Last Minute Christmas Books

We are not often given to self-aggrandisement, but hope to be forgiven if we remind you of three novels published by members of ninevoices which might solve a last-minute present need or help entertain a self-isolating friend or relative. You may also like to be reminded that you could send one of them (or even all three) as gifts to their kindle/tablet. All you need is to ask them for their kindle address details.

All Desires Known by Tanya van Hasselt. Forbidden desires. A mind in fragments. A shocking act of violence. Written by a novelist whose work has been compared to that of Alan Bennett.

Currently only £0.99 for the kindle copy from Amazon. https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Desires-Known-Tanya-Hasselt-ebook/dp/B00IDCH6IQ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=tanya+van+hasselt&qid=1639936849&s=books&sr=1-1

Of Human Telling by Tanya van Hasselt. A sharp-eyed look at the mysteries of love and obsession by the winner of the Barbara Pym Short Story Award.

Currently only £0.99 from Amazon for the kindle copy. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Human-Telling-Tanya-van-Hasselt-ebook/dp/B01N9BJPNQ/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=tanya+van+hasselt&qid=1639936802&s=books&sr=1-2

The Servant by Maggie Richell-Davies. Inspired by a visit to London’s Foundling Museum, this dark story of the exploitation of vulnerable young women in eighteenth century London won the Historical Writers’ Association Unpublished Novel Award in 2020.

Currently £1.99 for the kindle/tablet copy, or £7.99 for the paperback. Both on https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B087N8H9PB

Happy Christmas reading!

Albert Finney and Rosamunde Pilcher

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Alan Sillitoe, Albert Finney, Christopher Marlowe, Cornwall, German TV, Henry Fielding, Room at the Top, Rosamunde Pilcher, Saturday Night & Sunday Morning, Tamburlaine, Tom Jones

Albert Finney RIP – I think I read Saturday Night and Sunday Morning before I saw the film (it will have had an A or an X certificate and I wouldn’t have been old enough to get into the cinema) but remember realising that the novel was something different.  And Albert Finney on film as Arthur Seaton was, well, definitive.  (I don’t know where my own copy now is, but seeing that old Pan paperback pictured this week I noticed that it really did say on the front “Makes Room at the Top look like a vicarage tea party”: I’d thought that that was just a cliché, but no, it was really used.)

An aunt took me to see Tom Jones at the cinema – another amazing Finney performance – and my copy of the book has my name and ‘1966’ written in it in her best calligraphy.  I see that the book cost a massive 8/6 – a lot for a schoolboy, so maybe she gave it to me.  I don’t know which I did first – see the film or read the book.  I’m sure I missed a lot of Henry Fielding’s jokes but I do remember the excitement of seeing as an A Level English student what a skilled writer could do with irony and description and character.  And why not go on for 800 pages?  Why stick at the 180 or 200 my usual reading matter then had?

My third Finney/literature moment was seeing him on stage at the National Theatre as Tamburlaine in 1976.  I’d read Tamburlaine and had wondered how this prolonged bombast-fest could possibly be staged (and what constitution the actor in the lead role must have!).  Well, Albert Finney was magnificent.  He made it work.  Christopher Marlowe would, I’m sure, have been delighted to see this massive anti-hero brought so compellingly to life.

Rather a different writer was Rosamunde Pilcher, who has also left us this week.  She sold 60 million books!  60 million.  Think of the sheer quantity of the pleasure she brought to her readers.  And that pleasure spread far and wide: a happy part of my Czech mother-in-law’s week would be watching Rosamunde Pilcher’s stories made by a German film company, in the most glorious Cornish settings, with Czech subtitles.  I don’t remember seeing those programmes in England but they have gone down well in Central Europe. Lots of red phone boxes and letter-boxes to remind the viewers where they are.

Must read The Shell Seekers one day.

So thanks, Albert Finney, and thanks, Rosamunde Pilcher.

 

Brian Aldiss

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Arthur Conan Doyle, Brian Aldiss, Frankenstein Unbound, Greybeard, H G Wells, Helliconia, Non-Stop, Prep schools, The Brightmount Diaries, The Hand-Reared Boy

RIP Brian Aldiss, who has died aged 92, the prolific author of over 40 novels, plus poetry, short stories, autobiographies and criticism, in different genres. He also edited anthologies of science fiction.   His Times obituary (published on 22 August) described him as an “ebullient and highly sexed author and poet who persuaded the literary establishment to take science fiction seriously.” His ability in different genres can be compared to his admired H G Wells or Arthur Conan Doyle. In his obituary in the Guardian on 21 August it was stated that “one of the most exhilarating aspects of reading Aldiss is the diversity of his imagination.”

He would recount that he learned how to tell a good story at his prep school, when in the dormitory at night he would tell ghost stories, standing on his bed. The penalty for disappointment was having shoes thrown at him: he was never hit, and he said “I never feared criticism since.”

His early life and wartime experiences in the Far East led to his Horatio Stubbs sex comedies (starting with The Hand-Reared Boy). His first published novel, The Brightmount Diaries, is an account of the life of an assistant in a bookshop, and its success meant that he could leave his job as an assistant in a bookshop! His science fiction included Greybeard, Non-Stop, Frankenstein Unbound and the Helliconia series (about a planet where the seasons last, literally, for ages, and the inhabitants have to adjust accordingly). This SF writing and his work as editor of numerous SF anthologies did much to establish SF as a genre worthy of respect.

Aspiring writers can look to the sheer quantity of his output, to his not being afraid to write in different genres or to write in unfashionable genres. Thanks, Brian.

Richard Gordon

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Anaesthetists, Doctors, Hospitals, Richard Gordon, Soup, Walking the dog

Today’s obituary in the Times of Richard Gordon, the author of the comic Doctor novels, records his writing routine thus: in the morning he would write; a tin of soup would be his lunch; in the afternoon he’d walk the dog, dictating as he went any ideas that came to him; he’d then put in another couple of hours writing (except during the cricket season).

He’d given up his job as an anaesthetist (which he said he chose as he didn’t like patients, so here was a medical job where they were all asleep) when his writing started to progress. His wife (also an anaesthetist) supported him until the Doctor books became so successful. I hadn’t realised how much else he wrote, novels and non-fiction.

He said, “I have had a jolly easy life doing nothing, because writing is nothing, really, it’s dead easy.” Well, he was a writer of fiction …

He made a lot of people laugh.  RIP.

Shortlist Success

Many congratulations to all those who made the shortlist of Adventures In Fiction’s ‘Spotlight First Novel Competition’ – announced today.  A special well done to Maggie for her well-deserved place on it with The Gingham Square: https://www.facebook.com/AdventuresInFiction

Writer rushes into burning building to save two finished novels

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/37395526/writer-rushes-into-burning-building-to-save-two-finished-novels

I think we all know how he felt.

Note to self: email finished novels to own address.  Twice.

A boy’s legacy

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Children's books, meningitis, Robey and the Dentist

Doing good with books, books which bring good into the world. These thoughts came into my mind when I came across a delightful children’s book called Robey and the Dentist.

Robey is a small boy worried that his dentist will think his teeth aren’t white enough – but learns that clean teeth are more important than white teeth. It’s not surprising that the book has been welcomed by the British Society of Paediatric Dentistry.

Robey and the Dentist was written by Edward Saunders when he was aged eleven. When he was eighteen Edward died from a violent strain of meningitis just a few hours after being taken ill. The book, crowdfunded and launched earlier this week, has been published in his memory, and is available on a dedicated website – http://www.robeyandthedentist.co.uk

Edward’s mother Tracey Saunders is raising funds for the meningitis charity https://www.meningitisnow.org

Robey and the Dentist – the lasting legacy of a family and the special boy whose early death didn’t stop him giving something good to others.

 

Writing competition with a Czech or Slovak twist

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Czech, Migration, Slovak, Writing competition

Migration from one EU country to another is a controversial topic currently much in the news. Do you fancy poking this hornets’ nest? Entries featuring or referring to it would be welcome in the British Czech & Slovak Association’s 2015 writing competition.

Fiction or fact – both are welcome. A first prize of £300 and a second prize of £100 will be awarded to the best 1,500 to 2,000-word pieces of original writing in English on the links between Britain and the Czech or Slovak Republics (or their predecessor states), or describing society in transition in the Republics since 1989. Topics can include history, politics, the sciences, economics, the arts or literature.

The writer of this year’s winning entry will be presented with the prize at the BCSA’s annual dinner in London in November 2015. So the prize includes a free dinner for you and a companion ….

The winning entry will be published in the December 2015 issue of the British Czech and Slovak Review and the runner-up in a subsequent issue.

Submissions are invited from individuals of any age, nationality or educational background. Entrants do not need to be members of the BCSA. Entries should be received by 30 June 2015. An author may submit any number of entries. Entry is free.

All entries must be in English, prose, typed with double-spacing and no more than 2,000 words in length. (The recommended minimum is 1,500 words.)

Entries should be submitted by post to the BCSA Prize Administrator, 24 Ferndale, Tunbridge Wells, Kent, TN2 3NS, England, or by e-mail to prize@bcsa.co.uk.

For the full submission guidelines apply to the Prize Administrator or see http://www.bcsa.co.uk/specials.html

The travails of publishing

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book launch, Choral conducting, Choral singing, David M Howard, music, Willow Leaf Media, Willow Leaf Publishing

Writers and aspirant writers groan at our difficulties. Often we groan at publishers: we lament their inattention or indifference to our rightful needs, or their lack of judgment in seeing the oh so obvious merits of what we produce. But do we ever think of what they go through, what the hard work is involved in bringing a book to a launch?

These thoughts went through my mind on 20 February when I attended the launch of Choral Singing & Healthy Voice Production, published through ninevoices’ own Anita Jane Sinden’s Willow Leaf Publishing. The sheer slog involved in creating this beautifully produced and colourfully illustrated book should not be taken for granted.

If you’re in a choir, or you run a choir, this book might well be for you. It’s by David M Howard, who holds a personal chair in Music Technology at York University, teaching and researching the human singing and speaking voice. It gives much advice on how singing voices work and the exercises and care needed to protect and develop them. It advises directors on how to achieve the best performance from their choirs. As said above, it’s published by Willow Leaf Publishing (see http://willowleafmedia.com). It is also available through York Publishing Services (see http://www.ypdbooks.com/the-arts/1321-choral-singing-and-healthy-voice-production-YPD01527.html) or on Amazon.co.uk. ISBN 978-0-9926216-1-2 RRP £25.

The launch was a happy and interesting event. As well as fine wines and interesting nibbles in a historic church (St Sepulchre’s, near the Old Bailey), we were treated to some beautiful singing from a young people’s choir. The trick was that after they had sung a piece, David Howard would then explain how they could do it better, which they then did. The audience were encouraged to do this too – we were forbidden to pay the choir compliments, just utter criticisms! The choir didn’t seem to mind.

Congratulations, Anita, on Willow Leaf Media’s producing this book and on all the effort that clearly went into it.

P D James

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crime fiction, Excellent Women, P D James

P D James – one of the greats. RIP