'Ladies and gentlemen. Mhairi McFarlane!'

‘Nottingham’s Mhairi McFarlane possesses the frankness of Sarah Millican and the acerbic wit of Tina Fey.’

NottsLIt

A year after her debut novel became Harper Collins’ biggest ever selling ebook, Mhairi McFarlane is back on the best-seller lists with Here's Looking At You. Her covers scream ‘chick-lit’ but McFarlane’s books could also appear in the humour section as she’s up there with the best of today’s comedy writers.

 

Here’s Looking At You and the award-winning You Had Me At Hello are both priced at 99p* in ebook format. 

   

*prices accurate on 10/12/13

It’s a Crime! – the verdict is in.

To celebrate the launch of three new books, Nottingham Writers' Studio, Five Leaves Publishing and Weathervane Press hosted a night of crime at Antenna.

Compèring the evening’s performances was Pippa Hennessy, Nottingham Writers’ Studio’s Development Director. The books being launched were:

The NWS Crime Sampler ( the pilot edition of the NWS Journal ), a collection of pieces showcasing the talents of seven members of the writers’ studio.

CRIME (Five Leaves’ annual compendium), a volume of themed essays exploring  varying aspects of crime.

The Deed Room by Michael RD Smith (Weathervane Press), an intelligent legal thriller with a love story.

First up was Lisa Shipman, reading her short story Sweets For My Sweet, a tale of redemption. She seemed undaunted, giving a confident performance that belied her status as an emerging writer. Her opening line was “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to.” For Lisa Shipman, public speaking isn’t one of those things.

Rod Madocks read from his essay The Love Killers - a title that dons its cap to the confessional poet Anne Sexton. We saw a real-life family photo, of smiling Christopher Foster with his smiling wife and smiling daughter, hours before he murdered them. At the time the image was taken Foster had already decided to kill them. Madocks often uses pictures to compliment his writing but never as powerfully as this. With a chill in the air the author offered his thoughts on Dyadic Death (murder followed by suicide) to a captivated crowd.

Historical novelist Ann Featherstone gave us a glance at the life of Dando the Oyster-Eater. It turns out that oysters were the fast-food of the early 19^th century and Dando, a man of ready hunger and sharp wit, found infamy after a series of bilking sprees.

The next book to launch was Michael RD Smith’s debut novel The Deed Room, crime fiction with a strong Nottingham setting. Smith read an excerpt which he wisely ended with a character in danger and the audience in suspense.

Political cartoonist John Stuart Clark appeared ill at ease as he looked down at the microphone. He was about to read from Scrappin’ wi’ Scouse, a story about his years as a ‘tatter’ working with ’Scouse’, real name William Holloway, a scrounger who puts the scrap in scrap metal. The reason for Clark’s apprehension was that he knew what was coming, that the end of the story concerned the death of his friend. Building up to this touching climax was a humourous account of the pair’s roguish antics, evoking memories of Nottingham in the 70s and 80s. I loved it.

Following such raw emotion was not going to be easy and that difficult task befell Andrew Kells. He coped admirably, finding his character’s voice from the off he attacked the role of young Jason - ‘I didn’t see nothing’ - with passion and energy.

“Ey up,” said Michael Eaton on taking the stand. It’s always a huge pleasure to hear from Eaton and he was on top form. After belly-laughing at his Jackie Pownall ad-lib, I listened in awe to his account of the final moments in the life of Charlie Peace, before he ended the night with a mention of Ray Gosling. It was a nice touch from a class act.

My congratulations go to Pippa Hennessy and all involved. It was a fine event that deserved a larger audience.

Copies of CRIME and The Deed Room are both available from the Five Leaves Bookshop at £9.99 and £7.99 respectively.

The NWS Crime Sampler can be read for free HERE

Reviews of all three books with appear on this blog next year.

Get to know Central Library

For new members and anyone who fancies a good nosey round, there’s the Get to know…Nottingham Central Library Tour on December 6^th

-  Find out all there is to know about the library including information on how to find what you need and the special collections available.

Short stories for the longest night

 

It's a Crime! Dec 4th, Antenna

Nottingham Writers' Studio, Five Leaves Publications and Weathervane Press present an evening of criminally good live literature.
On Wednesday 4th December - 7pm - at Antenna.

 

Featuring:
Michael Eaton on Charlie Peace
Ann Featherstone on Dando the Oyster-Eater
Michael RD Smith reading from his new novel The Deed Room
John Stuart Clark about being a Nottingham scrappie
Rod Madocks on couples who kill
plus short stories from Andrew Kells and Lisa Shipman

Bookstall provided by Five Leaves Bookshop

All welcome. £3 entry. Bar available.

Tom Harper - top crime-fic author visits Notts

Lowdham Festivals and Southwell Library present Tom Harper and Anthony Riches.

Thursday 28^th November
Historical fiction authors Anthony Riches & Tom Harper discuss their new novels...
Anthony Riches: The Eagle’s Vengeance

The barbarian leader Calgus defies both his barbarian captors and Britannia's legions – and Marcus Aquila – once more in the sixth thrilling novel in the Empire sequence, praised by fellow-authors Conn Iggulden, Ben Kane and Manda Scott.

Tom Harper: The Orpheus Descent

Once Plato was a questing young man with a secret. He left behind a key, a tiny, burnished, golden tablet thrown away into a swamp that he never expected anyone to find. 2500 years later a young archaeologist stumbles on the greatest secret history the world has ever known…

Tickets: £6 full, £5 concessions, £4 Festival Friends


Taking place at 7.30pm at Southwell Library
The Bramley Centre
King St
Southwell
NG25 0EH 0
01636 812148

Tickets from Southwell Library or The Bookcase, 50 Main Street, Lowdham, Notts NG14 7BE

 

   Call our Box Office: 0115 966 3219

Notts Libraries, in crisis?

Comment:

Notts County Council, facing budget cuts, is standing firm in its commitment to keep open all sixty of its libraries. There had been fears that the smaller, so called ‘Tier Three’ libraries, might be for the chop.

Phew, that’s good news then.

On that face of it, yes, but the authority is hoping to make huge saving with an innovative and controversial plan to preserve the smaller libraries through a community partnership approach.

Eh?

They want to give libraries over to local communities, letting them take on the running. A one-off investment would be made, out of the library capital refurbishment programme. It would then be up to these groups to make it work.

Sounds like one of them a free schools. Here’s the budget, get on with it. Only, I bet they want the staff to work for free. Replace paid librarians with volunteers. Dave’s ‘big society’ again.

Here’s what John Knight, committee chairman for culture at the council, has to say: “We are having to look for increasingly creative and innovative ways to run our services. We are keen to work with communities to help provide the library services they want.”

Hmm. Might libraries be hijacked by those community groups with suspect motives, religious groups and the like?

It’s all about consultation right now, then restructure. They are approaching local groups to see who might want to take over. The best local solution will be awarded the one-off funding.

Free labour. So they think all them fogies that frequent the library will be lining up to help owt. But will they want to take jobs from the librarians they’ve become pally with. They might get a few offers, plus the odd student. I suppose they also see it as a way the unemployed folks can gain some work experience. Mind you, with all this ilk of volunteer you get a high turnaround of staff. Say goodbye to them ‘getting to know your librarian’ initiatives.     

I don’t know who will be training the staff or how it'll be funded. I assume that will have to come out of the initial funding, otherwise it could mount up if, as you suggest, the turnaround is high. They’ll want the staff to be just as informative and helpful as before.

But how can they be? Part-timers? And I suspect the stock will suffer as well. Maybe the council want these tier three places to fail, that way they can shut ‘em, saying they tried but there weren’t enough willpower within the community. They’ll cite the figures, and they don’t lie!

No, the council want the libraries to survive. They’re just looking at the best way to make this possible. It’s like when they introduced the machines, to facilitate the borrowing and returning of books, you can even pay your fines with them.  

Hah. They’re like those automated supermarket checkouts. You need human help. You know you can’t return a book from another library, it confuses the machine.

Well, they’re not replacing humans with machines this time, but the county council needs to save money. We are yet to hear the city council’s plans.  

That’s one way they could save dosh. Merge the two. Seems daft to me that the city and county have separate library services. Surely they could become one, cutting costs in the process? And why are they paying so much for books? Each service pays a premium for each book bought. If the county council want 20 copies of the latest best-seller, why are they paying the full RRP for them? Imagine how many copies the taxpayers are buying up and down the land. Surely the libraries can bulk the orders and bag a generous discount. They should be buying at £2 per book not £9.99.

I’m not sure what the initiative will mean for new purchases.   

Why are they even buying popular titles? I think most of these books should be donated to the libraries. Mind you, I’d charge punters 10p for each book taken out, excluding youngsters. That way authors could be paid a decent fee. The current PLR situation is a disgrace. Let the authors get what’s due. If they did, authors’d make sure that libraries were stocked with their books for nowt. They’d make a tidy profit over time, if they were paid fairly.

But should any new books be bought or authors paid more when frontline services are also being cut?

Libraries are knowledge providers. Be it fiction, non-fiction or use of the internet, libraries are access to information. Forget the media  - so much owned by so few – it’s libraries that are best placed to facilitate thought and imagination.

We’ll see what happens.