Ridiculously, school starts today. Our children, typically, have adopted diametrically opposite approaches to the glorious vistas of educational opportunity opening up before them this morning. Catherine is more excited than she was last Christmas Eve. The prospect of entering kindergarten is possibly the most thrilling thing ever to have happened to her; there was much debate on the way home …
Super Sad True Love Story
These days any self-respecting new novel comes with a You Tube-friendly video – presumably in the hope that it will “go viral” and become some sort of internet phenomenon. Well, that’s fair enough in theory – the problem is that usually these video trailers are awful. Usually they feature the author squirming in front of a camera talking awkwardly about …
New Reading: Emily St. John Mandel and Jennifer Egan
In Monday’s post I mentioned two exciting novelists whose work I had just discovered and was devouring in huge, quietly ecstatic chunks. Here’s more on them both. I’ll try and write more about the stuff I’m reading in future. Since, you know, this is a blog about books. Emily St. John Mandel is published by Unbridled Books, a small publisher …
The Laptop is Now a Celestial Sandwich
I suppose it was inevitable in the wake of the massive success of the new wave (geddit?) of Old Spice adverts that others would follow, either in parody or homage. But, well, libraries? Actually, I think this works rather brilliantly. Thanks to Maw Books Blog for sharing.
Status Update
We’re back from a wonderful week away. Four days with friends in Boston, then four days in Maine. There we visited an old friend, Don, and his wife Samantha. Don and Samantha own Rabelais Books, a bookshop dedicated (and I do mean dedicated) to cookbooks. We loved our time with them. I will write more about it in another …
Glee!
So, yeah, about this book. No title as of right now, it’s true, but still much to tell you about. One of the major themes in the new book is singing. The story tells the tale of three generations of one family, and everyone sings. In particular, there are four brothers who sing unaccompanied barbershop harmony together. Now, it would …
Listen Here: Inaugural Podcast
In this strange world we live in, it seems like a book just ain’t enough any more. Fellow Amy Einhorn author Eleanor Brown recently wrote a great post about all the extra-curricular activities that writers have to do these days, in addition to, you know, actually writing the book. One of the things I’m thinking about doing from time to time …
Jazz Snark
I have a very good friend named Joel Hanley. Joel is – among many other things – my daughter’s godfather. He has just had a letter published in the Times. He makes an excellent point.
On the Move…
After my brief flirtation with possibly the least inspiring nom-de-plume in history, I have now triumphantly reclaimed my name as my own. So long, A.H. George, we hardly knew ya. One consequence of this exciting news is that I have changed (with help from webmeister Boomer, naturally) addresses for this blog. Its home, as you’ll see from the top of …
Soul Sister
Just in case you didn’t believe me when I said that Catherine usually sings her heart out when she hears a song she likes, here’s the evidence. And then I promise I’ll stop with the cute kid videos, OK?