New books, old books, writing books, finding books

    A 'what's new' post in which I hope there's something to interest everyone.

    - Virago Press have today re-published several of the best-loved works of Rumer Godden, with more to come soon. Out now are Black Narcissus (that's the only one I've read, and it was of course made into a very memorable film by Powell and Pressburger),  Kingfishers Catch Fire and In this House of Brede, among others. Jenny Brown's 25 minute interview with Rumer Godden is worth watching.

 

   - Lovers of both books and art who are within reach of Edinburgh may like to spend a civilized afternoon later this month viewing the current S.J. Peploe exhibition at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Modern Two) and then discussing Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street - in which Peploe's work and his grandson feature - over tea at the Gallery Book Lounge.

   

    - M.R. Hall, whose latest book The Flight is in my TBR pile and is currently available at a bargain price, is running a free online course called The Seven Secrets of Successful Crime Writing. To access it go to M.R. Hall's Facebook page and follow the link to the weekly videos, podcasts and to download the worksheets. There's also an associated competition for aspiring crime writers.

   

    - The Literary Consultancy will be hosting The Literary Conference: Writing in a Digital Age in London in June and it's open for booking now. The full programme with its impressive list of speakers is here, and to get a flavour of the event, watch the video from last year's conference which you'll see on the right side of that page.

  

    - You may have heard of bookcrossing, that is where you label a book, 'release it in the wild' and follow its progress to other readers, well a similar initiative has been started in London's Tube. Books on the Underground acts as a 'commuter library', distributing a collection of books for passengers to borrow, read and put back for others to pick up. With Valentine's Day approaching, the theme is Love on the Underground with a selection of Mills & Boon novels for your delectation. By the way, did anyone see the programme How to Write a Mills and Boon which was shown early last month? Novelist Stella Duffy took up the challenge and found there was a lot more to it than she'd expected!