Tag: fiction

The Man Booker Prize

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I may have given the impression on this blog that all I do all day is sit around drinking coffee and reviewing books. Nothing could be further from the truth. I also sit around all day drinking coffee and editing books.

For several years now, I’ve earned a crust as a freelance copy editor and proofreader. I have to be a stickler for spelling and grammar, of course, but I also need to keep an eye out for inconsistencies – if a character is described as having blue eyes on page 23 of the manuscript, they can’t then suddenly have brown eyes on page 278. I have to query implausibilities too. Is it, for example, possible for a handgun to shoot dozens of bullets without reloading? I love the nitty gritty of all this – picking over minutiae in a dialogue with the author and making those last-minute corrections and improvements to the text to make the book as good as it can possibly be.

I’ve worked with many lovely authors and many wonderful books, but none have ever made it to the Man Booker longlist. Until this year. I was fortunate to be asked to copy edit Anna Burns’s Milkman and proofread Sally Rooney’s Normal People (both published by Faber) and was delighted when both of them were named on the longlist. Now Milkman has made it through to the shortlist. It’s a terrific novel – an account of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s that is stylistically unlike any other book I’ve ever read, let alone edited. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

The winner will be announced on 16 October, and I’ll be keeping fingers and toes crossed for Milkman.

Mechanics’ Institute Review #15

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Lots of exciting things are being planned as we build up to the publication of the new Mechanics’ Institute Review anthology, in which my story ‘The Hole’ will appear.

Publication date looks set for 25 September, and the editors have revealed a tease of the cover (see image). There are also some upcoming events. First up is a ‘Reading Aloud’ workshop to get all the contributors primed for some public readings.

I’ve read my work in public a couple of times – firstly in conjunction with my first published story way back in 1992, and more recently as part of the Faber Academy course – but it’s still an extremely nerve-wracking experience, and so hopefully the more practice I can get the less terrifying it will be.

We’ll soon see whether it has worked, as I’ve volunteered to read at an ‘MIR Live’ event in London on 1 October.

On 20 September there will be an ‘Open the Box’ evening, where the authors get a chance to meet each other and also get their hands on a print copy of the anthology for the first time.

Then a few days later there will be the launch party. I recently realised to my horror that it has been 19 years since my last appearance in an anthology – in one of the Time Out books edited by Nicholas Royle, a brilliant writer and champion of short stories. Unfortunately I had to miss the launch party for that and I’ve regretted it ever since. So this time round I’m determined to be there (did somebody say free wine?).

 

Louis de Bernières’ new book

So Much Life Left Over

Back in the 90s, when I was just starting out as a reviewer, the Sunday Times sent me a book called Captain Correlli’s Mandolin, which had just come out in paperback. At that time, Louis de Bernières was known for three magic realist novels set in South America, and Captain Correlli’s Mandolin had yet to become a bestseller. I no longer have my review of it, but I remember being bowled over. I like to think my enthusiastic review contributed in some small way to its massive success (spoiler: it probably didn’t).

This is a rather roundabout way of getting to his new novel, So Much Life Left Over. Having enjoyed his other books, I was very much looking forward to reading his new one, the second in a planned trilogy. You can read my review in the Literary Review here

A Couple of Reviews

Rock and Roll is Life

D. J. Taylor’s new novel follows the fortunes and misfortunes of fictional band the Helium Kids, who in the 60s were ‘only marginally less successful than the Beatles and the Rolling Stones’. It’s a funny, vibrant novel and you can read my review in the Literary Review here.

 

Ten Arguments

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now: Jaron Lanier was one of the pioneers of virtual reality technology, but now he spends much of his time railing against the dangers of the internet and, in this book, social media. I have a lot of sympathy for his viewpoint, as I have always been ambivalent about social media: I have no Facebook or Instagram account and came to Twitter very late. However, his book has not quite convinced me to delete my Twitter account. You can read my Sunday Times review here.

The Hole

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(Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash)

I try not to read my emails as soon as I wake up, but today I was glad I did because a story acceptance was waiting in my inbox. I’m exceedingly chuffed that my short story ‘The Hole’ has been selected for the next Mechanics’ Institute Review anthology. This is an annual print and ebook anthology, which should be published late September. Over the years it has published stories by such great writers as Ali Smith, Peter Ho Davies and Rose Tremain. You may even get the chance to see me read from it at various events after publication. You can find out more about this prestigious anthology here

Books of the Year

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(Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash)

I never keep track of how many books I read in a year, but one thing is for sure: it’s never enough. I spend most of the year thinking how great it would be to finally read that novel by so-and-so, or re-read such-and-such, or even tackle Proust, but time is short and seems to get ever shorter, while my to-be-read pile gets ever higher.

I have, however, read some excellent books this year. One of the great things about reviewing is that I often discover authors and books I would never have otherwise read. Highlights this year include Andrew O’Hagan’s book of essays The Secret Life, which contains a gripping account of his abortive collaboration on Julian Assange’s autobiography; Philip Hoare’s wonderful RISINGTIDEFALLINGSTAR (though I never did work out why the title is all in caps and run on like that); and Richard Ford’s moving memoir about his parents, Between Them.

Fiction-wise, the novel I loved most this year was actually published last year: Deborah Levy’s Hot Milk. I had never read any of her books before, so this was a real revelation: a hypnotic read, drenched in Spanish sunshine, and quite unlike anything else I have come across. I also very much enjoyed Amanda Craig’s The Lie of the Land and Paul Theroux’s Mother Land.

But my overall book of the year was one of the first I read back in January: Xiaolu Guo’s terrific Once Upon a Time in the East, her memoir of growing up in an impoverished Chinese village. I mentioned earlier in the year in this blog that it would definitely be a contender for book of the year, and as it turns out nothing since has quite matched it. It very much deserves its shortlisting in the biography category of this year’s Costa Awards, and I hope it wins.

Reviews round-up

It occasionally happens that my reading for work pushes my reading for pleasure into the background. Recently I realised that I had inadvertently abandoned The Evenings by Gerard Reve. It had been moved some months ago from my to-be-read pile and shoved in a cupboard while other books took precedence. It was only when I saw a review of it in the Guardian the other day that I remembered I was halfway through it. Having picked it up again, I’m now trying to figure out who all the characters are and what on earth is going on in the plot.

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Anyway, in between times I’ve reviewed the following books:

AffluenceGuernica

 

AscentMother Land

Affluence Without Abundance by James Suzman – a study of the San or Bushman tribes of Namibia, in which I learned that the San believe that white people’s hair makes them look like goats and that warthogs are ‘clever, sociable, and vengeful’. Review here

Guernica: Painting the End of the World – James Attlee’s account of Picasso’s monumental painting. Apparently, Jackson Pollock was so impressed by the painting that when he overheard a fellow artist criticising it he suggested they ‘step outside and fight it out’. Review here

Ascent: A Life Spent Climbing on the Edge by Chris Bonington, in which the great British mountaineer recounts peaks climbed and comrades lost. Review here

Fifty years after publishing his first novel, Paul Theroux has just published his 31st. Mother Land is a very funny book about a feuding Cape Cod family ruled by a monstrous matriarch. This review appears in the latest edition of the Literary Review here

Right, now back to The Evenings …