August 2011
5 posts
5 tags
Not Suitable for Grown ups? David Almond
David Almond’s latest book, published simultaneously for adults and children is written entirely phonetically in the voice of Billy Dean, “a secrit shy & thick & tungtied emptyheded thing”. For teenagers, bilingual in textspeak, this is not a problem but adults, particularly the linguistic pedants amongst us (am I alone in wanting to give pre-nup spelling tests to...
6 tags
“There must be no computer, phone or iAnything, naturally. Did Edgar Allan Poe...”
– Chris Priestley on writing horror…
Tales from under the counter
“Do you have a sticker book about clock making for a 3 year old ?”
NO.
5 tags
Review: Let's Make Some Great Art
Just looking at the title makes me feel anxious: Let’s Make Some Great Art. It’s that exhortive “Let’s” which makes you immediately think Let’s Not. (Let’s Talk About Sex; Let’s Have Fun with Maths - these are not conducive book titles). But putting aside my own hang ups, this is a fabulous book - though it might not look quite so good when...
2 tags
Reviewers' dirty secrets: "Do you read them all?"
I think the answer to that is pretty obvious, looking at the mountains of review copies obliterating every surface in my office - I would not have a life, let alone a critical faculty, if I did. “So how do you decide which ones to review?” The disappointing answer to this is: the same way as most people select a book in a shop - judge it by its cover. I will then do random spot...
