Authors Electric

Apologies for the quality of the image on the right, but it comes from an Early? Mid? Nineteenth Century French children's book called, "LA POUPEE PEINTE PAR ELLE-MEME", its cover image faded almost to oblivion. It came originally from an ancient house in La Vendee, a house full of such historical treasures, and which had been in the family of our very close French friends for centuries (at least three centuries, if not four). I set one of my Young Adult novels there - "WOLFSONG", which is currently available as an ebook on Amazon, if you're curious. The house itself, sadly, has had a dramatic end to its very long and doubtless dramatic life. When the estate was  broken up and divided - French inheritance law is quite uncomfortable and often destructive - it went on to become a hotel in a part of rural France that didn't really attract tourists, so it failed, and eventually, after a succession of owners, was abandoned to the elements and the vandals...

I'm into a trio of print books at present, all borrowed from the Barbican Library. THE STORY OF MR SOMMER, a short, beautifully written/translated novel by Patrick Suskind, with exquisite illustrations by Sempe was both moving and haunting - just one of those books you can't forget. Jeanette Winterson's fantasy based on Noah and the flood makes an amusing contrast, and I have yet to savour the third - JUSTINE, by Alice Thompson... I've already dipped into its descriptions though - the sort of lavish and visual poetic prose I lap up. There is a difficult-to-define difference between reading on my Kindle and reading a print book. All three print books are paperbacks, and so have rather springy pages which is annoying for breakfast reading - one hand on the coffee mug and the other on the book. There's also a subtle difference for me, as a writer, between reading/working on screen, and reading my eventual print-outs, and I do wonder if there is a similar one for p...