Random Jottings

A lifetime Burning - Linda Gillard

You will remember last year I reviewed The House of Silence by Linda Gillard who, fed up with being told it was not 'marketable', took to the e-book route and sold thousands. She also guested on Random telling us how she did it here.  If you missed this fascinating post first time around, please do check it out and all the comments as well which are quite an eye opener.

Well, never content to sit back Linda is now motoring ahead with more.   Her second book, A Lifetime Burning' is now available for your Kindle and, having read all of this author's books, I have to say that I think this is her best.  It was her second book and I felt a huge leap forward from her first, Emotional Geology, and on checking my archives this is how I reviewed it back in 2007 (PLEASE NOTE SPOLIER ALERT)

"I have just finished reading A Lifetime Burning and am still trying to come to terms with it.  My first thoughts are is that it is a huge leap forward in terms of writing and flow of language from her first Transita novel Emotional Geology.  I wonder if that book was used as a practice run, one that Linda Gillard had had gestating for a long time and was just eager to get published and out of her system?  This latest book is much more mature and so much better written.  It is almost as if Emotional Geology had given her confidence in her abilities and enabled her to write such a good second novel.

BUT, and there is a but in all this - I found the subject matter disturbing.  There is no attempt to gloss over the incestuous love between Flora and Rory and portray it as making them happy in any way, indeed it is made clear that this love brings nothing but sorrow. A reader coming to this book with no knowledge of its subject matter could read for quite a while before it is clear where the story is leading.  Once you reach the point of realisation it will not matter, you will read on as by then Flora and Rory have a hold on the reader and you will want to find out what happens to them both".

Well, I see no reason to change my opinion in the intervening years. I think this was a very brave book to write and taking quite a chance as a second novel.  I know that publishers don't like books that they cannot categorise or which fit neatly into a box which they can tick, and Linda has yet to produce anything that can be dealt with in this way.  Rather each book is a surprise, a 'wonder what we are going to get this time' kind of a read.  She keeps her readers on their toes and though publishers may not like it very much, we do.

Delighted this is now available as an ebook and that the pleasure of reading this is just one click away.  I am full of admiration for Linda taking charge of her books and publishing in this way and wish her luck, not that I think for one moment she needs it.

One last thing, if you should purchase and read any of Linda's books on Amazon and have enjoyed it, but don't feel like writing a review, please do click on 'Like' which is next to the book's title.   Apparently this is noted by Amazon and makes a difference.

So off you go - get clicking. At 88p this has to be the bargain of the century.....

E books - Bloomsbury joins in

I am sure you have already heard about this but if not, just weighing in about it all.   Stephanie Duncan of Bloomsbury in charge of the project says: "I’m delighted to be reconnecting this extraordinary selection of authors and books with their original fans, and bringing them into the lives of a new generation of readers. This is a significant time for digital publishing, and the Bloomsbury Reader initiative introduces a new dimension to its development.”

If you click on this link below you will see more information and further details of the authors they are planning on republishing www.bloomsburyreader.com

As you know I am the proud owner of a Kindle. It is already out of date as the new super, sleeker model has just been unveiled - cheaper too - on Amazon, but technology moves so fast nowadays this was inevitable and I am certainly not going to rush out and get the new one.  Mark you at £89 it has got to be remarkable value for money. I gather they are also bringing out a Kindle Pad to rival Mr Apple (hooray they need the competition) but this is only available in the US at the moment.   As with the Kindle, if I was thinking of purchasing this, then I will hold off until Kindle Pad4 or whatever is produced and the bugs and gremlins ironed out. It always happens.

In my ravings when I first had my Kindle, posted here, I said I would be using it as a library and had stockpiled books I thought I might like to read one day by authors who had impinged on my literary sensibilities but whose books I did not necessarily want to buy right now.  This means, of course, that I probably would never get round to reading them.   We are not talking about the heavyweights here, Dickens, Tolstoy et al but, and I suppose I should not call them in the second tier, writers such as Arnold Bennett, GK Chesterton, Anthony Hope and many more.   I have managed to download a whole plethora of unknown titles and nearly all of them for free which is even better.

Simon of Stuck in a Book, Karen of Cornflower and myself met Stephanie, who we all knew by email and blog conversation, at the Bloomsbury Birthday party in the summer and she said she really wanted to republish out of print books such as those by EM Delafield or Richmal Crompton which are incredibly difficult to track down, and when you do are very expensive.   Between us, Simon and I have a large collection of the Richmal Crompton titles and we were more than happy to lend them to Bloomers for digitising.  We soon rescinded our offer, in fact we took it back pretty sharpish, when we were told that the books were literally ripped to pieces so that the entire book could be transferred page by page.  Shock horror, but yes that is the price that will have to be paid if such books are to be available again. I would love everyone to read my collection of Crompton and Delafield but sorry, I don't love you all as much as that.......

However, they have obviously managed to lay their hands on some Delafield as here are the titles by this author now available from them:

http://www.bloomsbury.com/books/search/Delafield

I have all these titles in hardback on my shelves, discovered and hunted out over the last fifteen years or so, but if you do not have them, May I recommend that you download all of these. You will not regret it.

This project from Bloomsbury, and the increase in e-books from other sources, is a perfect use of the new technology.   Authors can be saved from obscurity, in some cases of course, obscurity is probably where they belong but there are many that have simply gone out of fashion and deserve to be rediscovered.  Persephone Books is the leader in this field, republishing women's fiction (and a few men as well) of the time between the two World Wars and, surely, must be credited with starting off the revival and discovery of authors who deserve to be remembered.  Capuchin Press have also published unknown works by authors such as A A Milne and Hugh Walpole, all to great effect.

I think this is all rather exciting and I wish it every success.  I can think of loads more authors I would love Bloomsbury to reprint, some of the more unknown titles by Elizabeth von Arnim spring to mind, but much though I love this idea I think my books will be staying firmly on my shelves. The thought of anybody ripping pages out of a book almost brings on a spasm and I am not that philanthropic.

So if anybody is thinking of purchasing an e-reader for themselves, or for a friend or a loved one, this addition to the e-book canon from Bloomsbury must surely help tip the balance.   I don't think the 'real' book is dead or even near dying, nothing will replace the feeling of a book in one's hand and turning the pages, but I see no reason why the new and the old technology should not exist side by side.

Has anybody out there bought any of these new titles yet?   What do you think of the whole e-reader thingy?  I freely admit I am a convert after initially swearing that an e-reader would never cross my threshold, but what do Random Readers think - do let me know.

All things Kindle

Delighted to receive this from my daughter and son in law for Christmas. Perfect for taking to Australia with me - as I went on a week's holiday last year in the sunshine and managed to get through 16 books during that time, just think how much excess baggage I would be paying if I took enough books to last me the month Down Under?

Spent most of the other day working out how to use it, setting it up and exploring.  Not quite there yet and am meeting up with a Kindle owning friend next week and will pick her brains for short cuts and tips. In the meantime I have been having fun on Amazon looking at all the free e-books available. Brought them all up in price range from low to high so got hundreds of stuff costing £0.00.   Bit of a bind going through it all I thought but after a while it became strangely fascinating. There is some seriously  weird stuff there, including what appears to be a hundred volume work on the History of the Dutch Antilles.  I was tempted to download some of this just to see what it was like but decided against it in the end, ditto the entire works of Bulwer Lytton (he of the immortal line 'It was a dark and stormy night').  But in the midst of all this were loads of free classics and downloaded quite a few as I like to have those handy.

As I have decided to read more Anthony Trollope this year I actually spent some money and had 50+ of his books sent to my Kindle at the cost of £3.54 which has to be the bargain of the century.  I also downloaded all of L M Montgomery's oeuvre for the same price and then there was no stopping me and off I went and did the same for Frances Hodgson Burnett, her adult as well as children's novels. There were some title there I have been wanting to track down for some time and now I have them. Then I had to have all of Jane Austen for which I paid 74p.  I have a feeling she would delight in that.

I have just started watching Aurelio Zen on BBC (will not start on about the God that is Rufus Sewell  as it makes my fingers twitch, as well as other parts of my anatomy which we will not discuss and I need to type accurately....) and decided that I need to check these books out.  Fortunately, there is one going for the Kindle at £1 so I purchased that to see if I like them or not. Thought that was a bargain too.

Now before you all think I have gone raving mad and am abandoning REAL books, fear not.  No way Jose. There is something so magical about opening a book, be it new or second hand and looking inside. This was reinforced today when I received four books in the post and gloated over them all so Dear Publishers, please continue to bombard me with your offerings, I would never go over to the Dark Side.

I get so tired of reading articles on E Books v Paper Books.  Why are these articles written? can only assume there is a space to fill in the book pages.  There is no need to set this up as an issue.  I cannot see why they cannot exist side by side, each has its own place in our reading life and I do not see the existence of these E-readers as any threat at all.  I really don't think book sale swill stop completely because of this.  Now, having said that I was thinking Yeh OK I am taking my Kindle with me to Oz, but I don't commute any more and don't spend holidays lying on beaches in the sun much these days and if I did I would worry about taking a Kindle on a beach, just think of the dangers of sand.....

So what will I do with it once I am back from Australia?  Was pondering on this dilemma and it occurred to me that I can use it to read those books that you spot at the back of a library shelf, or you hear mentioned in a literary review, and think you might like to read but would never buy or borrow.  I am talking classics here but perhaps not the sort of classic you might automatically think about.  If you mention the word Classic (OK the Daily Mail book page now calls them Retro Reads....true), we think Bronte, Dickens, Austen et al but I am thinking of others and the name sof Arnold Bennett, John Galsworthy, George Gissing, Jerome K Jerome and others.  I am probably doing them a disservice by calling them second level classics and I apologise but am trying to explain my thinking.  I have read Anna of the Five Towns by Bennett yonks ago, can recall little about it, but remember enjoying it very much. The late great journalist and writer, Keith Waterhouse, loved The Card by this author and was always quoting it so that has been downloaded along with a couple of others. 

Then there are authors whose books, when tracked down, are expensive and I have managed to download an EM Delafield which I have yet to read and will be hunting for more.  Checking the archives of libraries all over the world for e-books is simply fascinating and the titles, not only of books, but of poetry, history, biography and newspapers and journals is stunning.  I feel as if I have been let loose in a toy shop.

My lovely friend Rosemary, who came round for Sunday lunch, spotted the posh leather wallets designed for the Kindle and has ordered one for my birthday next month (a lovely blue colour) but says I can have it early to take with me and that is on its way.  What with my super duper new mobile, my new notebook and now the Kindle, I am off to Australia laden with technology.  So different from when I went all those years ago, pre email and Internet, when I used to write pages of air mail letters home and had to book a call to the UK on the telephone and through the operator.   Technology is amazing.

Of course, I am going to need excess baggage to take all the chargers that will be going with me......