This book was a bit of an odd choice for me - I grabbed it based on front cover alone and took a risk ignoring the blurb. And it paid off! The Girl Who Fell From The Sky by Heidi W. Durrow is to be quite frank one of the most depressing books I have ever voluntarily read but is also strangely liberating and certainly not a story that has been told before.

Rachel Morse is a young girl, half Danish and half American whose appearances set her apart from the crowd. She is caught between two races that are struggling to coexist. As a beautiful black girl with stunning blue eyes, Rachel attracts alot of attention - mostly unwanted-  and has to struggle to redefine herself and separate her new life from the harrowing experiences of her childhood.

This novel is incredibly bold and powerful. It doesn't skirt around the issues or imply unspoken words. It writes every insult and describes every impact. It reacts to every sound and expresses every tension. As with quite a number of my favourite books it gives each character their own chapter in which they can expose their inner vulnerabilities and demons, allowing you to stitch each fabric together and see the devastating pattern unfold.

I cannot recommend this book enough. Perhaps not for those who feel a little bit bleak, but if you do read it I urge you to see it through to the end. Moving and astoundingly beautiful it is one story that will stay with me for a very long time.

Knowing little about the colonial war in Algeria I dived into this novel blindly searching for a history I had yet to learn. Set in 1961 and spanning 50 years, Suzanne Ruta's To Algeria, With Love is a tragically composed account of both political and romantic affairs. The retrospective tone to the novel sheds a regretful light on the protagonist Louise as she slowly but surely unwraps the secrets that she has carried with her on her life journey. 


As a young American  Louise flies over to France expecting a continental education that will set her apart from her idle peers. However the education she receives is not from the stately institution but from the lucid Wally -  an Algerian who has fled the war gripping his country. Working long hours in a factory and sending money home to his wife and children, handsome Wally also acts as an ironic tour guide to lost American students. I found his character hard to grasp as he unflinchingly drifts from mentor to confidante to lover - not to say I didn't like him, I just found his mentality patronizing. More to the point, his affair with Louise  develops as naturally and casually as it possibly can with the North African political turbulence dominating their idyllic French landscape. 


In present day, New York is still coming to terms with the horrific events of 9/11  - a subject which draws both middle-aged Louise and Aissa together as they are faced with colliding cultures. Suzanne Ruta has approached this subject with sensitivity as she draws parallels between the war on terror and the innocent lives taken in Algeria's war-torn past.


Admittedly I read this as an oral history-esque interview with chapters giving independent voices to two main characters: Louise's voice is one of nostalgic sorrow - a woman who is not only coming to terms with her shadows but is also searching for the Algerian son she so regretfully gave up.  Aissa, a contemporary Algerian writer meets Louise in present-day New York whilst he is on a literary tour.  During a loose and undeniably one-sided conversation spanning a couple of years, Louise honours Aissa with the burden of reporting on the current whereabouts of her long-lost son whilst conceding that her choices were predetermined.


This novel is so intricately woven it is almost impossible to give you a full sense of its depth. Somehow you just become part of the pages, making it incredibly hard not to sympathise with the young and foolish Louise however opinionated you may be. 


Highly recommended, not a tear jerker but most certainly one to make you think.

Hurrah! Forward Poetry is releasing an anthology of poems associated with service men and women past and present and That Dark Suit  has been chosen to be in the collection. This has made me quite giddy and ever so slightly gob-smacked. The Colour of War  is being published 30th June 2011 and will be sent to libraries and museums across the UK as well as a selection of military bases. They have also asked for photos so I am sending one of Grandad in his uniform -  we shall have to wait and see what happens. I will post more about it when the anthology is in circulation but for now I am a very happy chappy. 

After a recommendation I decided to try out South Africa's best-selling crime writer Deon Meyer. 13 Hours has the reader clock-watching from the start, hurtling you forwards into the aftermath of a gory murder of a young American tourist. Meyer's main character Detective Inspector Benny Griessel is a recovering alcoholic, bouncing on the pulse of Cape Town and with everything to prove. Allocated as mentor to the younger, fresher generation of police cops, Griessel's every move is tinted with a bitter need to push himself and re-establish his dwindling career. He has just 13 hours to rescue the innocent companion of the murdered traveller and secure his future as a Captain.


Against the clock and with countless police graduates demanding his attention and an international scandal about to blow a hole through the South African tourist industry - this D.I can't afford to lose. Sounds like a perfect plot for a movie, right? Yup, it's already in the pipeline. And if you fail to imagine what Meyer's Cape Town looks like you can head over to www.deonmeyer.com where the author has provided snaps of his chosen locations, validating the landscape of his riveting story.


Read 13 Hours if you're ready to run. This race has already started.

Wowzer what a month April has been! The London Book Fair kicked off with a buzzing start for its fortieth year  and Earls Court was heaving. I went along on the Sunday to set up our stand and  to be honest I was doubting that it would all be ready for the Monday morning opening. It felt like one of those horrific Changing Room episodes where hammers are flying in all directions and the carpets not laid and the family are pulling up on the driveway. However I was relieved on Monday morning when I found Earls Court transformed from a manic building site into a swanky international exhibition centre. I managed to get an hour off on Tuesday to attend the Graphic Novels for Boys  seminar held in the Children's Theatre, where a panel of authors, publishers and illustrators discussed the most effective ways  of encouraging young boys to read. The guests included representatives from SelfMadeHero and Panini/Marvel and Eoin (It's pronounced Owen) Colfer, author of the Artemis Fowl series which has since been adapted into a best-selling graphic novel. The panel mainly discussed the process of adapting classic novels and the best ways in which to launch graphic novels on to a competitive market. It would seem young boys are pretty hard to impress and unless you dangle a 'gross-out factor' ie, torn limbs and boggling eyes, in front of their faces, comics are unlikely to hold their attention let alone encourage them to read a sequel. Most notably the panel also suggested that young girls are similarly drawn into reading fiction through first following graphic novels, in particular the Manga publications. 


I think what I find most intriguing about graphic novels is their accessibility. Any age group can still embrace graphic novels without the sometimes judgemental social stigma that was once associated with comic strips. Now consumers can either go to their newsagent or bookseller, order online, or download an app allowing them one-tap access to hundreds of graphic novels.  I for one read on my Android phone as well as ordering novels from Amazon. I think it is this tranferable nature of the graphic novel that makes them so popular and such a great starting point for the younger generation. Anthony Browne once said 'Illustrated books are for everybody at any age, not books to be left behind as we grow older' and I whole heartedly agree.

From the author that gave us the award winning The Cutting Room comes Naming the Bones a mysterious novel set in a dark and meloncholy Scotland. The protagonist, Murray Watson is a university lecturer who has dabbled in a love affair that could ruin his career. Taking a sabbatical, he decides to dedicate his time to  researching the poet who has inspired his academic studies and ventures off in pursuit of finding the truth behind the modern Romantic hero. As a novel it was superb and I was gently carried along by the Louise Welsh's soothing currents. However this was not how it was sold. The blurb informs the reader that Naming the Bones  is 'Welsh's darkest novel so far'. I hate to rain on birthday parties but I struggled to find the darkness. I enjoy reading novels that have me gripped and although I was spurred on to read the next chapter out of guilty curiosity, I wasn't ever fearful for the live's of the characters or the intrusion of suspicious strangers. Perhaps it was because the backdrop of this novel was the tragic fates of young Romantics and so suicide seems to be an acceptable theme, but because the nature of Watson's research is retrospective I didn't find the novel particularly 'dark'. 


Saying that, Naming the Bones was entertaining and Welsh's syntax portrayed the grim back-alleys of Glasgow and the characters that inhabit the murky shadows. I would recommend this to anyone who fancies a casual fling with a retrospective mystery. Perhaps even a brief tour of the Shetland islands, I hear it's lovely there this time of year.

Last Saturday I took a rather early train from London Paddington to the sunny if a tad windy city of Oxford for the Sunday Times Literary Festival. OK, so admittedly the Children's Laureate Launch was aimed at children and their dedicated parents but I figured I could subtly hand my ticket in and join the mass of Jacqueline Wilson, Anne Fine, Michael Rosen and Anthony Browne fans. To an extent I was right, once I was in, I climbed the stairs in the Sheldonian Theatre to sit above the guest panel in the upper circle. The awkwardness came at the start of the day when I had to queue with around 200 children clasping Tracey Beakers and Flower Babies ready to be let in. It wasn't even the sort of event where you could sidle up to a family and pretend to be part of their clan. As soon as I so much as took a step towards the next family in line, I either got a sympathetic smile or a protective arm around a younger child. I'm not sure why that happened, I don't think I look particularly threatening and at just over 5"1 I'm hardly likely to hoist a 9 year old over my shoulder and take a high jump over the 15 foot gates. Anyway after the rather embarrassing queue I was finally in and seated and starting to wish I had got a drink before I arrived. I figured that the organised talk by four of the most talented laureates would be a real insight into the workings of a children's writer and I think I was just curious to see what made them tick. Each of them were greeted with a huge round of applause and faced their eager audience with warm smiles. So folks, here is a quick round-up of what each of the four guest speakers said:


Writer of Madame Doubtfire, Flower Babies, The Jamie and Angus Stories and many, many others, Anne Fine spent her time as laureate campaigning against the age ranges set on books, claiming that the ability to read does not necessarily have a correlation to a child's age. She talked of how, like many of the other guest panellists, she was a child of Enid Blyton and learnt to read at an early age, exceeding the expectations of her primary school teachers. She raised the issue of difficult literature and suggested that if a book is hard to read, it is often the book that you will get the most out of. Apparently easy reading is not somewhere to be beached up. One thing I did find very promising from her talk was that she has found that her writing has not got better with time, she has just got better at spotting problems that are about to pounce on her - reckoning that people's best work is often the raw materials they produce early on in their career...now that does sound good!




What a trooper! Poor Jacqueline Wilson had the most horrendous cold and had to stop numerous times to sip water in a vain attempt to stop her sudden bouts of coughing. Jacqueliune really held the children's attention as most of them had come to see their heroine in the flesh. She talked of her love for family stories and how as she grew up in a reasonably small family she enjoyed reading about characters with many siblings. Little Women, What Katy Did Next and Ballet Shoes were among her faves and they all came with high recommendations for the  parents in the audience who were clearly scribbling down reading lists for their children. As laureate, Jacqueline backed a campaign to bring families together to read out loud to each other, something that I really benefited from as a child - I can't really imagine a house where this doesn't happen. I think it's so important to encourage children's imaginations and who can do the voice of the BFG better than your dad??




Michael Rosen was introduced as a performer and he really gave a stonking  
performance.Writer of We're Going on a Bear Hunt and You're Thinking About Doughnuts, he had everyone in stitches as he told us of his brother teaching him to read parrot fashion and how he would rather not meet the Queen thank you very much. He also explained in detail how he felt about the government and how he is baffled by their love of worksheets. One thing that stuck in my head from Michael's speech was this little nugget of information that seems so obvious that I'd never really thought about it. Having a house full of books is like having two university graduates live in the house. The amount of information available to the child sky rockets and their imagination and willingness to learn is mind boggling increased. But apparently this piece of gold from the University of Nevada wasn't 'worksheet friendly' enough for the government so Michael's laureate campaign was put on the back-burner.




Illustrator and author Anthony Browne brought Willy the Wimp to life in fantastic drawings. Growing up reading comic books such as The Dandy and Beano, Anthony was fascinated by the power of pictures and the space between words and pictures. His campaign promotes the importance of picture books and the importance of allowing children to explore impossible worlds through picture books. Being pushed forward onto more grown-up books where their imaginations are left stranded as they fail to conjure up ice-cream streets and lollipop trees never sounds like a good idea to me.


So that's pretty much a summary of what was said, after the speeches there was a chance for questions, most of which were along the lines of 'Jacqueline Wilson what inspired you to write [enter title here] ?' And after the questions were answered and parents proudly smiled at their child's question it was time for the floor to move and the crowd surged forwards upon the four great Laureates for book signing. It was at this point that I sidled to the door and out into the lovely sunshine, hopping onto an open-top bus tour around Oxford.

Witty, intelligent and exquisitly charming, this novel reads itself - you are merely the passenger.

On a mild March evening members of The Society of Young Publishers met at Pushkin House, Bloomsbury Square to drink a glass of wine and to discuss the accelerated development the Russian publishing market. It was fascinating and one of those times where you are alerted to the fact that you know nothing about much, including Russian literature and the incredible path it has taken over the last 20 years. 
Five guest speakers came along:


Andrew Nurnberg : Founder of Andrew Nurnberg Associates
Lynette Owen: Copyright Director of Pearson Education Ltd.
Amy Webster: International Key Accounts Manager at the London Book Fair
Amy Webster led the discussion by first explaining that the London Book Fair has held a market focus for the past 8 years and focuses on emerging economies,  increasing trade links and international relations. This year the focus is of course Russia and 2012 will be focused on China, a powerful presence on the international market. Call me ignorant but I did wonder why they had chosen Russia, as the only literature I was aware of were the classics, but that was my error and their exact reason for choosing such a creative country. The London Book Fair is helping to launch 50 publishers, and 40 Russian authors onto the centre-stage of the Western market. Russian literature currently gets the least British investment and yet has so many talented authors, so the book fair seems the perfect place to showcase these talents and open up the minds of our sometimes culturally complacent audience. The long standing tradition of highly recognised works of literature has now been handed down to a fresher, energetic market and I for one will be milling around the London Book Fair and exploring the vibrant marketplace.


Although I thought I knew about the Soviet Union and its subsequent collapse in 1991, I had never considered the impact liberation had on literature and other modes of creative output. Andrew Nurnberg gave fantastic accounts of his experiences not only with the Russian government but also with the big cheeses that now run the ever-expanding industry. The State ran publishing houses that didn't agree to advances based on copies sold but on the thickness of the book: the more you wrote the more money you made. Not a great model for those that were unable to write what they wanted. Print runs were and still are limited as resources will always be expensive, but they are no longer controlled by the State. The collapse opened up the floodgates and allowed new waves of writers, publishers, editors and designers to roll around Moscow and St. Petersburg, free from censorship and finally able to publish materials they knew people would buy and cherish. However, the initial surge of interest in the industry soon subsided as people realised publishing is not the industry where you sit on mountains of gold. Only a few were left to construct the marketplace and build committees, setting the path for future generations - these people of course made mountains of gold (and will quite happily pay extortionate amounts of money to entice a best-selling yet loyal author away from their local independent publisher). 


Although China is currently the biggest fish in the water, releasing  210,000 titles a year, Russia is catching up, producing no fewer than 100,000 new titles - it would seem the race is on!


There is a big problem with piracy in Russia, a threat that was touched on at the SYP Question Time. Although it doesn't seem to be a big deal over here, in Russia it is very common and mostly free, people don't want to profit from scanning in books, they just want to share the novels. A very noble thought, but not a structure the publishing industry can hope to cling to.


Lynette Owen discussed the decline in educational book sales after the Soviet collapse. The immediate reaction of many people in Russia after 1991 was to buy exciting books that 
they had never before been able to read - much like a child in a sweet shop, they went nuts for fiction and abandoned their long love affair with academic books, and the industry felt this change in tides. New publishing houses didn't want to produce books that would require specialist staff and result in a slow return on investments, they wanted to produce best-sellers and fast. The international market also felt the pinch as the Russian market clamped down and revelled in its own local writers. 
Now however, the tides are changing again. Russia is opening its doors to the world's trade and is beginning to pick up an interest in non-fiction textbooks, particularly economics, business management and surprisingly, self-help guides.
Further more, the luck has changed for British publishers and authors as Russia has finally updated its copyright clause. Moving from the Life+ 25 years to the more widely accepted Life+ 75 years Russia is now playing fairly.


Rosamund Bartlett gave us a fantastic insight into the mind of Anton Chekhov who has been an invaluable influence on her academic career. From a Russian degree at the University of Durham to becoming a lecturer and teaching Chekhov to her students, Rosamund explained that she came to see Chekhov not just as a Russian writer but as a great writer. Among her vast publications include the translated letters of Chekhov, his stories and a biography of both Chekhov and Tolstoy, both of which I will definitely be reading. Not only that but she told us the wonderful story of the fall and rise of Chekhov's home in Yalta. 
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Yalta was absorbed by the Ukrainian boundaries, and the once government-funded house and museum came under disrepair as the Ukrainian government turned its back on the cornerstone of Russian literature. Writing his biography, she visited the house and was devastated to see it had fallen from glory, the modest house now resembled a mouldy hazard. Campaigning to save Chekhov's house has been the ambition of Rosamund for years.  By hosting fund-raisers such as Chekhov Anniversary Readings at Hampstead Heath and by finally receiving backing from the Ukrainian government, Rosamund Bartlett has been able to see Chekhov's house slowly but surely return to the author's home.


Our last and by no means least, guest speaker was Zinovy Zinik, who raised the unexpected topic of emigration. He suggested that emigration can be used as a literary device for authors, explaining that you can only truly write about your homeland once you have left it behind. The past becomes the novel and you as the author are able to view your past with refreshed eyes. Zinovy explained that he sees himself as a Soviet citizen, yet as he left in the 1970's, trading a one-way ticket for his Soviet passport, he can no longer return to his country has it technically no longer exists. Just as, he explained he considers himself Jewish, having moved to Israel, he does not attend a synagogue or consider himself a Jew. Even more fascinating was his suggestion that identity is often a fictitious product of our minds. Our past is wrongly imposed on us as strangers ask where we originate from and what profession we trade in. Further questions were raised of Russian authors who had fled the Soviet control, are they still free to write about their homeland after so much has changed? Are they aware of the newly liberated and culturally conscientious society? Or are they burdened by their memories of Russia's past and unable to move on? Zinovy's new book The History Thieves concentrates on the assumed identities of individuals and how they make connections with the rational and irrational, reality and imaginary. Zinovy argues that fabricated memories occur when our present selves look back on our past, often in a nostalgic light recreating the past as we wish to remember it. Another book I shall have to read soon!


Well that's it for another SYP event, the countdown to the London Book Fair begins!

As it is St. Patrick's Day I thought I would add a topical post to the blog. One of my favorite plays has to be Translations by Brian Friel written in 1980. I studied it for A levels and haven't forgotten it since. The play is about a rural village in Donegal and its inhabitants who are experiencing a brash intrusion from English officers who are imposing their cartography on the Irish countryside and anglicizing the Gaelic place-names.  


The residents of Baile Beag have little or no experience of the world beyond their village and so the abrupt invasion comes as a shock as they see their landscape and lifestyles changing at a rate that is beyond their control. Being a romantic, the scene I most vividly remember is between Maire and Yolland who fall in love -  being from both Irish and English cultures, they initially struggle to express their feelings. Much like Colin Firth and Lúcia Moniz in Love Actually the intentions of Maire and Yolland are identical and ironically in-sync, yet the words spoken are different. 


I really think this play is wonderful and being a play of course there is tragedy, not just the eradication of a culture, who primarily did not record their history, but also the intimate tragedies that often come to fall upon small communities where grief is magnified within the boundaries of their society.


So folks, I for one will not be celebrating St.Paddy's day by getting squiffy, I will instead curl up with a really good play and let Brian Friel take me back to a time before we imposed our harsh Anglo Saxon words on to such a beautiful language.