Pastoral ways of life

The Independent has an article bemoaning the decline of the rural way of life and countryside (which has been going on for a couple of hundred years really) and it reminds me of a theme in Tolkien and the new Steve Augarde series.
Industrialism has changed the landscape irrevocably and to some extent the pastoral ideal […]

Reading hard books

Roger Sutton over on the Horn Book blog has recently read George Eliot’s Middlemarch (which I confess to reading and disliking intensely).
He makes a point which Scott Westerfeld made to me about using language for children in an as yet to be transcribed interview. Writers need to push the boundaries of their language for children […]

Goosebumps down my spine

The New York Times reports that R.L. Stine is to return to the Goosebumps series for the first time in eight years.
The stories will be linked by a sub plot concerning a  horror theme park and will be linked to two websites, enterhorrorland.com   and escapehorrorland.com. Influenced by Ray Bradbury’s twists, he comments:
“I don’t really want […]

Neil Gaiman gets two Graveyards

Bloomsbury appear to be doing a wonderful thing, according to Neil Gaiman’s blog. Aware that there are two audiences, Bloomsbury will have Dave McKean illustrate the adult version and the awesome Chris Riddell, the children’s one. Must reserve space on the bookshelf for both as they will work in very different ways!
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Gormenghast’s Titus to Groan on CD

News from Sebastian Peake that the Titus trilogy is to be released on CD later this year. Titus Grown will appear towards the end of the year with the other novels coming at three month intervals.
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A singular artist: Sebastian Peake interviewed about Mervyn

This year is the fifitieth anniversary of the death of Mervyn Peake, author, poet, dramatist and wonderful illustrator. His son, Sebastian, is talking about him at the Oxford Literary Festival on April 3rd at 7.30 in Christchurch College and kindly agreed to answer a few questions about his father’s work.
He will be talking about his […]

Kaleb Nation interviews Scott Westerfeld

Interesting interview with Scott Westerfeld over on the Kaleb Nation blog, mainly about writing.
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Holly Black is Pulsing

Simon and Schuster’s Pulse imprint are having a blogfest with some of their authors from 14th to 23rd March. Holly Black is one of the authors.
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Harry Potter Lexicon court date

RDR, Warner and JK Rowling head to court on March 24th to try and settle the HP Lexicon issue, according to the Guardian. Fingers crossed for RDR but methinks there is an awful lot of miscommunication and spin. As John Craice writes, whoever loses will appeal but I suspect that the ultimate loser will be […]

Wired on the life and legacy of Gary Gygax and D&D

Daivd Kusner, a Wired contributing editor, has this great article on Gygax’s life, D&D and the world of table top gaming (one I left years ago!). I was intrigued by his comments on Lord of the Rings and the influence of Conan the Barbarian.
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