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How to be a human
What can the ‘most human human’ teach us about writing and reading? On Monday’s PM programme*, the writer Brian Christian (disconcertingly hailed as ‘the most human human’ for reasons that will shortly become clear) talked about how he’d acted as a ‘human confederate’ in 2009’s Turing Test. In this annual event, a panel of scientists makes (read more)
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timey-wimey: a letter to my (former) self
Dear Shelley-from-the-past, Put down that Crème Egg and listen to me: this is important. I’m writing to you from 2015, via an ingenious time-travel mechanism, the specifics of which I can’t be bothered to concoct. I won’t tell you anything about 2015 because if I did it would irrevocably alter the history / future of human (read more)
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Thirst
I’m so excited to have Kerry Hudson guesting on my blog today. The genius behind the Womentoring Project, her debut novel Tony Hogan Bought Me An Ice Cream Float Before He Stole My Ma won the Scottish First Book award and was nominated for a slew of others. Yesterday her second novel, Thirst, was published. (read more)
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Quick and dirty
A quick and dirty post this, but one I’m very proud of. It’s pretty terrifying to talk about a work-in-progress, and when my publishers asked me to pitch my next novel* they very cannily did it at a cocktail party (and bought the drinks). There were lots of other Weidenfeld & Nicolson authors there pitching their own (read more)
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Books for Christmas
Perhaps I’m biased, but I don’t think you can beat a book as a Christmas present. Where else do you get such bang for your buck? I may not be able to take my friends to France, but I can give them Hugo’s Notre Dame of Paris. They can go to Prague, New York and (read more)
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Don’t Panic
I was fourteen and the world was going to end. Four minutes, that was all we’d have, and then we’d be atomised: nothing between us and the bomb except a stupid understairs cupboard or a stupid kitchen table. Every time the Soviet Union and the States went head to head over Afghanistan, say, or Nicaragua, (read more)
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for your consideration
My To-Be-Read (TBR) pile is so big that it’s not a pile at all, but several shelves in a downstairs bookcase. Here is part of it: This is what happens when your ability to read is outstripped by a compulsion to acquire. I sometimes fantasise about redressing the balance, taking a few months off writing to (read more)
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Fifty Shades of… oh stuff it, I’m not making a lame Book Porn pun
What follows is either a fascinating post about book classification, or a self-deluded account of high-level work avoidance strategies – take your pick. Either way, I have found My Adventures In Book Porn to be more exciting than bestselling women’s erotica. Which is probably a bad thing. Last weekend, I spent a pleasurable few hours (read more)
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The Other Half of Me
As I write this, we are in the throes of a truly British summer which means, of course, that the sky is the colour of anthracite and high winds have forced the British sailing teams to take a break from their pre-Olympic racing. It’s the perfect moment to curl up with a book which will (read more)
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Richard and Judy (in which i react to good news )
It’s just been announced that Jubilee is a Richard and Judy Book Club choice for Summer 2012. This is incredible / amazing / gobsmacking / brilliant / wonderful – delete as applicable. (No! Don’t delete anything! They’re all applicable!) These are the things I did when Orion’s Fiction head, Susan Lamb, rang to give me (read more)
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Book at Bedtime
I am utterly thrilled to announce that Jubilee has been chosen as a Book at Bedtime on Radio 4, airing from Monday, May 28th. For me this is a piece of particularly good news, because Radio 4 and I have a very close personal relationship; it’s been going on for years. Several places at my (read more)
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something for the ladies
Imagine my surprise when I opened my copy of The Bookseller on Friday and discovered a new category of fiction: Intelligent Women’s Reads. I’ll just run that by you again: Intelligent Women’s Reads. Now, I’m going to be optimistic here and operate under the assumption that the adjective is being applied to the books, rather (read more)
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cover story
When I told people that Jubilee was going to be published, the first thing they asked was: ‘Do you have a cover design?’ or – in a variation on the theme – ‘Do you get to design the cover?’ I’ll deal with the latter question first. No, I do not design my own covers. If (read more)
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Freaks!
My best friend Loz has a superpower. No – really. She’s been able to pass it off as Emotional Intelligence to protect her secret identity, but she actually reads minds; it’s quite astonishing. When teaching finally gets the better of her, she and I will throw aside our conventional lives and tour the villages of Britain (read more)
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Life! Death! Prizes!
Steve May is a very good bloke and a cracking writer. I first met him on a ‘second drafts’ course at the Lumb Bank Arvon centre, where he and his wife Caron were centre directors. All of us on that course were deep into our manuscripts, all ambitious for publication. On the first night we (read more)
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