter - have done nothing to help my resolve to stare at the wall work on the book.

So, all of the above plus the aforementioned tiredness and my natural inklination to idleness leads me to endlessly peruse Twitter, t'internet and my current crop of reading, some self-chosen, some chosen for me (and for which I shall have to write reviews alas). For the bookly minded, these be:

Breath, Tim Winton. Surprisingly readable and really good.
Makers, Cory Doctorow. Frighteningly long.
Day After Night, Anita Diamant. A review copy and not my cup of tea at all ('Extraordinary true story', internment, Polish Zionist, Holocaust! run away, run away!!!) but I shall do my duty and hope (but not expect) to be pleasantly surprised.
The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield. Been wanting to read this for ages but work keeps getting in the way.
Vineland, Pynchon. Ditto.
The Men Who Stare at Goats, Tom Ronson

Tea now, I think. I'm currently working my happy way through a box of Twining's Lemon Grove which I hadn't had before and is surprisingly delicious. It tastes of lemon Opal Fruits which can only be a Very good thing. New Californication on the box tonight, also a repeat of the Robbie Coltraine, John Sessions Boswell thingum.

In short, life is currently pleasing me in a sound and goodly way, I hope she is doing the same for you, too, my esteemed and doxilicious flist. Here, have a sprinkling of pink sugar-dusted, sparkly cherry-vanilla kisses. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Whatever Mark's using in the bath, it smells bloody awful.

ETA: Too good not to share (Caution, contains Dan Brown).

this tragic news?

Tim Guest has died

Srzly!

It's still a bit nippy out there but the sun be shining, birds are nesting in my eaves; there's a wee Robin singing his heart out on my gate; daffodils and crocuses are up, my seedlings are sprouting like rampant crinoidal sprouty things. 

This has to be good.

We're home for a week anyway, Morrison's has been duly stripped of goodies, I have tea and bikkies and really should leave off Twitter now and do some work.

Oh, and I'm reading a wonderful book. I'm only 1/3 of the way in but I'm loving every damn page so far. Solo by Rana Dasgupta. A 100 year old man looks back on his life. Beautiful writing, great characters, rivetting story.

OK. Working. I am. I am. Right after I make some more tea.

Another review for simon_saysuk  - many thanks again for the free book which I adored and highly recomend.

( Read my review )

Cross posted to booky_talk,  goodreads and Amazon

Flist - who do we know who could play this character? From p.142:

'Terry McQuinn was five feet six inches tall. He had bright blue eyes and brown curly hair and JRR Tolkien was one of the few things in life that made sense to him. People indeed sometimes said that he looked like a Hobbit'.

If you ever get to read this book, I promise you'll enjoy putting our lad in this role. I know I did. ::she smiled knowingly::

Blagged from so many; most recently elmyraemilie , cross_stitchery and davidbrider 

The BBC allegedly believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here (I find that hard to believe but there you go). Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish. I'm adding; underline those that are defo on your 'to read' list'. Here we go...
( Because I am the very Mistress of Prevarication... )

And now I genuinely have to turn off the emails and get down to some work. After coffee. And Just a MInute...

And ETA (because I'm drinking coffee, listening to Just a Minute *G*) why is The Five People You Meet In Heaven in there (a rather so-so book imo) and not the infinitely beautiful and superior History of Love by Nicole Kraus? Two books  linked in no way whatsoever except that I read them at the same time but the one is so much better than the other!

This is a puzzling list. I see no reason for many of their choices at all.

 

Gosh. That was a killer. ::wipes eyes, blows copious wet n runny snot into a series of tissues:: TMI? I half-heartedly apologise.

I have to somehow review it for Amazon now. What on earth will I say? It's blown me away.

We have to go back to Yorkshire for the duration today, and not a moment too soon since the fairy lights on the mantelpiece have just packed in, damn them. I'll be taking them down today anyway since we won't be back again before Twelfth Night and I have no desire to incur the ire of the Gods.

Mark wants to set off at ten since the roads will no doubt be horrific. I have a slew of things to do, in fact, before we depart, things I should be doing rather than sitting here, sipping a cooling mug of coffee, contemplating my filthy t shirt, but I think I shall sit here and ponder the mysteries over a fresh cup of coffee and maybe an oatcake for a little while longer.

ETA: Mark hath decreed that th'hour of eleven 'is early enough I think' and, since I've already stripped and changed the bed and packed m'bag; Mark's washed up there's little else to do so I'm back on my arse again, eating potato cakes (oatcakes have gone mouldy! :o), drinking juice and coffee (in separate receptacles, not mixed. That would be horrid) and perusing LJ (which is very quiet this morning. Where is everyone? Are you all holiday-busy or just hungover?

...she warbled as she chugged down her second mug of coffee.

I was tucked up warm in bed by ten last night, but working on my novel till some godforsken hour, then got involved reading An Accidental Light which is not the sort of thing I'd normally pick off the shelf because the cover is so off-putting, it just screams (in a Tom Baker voice)  'this is a WOMANS book, my Lord!' - But I'm supposed to be reviewing it and it's actually rather good. A policeman accidentally runs-down and kills a young girl. The book follows everyone involved in the incident and how it changes their life and all the while, the ghost of the kid be hauntin' them. It's all first person but beautifully written and very easy to read and I do commend it most heartliy (but they really should change that awful cover). So it was the wee small hours before I turned out the light, only to get woken at some darke tyme of bleedin bloody Nora o' clock by a car sliding and crunching around in the road outside and running, running, running his engine and now -

Shattered. Is what I am. It's bloody Narnia out there today and somehow, we have to get into Chorley for bankly-business and shopping and that. And will our blessed council, to whom we pay most munificent goodly tithes each moon have gritted the village roads? Verily, I say, they will not.

What is it about t'Internets that maketh one to write like that? Verily, I know not that, neither. Tis a mystery.

Anyway. I needs must drink more coffee and complete my novelly works if we're to be away at the appointed hour. ::Looks at thick coating of ice on road. sighs deeply:: There had best be hot chocolate and almond croissants at the end of this, I'm telling you or there'll be trouble.

by Matthew Quick, is a book I'm reviewing for Amazon.

Pat tells you his story in his own, sweet, child-like way. He's spent a few years in an institution after some kind of a breakdown (? - we don't know that much about Pat yet, I'm only half-way through and he hasn't told us a lot about himself yet). He believes his life is a movie, written and directed by God. He's being haunted in the night by Kenny G who terrifies him.

Pat's so angsty and damaged and utterly adorable. He only wants to 'practice kindness'. His mom, who adores him, fought to take him home from the institution -  The Bad Place  - and get him into therapy.

Obsessional body-building aside, Pat is fanfic Blair, so very loveable, the poor mad baby.

It reads like the essence of every damaged-angsty Blair-fic I've ever read. Actually, it reads just like one of my own fics; reading it is a strangely familiar and comforting experience *g* I'm enjoying it enormously.

It's not out yet, but when it is, I heartily rec this book to everyone. The angst-monkeys will love it.

And the sun is out, the sky is blue, it's beautifu-ul... I should wrap up warm and go for a walk. Just want to read a wee bit more. It's been a while since I read a book in a day but I just might with this one.