Curious Arts Festival 2019

After five years at Pylewell Park in the New Forest, Curious Arts Festival is on the move - physically to Pippingford Park in East Sussex, and with a change of date from July to August Bank Holiday weekend. The keen-eyed among you will notice this is the same date and place as Byline Festival - and, yes, the two are somewhat joining forces, with ticket holders for Curious Arts having access to both festivals.

John Cleese

The event will be opened by John Cleese on Friday 23rd August, and as always at Curious Arts there will be the wonderful mix of music, comedy, and book events, with a full weekend of activities for children running alongside - everything from author events to insect walks, journalism to late-night music - but here our primary interest is in the literary side of things.

Philippa Perry

The mix of authors and genres is as eclectic and diverse as Curious Arts itself - you can see Misha Glenny of McMafia fame chatting crime networks, hacking and dark markets,  Green Carnation Prize-listed author Niven Govinden with his new novel, This Brutal House, psychotherapist Philippa Perry talking about her 'self-help' books How To Stay Sane and The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read (and your children will be glad that you did),  and Dan Richards recounting his journeys in search of isolation and silence, that led to  Outpost - A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth (excellent for an armchair adventurer like myself!)

Candice Carty-Williams

Tom Rachmam will discuss his Costa-shortlisted, latest novel The Italian Teacher, debut author Candice Carty-Williams her novel Queenie, described as a politicised Bridget Jones about a 25 year old black woman straddling two cultures, and Max Porter, author of Grief is the Thing with Feathers, will be there talking about his new novel, Lanny - a 'missing boy' story that taps into English folklore, described as 'a song to difference and imagination, to friendship, youth and love'

If you prefer 'real life' to fiction, then catch Lemn Sissay talking about his memoir, My Name is Why, which explores his heritage, the meaning of family, and his childhood in care homes, or Guy Kennaway on his personal experience of assisted suicide as recounted in Time To Go.

Other names announced include Ian Birch discussing revolutionary magazine covers, David Nott talking about his time as a voluntary doctor in war zones and areas of natural disaster, and Gina Rippon on her first book for the general reader, The Gendered Brain. You can find more details of these authors and more here on Curious Arts' website.

We attended two Curious Arts Festivals at Pylewell, as guests in 2016 and 2017, and loved every minute of both (except maybe the rain in the second year). The new location is not such an easy one for us to reach, but it would make an excellent excuse to explore an area that I've never visited, so maybe we will be there.

Keeping It Short - book event

 On Tuesday evening we went out to a book event at Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham - it's not the first time I've been to the shop, but it is the first time I've attended an event there, and I was impressed with how many people they shoe-horned into the available space. Unlike the large Waterstones store round the corner, Five Leaves don't have a separate room to give over to events so chairs were lined up in and around the books (this is quite handy actually as in any free moments we could browse the books on sale, mainly to say Oh I keep meaning to read that ... and that... and ... there's never enough time for all the books, is there?)
The event was entitled Keeping It Short, and featured four authors for whom the short story holds a special place;

Alison Moore, author of Booker listed The Lighthouse, whose short stories have been collected in The Pre-War House;


Megan Taylor, a local writer with three published novels and a short story collection (The Woman Under The Ground) to her credit;




Nicholas Royle, editor, university lecturer, publisher (Nightjar Press), competition judge and, when he can find the time, author of seven novels and two short story collections;


and Giselle Leeb whose short stories have appeared in various publications including Salt's Best British Short Stories 2017.

Things kicked off with the authors each reading one of their short stories - three of them having a certain ghostly/supernatural twist to them; Alison Moore's exploring ideas which reappear in her latest novel, Death and The Seaside while Nicholas Royle's was only finished that day and so is, as yet, unpublished.

After a break for complementary refreshments, the event continued with 'question time' - the authors fielding queries about how to organise time, how long is a short story and when does it become a novella.

The question about organising time is pretty universal but was put by Mother's Milk publisher and writer Teika Bellamy to Nicholas Royle with his many hats so had a special relevance. While the other writers were also drawn into the conversation it, fascinatingly, risked completely diverging into a discussion on postage costs!

The question about the length of a short story and Nicholas Royle's dislike of the term 'flash fiction' was, in it's own way, also fascinating and the general consensus amongst the four was that it was the content and not the length of it that defines the short story. Giselle Leeb had written a 2,000 word story which she called a novel.

A question was put to Nicholas Royle about the Manchester Fiction Prize and how a panel of just 3 judges managed to judge the many thousands of entries there are each year - this reverted to the subject of time management and was why the word count for submissions had been lowered from 5,000.

A truly fascinating and intimate evening that overran but who was clock watching? (Until after, of course)

Curious Arts festival - author event - Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers (left)

by Maryom

Dave Eggers's book event proved to be unusual as it wasn't really about books as such.
He was interviewed by Patrick Keogh, one of the team behind Curious Arts, and the two discussed Eggers' opinions, ideas, and beliefs, but didn't talk much about his books. It was certainly an interesting event though.
Keogh started by asking "What about Trump?" Now, this is one of those questions that we'd probably ALL like to ask American voters and
Eggers was one of those many Americans who didn't believe it was possible that Trump would be elected. When Trump got the republication nomination, Eggers thought Hilary Clinton would just walk all over him. Then at a rally in California he realised that the average voter saw things differently - that Trump was someone different to the average politician, a guy they'd seen on TV, and somehow thought he was nearer in outlook to them. Even so Eggers was shocked with the election results, comparing the mood in Clinton's office to the fall of Saigon.
Somehow, via a brief mention of Eggers' latest book, Heroes of the Frontier, the conversation moved on to children, their dependence on technology, and lack of self-reliance. Eggers is from Chicago which is a very cynical,cautious place, slow to embrace change, but moving to San Francisco he found himself mixing with the pioneers of the internet,and he knows tech executives who insist that their children lead totally tech-free lives, even sending them to schools where parents pledge their children will not be exposed to social media or even TV at home. He himself is not concerned about kids becoming too dependent on the internet. He was delighted by the Jabberwocky Hunt that had taken place at Curious Arts, and firmly believes that if you leave kids to get bored - for like a minute and a half - they'll find something to do, or make up their own games. They suffer, he thinks, from protection paradox - children are rarely seen out and about alone in SF, they're chaperoned to the park or to school, and this level of protection, although understandable, lets them grow up not knowing how to protect themselves, either in an urban street wise way, or out in the wilds.

And via children in general, they ended up discussing Egger's 826 Valencia project. He wanted to set up a place where kids struggling with English as a second language could be helped with school work, getting writers with time on their hands to assist the project, but the zoning laws stipulated the chosen premises had to be retail, so the front half of the space became a shop full of pirate related stuff - eye patches, peg legs, parrot food - to comply, and the non-profit tutoring centre occupied the rear. The model was so successful that the ideas expanded to other cities across the US, with superheroes or Big Foot as the shop's theme, and Danny Boyle and Nick Hornby have brought the concept over to Dublin and London.

Certainly, as I said, an interesting event. I've not read any of Eggers' books, but now  I think i shall have to.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Susanna Beard

by Maryom

Sunday morning was sunny and bright, and a perfect day for relaxing in deckchairs in the small Arcadia tent, to listen to Paul Blezard chat to Susanna Beard about her debut novel Dare To Remember. After a career in PR, promoting everything from wifi to wine, Susanna wanted to pursue her dream of writing a novel, and while doing so enrolled on one of the Faber courses, through which such a lot of authors have come to notice.

She wasn't setting out to write a crime novel as such, but just wrote a story and ignored which genre it might fall into. In the end, Dare to Remember is a mix of crime, thriller and psychological drama, not easily falling into one single category, and is the story of a woman recovering from a violent attack. Following it, Lisa cuts herself off from friends and family, and leaves town for the quiet of the country, but even there she can't escape what happened. Trauma has wiped her memory of the awful events, yet glimpses insist on coming back to her, and the only way forward for her seems to be to re-encounter the past.

While plotting and writing, Susanna found she needed to do research - into trauma, PTSD, victim support and the restorative Justice Council. Even though a lot of the details didn't actually find their way into the book, she felt they were needed for her to understand the emotions and process Lisa was undergoing. Susanna read a short section of Lisa having a 'panic attack' in her local village store after seeing the butcher carrying a knife, and she really seems to have caught the horror that overwhelms Lisa at that point.


A question often asked of debut authors is What next? Well, Susanna is ahead of the game, and her second novel, this time set in Lithuania, is already with her publishers.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Eimear McBride

by Maryom

Usually I feel the public (including me) goes along to a book event to see an author that they've read and loved, but  I was drawn along to this event for the opposite reason -  I've heard such a lot about Eimear McBride's work but not read any of it!
It was impossible to miss the excitement among the book blogging community over her first novel A Girl Is A Half-formed Thing, but somehow I'd flagged it as 'to read when there's time', and then forgotten it. Then her second book was published and I found myself lagging even further behind, but also at that place where you begin to wonder if anyone ever could live up to the hype (and having seen the reviews on you-know-where while writing this piece they're mixed to say the least!) Hearing McBride talk about, and read from, her book seemed like the ideal way to get to know her and her work better - and, from the snippet I heard, I now want to rush out and read both books!
Georgina Godwin started the event by discussing McBride's early life, and its possible influence on her work - she was born in Liverpool to Irish parents, whose work as psychiatric nurses undoubtedly opened the door on a world of emotionally and mentally disturbed people. The family moved to Sligo when McBride was three, and since then she's moved to England (London, this time for drama school), back to Ireland, back again to England and somewhere in between lived in Russia. Her first novel, A Girl is A Half-formed Thing accompanied her on some of these travels until a random conversation in a Norwich book shop led to her meeting her future publishers Galley Beggar Press. The original print run was for only 500 copies, then the Times Literary Supplement ran a favourable review and the number was doubled. All sold out in a month!
Meanwhile, McBride had started writing The Lesser Bohemians - working on it for nine years and at one point having written 800 pages before cutting most of it.

She admits to being influenced by both Dostoyevsky - for his concept of hidden narrative, which isn't strictly necessary to the storyline but which when revealed gives a whole new slant to it - and Joyce (though a bit tired of being asked about him, as if there's no other author an Irish writer can be compared to) for his use of language, and stream of consciousness style. Her acting training plays a role in her writing as she tries to make language do the same as Stanislavsky's 'method' does, incorporating everything both important and trivial, so inhabiting the character in a way that the reader becomes privy to everything inside and out.

All in all a fascinating insight into the author and her work. This is the publisher's 'blurb' for The Lesser Bohemians -

"An eighteen-year-old Irish girl arrives in London to study drama and falls violently in love with an older actor. This older man has a disturbing past that the young girl is unprepared for. The young girl has a troubling past of her own. This is her story and their story.
The Lesser Bohemians is about sexual passion. It is about innocence and -the loss of it. At once epic and exquisitely intimate, it is a celebration of the dark and the light in love"    - 

and following a short reading from it, I'm determined that at last I WILL get hold of a copy and read it!

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Matt Haig

by Maryom

The second author event I attended over the Curious Arts weekend was again held in the "Big Top" tent and pulled in quite a crowd to listen to Matt Haig talk about his latest novel, "How To Stop Time". 

Over the last twelve years Matt Haig has been writing books for both children and adults, but is perhaps best known for his recent non-fiction, Reasons To Stay Alive, dealing with depression and how he came through it. After a book which proved so harrowing to write, Matt decided to turn to something a little more fun - two children's books, A Boy Called Christmas and The Girl Who Saved Christmas - and now one for adults - How To Stop Time, which he describes as a love story/action adventure/philosophy mash up.

It's the story of Tom Hazzard, who may look like an average 40-something history teacher, but has a secret - due to  a rare condition, he ages very, very slowly, and has been alive for 439 years! Asked if this is something that would appeal to him, Matt answered with a very definite "No", as a self-confessed hypochondriac he thought it wouldn't be much fun. 

Writing this story does seem to have been fun though, from creating the character of the "baddy" to indulging in his love of social history, and being "in charge" of Tom's adventures, allowed Matt to visit some of his favourite historical periods and meet the historical figures he'd have loved to encounter - from Shakespeare to Captain Cook, Charlie Chaplin to Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald, Tom gets to rub shoulders with them all!

Matt's future plans include projects as diverse as a third children's "Christmas" book, Father Christmas and Me, and collaborating on song-writing Andy Burrows (who I was to see later that evening as drummer for Tom Odell), while plans are afoot for "How to Stop Time" to be filmed with Benedict Cumberbatch. Exciting times!

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Joanna Trollope

by Maryom

I'd hoped to start my round of book-ish events at this year's Curious Arts Festival on Friday, with Rachel Joyce, but our late arrival due to traffic delays put paid to that, and so I had to wait till the next day, and Joanna Trollope's event. She's one of those authors frequently referred to as a house-hold name, and most of us will have read at least one of her books or seen TV adaptations of them - along with others of my age, I probably 'discovered' her through Ch 4's The Rector's Wife back in 1994. In her long career she's written twenty novels as Joanna Trollope, and more under the pseudonym of Caroline Harvey.

On Saturday, she was talking to Rowan Pelling about her latest novel, City of Friends - the story of four women, firm friends from their university days, who by chance rather than design studied economics  and went on to have jobs in the finance sector, and specifically of Stacey, who, as the book opens, has just lost her job at a top private equity firm. 

Asked why she chose to write a novel centring on the 'work' aspect of women's lives, Trollope replied that there have been endless novels about women and relationships, women and family, women and sex, women and children, but the relationship between women and work hasn't been explored anything like as much. She then chose that the 'work' in question should be that of finance as this is still seen as a male bastion, and placed her characters in management consultancy, private equity and banks.  

During her research for City of Friends, Trollope spoke to many women working in Canary Wharf, in positions similar to those of her characters, and came to believe that there's only really space for one career-minded person in a marriage, and echoed an assumption that many of us have encountered - that no matter who is the major breadwinner in a family, dealing with the 'human' problems of children or ageing parents is the responsibility of women. She also feels that the dream of having it all - high-powered job, loving husband, lovely home, adoring kids - is basically just that, a dream, a modern fairy tale to replace the one of marrying a prince and living happy ever after in a castle.

In writing her characters, Trollope hopes to recreate that friend you have, who most of the time you'll agree, and get on well, with, but at others they'll irritate you beyond imagining. So, while she agrees at times with things they say or actions they take, she definitely doesn't agree with everything they say or do; in fact. it's necessary for a character to at times behave in ways she doesn't approve of, as they must above all be true to themselves, otherwise they lose credibility. 

In answer to the 'how do you start a new story', Trollope explained that she starts with a theme - this time, as mentioned above, it's that of the relationship between women and their work - then adds in the characters. As regards structuring the book, she plans the first quarter, and knows how the story will end, but in between events are allowed to develop as they will, within reason.

I thought it was a particularly interesting author talk, raising matters of equality, feminism, and our attitudes towards career women which stretched far beyond the boundaries of the novel itself.

Almost time for Curious Arts Festival ...

by Maryom

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you might remember how much we loved our first trip to Curious Arts Festival last year, so we're delighted to have been asked back again. For those of you not 'in the know' it's held in the grounds of Pylewell Park, near Lymington in the New Forest, and this year will run from 21-23 July. You can visit for the day, evening, or all weekend, and, a little unusually for a book festival, events aren't individually charged - one ticket gives entry to all events within your chosen time-slot (though some workshops have a small extra fee).


As the date is getting closer, I've been keeping an eye on the programme, so the important question is Who would I like to see?
Firstly, the literary 'headliners' -

On Friday -  Rachel Joyce, author of best-selling The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry,  will be there as part of a tour promoting her latest book, The Music Shop ;

Saturday - Joanna Trollope, author of so many highly-acclaimed novels, talking about her most recent,  City of Friends;

Matt Haig discussing his recently published How to Stop Time, the tale of a man who is much, much older than you'd think, and which is to be filmed starring Benedict Cumberbatch;


On Sunday there's American author Dave Eggers whose Heroes of the Frontier is a tale of one woman's escape to the wilderness
and poet Lemn Sissay.




Then I'd really like to catch Eimear McBride,  whose debut novel A Girl is a Half-formed Thing won so many awards  - and there are others I know little or nothing about but sound like they could be interesting. Robert McCrum talking  "life, death and the endgame" in Every Third Thought; Rick Stroud's Lonely Courage telling the stories of female spies employed in WWII; Tony Juniper and What's Really Happening To Our Planet; marine biologist Dr Helen Scales; gardeners to HRH the Prince of Wales Isabel and Julian Bannerman ... I'm just hoping none of these events clash ...

Ed Byrne

The literary events aren't the sum total of Curious Arts Festival though - there's a comedy line up each evening, headed by Ed Byrne on Saturday, and music later at night - ranging from Tom Odell to the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra with the Music of Bond.

Tom Odell

Each day has a selection of  "Curious Adventures" - the festival opens with a cricket match on Friday afternoon, you could join in with a choir, catch a drinks masterclass or listen to the recitation of Paradise Lost, try your hand at life drawing or sculpting something in clay, take part in Jane Austen parlour games, or chill out in the Kanga Wellness Spa.




For children there are arts. crafts and musical activities all day long, writing and songwriting workshops, and films and cartoons to start and end the day. They can go Hunting the Jabberwocky with Jack Union, Victorian Monster Hunter, or on a nature walk where they'll hear tales of insects and the natural world. They probably won't even need the bedtime story session to send them to sleep.

And, as if  the festival wasn't wonderful enough already, there's the food ... alongside pizzas and a BBQ offering rare breed sausages and a hog roast,  there's Japanese cuisine, Nepalese curries, seafood, a pop-up bakery, and a specialist vegetarian supplier, with beers, cider and sparkling wine by Chapel Down, and cocktails by Fever Tree to round off your meal.

All that's left to chance is the weather. Hopefully it will be as gloriously sunny a weekend as last year.

For more info, tickets, details of camping/glamping options, or to pre-book your Curious Adventure check out the Curious Arts website

Author event - Robin Hobb

 US fantasy author Robin Hobb (aka Megan Lindholm) is here in the UK at the moment promoting her latest book, and last in the long-running Fitz and the Fool series, Assassin's Fate, and last night she was at Nottingham Waterstones to talk to a packed room.

As you can see, we were right at the back, so please excuse the blurry photos!

I'm a relative new-comer to the world of Fitz and the Fool. Although I read the first Rain Wild chronicle a few years ago, I really got into the Farseer world when I read Assassin's Apprentice, last December. I'd hoped to read the whole series before publication date of Assassin's Fate came around, but that plan hasn't really worked - I'm only on the fifth book, The Mad Ship. I have, though, become a great fan, and my new resolve is to finish them all before paperback publication of Assassin's Fate (so, in a way, I'm hoping that's many months away)
Robin opened last night's event by reading from Assassin's Fate and, although I didn't really know the characters and their circumstances, I could glean enough to guess some of the plot developments between where I've reached and this final instalment. I was left with a dilemma - part of me wants to jump ahead, and see how everything ends, then go back and take things slowly through the series; the other part thinks I should read each book in turn with no jumping ahead and plot spoilers. I'll probably go for the traditional, sequential route but try to avoid that desire to 'know how it all ends', which can cause me to rush.

I don't usually bother about the actual physical appearance of a book - after all the story inside is the most important aspect, the cover just a way to keep the pages together - but this one, from a painting by Jackie Morris, is something really special. So gorgeous, in fact that I'd almost frame it and hang it on the wall!

The Boy Who Made God Smile - book launch

by Maryom

I have a vague sort of idea that the general public think that book launches are only for 'insiders' from the publishing world (like Bridget Jones and her colleagues) and close friends of the author, but, apart from a select high profile events, they're generally open to anyone interested. So, finding myself with a spare hour or so in Nottingham on Friday, I dropped into Waterstones for the launch for GJ (Garry) Martin's latest novel - The Boy Who Made God Smile.

Garry was in conversation with Henderson Mullin, chief executive of Writing East Midlands, discussing his route to publication. Although he always wanted to be a writer, for many years Garry felt he should pursue a more regular, reliable career, and for much of his life has been a teacher. this fortunately allowed him time for writing, including an extended 'working holiday' to India researching the 'god business' of superstar style gurus, which resulted in the original idea that grew into The Boy Who Made God Smile.

Moving between Birmingham and Bangalore, this is the story of three generations of an Indian/British family in crisis. Ari is taken to India to visit his terminally ill grandfather, and, while his father finds returning to his home baffling and strange, Ari finds it to be a fascinating place. I definitely got the impression that Ari was a youngster intent on poking his nose where the adults didn't want him to, and asking the kind of questions adults don't want to answer!

Garry also talked about being chosen to take part in the Writing East Midlands mentoring scheme. Under this, three aspiring writers are chosen and work alongside an established author, in his case crime writer Anne Zouroudi, who through feedback and advice helps them make good writing better. In Garry's case, this involved turning a single narrative into three threads which wove about each other, and cutting certain 'surplus' characters - he tried to reintroduce one of these at the proof stage but she, somewhat spookily, still ended up on a publishing version of the cutting room floor and never made it into print.


The Boy Who Made God Smile is published through Colley Books

Curious Arts Festival - round up

by Maryom

I think it fair to say we all loved our weekend at Curious Arts. Sometimes we attended the same events, more often we drifted off our own ways.

One wristband gave entrance to anything and everything, so for the majority of events there was no additional ticketing (a small number of events had limited numbers and so booking was essential, and sometimes there was a small additional cost). Because of this, I felt more inclined to take a chance or two on authors I'd heard of but never read - Andrew Miller, for example - The same applies to Harry Parker, ex-soldier turned author, and his novel about a soldier whose legs are blown off - hearing him speak convinced me this is a novel I should read.

Another advantage was that the audience was able to wander in and out of author events - something which isn't generally allowed, so if one event finishes at say 2pm, and another starts at the same time, you won't be able to see both. Here I was able to leave early or join an event a few minutes in. I think it's a great way to do things. The only down-side is that dashing straight from event A to B leaves no time for buying books or chatting to authors.




Although I mainly split my time between author events during the day, and music at night, the Mole and the Teen were off doing other things - meditation, a panel-style discussion of the morning papers, learning how to be a lazy guru, watching the early evening comedy acts. We saw so much that's it's hard to believe we were only there two days!




We've covered events in greater detail at the links below - most are to other posts here at OurBookReviewsOnline, a couple (as noted) are to other blogs/websites

By Maryom

A Quick Look
My First Festival (MaryomsThoughts)

and author event coverage;
Meg Rosoff
Andrea Wulf
Renee Knight
Joanna Cannon
Harry Parker
Andrew Miller

By The Mole

Family Friendly/Dog Friendly

By Libby

Festival Review:Curious Arts (Cultured Vultures)

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Andrew Miller

by Maryom

Andrew Miller's event was another one that I tried on spec, and found fascinating. He's and author I've seen highly praised by critics and award-givers, but somehow I've never been persuaded to read his work - but having heard him talk, I shall be adding his latest novel, The Crossing, to my 'must read' list.






Miller's approach to The Crossing started with the central enigmatic character Maud, and thoughts of snug spaces, boats, and a voyage, but he didn't know where it would all lead.
An important aspect that came out of his conversation with Paul Blezard was that Miller likes to write a book that readers don't quite 'get' - that for a while has the reader wondering 'where's this all going?' and leaves them at the end, wondering 'what was that all about then?'  A book, he believes, should take risks for both him as author and for the reader.

 Although he's sailed in the past, Miller put in time for practical research, re-acquainting himself with small boats and yachts off Salcombe and round the Western Isles, so that when he sat down to write he could imagine himself there on Maud's boat and capture the sights, smells, and constant slight discomfort of being cramped and damp.
This ties in with a comment he made about writing to feel engaged with the world but not overwhelmed - if you're out in the rain, he says, you're likely to just want to get inside and dry; writing about being out in the rain, you stop, try to describe how it falls, and how you feel. That is enough to make me want to read his writing!

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Harry Parker

by Maryom

Harry Parker's debut novel, Anatomy of a Soldier, is one I've heard a lot about but not read, so this was one of those events that at a 'pay-as-you-go' book festival I might have missed. As it was, I took a chance on his event and I'm glad I caught it.

Anatomy of a Soldier is the story of Capt Tom Barnes, BA5799, who loses both his legs as the result of an IED explosion, and it clearly draws on Parker's own experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, although the novel's war-zone is never defined.

Instead of going for a first person, biographical-style account, Parker chose to reveal events though the 'eyes' of 45 inanimate objects, closely associated with Tom Barnes, his family and the people who planted the IED. Each object narrates a chapter of Barnes' story, starting with the explosion and moving backwards and forwards in time. These objects are as diverse as a tourniquet, a handbag, a bicycle, or a Persian rug but probably the most gruesome is the saw which amputates Barnes' legs - Parker admits he was trying to write a chapter to make people 'gag'.
And as if this wasn't a challenge enough for a debut author, Parker started out with the interesting concept that the chapters would be self-contained, and possible to read in any order, but abandoned this idea to give him better control over the unwinding of the  plot.

All in all, the event gave me the feeling that this book is a far cry from the slightly sentimental, perhaps overly-patriotic, gung ho read I'd expected, and I shall be adding it to my 'must read' list.


By the way, there's no photo of the actual event because this was one I took the dog along to. It's a lovely idea, but hanging on to his lead makes note-taking difficult and photos almost impossible.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Joanna Cannon

 by Maryom

Joanna Cannon has scored a massive hit with her debut novel The Trouble with Goats and Sheep - hitting the bestsellers' lists, being translated into innumerable foreign languages, and, as if it matters, one of my favourite books of this year. Coincidentally, she lives quite near me, so I've seen her at book events before but I couldn't NOT see her again, when we were both in the same place.

Cannon isn't one of those writers who always knew that was their calling in life. She left school at 15, going back into education later to retrain as a doctor, but the one thing med-school didn't prepare her for was the emotional impact of the job, and to help her deal with it, she started writing a blog - not discussing any of her patients but talking about her own emotional response to the people she saw. From this she moved on to work on her novel, getting up at 3 in the morning to write (!), then trying to pull in another hour or so during her lunch break.

At this point she was working as a psychiatrist, and it was a profession that taught her to look beyond the label we might put on people - such as alcoholic, or OCD - and see the real person behind. To this she added the misguided public condemnation of Chris Jeffries over the murder of Joanna Yeates - again a case of judging someone on appearance. She believes that generally we should think more kindly of people, be ready to give then the benefit of the doubt and not jump to assumptions. All these thoughts came together for The Trouble with Goats and Sheep, in which, when something odd happens in the quiet suburban atmosphere of The Avenue, the accusing finger of popular opinion has a ready scapegoat to point at.

Interviewer Carrie Plitt was curious why The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is set in the long heatwave of 1976. Mainly due to nostalgia, admitted Cannon, - for the bay City Rollers and Angel Delight, and a time when children were allowed to play freely in the streets - but also from wanting something to bring the residents of The Avenue together - and nothing does that to British people like the weather!

And, possibly that question that authors dread the most, what about her next book? Without going into too much detail we were given some clues - it will be narrated by an elderly woman, and be about growing old, acts of kindness and the legacy one might leave. I can't wait to read it!

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Renee Knight

by Maryom

For my third event of the festival - and bear in mind this is still only Saturday lunchtime - I went to see Renee Knight, author of psychological thriller Disclaimer, who'd whizzed down from Harrogate Crime Festival to chat with fellow author SJ Watson (Before I Go To Sleep, Second Life).
Disclaimer is the story of a middle-aged woman who one day idly picking up a book discovers that the tale told within it bears a remarkable similarity to something that once happened to her... It grew out of a previous, unpublished story which drew heavily on real life events, during the writing of which Knight began to see how awful it must be to pick up a book written by a stranger but based on your life ... and Disclaimer was born.

It's the sort of 'domestic noir' novel that seems to romp up the bestseller charts and Disclaimer is currently No1 in the Sunday Times bestsellers list, and has been translated into 30 languages. Both authors' novels fall into this bracket, of thrillers which are set firmly in seemingly happy domestic situations; the 'chill factor' being that readers can easily imagine themselves transported into such a situation, normal and happy on the surface but with secrets lurking underneath, and, after all, how well do we really know anyone? Both agreed though that 'dometic noir' is not a new genre as such but has been around for a long while - Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and Patricia Highsmith's novels being cited as earlier examples.
Asked about influences on her writing, Renee Knight named Lionel Shriver, Zoe Heller, and Colm Toibin, and is currently reading The Circle by Dave Eggers.

The discussion moved on to their fairly similar routes to publication - the first bad novel now hidden in a drawer, the better one that gets published, the usefulness of writing courses (for getting an agent or maybe just for encouraging the budding author to make time to write), and, when all this has paid off, suddenly having to learn to write to publishers' deadlines. The life of a successful author doesn't just involve sitting in solitude writing - there are signings and book events such as this one to attend; fortunately both authors have discovered them to be surprisingly enjoyable - they certainly are for the audience.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Andrea Wulf

 by Maryom

Most book festivals work on a system of the visitor paying for each event they attend. It's cheaper no doubt but it does mean that I, and no doubt others, rather pick and choose my events, generally authors whose work I've read and liked, occasionally someone who's grabbed headlines or I've heard praised by fellow reviewers. By contrast, at Curious Arts ALL author events (and music, comedy etc) were included in the admission price, and, with them taking place in open-sided tents, it was possible to join proceedings a little late, and to leave a little early. I took advantage of this to catch part of Rowan Pelling's talk with author Andrea Wulf.

Now, I must admit that before she won this year's Costa Biography award I hadn't heard of Andrea Wulf, but hearing her speak so passionately about her subject, Alexander von Humboldt, has convinced me that I'm probably missing out.
Who you might ask (I did) was von Humboldt?
Well, it seems to be only here in Britain that he's unknown; in other countries, not limited to his native Germany, he's as well known as Darwin. Born in Prussia in 1769, his early life was dominated by his mother, and it was only after her death that he could fulfil his dreams of scientific exploration. He headed off to Latin America, climbing mountains, peering into volcanoes, recording the changes in vegetation according to altitude; definitely a very hands-on scientist! I found it fascinating that as early as 1800, he was predicting the impact that human activity might have on climate change, after noticing the devastating effects of clearing and destroying natural habitat as plantations expanded across Latin America.

Although I couldn't stay for the audience questions at the end, I came away feeling that this was a book and an author that I'd missed out on, and should catch up with both as soon as possible.

Curious Arts Festival - author event - Meg Rosoff

by Maryom


Looking at the events programme beforehand, I'd intended arriving at Curious Arts mid-afternoon on Friday with plenty of time to catch Deborah Moggach ... but you know what they say about the best laid plans, and it turned out motorway traffic had other ideas about how I should spend Friday, so my first 'book event' was on Saturday morning - Meg Rosoff talking about her latest novel, Jonathan Unleashed, to Rowan Pelling.

Meg Rosoff is well known as a writer of fiction aimed at teens and YA, and after a string of Carnegie, Whitbread, Guardian, Branford Boase and Costa short-listings and prizes she was recently announced the recipient of this year's Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, but her latest book marks a move to a more 'grown up' audience. She insists it wasn't because of a dare to write a rom-com, but grew out of the first line which popped into her head fully-formed; "Jonathan came home from work one day to find the dogs talking about him" - obviously someone coming home from work is an adult, and the story just evolved from there.

Jonathan has been left in charge of his brother's dogs for six months, and quickly comes to see them as more than mere canine companions. All of us pet-owners give our animals credit for feelings and desires they probably don't possess, but Jonathan seems to take this a step further believing the dogs to suffer from anxieties and yearnings for freedom brought about by living in the city.
Meg herself sees no difference between writing for the different age-groups. What she's interested in is character rather than plot, particularly people struggling to find themselves, looking for more out of life than is offered by their current situation - whether that's Pell Ridley running away from home and her wedding in The Bride's Farewell, or Jonathan himself, trying to be a round peg in a square hole, stuck with the wrong girlfriend and in the wrong job. Jonathan Unleashed draws on the time, 15 years (!), that Rosoff spent in advertising before taking the plunge and becoming a writer - although she describes this novel as her 'revenge' on the advertising industry she's happy to acknowledge the fact that a marriage with both partners involved in creative work is tricky, as some-one needs to be the bread-winner and mortgage-payer. She gives her literary influences as Catch 22, The World According to Garp, and Lucky Jim, and the same quirky kind of humour showed through in her reading from Jonathan Unleashed.

Somehow (who knows?) I'd got an idea that Meg Rosoff was a very serious person, but she didn't prove to be - she's funny, sceptical of success and describes herself as dark and twisted; the sort of person I could imagine chatting to for hours.

Matt Haig - author event

by Maryom

Christmas came early to Nottingham last Friday - out in Market Square the festive lights were switched on, and on the top floor of Waterstones Nottingham, Matt Haig arrived as one of the many stages of his "Sleigh Bell Dash" tour to promote his latest book, A Boy Called Christmas. It was actually his third event of the day, the first two events were in schools and had included Chris Mould, the illustrator, with one of those events being in front of 300 children. Matt seemed to be finding it a long day and he had yet to catch his train back to London - so don't think it's an easy life for authors on their tours.

The book is effectively part of Father Christmas's 'backstory' - sparked when Matt's son asked what Father Christmas was like as a boy.

Nikolas's father goes away leaving him with his evil aunt Carlotta. Carlotta is not a nice person and doesn't have a nice word to say about Nikolas's father and eventually drives Nikolas to set out to find his father.

Being a children's book it has all those things you associate with Christmas .... reindeer, elves, pixies, and exploding troll heads.... and is also written with humour. The Mole finds many children's books a bit corny on the laughs front but the readings that Matt gave had him smiling with genuine amusement. And those readings... he offered the younger members of the audience choices and went along with their selection. Happily the audience chose exploding troll heads.

Matt Haig is nothing if not versatile as an author having written books for children and books for adults- some to make you laugh others of a totally serious nature and a lot that fall in between somewhere such as The Humans.  I discovered him many years ago in a holiday cottage which had a copy of The Last Family in England - a dog's-eye view of a family falling apart. My favourite is probably The Radleys the story of abstaining vampires living 'undercover' in an English suburb.

A signing followed - with the audience buying copies for themselves and what appeared to be Christmas presents for young friends and relations - while working his way through signing a stack for the store, he said he'd once signed a thousand in an hour!