I visited the house of a book reviewer the other night. He and his wife have bookshelves all over the place, on every spare bit of wall. They have a large upstairs toilet and four of us spent quite some time in there, looking at and discussing the novels in the L to P section (two walls). I borrowed two new books from the early alphabet in the bedroom (the latest by J M Coetzee and Robert Edric). But the scariest books, from a writer’s point of view, were in the spare bedroom. They weren’t on the shelves, but in two large piles, mostly paperback, from which Sue and I were invited to take our pick. That’s right, every reader’s dream. Anything you fancy, have…

I’ve been busy (re)writing lately and haven’t had the time to write anything new here for nearly a fortnight. So, to make up for that, and to thank readers for coming back, here are a few other sites that might repay a visit. I went to see The Rolling Stones at Wembley Arena last week and had a remarkably good time. My old friend Mike wrote the review above and I agree with most of what he said. Nottingham writer Stephan Collishaw has a great first novel out, called ‘The Last Girl’ and a neat web-site (it describes me as a great writer, so I guess he’s prone to exaggeration). Another Nottingham writer with a nifty new web-site is Martin Stannard. Check out some of…

I’ve finished the novel I brought with me (Magnus Mills’ splendid “The Scheme For Full Employment” a return to the form of his first two) and have an hour to kill on my last evening in Edinburgh, so here’s a quick festival report. It’s typed on our host Alan’s iBook, with its tiny keyboard, so may have more errors than normal. There’s saxaphone music playing as I type, and Sue’s reading about couturiers. Best Play: Dark Earth by David Harrower. A gripping, superbly staged state of Scotland play at the Traverse (we seemed to spend a lot of time at the Traverse), brilliantly acted, especially by John Mackay as the father. If this tours, see it. Runner Up: The Straits by Gregory Burke, which is…

It topped 100F at Heathrow, making it the hottest day ever in the UK and slapping in the face those who deny that global warming exists. In Nottingham, however, it was pouring down and our departure was delayed by waiting for the rain to clear. That meant we missed the first half of the Cosmic Rough Riders set inside DeMontfort Hall. They were indoors and had shed their lead singer and main songwriter, Dan Wylie, since I last saw them. They are no longer the ugliest band I’ve ever seen. Instrumentally, they’re great, in a mid-60s Byrds sort of way. Vocally, they’re less strong (but more in the right key) and some of their back catalogue song choices weren’t the strongest (drop the Glastonbury song,…

‘Summer Sundae’ is a kind of mini-Glastonbury at Leicester’s De Montfort Hall, just round the corner from where Sue works, which is useful for parking. On the Saturday, I fancied seeing Laura Cantrell at three. However, as the temperature in our garden hit the mid-thirties, we decided to leave the 45 minute journey until the day reached a more temperate 30C, just before six. We arrived to find three of the festival’s four stages in action, lots of stalls, a relaxed crowd, many of them flat out from the sun, and The Alabama Three about to come on. We put down our blanket in a prime spot as they began with with ‘Woke Up This Morning’, the theme song from ‘The Sopranos”. Often a mistake…