Lovely Literary Events - New York

NYT bestselling author Lev Grossman is reading at Guerilla Lit in New York City tonight, along with Wynne Renz and Edwin Wilson River.

I read here when I was in NYC last year and the Guerilla Lit people are lovely. Tonight's event is at BAR on A at 7:30 PM. It's free.

Lev Grossman is the author of the New York Times-bestselling novels The Magicians and The Magician King. He is also the book critic for Time magazine.

Wynne Renz co-wrote the feature film, Bedrooms, currently airing on Showtime Networks. Her first chapbook collection of poetry, Nobody Loves Nobody (the fussfactory press), received critical acclaim from Al Young, the Poet Laureate of California.

Edwin Wilson Rivera's work has been published in The Global City Review, Monkeybicycle, Pank, Folly, The White Whale Review and Acentos Review, among others. In July 2011, he was a recipient of the Norman Mailer Fiction Fellowship.

Kindle Deal of the Day: A Noble Cause

Today's Kindle Deal of the Day in the US is A Noble Cause by J. Gregory Smith.

Mark Noble plans a surprise proposal to his beautiful girlfriend during a romantic Caribbean vacation. But before he can pop the question, his girlfriend disappears, and his father--a world famous celebrity doctor who seems to have perfected mind-control--is killed in a mysterious fire back home in Pennsylvania.

When Mark investigates both his girlfriend's disappearance and his father's death, he realizes that the two events are connected. He attempts to unravel the mystery with the help of his eccentric grandmother and the courageous crew--one a former Navy SEAL--of her luxury yacht, putting all of their lives in danger as Mark faces a rich and powerful foe determined to pry from Mark a secret he doesn't even know he possesses.

The book is also on offer at £1.99 in the UK Kindle Store.

Showstoppers Review

There's a nice review for Showstoppers over at Eva's Sanctuary:

"If you enjoy a fast moving mystery, or just a good read, this is the story for you. "

Showstoppers is available in the Kindle Store in the US and the UK. You can read it on a Kindle or any other ereading device, including a PC or iPad, if you have the Kindle app.

Alison Wonderland: Number One in Germany

I was delighted to see that Alison Wonderland got to number one in the Kindle Store in Germany this week.

Thanks to everyone who downloaded a copy - I hope you enjoy it.

You can buy the book online from Amazon in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, America and the UK and in Hong Kong from Paddyfield.

It's also available from The Book Depository and in independent bookshops like The Bookseller Crow, The Big Green Bookshop, Herne Hill Books and Clapham Books.

SBI: Case number 0004

Case number 0004: Dog Mind Meld is up on the SBI site now.

Picture posed by a model.

SBI: Case number 0002 and 0003

We have written up Case number 0002 ('What does it mean? It's evidence of time travel') and Case number 0003 ('I will start with the facts, like a Poirot') for Smiths Bureau of Investigations.

I have also set up a Twitter account here.

World Book Night 2012

I'm delighted to have been chosen as a 'giver' for World Book Night 2012. I'll be giving out copies of Remains of the Day by Kasuo Ishiguro on 23rd April.

For more information about WBN, look here.

I wrote about giving away The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie at last year's World Book Night here and here. Book Riot wrote about it to encourage people to sign up for WBN 2012 in the US here. I was thrilled to be on stage for the launch of WBN 2011 in Trafalgar Square and I wrote about it here. There's a short video here.

I'll be collecting my books from Clapham Books, an independent bookshop in Clapham. They are planning a WBN event in April. More details on that later.

Smiths Bureau of Investigations

My daughter Lauren and I have opened a detective agency:

High Flyer

Lovely trailer for Royal Ballet spring season 2012 with Edward Watson:

Follower Love Giveaway - Winner Chosen

Thanks to everyone who signed up to win an Amazon Gift Card worth $15/£10.

Congratulations to the winner, Natasha J.

I'm sorry if you didn't win but I host regular giveaways for followers of this blog so please follow using Google Friend Connect or join my Facebook page for details.

The Follower Love Giveaway Hop was co-hosted by I Am A Reader Not A Writer and Rachael Renee Anderson. Thanks to both for organising it.

Wanted: Emma Bovary

Brian Joseph Davis has created composites of characters in fiction from the descriptions in the books by using police software.

Check out Emma Bovary (left). I also like the entry for Holden Caulfield.

More information here. Thanks to the people from World Book Night for the link.

Lovely Literary Events in London

Liars League, 14th February
7.00 pm. Downstairs at the Phoenix
Details here.

Stories written by James Holden, Sam Taradash, Katy Darby, Liam Hogan, Steve Wasserman and Nicki le Masurier.

Stories read by Greg Page, Ben Crystal, Camila Fiori, Lin Sagovsky, Cliff Chapman, Gloria Sanders.


Literary Death Match, 16th February
7.00 pm at Shoreditch House.
Tickets and details here.

Judges includes author Joanne Harris (Chocolat & Five Quarters of the Orange), writer/musician Rhodri Marsden and Suzi Ruffell.

Readers will be Steve Furst, Katy Darby, Sarah Tucker and Lloyd Shepherd. The event will be hosted by Suzanne Azzopardi & Nicki Le Masurier.

There's a fantastic write-up of a recent Literary Death Match over at LA Weekly.

Book Slam, 28th February
6.00p.m. at The Tabernacle

Details and tickets here.

Guests include JON MCGREGOR, HEIDI VOGEL, RACHEL ROSE REID and FRANCESCA BEARD.

Showstoppers Review: Smith is a Master Storyteller

There's a lovely review for Showstoppers over at Socrates' Book Reviews:

"The characters are very well-crafted and Helen Smith is a master story-teller."

Showstoppers is available in the Kindle Store in the US and the UK. You can read it on a Kindle or any other ereading device, including a PC or iPad, if you have the Kindle app.

Tottenham Gel

Following on from today's earlier post about the different spelling and slang in English-speaking countries (which in turn had been prompted by a post over at Big Al's Books and Pals), I was amused by two (British) newspaper reports I read on Adele's reaction to winning the Best Album award at the Grammys.

First I read about it in the Independent. They reported that Adele had shouted, 'Mom, gold is good.'

Next I watched a short video clip on The Telegraph. They captioned it 'Girl did good. Adele tribute to Mum.'

The Telegraph had it right. If you watch the clip you can see that she says, 'Mum, girl did good.' She's from Tottenham and she speaks like a typical north London girl: 'Oh. My God. Fank you so much. Fank you. Ooh. Urgh. Hello! I just, first of all, wanna say, Mum! Gel did good! Mum, I love you. I'm so sorry you're not here. Erm. And I also wanna say a big fank you to Rick Rubin who taught me about quality control...' There's a nice London glottal stop on 'quality'. I won't transcribe it all but, for Americans who are interested in such things, there's also a good use of 'rubbish' in context, above 45 seconds in, and 'you lot' right at the end.

We don't say mom over here. We say mum. The Independent has corrected their error now but they must have taken it from an American news feed as you can see plenty of reports using that phrase if you search for it.

Congratulations to Adele for winning six Grammys. Girl did good.

Midget Gems

Al over at Big Al's Books and Pals muses on the difference in the spelling and slang between American English and other versions of the English language.

As most of us know, paperbacks published in different territories are always copy-edited so that the text reflects the spelling, grammar and punctuation common in the country of publication, rather than the country of origin of the writer, though vocabulary is not usually changed (except, as I understand it, in children's books).

With ebooks, it is now quite common for one edition to be published in all markets - particularly in the case of self-published ebooks available via Amazon's Kindle store or Barnes & Noble (though B&N won't let you publish direct to their Nook store unless you have a US bank account, which presumably cuts down the number of non-American books available to their readers).

The question in some readers' minds, when they're choosing a book to buy, is whether a self-published book will be any good - or whether it might have been turned down by a publisher because the writer has no talent for writing. One way a reader will make up their mind about that is by looking at a sample of the work. Is it full of homophones? Is the punctuation OK? Most will appreciate that vocabulary differs from country to country, and will be able to get the meaning of the word from its context. But they won't be impressed if it appears that the writer can't follow the basic rules of grammar. Except that the rules are slightly different in different English-speaking countries. I can't see any way round this other than to give the writer the benefit of the doubt when reading. Actually, giving the other person the benefit of the doubt is a good policy generally, isn't it.

Here's a picture of some Midget Gems for any of Al's readers who are not familiar with these chewy sweets. Though, like Al, if you read my book, Three Sisters, and had never seen a packet of Midget Gem, you probably guessed what they might look like.

You can read his post here.

Polari First Book Prize 2012 - Call for Submissions

The Polari First Book Prize is open to writers born or resident in the UK whose first book was published in the 12 months up to February 2012.

From Paul Burston's blog:

"The Prize is for a first book which explores the queer experience and is open to any work of poetry, prose, fiction or non-fiction by a writer born or resident in the UK, published in English within the past twelve months.

Self-published works in both print and digital formats are eligible for submission.

Works must be submitted to The Polari First Book Prize by the publisher.

In the case of self-published works, works must be submitted with a one-page/A4 size letter of support describing why and how the project has been self-published.

The winner of the 2011 Polari First Book Prize was James Maker, for his memoir 'Autofellatio' (BIGFib), which began life as an e-book.

This year’s Prize is for books published between Feb 1, 2011 and Feb 1, 2012."

More details here.

Underwater Dogs by Seth Casteel

Seth Casteel's site here. Facebook page here. Thanks to Paul Burston for the link.

FREE BOOK: The Miracle Inspector

The Miracle Inspector is free today and tomorrow, 9th & 10th February, in the Kindle store in the UK and the US.

A dystopian thriller set in the near future. England has been partitioned and London is an oppressive place where poetry has been forced underground, theatres and schools are shut, and women are not allowed to work outside the home. A young couple, Lucas and Angela, try to escape from London - with disastrous consequences.

"The Miracle Inspector is one of the few novels that everyone should read, it's a powerful novel that's masterfully written and subtly complex." SciFi and Fantasy Books

"Helen Smith's The Miracle Inspector represents British humor at its best." Kindle Books Reviewed

"...a beautifully written, and almost unbearably sad, depiction of a society's downfall." All-Consuming Books

"If Patricia Highsmith wrote dystopian fiction but had more of a sense of humor, it might be something like The Miracle Inspector... Smith deftly works in the dark urges and fears of Lucas, Angela and others in a way that only psychological mystery and espionage writers like Highsmith and Graham Greene do well." Steve Anderson, Amazon.com

"Helen Smith crafts a story like she's the British lovechild of Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K. Dick, only with a feminist slant." Journal of Always Reviews

Ye Olde Curiosity Shop, Seattle

It has been reported by Good E-Reader that Amazon are planning to open a shop in Seattle.

I hope it might look a little like the Seattle shop in the recent pictures in the Retronaut. Ye Olde Curiosity Shop was around in the early 1900s (click on the photo for a link to more pictures courtesy of Jordan Smith, Vintage Seattle and University of Washington Libraries.)

I have mentioned before that one day I'd like to open a knitting wool shop and detective agency. I have also discussed plans to open an Emporium on London's South Bank, in which I would sell death rays and rebukes - and perhaps sweets by the quarter pound. It would be called something like Smith's Emporium of Knitting, Curses, Mystery-Solving, Rebukes, Death Rays and Licorice Cuttings.

I'd love Amazon's new shop in Seattle to be a bookshop that sells knick-knacks, knitting wool and sweets in glass jars. I'd love to visit and read from one of my books.

When punctuation goes wrong

Via Smosh. Click on the photo or click here for more.

Periodic Table of Swearing by Clay

It speaks when buttons are pressed. Beautiful and functional. Click here for a video showing how it works. It was made by Clay for Modern Toss.

Dogs vs Cats

Famous paintings improved by cats




Thanks to Moray for the link to the dogs video and Andrew for the link to the cats paintings.

You Can't Say That by Ken Livingstone

I recently read You Can't Say That by Ken Livingstone, former Mayor of London, who is standing for re-election this May.

The book is an autobiography that takes in KL's childhood in Streatham, his backpacking trip to Africa as a young man, his years with Lambeth Council (which has its headquarters in Brixton, where I live) and then as leader of the Greater London Council (before its abolition by Margaret Thatcher's government), and finally his years as Mayor of London.

I generally read political biographies and autobiographies to put recent historical events into context and help me understand the lessons that can be learned from them, and also, let's face it, for gossipy behind-the-scenes anecdotes and scores-settling. There's quite a lot of procedural information about such-and-such a decision made at the GLC or at Lambeth Council to get through in order to unearth the amusing anecdotes, but they are there.

I read the book on my Kindle and I am experimenting with using the 'highlighting' tool and making the highlights public. Some people make a habit of annotating books they're reading, underlining key passages and scribbling in the margins. I have never done that as I have too much respect for the printed word - I just couldn't deface a book. But it's fine to do it on a Kindle copy as it doesn't alter the appearance of the book or make it difficult to read again.

Here are my favourite passages from KL's book, if you're interested.

If you are interested in UK politics and/or Ken Livingstone and/or the power and malicious interference of the British press in the daily business of either, you'll probably find this book interesting. I admire Ken Livingstone and voted for him as mayor and will vote for him again. I enjoyed his book and would recommend it.