Birthday books

This past Bank Holiday I entered the realms of the thirty-somethings (waves to Aliya and Matt Curran). Along with a nice novel rejection, I also got a couple of books. Two more dissimilar tomes it would be hard to find. The first, which I am reading at home, and only on sunny days, is Flora Thompson's Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy, filled to the brim, Veggiebox fans, with jams, curly kale, potatoes, meat puddings, pig-socks, roly-poly's, stews, honey, berries and other rural delights; the second book was Russell Hoban's The Bat Tattoo, which is resolutely urban and so far--I'm at the halfway mark--is firecracking with brilliance, but is a bit scanty on the food front. There's a fair amount of alcohol though: Jack Daniels, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir. For anyone that hasn't read him, Hoban's post-millennial work puts me in mind of Jonathan Carroll, only without the talking dogs.

Turning Japanese

From the day-job, mainly to point out how HUGE m-novels are in Japan, Tokyo Real has sold over 5m copies, leading to 3m paperback sales. I kid you not:

Cheek

Somewhat perturbed--read horrified--that The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin has been remade for the 'modern era'. And with Martin Clunes to boot. Is there any comedy actor less Leonard Rossiter-like?

In other news, I'm perfectly capable of doing cute kid posts. See accompanying pic of heiress to my misfortune.



Off to watch the return of Ashes to Ashes.

What a carve up

Thanks to Drew Gummerson for posting this link on Damien G Walter's blog on the Guardian.

Although over a year old, the article was too interesting not to share for a Carver fan:

What we talk about when we talk about editing

pudding

The only writing I have done over Easter was a short poem about my mother-in-law's home-made chocolate pudding. (It was entirely complimentary, in case you were wondering.)

I've a Novella Award (Nomination)

I'm reliably informed by my blogmate that Overturned, our co-written story that was included in Elastic Press's Subtle Edens anthology, has been longlisted for the British Fantasy Society's Best Novella Award. Thanks to whoever voted, even if only to have allowed me the opportunity for that terrible pun in this post's title.

The winners will be announced at Fantasycon 2009 in September and only BFS members or attendees of Fantasycon (08 or 09) are eligible to vote. So if you are, and you liked the story, please do vote. You can do so here: BFS Awards Longlist 2009, which is where I just found all that information out.

Patronise me

Ian Hocking on the requirements for making a full-time living as an artist by being patronised by a core audience. Not to be greedy, but I have a wife, daughter and mortgage to support, so I'd need a little more than he's asserting, but I'm happy to offer extras in return.

Number one fans