Bank Holiday Reading

Happy May 6th Bank Holiday! We hope you are enjoying the weather (please no rain!), having a delicious meal, spending time with your favourite people, and finding time to enjoy a good book. Even though most of us spend the majority of our reading time pouring over our own books, we do manage, especially on these holiday weekends, to fit in a few titles outside our list. So, here’s what we’re reading this weekend:

Amy: I’m so close to finishing THE ACCURSED by Joyce Carol Oates, which I feel like has taken my brain and twisted it into an origami crane (or more appropriately, an origami vampire bat). It’s a completely bizarre and beautifully written story set in the early 20th century about a curse which descends upon the inhabitants of Princeton, New Jersey. Just read what Stephen King had to say about it. If I manage to finish that, I’ll move onto either LET’S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS by David Sedaris, or WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT ANNE FRANK by Nathan Englander. Decisions, decisions!

Sarah O: I’m reading a book called A HORA DA ESTRELA by Clarice Lispector. I’m reading it with my Portuguese teacher. In Portuguese! It’s the story of a young woman from the north east of Brasil who moves to Rio de Janeiro  for work and things dont go well for her. It was Clarice’s last published work, published posthumously, and exhibits all her courageous and innovative use of language and attitude to structure. Though she is one of Brazil’s greatest writers she is published a bit too little outside the country. Maybe that will change.

Emily: For me it is BE AWESOME – Hadley Freeman’s alternative to HOW TO BE A WOMAN by Caitlin Moran.

Sarah B: I am reading, in chunks, (when I have time -  which I hope to be this bank hol!) – LITERARY ROGUES: A SCANDALOUS HISTORY OF WAYWARD AUTHORS which I picked up in New York. It’s the perfect read for a) a person in publishing and b) someone who lives with an author – just to watch out for the warning signs of bad behaviour! Each chapter is on a different author, period and their vices and normally, their tragic ends!

Cait: BAD PHARMA by Ben Goldacre – terrifying so far, I’m desperate to finish over the weekend!!

Naomi: THE CRANE WIFE by Patrick Ness. As a huge fan of Patrick Ness (although come on, who isn’t?! Even my severely dyslexic boyfriend who has only ever read the Harry Potter books and several Guns N’ Roses themed  autobiographies loved the CHAOS WALKING series!) as well as Japanese folklore, I was very excited to hear that he was releasing a new book for adults, based on a traditional Japanese fairytale. As I already know how the original story goes, I am pretty certain there will be no happy endings here, but it still looks like an amazing read and one I can’t wait to sink my teeth into. Also the cover is gorgeous! And I can (probably) exclusively reveal that the double-matte finish FEELS LIKE VELVET! (Not that I know this from repeatedly rubbing it on my face, of course.)

Sara OC: I’m reading THE END OF BIG by Nicco Mele on my Kobo app. Nicco is a friend of mine from high school and basically revolutionised the way presidential campaigns are run. He pioneered the grassroots social media fundraising as webmaster for Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign.

Emma: THE GREAT GATSBY – because it is a modern classic I have never read. And because the film is coming and I HATE seeing the film before I have read the book. Also WONDER – the story of a boy with severe facial disfigurement. I am reading this with my 9 year old. He is loving it and so am I.

Jan: Right now I’m plowing through my haul from the Stockholm International Comics Festival that I attended to last weekend. Most of all I’m looking forward to reading STORIES FROM ENGELFORS. It’s an interlude graphic novel, published between book two and three in the YA trilogy “The Circle” by Sara Bergmark Elfgren and Mats Strandberg. It’s been making it’s way around the world for the past few years and since the co-writers and artists Kim W Andersson  (who also designed the trilogy covers), Lina Neidestam and Karl Johnsson are friends of mine I’m hoping this graphic novel gets the same treatment!

Another two beautiful finds that I’ll be ogling are Sigbjørn Lilleeng’s  GENERATOR which looks a bit Akira inspired, with a Paul Pope treatment – Norwegians really know their stuff when it comes to comics! So do Germans, and even though I won’t get as much of DAS INFERNO by Michael Meier it’s looking amazing!

Becca: Over the bank holiday  weekend I am reading THE LAST GIRLFRIEND ON EARTH by Simon Rich. My little sister sent it to me in the post because she loved it so much, and I definitely trust her judgement. So far so good, it’s a collection of quirky, surreal and hilarious short stories and sketches about love. My favourite so far involves an over-amorous goat and the grisly troll that ‘got away’. I’m excited to see where this goes….

Georgia: I’m reading THE LOST ART OF KEEPING SECRETS by Eva Rice – Emily’s copy via Becca! I’d never have picked this book up as it has the most dreary pastel cover and looks like godawful chick lit, but it’s a delight – a kind of pastiche of a 50s novel, full of wonderfully eccentric characters, fabulous period detail, written with great wit and warmth but also real poignancy. Utterly delicious and unputdownable!

What are you reading today? Tell us below!

Throwing Paper Planes…an ode to a friendship

As I’m sure you won’t have failed to notice – Journalist, documentary maker and TV presenter Dawn O’Porter has written her first YA novel, which officially came out yesterday.

There is so much online chatter about this book due to Dawn’s career so far, and this has been amazing for us as a new(ish) publisher to see. Sure, it’s felt pretty glamorous for us to be listening to Dawn talk on the radio, or TV, or in magazines about a book we publish.

But, all this aside, besides all the hype and chatter, we have a book. And a stunning book at that. A story, of a friendship. If you’ve ever been a teenage girl – and I have – you will remember how genuinely crap you can feel sometimes, how all over the place your emotions are, how friendships can feel so fragile and how those first “loves” take over your life. When I first read Dawn’s novel, I went on a massive nostalgia trip – all those feelings I’d put away came rushing back. I tell you now – I’d never want to be a teenager again!

When we were thinking about Paper Aeroplanes, and how to get across those teenage feelings, we thought of music. How many times did I close the door to my bedroom and play music so loud to wallow in teen angst? I can only imagine what my parents thought to me singing at the top of my voice to Whitney Houston over and over again. *hangs head* So, when we discovered The Bookshop Band, and heard their songs about books, we thought – what better thing? We commissioned an Ode to a Friendship, for Renee and Flo, and when I listen to this, it takes me back to my teenage years. And it made Dawn WEEP. (Honest).

So – here is the WORLD PREMIERE, of Throwing Paper Planes, by the very, very talented Bookshop Band – we hope you enjoy it…and go on, wallow a little.

Dress your mummy like a mummy…and win!

Next week, THE TROUBLE WITH MUMMIES by  Fleur Hitchcock will be released into the hands of excited kids everywhere. In case you haven’t heard about this book yet, here’s the summary:

Sam comes home one day to find his family turning a little bit loopy – his mum is redecorating using hieroglyphics and his dad is building a pyramid in the back garden. He hopes it’s just a weird new fashion… but then the strangeness starts to spread. With the help of his friends Ursula, Henry and Lucy the Goat, Sam must save his town from rampaging Roman rugby players, hairdressers turned cavewomen, and a teacher who used to be a ‘basket of kittens’ but now wants to sacrifice the Year Ones to the Aztec sun god. As history invades Sam’s world, will he be able to keep the Greeks away from the Egyptians and discover the cause of the Mummy madness?

Hilarious, right? So to celebrate the release of this book, we are running an equally hilarious contest. We are challenging young UK citizens to dress their mummies (or willing family members) up like ancient Egyptian mummies! Prizes will be awarded for Best Effort, Most Creative Mummy, Cutest Mummy, and Best Overall Mummy. All winners will receive signed copies of THE TROUBLE WITH MUMMIES. Best Overall Mummy winner will take home a HUGE prize pack including a £25 voucher for the “mummy” and ancient Egyptian-themed goodies from The British Museum. See details below, and for full T’s and C’s, visit click here.

On First Love…

Do you remember your first love? I do. His name was Geoff – I was 12 years old and about a foot taller than him. But obviously that didn’t bother me at all because we were meant to be together…despite the height difference.

I’m thinking about first love as Dawn O’Porter’s novel Paper Aeroplanes comes out next week and we are EXCITED, as you can tell. A few weeks ago we had a chat with Dawn in front of the camera about various nostalgia moments from her own teen school years. And here’s the first one…On first love…

We’ll share more of the videos with you over the course of the week – coming soon…friends, frenemies, school, periods and the all important question of 90s food! Stay tuned for more and watch our twitter stream for the launch of Dawn’s new website…

Anyone brave enough to share their stories of first love?

Visiting other worlds to remember our own

Did you know that it’s Earth Day today? We hope you’re celebrating by doing simple things — remembering to turn off lights, unplugging “vampire” appliances when not in use, recycling more, wasting less, and of course…reading! Reading is actually a great way to save the planet, because the right book can completely change the way you think about the world. And after all, isn’t saving the planet really dependent on our ability to change the way we operate? So to get you started, here are a few recommended books for Earth Day:

The Cloud Hunters live in a world that is both familiar and very, very different to our own. They travel through the sky in boats, fighting flying whales and fearsome pirates so far, so different. At the heart of Alex Shearer’s story however is a lack of water. Something our world is becoming increasingly familiar with. Water is a commodity like gold and grain – and it’s only when it’s gone that you really understand how precious it is.

BOONIE takes you to a desert world, where the earth has been parched by an unyielding sun and water is society’s most precious resource. The desperate search for water has led to terrible abuses of power, and it is up to two brave children, JD and Aqua, to fight for the city’s childrens’ freedom.

THE LORAX is a classic tale of what goes wrong when we stop respecting our natural resources. You can even purchase it in a special recycled paper edition!

In THE GREAT PAPER CAPER, when trees start mysteriously disappearing from the forest, the forest creatures begin their search for answers. Could the abundance of paper aeroplanes littered about have something to do with this tragedy?

As the polar ice caps melt, polar bear sets off to look for a new place to live in THE JOURNEY HOME. Follow him as he meets a few other endangered species along the way…

This beautiful pop-up published by the Tate artfully illustrates the effects of deforestation.

Can you think of others? Add them to the list by posting them in the comments below. And let us know how you are celebrating Earth Day!

Girl meets Boy meets Books: Part 2

The great book swap continues! You might remember that as a January resolution the ‘boy’ and I decided to challenge each other with a book to broaden the mind. One book each month, something that the other one would never dream of picking up but that would give them a new perspective on great literature. Last time we got as far as debating language vs plot and cleverness vs intellect… recent events have proved that great works split opinion, and there are some things we will never agree on!

Getting stuck in…

 February (see here for our reasons behind the chosen titles)

I gave him WONDER by R.J. Palacio

He said –
While the message of the book is commendable and important, I feel that the author’s voice drowns out the child characters’ voices because she feels she has an important lesson for readers – but tells it in a manner which is purposefully childish. It came across as trite, preachy and patronising as a result. I hate to be a reviewer who negatively reviews a book which is so obviously not aimed at him, but I do feel that there is children’s literature out there which conveys a similar message but with a story and characters complex enough to leave more of a lasting impression. And without the infuriatingly-schmaltzy Hollywood ending. While it is a decent story relatively well told, I got the impression it’s the kind of story adults think children should be reading to turn them into sensible and sensitive people, rather than what children really want to read.

He gave me FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury

I said –
I absolutely loved this. It felt like reading THE HANDMAID’S TALE all over again, a stark warning about abandoning things which are crucial to humanity in favour of ‘progress’. The burning of books has been a symbol for centuries of the danger of knowledge, and the restriction of freedom. From the burning of Ashurbanipal in 612 BC, to the Nazi book burning campaign in 1933 where over 25,000 texts were destroyed, to set alight a book symbolises far more than flame on paper. Even today the burning of books is a regular occurrence. Whether that’s the Qu’ran in Florida or stacks of Harry Potter books, it is a statement of aggression, and violence that somehow transgresses a physical violation. Ray Bradbury’s story is one that will stay with me, his stark prose and vivid characters were excellent. And despite the dystopian world I thought he betrayed a sense of hope in Montag’s innate need for literature; for poetry, prose, history and society  devoured from paper. It made me wonder what this meant for eBooks – is there a danger that the transience of the digital word betrays the perpetuity of paper?

March

I gave him KIT’S WILDERNESS by David Almond
The reaction I got to WONDER made me certain that my next move had to be a good one. I wanted to prove that children’s literature can be hugely powerful, and scary, moving, and dangerous. The sense of uneasiness that Almond regularly creates in his writing has stayed with me beyond plot points and character details and I knew that it was a good book for a boy who loves powerful prose and sparse writing.

He said –
Read any work by David Almond and you immediately get a sense of someone who understands the complexity of young readers’ minds, what inspires them, what excites them and the type of story they can get lost in. Kit’s Wilderness is a perfect example. It deals with themes like friendship, belonging, rejection, redemption, and all with a subtlety of touch which gets under the skin and remains with you long after reading. There is nothing patronising in his style – he treats readers with respect and urges them to make up their own minds about complex issues like the relationship between Kit and Askew, the meaning of the Death game, the presence of ghosts. While SKELLIG is David Almond’s most famous novel, I feel that KIT’S WILDERNESS is the superior novel in many respects, and showcases an author at the height of his powers, providing a thrilling, utterly absorbing ride for his audience.

He gave me Woody Allen’s Complete Prose
I chose Woody Allen’s Collected Prose because I consider it to be among the best comic prose ever written. It stands alongside Wodehouse, Thurber and Perelman in its consistency of laughs, but with a range of stories and surreal edge which is for me superior to any of those. It is the ultimate ‘dip-in-and-out’ book, with almost every line providing a twist, a turn of phrase, a witty reversal, a master class in joke writing and one liners. Even the most worn stories in my copy, like The Kugelmass Episode and Death Knocks, still surprise me and make me laugh out loud. It is, without doubt, my desert island book.

I said –
Errr… I know that Woody Allen is your hero. I get that he is a comedy genius, and I can see the brilliance at work. But I just didn’t get it. Maybe I should have picked out stories rather than starting at the beginning and working my way through. I was never compelled to pick it up and abandon eating and sleeping to get to the end. I enjoyed it in a distant and slightly removed way, I would like to read more but I think that it will be the kind of book that I can pick up and put down easily, maybe with a few days or weeks in between. But not every book has to be like a blindfold over my consciousness – I’m never going to ‘wake up’ from Woody Allen and realise that I’ve been dribbling into my muesli for 3 hours.

Next Month…..

He’s giving me THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY by Oscar Wilde
This was the first of Oscar Wilde’s works I ever came across and it hooked me from the first chapter on. His prose contains a musicality that transcends words on a page in a way I’ve never encountered anywhere else. Although the story of Dorian Gray is well known even by those who haven’t read it, the joy of Wilde’s wit makes it worth reading, again and again. I think you’ll get lost in the book and completely fall in love with the author.

I’m giving him WHEN HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT by Judith Kerr
This book is dog eared and well loved. It has my name (and age – 6) printed neatly in the corner. It was my book that I carried around with me, just looking at the cover and thinking that it was real, that it actually happened. That her daddy was just like my daddy, and it could have been me who had to disappear from my home and my friends. Judith Kerr’s book was my gateway to Anne Frank, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn and to Primo Levi. It was, and remains my favourite book. I know you will love it, and I know you will understand how important it is.

Are there any books that you are desperately trying to get other people to read? Which ones are you avoiding? Are there any books that have shaped how you read today? Any thoughts, let us know!

Happy International Children’s Book Day!

IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) was set up in Switzerland in 1953 with wonderful aim of bringing books and children together. They sponsor the International Children’s Book Day (or as I like to call it, One of the Best Days of the Year Day), which just so happens to be today 2^nd April, Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday.

Amy asked me if I’d like to do a blog on my favourite picture books to celebrate International Children’s Book Day, as IBBY put a strong emphasis artistic excellence in books. Did she really need to ask? Picture books are where most people’s book memories begin – books that were read to me when I was a child still evoke a heady mixture of nostalgia, comfort and joy.

Today, when faced with a new picture book free from my sentimental attachments, my overwhelming emotion is often awe – the quality and sheer artistry is frequently outstanding. I feel illustration is leading the stories and as a result the books as a whole are working on more levels, becoming more sophisticated, dealing with more complex themes. It’s a wonderful thing.

To celebrate ICBD I thought I’d share some of my favourite picture books and illustrators. Let me know your favorites, and in the spirit of ICBD let’s bring books to each other!

THE STORY OF FERDINAND written by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson

STRUWWELPETER by Dr Heinrich Hoffmann

DEATH, DUCK AND THE TULIP by Wolf Erlbruch

JEMMY BUTTON by Jennifer Uman and Valerio Vidali, words by Alix Barzelay

Bouncing Books

Happy Easter! In the spirit of the holiday we thought it might be fun to list some of our favourite bunny-inspired titles today. Can you help us add to the list? Here are a few to get you started:

And of course…

Do you have any others we should add to the list?

Show Your Books!

Today’s blog is from Jenny Jacoby, a wonderfully talented editor and all-around awesome lady who is filling in for Sara O’Connor while Sara is on maternity leave. Look out for more blogs from Jenny in the coming months!

An old internet meme I used to enjoy was ‘Show Your Books’. The name pretty much says what it was about, so I thought I’d resurrect the game and Show My Books as my first post on the Hot Key blog. (Also in the hope of starting a Twitter #showyourbooks meme…)

This is my bedside table. These are my books. Rather, these are my on-the-go books. There’s a second pile behind them of next-in-line books.

And here is my confession: I’m a terrible cheat on my books. I love them all but I can’t commit to one at a time. I’m a serial polygamist.

Like Renée in PAPER AEROPLANES, like everyone in THE VINCENT BOYS/BROTHERS, I might be in a relationship with a person (i.e. book) I love and who loves me back, but I can’t resist the temptation of a flirty new individual who crosses my path.

The story will go something like this: I’m reading FREEDOM but it’s a big, heavy hardback, so I keep it for reading in bed. That’s alongside my other long-term projects like THE MITFORDS. Then I need to have a portable book on the go too, for when I go on the tube. I start Iain Sinclair’s Hackney book, decide I’m enjoying it so much I want to savour just little bites of it at a time, so I start reading whole other books in between single Sinclair chapters… I’m given a copy of THE NAME OF THE STAR so I have to start it, and even though I’m loving it, when I’m then given a proof copy of Paper Aeroplanes I have to tear through that first.

I’ve lost track of how many physical books I have on the go at this stage.

What you can’t also see on the pile of books here is THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, which I’m reading on my iPhone because it’s good to have something illuminated to read as I lie in the dark on the floor next to my daughter’s cot while she falls asleep. (She doesn’t need me to do this every night … but it is a chance for me to catch up on some reading…)

I also have a couple of manuscripts I’m reading on my iPhone.

I’ve always been like this. As a child I had a bedside book pile of a similar height, which I kept on a strict rotation: one chapter per night from whichever book was at the bottom of the pile, replaced after reading onto the top of the pile and not getting another look until its turn on the eight-night rotation came round again. It could get confusing, one night being at boarding school with Charlotte Sometimes, the next joining Minty at the Moondial, and the next finding Paula Danziger’s Bat in Bunk Five, but I felt like I was having more fun than the book monogamists.

I like to pretend that this gets me through more books at a time, but it’s not true. I’m still officially reading BABIES AND THEIR MOTHERS (second from the bottom, there) because having a baby piqued my interest in infant psychology, but my daughter is two years old now. Hardly a baby anymore, and I’ve still not finished it.

Then there are some I just can’t let go, like THE MITFORDS – it’s an 800+ page beast and I’m only a few pages from the end but I’m not ready to say goodbye yet and actually finish it.

There are some that have reappeared on my pile, like THE EYES OF KAREN CONNORS, which I salvaged from my dad’s loft before he took what’s left of my childhood library to the charity shop. (I hope the people of my home town are ready for some good 80s book covers.)

Gone are the days of my regimented rotation. Now I pick up the on-the-go book that I feel most in the mood for. I’ll give full-time attention to any book I’m on the brink of finishing, because it feels good to actually complete something. So there is method to my madness. Not that my boyfriend thinks so.

Anyone else up for #showyourbooks ? Anyone with odder reading habits?

Love reading? Then love comics!

Today’s guest blogger Tom Fickling, writes screenplays (unsuccessfully) and also the comic strip SIMON SWIFT for The Phoenix comic (moderately successfully) while also serving as its Commercial Director (success to be decided).

Everyone knows how important it is to instill a love of reading in children. Apparently the key is always to keep the experience an enjoyable one. Easy to say, especially when enjoyable means different things to different people.

For me it meant comics. When I was about ten years old, my dad tried to interest me in Richard Adams’ Watership Down. But I didn’t want to read about rabbits in Watership Down. I wanted to read The Trigan Empire, an amazing comic about the rise and fall of a fictional race of eight-foot-tall humanoids from another planet. It was a detailed, Roman-inspired history from another world. With the rise and fall of dynasties, inter family feuds, treachery, jealously, love and everything in between. It was epic! But that wasn’t all it had going for it.

You see, while Watership Down had a few thinly scattered black and white drawings, The Trigan Empire was packed with incredibly detailed and colourful artwork that transported me from my boring room straight into outer space. In short, I loved reading it…and re-reading it, over and over again.

To my father’s credit, he never stopped me reading The Trigan Empire, in fact, he encouraged it, and left plenty of other visually-rich comics lying around for me to devour. He didn’t nag me about Watership Down – (though he did about Lord of The Rings, thanks Dad), as I think he was just happy I was reading.

By the time I did read Watership Down, I was more or less grown-up and of course I loved it. And I’m sure that my ten-year-old self would have loved it too. But when I finally read it, I came to it freely – because by that time I LOVED reading and wanted to read as much as I could.

I was lucky. I’d been allowed to find reading myself and in my own way (via a damn good comic of course). And in fact the rise and fall of the Trigan’s probably also sparked my love of history, which is what I ended up studying at university. Take that Watership Down!

I don’t think my experience was unusual. In fact, many acclaimed authors of children’s literature today cite the debt they owe to comics in fostering their imagination and love of reading. All forms of story telling have the capacity to evoke wonder and delight and stories told in comic form are no different. Sometimes they can be even more powerful.

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And that’s what we’re trying to champion with The Phoenix. Because we strongly believe that children need as wide a reading choice as possible. Books, newspapers, digital text, comics…the richer the mix the better.  We want to add to it. After all, research shows time and again that the more children read, the more children read!

The Phoenix is an awesome weekly story comic. You can subscribe to The Phoenix at www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/subscribe. Find it most branches of Waitrose or get it on the ipad here http://bit.ly/ULnhnZ