Category Archives: Books

How to interview almost anybody for fun and profit

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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 12:32:49After last week’s posts about the deception, plagiarism and Wikipedia editing conducted by Johann Hari (see Johann Hari’s apology is a “less…

Scoop!

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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

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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 couples the same rights that straight couples automatically enjoy.

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

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A couple of weeks ago, in the regular list of notable radio programmes I prepare each week, I plugged Radio 2′s relay of a recent live performance of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds. 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

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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?

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It may be a tough question to answer, but I love Neil Gaiman’s attempt:

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 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 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 NaNoWriMo 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

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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. Continue reading →

Diary of a C-List Celeb

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At work, I’m currently working on rebuilding a directory of Light Entertainment 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 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 by Douglas Chirnside and This is Your Life 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

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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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The Ropemaker’s Daughter, by Virginia Smith

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Originally written for Gay.com UK

We’ve all told little white lies on a first date. First impressions matter, we’re always being told, so it pays to come across as interesting as possible. A little hint of thrill in one’s job here, a dark secret in a slightly-murky-but-not-threateningly-so past there. After all, if the relationship doesn’t go anywhere it’s not going to matter, and if it does, well, your new partner will look over such indiscretions. Right?

Wrong — at least, for the heroine of The Ropemaker’s Daughter, an amazing first novel by . Rebecca is a habitual liar, concocting elaborate past histories with which to enthral men, safe in the knowledge that they’re not going to get to know her and so will never find out the truth — that she’s little more than a Southampton librarian. This is all well and fine, until she meets someone who’s an even better liar than she is. He claims he’s Adam, Rebecca’s ex-boyfriend who she dumped a year earlier, but she knows differently for two reasons. Firstly, he looks nothing like her ex — but more significantly, the real Adam had thrown himself off a cliff ten months earlier.

Rebecca enlists the help of Paige, a woman who also knows the fake ‘Adam’, to find out just who he is and why he’s tormenting her by posing as her late ex. As they do so, Rebecca finds out more about herself – including an increasing attraction to Paige.

Lovers of Barbara Vine will adore Smith’s plotting. The story propels itself along, with no twist ever feeling forced or unnatural. While the same can’t necessarily be said of some of the characters. Paige’s backstory, for example, is peppered with unusual and unbelievable cardboard cutouts. These, however, don’t detract from the sense of dramatic urgency.

The ending possibly suffers from being a little easy to guess, but with all great mystery novels it’s how you get there that matters, and ‘The Ropemaker’s Daughter’ takes you on a fantastic ride.