A clever, playfully uncanny debut collection that has left me looking forward to more of Guy Ware’s writing’ – You Have 24 Hours To Love Us by Guy Ware

Guy Ware’s debut short story collection is called You Have 24 Hours To Love Us. It took me roughly that amount of time to read through it for the first time and immediately fall in love with the author’s style. Ware’s take on life is original and thought-provoking but not without a hint of humour. In ‘In Plain Sight’, a chicken farmer Stan in a far away country is suddenly put under blockade by a government led by a President and a General Weedon from the other side of the world. ‘You have twenty-four hours to love us,’ they tell him. Read on

‘I struggle to see why this book became a bestseller in France and Spain’ – The Taste of Apple Seeds by Katherina Hagena

When Katharina Hagena’s latest novel The Taste of Apple Seeds (translated from German by Jamie Bulloch) landed in my lap, I was hoping for a similar exquisite pleasure as I experienced when I read Jenny Erpenbeck’s Visitation. There is a house here too, also in Germany. There are several generations, their stories tangled up around a family secret. There is even a lake. But here the similarities end.   Read on

The indecisive donkey

I have been trying to write simultaneously in Russian and in English. Not at the same time, a pen in each hand, of course! But two novels - or whatever they will become - at once. The reason for such foolish behaviour is that I just cannot choose which one to write first. I am like that donkey that starved itself because it couldn't choose which pile of hay to eat.

The thing is, Russian is not just my native language, the language I feel most comfortable in, but it also corresponds to a very different side of my personality. Even the tonality of my voice changes when I speak Russian. And since it has been a while since I properly used it, played with it, I feel so drawn to it at the moment that I just cannot resist.

The characters of my two literary lives correspond to the language I am writing in too, which shoudn't really surprise me but it still does. I am completely in love with my English character George and I just cannot bear to leave him for too long. Besides, he's old and I'm a bit worried about him while I'm gallivanting with my younger Russian protagonist! And so here I am - a day of writing wasted because I couldn't choose who and in which language to spend it with.

I might try to wear, eat or listen to something that reminds me of Russia on my Russian writing days, and do the same for the English ones. Let's see if that works - wish me luck!

PS. I have finished All The Beggars Riding by Lucy Caldwell and it's brilliant - read full review here in a couple of weeks.

PPS. I haven't submitted anything this month yet, and the time is ticking...Better hurry up. For now I'm consoling myself with the fact that school doesn't start until tomorrow and my son has been very audibly getting bored without me while I have been trying to write. His favourite 'Mummy pay me attention' thing at the moment is to play the same thing on the piano over and over again.

New Year resolutions

These last couple of weeks of 2012 I have been reading even more than usual. I finally finished Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies and to continue the historical novel theme, I have started on The White Queen by Philippa Gregory. I've thoroughly enjoyed Guy Ware's short story collection You Have 24 Hours To Love Us (review due very shortly on Bookmunch) and I've read The Taste Of Apple Seeds by Katharina Hagena (keep checking for a link for the review too).

A new book landed in my postbox yesterday -  Lucy Caldwell's All The Beggars Riding - which I will tell you about in a few days, when I've read it. I think I will like it, judging by the first page. So a very enjoyable end of the year for me!

I have also joined the ranks of the Kindle readers, although I have to admit that I still prefer 'real' books much more. True, Kindle is convenient and light, but I will be buying the paper copy of Bring Up The Bodies anyway - I've confirmed my opinion that reading isn't just about the text. I loved the book, yes. But I would have loved the experience even more if I had read it page by paper page, leaving my own trace on them, sometimes invisible and sometimes - a sneaky stain of coffee or a crease where I sat on the book by accident. And the moment that I finished it, I would have enjoyed putting it on the special Favourite Books shelf much more than just storing it on Cloud.

 So what's the plan for the New Year? Well, loads of writing. Many hours of reading. A new, more serene me - achieved, hopefully, by my new (future) running and yoga regime. And most importantly, getting the writing out there, into the world. When I first started NotMadeForNorthernWeather, I challenged myself to read a short story a day for as long as I could. Here's the new challenge: get one piece of fiction writing out once a month. Not just write it but actually send it out. A modest challenge, I know, but in the worlds of the bulls from Selma Lagerlof's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, 'slowly but surely, slowly but surely.' And since I am myself a bull, that will suit me nicely.

 

The 2012 vote - what's your best book of the year?

I was asked to nominate the best 2012 book in my opinion for Bookmunch. Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies had already been snapped by someone quicker than me so I had to think again. My choice - Ruth Padel's The Mara Crossing - will probably become one of those books I don't forget. I've written before about this gorgeous collection and you can read my thoughts here and here. In fact, I'm glad my first idea had been taken - I am a fiction reader through and through, at least when it comes to reading in English, and so to get such a strong connection with a book of poems was unexpected. But it was the accompanying essays that sealed my fate - Padel's reflections on life and death and, most of all, migration, are exquisitely written and wrap the poems as lovingly as a perfect Christmas present.

To read more on the best of 2012, click here

‘A multi-layered, thought-provoking collection that might bring with it a bout of sweet nostalgia’ – Where Have You Been? by Joseph O’Connor

          'And through all this diversity – one theme, of family and fatherhood, whether in a personal sense or maybe in a wider meaning of our relationship to our roots, to our countries, wherever they are. Of course, for O’Connor it is Ireland, but the torturous love to one’s native land mixed with sometimes pride, sometimes, pain and embarrassment, and often unresolved feelings that a child might feel for their parent – this love is something anyone can understand without ever setting foot in Ireland...' Read the whole review here on Bookmunch.

It's all about the money, money, money...

I remember some years ago, at school, we used to have discussions such as 'Will books be replaced by television and computers and disappear completely?' Well I'm glad to see that this is much less likely to happen now than it looked back then. The Amazon book reviews scandal alone proves that books are not only very much alive but that we seem to be more interested in writing now than we were twenty years ago.Otherwise why would we be so passionate about what gets reviewed and how?

Another interesting thing is how writers used to care more about status and reputation whereas now the focus seems to be more on money. With the likes of Jordan and Britney Spears taking to writing books, and everybody and their dog having an E-book published,  the whole idea of being a published writer is taking on a completely different meaning. A few years back, only being published by a reputable publisher counted as the real thing. Now not so much. There are successful E-books out there, and successful self-published books too. Although what constitutes success at this point is becoming less and less defined. Is 50 Shades of Grey a success? Some people would say no, but then it has sold - as a trilogy - over 12 million copies in the UK alone. So is it all about sales? Is everything about sales nowadays?

On the X-Factor the other day, the biggest compliment seemed to be something along the lines of 'you will sell a lot of records'. Is this our only measure of success? If so, then no wonder that some authors would rather spend their time writing fake reviews for their own books or bad reviews of their rivals' ones than actually get on with writing.

A few years ago, someone told us, a group of creative writing students, to work out what success means to us. Being published, I thought then. Earning a living from writing. I still think these things are important. But the very core of that success is not in money, or sales figures. I doubt that this is what a writer would think about on their deathbed. The most important thing for me is to say what I have to say, in the best possible way, and hope that it would reach those who are supposed to read it.