Thursday, September 14, 2006

Booker Short List

So here it is, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2006.

Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton)
Kate Grenville - The Secret River (Canongate)
M.J. Hyland - Carry Me Down (Canongate)
Hisham Matar - In the Country of Men (Viking)
Edward St Aubyn - Mother’s Milk (Picador)
Sarah Waters - The Night Watch (Virago)

I'm very sorry to see that James Lasdun isn't there as his book Seven Lies is very fine. However I'm glad to see M.J. Hyland there. I've got a proof copy of Hisham Matar's book by my desk and we're currently debating its merits....

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Beginnings and Endings

So it begins...

The Ottakar's in Cheltenham is no more ... last night as I walked home it was being refurbished and this morning when I walked into work it had become Waterstone's. The branding is slightly different from the old Waterstone's stores - white and black instead of gold and black.

So as you pass your local Ottakar's take a moment to frequent it before it is no more.

Monday, September 11, 2006

One for the history books

I taking a moment away from books. Just a moment, this isn't permanent....

Aside from the (mostly) unsporting activities of books (they occasionally require lifting, and are heavy) and turnips (all that digging is much more exciting than the gym) I sometimes dally in the world of sport. Not the partaking you understand, only as an onlooker, and even then I'm very selective - tennis and three-day eventing. Having worked in eventing ( did the wholly unglamorous job of being an event groom and loved it while it lasted, but am now too much of a cripple) I know that it can be at turns punishing and wonderfully rewarding - rather like the world of books - and this weekend saw both in shovelfuls. Andrew Hoy was in line for the Rolex Grand Slam - $250,000, which is a huge amount for a rider and has only been won once before by Pippa Funnel in 2003 - having won Kentucky and Badminton this year, all he had to do was win Burghley and he was there - but sadly it wasn't to be, with three poles down in the show-jumping - the final discipline out of Dressage, Cross-country and Show-jumping - he went down to second place.

But while one rider lost out on the biggest prize in eventing, another won the biggest event of her career to date, the British born Lucinda Fredericks (she married the Australian Clayton Fredericks so now rides for Australia) stormed away with the Land Rover sponsored prize money of £45,000 with a faultless clear round in the show-jumping, with a wonderful little mare (15.3hh) called Headley Britannia who tried her heart out and has been rewarded with her place in eventing history after becoming the first mare in 33 years to win the competition.

But its back to books now ... am off home with a copy of Gail Jones' Dreams of Speaking, published by Harvill Secker.

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Harvest

In the world of vegetable gardening September is a wonderful month - no planting required, only the very fulfilling job of harvesting. The only problem is what to do with it all when its picked, and you can't eat it all in one day.... This year the turnips are doing very well - they are lovely and sweet - we have an abundance of beans - Runner, French, Yellow Climbing, Borlotti, - the onions are all picked and drying out, an Italian green vegetable called l'agretto has gone mad and we can't keep up with it, as has the chard and beet leaf, the caterpillars have attacked the kale and the cabbages though, but there is hope, and enough time to re-sow the kale before the winter, last year we were cutting from September through to the following March before it gave out, it survived the snow and frost without ever needing covering; so as winter veg goes kale is my favorite - its green and needs hardly any fussing about. On the fruit front the apples and plums are ripening up nicely and we even have some pears this year.

And at work things are somewhat the same - almost all the books have arrived, and the festival is a month away, which means further temptations for this blogger. Christopher Hope's new novel has arrived - My Mother's Lovers published by Atlantic - as has Victor Sebestyen's book on the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 - Twelve Days published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

The trouble is that I have no time to read them. But come November when the nights have drawn in my time will be devoted to reading books, instead of just talking about them.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Digesting the Booker

I know I know, everybody is talking about it and its beginning to get boring.... So I'll be brief.
Of the big publishing houses:

With 5 titles from 4 imprints Random House dominates.

Peguin has 4 titles from 2 imprints.

Pan Macmillan has 2 titles from it imprint Picador (who published last year's winner).

Hodder has 1 title with imprint Sceptre.

Little Brown has 1 title with imprint Virago.

Of the Independent Publishers:

Faber & Faber, Cannongate and Bloomsbury have 2 titles each.

With the shortlist just eight days away I dare say the judges are in for another epic debate on what stays and what goes. My personal shortlist keeps changing, but today is: Seven Lies by James Lasdun, The Testement of Gideon Mack by James Robertson, Carry Me Down by M.J. Hyland, So Many Ways to begin by Jon McGregor, The Secret River by Kate Grenville, The Night Watch by Sarah Waters.

This of course will have changed by tomorrow. Except for Lasdun who has stayed on all my shortlists....

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Walking Over Books

For those of you who might have been wondering - I haven't fallen off the planet, I've just been rather bogged down of late. I had a fleeting trip to Edinburgh - for the Book Festival and to see a few things on the Fringe - where I discovered that I no longer know how to live like a student (sleeping on the floor and eating Pot Noodle was never my idea of fun, but now one night on the floor leaves me unable to walk!). And speaking of Pot Noodle, AL Kennedy did a very funny skit on the subject of this terrible food stuff, and on the whole her stand-up was considerably funnier than the critics gave her credit for (the day I was there the audience kept up a pretty constant flow of laughter). ALK's comedy aside ... Her new book Day will be published in the UK on 5th April 2007 (215 days to go). I have heard that there are plays and another collection of short stories to come as well.

With little over a month to go before the 57th
Cheltenham Literature Festival begins everything is about to take off in our office - with everything from book deliveries to the colour of the tent lining to be sorted out. Having done a big clear out a month ago we're now piled high with books again - indeed you can't really move for books, and boxes of books, and parcels of books waiting to be posted, and very soon walking into the office every morning is going to be like climbing through over-growth, or paradise.

Wonderful though it is to be surrounded by so many books, it is also something of a struggle: books mean temptation, and my recent rummage amongst the leaves of the many titles we have turned up several temptations ... In no particular order:

The London Pigeon Wars by Patrick Neate (Penguin)
Ancestor Stones by Aminatta Forna (Bloomsbury)
Fatal Purity by Ruth Scurr (Chatto & Windus)
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farrell (Headline Review) (I have to admit that I am seduced by titles, and this is one of them)

Gautam Malkani's much-talked-about-first-novel Londonstani may win me over.


I realise I'm lagging somewhat behind with reviews of what I've read ... I'll get there soon.