Monthly Archives: January 2012
Chris Womersley’s new novel Bereft has been receiving some amazing press recently, and deservedly so. Garnering comparisons to Cormac McCarthy and set in Australia this book is one which is cannot be missed. We thought we’d collect a few of the more recent and alternative reviews of the book for you:
1) There is an exceptionally strong sense of time and place, with the Australian countryside a presence in its own right. Other reviews have suggested echoes of and a homage to Cormac McCarthy.
While I didn’t find Bereft as visceral as The Road, there’s no denying that Womersley’s post-WWI Australia certainly shares elements of McCarthy’s apocalyptic nightmare.-Lizzy Siddal
Read the full review over on Lizzy’s Literary Life.
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2) The image of central New South Wales is a stark and beautiful one – harsh and rugged. I could almost smell the dust and feel the heat. The prose was unique and conjured vivid sensory reactions as I read it.
The novel also addresses spirituality, and Quinn’s struggle to believe that God hasn’t forsaken him. He doesn’t like people questioning God, yet he does so himself.
He is both repulsed and drawn to the occult, to a medium who channeled his sister, and to Sadie’s trinkets and spells.
This is a novel that I could read a few times and get something different from it every time. It would also be a great novel to discuss as part of a book club, because of its subtlety and the variety of issues it raises. Highly recommended.
Read this review in full on My journal of becoming a writer.
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3) The prose it beautiful, the characters fully drawn, there is also a mystery at its heart giving it that page turning quality, yet never at the expense of any of its other winning factors.
It also covers a very interesting period in a countries history I knew nothing about yet came away with the atmosphere still lingering with me long after finishing the book. Highly recommended.
I am really glad I read this book, I have instantly started wondering if its eligible for a certain award this year but wouldn’t want to jinx it, it is only January after all.
I am saddened to see that you can’t get his debut novel ‘The Low Road’ in the UK as yet, as I would definitely like to read more of his work. Has anyone else read that? Who else has read this one? I would love to know if readers in Australia have heard as much about this book as I imagine you might.-Simon Savidge
Read this wonderful review in full over on Savidge Reads.
If you’d like to read a free extract of the novel we have an interactive flipbook available now!
Afterwards you can listen to Chris on the fantastic Litopia:
Quercus Publishing Plc, the award-winning independent publisher in the digital, trade, contract, paperback and children’s sectors, today announces its Christmas trading update.
In keeping with the strategy of expanding the depth and breadth of our fiction, non-fiction and children’s offerings, while maintaining the momentum of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, we are pleased to report that revenue from non-Larsson titles during the key final quarter of 2011 increased by 83% over the comparable period in 2010. Notable titles were The King’s Speech by Peter Conradi, The Mayan Prophecy by Steve Alten, Born Fearless by Phil Campion, The Blackhouse by Peter May and Tiny Sunbirds Far Away by Christie Watson.
The Stieg Larsson franchise performed robustly and while 2010 saw the peak of Millennium Trilogy sales, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest were three of the Top 10 bestselling books in the UK over the course of the year.
We continue to benefit from our significant investments in digital publishing and marketing, website development and social networking. For the year as a whole, Quercus generated approximately 11% of its income from digital revenues, while the growth in ownership of eReading devices over the Christmas period contributed to an increase in eBook sales of 270% in comparison with the previous December.
In addition, the Directors can report that for the full year ended 31 December 2011 trading is anticipated to be in line with market expectations. Net cash at 31 December 2011 was £4.3m.
Mark Smith, Chief Executive of Quercus commented:
“The Directors are pleased with the performance of the Company over the crucial Christmas trading period and are satisfied that the improved quality of our revenue and earnings will continue into the future. The New Year has started positively with Peter May’s The Lewis Man reaching the number 4 spot on the UK Hardback Adult Fiction chart, Christie Watson’s Tiny Sunbirds Far Away winning the Costa Best First Novel Award and A Cold Season by Alison Littlewood being chosen for the Richard and Judy Book Club.”
Amazing video coverage of John Naughton’s talk at LSE from earlier this week:
John’s amazing book From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg is out now, for an exclusive peek inside, check out our amazing interactive flipbook.
Tom Chatfield, author of the book 50 Digital Ideas,was good enough to answer some questions for us about the book and the ever expanding digital world.
Daniel Fraser: How did you come to write 50 Digital Ideas?
Tom Chatfield: I was already aware of the series of 50 Ideas books, and when Quercus approached me to ask if I was interested in adding one about digital ideas, I jumped at the chance. From when I was young, I’ve always loved “explaining” books that take a field and open up some of the most fascinating things about it to those with an interest but no specialist knowledge. It’s something that a well-made book does delightfully well, and this series is one of the very best at doing it.
Daniel Fraser: Your book deals with some very technical subject matter, what methods do you employ to explain them in an accessible way?
Tom Chatfield: Much like editing an article in a magazine, I try to imagine I’m writing for an intelligent reader who has no prior knowledge of the topic – and so you can be sophisticated, but you can’t leave any begged questions. I also try to focus on those aspects of a topic I think are inherently interesting, rather than only of interest to specialists: the human stories and histories behind them, and the ways in which something is actually, tangibly being used.
Daniel Fraser: Do you think that this is a particularly important time for the development of the digital world? Do you think its presence in society and business will continue to expand for a long time?
Tom Chatfield: The present is the most exciting moment yet in the brief history of digital technologies, undoubtedly – and the question isn’t so much whether there will be growth, as just how world-changing this growth will be. Digital technology will, I believe, continue to expand its role in our societies until it in some way affects every aspect of our being: for better and for worse, we have created tools whose ultimate complexity may come to rival our own.
Daniel Fraser: What was the most difficult aspect of writing your book and how did you get over it?
Tom Chatfield: Fifty ideas sounds like a lot, but the moment you start thinking about a word as huge as “digital” and what it can mean, you start coming up with hundreds of things that could go in. So choosing the ideas themselves was tough – and I got over it partly by lots of thinking, and partly by being clear that the focus was what has the most impact on the way people are living now, often without them quite knowing that this is the case.
Daniel Fraser: Did you find your background in the industry a help or a hindrance when trying to break down the various concepts explained in the book?
Tom Chatfield: I’ve dealt with and worked with a number of technology companies, and this was a great help, together with the opportunity to talk to people who work in these industries. I’ve never been an insider or a true techy person, though – my skills are more to do with words and analysis, and in that sense my experience of working as a commissioning editor at Prospect magazine was definitely the most useful training I’ve had for explaining concepts.
Daniel Fraser: If you hadn’t become a writer, what do you think you’d be doing today?
Tom Chatfield: I always wanted to write from when I was very young, so this is a hard question. But I might have studied medicine in some capacity: health and the body fascinate me, and both my wife and many of my best friends are doctors, so there’s obviously something drawing me towards it.
Daniel Fraser: What are you working on now?
Tom Chatfield: I’ve just finished a new book, exploring what you might call the philosophy of technology; and I’m now working on some fiction, articles, a couple of consulting projects, and a few video gaming projects too. I like to stay busy.
Daniel Fraser: Who is your favourite writer? And who is your least favourite?
Tom Chatfield: Among living writers, I’d have to say I look forward to a book by Terry Pratchett with more pure pleasure than one from perhaps anyone else. In literary terms, some of the big 20th century Americans – Hemingway, Faulkner, Bellow in particular – leave me breathless at their best. One of the few recent novels to leave me similarly moved was Adam Foulds’s The Quickening Maze: a minor masterpiece. I don’t tend to read authors I don’t like; but I have a particular dislike of some well-made recent “Bookerish” books that could have been written at any time in the last half-century.
Daniel Fraser: Do you have a favourite quote?
Tom Chatfield: One of history’s wisest quotes, for me, is Hegel’s line about history itself: “What experience and history teach is this — that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.”
Daniel Fraser: What do you think the digital landscape will be like in the next decade?
Tom Chatfield: Things are changing so fast that it’s hard to say. But one immensely significant movement is the explosive growth of powerful, internet-connected mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers. In a decade, when almost everyone has that kind of power and connectivity available all the time, I think we’re going to see a new level of integration between daily life, and the objects and activities that comprise it, and digital services.
Daniel Fraser: What do you do when you are not writing?
Tom Chatfield: Lots of stuff – but two things make me especially happy: playing the piano, and going for long walks. Not at the same time, obviously.
Tom recently wrote an incredible piece for the Guardian where he discusses how to find time for what’s important in the ever increasing speed of the digital age.
If English isn’t your native language, you certainly will understand what I’m about to discuss. If it is, try and think back to the days of college French and you may just remember the torture of…IRREGULAR VERBS.
Most native English speakers have never had to slog through English language verb tables, because part of learning a language from when you’re little is knowing what sounds right without a second thought.
For this reason, it’s near impossible to have a logical relationship with your own language.
Russians, for instance, will smile sympathetically and tell you “learning Russian is very hard!” without truly understanding how confusing cases are for the English-speaking mind.
Following this, native speakers have little conception of what foreigners find difficult in English. I will help to enlighten you. Look at this table:
Drink drank drunk
Drive drove driven
The first column is the infinitive: the unconjugated verb, which also serves as the present tense.
The middle column is the simple past and the far column is the past participle. In case you don’t know what those things are in context, here are some sentences:
1. I DRINK 50 cups of tea a day, all made for me by my assistant.
2. I DRANK the entire bottle of Yorkshire cider and then fell asleep.
3. I HAVE DRUNK my weight in herbal remedies.
The plain past refers to something that happened before, without a specific time-frame implied, whereas the past participle implies a more recent past.
Now, that might sound straightforward, but these verbs are all IRREGULAR. I will show you why. Look at these REGULAR verbs:
1. I cry/cried/have cried over my terrible manuscript.
2. I torch/torched/have torched my many rejection letters.
3. I submit/submitted/have submitted it to another publisher.
BUT
4. I write/wrote/HAVE WRITTEN the sequel already!
In case you’re a bit slow on the uptake, the last sentence included an irregular verb! Now, I hope you understand that rather flurried grammar lesson. I will leave you with two parting thoughts:
1. I designate 100 points to anyone who can coherently explain the logic behind all this.
2. Contemplate the horror: Dream /dreamed / dreamt/dreamed / dreamt
Sweet dreams and see you next week!
So, we thought we might add a little competition in for you all: We’ve got 3 copies of Matt Fitzgerald’s fantastic Iron War. All you have to do is post your favourite obscure or weird irregular verb. Best 3 verbs by 4pm win!
