I’m between drafts of a new novel, so I’ve had time to work on a couple of short stories that lay, unfinished, in the ‘pending’ folder on my computer. This week I finished one called ‘The After Life’. This morning, when I saw a new song with the same name linked to on the whatevershebringswesing mailing list, I had to click through. This is the second song to be previewed from Paul Simon’s forthcoming album, So Beautiful or So What and it’s so good I just listened to it twice. Simon’s last album, Surprise, was a real return to form, as was the accompanying tour, and this sounds even more promising. Check out the song here. A former student of mine, novelist Chris Killen, published…
Next month sees the return of Five Leaves’ Crime Express series, which I edit. Those of you who have read earlier books in the series may notice that they have a new look. But most readers have never seen a Crime Express novelette, because we had great difficulty getting them into shops. The first eight books were beautiful, tiny A6 objects, with smart flaps, ideal for shoving into a pocket of almost any size. But hard to display. The authors loved them, but readers couldn’t find them. So, reluctantly, after much discussion, we’ve moved the series to normal size, where they will fit more easily onto bookstore shelves. Why should you buy then? Crime Express aims to present the best of Crime Writing today, from…
Teddy Thompson is single, and the songs on his new album ‘Bella’, released on Monday, let us know it. On each of his three visits to The Rescue Rooms the admiring throng of female followers has grown thicker. Hardly surprising, given his film star looks and rich, memorable singing voice. It’ll be interesting to see if ‘Bella’ emulates his last album, ‘A Piece Of What You Need’ by entering the album charts in the top ten. Reviews have been mixed. Unfairly, for it’s as good an album of country tinged pop-rock as you can hope to hear. It gets a good airing tonight, as does the last album and his second, ‘Separate Ways’, the title track of which takes on the air of a classic.…
It’s stating the obvious, for a writer, but I love libraries. My partner and I are the sort of people who visit libraries on holiday, as the photo above, of Vancouver’s fantastic public library last August, illustrates. The other day, after reading an article in the New Yorker, I was trying to work out an excuse to get into the Vatican library, which is about to reopen. There weren’t many books in our house when I was growing up, yet all of the world’s literature was available to me in West Kirby library, then Colne library and Burnley library. When I was on the dole, trying to become a novelist, I spent an awful lot of time in Nottingham City library and Radford library. These…
The Richard Thompson show on Thursday was excellent. There aren’t many people who can get away with playing a gig the longest section of which is new material that the majority of the audience hasn’t heard, but Richard triumphed, as proved by the standing ovations at the end. You get less of your favourite songs in an RT band show, but instead you get a lot of great guitar solos, which are even stronger and longer than ever before, a point I was reminded of when I played the tour only live album from 1985 that I bought at the interval. I saw the ’85 tour (in Worksop, Nottingham, with Sue, John Harvey and the late Angus Wells) and recall it as being excellent. The…