We have taken over this blog tonight as we have our own story to tell you of our Great Adventure today. Up till now we have been getting all our food from Mum. Here are some of us at breakfast this morning.

 But later on SHE put us all into another pen and then came a bowl of something that looked strange, smelled good and in the end, tasted quite good to three of us who dared to try it.

Then one of us thought it might be fun to go a bit further.

so did another of us round the other side..

as you can see, we made quite a mess. It was fun. We ate a bit too but the best part was licking it off each other.

Later, our Mum came back and cleaned us up with a lot of spit wash. We were put back into our other pen where we went to sleep. We hope we get to paddle in the dish of what SHE calls Puppy Porridge tomorrow. And we hope you have enjoyed hearing about our exciting day.

love from 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7.

It may be because it is about 1,000 years since my own first novel was published. But I remember everything about that, in detail as vivid as the memories of the birth of my children and I honestly did not feel like this. I have read comments by 2 first-time novelists today in which they say a lot I do remember and do understand. That they have to pinch themselves when they see their book in print. That they go round shops looking at it/for it. That they are excited and overjoyed and.... all of that.

But then they both say they they cannot cope with the thought that other people are reading their novel. It disturbs them, worries them, they feel invaded, exposed or other words to the same effect.

And this is what I really do not understand. Perhaps the reason is that I have never felt any book I have written is part of me, or belongs from me, or indeed, has anything whatsoever to do with me, once it is finished. I am a post-modernist and a deconstructionist in this. I believe text stands alone, to be judged alone. That it has absolutely nothing to do with its author once it is finished. That its author, moreover, has absolutely nothing to do with it. This has nothing to do with having written and published almost 40 books by the way because I believed it and thought it, instinctively, from the start, before I had ever heard of post-modernism.

That being so, other people reading it has nothing to do with me. 'Go, little book' you say - off into the world to seek your fortune. I have done my part. I have tried to equip you as well as I can for the adventure into the world, but that`s it now, you`re on your own.

I feel so entirely detached from my books once they are finished that I never think of them again except when I am obliged to, and certainly not in the context of other people reading them.

I wonder if I am abnormal.

Don`t answer that.

In a publisher`s world, it almost is. I have spent the last day focusing on it. I love paper. And when I started Long Barn Books eleven years ago one of my vows was always to use good paper and always to make production standards as high as was consistent with good commercial sense. I have stuck to it and we are often complimented on the appearance of our books - the fact that the paper is good and smooth and white, not cream that turns to yellow and has the consistency of loo roll. I have sewn not glued bindings too. Fortunately, these are standard in China, where we print mostly. But they are not standard here.

Emma Barnes, over at Snow Books, has been blogging recently about the wide variation between estimates for printing on recycled paper and on what is called FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) approved.

Recycled is both expensive and horrible. Long Barn uses woodfree paper which is standard in the Far East but seems to be virtually unheard of here. I also use a 100gsm paper. Most paper on which books are printed in the UK is 80 gsm opaque.. which tends to be thin, see-through, loo-paper textured and yellows in a nano-second. It costs a minimal amount more to use a far better quality and we save that hand over fist by printing in China.

There are 2 things wrong with printing in China. The first and most important to me is that you cannot reprint quickly - or rather, you can REPRINT quickly but you then have to ship books over here by sea which takes 4-6 weeks. No use if you have a sudden big demand and run out of books. By the time you have new stock from China, everyone has moved on. A backlist book which regularly reprints a set quantity year in year out (our example of Debo Devonshire`s COUNTING MY CHICKENS) can be scheduled  months ahead and there is no hurried-reprint need.

The second thing wrong is this newly fashionable subject, the carbon footprint. I am not too worried about this. The ship from China will be coming here anyway - I am not chartering it specially. It is far far more environmentally friendly than air transport. I do not fly, do not travel, have no passport - so I reckon I offset  - the other fashionable buzz-word- the carbon footprint of printing in the Far East.

I am always looking in to the possibility of printing in the UK but until I can get paper and bindings to the standard of the Far East at a reasonable cost, I won`t do much of it. Because believe me, high quality paper, sewn binding and shipping of 5,000 hardbacks from China costs less by around a quarter than printing on poor quality paper and using glued binding, in the UK.

QED.

There is an excellent post by Fiction Bitch on her visit to this year`s Hay Festival, which made me very sad. Three quarters of a mile outside the town, shuttle buses, none of the old author- intermingling in the infant school and having to use loos made for 5 year olds, before nipping into town to browse the second-hand bookshops. SKY television sponsors the whole thing, it is more about Politics and Ideas than Books and Literature....

but I am saying what she says. Read her.

http://fictionbitch.blogspot.com/

I will be back to Hay on Wye - NOT at Festival time.

In my current non-fiction-reading mode, I bought a collection of pieces by the late Malcolm Bradbury, LIAR`S LANDSCAPE. (It has, by the way, the most beautiful cover photograph of Norwich Cathedral in the snow... see it in my post below about books on my bedside table.) Malcolm, a man of enormous intellectual integrity and generosity of spirit, has a fine article IN PRAISE OF GRAMMAR SCHOOLS which should be required reading for every politician and teacher - and probably every parent too. I cannot quote the whole of it but I am copying a chunk which says important things far more eloquently than I ever could. His arguments seem to me quite incontrovertible. The essay takes us through the contemporary history of secondary schools, up to the dominance of the Comprehensive. . at which point..

"Schools grew pupil-centred and all selection was distrusted as 'elitist'. New educational theory emphasized equalization of opportunity for all -often irrespective of the needs and the social and cultural contribution of the top 20%.  Above all, the awe and respect for education and ideas so important to thye grammar-school culture began to dissolve.

Today, the 'selection' debate has resumed in the wake of the growing discovery that a totally permissive egalitarian notion of  secondary education does not always produce the talent, energy, intellectual achievement or cultural ambitiousness a society needs. There will always be better or worse pupils, those who are academic and those who are not, those exhilarated by ideas and pulled by artistic or scientific aspiration and those who, for whatever reason or disadvantage, will have nothing to do with such things.

Education is always a sensitive issue, but at the heart of it there has to be, as a priority, a love of ideas, a value for abstract thinking, a care for words. There will always be pupils who selectively want and deserve that, just as there will always be parents who desire it for their children; they should be able to find the schools to serve them. Giving our children a good education is one of the  greatest services we can do for them, not simply to improve their social chances but to enrich their minds and lives.

'(The grammar schools') committment to standards, ideas, education for its own sake, is a heritage we can`t afford to lose.'

I urge you to read the rest of the essay. I would like to burn it onto the mind of Mr Cameron who has been so glibly talking about finding good states schools for his children. One child has special needs and the Camerons WILL find the best for him in the State sector. If you have a child with serious special needs you cannot afford to go elsewhere - there is no elsewhere, in any case. But clever children have special needs too - they need to be educated in an atmosphere where brightness, intellectual inquisitiveness, reading, joy in learning, competitiveness with self and with others, are encouraged not sneered and jeered at. They need to be educated in an environment not interrupted by social misfits, yobbish behaviour, noise and bullying. Mr Cameron would not want his children to suffer from teachers whose own intellectual values and aspirations, cultural depth and breadth and respect for the things of the mind is so paltry.

Facilities are less important than committed, enthusiastic, intellectually challenging teaching and an air of respect for learning. Smart IT suites, language laboratories and fully equipped Theatres are all very fine but if the high quality of aspiration, the encouragement for learning, the desire to have pupils push themselves to their limits and beyond, are not there - and if a decent library is not there too - then all the expensive facilities in the world will be  useless. We who went to grammar schools  in the mid-20th century did not have state of the art facilities in most areas but we did not suffer from disruptive behaviour among our fellows, unmotivated, culturally impoverished teachers and above all we were not derided for having high intellectual aspirations.

Those are the main reasons why we should keep grammar schools and build more grammar schools and send our brightest children to them.

It isn`t going to happen of course, but I haven`t half enjoyed watching Mr Cameron shoot himself in both feet and finally emerge from being given the benefit of the doubt by at least some of his party into the cold light of electoral day.

Meanwhile, read Malcolm Bradbury.

OI ! What`s with the boring old books ? Look at us now.

First off, here is my first contribution to BOOKING THROUGH THURSDAY. I have been cutting  down my Blog reading to get stuck deep into the new Simon Serrailler but I wrote close on 5,000 words this morning so I think I deserve a blog-browse. Having found B.T.T. - here is this week`s question and my reply.

Do you have any foreign language books and if so can you (still) read them?

Yes. I have rather a lot of Anglo-Saxon - all my old text books in fact, including BEOWULF. I can just about still read them - slowly. If Middle English also counts as a foreign language, I have  all my textbooks there too... and can definitely read those. Sir Gawain is a favourite and I do sometimes dig it out. Is Chaucer a foreign language ? To some he will be. If the answer is yes, then I can and if no, then - well, er, no.

FRENCH. I have several novels  by Colette in French which I can pretty well read. I also have a lot of Balzac which I can only just struggle through, with lots of  skipping. Proust, which I can read but not understand - which goes for him in English too.

SPANISH.  A couple of thrillers bought on my last visit to Barcelona.. yes, I can., But I doubt if I could read anything more literary.

I also have rather a lot of my own books in Polish, Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Estonian, Czech, and Dutch. They are waiting to go to the Oxfam Bookshop in Oxford and ...I haven`t tried to read them. In several cases I am not entirely sure WHAT language they are in.

NEXT. As it is said wet Sunday let us have a look on the Bedside Table. Here they are .. for the moment, photos only.

Now this is serious. Who am I to disagree with Andrew Lloyd Webber when he wrote the damn musical ? But he got it wrong this week - horribly, hideously, wrong wrong WRONG. I don`t think Craig would have won ANY DREAM WILL DO in the final, final resort...  but he oozed charm and had an infinitely better presence than the dreary Ben. What is Ben doing still there ? For that matter, what is Keith ditto ? Only one will win and that has to be Lee...he proved it tonight yet again singing YOU LIFT ME UP, one of my favourite songs...he has a stunning voice, he looks right..  but Craig might be a very good understudy, with a chance of appearing from time to time. I hope ALW puts him in the chorus of brothers at the very least.

Ben has no looks, no charisma.. he is bland and dull though I am sure he is a charming boy who loves his mother. But Joseph ?

Bill Kenwright was gutted, so was Denise. Last week Daniel Boys was the surprise loser... didn`t see that one coming. It is all extremely upsetting and I am feeling grumpy about it.

No reason for you to know that MM is my Heroine to end all heroines. A a woman who lit up life like no other - lit up a stage, a screen, a room, the world. I am trying to track down essays on her by well-known writers, American or English. If you find any, especially out of the way ones, please would you send me details ?

I am also hoping to commission pieces about her from contemporary writers. Any suggestions welcome.

Like Diana, she is now an immortal and to the question, is there room for another book about her, the answer is a reosunding yes.

One of the leading Crime Fiction bloggers has reviewed Chris Ewan`a debut novel THE GOOD THIEF`S GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM, which Long Barn Books publishes next week and his review is a rave. Here`s a taste...

Here we have another crime fiction début that deserves to be welcomed with open arms.  Howard may be a thief, but it's so very possible to like him, love him even, as he's not the sort of thief to want to break into the average person's home and take in the detail of the knicker draw!

The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam is intriguing and fun.  It's a début not to be missed and the beauty of it is that it's the start of a series.  More Charlie to come; more intriguing stories and more locations.  Wonderful!

Well done Chris and here is the link to the rest which also has an interview with Chris Ewan, who is starting to learn what fame feels like...

http://itsacrime.typepad.com/

And my spies report that the book is prominent in the front of every BORDERS store.  Altogether a great start...

The machine swallowed my post about this handy small independent publisher last week so here we go again.Scott Pack has blogged recently about the difficulty Small Publishers have in getting their books into the shops, especially the large chains and I imagine Hesperus must have an uphill struggle. Which is a pity because their books are interesting and look very good indeed. They kindly sent me some to taste. And they are indeed Tasters - you could dip your toe into Virginia Woolf`s non-fiction, for example, with THE PLATFORM OF TIME. Memoirs of Family and Friends. I can`t think of a  better general introduction to the world and extended family of Bloomsbury. If you are not sure you would want to spend a long time with them you will be sure by the time you have read VW on here aunts, father, friends like Lady Ottoline Morrell. This is an absolute 'must' for any serious Woolf collection and it goes straight into mine.

I also have a fairly extensive Graham Greene Collection, so I was pleased to get NO MAN`S LAND, edited by James Sexton. It is two short stories which started life as treatments for films - in those days these were written more or less as stories. They were written between the great Greene novels, The HEART OF THE MATTER and THE END OF THE AFFAIR and they are unmistakeable Greene, especially the title story, of espionage and betrayal. Wonderful. Hesperus designs their books beautifully. I am unsure whether some of their  list will find a wide audience and they have issued some titles which can be found easily elsewhere. But they deserve to be stocked by every serious bookshop and by most of the others.

I have given up on the new camera until I have left Recovery. Photograph is via the trusty, child-friendly old one.

The first edition first printing signed copies are now ready. Some of my old e-mails have vanished and if you ordered one of these please would you kindly let me have your name and address again ? (Please don`t tell the SP, I am trying to keep protect him from stress.)

Not further comment from me on the book - that comes later. But the CEO of Macmillan, Richard Charkin, has come in on my protests about the £45 price tag and the academic books Palgrave Macmillan publish.

See his blog. http://charkinblog.macmillan.com/

Why do you sometimes just feel like eating an apple and not a biscuit ? Why do you sometimes hate the idea of drinking coffee and have tea instead ?

Why have I gone off fiction ? Why am I having a non-fiction jag ?

No idea but I am and it coincides today with my Martin Amis read-fest as I am reading his briliant collection of essays and reviews THE MORONIC INFERNO, about America. If a book succeeds with me it is often because it leads me to other books and this one has led me to half a dozen - back to my early reading in several cases. I read Norman Mailer`s THE NAKED AND THE DEAD when I was a teenager and I still remember the impact it made. It was the first international Big  Contemporary Novel I had ever read, the first Big American novel I had ever read and it gave me a love of them which has lasted a lifetime. It is a great war novel and when I am back to fiction I will re-read it. I have bought a copy as my own is long gone. But Martin Amis makes a shrewd and perceptive point, in the course of a wonderful interview with Truman Capote. He catches the man, the tone of voice, the smallness, the campness, the misery of his latter-day ill-health, to perfection.( Maybe it was not possible for an interviewer to fail with Capote come to think - I never read an un-revealing account of a meeting with him.) MA is writing about Capote`s book IN COLD BLOOD, the account of the Garden City, Kansas murders. Capote often said that what he called 'non-fiction fiction' (as in this book ) can be at least as imaginative as fiction-fiction - the novel. Amis agrees that Capote expended a lot of imagination and artistry in the non-fiction form but then he makes a point which has remained in my mind.

'What is missing, though, is the moral artistry. The facts cannot be rearranged to give them moral point. When the reading experience is over you are left, simply, with murder...' 

'The facts cannot be rearranged to give them moral point.' They may have a moral point - or not. But a factual account is what it is, unless tampered with  to become 'faction.'  Peter Ackroyd is a great writer of faction but it is morally ambiguous.

Nevertheless, I find books like IN COLD BLOOD riveting to read and Amis reminded me of another which I have, with some difficulty, called up - Diana Trilling`s  MRS HARRIS - the story of the 'Scarsdale Diet murder.' I had a copy of this too, way back when. Amis gets Diana Trilling to perfection - a highly intelligent, cultured, razor-sharp, New York intellectual woman, representative of a truly alarming though admirable type.

The best interviews allow the interviewee to hang themselves, as it were - Amis does not always do this ; he is not as semi-invisible an interviewer as Duncan Fallowell for example. But he gives Gore Vidal plenty of rope.

I have a feeling non-fiction is going to be around here for some while.

Great book, pity about how it`s been published. THE LITERARY TOURIST by Nicola Watson, is extremely interesting. Many people who visit blogs like this and Dove Grey Reader, for example, would find it absorbing and informative. After reading it they would be likely to read more of the Brontes, Scott, Hardy, Wordsworth – and Lewis Carroll, Philip Pullman and Harry Potter for that matter. They might well go on to visit Haworth, Abbotsford, Dove Cottage, Oxford and Platform 9 and a half on King`s Cross Station. I enjoyed it so much and found it so full of information and original thought that I plan to write about it in more than one post.

I know that in one sense it is an ‘academic’ book. Nicola Watson is a Senior Lecturer in Literature at the Open University. It has full, scholarly notes – though not  as  invasive and irritating footnotes, thank goodness – and an index. The Introduction in particular is a little too loaded with modern academic jargon. Nevertheless, it is not an academic book in the sense of being so learned and abstruse that only half a dozen of Ms Watson`s colleagues would be likely to understand it. The subject is a far more popular one than that.

But in their wisdom the publishers have not only made it look more like a scholarly book than a popular one  which is a pity – but worse they have the nerve to charge £45 for it. Yes, you heard me correctly.

Even libraries – which do not buy many new books now anyway – are not going to order this for you.

I tell you what. I challenge Palgrave to hand THE LITERARY TOURIST over to their general division, Macmillan. I then challenge Macmillan to issue another edition – for the general interested reader, with a new, more lively jacket and as a paperback, to cost no more than £10. It still would not (probably) make Richard and Judy but it would definitely reach the parts that a £45 academic book will not reach.

And if Macmillan won`t do it, with my publisher`s hat on, I will.

It is almost publication time for CHRIS EWAN and the novel is reprinting before publication (which is what a friend of mine said when her second scan revealed that she was not having one baby but twins...).When the reprint is in I will have SIX COPIES TO GIVE AWAY..(.UK only I`m afraid, for contractual reasons.)

Chris, as regular readers here will know, is the winner of the Long Barn Books First Novel competition. Anyone planning  to enter this year`s competition which is now open could do worse than read Chris`s book NOT of course so that they can write one the same but to get a feel of the high standard our first winners have set. (The 2006 winner was HELEN SLAVIN for THE EXTRA LARGE MEDIUM which is now in paperback from Simon and Schuster.)

Those of you who have a first edition first printing should be pleased you bought when you did. But of course the content of this terrific and most original crime novel remains the same and will do so even when we are in the 100th printing.

I know that you know how tough it is for a first time novelist. For every one you hear about winning a prize and selling a million copies (it happens) there are 50 which sink with little trace. Chris`s novel has sold to several countries including the USA and I am determined it is going to do really well here. Chris has been a brilliant author as a hands-on one man publicity and marketing campaign on the Isle of Man, where he lives and is reaching the parts others cannot reach and I`m really grateful. A lot of authors feel they should leave all this sort of thing to the publisher - or else they are too shy.

You have all seen the beautiful cover so here instead is a photograph of the author. I have scraped off the word WANTED from under his face.

The Serrailler novels are now starting to come out in America which is bringing 500 plus new visitors a day, all from the US. Welcome to any of you who are coming over from the main page to the blog. Nice to have you here.

But a word to save you trouble. My own publishing company does not publish the Serrailler novels either here or elsewhere. In the USA they are published by OVERLOOK. In the UK, by Random House whose paperback arm is Vintage. US visitors who have asked me - no, Long Barn cannot supply these to the US. If you want the UK paperbacks you will have to go to amazon. Nor, alas, can we send any other books, including Long  Barn, to the USA simply because of the money. To cash a dollar cheque costs us more than the value of a book and for US customers to send us a sterling cheque is too expensive for them. Our secure server, Nochex, only processes UK based cards. But thank you for your interest and I am glad so many of you are enjoying the crime novels.

Meanwhile, THE RISK OF DARKNESS is about to be published in paperback in the UK. and they have a publicity campaign which includes posters at most major railway stations. I am trying to get an image of one but meanwhile, have you ever bought a book as a result of seeing a poster on a railway station ? Do you know, I thought I hadn`t either but then I remembered that years ago I saw one, on Oxford station, for Martina Cole`s very first thriller and I remembered it and bought it and went on to buy every one that came after.

So you never know.

And I didn`t either... I am soooo tempted to buy the book itself. It is called

Michelangelo`s Sistine Chapel Ceiling in Cross Stitch. by Joanna Lopianowski-Roberts.

No, really.

But just sometimes something needs to be said and said and said again. I have been so NOT Blair that for ten years I have witheld my vote. Me ! Daughter of a Shop Steward ! I was told off roundly by both daughters and a lot of sensible people too but I made a conscious decision that no one on offer was worthy of my vote. I could have spoiled my ballot paper but what a waste. I was a staunch Gordon Brown-ite but he wasn`t up for election. As time and Blair wore on for a single nano-second I got caught in the glare of the Cameron headlights and toyed with the idea - I stress 'toyed' - that I might even vote for the baby-faced one, as he seemed well to the left of Blair. I woke up and of course I rejoice that Gordon will be our Leader and I can vote once again. But if I had been tempted by the devil and even thought of voting for Cameron, I wouldnt do so now. Yes, of course I mean what he said yesterday about the Grammar Schools. Is the man mad ? How to alienate three quarters of your own party and a lot of other people besides. My only quarrel with any sort of Labour party has been over the issue of the Grammar schools which have been instrumental in raising many many many a poor child from a deprived background to higher things. Always did. Still do. Always will. If I were a Tory honestly, I would be very sick. One of the lynch pins of their philosophy (does philosophy have lynch-pins ?Oh you know what I mean..) derided, shot down, spat upon, sneered at, jeered at.

This is almost certainly the first last and only time you will read anything party political from me but someone has to speak up. There should be more grammar schools. Until there are thousands of bright children will continue to be badly served by state education. And worse, more and more parents will opt out of it to the private sector. Now there`s an injustice.

I feel the tide turning. Cameron has shot himself in the foot. Come on Gordon.Oh and by the way, please will people stop saying 'Gordon Brown is a deeply flawed man.'

Show me one who isn`t.

I love it. I love the smell of the earth and the greenery after it has rained. I opened my window just now and smelled that fresh, succulent wet green smell. I love the sound of it. And my love for it is down to a large extent to a wonderful nun called Sister Cecilia who taught me art and needlework (what do I mean, 'taught me' ? I didn`t learn a thing.) when it was 7-14. There was an art room at the very top of the old convent building and it had skylights. We went up there to the art and needlework lessons. Sister Cecilia was a tall nun who wore little round spectacles and had a pink nose and was the sweetest, gentlest, mildest, kindest of women, which was more than you could say about some of the others. She taught us to look at things. She brought something interesting to every lesson. Sometimes it was a shell or a bird`s egg, sometimes it was a postcard of a great painting. She made us look at pictures. She told us stories about them. Her love of art was instinctive and deep and she wanted us to share it. Such knowledge as I have of painting came from her. Italian art was her passion. I am not sure that the needlework came high up on her list of pleasures but she did it beautifully, meticulous, tiny  hand stitches to everything. She was never angry, never raised her voice, though occasionally she sighed. She was a naive, innocent woman and we all loved her. You couldn`t not.

And once we trooped upstairs and it was pouring with rain. We must have had 'indor break' because of it which was never such fun as getting outside and someone started to complain about the rain.

'But rain is WONDERFUL "!' she said, 'rain is beautiful. God gave us so much when he gave us rain., Look at the beauty of water, sliding down the roofs, making them shine, filing the puddles so the birds can drink, makinhg everything grow, bringing life to the earth. Oh girls, never complain about rain. listen to it whenever you can. Rain is music... gurgling into the gutters, splashing, drumming on this skylight, trickling down the windowpanes, pattering on the leaves. Oh love rain. Rain is one of the dear Lord`s best gifts to us.'

She meant it. And I never thought of rain in the same way again. I heard it for the first time, saw it for the first time, felt it on my face and my hands, tasted its coolness in my mouth. Rain is beautiful. I love it more than any weather now. Sometimes, a teacher can change your life and reveal a new world to you in five minutes. Sister Cecilia did it for me. That is a real gift. That is worth everything.

First off  FREDDY LONG EARS by Harry Erne. Let me tell you about the launch party. It was given last week at and by Christie`s in their St James`s sale rooms,  and the rather grand rooms at the top of the sweeping staircase. They generously paid for champagne and canapes for a great many guests because Harry Erne is a good customer of theirs and also, as he is an Irish peer, because the Irish Sale was on at the time so there was a wonderful view of three rooms of pictures.

It was something of a crush I can tell you. But everyone bought books, and Harry sat and signed away valiantly for over two hours. My two assistants and I sold over 400 books - indeed, we ran out. You never get it right, always take too many or too few. The Duke of Kent who is an old friend of the author, came, all the Erne clan from over the Irish sea and a lot of Millais - the late Raoul Millais did the wonderful illustrations. The whole shebang is going to be featured in next week`s Hello ! than which there is no higher publicity accolade ! Little Freddy Long Ears doesn`t know what has hit him.

Nor will Chris Ewan know what hits him when he walks into any BORDERS or BOOKS ETC store in the week following publication of THE GOOD THIEF`S GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM, our winning First Novel. Borders will have it in a big display FOS (Front of Store you know). Chris is doing a signing in his own Waterstone`s in Douglas, Isle of Man, and various interviews. The first printing is sold out and we are waiting for the next which will just be with us by publication day. Phew. First novels don`t have it easy - however much we publishers may talk them up the fact is that aside from poetry they are the hardest things to sell. Well when did you last buy a first novel, in hardback and before it had won any prizes or been on Richard and Judy or generally become a Must-Have fashion accessory ? Quite. Me neither. We take a punt and hope it will work, hope the book will take off, get some prizes, get some quirky bit of publicity. We work very hard at Long Barn to make sure our First Novelists get a good kick-start to their careeers and right now, the competition to find the First Novel of 2008 has got underway. We are all busy reading. It`s a very satisfying part of my job.

The Magic Apple Tree comes out in its 25th anniversary edition soon too and the first copies came in from the Far East by air to me. It looks lovely. I am proud of the fact that it is a handsome hardback with a beautiful jacket but that is actually costs only 12.99 whereas the first edition, in 1982, actually cost two pounds more !!  Who says books have gotten more expensive ? That is going to be FOS in Borders too.

Meanwhile we are working on our Book of the Autumn, Len Chester`s Bugle Boy, out in October. The launch party is being planned, we have, for the first time, hired a dedicated PR and Publicity person to run a special campaign and not only is this little book going to be everywhere - the author, aka known to some as The Tinker, is going to have the time of his life.

Before we know it we will be scheduling our books for next Spring and we have a great little wheeze for giving a huge push to our new children`s books, the first titles in the Jack and Millie series. If it comes off..... we all know about slips, cups and lips. But we`re working on it.

No need to explain. It is the worst nightmare of every parent. But according to a friend in this area of Police work, it is true that until something is known for certain it is vital that Madeleine and her disappearance are kept in the front of world attention. The Press will eventually move on to other things, the longer it goes on. That is inevitable. But a high profile means the greater the chance  of someone, somewhere, remembering, noticing, seeing, reporting, something significant. The immediate family are doing sterling work in making sure the profile remains high. The only thing most of us can do is help them in whatever way we can.

I received a copy of an e-mail from Madeleine`s Uncle. Here it is.

This is from Phil McCann -  a teacher in Ullapool High School
philmccann@ecosse.net

As you are aware my niece is still missing and I am asking everyone I
know to please pass on this e-mail. Please send it to everyone you
know and ask them to do the same, as the story is only being covered in
Britain, Eire and Portugal. We don't believe that she is in Portugal
anymore and need to get her picture and the story across Europe as
quickly as possible. Suggestions are welcome.
Phil McCann

I am certain it has nothing to do with climate change but where are  all the cuckoos ? I always hear one in the third or last week in April and if I don`t I ask Nick the postman and he always has. Up at dawn you see, he and the cuckoo have it to themselves. Nope, he said, not a cuck.

No house-martins either, he added. Come to think.. but we have swallows in the barn, albeit not so many as usual, and the swifts are wheeling round the church towers and screaming through the streets like roaring boys. (Did you know that gangs of roaming lads full of testosterone and looking for trouble were called that, in Shakespeare`s day ? I wonder where I picked that up ..)

But two barn owls, one of which is behaving in a most unusual manner, going out at all hours of the DAY and returning quite soon after and if that is not feeding a waiting wife I don`t know what is.

I did not so much as look at the camera today. I needed a day off. The DGR has been e-mailing simple-sounding lists of How to Do It and i will but today I have been writing The Vows of Silence. I`ve been on a Scottish hillside stalking, actually. And then back in Lafferton, where..

no, sorry, sorry, mustn`t say more. Lips sealed. All that. It`s very nice to be back living with the white-blonde Detective  Chief Superintendent once again though (yes, he`s been promoted since we last met -twice, he sort of jumped one level.) I worried that he might have held it against me when I went off and wrote a children`s book and a ghost story in quick succession - felt neglected and ignored and so forth but he says not. He was away in any case, solving a series of arson attacks in his role as Head of S.I.F.T. (Serious Incidents Flying Taskforce.) so he had no time to notice my absence.

It`s a beautiful evening. Blackbirds singing their hearts out, lots of wrens popping about the stone wall. Swallows on the wire.

Just no cuckoo. Odd that.

First the pictures are rubbish. Then the pixels disappear altogether. When I try to correct that the whole post about new books and Hesperus and the comments also vanish into the ether.

I must stop writing ghost stories.

But I have battled with the camera and uploading and pixels and macros and I am in such despair I think I must post non-photographic blogs until I have had a lesson from the dovegreyreader who posts such beautiful, trouble free pixel-full photos with such ease that I hate her.

I think it`s to do with knitting socks.

Anyone who has this camera and can help, please e-mail me on sales@longbarnbooks.com.

DESPERATE

I said WHAT ? Oh take no notice of me. After the day I`ve had and I start trying to get my head round the complexities of a new 10 pixel digital camera whose manual came on a CD Rom which has to be printed out on the new printer whose manual had on a CD Rom, whose.....

What was I thinking ? No, pictures, forget 'em, not till I`ve calmed down. It started this morning when the SP left the front door open and the mother of the 7 puppies made her first bid for freedom. The SP had just brought my morning tea and then he asked if I had Dandy with me. Well of course I didn`t, haven`t had her with me since she had the 7 puppies.. then he disappeared and I heard muttered imprecations. Which meant he had left the front door open. He then shot out to look, slipped on the wet path and landed on the back of his head, cutting his hand in the process..

Some time later, the new Mother strolled back in wondering what all the fuss had been about, how could we think she would go far with 7 children at home ? Honestly. So I made the SP, plus large lump on back of head and bleeding hand, take me in to the WI Market and then for coffee. During coffee I asked him one of those innocent questions about Shakespeare`s text. As you do. He is spellbinding when he starts, the Ancient Mariner has nothing on him, so rather a long leisurely coffee break later, during which he was so coherent about Shakespeare that I knew the lump on the head hadn`t done any serious damage, we drove home. There was a strange car in the drive. Which reminded me that an old friend and highly experienced editor had been due here at ten to help me with a heavily illustrated book on the Cotswolds which I am publishing.  It now being getting on for eleven. Fortunately she had let herself in, put the kettle on, browsed through the post, cut herself a slice of bread and sensibly not gone in to make the acquaintance of mother and puppies, having heard protective growling behind the door.

Things settled down quite well until about an hour ago when I had finished watching Miss Marple and thought I might start on the camera instructions. The elder Border Terrier was absent but then he often is. He goes off to the fruit and vegetable farm and they work till late in the fields at this time of year. The fields. It has been raining. Mud. Beano appeared as I was planning to watch the the television news and whereas he is normally a nice brindle-ginger colour, he was sort of blackened sludge and you could hardly see his eyes. And he smelled.

I actually had to strip to not a lot and haul him into the bath, use an entire bottle od dog shampoo and all the tank of hot water, three towels and two towelling dressing gowns to dry him and...

You get the picture. He is fine now, nice and dry and sweet smelling and curled up in the SP`s bedroom.

Meanwhile, I had been going to show you lots of pictures with my new 10 pixel all singing, all dancing camera of a nice pile of books which arrived today from the kind people at HESPERUS publishers and to  write a sensible paragraph or three about a rather good book called THE LITERARY TOURIST by Nicola Watson.

But those can be a treat for another day. As can the manual to the new 10 pixel digital  camera.

and WON

Here they are in their first photo call.. or rather, here some of them are. Several were too shy. I will keep you beguiled with their progress over the next few weeks but for now, all is quiet, peaceful and still.

Seven little BORDER TERRIER puppies.. four boys, three girls, born here yesterday. I have been trying to get a photo to put up but they are difficult to find, being in a sort of small brown and black macedoine tucked under their mother Dandy. She is fine, the whole thing is a breeze, she says, recommend it to anyone.

I am shattered, having had 2 nights when she got in and out of the wardrobe, under the bed, into a cupboard, almost in the hot water tank loft too. Hence lack of intelligent, high- class literary blog.

More tomorrow.

The first is DISOBEDIENCE by NAOMI ALDERMAN

What is there not to like ? Moving, wonderfully well-written, funny, perceptive about human beings, marvellous descriptions of family life, Jewish life, London life, New York life... I can see why this won the Orange New Writing Prize. But never mind the prizes, buy the book.

and also - I have blogged about this before but it bears repeating any number of times. One of the best novels I have read for a long time -

WHEN WE WERE BAD by CHARLOTTE MENDELSON

Another Jewish novel.. what is it about Jewish and writing ? So many  past geniuses, so many highly intelligent, wonderfully rich and  thoughtful  contemporary novelists and many of them women..this is about another North London Jewish family, this time of a very modern woman rabbi. I want it to win all the prizes.

And as I said before, I have been re-reading Martin Amis and remembering that there is no one who uses language with such verve, sureness of touch, and fireworks-brilliance, no novelist now writing who is so versatile, fearless, adventurous and unpredictable. Why he has not won every major prize several times over is one of the greater mysteries of life - I had forgotten how good he is. I am poleaxed by each of the novels I re-read, all over again. Try this. Buy this. How can you not marvel ? (Sigh. I know someone is going to tell me how...)

It seems to me that the novel has never been healthier, across the board - there has never been such a richness of new writing talent, never been so many ways to rediscover old glories. Enough complaints about 3 for 2 and 2 much of the same and poor choice... look around you ! Never has it been cheaper or easier to enrich your life by reading any of the great classics, to amuse yourself, entertain yourself, be moved, uplifted, inspired, overjoyed, made to laugh, made to cry, made to change, made to think.. by a book. By a million books.

One click, one step inside a shop, one outlay of a couple or five pounds or so - and a book can change your life.

Here are three others to change yours.

It amazes me how privileged we are to have access, so easily, so cheaply, to such literary glories. Books can change your life.

I had a pleasant e-mail from a school pupil doing THE WOMAN IN BLACK for her English course. Her teacher has set them a question about it - having first told them that she herself HAS NEVER READ THE BOOK. I am rarely shocked by some of the messages I get from school pupils and I thought I had heard it all.  but this is appalling. How can this person be employed as a teacher of English in a secondary school ? You might as well say a French teacher has never learned the language.

But the question she has set the pupils needs to be address here and now. They have been told - by the woman who has never read the book - that THE WOMAN IN BLACK is a response to Wilkie Collins's famous novel THE WOMAN IN WHITE and they are asked to trace how.

The student says she has read the latter and is puzzled as she cannot really find many links. She is quite right. The reason ? She, you, they and every English literature teacher, examiner and pupil will have to take my word for it but

I HAVE NEVER READ THE WOMAN IN WHITE.

End of, I think.

IS IT TRUE WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT SHAKESPEARE ? is the SP`s latest book and a neat little one it is too. If you ever wanted to know if it was true that Queen Elizabeth wrote Shakespeare`s plays /he smoked cannabis/he had a shotgun  wedding/died on his birthday or is related to Prince William, here are your authoritative answers. But he wears his learning lightly so they are also wittily and clearly presented.

First edition, first printing, signed copies - a dozen are available for readers of this blog at £15 each. A snip. Please reserve yours by e-mailing sales@longbarnbooks.com

We have two new competitions just opened for entries on the Long Barn Books website but read all about them here ! I don`t much like the word 'competition' actually as the prize is not a trip to Hawaii or a plasma screen TV, it is just PUBLICATION. And just as important, we do NOT have an entry fee. I cannot imagine a legitimate publisher who would.

THE FIRST NOVEL COMPETITION.  Long Barn publishes one first novel a year and this is the 3rd year in which we are looking for submissions. In 2006 we published THE EXTRA LARGE MEDIUM by Helen Slavin, which is about to come out as a Simon and Schuster mass market paperback - and S&S are also to publish Helen`s 2nd novel.

This year our first novel is THE GOOD THIEF`S GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM by Chris EWAN. Chris now has a top agent to represent him as a result of winning and they have sold his book in several countries, including the USA. It is a brilliantly original caper-crime novel and Chris is now writing the next in the series.

So - now we look for the first novel to publish in 2008. Rules are simple. You must be a UK resident and not have published anmy fiction before (even self-published.) But non-fiction publications are fine. We require the FIRST FOUR CHAPTERS only initially, sent in by e-mail only. If we want to see more we will contact you. We need name, address, e-mail - a phone is helpful but not essential.

The competition closes on June 15th. We issue a shortlist and announce the title of the novel we willl be publishing, in July.

The shortlisted titles will be shown to Simon and Schuster, who have first refusal on any of them other than the winner. The winner will be published by them in mass market paperback. We also show the shortlisted novels to a top literary agent for consideration.

The window for submissions is now open. Please go to www.longbarnbooks.com for further information.

THE BEST LOO BOOK

This is what we are looking for ! People have all kinds of books in their loos and we are looking for a really clever and original idea for one.

ANYONE can enter so long as they write in English. No restrictions otherwise.

Initially we want a a proposal. The idea. Please explain it as fully as you like and give sample pages if you like.

BUT we are NOT looking for

1. Clones of other previously successful ideas.. so no copies of Schott`s Miscellany, or Does anything Eat Wasps etc.

2. We are not looking for books of jokes and especially not for books of loo jokes. We do not want anything in bad taste.

This is a challenge to think outside the box. A good loo book may be anything and we would like to be surprised.

We will commission the best proposals.

Again, more details on www.longbarnbooks.com

PLEASE SEND IN YOUR BEST IDEAS !!

FREDDY LONG EARS by HARRY ERNE. Illustrations by RAOUL MILLAIS.

This is now published. I have signed first edition first printing here. If you pre-ordered one please would you let me have your full name and address to sales@longbarnbooks.com and we will send details of how to pay etc. The first edition is almost sold out but I have reserved ten for blog readers. To remind everyone and update those people who do not know about the book, here is the original blog about it.

Books come the way of Long Barn via many a strange route and we don`t always want them when they have arrived. But this was different. You may remember that we re-published two lovely children`s books by Hester Knight, with drawings by Raoul Millais. Millais was a fine artist, especially of sporting pictures. But he had many areas of interest and above all he was very prolific. In the 1960s a man called Harry Erne, who is also the Earl of Erne and Lord Lieutenant of Co Fermanagh, wrote a story for his children and his friend Raoul Millais said he would be glad to illustrate it, which he. I don`t know why, but nothing happened to it and the story and its pictures disappeared. Millais died in 1999 in his own 90s and when his family were clearing his house - which is not far from where I live - they found cupboards full of pictures. They also found all the drawings for Harry Erne`s story, together with the manuscript, carefully preserved in a folder, and returned them to him. By way of a mutual friend, the folder came to me in case I might be interested in publishing it. And yes, indeed I would. The story is charming, the Millais drawings are very special. And to whet your appetite, here are some of the illustrations.

and

and finally

It`s a wonderful book.a. classic children`s  story which many parents, grandparents, godparents, uncles and aunts are buying as an heirloom. And for themselves.

THE MAGIC APPLE TREE

This year sees the 25th anniversary of the publication of my book The Magic Apple Tree, subtitled, A COUNTRY YEAR. It is the story of the year in our Oxfordshire village and the cottage with the magic apple tree in the garden where our children spent their early childhood. It is about the seasons, the countryside, the kitchen, the garden and village life as it was then. I have reprinted it in a new edition for the anniversary. The text is exactly the same but the cover is a new variation on the original, using the Samuel Palmer painting, and the format is different.

I have a dozen first edition, first printing, signed copies for sale to blog readers and they include some postcards of John Lawrence`s wonderful wood engravings which illustrate the book. When they are gone they are gone, as they say, and these signed first printing editions sell out very quickly. They cost £25. If you would like one to be reserved for you please leave your name in the comments or e-mail  your details to sales@longbarnbooks.com.

Every week The Royal Literary Fund places a modest advert in the Times Literary Supplement, advising that they make grants to writers who are in need as a result of personal hardships and ‘professional setbacks.’

The latter reason is probably going to bring them a lot of claimants and some of the names might surprise you. Not that the RLF ever broadcasts them, of course. But professional setback is occurring more and more to established writers who until the last year or so have enjoyed good, even extremely good, lifestyles, as a result of large book advances. They may not, as new and aspiring writers also may not be aware just how these have fallen. The public and indeed the Trade only hears about the 2 million pounds for a footballer, a politician, a z-list celeb. It assumes these amounts are normal. But even people in the writing business will be shocked when, based on their past reputation and ability to command a LOT of money in advance, they discover that the offer for their new book is below 10K. Foreign advances are even lower – Germany, France etc regularly pay 2/3,000 euros in advance.

It is even harder for a writer who changes genres. Supposing someone who has had great success as a popular novelist decides to write a biography, or a Science Fiction Big Name presents with a Literary Novel, a children`s  book writer whose name is a byword for big sales in that genre, decides to turn to crime. Or let us suppose the writer had a big success and could command six figure advances fifteen or twenty years ago but is now re-emerging with a new book after a long gap. All of these are going to be shocked by the fall in advances. To be offered 5 or 10K – and 25 for world rights, is very very usual now but I have heard of many a writer calling the figures ‘an insult’ ‘a slap in the face.’   The fact is that these are now the NORM.

A top literary agent told me that if a novelist has had modest success – decent reviews, not bad sales but not HUGE sales – with three books, they are simply not going to find a publisher for a fourth. Many writers will find their careers over after  two books unless something big happens.

I am not here wanting to debate the whys, rights, wrongs, fairness or unfairness of all of this. I just wanted to set down some facts. They need to be taken on board, especially by any new writer thinking of giving up the day job – unless it is a day job they can easily take up again.

The debate will continue to rage about the reasons but the prime reason, I can tell you, is just how hard it is to get a new book into the shops at ALL. I speak as a publisher who tries to do this every other day. In my 13 years of Long Barn Books, I have never, ever known it to be as hard as this.

Every publisher will tell you the same.

So if you are a writer and offered anything over £20,000 for a book, you are one of the lucky ones.

August 1997.  When the news came through about Diana`s death the Younger Daughter, then 11, said straight away that I should publish a book about her. I said everyone would be doing that and I couldn`t think what Long  Barn could contribute. But later that day, the SP was remembering the day he had shown her round the Shakespeare Birthplace and Clemency said

‘That`s what your book should be about. ‘The Day I met Diana.’

That evening I wrote an appeal for ordinary members of the public to send me just those stories and faxed it to every local newspaper, magazine, radio and t.v. station in the country. My friend Lynda Lee Potter wrote it up in her Daily Mail column.. and it began. I had three Post Office sacks of letters and went through them in 5 days and evenings. I was in tears much of the time. This was indeed ‘the people`s Princess.’ I had not realised how she had touched and transformed so many many lives, how, with the perfect word, the smile, the joke, the laugh, the intently listening ear, she had made a huge impact and helped so very many – or just given them a delightful memory.

Whatever anyone now knows/thinks about her, I will not hear that denied anywhere.

The book came out in a month. The printer gave the paper and turned it round double-quick, a firm scanned the cover photographs and did them into a collage, for nothing, we sold extracts in THE SUN, THE DAILY EXPRESS and to a women`s magazine. THE DAY I MET DIANA sold 22,000 copies, in bookshops including W.H.Smith and Tesco and we made a lot of money for Diana`s Landmines charity.

Ten years on, and I have no copies- what few were left were burned in the fire in our barn which was then my office/store. Copies on amazon cost between £35 and £200. Time to re-issue. I plan to do this for the 10^th Anniversary. I hope we can sell as many and make as much money for charity.

It will be a small, inexpensive paperback. It is a reminder of the good that Diana did, the magic aura that surrounded her, the awareness she raised of so many Cinderella causes, the touching love she inspired in ordinary people who met her. Those letters, many from people who were not natural letter-writers, were an inspiration. I could have filled the book 100 times over but I had to choose a representative selection to make it balanced.

I am glad to be remembering the stories and that remarkable young woman again.

This is the very last blossom to come out always and when I see it I know that is that for another year. But not only is it one of the most beautiful, it has an intoxicating but not overpowering honeyed scent. These trees, Malus Hupehensis, line the curve of the drive on one side as you come through the gate and walking beneath them today has been an absolute joy.  Tonight, as I was taking the heavily pregnant Border Terrier on her rather slower-than-usual walk, the barn owl emerged on silent and ghostly white wings and glided between these trees.. breathtaking but even if I had had the camera with me I would never have caught it. Some sights are meant to be for the eye and the memory alone. Still, here is the last blossom, even without a barn owl.

From the glories of the Gloucestershire countryside to the mean streets of New York, as I have been re-reading Martin Amis`s NIGHT TRAIN. I had forgotten how good it is. How good he is. He is the most original, alive, vibrant, stylish, of his generation of writers and he has not had his due lately. People got cross with him because of old stories about huge advances and new teeth, which are entirely irrelevant to his real genius as a novelist. He mellows with age - as indeed he himself has done. Mart has always been one of those writers who cheer me up when I see him - which is rarely now as he lives in South America. He has never lost both his looks and his boyish charm but more importantly nor has he lost his genius. He has it - not many are touched by it but he is. Flawed ? Certainly but what geniuses are not ? All right, Mozart. I give you Mozart. Dostoevsky ? Yes, OK. Can`t think of another.

Read NIGHT TRAIN. Short. Vivid. Every word counts. Brilliant. And before long it will be time to write about Amis pere, when I have finished re-reading Amis fils.

I wonder if they have white blossom in Uruguay.

Or barn owls.