Authors Electric

Gone are the days when the haunting of second-hand bookshops was one of my chiefest pleasures. Many of them have gone out of business, often because of the pandemic, and those that remain are so much more trouble than searching on AbeBooks. Besides, although we have bookshelves in practically every room of the house, they are all full. My wife is agitating for a “one-in, one-out” rule, as is already in force for my T-shirts. Old-fashioned books of paper and ink are still around me all the time, but rarely get a look-in, even the ones I really want to read. However, there is (obviously) no question of getting rid of them, and new ones do still occasionally reach the house by some kind of osmosis. A crisis may be brewing.  Most of the reading I do nowadays is on my Kindle, and the changes to my reading habits are more profound than I would have expected. For one thing, I regularly have about twelve books on the go at once. I would never have done this with physical books. To have a ...

The other day I was re-reading an old online review of a book by Olga Tokarczuk, in which I encouraged new readers to start instead with my favourite book of hers, Primeval and Other Times . When I checked on Amazon, I found it was now out of print - a second-hand copy was available for about £75 - and the Kindle edition had vanished completely. How is it possible for the best book (IMHO) by a recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature to disappear like this? And how can it be possible for an e-book to go out of print? And why is it that so many of the books I want to recommend to people are now available only at silly prices, or not at all? Is it just me?  My current literary enthusiasm - my wife might say obsession   - is for José Eduardo Agualusa, who was born in Angola and writes in Portuguese. The first novel of his that I read was A General Theory of Oblivion , which was shortlisted for the International Booker in 2016. Ever since, I have been reading everything by...

  My Dad used to say to me that if I was in a room on my own, I would argue with my finger-ends. He said, "If somebody says 'Up,' you say, 'Down. If somebody says 'Straight', you say, 'Crooked'. You can't help yourself."  Later, my partner would get quite exasperated at finding himself suddenly having to defend an opinion he'd assumed I shared-- and which I often did. But no matter. He'd rashly put the opinion into words -- 'Singer Sargent was a great artist' -- 'The M6 is a busy motorway' -- 'The Sun comes up in the morning.' I would immediately contest it. "Why have you always got to argue about everything?" I have to admit that I have often listened to people making a point that I absolutely agree with-- or did, up until then-- while in the back of my head, forming an argument against it. I then often argue myself round to my original viewpoint, although not always. But I think I know when and why th...

Mary Reinholz '70 West    The jobs I had as a kid and even later, as a young man don't exist anymore. I had no inkling I'd work on a newspaper or write books, or be in "media." My "big get" was getting a job. I started earning pocket money at age 10 delivering newspapers to home subscribers on de Luxe Schwinn I loved that sleek, red-and-black bike, with its whitewall balloon tires, shiny streamlined chrome fenders, built-in horn, head-and-tail lights, front-wheel shock-absorber and rack to carry the afternoon dailies I delivered to my afternoon paper's forty subscribers.  I became adepted at sailing fat copies of rubber-banded,  Hollywood Citizen News onto subscribers' front porches without breaking a window - most of the time.  Schwinns of that era were like our plush, chrome-laden, dreamboat, fintailed cars -  as stylish as they were unsafe, gas-guzzling, and impractical. I lusted after just a second-hand one that I could restore. To save up, ...

This month, we expand on July's theme of long-distance walking routes to tackle endurance horse races. First we have non-fiction: Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer, which I read in the evenings while riding a much less arduous trail of my own across the Welsh mountains. Rough Magic by Lara Prior-Palmer This beautifully-written memoir by the niece of event rider Lucinda Prior-Palmer describes Lara's experience, aged just 19, of riding the Mongol Derby. Arguably the world's toughest horse race, this 1000 km test of endurance takes place each August across the steppes made famous by Genghis Khan. Riders change mounts at each stopover and complete the course by riding 25 of the tough little Mongolian horses provided by herders along the route. This year's Derby will have just finished by the time this post goes up, but entries are now open for the 2026 race if you are inspired! Second is fiction: The Glory by Lauren St John. The Glory by Lauren St John When I first saw thi...

Image Credit:  Images taken by me, Allison Symes, from the 2025 Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick. By the time this post goes out, I will have just returned from my big writing treat of the year - The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick.    I get to spend a few days immersed in the writing world. I also love catching up with friends I only see online for the rest of the year. I learn so much from the workshops and courses and the after dinner speakers.  The Hayes, Swanwick, Derbyshire - home to The Writers' Summer School for over 70 years. I also find this break away reaffirms my belief in myself as a writer by helping me fight Imposter Syndrome. Real writers go to conferences, don’t they, whether said events are online or in person, day events, or longer. Also last month, I was involved with a friend’s online book launch. That went well, I’m glad to say, but what is lovely here is with this and Swanwick, there was plenty of writer engagement. For the online launch, that...