Gary Davison on Technology

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that Gary Davison (Fat Tuesday, Streakers, A Tale of Two Halves) and I would be mixing things up a bit between our two blogs, and today we start.  We're talking technology this week, and you can read Gary's thoughts about this below.  Meanwhile, you can find me rabbiting on over at Gary's blog here.

Ebooks, emails, iphones, smart phones, not-so-smart phones, YouTube, blogs, bogs, ipads, video-phones… Throw them all at me and I want to run a mile. Grab a newspaper or book, turn my back on all and everything and kick back on a park bench reading. Chilled out. Nice and easy. Leave the world and its gadgets behind and ride off into the sunset and be done with it all.

But I run this blog, so I can’t be against all technology. Then I have that iphone, the one I said I would never get because I’m a dinosaur when it comes to technology, but… it’s… so… good. I love it. I can’t get enough of the iphone. I check work emails, private emails, check on the books and websites I like, all so easily and the speed of it is amazing. Much better than that laptop t-mobile blagged me into buying at Christmas. You can nip down and stick the veg on and prepare the dessert while that’s getting into gear.

When e-books were first announced, or when they came to my attention, I was adamant, that me, and possibly my generation, my type of people, would not entertain them at all. How can a screen take the place of a nice book you can hold, bend the cover, shove in the beach bag?

I don’t think e-books will because ‘we’ the people before ipad and over thirty will always want to read the conventional way with a book in our hands. I know I will when I go on holiday and I’m chilling out on the beach. That’s when I like to have a book handy. That aside, I think there is room for e-books in my life along with the many other things that an ipad, or similar device, can give you.

Take the newspapers. The Times is nine quid a month as an app, or you can get it in paper form for thirty-five a month. Weather, golf gps – which is fantastic, by the way – dictionary, app to teach your kids how to tell the time, drawing app, it goes on and on, and the more I get into it, the more I like it.

If I buy an ipad, there’s a fair chance I’ll be seduced into e-books. If I buy an ipad. A year ago I would have burst out laughing. Now, I’m convincing myself, that despite not needing an ipad, because no one needs one, it just looks so much fun, I’m close to weighing over for one.

If I can be pulled up to speed with all this igear and find it fun, anyone can. And the reason being is that it is all so easy and amazing to use. And I can’t be the only one feeling like this as e-books, since the release of the ipad, have overtaken sales of normal books for the first time.

Verdict – If you enjoy doing something, do it. I’m in on this particular way of technology.

Buy Gary's books on Amazon here.

Go to PaperBooks A Tale of Two Halves competition here.

Cheers, Gary.

5 star review for The Grease Monkey's Tale

Great to pick up a 5 star review already on Amazon.co.uk for The Grease Monkey's Tale.  Brief but sweet: 

"The Grease Monkey's Tale is a brilliant read

it gathers momentum and is very hard to put down."

Thanks, wonderful reader!

Recent Reads

Stumbled through a pile of books across the last couple of months that I didn't hit it off with and which I duly ditched somewhere between page 40 and page 80.  I don't get on well with books that are too full of naval-gazing introspection, where 5 pages might focus on opening a pair of curtains (especially if there's no surprise waiting behind them), or where the characters are so insipidly unengaging that it'd be more interesting to watch paint dry than turn one more page in their company.

Instead, I'm always looking for fiction that's entertaining, but fast-paced; has action, but is thought-provoking; that takes risks, but carries me with it; where the language is fresh and exciting, and where I give a damn about the characters.

One of the novels I stuck with recently was Nick Hornby's How To Be Good.  It's the first Nick Hornby I've read and it was especially refreshing to come across such a book during this slump and enjoy the superb craftsmanship of his writing - to see how it could be done.

According to her own complex moral calculations, Katie Carr has earned her affair.  She's a doctor, after all, and doctors are decent people, and on top of that her husband David is the self-styled Angriest Man in Holloway.  When David suddenly becomes good, however - properly, maddeningly, give-away-all-his-money good - Katie's sums no longer add up, and she is forced to ask herself some very hard questions...

Have added recently to my tottering book tower with a couple of titles I've been wanting to read for a long while: Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and J. D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey.  I'm a BIG fan of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 and Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye - they certainly fulfil all those qualities I mentioned above - and so I'm particularly looking forward to tucking into these two.

Affirmation!

It's about that time. A couple of weeks after a book's released, there's the initial comments from individual readers and then, a couple of weeks later, the first reviews. Have been pretty damned chuffed by those first responses to The Grease Monkey's Tale - 3 emails yesterday and 2 messages in the previous days. For me, it's an affirmation that a book is working - has all the thrills, mystery, romance, entertainment it promised - and that it'll work for (most) everyone else too.

And 10 Journeys, for being out an 4 extra weeks, is now picking up some fine reviews.  I'm just catching up with the other stories in this anthology - didn't get a chance before, what with putting the final touches to The Grease Monkey's Tale and all that - but am enjoying it a lot.

Interesting to note the number of online booksellers now stocking and selling The Grease Monkey's Tale and The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore. In addition to the various Amazon stores, there's Blackwell's, the Book Depository, Sprint Books, Fishpond, Price Minister, Books Etc, FH Shop, Tesco ... I never knew there were so many online booksellers.

Thought I'd even the score, with all this fanfare for TGMT, and re-post the book trailer Jen Persson created for Snowing and Greening.  There'll be no favouritism here!

Mixing it up with Gary Davison

Across the next few weeks, I'll be mixing this blog up a bit with the help of Geordie friend and fellow author, Gary Davison.  That's Gary lounging in his garden chair.

Gary (author of Fat Tuesday, Streakers and  the first section of A Tale Of Two Halves) and I both had our first books published in the PaperBooks imprint of Legend Press within cooee of each other.  What we'll be doing on our respective blogs (see Gary's at www.gary-davison.com) is sharing a few posts about a similar subject and seeing where it takes us.  Should be fun and maybe a tad wacky at times.

I suspect it's just as well that we're confining this to the blogs though.  I think the Geordie accent is a superb accent, but I find it hard to interpret at times (unless I've had a couple of bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale or Newky Brun, the drinking of which is a bit like sticking a babel fish in the ear, I guess).

When I moved to Australia 20 years ago, I was working in a plumbing warehouse in Adelaide - loading toilets, baths, shower basins, hot water services and the like onto trucks - and on my third or fourth day was introduced to one of the truck drivers.  He was from Newcastle, I was told - a Geordie - and had emigrated about 10 years previously, but I didn't understand a word he said.

His accent had remained so broad, he might have been speaking to me in a rare dialect of Inuit.  I did a bit of nodding and shaking of my head - measuring each moment carefully so that I didn't inadvertently insult him or agree to something I might regret - and probably tossed in the phrase Newky Brun for good measure, which would've gone down a treat, but I quit the job a couple of weeks later and never saw him again.

Gary's books capture the flavour of the Geordie accent in some of his characters, but they're not written in eye dialect, thank goodness, or I might not have understood a word.  Fat Tuesday and Streakers are both fast-paced stories with lots of action and thrills and you can buy them here.

Death in Venice

Have just posted an article about novels, films and music over at The View From Here.  You can quickly jump to it by clicking here.

Arrived!

Three boxes of books arrived by truck at the end of last week.  Very excited.  All my Christmases at once: a top-up of The Snowing and Greening of Thomas Passmore, my first sighting of 10 Journeys and, of course, The Grease Monkey's Tale.  Brilliant!  The cover looks even better than I imagined. Love that dirty, oily look behind the spanners and the spot-laminated rose.

I don't often follow the Amazon.co.uk rankings, but interested to see The Grease Monkey's Tale selling excellently across the last few days.  Must stop looking now.

Have been listening to a fair bit of Laura Marling lately (Alas, I Cannot Swim) and thinking about buying her latest album (I Speak Because I Can).  Great mood behind her songs - it suits me particularly when I'm thinking about writing - driving somewhere, listening to music and thinking about where a piece of writing might be heading next.

Wonderful lyrics and video clip on Cross Your Fingers / Crawled Out of the Sea. Can't embed it in the blog so you'll have to click on the link. Enjoy.

The Second Post

And here's the second post for the Legend Press/PaperBooks website.  This one is about The Grease Monkey's Tale and the storytelling motif.  Click here if you'd like to read more.

Legend Press/PaperBooks posting on the process of writing

Here's the link to the piece I wrote for  the Legend Press/PaperBooks website on The Grease Monkey's Tale and the process of writing.  Click here.

Capture and enjoy

It's out there in the wild.  Somewhere.

Released.  Roaming.

Haven't seen a copy myself yet

so am appreciating the news of each new sighting

(please let me know).

A small number are making their way to me

in one form or another -

a herd, a flock, a school.

Keep your eyes open and a large butterfly net to hand.

Will be posting a couple of pieces about The Grease Monkey's Tale

at Legend Press/PaperBooks in the next few days.

Will let you know when they're there.

Keeping sane by listening to beautiful music,

such as Piers Faccini's wonderful Tearing Sky album.
Music to listen to while reading The Grease Monkey's Tale perhaps.

Here's The Taste of Tears.