Category Archives: Books

Someday, Someday, Maybe

Someday, Someday, Maybe

Books, Theatre

Lauren Graham will be a name familiar to some viewers of American TV shows, most notably for seven years as Lorelei Gilmore in Gilmore Girls, one half of a close mother-daughter relationship in an eccentric New England town.

Now she is striking out as a novelist. The heroine of Someday, Someday, Maybe is Frannie, who gave herself three years to make it as an actress in mid-1990s New York, and is now just six months away from her deadline.

Anybody who has even the slightest tangential knowledge of the acting industry, on whatever side of the Atlantic, will recognise the difficulties that Frannie finds herself, from struggling with auditions, humiliatingly embarrassing showcases, and potentially life-changing with agents. And while there’s an occasional retro feel to the time setting – the reliance on landlines and answer machines in particular – that also lends the feel that these are stories plucked from the actress-turned-novelist’s own life, that nevertheless ring true nearly 20 years later.

Like the characters Graham projects on television, Someday, Someday, Maybe is smart, warm, funny – and often all three at once. In Frannie, Graham has created a character you can’t help but root for, even as it’s clear when she’s making a bad decision or ignoring a situation that you suspect she’d spot coming a mile off in real life.

I’m currently listening to it on audiobook, which is read by Graham herself – and that just adds to the enjoyment, although the tradeoff is that you don’t see the facsimiles of filofax pages that are printed in the book (they’re available on the CD as PDFs, apparently, but I get my audiobooks as downloads from Audible, which excludes the extras).

How to interview almost anybody for fun and profit

Books, Media, , , , ,
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After last week’s posts about the deception, plagiarism and Wikipedia editing conducted by (see Johann Hari’s apology is a “lesson in cynicism” and And another quote about Johann Hari), it’s beneficial perhaps to remember that the vast majority of journalists aren’t actually venal, immoral, plagiarists and phone-hackers.

has been interviewing people for so long that he reckons he’s amassed over 1,000 subjects in his 23-year career. And now he’s decided to write his own, self-published ebook full of interview technique tips.

Thankfully (because he’s a mate and it would be really embarrassing if it was awful) it’s good. Really good.

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How to interview almost anybody for fun and profit5Scott Matthewman2011-09-27 12:32:49

After last week’s posts about the deception, plagiarism and Wikipedia editing conducted by Johann Hari (see Johann Hari’s apology is a “less…

Scoop

Scoop!

Books, Media, , , ,

I’m indebted to Jon Slattery for inducing a bout of nostalgia in his mention of the 1950s board game, Scoop, which he found in a Camden charity shop.

My grandmother had the same game, and seeing Jon’s photos of the box and the “editor’s phone” – a quasi-random device that determined the outcome of your attempts to fill your front page. Pulling a handle back and forth would move a circular dial with a number of options, one of which would be the editor’s decision regarding your story. It had the sort of tactile, role-playing greatness that merely rolling a die could never achieve. The whole post brings back happy memories of playing the game, kneeled around the coffee table in the front room on many a wet and dreary Doncaster day.

On the subject of newspapers and telephones, I’ve been reading Phone Hacking: How the Guardian Broke the Story, an ebook from for the (and apps on your iPhone or iPad, etc.). The doggedly pursued the story when others wouldn’t touch it – at one point in 2009, Rebekah Brooks (former News of the World editor and, until recently, CEO of News International’s UK operation) said:

It [the Guardian] is rushing out high volumes of coverage and repeating allegations by such sources as unnamed Met officers implying that ‘thousands’ of individuals were the object of illegal , an assertion that is roundly contradicted by the Met assistant commissioner’s [John Yates's] statement yesterday.

The Guardian coverage, we believe, has substantially and likely deliberately misled the British public.

Two years later, we found out that the Guardian’s coverage was spot on.

The ebook splits the developing story into a number of chronological chapters, each starting with a brief timeline before reprinting the news articles covering the unfolding story. It’s a good reminder of how the evidence against NI started piling up, until the possibility that murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s voicemail had been hacked up caused the story to blow up so spectacularly and the who had previously ignored the issue.

True, the book is basically just repackaging articles which can be read for free on the Guardian’s website, but the linear format of a book makes for more pleasant reading than jumping from web page to web page. And you can read it on the tube…

The book is the first in a planned series of Guardian Shorts, topical ebooks which provide background for current news stories. By sidestepping the traditional print route, existing content can be repurposed – and charged for – cheaply (the phone hacking book costs just £2.29 for the Kindle, and will presumably be a similar price when it makes its way to Apple’s iBooks store). There’s also a speed issue: the paper can publish a book electronically months before a bound paperback can hit the shelves. In comparison, Guardian journalist Nick Davies’ own book on the saga won’t be published until autumn 2012.

The most annoying thing about the book is that it shows up just how awful the typographical defaults of Amazon’s Kindle iOS app are. I don’t know how much freedom Amazon’s implementation of the ePub format allows designers, but both this Kindle book and others I’ve purchased make me yearn for a well-designed page. Apple’s defaults within its iBooks reader do look nicer. Still, I’ve yet to find any ebook which is as well-designed, or comfortable to read, as a paperback that’s been typeset by someone who knows what they’re doing.

Sing You Home, by Jodi Picoult

Books, LGBT, ,

It’s a while since I’ve reviewed a book – unlike my theatre reviews, I don’t have a professional sideline in the field any more, and with about & watching a lot of television and radio as well as numerous theatre trips, my recreational reading is much less frequent than it has been, or should be.

I have, however, utilised the time I spend walking and/or commuting with a subscription to Audible.co.uk, which gives me a credit for one new audiobook every month. My most recent ‘purchase’ under this scheme has been Sing You Home by American author .

It’s the first of the author’s I’ve either read or listened to, having been spurred on to investigate after seeing her do the rounds of UK daytime TV shows while I was off work ill last month. I’m glad I did, because it’s a fascinating literary look at some contemporary issues that, while maybe not bringing too much to the table for someone who’s been aware of (and at times immersed in) politics for years, demonstrate to a wider audience just what’s at stake in allowing and lesbian couples the same rights that straight couples automatically enjoy.

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This is the end, but was the moment prepared for?

Books, Doctor Who, Television, , , , , ,

A couple of weeks ago, in the regular list of [notable radio programmes](http://blogs.thestage.co.uk/tvtoday/2009/07/turn-off-the-tv-radio-picks-july-18-24/) I prepare each week, I plugged Radio 2′s relay of a recent live performance of **[Jeff Wayne's ](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lqpl7)**. That mention spurred me to listen once more to the album. This prog rock opera contains some of the most well-known riffs and melodies, but what really makes it is Richard Burton’s narration — and even more so, ’ original story.

It’s not for nothing that the original novel has become known as one of the greatest in the history of science literature. It has a real sense of terror occurring in the most mundane of places — Martians landing in Woking, of all places. And while the anonymous journalist who is our narrator makes his way to a similarly ravaged London, it’s the effect on individuals that still resonate.

The ending, though? The ending sucks.

(Despite the novel being over 100 years old, I should warn you now — _there be spoilers ahead…_)

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The Ghosts of Christmas

Books, Doctor Who, , , , , , ,

The Ghosts of Christmas cover As I said back in October, my short story, Tell Me You Love Me is going to be included in the forthcoming anthology, : The .

The Big Finish page for the book now includes an image, as well as a free PDF of one story from the collection — Faithful Friends, Part 1, by the book’s editors, Cavan Scott and Mark Wright.

It’s sad, though: my story features ’s Doctor and the original TARDIS crew. Characters that were created at least in part by, and wouldn’t be remembered today without the inimitable talents of, the late Verity Lambert, who died on Thursday.

Thank you, Verity, for creating such a remarkable series, and for letting the likes of me play in the sandbox from time to time.

Why write?

Books, Doctor Who, , , , , ,

It may be a tough question to answer, but [I love 's attempt](http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2007/10/why-write.html):

> The best thing about is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it’s about and why you’re doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising (“but of course that’s why he was doing that, and that means that…”) and it’s magic and wonderful and strange.

I wouldn’t dare try and compare myself to Gaiman — I doubt I’ll ever achieve anything like one thousandth of his talents. I’m _really_ looking forward to **Stardust**, my excitement only being tempered by the thought that the film can’t possibly compare to the novel (what film ever does?). That said, I do know what he means. _Tell Me You Love Me_ will be my first published fiction work and a short story, but there were times writing it where I just got swept up and everything came out at speed. It’s happened before with the [fanfic short stories](http://matthewman.net/category/fiction/fanfic/short-stories/) I’ve written before; the pleasure increases slightly when you know you’re being paid for it, though.

Looking back at the proof PDF which I was sent last week, those points in the story still stand out as the best bits for me. It’s the portions where I had to include exposition, to write and rewrite and rewrite again to make sure that there was sufficient explanation, that stutter and falter. In contrast, I really love the opening few pages, which are largely unchanged from the very first draft. And reading it back, months now after I first wrote them, I can really detect the influence of Gaiman’s writing style upon my own. Hopefully, as I carry on writing that will develop into my own writing style, rather than an inferior copy of somebody else’s.

I was so scared, too, that as a first time writer, my work would stick out from that of the experienced writers with whom I’m contributing to _[The ](http://matthewman.net/2007/10/02/coming-soon-the-ghosts-of-christmas/)_. But I’ve read the whole draft of the book several times now, and am beginning to feel less like the fraud I thought I may be when I was first offered the commission.

Next up, I have to decide if I’m going to have time to devote to [](http://www..org/) this year. Other pressures last year meant that I just had no spare time to devote to writing, and I’m hoping that I can spend November 2007 writing 50,000 words of a first draft.

Coming soon: The Ghosts of Christmas

Books, Doctor Who, , ,

I’ve mentioned bits and pieces about getting a short story published, without going into further detail. Now, though, my publisher has announced full details, so I can officially go public. My story, Tell Me You Love Me, is going to be published in ’s forthcoming short story anthology, Short Trips: The Ghosts of Christmas.

I’ve been so excited about this, ever since Cavan and Mark first asked me to pitch. From that point on, really, I’ve had to keep pinching myself to believe that it was actually happening.

Thanks to Mark and Cavan, who gave me some great notes back from my early drafts, I’m really quite happy with the way the story has come out. Since handing it over and getting the final draft signed off, I’ve looked back at it and wondered if I could have done various bits better (I’m sure the answer will be ‘yes’ on all fronts). I suspect, though, that I’d never be completely happy with it.

will be published in December.

Diary of a C-List Celeb

Books

At work, I’m currently working on rebuilding a [directory of Light Entertainment](http://www.showcall.co.uk/) into something that’s more useable and less admin-intensive. As such, I’m dealing with content that includes tribute bands, lookalikes, magicians and other acts that keep the smaller venues around the UK with someone to put on their stages.

As such, reading [Diary of a C-List Celeb](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/055381625X/thislitheunoffig) ought to be a bit of a busman’s holiday — but it’s a highly enjoyable one. The tale of a two-bit actor who dreams of leaving the Grimsby panto world behind for a life of celebrity — which, these days, involves breaking into television — _Diary_ is the debut work of Paul Hendy, himself a minor TV celeb.

It’s an enjoyable romp, although it hardly breaks new ground. [Basket Case](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/034068061X/thislitheunoffig) by Douglas Chirnside and [This is Your Life](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0552998494/thislitheunoffig) by John O’Farrell are two stand-outs among a highly variable crowd. It’s rare, though, to find a book that can place itself in a highly familiar environment with such a consistent wit that sustains until the end of the book, and this is where Hendy succeeds. You’ll guess every supposed ‘twist’ pretty early on, but you’ll hardly care.

A Dangerous Thing, by Josh Lanyon

Books, LGBT, Published articles, , ,

Originally published on Gay.com UK

A group of university archaeologists are camped out in a Californian forest. One of the team, of Native American descent, is convinced the place is haunted – and the weird nighttime sounds that are spooking them all out are slowly convincing the rest of them.

It sounds more like the setup for an episode of Scooby Doo than a murder mystery, but the latest novel from Men’s Press enters areas that Hanna-Barbera’s ‘Mystery Machine crew’ would never dare approach.

In A Dangerous Thing by , bookseller-turned-crime writer Adrien English escapes out to the Pine Shadow Ranch, bequeathed to him by his beloved grandmother, in the hope of overcoming his writer’s block and to sort out in his head his frustrating relationship with the S/M-obsessed LAPD detective that he met in Lanyon’s first book, Fatal Shadows.

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