Authors Electric

The author's eyewear collection. Congratulations on your membership in the exclusive worldwide club of those who are blessed to wear glasses.  Worldwide, the club's membership has over four billion people.  In the UK alone, 77% of women and 68% of men wear specs. In t he US those percentages are 50% and 42%. The club has a long history. Far longer than many might think. Some credit Salvino D'Armate with the invention of eyewear in 1317. Others find references to eyewear as far back as 1000 BC. The evolution continued for hundreds more years for reasons of function, not fashion: Ben Franklin's bifocals...monocles...pince-nez. But all iterations of 'glasses' expressed their own bifocal vision: those who wore them were weak physically and bookish. ( A recent study by the College of Optometrists confirms that today 33% of adults think those in glasses look more professional and 43% think they look smarter.) And no survey was needed to tell that a boy growing up in t...

Tomorrow I am heading up to Stonehaven, a wee town just south of Aberdeen. Wendy Jones - a keen AE member and blogger (as well as successful crime writer) does a monthly radio show on the local station, called BookBuzz. She has invited me to be this month's guest author. So I am feeling quite energised and ready to rock 'em in the aisles. I actually love radio as a medium and have been a listener since the 'tranny' days of my misspent youth. I even worked briefly for a local radio station and chaired an advisory panel for another. That was a great wheeze since it involved going to twice yearly to the IBA HQ in London for meetings. Their offices were directly opposite Harrods. My children were quite the envy of their friends as I shopped there for those little 'bring-you-back-a' presents, with which we parents assuage our guilt when we dare to have a life of our own and leave them - albeit perfectly well cared for - even for a short time. I also love radio b...