The Book Tower
debut novel coming soon

Today is the last day of the From the Stacks reading challenge. I’ve only managed to finish three of the five books, realising how undisciplined I am. Although, in my defence, I have read a pile of alternative titles from my shelves. As for the Winter Classics challenge, which has another month to go, I have read only two of the five books. Oh well. I was never any good with deadlines, although I do still intend to read all of the books before the year is out!

Now onto memes. Jack Pickard has recently taken the baton for the Things Beginning With… meme. He mentions in his responses that he’s been flirting with the idea of posting his own fiction on his blog. This got me thinking as, although some people might argue that some of my posts veer off into pure fiction anyway, I’ve thought about doing something similar from time to time.

So what do people think? Are you a frustrated writer or do you already post your fiction on your blog? Do you like fiction blogs? To be honest, I haven’t found that many. I’ve subscribed to a few, but find they sit uncomfortably next to the blogs I read for information, reviews, web stuff and memes. Plus what everyone else is reading, of course. But what type of fiction best suits the web, short stories or longer fiction in instalments?

Still talking of memes, I was recently asked to explain what one was. The Wikipedia explanation is long winded to say the least, so how would you best describe a meme in 20 words or less?

Farewell then, January. Coming in February: The Book Thief, Iain M.Banks and more Mervyn Peake.

Comments [2]

Variations on this meme have been doing the rounds, although I first saw it at Stainless Steel Droppings.

Science Fiction, Fantasy or Horror?

Anyone reading my recent posts will know that I’m currently juggling all three of them, but horror probably wins as my favourite.

Hardback or Trade Paperback or Mass Market Paperback?

Hardbacks when I can, trade paperbacks when I can’t. Hardbacks if I were a rich man.

Amazon or Brick and Mortar?

Amazon is always easiest, until you get home from work and you’ve had a missed delivery, or a parcel is soggy from being left in the rain. Trips to bookshops are more exciting, especially when you don’t quite know what you’re going to come away with.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?

Borders, and my daughter enjoys our weekly visit.

Bookmark or Dogear?

Bookmark. Show some respect! People who dogear are also the type of people who borrow books and never return them. They are also the people who tear the last chapter out of a really long book they are reading to take on holiday.

Alphabetize by author Alphabetize by title or random?

Sounds nerdy, but often by genre, or keeping new fiction in one place and classics in another.

Keep, Throw Away or Sell?

Keep forever. My wife is always threatening to clear out lots and lots of books. My solution is to buy an additional bookcase.

Keep dustjacket or toss it?

Keep forever.

Read with dustjacket or remove it?

Keep forever. If I’ve gone to the trouble of purchasing a hardback I will want the dustjacket to go with it. Removed dustjackets remind me of when I worked in a library and always wondered where they’d go…

Short story or novel?

Novel I guess, although I’d like to make the effort to read more short stories.

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket?

Harry Potter I’m afraid, although I’m growing increasingly bored with him. I didn’t like the Lemony Snicket film, but I suppose that isn’t a proper introduction. After all, I think the Harry Potter films are terrible.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks?

I always try to get to chapter breaks, unless I fall asleep, but then maybe I shouldn’t be reading a book that does that to me. The sign of a good book is when you keep saying just one more chapter.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”?

A dark and stormy night, as it usually is.

Buy or Borrow?

I always feel nervous about borrowing books, probably because I hate lending them. Let’s face it, you rarely get them back. True confession: I once stole a book back.

Buying choice: Book Reviews, Recommendation or Browse?

Recommendation, which for a long time was only a trickle of books per year. Until blogs came along. Also browsing, and I’ve found some real gems in secondhand and charity shops.

Collection (short stories by the same author) or Anthology (short stories by different authors)?

Anthologies of different authors (when I get round to reading more short stories).

Golden Age SF or New Wave SF?

Increasingly New Wave.

Tidy ending or Cliffhanger?

Ambiguous ending. Did they get away with it or are they going to slip off the edge of the cliff.

Morning reading, Afternoon reading or Nighttime reading?

I have a slight visual impairment so I need lots and lots of natural light. I’m best at morning reading, although I never find the time. Ditto for afternoon reading, so the most reading I do is at night. By then my eyes are tired and I struggle with lights and lamps. Sigh.

Standalone or Series?

I like a good series, a trilogy to indulge yourself in like His Dark Materials. I’m currently wading through the Gormenghast novels. You might have noticed!

New or used?

I love brand new books, although there is nothing better than an old but lovingly cared for book. Read and cherised by a bookmark and not dogear reader…

Comment

• Patrick McCabe’s Winterwood left me sitting in a stunned silence. Stunned because I didn’t really know what to make of it; the book is well written, dark and very disturbing but I’m not sure what it’s done to me. If anything. It’s still slowly sinking in.
• Possibly because McCabe had left me sitting in a trance, I left it too late to vote in the Seventh Annual Weblog Awards. A shame, because there’s a good few blogs that I’d have voted for.
• To get my strength back I’ve started reading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. I’m racing through it and will probably feel suitably rejuvenated to give a full review soon.
• Goldfinger by Ian Fleming is proving an easy but enjoyable read. I’d describe this type of book at this time of year as a winter warmer. Bond is portrayed as the killing machine who will ruthlessly dispense with someone who gets in his way. With his bare hands – The original Bond I’ve often heard about. It’s funny, but as I’m reading I don’t think Sean Connery but I think Daniel Craig.
• As I always welcome a complete contrast, I’m enjoying reading the Horrid Henry stories with my daughter. Francesca Simon’s a very witty writer, and Tony Ross is one of the best illustrators around. Contrasts, you can’t beat ‘em.

Comments [2]

Another recent television adaptation has had me rifling through piles of old paperbacks to find the original. This was the BBC’s slick new version of John Wyndham’s short story Random Quest starring Samuel West.

Following an accident during an experiment, a scientist wakes up to find his familiar world a little different. The most startling surprise for him is that he is now a successful author and married to a girl he has never met before called Ottilie. Eventually returned to his own world, he sets about finding his new wife. Even though she appears not to exist in his universe, this doesn’t put him off…

I eventually found my book of John Wyndham short stories called Consider Her Ways and Others, first published in 1961. Random Quest is set in 1954, and the differences that Colin Trafford notices between the two worlds are somewhat quaint:

I added soda to the brandy, and took a welcome drink. It was as I was putting the glass down that I caught sight of myself in the mirror behind the bar….
I used to have a moustache. I came out of the Army with it, but decided to jettison it when I went up to Cambridge. But there it was – a little less luxuriant, perhaps, but resurrected. I put my hand up and felt it. There was no illusion, and it was genuine, too. At almost the same moment I noticed my suit. Now, I used to have a suit pretty much like that, years ago. …
I had a swimming sensation, took another drink of the brandy, and felt, a little unsteadily, for a cigarette. The packet I pulled out of my pocket was unfamiliar – have you ever heard of Player’s ‘Mariner’ cigarettes – No? Neither had I.

In the 2006 version, unexpected military moustaches, Army life, smart suits and cigarettes are all jettisoned. What’s different here is the gleaming white space age apartment and attempts to be futuristic on a low budget. Trafford’s party guests stand around looking like extras from Space 1999. Where the 50s Trafford reads about the new universe in copies of The New Statesman to discover that the Second World War hasn’t taken place, the 21st Centrury Trafford watches BBC News 24 to realise there has been no fall of the Berlin Wall. Condoleeza Rice and Tony Blair receive appropriate namechecks. There’s nothing like a modern pesrpective to sketch out your alternative universe.

What’s striking about Random Quest the short story is what’s ultimately odd about the new television version. Parallel universes are old hat in 2006, but Wyndham’s story must have come across as a very fresh and original premise in 1961. One of the conceits of the new BBC film is that our hero, momentarily trapped in the parallel world as the sci-fi author version of himself, proposes a new book about a scientist – you’ve guessed it – who is catapulted into a parallel universe. Everyone thinks this is a very original idea for a book. In fact, nobody has thought about parallel universes in this world, but perhaps this is an alternative Earth that’s missing Star Trek, Doctor Who, Sliding Doors and countless other film and television science fiction. And, most importantly, what possibly influenced all of the above – John Wyndham.

Footnote: The new version was a disappointment, although Random Quest was previously filmed in 1971 as Quest for Love with Tom Bell and Joan Collins. I haven’t seen this film for years, but putting the seventies production standards aside, I’d imagine it’s still a very enjoyable film.

Continue reading Quest for Wyndham [4]

During her book-reading heyday, my late aunt claimed to read three novels a week. Apparently my grandfather did the same. “He was another great reader”, my aunt would say. After my aunt died I found a photograph of her sitting by the fireplace and reading. She had pinned another, much older, photograph to it of my grandfather. He was also sitting beside a fireplace and reading. Sadly, I have only managed to match this level of dedication to books in periods of unemployment or whenever I find myself on lazy holidays.

In the first half of 2006 my reading reached an all time low of about a novel a month. This I put down to starting a new job and not finding the time (and other excuses), but things picked up to about a book a week in the last half of the year and I am going to attempt to keep up this pace during 2007.

It would be madness to list 52 books that I am planning to read this year, but I have some idea where I’ll be starting.

Book #1

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time, perhaps since my last period of unemployment or lazy holiday. So much so that my next post is going to be all about it.

They Won’t Go Away

Books left over from reading challenges:

• A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens
• Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
• What Maisie Knew Henry James
• At the Mountains of Madness H.P. Lovecraft
• The Woman in White Wilkie Collins

Sales and Secondhand

I restrained myself in the January sales and only bought two hardbacks. Black Swan Down by David Mitchell and Winterwood by Patrick McCabe. I found Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas both enjoyable and infuriating in equal measures. McCabe I am new to. Best recent finds in charity shops are Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce and Goldfinger by Ian Fleming.

Christmas Present

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks, a welcome gift from my family.

Looking Forward To…

New novels are on their way in 2007 from Ian McEwan and Gerard Woodward. On Chesil Beach is McEwan’s latest which I will read as a matter of course, although what I’m really looking forward to is Woodward’s A Curious Earth.

So try to picture me throughout 2007, at least once or twice a week sitting beside my fireplace and reading.

Comments [3]