74 New goodies just out

It’s always difficult to keep pace with all the new titles appearing, so I’m trying to pick out a few that jump out and say “read me”. The first this week is the new Sandi Toksvig book called Chain of Curiosity [ Sphere £9.99 978-1847443458 ] which is a selection of her writings from her Sunday Telegraph column. I have to admit that I don’t often read the Sunday papers, so this would be new to me. I’ve always been a fan of Sandi Toksvig, especially when she chairs the “News Quiz” on BBC Radio 4. According to reports this new collection is bound to amuse: from the joys of World Pencil Day to the oddest way to meet a sticky end via school report vocabulary and applause etiquette. Sounds like a good one. Click here for a brief biography of Sandi on the BBC website

When Alan Titchmarsh was fifteen years old, all he wanted to do was work in a garden. It was a way of getting away from school where he didn’t seem to fit in. This is the point in his life where the new volume of his autobiography starts, called Knave of Spades [Hodder £20 978-0340953044]. But Alan decided he wasn’t just going to work in the local garden centre and be content with that – no, he wanted a challenge and this led eventually to the first steps in radio and TV via college and Kew Gardens. If you want to read about Alan’s earliest memories, then you will need Nobbut a Lad , which is still available [Hodder Paperbacks £7.99 978-0340831182]. Meanwhile Trowel and Error (awful title!)[Hodder and Stoughton £9.99 978-0340765432], seems to be a selection of memorable moments and episodes from his life so far.

Now to fiction and the WHSmith book of the week last week was the brand new thriller from Simon Kernick; Target [Corgi £6.99 978-0552156615]. If you enjoy a book set in a world of drugs barons, prostitutes, hit men and bent coppers, then this is for you. Kernick’s books are centred around the ganglands of North London where wrongs are “put right” by the barrel of the gun or a severe beating. Whilst you will find a sense of humour in the books, the main features are the dramatic elements – shoot outs, torture and the like – these characterise Kernick’s books. In this, his eighth book, Rob Fallon joins  his best-friend’s girlfriend, Jenny, in her apartment in London’s West End after a drinking spree. Then two men break into the apartment, try to kill Rob and carry Jenny off. The police don’t seem to want to know and Jenny’s father claims she has gone abroad. Meaty stuff.

If your stomach isn’t strong enough for that, then perhaps the latest from Marian Keyes might be more suitable: The Brightest Star in the Sky [ Michael Joseph £18.99 9780718149864]. The book opens with someone or something (the narrator) flying over the streets of Dublin and entering a block of flats, describing the domestic situations he/she/it finds. There’s an awkward family gathering in one flat and an argument between flatmates over the cleaning (or lack of it) in another. What this someone or something is you’ll have to read the book to find out – reviews have been a bit mixed, but mostly favourable.

Finally the Diagram Group’s 2009 prize for the oddest title of the year goes to The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-miligram Containers of Fromage Frais . It beat off several slightly racier titles for top place with a 32% share of the total vote. It is a nevertheless controversial title as the book was produced not by a living person, but by Professor Philip M Parker’s automated authoring invention, which produces a title on the basis of complex internet and database searches. Would that be cheating?

Next time – some new and recent local books

73 More for kids and grown-ups

It’s funny, isn’t it – it was only last week that I was writing about  a new Winnie the Pooh book and now, blow me if another old childhood favourite (though not one of mine), hasn’t been resurrected. There’s a new Noddy story just out: Noddy and  the Farmyard Muddle[HarperCollins Children’s Books, £7.99 978-0007318018 ] There are some new characters, including Stumpy the Elephant and The Bull, but those golliwogs are notable by their absence due to the term being now widely regarded as racist.

The author of the new story is Sophie Smallwood, the grand- daughter of Enid Blyton. It’s the first new Noddy book since 1963. Noddy has been around for 60 years, the first book having been published in 1949. I expect the publishers are hoping to attract as many adults reminiscing about their childhood as they are new young Noddy fans. I’m beginning to wonder if there are any other anniversaries I may have missed.

Back to adult stuff now and I expect like me you have come across a lot of novels that claim to be funny – laugh out loud funny – and prove to be very disappointing. Well, I’ve just read a book that says it’s funny and I really did laugh out loud – at times – and often enough to make me continue reading to the end, though I didn’t read it just for the laughs. Ring Road by Ian Sansom [HarperPerennial £7.99 978-0007156542] is quite a long novel about life in a small to medium sized town, the name of which we never get to know. There are several characters to whom we are gradually introduced throughout the book: first, there’s Davey Quinn, the seventh son of a seventh son, who has just returned to the town after an absence of 20 years to find it much changed, but populated with a lot of the people he used to know. There’s Francie McGinn, the minister of a church called “The People’s Fellowship”, whose pure thoughts sometimes give way to impure ones and eventually lead to his divorce from Cheryth and marriage to singer Bobbie Dylan. There’s Frank Gilbey, the entrepreneur, who got himself elected to the council so that he could influence planning decisions and turn them to his advantage. There’s Colin Rimmer, editor of the local paper called “The Impartial Recorder” who started out wanting to drag the paper into the modern age, but ended up with one that was substantially the same at is was 50 years ago. He’s undeterred: he has his sights on bringing down Frank Gilbey and moving on to greater things. The central “character” though is a building: “The Quality Hotel”, once a thriving venue in the centre of town, now a dilapidated shell and it’s what happens to the building that is the central theme of the book.

I enjoyed this book for several reasons; Ian Sansom has the ability to describe the lives of ordinary people and make them interesting, fascinating even. I dare bet that you will find a character in there which reminds you of someone you know (of) in your town. It’s a cleverly crafted story, but if you like action in your novels, then this is not for you. We get fascinating descriptions of the lives, the likes and dislikes, the aspirations of many different characters from all walks of small(ish) town life and at the end of each chapter, you realise that things have changed and the story has moved on. It was only at the end that I was a little disappointed, but I won’t give away what actually happens to the Quality Hotel.

Apart from this book, Iam Sansom is also responsible for the “Mobile Library” detective series, described as “cripplingly funny” by one critic.

By the way, at the back of the book, you’ll find an index (!!), but also a small section entitled “If you loved this, you’ll like…” a sort of list of suggestions for reading in a similar vein.

72 What did you read as a child?

What did you read when you were very young? As a young lad I was hooked on Thomas the Tank Engine books by the Rev. Awdry and these are still kept alive by the many “Thomas” weekends at preserved railways across this country and beyond. There are lots of Thomas titles still available, including a Thomas the Tank Engine Manual by Chris Oxlade written in the style of the Haynes manuals [J H Haynes & Co £9.99 978-1844258352]  I never really liked the Noddy books and books about Winnie the Pooh probably passed me by completely. Later I moved on to the William stories by Richmal Crompton.

Well, for those who did read Pooh, there’s a brand new Pooh book just published this month and it’s by David Benedictus. The new book – a collection of new Pooh stories – is called Return to Hundred Acre Wood [ Egmont Books £12.99 978-1405247443] and is the authorised sequel to the original Pooh stories by A A Milne. If you’re a Pooh aficionado, this may or may not match your expectations, but to get an idea of what to expect, listen to an interview with Benedictus on the BBC News website. Winnie himself has two websites – the Disney one and “Just-Pooh”.

Mr Benedictus, Eton educated, has, according to his website “been almost everywhere and done almost everything”. He has certainly met a wide range of celebrities of one kind or another and he writes about them in his autobiography Dropping Names [Ernie Books £16.99 978-0955033001].

Book Bonanza

This month has seen a plethora of new titles published in good time for the Christmas market. Prominent amongst these is Look Back in Hunger, the autobiography of Jo Brand [Headline Review  978-0755355235 £20,but expect big discounts]. In it she describes her relationship with her father and her time as a psychiatric nurse, plus many more aspects of her life so far. She also promises that there are “some funny bits” – I don’t doubt it. The paperback is due out in April. Click here for a lengthy Daily Telegraph interview with Jo.

Also just out is a new book from Alan Bennett A Life Like other People’s [Profile Books £12.99 978-0571248124] in which he writes about the life of his parents and his aunties, Kathleen and Myra, as well as recalling some of his childhood. It’s already received rave reviews. However, if you already have Untold Stories [Faber and Faber £9.99 978-0571228317], you won’t need this, as this latest offering is lifted straight from Untold Stories. However, if you don’t already own it, buy this – you won’t be disappointed.

Finally in the new book category (and with Christmas presents in mind): do you know anyone who will only look at a book if it is the Guinness World Records- and nothing else will do? Well for a change why not try them with Ripley’s Believe it or Not 2010 by Robert Le Roy Ripley ?[Random House, 978-1847945853 £18.99 but there should be a hefty discount] Now in its second year, it’s described as a “feast of bizarre facts, fiends and freaks – all guaranteed to fascinate, surprise and amaze” and looks as if it could rival the Guinness book.

71 A bit about buildings (and cookery)

I think it was the Channel  4 series “Kevin McCloud’s Grand Tour” that gave me the idea that I might do a quick round up of a few books on architectural styles. The range is vast, but there are a few titles available at the moment which, as someone who would like to know a bit more about the buildings around us, I wouldn’t mind on my shelves.

First of all, there’s Rice’s Architectural Primer [Bloomsbury £14.99 978-0747597483] by Matthew Rice. Published in July this year, this book claims to enable the reader to recognise any architectural style and to explain the evolution of styles “from Norman castles to Norman Foster”. It’s a small-ish hardback with no dust jacket and just right for the glove box for all those who like to have the book handy in the car instead of trying to remember to look it up when they get home. There are no photographs, but it is profusely illustrated by the author.

Matthew Rice is also the author of Village Buildings of Britain [Little, Brown £12.99 9780316726245]. This book has been around in several editions for a long time; it’s about how the styles of vernacular architecture (ie. the houses that you and I live in, rather than stately homes, cathedrals and the like) vary across the country. Beautifully illustrated by the author, it looks at the styles of each region in turn, with Nottinghamshire (or at least south Notts.) included in the chapter on “The Shires”. Numerous examples of whole houses or building details are illustrated as well as the occasional double page spread of a water colour showing a house in its landscape setting. A lovely book to browse through whether you are interested in buildings or not.

Talking of lovely books to browse through The Houses of Britain: the outside view by John and Mark Prizeman [Quiller Publishing Ltd; 3Rev Ed edition, £14.95 978-1899163670] is about the outside appearances of the different types of British houses. Illustrated with photographs and coloured drawings, it aims to give the reader an educated understanding of our houses, towns and villages. The original title was Your House: the outside view. The late John Prizeman was an eminent architect and writer. His son Mark has brought the work up to date for the 21^st Century.

In contrast, this book has almost no illustrations: The English House by Clive Aslet [Bloomsbury £20 9780747577973] explores the relationships between building styles and design and the way we have lived over the past millennium. Each chapter takes a single building as an example of the buildings for a particular era and looks at its design, the people who built it and lived in it and buildings like it. Beginning with Boothby Pagnell Manor House, from the Norman period, we have examples of buildings for people from all walks of life and two of these are fairly local to our area – No 10 North Street, Cromford, one of a terrace of houses built by the industrialist Sir Richard Arkwright for his workers and No 7 Blyth Grove, Worksop, now a National Trust property known as “Mr Straw’s House”.  A very readable book for historians and architecture enthusiasts alike.

…and finally a cookery book

We hear and see a lot of cookery books and programmes from High Fearnley-Whittingstall, but did you know that Hugh’s mum is a pretty good cook too? Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall  has produced a book full of traditional recipes which have been brought up to date for the modern cook: The Good Granny Cookbook [Short Books £14.99 9781906021665] There are no glossy pictures, but instead lots of detail about the recipe instructions and background information about the recipe origins and a few reminiscences from Jane’s childhood. Included is a recipe for “stovies”, which Jane describes as a “sort of deconstructed shepherd’s pie” (delicious!) . Jane is also the author of The Good Granny Guide.

By the way, sorry for the late arrival of this post, due to computer problems which are on the way to being solved. Computers are wonderful – most of the time.

70 It’s an Autumn book bonanza

October is the time of year when many publishers release their blockbuster titles with a view to hopefully making a packet on the Christmas sales. According to The Bookseller magazine, so many new titles were released on October 1^st that there has been a big boost in sales. Certainly if you call in your local bookshop now, you will see plenty of brand new stuff on display and there should also be big discounts. Book stores are getting ready for the busy season by stacking up big piles of new fiction and biography titles. Some stores have the doorstopper type of non-fiction reduced to sometimes less than half price.  I’m not just talking about cookery and gardening books – look out for the” Times History of the World” and the  book accompanying the new BBC series “Life” starting this week as well as David Attenborough’s own “Life Stories” and a spin off from the popular BBC series, “Coast from the Air”. But that’s just a few of the titles: pop down to your local bookshop now and grab those early Christmas bargains.

Man Booker Winner

So the Man Booker Prize winner is Hilary Mantel for her latest novel Wolf Hall [Fourth Estate £18.99 978-0007230181], described as fast paced , earthy and with a vast array of characters. Set in England in the 1520s, it charts the rise of Thomas Cromwell, not to be confused with Oliver Cromwell.   Man Booker Prize winners have had a reputation in the past for being rather high brow, but this seems to have a wider appeal, though it’s said to be not an easy read and it’s written in the historical present tense, which doesn’t suit everyone . For a digest of the plot of “Wolf Hall”, check out the Guardian website. The paperback is out in March.

Topping the charts..

Dan Brown, author of “The Da Vinci Code” was at the top of the UK and US charts with “The Lost Symbol” last week followed in the UK by Stieg Larsson’s The Girl who kicked the Hornets’ Nest [MacLehose Press  £18.99 978-1906694166]. Larsson left behind the manuscripts of three crime novels after his death in 2004. He was a keen opponent of right wing and anti-semitic groups, which prompted some to suspect foul play, but he was a very heavy smoker.  The Millennium Trilogy, as it is known, is now complete with this latest novel which promises to be just as thrilling as the first two. Almost eight million copies of the books have been sold since the first was published in 2005 and 32 countries have bought the rights to the trilogy. Stieg Larsson now joins the long list of Swedish crime writers in translation including the popular Henning Mankell who created the detective Wallander.

Look out for …

.. a new title from thriller writer Martina Cole, Hard Girls [Headline £18.99 978-0755328680], featuring DCI Annie Carr and retired DCI Kate Burrows, who set out to trace the killer of a brutally murdered prostitute, but then another body of a girl is found. How many more bodies will be found before the murderer is caught? It’s due out at the end of this month.

Fans of the BBC Masterchef series will be interested to know that two books to accompany the series are to be published, but not until after Christmas. “The Best of Masterchef”, a 400 page hardback is due out on 1^st January and will cost £20.

69 Audrey Niffenegger, Douglas Adams and Wonder Woman

My first author in the spotlight this time is Audrey Niffenegger: when I saw her latest book being promoted in bookshops this week – Her Fearful Symmetry [Jonathan Cape £18.99 978-0224085618],I got slightly worried that I was out of touch as I hadn’t heard of this author before. I think I can be excused for this  – to some extent at least – as Audrey Niffenegger has only one other book to her name – so far- and that was published five years ago..

Her previous/first book The Time Traveler’s Wife [ Vintage £7.99 978-0099464464] is about Clare and Henry who meet when their age difference is 30 years and marry when there is only eight years between them. Puzzled? Well, Henry is a sort of accidental time traveller and never quite knows when he will be off on his travels next. I understand that the main theme for this book is not time travel, but a moving and tragic love story. The book was made into a film released this year, but didn’t have good reviews, which is a shame as it might put people off from reading the book.

Anyway, back to the latest  – Her Fearful Symmetry - , which is about twins Valentina and Julia who have been bequeathed a London flat in the will of an aunt they didn’t know existed. The flat overlooks Highgate Cemetery and the book turns out to be a modern ghost story : their aunt can’t quite seem to leave her flat and there are strange neighbours above and below. Sounds intriguing.. and if you like that, you might be interested to know that Audrey Niffeneger, who originally started out as an artist and book illustrator, is planning another novel for 2010; The Chinchilla Girl in Exile.

Normally I tend to find business books rather boring – probably because I’ve never been involved in that kind of world. However, I’ve just come across a book that could be the ideal manual for the modern woman trying to make her way in the world of commerce in the face of all that male domination. Remember Wonder Woman ? – the one who, confronted with a dangerous situation, would just give a quick twirl and transform herself into the female equivalent of Superman. The concept never caught on like Superman did, but Wonder Woman hasn’t been forgotten. She’s facing up to all the desperate situations in the life of a modern businesswoman in What would Wonder Woman Do? by by Suzan Colon and Jennifer Traig [Chronicle Books £9.99 978-0811851770]. The problems Wonder Woman will help you solve include how to succeed at a job interview, combat a tyrannical boss or handle an office romance. Yes, Wonder Woman can help in all these difficult situations and more – still dressed of course in red boots and a tiara. A hilarious text (well quite amusing anyway) is coupled with lots of original comic art – a possible Christmas gift for the career girl?

I’ve mentioned Douglas Adams recently – when I wrote about Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine’s Last Chance to See, but at the time I wasn’t aware that another instalment of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was about to appear. Released on October 11^th is And Another Thing.. [Michael Joseph £18.99 978-0718155148] by Eoin Colfer and this is part six of the trilogy. Arthur Dent is still there and he’s still searching for that decent cup of tea: he’s back on planet Earth which is about to be blown up – again. Eoin Colfer is perhaps best known for his books for young people, such as his Artemis Fowl  series, so it will be interesting to find out how his writing style for this new book compares to that of Douglas Adams.

68 How to move (a) house

It’s said that probably the most stressful thing that many people do is to move house. Imagine how much more stressful it might be though, if you had to move not just the contents of the house, but the house itself – bit by bit. This is exactly what May Savidge did with her  half timbered medieval hall-house when the planners wanted to knock it down to make way for a road. This was back in the 1950s when progress was everything and preserving the past took a back seat in the face of development. After trying to fight the planning decision she eventually came to the conclusion that the only course of action would be to dismantle the house and rebuild it elsewhere (and by this time she was already 60 years old). Her house was in Ware, Hertfordshire and she decided she wanted to move to Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk .  Once the house was there May had to sort out all the components of the house and slowly put it back together again, with very little help from builders and others, whilst living in a cold, draughty caravan. As her nephew’s wife, Christine Adams, explains in the book, with the help of many extracts from May’s correspondence and detailed diaries, Miss Savidge took the next 23 years to put the house back together, but sadly she was unable to finish the task : old age and infirmity eventually took its toll.

Today the house is now finished and comfortable ;it has been featured on the BBC’s “Antiques Roadshow” and Christine Adams has written up the story of May and her ancient house in a remarkable book A Lifetime in the Building [Aurum £16.99 9781845133962]. The introduction by Paul Atterbury of the BBC Antiques Roadshow got me hooked: once started, I just couldn’t put the book down and continued reading whenever I had a spare moment.  It will be one of my recommended reads for 2009.

Are you old enough to remember the 1970s?

Well, if you are, then a new book published this month by Private Eye columnist and BBC Radio 4 News Quiz  panellist Francis Wheen may strike a chord. Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia [Fourth Estate £18.99 9780007244270] harks back to the decade when Harold Wilson believed that Soviet trawlers were spying on him when he took his holidays on the Scilly isles whilst the British secret service and the Conservative establishment thought he was a Soviet agent. It was also the decade of Richard Nixon’s strange behaviour in the White House and the trial of Rupert Bear.  Francis Wheen homes in on these and other examples of paranoia from the ‘70s in what promises to be a fascinating book.

Are you a fan?

Now, I’m not going to pretend that I’m a fan of that dynamic duo Ant and Dec who feature heavily in ITV’s Saturday night schedules. However, there’s no denying how phenomenally successful the pair have become and  I feel duty bound to let those of you who are fans know that Ant and Dec’s new book Ooh What a Lovely Pair [Michael Joseph £20 978-0718154462] is now available. The book has already reached the top three of the hardback non-fiction bestsellers according to The Bookseller magazine. As you might expect, Ant McPartlin and Declan Donelly, to give them their full names, are attending signing sessions in a few locations around the country  – ASDA at Derby Road , Spondon  (01332 661751) is the nearest they will get to our neck of the woods.  The signing session is due to begin at 12.30 on Thursday October 8^th – for conditions, please refer to the Penguin Books website.

67 Back in harness

Top crime seller

Ian Rankin may have “retired” Rebus, the hard drinking Edinburgh detective and though Rebus is still on the telly, Rankin fans may be suffering from withdrawal symptoms. From all accounts though, Rankin’s new creation is just as good. Inspector Malcolm Fox seems quite a different kettle of fish from Rebus: he’s teetotal for one thing. He’s a pretty successful detective and he works in the Complaints and Conduct section of the police force. His private life is a little more complicated and in this new book – The Complaints [Orion £18.99 978-0752889511], out this month, his private life gets mixed up with his job.  For an in depth review, see P D James in the Guardian.

How does it work?

When I was at school, I used to swap comics with my friends. One comic I particularly liked was The Eagle. I wasn’t specially bothered about Dan Dare; the section in the middle was my favourite – those cutaway drawings showing the workings of some boat, aircraft or piece of machinery, something  weird and wonderful like The “Scopitone” colour film juke box or more mundane machinery like a milk processing plant. I can’t claim that it encouraged me to take up a career in engineering or that I could really understand exactly how something worked after studying the diagram. I just think that the  coloured cutaway drawings were fascinating to look at and almost works of art.  Published last year, The Eagle Annual of the Cutaways [ Orion £14.99 9781409100140] complete with a “distressed” cover and pages made to appear browning with age at the edges, has hundreds of cutaway drawings faithfully reproduced from the pages of The Eagle. The editor, Daniel Tatarsky, has another book – The Eagle Annual: the best of the 1960s comic [Orion £14.99 978-0752888958] due out at the beginning of next month

What I did on my holidays

I promised last time to explain the four week gap in the appearance of my postings – the reason is I was in the USA, specifically in Utah, northern Arizona, Yellowstone National Park and Idaho. It was the holiday of a lifetime and we did a fair bit of travelling about as you can imagine. There wasn’t much time to do any reading, never mind visit a bookshop, sorry, bookstore as they call them over there. We were busy visiting as many of the big tourist attractions as possible and at most of them the tourist information centres stocked a very good selection of books about the area.  The Yellowstone Association information centre at Gardiner, Montana, on the northern edge of the park was no exception. In fact if you log on to the Association’s website, you’ll find a large selection of titles on just about every aspect of the Park, including of course, the wildlife. I brought back a souvenir of Yellowstone – a photographic book called The Abundance of Summer by Tom Murphy [Crystal Creek Press, $40 978-0966861983] It’s what you might call a coffee table book I suppose, but  it contains some excellent photography and it’s part of a series called “The Seasons of Yellowstone”. The other titles are The Light of Spring and The Comfort of Autumn, both $35 each.

As for visiting real book stores I did get to look around Barnes and Noble in Salt Lake City, which reminded me of our Waterstone’s shops in the UK. It was a large shop, all on one floor, with a Starbuck’s coffee bar. The general “feel” of the store was a little austere compared to Waterstone’s, but none the worse for that. I bought two books, one of which is Yellowstone Trivia by Janet Spencer (who calls herself “The Trivia Queen”) [Riverbend Publishing $9.95 9781931832700]. As its name implies it’s full of useful/useless facts such as a grizzly bear can run 100 metres from a standing start in six seconds or with every eruption of the geyser “Old Faithful”, 65lbs of dissolved silica is spewed out.  I’ll tell you about the other one in a few weeks time.

66 Endangered species and Houdini’s helper.

It’s been a little while since my last blog, so apologies for the delay. Normal service will now be resumed. As you might guess, I’ve been on my holidays and I’ll say more about that in the next posting. First I want to mention a new BBC TV series on Sunday nights  – “Last Chance to See” – in which Stephen Fry and Mark Carwardine travel the world in search of endangered species. This is twenty years after Douglas Adams (author of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) and Mark Carwardine set out to find some of the species that may not be around in a few years time if we’re not more careful. The new edition of the original book by Adams and Carwardine is out soon: Last Chance to See [Arrow £7.99 9780099536796]. A new book with the same title has been written by Mark Carwardine with a forward by Stephen Fry [Collins £20 978-0007290727]. Carwardine and Fry make a good entertaining partnership in the TV programme, so I’ll be interested to find out if this comes over in the book. There’s also another relevant website : Another Chance to See

I was very pleased to receive a blog comment from Ann Beedham, the author of the series of books Peeks at the Peak Vols 1&2 and Peeks at the Past In Sheffield. Ann has just produced another book and this is a little different. It’s about Randini, the man who helped Houdini. Ann can tell you more eloquently than me, so here’s what she has to say: “The stunt that helped to make Houdini a legend- escaping from a strait jacket whilst suspended hundreds of feet in the air wasn’t invented by the Master Mystifier. That honour belonged to a  long forgotten Sheffield  schoolboy…
Randini-The Man Who Helped Houdini is the remarkable story of a fan who helped reinvent his hero. Modelling himself on the escape artist, collecting every picture and news item,  the young Randolph Douglas   lived in world almost as magical  as the music halls glowing like coral reefs in the grey industrial wasteland. His pocket money bought not toys but locks, handcuffs and even straightjackets as he dreamed of future glory.
But it wasn’t just a daydream. Somewhere along the way fantasy and reality emerged as Houdini, the man who dined with princes, the man who was more famous than anyone, came to tea and began a friendship that lasted to the end of his life. But it wasn’t just a star pandering to a wide eyed fan. What Houdini found over tea and buns was to “change the history of Magic”. Ann devotes about 6 pages in the Peeks at the Peak Vol 2 [Pickard Communication £12.99 9781905278244] to Randini – real name Randolph Douglas – but there’s obviously a lot more to tell. I’ll be looking out for it the next time I call in a local bookshop. Ann tells me that her book is only available in some Sheffield bookshops at the moment, but can be bought online at www.youbooks.co.uk. (By the way, Randini we’re talking about is not to be confused with the magician David Randini)

I’ll tell you where I’ve been in a few days’ time

65 Suggestions for a good read

I complained last time that I had run out of something to get my teeth into, so now a blog reader and a quick browse in Waterstone’s  have provided me with some ideas…

First of all, I’m grateful to Ronni Goddard who posted a comment telling me about three novels by John Macken which are crime novels on a forensic theme. They are Dirty Little Lies, Trial by Blood and the latest one: Breaking Point [Bantam Press £11.99 978-0593061442] which is about a killer loose on the London Underground.  Ronni says “They are a touch brutal in parts, but very difficult to put down”. I haven’t been able to find out much about this author, except a few brief words on Lovereading.co.uk: John Macken works as a research scientist in the areas of genetic and forensic science. He lives in the midlands with his family. Thanks for that Ronni: I’ll try them out myself. By the way, John Macken has a new novel out in January 2010 called Control [Bantam £12.99 978-0593061459]

Browsing in the Chesterfield Waterstone’s the other day, I came across a thick novel in the “Local Interest” section.  It was Northern Clemency by Philip Hensher [HarperPerennial £8.99 978-0007174805] which is about the lives of two suburban dwelling families in Sheffield during the 1970s and ‘80s with accurate observations about life at the time – “pin sharp” according to one newspaper review. There have been many plaudits for this novel, but there have also been some comments about it being a bit long – over 700 pages (see the Guardian review),  but still worth trawling through. So that’s another one for my list.

More ways to find a good read

Last time I wrote about several ways of finding suggestions about what to read next using the internet. There’s a website that uses a quite different approach to finding your next good read. Supported by the Big Lottery Fund, Whichbook.net allows you to specify the kind of book you are looking for, rather than a genre or a type of author. You start off with a list of variables such as happy/sad, optimistic/bleak, gentle/violent: you are allowed to choose four of these and are invited move a slider along a bar to indicate for example whether you want a book that is conventional rather than unusual or easy rather than demanding or vice versa. You then click “go” and it will hopefully find a book for you.

Independently from this way of choosing, you can specify the character of the novel  - a male or female main character, the age group, sexuality and race. You can also specify the type of plot and the area of the world in which it takes place.

Having made your choices, the website will then search the database for a list of suggestions and usually it will come up with one plus a couple of “parallels”, ie. titles in a similar vein. The next stage is for Whichbook  to check if your local library service stocks the suggested title  and here it failed, at least for me.  I tried choosing both Nottinghamshire and then Derbyshire library services , but it failed to connect.  Is it my computer, or could it even be the time of day?  I’m not sure if this works after library hours as it were, but I don’t see why not.

Just a brief mention of a couple of American sites which might be of interest: Reading Woman is a site compiled by a group of women who have been members of a book group for several years and used to publish a journal full of what they call grassroots recommendations. Now they are in the process of putting all those suggestions on to their website and already they have a number of booklists you can access.

I might have mentioned Librarything.com before, but, as well as suggesting your next read,  I’ve just noticed that the site has a section in which you can enter the title of the book you’ve just read and it will come up with a list of titles you won’t like. It’s called the “Unsuggester”: I’m not sure how useful that would be.

… and finally.

Idly looking at my bookshelves today I noticed that two books with similar titles had been shelved side by side: The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) and The 2½ Pillars of Wisdom which is the Von Igelfeld trilogy by Alexander McCall Smith. I read the former some years ago (just when I noticed that it might be a good idea to get my eyes tested, the print being rather small), but I haven’t read the latter – another reading suggestion I think.