Solidifying!

Hi, Howdy, Yo, How're doing?

Wow, so June....I would love to say I've been busy. I'd love to give you a justifiable reason why I've not written anything in two months...I'd love to.

Instead, I'll explain it through metaphor. This Happened.

But just imagine I'm the witch and the water is LIFE, OK? That's basically what happened.

There are three things that are important when you're 24 (in a really superficial-1st world kinda way) and they are:
1) Your job 
2) Your social life
3) Men


Me at 24

1) Can't get a job
2) Can't leave the library due to The Evil Thing (dissertation)
3) Spend my time imagining legitimate ways I will bump into Henry Cavil. I know Henry, it would be magical


So that's why the melting happened.





BUT, I've decided to solidify (hence name of post, amazing link there I think you'll agree...because I melted...yeah?) and start writing again. 

"PHEW" I hear you all silently cry! 
And I can promise that the next few blog posts will be extra silly, extra bookish and extra existent...which I feel is a good step forward. I may even experiment with some fiction, or dabble in some prose, but only if you're very, very good.

Here's a hint at some things I might write about, just to wet those tastebuds, or tease those eyes or whatever it is that happens.

• CHILDREN'S BOOKS AND WHY THEY'RE AWESOME (in no way connected to the fact that I would really, really, really like a job in children's books)

• ME AND WHY I'M AWESOME (joke....or is it? *employ me*)

• ON DISCOVERING FEMINISM AT LATITUDE

• ummmm COWS, HENRY CAVIL, FLOWERS, LEMURS....OTHER THINGS THAT ARE AWESOME

• ON OVER-USING THE WORD AWESOME

Yeah, that should keep us going for a bit. 

I'll write again once I've thought of something funny/interesting/to pass the time.

See you in another two months then.

Speed Dating for the Literary Minded

I’m afraid my absence from the digital page has no exciting or dramatic cause. I have not been forcibly kept away from my laptop by tornadoes, floods or any other natural disaster that put saving the world at higher priority than blogging. The misfortune that inflicted this separation upon me was the horror of deadlines, a horror – I hope you will agree – that would send even the most brave and dedicated of bloggers into a mad, referencing-induced frenzy. 

However, I also went speed dating, which happily brings us back to the silliness that is the inside of my brain.  I didn’t go speed dating with the hope of meeting ‘my one and only’ (I don’t believe Ben Barnes or Benedict Cumberbatch would ever go speed dating in Balham), but I did go with the hope of an interesting evening chatting to interesting people…which sort of happened. It was certainly interesting and I certainly did not meet my one and only. I did, however, end up talking to some rather strange people about rather strange things. Mainly because towards the end of the evening the wine had been flowing and, getting bored of asking, “where are you from?” and “what do you do?” I resorted to “what animal would you be and why?” and “Dragons! Tell me about them!” 

One thing this evening did offer me, apart from a hangover and phone calls I have to avoid answering, is the fascinating jewel of procrastination that is 'which literary characters would I like to speed date with?' 

My first thought, naturally, was Dumbledore! But just four minutes with Dumbledore? No, I would need a lot longer than that with him, think of the questions I could ask! Like, why is he suddenly naked in Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise? Then I thought of some more, Jon Snow, Prince Caspian, Achilles… and realised I was only thinking of actors I fancy and that’s not the point. 

Perhaps other Game of Thrones characters? Maybe Ned Stark? But I think we all know what he'd say. 

Or the formidable line “we’ll talk when I’m back.” Words, we’ve noticed, that ultimately result in the death of whichever character has the misfortune to utter them.  

So I’m looking for people who would be interesting to meet, but only for about four minutes and then you want them to leave…tricky. 

1. My first choice is Pi Patel from Life of Pie. I don’t need him to tell me his story; I’ve read and seen it. But, I would enjoy starting off the evening with a large glass of red wine while he looks at me with his rather amused expression and explains religion to me in a way that I genuinely appreciate. I think after four minutes I might become internally confused about my spiritual leanings, so four minutes would be just the right amount of time for me to engage with Pi peacefully. Then, when the timer goes I would feel happy enough to say goodbye and watch him walk serenely to the next person with a feeling of ‘yes, I’ve learned something here’. (But no Richard Parker. I love tigers but being mauled to death on the first date would not be a good start.)

2. My second date would be with Cassandra Mortmain from I Capture the Castle. There’s no particular reason I would like to meet her other than I think we would get on well and that four minutes would be enough time to form a life-long friendship. Then she could invite me back to the castle; I’ve always wanted to live in a castle.

3. Mr & Mrs Beaver from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. This might sound silly but when else are you going to get to talk to animals that can actually talk back? Not an opportunity to be passed up, I think. 

4. I think my fourth choice might actually be my favourite. Skulduggery Pleasant, from his own series by Derek Landy. Not only would I get to have a date with a real, smartly dressed and ever-so-polite skeleton detective, but I also find him incredibly funny. Only four minutes with Mr Pleasant would be a shame but I imagine that sit there any longer and he would have to dash off to do some world-saving of one kind or another and I’d prefer it if he didn’t bring any vampires or monsters into this already quite strange concoction of characters. 

5. Finally, to end my rather short but fun-filled evening on a high, I’ve decided on Mr Knightly from Jane Austen’s Emma. I would have chosen P & P’s Mr Darcy, only I don’t think he’d approve of me and it would probably just be really awkward. Mr Knightly, however, is much more cheerful and gentlemanly. He’s also extremely handsome, at least in my head, and I haven’t done any swooning yet. I am supposed to be dating these characters after all so perhaps if I leave Mr Knightly for my last date, my evening could end in a much more satisfactory date-like manner. 

Despite the lack of love at my first speed-dating event, I’m trying it again in a different location, with hopefully different men, at the end of the month. You never know, perhaps with a repeat attempt I might stumble across one of the Bens, or at least a talking beaver. 

A Snowy Silver Lining

 So first I must apologise for my absence over the last few weeks. I've been on placement with the fabulous HarperCollins in the children's editorial and publicity departments and trying to be a real person has taken away most of my brain power. However, I finish next week, which will be horribly sad, in fact, why are you making me think about that? How mean!

Moving swiftly on, I'm currently sitting in my pajamas on the sofa, watching Saturday Kitchen Live, and trying not to look out the window. I can't believe it's snowing...in March. Anyone remember March 2012? There was sun, lots of sun. But, ever the optimist, I thought I would search out that silver lining for you all. Not surprisingly, my silver lining involves books. 

The Perfect Books for a Snowy Day

Harry Potter - All of them, because they are all perfect for all occasions.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey: not only does it look like a beautiful book but the story is just as enchanting. 

Jack and Mable, in their cold homestead in deepest Alaska, don't have any children, something that is a constant ache on Mable's heart. One evening, in a rare and playful mood, they make a child out of snow and decorate her with a scarf and gloves. The next day, the snow child is ruined but there are mysterious footprints leading away from the pile of discarded snow and the clothes are missing. When a beautiful little girl appears in the Alaskan forest, dressed in the same scarf and gloves as their snow child, Jack and Mable cannot help but fall in love with her, but it cannot be winter forever and Mable cannot forget those footprints in the snow. So begins a magical and charming story full of love, mystery and beautiful landscapes. Perfect for curling up on the sofa and pretending the wind howling outside is a wolf cry from the snowy mountains. 

The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis: An oldie but a goody and certainly a book I never get bored of. Need I tell you the story? If I do then you don’t deserve to be reading this blog and I demand you go out and read the story immediately. I think this book is great for a snowy, miserable day because the adventures of the Pevensey children start on that very sort of day. If it had been sunny and delightful they never would have resorted to hide and seek and Lucy would never have hidden in the wardrobe, fallen through the back and ended up in a snow-covered, talking-animal inhabited and wonderful land known as Narnia. I recommend you read this and then go and try and get in your wardrobe, I can almost guarantee that you will get to Narnia too, as long as you stay in there long enough. 

For those of you who like denial when it’s miserable outside, I am suggesting The Island by Victoria Hislop. OK, so maybe the leper element is not, ultimately, happy, but it is set in sunny and gorgeous Crete. It is also a brilliant story full of secrecy, love and tragedy that I can promise you will be completely sucked into. Alexis has never known much about her mother’s past, but on a life-changing mission, travels to the little Cretan village of Plaka, which holds the answers to the secrets of her mother’s life. It is heartwarming, sob-worthy and has a blissfully beautiful, albeit tragic, setting. Hopefully you will be so swept away that if you keep your back to the window you won’t even notice the misery outside. 

I could go on, but surely this horrible weather will have gone by the time you’ve read all three books right? RIGHT?

Why The Long Face?

And now IKEA. I’m so upset about the meatballs, apart from pretending you live there and enjoying the immense risk and danger of going off the path, those meatballs were the best things about IKEA. Now we find out that the secret to their deliciousness may have been in the beef…the secret being that is wasn’t all beef, some of it was horse.

This news story has rather rocked our country in the recent weeks. Naturally, there is outrage that this has so easily happened and we, the consumer, have been eating something without being made aware of it. As many articles have pointed out, this is more an issue of fraud than of food safety. It also begs the questions of why beef is being substituted for horse; according to Q & A Horsemeat Scandal, it’s because horsemeat is cheaper than beef so the substitution is an easy way of making the meat go further.

As well as outrage coming from the fraud aspect of the scandal, there is also something about eating horse that feels essentially ‘wrong’ to many Britains. Eating horse in Britain became taboo gradually, we were certainly munching away on geegees at the end of the last ice age, so what changed? It’s likely to be around the same time horses became domesticated that peoples’ attitude towards them began to change and there is evidence of this happening as early as 4000 BC.



However, as with many of the big changes in Britain, the main influence seems to have come from the Church. At some point, possibly as far back as 732 AD, the Vatican announced that eating horse was a pagan activity and not acceptable behaviour among well-to-do Catholics. This decision was fairly widely rebuked by most European countries who continued nibbling their neighing Nellys well into the nineteenth century, but it does seem to have had quite an impact on English-speaking countries. Perhaps this religious influence, paired with the psychological impact of our relationship with horses, is what has made eating horse just not the done thing.



 Drawing on the psychological aspects, and desperately clawing my way back to a publishing and book related topic, I thought I’d look at horses in literature that encourage our sentimental attachment to the animal.



One of my favourites is Angharrad from the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness. Angharrad is a gentle soul who is one of the only characters to understand Todd, Ness’ troubled protagonist.

Good old Boxer in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. Poor, dimwitted Boxer is a stoical chap who believes in hard work and a good regime. He never doubts the words of those in command, unfortunately, it is this that leads to his downfall.





Fledge the winged wonder. Formally known as Strawberry, he worked in London pulling handsome cabs, but in true C.S Lewis style, he is magically transported to Narnia and given wings by Aslan.

Shadowfax, the chief of the Mearas. One of those names I can’t say in a normal voice (have to either sound like Aslan or Mufassa saying "Simba!"). He’s fearless, fast and fighsty; only Gandalf is permitted to ride him and that's only if Shadowfax allows. It is due to his epicness that we get the line “Run, Shadowfax, show us the meaning of haste.”



A horse that has made me cry more than any other is the kind, gentle and brilliantly brave Joey, a war horse like no other. Told from Joey’s point of view, War Horse by Michael Morpurgo lets you to really get to know and feel for this incredible character.



Last but not least, probably the most famous horse in British literature, Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty. I definitely cried a lot at this book too. Kindness, sympathy and respect are big themes in this story and similarly to Joey in War Horse, Black Beauty tells his own story. Through his life we see the full range of treatment horses can expect at the hands of humans. If any horse can teach us what the relationship between man and beast can mean, it’s Black Beauty.

 

 

Book Review: Tethers by Jack Croxall

I love a good prologue, especially in young adult adventure novels. It sets my imagination whirring, questions sprouting and I know I have to read on to find the answers. This is exactly what happened with the prologue in Tethers. Why won’t Marriot’s gun work? Who is this mysterious, snarling Mr Dufor? What are Locus One and Locus Three? Who is ‘the girl’ and most importantly, will Mr Dufor murder her?

Predictably, after scooping my ponderings into my arms and curling up so I could pin them to my chest with my knees, I read on as fast I could. Then I realised I wasn’t taking enough in so stopped, drank some tea, grabbed a biscuit and started again.

Tethers is very easy to read, it is well written and paragraphs glide by smoothly. The two main characters are engaging from the start; you recognise Karl as an adventurous young man with a slight disregard for rules, and Esther is immediately likeable with her ‘scorched-black hair’ and skill for arguing. The tranquil start to their adventure is shaped by descriptions of the sleepy village of Shraye in Victorian Lincolnshire. Croxall definitely has a knack for recreating those rural scenes and grand skies that, coming from Lincolnshire myself, I recognise appreciatively. The story then accelerates in an almost alarming manner as Karl and Esther are suddenly thrown in the path of danger, but the pace slows almost as rapidly as it sped up while they decide their course of action. I liked this unexpected change of step as it gave the story a sense of realism and provided Croxall with the opportunity to develop his characters further. It also meant that when the next dramatic event revealed itself it still felt shocking and exciting, but the structure wasn’t choppy or awkward. I found this wave-like pattern of thrills and calm, which continued throughout the book, reassuring. It gave me time to get to know the characters, to revel in their stories and personalities but never get too comfortable, as I knew something exciting would be waiting on the next page.

Being set in Victorian England gives this book a historical gleam, but its true colours lie more in adventure. As a science writer, Croxall does have a clear science fiction leaning, and the mysteries of the otherworldly stone, the Viniculum, that is found by Karl and Esther certainly have answers buried in science. However, this is not the selling point for me with Tethers. I found the most compelling aspects to be in the characters, their decisions and their motivations. It was this that created the drama for me, more so than the dangerous conspiracy right at the novel’s core. Perhaps, however, I have just tapped into the essence of why this book is called Tethers. Normal peoples’ actions, the consequences of those actions and what tethers everything together can be incredibly powerful. Alas, I’m being mysterious myself now as I don’t want to give too much away, you will have to read it to know what I mean.

 However, as much as I loved this aspect of the book, I also felt it was its only flaw. So important are the characters in this book that I wanted more from Croxall about who these people were and how they all became involved in this story. An almost impossible thing to do I grant you, by spending more time and words on character detail you run the risk of losing pace, excitement and of making the text too heavy. But I felt with Croxall’s writing everything I wanted was there in his head, it was there in his style and in ideas but was just missing from the paper. He knows the secrets in the lives of his characters and they are hinted at but never given away. Perhaps I am being too impatient and all I want will be revealed in the next two books in the trilogy, but it does make it impossible for Tethers to stand alone successfully for me. Certainly Croxall has confessed that Karl and Esther will return with new friends and old for more adventure so I will hope that I will find answers hidden in their pages.

I would definitely recommend Tethers to any fans of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, or Percy Jackson lovers. You are quickly sucked into the adventure, friendship and mystery encapsulated in this book and Croxall’s skill as a writer means he is certainly one to watch for the future. 

 @JackCroxall and blogs at www.jackcroxall.co.uk 

Tethers Kindle edition is available on Amazon

My World Is Not Enough

Last week, for the seemingly annual celebration of my birth, my oh-so-grown-up friends and I, notably all over the age of 22, went to the most magical place you could possibly imagine: 

                                    Harry Potter World

 I think it’s actually called Warner Brothers Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter, but our name was better. As we see it, we have a better claim to be overly excited by the prospect of Harry Potter World than the many seven year-olds that ran around us at Leavesden Studios. We grew up with Harry! We may have been only eight when Harry first discovered he was a wizard, but with book publishing not dove-tailing exactly with human growth the age gap eventually evened out. We are the generation that fancied him, pined after him and so desperately wanted to be a part of his world that our contentment with our own has been considerably damaged since.

However, as much as I would love to write an entire post on the wonders of the magical world, believe me I could, I haven’t. Instead, I thought about how incredible it is that one story has done so amazingly well that aspects of it can be put on show, miles away from anywhere I might add, and people will pay a considerable sum to go and see them, even purchase replicas. We went just as crazy as the children, more so in fact. I don’t think they squealed quite as much at Robert Pattinson’s Quidditch uniform, and I was more than enthusiastic when allowed to push open the doors of The Great Hall along with the other birthday people/children. You could see The Knight Bus, Dumbledoor’s office and Buckbeak the hippogriff, to name but a tiny few. For us, it wasn’t all about the film memorabilia, that wasn’t what was exciting, it was seeing everything you’d imagined when reading the books brought to life and sitting right there in front of you. I walked up Diagon Alley! I really did! And for that briefest of moments you completely forget it’s a film set, to you it’s as real as the gasps you made when Pettigrew got away, or the laughs you had at Lee Jordan’s Quidditch commentary.

“Um, Evie, this is sounding an awful lot like an entire post on the wonders of the magical world.” 

Yes, it is, sorry, but I do have a point and will lead seamlessly to my blog-post question. 

What other books should have visit-able worlds?

For example, Charles Dickens World. Though I’m not sure this would be quite so fun: mainly dark, smoggy London streets and a feeling of damp foreboding. Unless you had people dressed as the characters, that would add a nice, dramatic element and you could have a Christmas Carol section where you were visited by the three ghosts…doubt it would be as fun without the Muppets though.

But you catch my drift? It’s actually quite hard. I had suggestions of Alice and Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but that’s creating an actual place that the characters go to in the books. I mean more of a world created out of everything you remember from the books, such as a Philip Pullman, His Dark Materials World where you’d find your daemon, meet a dangerous but ever so nice, giant polar bear, go for a ride in Lee Scoresby’s hot air balloon and try not to get caught by the Magisterium.

So in true publishing condiment tradition, I now give the floor to you. Comment away on what worlds you would like to visit, I look forward to your imaginative suggestions.  

P.S. Photos kindly taken and donated by the beautiful Subha Chelvam. 

Be Quiet Mr Fry, I'm Trying to Read

Happy New Year to you all dear ones. I hope you enjoyed Christmas and New Year as much as I did. Well, Christmas anyway, some fool gave me the end/start of year plague so while the fireworks went off at midnight I wearily raised a toast with my parents and went to bed. Rock and roll indeed.

Anyway, I'm on the mend now and have been spending my sofa-filled days thinking of what wonderful publishing related jewels I could bring you in the New Year. I understand the grievance you must have felt in my absence since my last post, this was due to me thinking it was a great idea to fasten two longs bits of plastic? Metal? I actually don't know...anyway something, to my feet and hurtle down a mountain in the snow. Skiing I believe they call it, not that I'm sure that's what I was doing, but I got down the mountain in one piece so that's all that matters.

Now I bet you're expecting me to reel off a list of books I'd like to read this year in true New Year's resolution style? Well I'm not.

This year, 2013, I'm going to start with a little bit of schizophrenia. What better way to start the year? "Explain please" you cry in ernest, well OK. Now don't think I'm crazy, but have you ever noticed what voice you read with in your head? I noticed, when revising for our law exam, that to be able to concentrate I have to read out loud but in order not to have slippers thrown at my head I have to read out loud in my head. Following? Good, it doesn't seem that weird yet does it. Until, however, I noticed that I couldn't identify the voice reading. It didn't sound quite like me, though I think it's considerably hard to know what you sound like. I once heard myself on a tape recorder and thought I was a boy. I voiced this thought to my mother who is usually quite receptive to my 'quirkiness' shall we kindly call it, actually raised her eyebrows and when I announced "I shall blog about this" just replied with a mmmm. At the time I took this as 'yes, good idea darling' but may, in hindsight have been 'your funeral darling'. See what revision does to the sanity?

Later, when I returned to my revision, about half a page down, I noticed it definitely wasn't my voice this time, it was Stephen Fry. Now stop it, stop edging away from your screen and come back at once, it's not as insane as it may appear. I did not believe that Stephen Fry was in my head, as delightful as that sounds, but I had been listening to the Harry Potter talking books earlier that day while tidying (I find it impossible to tidy without an audiobook and Stephen does read them so sublimely). So while I had been absentmindedly listening to Mr Fry and tidying, my brain must have got so used to hearing his voice that when I had to listen to someone talking from inside my head for revision purposes it was his voice that came out. This makes perfect scientific sense I assure you.

It's certainly made revision much more entertaining. I watched an episode of Gavin and Stacey and suddenly I was revising in a welsh accent, I can't even do a welsh accent but the one in my head is perfect. It can be an irritating habit, for a while I couldn't stop reading in a 40s wartime radio presenter-voice, goodness knows where that came from, and found I was listening more to the voice than what he/I was saying...Ok that last sentence did sound a bit crazy but I bet you it happens to everyone.

So challenge of the New Year, identify your 'reading-allowed-in-your-head-voice' or 'head voice' as it shall be more affectionately known. Just try sitting down with a book, paper, magazine or anything and try reading allowed in your head and try thinking about who or what the voice sounds like. It will probably sound like you the first time so if you trust me and want to experiment with your mentality, go and listen to or watch something with prominent and memorable voices and I BET YOU when you read something again you'll get a pleasant surprise.

If not, and it turns out it is just me, um well, in the words of Lewis Caroll.
“You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I'll tell you a secret. All the best people are.”