Last year I was forced to launch my book digitally. I really wanted to have the experience of a live book launch in a shop, but I actually enjoyed myself. Putting together a set of clips, turning my ideas into something visual, structuring a small film...well, I enjoyed it. So I'm doing it again. On… Continue reading Adventures Close To Home!
It was a day I'll never forget because it was when everything went from bad to terrible. The 12th December 2019. I was in Edinburgh with my friend Alex Nye, both of us suffering in the cold, but still excited to be seeing our old friends in the writing community. Our equivalent of an office… Continue reading Christmas Time, Irn-Bru and Wine
This week is Christmas for authors, really. I've been stuck in my house seething at the Covid-19 lockdown that's keeping its heel on our throats, but still trying to keep busy. A few weeks ago I had my live digital launch, which mostly went rather well, if you ignore the bit at the start where… Continue reading Book Week Scotland!
It's happening! Copies of Happiness Is Wasted On Me have been sent out to bloggers and reviewers all over the country. I'm shitting myself that they'll hate it, but I'm also going to be very mature and sensible and not roll around the lino screaming and wailing if no-one likes the adventures of Walter Wedgeworth… Continue reading Not Long Now!
There's a new book shop / cafe combo open in Stirling and aren't we all happy to see it? The Book Nook looks like one of those very cool shops you'd find in Byers Road or Edinburgh, transplanted to Stirling's Upper Craigs, in walking distance of The Thistle Centre. I popped into see it last… Continue reading The Book Nook
As the publication date for Happiness Is Wasted On Me approaches, I've decided to sort out my Goodreads account and start to take it a bit seriously. I've got a lot of books to catalogue, so over the next few months I'll be sorting and sifting through them, adding reviews and entries. If you have… Continue reading Goodreads!
I feel like a hunter when I'm in a book shop. I get the same feeling when I'm in a record shop. I want something. I must have something. It's there somewhere, hiding, so I've got to find it. That means exploring the surroundings. When I get a book or a record/CD that I didn't… Continue reading Books I love you might not know but should know because I love these books
Last year I was at a launch of a new book when I had a conversation with a blogger, someone I like quite well. We were chatting about books we read when we were kids. If the early nineties belonged to Point Horror, then the late eighties were owned by Roald Dahl. However, as soon… Continue reading When authors disappoint: a personal story
Truth be told, I've been wanting to talk about this book for a long time. It's one of those rare reviews I didn't enjoy writing, because I love this book so much that I don't think I can really do it justice. Of course, being my blog, I'm going to try to do it as… Continue reading Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette
Originally serialised in Playboy Magazine (in Japan) between May to October of 1968, Life For Sale wasn’t available to read in The UK for decades. Thankfully Penguin Classics decided to turn Yukio Mishima’s stories into a novel and, with the help of Stephen Dodd’s translation which makes the story accelerate along, this classic by is… Continue reading Life For Sale by Yukio Mishima
