Thursday 13 August 2009

A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That

I've added a few new authors to the list of links recently. Some of them - Frank Muir , C David Ingram, Clio Gray were added too late to be featured in my alphabet posts (of which I have posted up to M - the rest to follow).

My mum has been getting grumpy about my dad's new reviewing gig (I believe her exact words were "Patrick, anyone would think you've been asked to review for The Times. It's only our Donna's daft Blob (sic), you know"), so, in order to promote marital bliss - 50 years in September (assuming my dad makes it) - I'm going to do a new occasional feature - tentatively called Keeping It In The Family - where Mum, Dad and I will all review the same book. This should be fun. My mum likes cosies, historicals and a few police procedurals where there is not a lot of gore, no sex and definitely no swearing; my dad likes thrillers, spy novels and books with elves in (the elves can swear their heads off as far as he's concerned); and I like noir, warped and funny books. I think the chances of us all enjoying the same book are slim-to-youmustbekidding.

Our first book is going to be Frank Muir's AN EYE FOR AN EYE. Since the premise is that six wife abusers have been stabbed to death through the left eye, I'm assuming it's not a cosy. I had a quick look and found an empty eye socket on page 4, some pretty close to the bone sexual references (double entendre intentional) on pages 7 and 8, and some Really Bad Words on pages 11, 12 and 14. And no elves. I think it will go down well...

In the meantime...

Irvine Welsh blamed for rise in Scottish drug deaths...sort of.

Ian Rankin talks about Fred "The Shred" Goodwin as well as his new book, THE COMPLAINTS. And, talking of Ian Rankin, he and Ian Banks will be appearing at the Edinburgh Book Festival as part of Amnesty International's Imprisoned Writers programme.

An interview with debut author Grant McKenzie.

Good news for fans of Val McDermid's WIRE IN THE BLOOD series, which was cancelled by ITV this year.


16 comments:

  1. Get a bottle of tipex, blot out the sex, swearing and gore then overwrite with elves and cosy chit-chat. Should be fine.

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  2. But then *I* would hate it :o) When my first book came out my mum asked if I could get her a special copy, with all the swearing removed. And she wasn't kidding. Before it came out she had been into the local bookstore and got them to order several copies. After reading the first chapter she said "I'm going to have to go in and get them to cancel the order now."...

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  3. But you'd have read it before the tipex

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  4. Oh yes...I never thought of that :o)

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  5. I think it's a brilliant idea - one book, reviewed by people with different tastes, all on one blog and all called Moore - brilliant.

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  6. When you put it like that I'm amazed it's not more popular...

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  7. One should always remember to read the comments also - LOL
    Your mother must have snook into our house, because my Helena Handbasket has vanished into blue air.

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  8. Dorte - she is trying to remove all copies from circulation due to their corrupting influence.

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  9. But then there'd be nothing left!!!

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  10. That may be just how my mum would like it :o)

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  11. Well I think I foiled your mum, as I have hidden my copy in the dust jacket from a secondhand copy of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight.

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  12. LOL Tim - that would definitely fool her!

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  13. Yup, that cover fooled a lot of people.
    I rather liked "The Twilight Time" though. Will we be seeing you over on the East coast at all, Donna? Plenty happening over the next two weeks.

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  14. Sadly, the events I wanted to see were either sold out or were at times I could not make it. The only day when I am coming over is next Saturday - not to see anything, just to hang out and also to meet up with the lovely bookwitch at some point. What are you going to see? Will you be around on Sat 22nd?

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  15. Ah yes, I had the same problem last year, so this year I queued on the day the tickets went on sale.

    I'll be going to see Henning Mankell in the morning. I'll keep an eye out for you.

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  16. I will definitely be there before that one so do come and say hi if you see me!

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