David Maybury | Blog

With the best name in music The Ravonettes, a duo of Danish early-rock revivalists, have released their third album, Lust, Lust, Lust. Listening to all three in succession may not be the best way to hear any band but it does The Ravonette’s no harm.

There is a darker substance to the new album that was lacking in the first two. Focusing on the sex of sex, drugs and rock and roll, along with the trademark tracks played fast and loud. The first few songs are more lucid than the rest of the album but there is something in each one to catch you all the way to the end. A worthy alternative to REM’s Accelerate (on the playlist for next week).

Songs of the album - Aly Walk with Me, Dead Sound.

There has been a small reshuffle in bookshops around Dublin lately. Chapters has moved from Abbey Street to their huge new premises on Parnell Street. Easons have finally, after plenty of rumours, closed their Eason-Hanna store on the corner of Dawson Street and just around the corner, Reads (bought by Easons in 2006) has opened a new, larger, dedicated bookstore.

Apart from the abysmal branding of the new Reads store - garishly red facade and chicken scrawl logo - the internal layout of the shop is horrible. With Waterstones and Hodges Figgis within a 2 minute walk, both with four stories of selling space, the new Reads needs to innovate if it is to go up against these two juggernauts. With most of my time spent in the children’s books section of any store I enjoyed the removed room that Easons-Hannas had reserved for young readers. In comparison, Reads has children’s books shelved alongside science fiction, fantasy and adult graphic novels.

Not everything about the new store is negative. Reads look to be trying maintain their edge on selling books at the best price that they can - with a large selection of bestselling and highly acclaimed books available at great prices. But at the cost of the aesthetic pleasure of feeling comfortable in the store, is it worth the saving?

Fergal over on Tuppenceworth is calling for obsessive blog posts - with the promise of a rival fluffy badge if the post is worthy. I have taken ‘obsessive blogger’ to be an open excuse to have a rant about bookstores…

So here’s my plan. I’m going to put together a map, listing all of the bookshops around Dublin initially, and posting a short review with pictures and generally anything that catches my eye.

First up on the block is the new Reads Bookstore on Nassau Street.

View Larger Map

I was, very lovingly, given an Unlimited Card over Christmas and so far, with the help of my new flexible friend, I’ve managed to see (deep breath):

The Killing of John Lennon (good), Into the Wild (over rated), We Own the Night (good), Things We Lost in the Fire (very good), Horton Hears a Who (brilliant!), American Gangster (very good), No Country for Old Men (brilliant), Beowolf (good), Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium (very good), The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (very good), Juno (movie of the month), Atonement (over rated), The Golden Compass (terrible), Alvin and the Chipmunks (also terrible), I am Legend (very good, even for Will Smith), The Kite Runner (the book was better), Be Kind Rewind (the kind of movie I’d want to make), Walk Hard: The Dewy Cox Story (funny, funny stuff), Charlie Wilson’s War (brilliant), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (over rated), Alien vs Predator - Requiem (good n’ gorey), The Bucket List (alright…but… no), The Other Boleyn Sister (over rated), The Water Horse (the book was better), There Will Be Blood (far too over rated - except for the last 15 minutes or so), The Spiderwick Chronicles (very good), The Orphanage (brilliant), Cloverfield (good enough to make you fear the subway), Rambo (sigh…), Vantage Point (2 hours I’m never going to see again), Shrooms (terrible), In Bruges (very very good), Penelope (surprisingly not bad), Semi-Pro (Does Will Ferrell ever take a day off?), 10,000 BC (very good), My Blueberry Nights and a few more I’m sure I’ve forgotten…

That’s a lot of movies in three months… and the list of what’s to come for the rest of the year means I’ll be spending a lot of time indoors:

Iron Man (amazing teasers), Superhero Movie, Batman, Hellboy 2 (thank you Mr Del Toro), The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian, The Happening (a new M Night Shyamalan), Kung Fu Panda (looks very good), Sex and the City : The Movie (it’s an addiction, honest), The Incredible Hulk (a remake of the remake), Get Smart (with some of the greatest theme music ever written for television), Wall-E (very cool!), The X-Files 2, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (keeping the fans alive), Coraline (who doesn’t love Gaiman?), Halo, The Punisher: War Zone and my all time favourite hero: Indiana Jones.

My point? 2008 is the year for BIG movies.

Interesting shortlist for the 2008 awards (not an O’Brien Press book on the list… or too many other Irish publishers!) Delighted to see Siobhan Dowd, deservedly, on the list alongside Tom Kelly and Michael Scott’s The Alchemyst. Some disappointing omissions (Enda Wyley/Derek Landy) and a few unexpected inclusions: Caitriona Nic Sheain and Jessica O’Donnell who are both new to me.

Two names that are not strangers to the shortlist, Oliver Jeffers and Kate Thompson both make a reappearance - and the grand-daddy of Dublin literature Roddy Doyle (also up for an Irish Book Award) is the last name on the list. Now, time to get reading.
Full shortlist:

The Alychemyst - Michael Scott
The Black Book of Secrets - FE Higgins
Discover Art - Jessica O’Donnell
Gaiscioch na Beilte Uaine - Caitriona Nic Sheain agus Andrew Whitson
The Last of the High Kings - Kate Thompson
The London Eye Mystery - Siobhan Dowd
The Thing with Finn - Tom Kelly
Titanic 2020 - Colin Bateman
The Way Back Home - Oliver Jeffers
Wilderness - Roddy Doyle

> Click here for details on the winners.

There’s only a few hours to go before Children’s Books Ireland announce the shortlist for this years Bisto Book of the Year. I have tried (and failed) to get a hint of who is on the list… but I have come up with a few names I’d like to see nominated.

I’d be very surprised not to see Enda Wyley’s The Silver Notebook (O’Brien Press) on the list - or Karl O’Neill’s The Most Beautiful Letter in the World for that matter, another O’Brien Press book. And, on the list of O’Brien Press releases, Conor Kostick’s The Book of Curses might make an appearence…

A few others that I’d really like to see nominated: Skullduggery Pleasant, Derek Landy, Michael Scott’s The Alchemyst, Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery, Brendan O’Brien’s The Story of Ireland, Eoin Colfer’s Airman and/or Artemis Fowl : The Graphic Novel and Donough O’Malley’s Monkey See, Monkey Do.

I’m sure that I’ve missed a few great titles here so I’m really looking forward to reading the full list later today. The CBI site has more on the awards.

Last Saturday’s Guardian ran an excerpt from Philip Pullman’s new book Once Upon a Time in the North - about how a younger Lee Scoresby, Hester and lorek Brynison first met.

Wikipedia’s entry for Once Upon a Time in the North has two teaser quotes from Pullman about the book, and the red, blue, green series. Have a read here.

(Hat-tip to Present Tense)

A clip of the rarely filmed Alan Finsberg reading from his long poem Howl.

World Book Day 2008 was officially a success.

Nine slim ‘quick read’ books were published, including Neil Gaiman’s Odd and the Frost Giants and Martin Handford’s Where’s Wally, and they filled the weeks bestseller list. Only Delia Smith managed to hold on to eighth place with How to Cheat at Cooking.

Over the week, the nine £1/€1.50 books sold nearly 400,000 copies (50,000 more than last year). Interesting to see if the increased sales for the week translate into more book sales all year.

Read more about World Book Day and books over at theBookseller.com, the guardian and the Telegraph.

A few quick links that I keep fogetting to post:

George Fournier, formerly of this address, has gotten himself a website.

Two from the Scamp blog: An interesting book of art drawn by Writers and the step-by-step guide on drawing Twenty Major’s bestselling book cover.

Just One More Book has an interview with writer and illustrator Lita Judge.

An ‘entrepeneur’ in Washington is locked in solitary confinement cell and left to drink her own urine for four days. Euwww.

Pub Rants has a rant about work clauses from MacMillan - seems a bit drastic:

the Author will complete the Work and submit it to the Publisher prior to beginning work on any other book for INSERT GENRE (excluding only other books that may already be under separate contract to the Publisher).

The Northern Ireland 2D Festival is back this year - details on the FPI blog. In the Verbal Arts Centre (Derry) from June 5 - 7.

The guardian has the full list of winners from the 2008 British Animation Awards.

The excellent Dreadful Thoughts series is continuing on Fústar.info - next up is Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows.

Skullduggery Pleasant has come and gone. I was disappointed and thrilled by the book - disappointingly thrilling? - but I have taken issue with one of the last lines.

My weekend was rescued by the unnerving horror tales of Chris Priestley. In his eleven crafted stories, told by the secretive Uncle Montague, Priestley creates one of the best gothic horror novels for readers about 12+ I’ve read in ages. The chilling tales of vengeful trees, lost souls and menacing demons are illustrated by David Roberts, culminating in a book that will haunt you for more than one reading.

Go and have a read. If you think you’re hard enough.

I spent today on Merrion Square in Dublin being spun left and right, upside down and right side up again. First they do it slowly. Then fast. Then really really fast. Until suddenly you’re remembering, 78 feet above the ground, that you haven’t posted on your website since Thursday.

No Music Monday 101 this week, I’m still dizzy.

Sinéad has found something interesting in New Zealand group The Ruby Suns, go have a listen. (Sorry for stealing Sinéad!!)

David Almond and one of my all time heroes, illustrator Dave McKean, have cooked up something wonderful. The Savage (described as part novel, part graphic novel) is about Blue Baker who writes stories that come true. I’m a long time fan of both Dave’s (see here) and I can’t wait to read the book…

Dave’s art is being shown in Foyles Bookshop in London for a week, starting Wednesday March 26. If you happen to be passing - head on in, take some pics and let me see!! Please?

The Savage, published by Walker Books, is due out on April 7.

So the interview with RTE went well last week. Colm and I both answered a few questions for the soundbytes and were done in half an hour. (We even had time for a celebrity hunt in the canteen. No luck finding anyone though)

No one in RTE was quite sure if our ‘bytes’ would be broadcast but we told our Mammy’s and Gran’s to listen anyway. And they did.

Click here to have a listen.

The guests on the show, Fergal Tobin and Anne Haverty, disagreed with what I had to say. It was both unexpected and unfair and I would like to respond.

Anne Haverty’s opinion that the business end of writing is of no interest to writers seems nonsensical. Publishing, as both guests agree in the interview, has changed over the last 10 years and publishers, editors and agents look upon it from a much more analytical level now. I think the business of writing is very much the business of the writer, literary fiction or otherwise. That includes the general administrative aspects of writing - how to make a submission, where to submit work, help with making contacts as much as the financial ends.

Anyone with an interest in writing/publishing is aware of the market conditions - and Fergal’s suggestion that if I knew the numbers involved with publishing fiction I would probably stop writing is daft. All new writers speak to publishers in Ireland and the UK - each with varying degrees of pessimism - and most people submit manuscripts with the full knowledge of the difficulties.

I am looking at making a career in children’s writing - an ambition that is driven by the same need as Anne Haverty’s, as ‘someone who needs to write books‘. What I mean when I say career in writing, is that I want to continue writing and develop it with audiences and readers through as many outlets, technologies and books as possible for as long as I can. To reach that goal I need as much information about writing, including the business aspects, as I can find.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Relevant link: American authour John Scalzi offers business advice to writers. (more)

Relevant quote: A friend, who has been submitting fiction for more than 15 years, sent this by email:

Every publisher/agent I’ve ever met has always begun the conversation with: ‘You know you’ll never get a book of short stories published, don’t you?’

Ignore what I said this morning.

Skullduggery (listed here for release April 1) is on the shelves. And in my hands. I’m not sure if it’s a mistake by the bookshop or just a marketing idea by Harper Collins but I don’t mind too much.

See you all in 6 - 8 hours.

Update: Looks like the book is on sale by mistake - go get your copy! And in other news, Derek Landy is doing two events in April to promote the new installment. One in Bray and the other in Blanchardstown.

Last year saw some heavy hitters reach the shelves (Artemis Fowl - The Graphic Novel, The Alchemist, Skullduggery Pleasant, My Dad’s a Birdman and loads more)

So what’s in store for 2008? (I couldn’t help but have a sneak peak!!)

First - there are a few movies to look out for including the big budget Iron Man, Batman and the next Narnia installment. John Boyne’s Boy In the Striped Pyjamas is due for release in Autumn and Dr Suess‘ Horton Hears a Who is hitting the silver-screen next week.

There is a lot more to come by way of books this year too - a new Skullduggery Pleasant (Playing With Fire) and a new Artemis Fowl (The Time Paradox) as well as a new installment to Malorie Blackman’s Noughts and Crosses. The book factory that is Darren Shan has a new title coming - Death’s Shadow and of course there is his new adult fiction novel, Procession of the Dead.

Lauren Child has a new book in the Charlie and Lola story, as does Michelle Paver in her Chronicles series. Zizou Corder has a new book out now - Lee Raven, Boy Thief - as does Deirdre Madden, Thanks for Telling Me Emily. And I’m nearly certain that Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams have their second book (following on from Tunnels) coming this summer.

So - whatever about the rest of ye, I’ll be spending the summer on the beach* with the glasses on and my nose in a book or two.

*beach scenario is weather permitting.

One of life’s greatest questions has been answered via Language Log:

If you type: Every chicken must logically have been preceded by an egg out of which it developed. Microsoft Word will ‘fix’ the sentence so that it reads: An egg out of which it developed must logically have preceded every chicken.

Now we can all rest easy. More here.

A copy of Colm Ó Snodaigh’s album Giving fell into my lap on Friday. I’ve only managed to listen to it once (and a half) so this might not be the fairest judgement delivered on the album. First impressions are worth something though.

Giving is an eclectic mix - it was hard to find a definite thread that runs through all of the tracks apart from Ó Snodaigh’s own vocals which sometimes exude confidence, while at others shy away. The confidence on the album overall is a mixed bag - the songs jump from weakly written, Adieu, to impressive, subtle and haunting tracks like Lechaileach Arís and Is tú mo Ghrá.

The album is far removed from the usual sounds that Kila deliver - which is an interesting move for Ó Snodaigh. It does focus heavily his voice, which comes into it’s own in some of the tracks. Good for a Monday night in with a book and a glass of whatever you’re having yourself.

I met Ina from Semantic Bits on Saturday night. I was somewhat un-sober at the time so when she asked me what I blogged about I garbled an answer and hid at the bar. I think I told her that I write about books. And writing. (Apologies Ina)

Mostly I’d like to focus the blog on children’s’ writing, a genre that isn’t lacking in bloggers. I’m currently working on a childrens’ novel but my interest goes deeper than my own book. I work closely with the Writers In Schools Scheme and their Development Education project so my day is often spent talking about children’s’ lit or with children’s writers.

One of the writers I get to talk to is Siobhan Parkinson, who has been writing for/working with children for aeons. (I think Siobhan’s first book was published in 1992?) I picked up my old copy of her book The Moon King on Sunday and have been marvelling at it ever since. I have questions about some of it - approach/setting etc. - but overall it is a unique book that conjures a realistic view of a boy with aphasia.

The Moon King is easily comparable to Siobhan Dowd’s The London Eye Mystery or Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Aphasia isn’t autism but there are similarities in writing a character with communication/social difficulties. Siobhan introduces broken paragraphs/fragments of Ricky’s silent thoughts to overcome the aphasia and give her silent character a voice. The fragments read easily and don’t interfere with the main narrative of the story - in places you’re looking forward to reading his thoughts rather than the narrative. It’s an interesting book that deals with a specific disability and eight years later The Moon King is still top of my reading pile.

Happy World Book Day.

Have you heard about the Dublin Book Festival yet? Its a book festival, organised by publishers from around Ireland, to promote books. It sounds simple but it was years in the making. But the festival starts this Friday in City Hall with a reading from childrens’ writer Marita Conlon-McKenna. Also reading on Friday is yours truly at half-past one. (17.5 on the nervous scale)

If your home tonight (or out and near a radio/pc or even a phone with earphones) I’m making a surprise appearance on the Arts Show on Radio One. It was recorded yesterday at PO Box 2222, Donnybrook, Dublin 4. Weirdly I met Rick (grand poobah/king of all men/salty face). That’s not so weird really, considering he works there. But it was unexpected.

And if you don’t fancy hearing/seeing/doing anything related to me, go here and read about Fústar’s plan to rebirth Dreadful Thoughts. First up for us all to read is M.R. James‘ Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad. Discussion time is Monday March 10 at 8pm.