Locations

Wakefield Library audience listening to
a reading from ‘In the Family’

I was very privileged yesterday to have been invited to the event arranged by Wakefield Library Service as a joint celebration of National Reading Group Day and Crime Fiction Month.  It was organised by Alison Cassels, Library Officer for Reading at Wakefield, and lasted almost the whole day.  It was held at Wakefield One, the wonderful new library and museum complex which was opened last November by Jarvis Cocker.  The day’s activities were built around the interests of Wakefield Libraries’ eighteen reading groups.  When they are in everyday mode, the reading groups choose books that they wish to read from a selection provided; the library service then buys sets of these and distributes them.  In itself, this must constitute an impressive feat of complex organisation and canny budget allocation.

About twenty members from various Wakefield reading groups attended.  The morning began with refreshments, during which participants were given the opportunity to examine the next round of suggested titles and make their choices.  We then split into three groups.  Three books were being discussed, Peter May’s The Blackhouse, Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone and my own In the Family.  The facilitators were Alison Cassels’ colleague, Lynn, Julie Walker, Operations and Development Manager for Kirklees Library Service, and myself.

It turned out that so many of the participants had read all three novels that I and my fellow facilitators led consecutive sessions with all three groups.  At the end of the morning, Julie chaired a wrap-up session about crime fiction more generally and we discussed our favourite books in the genre.  We then broke for lunch.  In the afternoon, more people joined the groups to listen to my reading of two short excerpts from In the Family and Almost Love, as part of a session during which we discussed how I write and how I originally managed to get published; the audience put to me more questions (some of them very searching indeed) about my novels.  At the close, Richard Knowles of Rickaro Books, in Horbury, sold copies of both books.

I don’t recall having enjoyed an event – whether or not it featured other authors or myself and my own writing – more than I enjoyed yesterday’s.  I say this, not from reasons of vanity, but because I have never before had the opportunity to get as close to readers and what they really think.  The eloquence and perceptiveness of the reading group members, and the fact that they had spent so much time on really engaging with In the Family, was truly humbling.  I took much pleasure in listening to Pauline when she explained why she enjoyed the passages of dialogue – particularly that which takes place during Hedley Atkins’ and Peter Prance’s train journey to Scotland – and how much she identified with Hedley’s frustration when he missed the train to Liverpool, in spite of his sinister intent; and to Jane, for taking the trouble to create a family tree for the Atkins family.  Other reading group members quizzed me for more information about Salt Publishing, about the history of Lincolnshire, about how DI Tim Yates will develop in subsequent books and – in true, straightforwardly friendly, Yorkshire fashion – about what I could say to persuade them to buy Almost Love!  I said that it does develop Tim’s character further, as they’d hoped, and that it contains quite a lot of history and more of the dialogue that they’d obviously enjoyed.

If any of yesterday’s participants are reading this, I’d like you to know that I think you are amazing.  I was grateful beyond words for your generosity in investing so much time, both in the event itself and in reading the books, as well as, of course, for your buying them.  I do hope that I shall have the opportunity to meet you again.

I’d like to conclude with a special thank-you to Alison, who provided me with excellent hospitality. Wakefield Library Service is an old friend, with which I first became acquainted in the late 1970s.  It has always enjoyed a fine reputation as a distinguished and innovative library authority.  From the start, therefore, I knew that yesterday would succeed, but the magic of the day, created by a combination of impeccable organisation by Alison, Lynn and their colleagues and the wonderful enthusiasm of all the participants involved, both from the reading groups and other members of the public, made it truly unforgettable.

Congratulations, Wakefield!

Pauline and I continue our discussion after the event

Part of the lovely audience at Bawtry Community Library

I gave my first talk in a library yesterday, at Bawtry Community Library, near Doncaster. It had been requested by Claire Holcroft and George Spencer, of Doncaster Library Service, and immaculately organised by Lesley Gilfedder at the library itself. Despite the rain and the fact that it coincided with the local school play, about twenty people attended. It was a lively and appreciative audience; most of its members had read more crime novels than I have, even though I’m a self-confessed addict, and several of them had detailed personal knowledge of the part of Lincolnshire which I write about. I felt that I learnt at least as much from them as they from me.

I gave two short readings, one from In the Family and one from Almost Love. I was asked about the characters and, especially, about why I’d chosen to make a dysfunctional family the focus of In the Family. We talked a lot about the atmospheric qualities of the Fens and about past writers who have described them, especially Charles Dickens and Dorothy L. Sayers. We discussed plots and plot construction, how to make them work, whether it’s possible to change the plot mid-novel and how to avoid inconsistencies. Several of the audience kindly bought copies of the books.

I took some cakes (I’ve decided to make this one of my trademarks!) and, when the organised part of the evening was over, no-one was in a hurry to leave. Lesley, ever efficient, made tea and coffee and we all stayed to talk.

Of course, I know about public library cutbacks, but I had no idea how swingeing they have been in some authorities or how magnificently local communities have responded in order to save their libraries. Bawtry is a lovely library: it has a cared-for look; there are bright paintings on the walls; the stock is impeccably arranged and there is a large children’s area where the floor has been carpeted in multi-coloured tiles to aid the playing of games and telling of stories. It keeps full opening hours and, as last night, is also sometimes open late. All of this is achieved by volunteers. It has about ninety of them, typically working three-hour shifts. As well as manning the library, they clean it and care for the grounds. They’ve been operating this arrangement for eighteen months and, so far, not one volunteer has dropped out. I understand that most of the other libraries that come under the aegis of the Doncaster local authority are also run in this way, though not all manage to keep such long opening hours as Bawtry.

I am amazed and full of admiration, tinged also with a little bit of shame. The public library charter entitles people to the right to borrow books from a local library, yet the people of Bawtry would not be able to do this if so many of them were not prepared to give up their own time to make it work. It is both a huge local achievement and a national scandal that this state of affairs should exist.

I’d therefore like this post to stand as a tribute to the wonderful people from Bawtry whom I met yesterday and to all their friends and colleagues who continue to make the library the vibrant hub of their community. Thank you. And especial thanks to Lesley, for all your unobtrusive hard work behind the scenes.

Elaine Aldred and Christina James at Bawtry Community Library

In January, I wrote about a train journey to London during which I observed my fellow passengers and assessed them for potential as fictional murderers.

Yesterday, I made another train journey, this time to Cambridge.  I didn’t set out with this intention, but, by the journey’s conclusion, I had been compelled by an uncharacteristic bout of Swiftian disgust to appraise the potential of some of my travelling companions as murder victims.

The journey from Wakefield began in a civilised manner, until the train pulled into Grantham.  There, a group of schoolchildren boarded, evidently bound for some kind of daytrip destination (possibly London – this was the King’s Cross train).  I say ‘schoolchildren’ – they were fifteen or sixteen, possibly first-year sixth formers.  Until that point, I had been occupying a table to myself.  Three of them joined me, two girls taking the seats opposite and a boy the one beside me.

The boy was very polite.  The girls were shrill horrors, bred on a diet of Hello and reality TV.  One of them was particularly inane.  She made it quite obvious that she fancied the boy.  She asked him what time he’d got up that morning.  He replied 5.30 a.m. – he’d had to do his paper round before setting out.  She said that she herself had got up at 6.30 a.m. – and it was a good thing that she did, because she, like, put on the T-shirt she meant to wear today and there were, like, two inches of bra sticking out at the top.  Cue: shrieks of laughter from both girls.  She then asked which of her companions would like to play ‘I-Spy’. (I was astonished at this choice of game, which most self-respecting ten-year-olds of my acquaintance would have scorned.) The other girl declined.  The boy – still patiently polite – agreed.  ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with t,’ said the first girl.  ‘Train!’ said the boy.  Another burst of giggles.  ‘I don’t believe it!’ she said.  ‘However did you, like, guess that first time around?’

I was joined on the Cambridge connection by a tall young man with Jesus hair and a Tonto headband.  He was dressed in an Afghan-style coat and was reading a book on philosophy.  He seemed a pleasant enough travelling companion until he yawned.  I was assaulted by breath fouler than could have poured from the mouths of half a dozen dragons after a brimstone-eating spree.  I moved to the seat beside mine so that he and I were diagonally opposite each other.  A middle-aged woman then boarded and sat next to him.  She was immaculately dressed, all her golden curls sprayed firmly into place.  She was clutching a cup of Costa coffee.  I looked up a few minutes later:  The white plastic lid of the coffee was smeared all over with her red-orange lipstick; so was her face.  She took a packet of Monster Munchies from her bag; they were pickled onion flavour!

At Ely, another tall young man joined us.  I stood up so that he could take the seat opposite dragon-breath.  Their long legs clashed.  The newcomer smelt even worse than his counterpart.  It wasn’t just his breath: he had an all-over aroma of mingled mould and sweat.

I was delighted and relieved when I could finally disembark.  Cambridge station, drab at the best of times, had never seemed so inviting. Jonathan Swift, I am sure, would have imagined eloquent and appropriate comeuppances for their various vile traits.  I could think only about who might murder them and how.  Motive would not have been a problem… but engaging the reader’s sympathy for the victims?  Perhaps a little more of a challenge!

I first learnt of Murielle’s Angel on the social networks.  It is the debut novel of Mary Jane Howell, who is married to one of my husband’s university friends.  Though I don’t know Mary Jane well, this is the first novel I have read by someone who was an acquaintance before she became a writer.  I have friends who are writers, but that is because they are writers, if I may make the distinction.

It is piquant to read a book by someone whom you not only know but of whose circumstances you also have a little knowledge.  The book is about Rosemary, a middle-aged woman who undertakes the pilgrimage of Santiago di Compostella.  I am aware that the author herself made this pilgrimage some years ago; there are also other aspects of Rosemary’s personal life that seem to coincide with Mary Jane’s.  The novel, however, is described as a fictionalised account of the pilgrimage and I won’t therefore be foolish enough to fall into the trap of assuming that it is thinly-disguised autobiography!  I recognise from my own writing that characters can display certain traits or characteristics of people that I know, including myself, whilst remaining fictional creations nevertheless, and I’ve been much amused by readers who’ve told me with great certainty that they ‘knew’ who some of my characters were based on.  For example, someone told me that she recognised the original of Henry Bevelton in In the Family.  To my knowledge, Henry is entirely fictitious and not based on anyone at all!

Cinnamon Press, its publisher, describes Murielle’s Angel as a modern take on The Canterbury Tales.  This is true in the sense that it tells of how a disparate group of people are thrown together, united only by the common purpose of making the pilgrimage; but, unlike Chaucer’s, these pilgrims don’t entertain each other by whiling away evenings and rest periods telling stories; instead, each has a story which the author herself outlines and pursues cleverly, drawing out the threads with admirable economy of detail.  There is Stefan, who was brought up in an orphanage and has staked his whole career and possessions on producing a film; Ria, a doctor who is a workaholic seeking to restore some balance to her life and using the temporary separation to re-evaluate her relationship with her partner (interesting parallels and contrasts are drawn between her life and Rosemary’s); Dominic, who is a bit of a chancer and of dubious morality – he is a type, someone we have all met on campsites and ferries, the kind of person who latches on to others in a hail-fellow-well-met sort of way and wants something in return – but for Dominic, too, there is a sad story behind the bravado;  then there is a host of minor characters who criss-cross the narrative at intervals – two Canadian nurses, a grotesquely amorous widower, two groups of Germans.

Like Chaucer’s, these modern pilgrims have many reasons for committing to the pilgrimage, none of them overtly religious.  Each is trying to ‘find’ himself or herself through the combined abandonment of routine and the privations that the journey entails.  There is a strong sexual undercurrent throughout, although only one description of sexual consummation, and that between two minor characters.  The author shows that the unfamiliarly liberal circumstances created by a group of strangers being thrown together encourages an often unwelcome removal of inhibitions.  Rosemary herself is propositioned on several occasions and is sometimes disgusted, sometimes flattered, by these attentions.

For me, the novel dips briefly about two thirds of the way through, when the combination of apparent moral aimlessness and the dissatisfaction of several of the characters with what they are achieving as pilgrims suddenly tipped me into, if not boredom, at least a bewildered questioning of where it was all leading.  But I was too impatient, because it is at this point that Murielle, who has been hovering around the periphery for some time, now takes centre stage.  Terminally ill, she is unable to continue further on foot (even with the help of a little cheating on public transport) and takes refuge in the house of a priest.  The relationship between Murielle and the priest is exquisitely drawn.  He is her spiritual guide as she prepares for death, but also, the author hints delicately, totally (although of course hopelessly) in love with her.  It is an act of love that unites all the characters of the novel, as they admire the mural that Murielle has painted on the side of the priest’s house to thank him for his care.  Their reaction is unanimously of joy and laughter.  It is the priest who teaches Murielle that you owe service especially to those who love you more than you love them.  It is a lesson that each of the main characters takes on board, each in his or her own way.

Murielle’s Angel is beautifully written; it is sad, yet uplifting; it is a brilliant achievement, one of the best debut novels that I have read.  I’d not heard of Cinnamon Press before I bought it, but it is a publisher whose books I shall look out for now.  If you’re looking for some fine writing and an extraordinary narrative to take on holiday, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.

The Salt crime writing event that took place at Waterstones Gower Street yesterday was a very festive occasion. Sam Rahman, the Events Manager at the shop, her colleagues and a large and appreciative audience combined to make it a great success.

Laura Ellen Joyce, Matthew Pritchard and I each gave readings from our books. Laura read from The Museum of Atheism, which (jointly with In the Family) launched the Salt crime list last November. I read from Almost Love and Matthew from Scarecrow, which Salt will publish in September. Afterwards, I chaired a discussion with Laura and Matthew about their writing. The audience joined in, offering many lively and perceptive comments.

Both Matthew and Laura agreed that a sense of place was important to their writing. Laura chose to set her book in small-town America in the dead of winter – there is no daylight in the novel – to epitomise the corruption that it portrays. Matthew writes powerfully about Andalucia, which he knows well, having lived and worked there for twelve years. Laura agreed with the suggestion that she describes a rudderless society in which no character is able to provide a moral yardstick or compass. Matthew said that the corruption captured in his work derives more directly from his knowledge of shady Spanish officialdom. Danny Sanchez, the protagonist of Scarecrow, is a journalist who bravely tries to expose the fraudulence and self-interest upon which he sees that Spanish politics is based.

Laura had deliberately left vague the identity of the killer in her book, because, in a sense, she was indicating that society as a whole was to blame. Matthew had had the intention right from the start to write about a serial killer, but the character of the killer took shape in his mind gradually as he worked on the book and continued to read about real-life murders. An account of how the head of one of Fred and Rosemary West’s victims had been swathed in gaffer tape had left a particularly lasting impression on his imagination.

There was much laughter from the audience at Matthew’s anecdote about how, when the shop below his flat caught fire recently, the police broke into the flat and discovered his large collection of books about serial killers and Nazism scattered over the floor. There was even more laughter when I persistently made the mistake of calling him ‘Danny’, after his hero, rather than Matthew! (Apparently, it is a mistake that his agent makes, too!)

Laura confirmed that she will continue to write crime because she has a profound interest in why people commit evil or anti-social acts. She’s also interested in pushing out the boundaries of fiction. When, in response to a question from one of the audience about what I thought the ‘next big thing’ in crime writing would be, I said that I’ve seen several books lately that mix genres and I’m not sure that it works, Laura said that this idea appealed to her and that she would like to experiment with it. I do think that it would take a very good writer to pull it off, but Laura is so accomplished that she is one of the few people I know who might succeed at it.

I was asked why most crime novels are about murder, rather than other types of crime, such as theft or fraud. I said that there are some novels based on theft – there is quite a strong sub-genre relating to crimes associated with works of fine art, for example – but it is difficult to write about crimes other than murder unless you are a police procedural author. This sub-genre has never appealed to me; I’m more interested in the psychological aspect of crime-writing.

We were all asked whether we’d come to writing ‘lately’, or whether we’ve always been writers. We agreed that we’ve all been writing ever since we can remember. Asked also whether we had to let a novel ‘fade’ from our imaginations after we’d finished it before we could embark upon another, we each offered different responses: Matthew writes all the time and is usually working on several books at once – he knocks out 2,000 words a day, even if sometimes he knows it is rubbish and he will have to discard some of it; Laura writes regularly, but in different genres – she writes short stories between novels and also said that she was very organised when writing The Museum of Atheism which, with a detailed outline on a spreadsheet, she wrote in twenty-four days, a chapter a day, all in November, following the NaNoWriMo concept; I usually take a brief break after completing a novel, but I’ve started on the next DI Yates book now. I feel that being an author is a bit like being a member of the fashion industry: your mind is already on the next season’s work while your readers are still consuming this season’s product.

We all paid tribute to Salt Publishing, which we agreed is an uncompromising publisher setting high standards. We were also united in saying that we aren’t interested in the ‘blood-and-guts’ style of crime writing.

On behalf of the three of us, I’d like to thank Sam and the staff at Gower Street for their wonderful hospitality. I’d especially like to thank all of you who attended for being such a generous and receptive audience, for making such constructive contributions to the discussion and, of course, for buying or ordering our books! It was good to meet some new friends – some of whom I’ve only previously ‘met’ through Twitter. Finally, a big thank-you to numerous well-wishers who were unable to come (some of you based in countries very far away), but who sent kind and encouraging messages and helped to advertise the occasion. We hope to meet you all one day at future events.

All in all, it was a very memorable evening indeed!

The intimate surroundings of Leeds City Varieties

I spent yesterday evening at Leeds City Varieties, watching the Reduced Shakespeare Company [RSC!] giving its version of The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged: a wonderful performance, hilarious and exhilarating.  The City Varieties provides a fitting venue; it is one of Yorkshire’s great Victorian theatres (Leeds is doubly blessed: it also has the Grand Theatre, now home to Opera North) and is the site of many decades of performances that, like this one, demand participation from the audience.

In case you’re not familiar with it, The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged is a comedy which aims to restore the bard to the public conscious by evoking helpless laughter from its audiences.  It is very funny and gently satirical. Reed Martin and Austin Tichenor, the authors, are from the USA and jokingly assert that they ‘thought Shakespeare was American.’  More seriously, they say that they were disturbed by a recent survey that suggests that today’s children have not heard of Shakespeare and that more than a quarter of adults haven’t read his plays.  So they set out to put the record straight.  It’s a touring production and it will have visited forty different towns and cities in the UK by the end of this year.

Every play is covered, though some are just mentioned by name – in the case of several of the comedies, by an amalgamation of parts of all their names and plots.  The actors, Gary Fannin, Matt Rippy and Matthew Pearson are quick-change artists.  Gary Fannin in particular amuses with his pained expressions and Matthew Pearson with his very unlovely and regurgitative renderings (he values excessive vomit!) of Shakespeare’s most famous heroines: his Juliet is a sturdy lass who sulks and has tantrums; his Ophelia looks as if she has been rolling in a midden.

Almost the whole of the second part of the performance is devoted to Hamlet and the trio surpasses itself when offering (forwards and backwards!) its version of what for me is Shakespeare’s greatest play.  These three actors also, incidentally, demonstrate through their delivery of ‘straight’ snippets that they are capable of orating Shakespeare ‘properly’ if they choose.  Taken as a whole, The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged is about much more than slapstick.  Nevertheless, the choreography and timing of the knockabout scenes has been honed to perfection: the actors are so nimble that their movements are almost balletic.

Despite prancing, dancing, running, fighting, wooing and declaiming on the stage for almost two hours, the cast of three was game for meeting members of the audience afterwards to sign programmes.  I happened to descend the stairs of the theatre just as they were setting up their table for this and all three of them signed mine.  They must be the first autographs I’ve collected in thirty years, unless you count copies of novels presented to me by their authors when I was a bookseller!

I’m very grateful to my husband’s colleagues for inviting us to the play, and especially to Julia for getting the tickets; it isn’t the first time that she has gathered us in this charming music hall setting, familiar to followers of the BBC’s ‘Good Old Days’ programme which went out for decades, with Leonard Sachs as the compère who alliterated for a living.  I’d like her to know that this was the best evening out I’ve had this year. Afterwards, we walked through the streets of Leeds in the dusk and enjoyed a meal together.  Leeds has long been my favourite English city and is at its best in the early summer.  An enchanting and enchanted evening, indeed.

If you get the chance to see this play, don’t turn it down!

Richard Knowles and Christina James at Rickaro Books, Horbury

I went to Wakefield One last Friday, in order to discuss the details of the programme for 29^th June with Alison Cassels, the librarian who’s in charge of events there.  It’s a truly spectacular new library and events centre and well worth a visit if you’re in the area.  It’s heart-warming to think that in these days of austerity and cutbacks there is still investment being made in such buildings, so important for promoting reading and holding local communities together.

During the course of our conversation, Alison mentioned that she’d ordered copies of both my books for the event.  The library has itself bought copies of In the Family for its reading group (a very generous action which I applaud!) and has also ordered copies of it and Almost Love for those attending the session to purchase if they want to.  I asked Alison who was supplying them and she said it was Rickaro Books of Horbury.  It’s a bookshop that I’ve long been meaning to visit, because its proprietor is Richard Knowles, who many moons ago was my first boss.  I e-mailed Richard to ask him if I could drop in with some Christina James postcards and he got back to me immediately.  We agreed that I would call yesterday.

It seems particularly fitting that my visit should have taken place this week, which marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of my appointment to the library supply company in Normanton where my bookselling career started.  Richard, then the manager, had many idiosyncratic interests which married well with bookselling: he was an authority on mediaeval armour and effigies and both wrote about and collected books on them.  He liked antiquarian and private press books and had a fine collection of these, and read everything that he could lay his hands on about or by T.E. Lawrence.  He was also fond of the poetry of Edward Thomas.  Other interests included motor-bikes and collie dogs.  He had a small child’s aversion to vegetables and liked nothing better than a currant bun filled with cheese for lunch, bought from the bakery on the corner.  Main courses he could take or leave, but he loved puddings and chocolate.  I once walked nine miles to work through snow drifts after the bus failed to materialise; he must have been impressed, because he gave me the chocolate bar he had earmarked for his elevenses!

I last saw him about twenty years ago (at the Scottish Library Association Conference in Peebles), but truly he hasn’t changed very much.  A little more ‘distinguished’, perhaps, and now wearing spectacles, but otherwise he could have stepped straight out of 1978.

Rickaro Books, Horbury

Rickaro Books is exactly what I had expected: a deep Aladdin’s Cave of intriguing antiquarian and second-hand books, with a smaller but select stockholding of new titles.  It even has a resident collie dog – Tilly – who lies under the cash desk.  I didn’t ask him whether he comes to work on a motorbike; I suppose that Tilly would make this difficult, but otherwise I wouldn’t be surprised.  I note with amusement that there is a baker’s shop just a few doors away and wonder whether its currant buns are up to the mark.

Richard said that he’d set up the shop thirteen years ago.  He has a loyal local following and the library business, for special orders of new titles, is important to him.  His customers for the antiquarian books are scattered throughout the world.  He spends much of his time packing parcels to despatch to them.  I didn’t buy any of the antiquarian books, but I did leave with two of Anne Cleeves’ titles, having been encouraged to read her by comments on the social networks.

Rickaro Books is a delightful place and one that I shall certainly visit again.   I’ve already threatened to present myself for duty in the run-up to Christmas!  It’s encouraging that booksellers like Richard can not only survive, but thrive, by building a business such as this, almost entirely on traditional lines; excellent also that Rickaro’s worth is recognised by the local library service.

Richard says that he and his wife plan to come to the event at Wakefield One on 29^th June.  I am pleased and touched that they are going to the trouble of rearranging their afternoon. After a gap of twenty years, two meetings in the space of two weeks!  Like fine old books, old bookselling friendships mellow with age and perhaps get a little dusty, but they don’t disintegrate.

If anyone reading this would like to attend the event at Wakefield One, it starts at 2 p.m. on Saturday 29^th June.  I shall be giving readings from both books and talking about how I came to write them, as well as offering tips on how to get published.

Tilly, the bookshop collie

Early summer morning from the bedroom window

I was awoken in the early hours, just as dawn was breaking, by my husband – trying to punch me in the face!  No, I’m not a battered wife: he’s just a very vivid dreamer.  On occasions, he has dreamt that he’s a wolf, or is being pursued through the streets with a crowd following him.  This time, apparently, he was trying to ward off a street seller who was persuading him forcibly to buy a fizzy drink.  I take heart that my strictures about junk food have found root in his subconscious!

It’s surprising that we get any sleep at all at this time of year, what with the dog demanding to be let out at all hours so that he can eat grass or bark at hedgehogs and the cat, who is small but fierce, keening like a banshee below the bedroom window to defend his territory from the large and thuggish tom-cat next door.  This morning, as my husband and I lay awake in the dawn listening to these various noises, we heard the (temporarily) local cuckoo.

“There’s the cuckoo,” he said, “unless it’s Fred again.”

I was trying to get back to sleep, but my ears pricked up.

“What do you mean, unless it’s Fred again?”

“Didn’t I tell you?  Fred impersonates birds really well.  He has a whole range in his repertoire.  He does a really good cuckoo.  He said that a cuckoo came right up to his house the other day, before it realised that it was only a human and flew off again.”

I considered.  I’ve been writing enthusiastically about hearing the cuckoos for weeks now.  Since Fred has seen at least one of them, and it’s unlikely that in fact it was he out there before 5 a.m. today, it can’t always have been his impersonations that I’ve heard.  Nevertheless, if you should happen to look over my recent cuckoo posts again, I feel duty bound to warn you that all the cuckoo noises I’ve recorded may not have emanated from cuckoos.  Instead, a burly Yorkshireman named Fred may have been responsible.

Nothing else in my day today matched its surreal beginning!  Perhaps I’m going cuckoo!

I’m delighted and very proud to discover that Almost Love has been chosen as the British Crime novel of the month by The English Bookshop in Uppsala.  I asked Jan Smedh, who, with his business partner Christer, is joint proprietor of the shop, if I could call him.  He kindly agreed to talk to me today, although he was busy making final preparations for his absence: he and his wife and three sons are about to leave for a holiday in Greece.

Jan told me that every month he chooses books for his reading groups and his book club.  There are three reading groups: one for the Book of the Month, one for classics and (in Stockholm – he and Christer have just opened another shop there) one for children’s books.  The book club operates as a subscription service.  It has between fifty and sixty members scattered throughout Sweden.  They choose the category to which they wish to subscribe and are each month sent a book in that category that Jan has chosen.  They do not know in advance what the title will be.

He chooses titles from six categories altogether: the Book of the Month, which is always a literary novel; British Crime, ‘Tough’ Crime, Paranormal, Fantasy and Science Fiction.  He tries to introduce a spread of themes and to get a balance between male and female authors and authors from different countries; for example, he has featured Asian authors who write in English.  His choices are pretty unerring: his customers always seem to like them.

Jan said that when he read the description of Almost Love, he ‘loved it at once’.  (I’m blushing as I write!) He tries to pick books by authors from small publishers that aren’t necessarily well-known, rather than blockbusters.  The subject of Almost Love seems to be exactly what his readers are looking for: it has a bit of history, a bit of archaeology, some local background, a good plot and a strong psychological element.  He says that his favourite customer is ‘someone who leaves the shop with a book that they didn’t know that they wanted.’  His copies of Almost Love have yet to arrive (there has been a slight delay in the printing, caused by MPG’s having gone into receivership two weeks ago), but they should reach the shop next Monday, so he didn’t know until I told him that there is also a Scandinavian element to the plot.  He was delighted about this.

Jan learned about Almost Love from a Scottish publishers’ rep who carries titles from several independent publishers.  His name is Stuart Siddall.  I had not heard of him before, but I shall certainly get in touch with him now and I should like to take this opportunity to thank him.

I asked Jan about the inspiration for The English Bookshop.  He said that he and Christer came up with the idea for it in 1995.  They received no financial backing; they raised all the money themselves.  Christer was already working in the bookselling industry (largely in the academic sector), so he had the contacts with UK publishing companies, who were therefore prepared to set up accounts for the new venture.  It would not have been possible without their support.  Jan’s own background is in communications and the business has benefited a great deal from this.  It is he who designs the graphics for the website.  He is prolific on the social networks and the shop has very active Facebook and Twitter accounts.  He says that the key thing with social networking is to be consistent.  He has worked hard to build up a loyal customer following and he knows he must maintain their interest by continually being there for them. His own love of books goes back to his childhood.  He also speaks impeccable English: he explained that he has lived in Cork and has also visited the UK (he would like to see much more of it) and the USA.

95% of The English Bookshop’s customers are Swedish, though there is an ex-pat community in Uppsala, which is a university town (Jan describes it as ‘the Oxbridge of Sweden’).  Most Swedes read English, and Jan’s customers are getting younger: some twelve-year-olds now buy books in English.  Uppsala is also Sweden’s religious centre and the city in which the Monarch is crowned.  It is Sweden’s fourth largest city and not huge, but it has the weight of history behind it and is home to many very well-educated people.  Jan and Christer made the conscious decision to stay away from university course texts: they wanted their bookshop to provide leisure reading.  By this, he doesn’t mean that all the books he sells are ‘light’: his readers like books about many subjects, as well as fiction.  British history, books about war and books about psychology are all popular.  Sales of non-fiction titles are growing; also crime fiction and children’s titles.  The Swedish government has now set up English language schools, which means that parents are looking for books in English for their children.  The English Bookshop tries hard to keep abreast of the continually changing interests of the local community and its unique stockholding reflects this.  Jan says that ‘other bookshops aren’t doing this any more; there’s often a drab uniformity about what’s available from the big chains.’  Smaller publishers often complain that it’s difficult to get a proper presence in them.   This view would certainly resonate with Salt, whose many distinguished authors often struggle to get adequate shelf-space in chain bookshops.  It would also be endorsed by the UK’s many excellent independent booksellers, some of whom Jan knows.  He has met Jane Streeter, a former President of the Booksellers Association, and is himself a member of the BA, for which he has a high regard.

In the last six years the turnover of The English Bookshop in Uppsala has doubled, enabling it to open the second shop in Stockholm.  Jan says that this ‘goes against the grain’ of Swedish bookselling generally, so he feels that he and Christer ‘must be doing something right.’  I’d say they were doing a great deal right!  The business is now eighteen years old.

It was delightful to have the opportunity to talk to Jan, and I am very grateful to him for giving me so much of his time and as well, of course, for choosing Almost Love.  I now have an open invitation to visit The English Bookshop, which I am determined to take up.  I’d like to visit the one in Stockholm, too!  I wish Jan and his family a very happy holiday indeed in Greece.  If any of his customers should read this, I’d also like offer you a big thank you and to say that I very much hope that you will enjoy Almost Love.  Perhaps we may meet in the bookshop one day.

Yesterday, I was in London again for the day job.  I had four meetings, all of which went according to plan, and topped off the day by attending the Author Publisher Dialogues, sponsored by the All Party Publishing Group and the All Party Writers Group, which took place at Portcullis House in the early evening.  I have attended author events in the House of Commons before, but I hadn’t previously visited Portcullis House.  It is an ultra-modern construction of steel and glass that faces the House, apparently used as a kind of overflow building.

Unsurprisingly, security was tight.  There was an airport-style scanner, through which my bags and jacket had to be passed, and several security officials were on duty.  (I wonder what they made of the contents of my laptop bag, which by that stage in the day contained not only the computer, but also three books acquired from the wonderful help-yourself stash that sits permanently in the basement of one of the publishers I visit, an assortment of toiletries from Boots, some greetings cards from a nice shop that I know and two packets of apple and cinnamon hot cross buns from the Marks and Spencers in Chancery Lane.)  Belongings retrieved, I was asked to wear a lanyard with a time-stamped badge proclaiming that I had been checked. Now labelled with this cross between kitemark and sell-by date, I was directed upstairs to a sort of glass-enclosed gallery, the walls of which were decorated with portraits of eminent politicians.  I recognised Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher and Shirley Williams, all painted to look remarkably like each other, if that doesn’t sound too far-fetched.

The event took place in the Macmillan Room, named presumably after Harold Macmillan, who was both publisher and politician (I met him once, but that’s a different story!).  It was chaired by Tristram Hunt MP, who is Chair of the APPG; he’s also a journalist and broadcaster. One of the speakers, Kwasi Kwarteng, is also an MP as well as being a published author: his most recent book is entitled Ghosts of Empire.  (The two other author speakers were Professor Peter Atkins and Susan Standring, who has been responsible for several of the most recent editions of Gray’s Anatomy.) Hunt is a Labour politician and Kwarteng a Tory, but they seemed to be fairly united in their views on how much government should contribute to publishing.  They were careful to say that the publishing industry is so successful that it needs no financial help from government, but they also indicated that they are staunch supporters of copyright law.  As both are published writers, this was to be expected, but also what the audience wanted to hear.  One of the reasons why publishers have stepped up their presence at such events in recent years is that there are certain factions in government which would like to pass legislation distinctly threatening to copyright as we know it.  I shall write about this in a separate post and I’ll also report on the event itself at a later date, too.  This is meant to be a light-hearted account!

As in the House of Commons itself, each room in Portcullis House is fitted with a television screen that tells the occupants which MP is speaking and on what subject.  A shrill bell rings for several minutes when it is time for them to vote.  Our two MPs rushed off when this happened, leaving the other speakers to hold the fort.  Stoically, they kept on speaking throughout the din and, although it was impossible to hear what they said, their Dunkirk spirit filled me with pride.  Theirs was such a very British approach.

The end of the event coincided with a mass exodus of MPs.  When I emerged from the Macmillan Room, there was a long crocodile of them walking two-by-two down the glass corridor at funereal pace, feet turned outwards, murmuring inaudibly to each other.  Young or old, each was exhibiting this same distinctive behaviour.  It reminded me of the sequences in Jurassic Park of the dinosaur herbivores moving peacefully and slowly through the undergrowth.  I wondered if MPs need training to walk in this way or whether it comes naturally when you are Running the Country.

It was unsettling on my way out to encounter, standing at the exit, a policeman who was carrying what looked like a small Kalashnikov (sorry, I’m not well up on guns).  That policemen in European countries are routinely armed seems unexceptional – it helps that sometimes their guns look like toys – but I’ve always found it disquieting to see officials on UK soil bearing arms.  I remember the sense of shock I felt when I bumped into a group of paratroopers in Northern Ireland once, their weapons at the ready.  This policeman was friendly, though.  When I said, ‘Don’t shoot!’, he replied, ‘No, I won’t, I’m not in the mood tonight!’

The government has been claiming that the recession is ending for so long now that its statistics have lost every shred of credibility as far as I’m concerned.  However, I do have my own very scientific way of taking the temperature of the economic climate.  It involves London taxi drivers.  For at least the past two years, hailing a taxi in London has been easier than falling off a log.  You’ve only needed to step out into the road and six have appeared, their yellow ‘cab free’ lights twinkling.  The successful cabbie has then regaled me for the entire journey with his views on the direness of the economy and his considered opinion that Armageddon has arrived.  It may have been partly because I was in the, for me, more chi-chi than normal environs of Westminster that a good two dozen cabs passed me in the space of fifteen minutes, all with their lights switched firmly off.  I nevertheless conclude that taxi firms are booming once again – and therefore also the businesses that they serve.

Panicking that I would miss my train, I was forced to double back to the underground.  The tube train I boarded chugged along imperturbably, with extra delays at Victoria and Green Park.  Eventually I reached King’s Cross with three minutes to spare and sprinted across the concourse before collapsing in my reserved seat in a most unladylike fashion.  I was so much revived by a steward bearing tea (and, eventually, a gin-and-tonic) that I was even able to attempt a bit of writing on the two-hour journey home.

It was quite an exhilarating day.  At its conclusion, the animals lay in wait, each reacting in his own way to my absence: the dog greeted me ecstatically; the cat turned his back to punish me for my desertion.