Authors Electric

    If thou be'st born to strange sights,   Things invisible to see, Ride ten thousand days and nights   Till Age snow white hairs on thee; Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me All strange wonders that befell thee From Song, by John Donne, 1573-1631 That’s the book. Riding the Yellow Trolley Car, by William Kennedy. I first saw it on a friend’s bookshelf 20 years ago and coveted it immediately. After a few weeks, a deal was struck. £5. It has been mine ever since. Maybe it was the cover that attracted me. Or, on browsing, the sections by Kennedy on writing, the wild and woolly flow of his early fiction writing which he described as being aggressively kick-started by long binges of words, eleven hours of writing at a time, words mostly discarded later, but not all… A method which sounded promising back then, 20 years ago, as I had as yet no sound ...

I’m asked to read a book that comes highly commended.   The author is visiting Shrewsbury for an event in the town library, and I’m invited to attend. I’m a cussed so-and-so who knows what she likes when it comes to reading - and it’s more often than not not the book that someone recommends. Despite all this, however, I decide to give the book a go.   Then, me being me, I forget all about it. A couple of weeks later, I’m reminded by the Library Service that the book’s still waiting to be picked up so, feeling sheepish, I go to collect it. After all, the library is almost next door.   [That was one of the selling points when I bought my house.]   It’s not as if I have far to go. I find the book waiting with my name on it. A librarian hands it over and my heart sinks.   The author is coming to town, and I’m bound to be introduced and what am I going to say to him if I don’t like his book? Just because it’s published by the same publisher as mine doe...