Archive for October, 2007

• Essex Book Festival, March 2008

  I’ll be heading over to the Thames estuary in March for an event at the Essex Book Festival, one of the biggest and most popular in southern England. Expect to see me at West Mersea Library
  13 High Street, west Mersea, Colchester CO5 8QA, on March 17th, 2008, at 2.30 pm. Please check with the festival [...]

  Posted on 29/10/07 | no comments | read on

• Now out in Thailand…

  It’s difficult to keep up with foreign language translations - there are a lot, and they are always out of sync with UK and US because of the way publishing works. But I’m delighted to say I’m now out in Thai through Nanmee Books, one of Thailand’s principal publishers, who have just produced the first [...]

  Posted on 22/10/07 | no comments | read on

• One more great thing about Youtube…

  I’ve been messing around with stuff on the net since this thing began in the early nineties and I was a tech journalist. Still, it never ceases to amaze me, not least because of its sheer persistence. Fifteen months ago I was in the middle of the campaign to defeat a thoroughly nasty development [...]

  Posted on 20/10/07 | no comments | read on

• Authors know nothing about movies

  No. I mean that. Really. They made a movie of my first book, Semana Santa. I never knew it had been released until I was wandering down the Via Nazionale in Rome one day and saw my name on a movie poster across the street. Maybe that coloured my view of the thing, which has [...]

  Posted on 18/10/07 | no comments | read on

• The Bookseller buzzes the new Costa

  It’s always nice to get good press back home. The UK’s premier publishing magazine The Bookseller has just produced its panel’s selection of book recommendations for the New Year. I’m pleased to say the sixth instalment of the series, The Garden of Evil, is on there with the accolade from Rodney Troubridge, fiction marketing planner [...]

  Posted on 15/10/07 | no comments | read on

• Sunday Times makes Chopin audio book of the week

  The UK’s Sunday Times is one of the first newspapers to review The Chopin Manuscript, declaring it ‘fabulous fun’.
  Nice to see a British newspaper get in first! Here’s the review in which the work occupies the audio book of the week slot…..
  This unusual thriller is composed by a series of bestselling authors who each [...]

  Posted on 14/10/07 | no comments | read on

• And now the Kent council tax is going up….

  Well what do you know? Little more than one week after Kent County Council’s ‘internet TV’ service has gone live at a cost to the county’s tax payers of £1.4 million, the KCC leader Paul Carter is warning that taxes are going to have to go up beyond the rate of inflation - [...]

  Posted on 11/10/07 | no comments | read on

• Some new places to eat and drink in Rome

  My last trip saw me staying in a different area, between the Colosseum and San Giovanni. Quiet, a little sparse on the cafe and restaurant front, rather too near some of the tourist tat of the Colosseum… but as always not without promise.
  One much overlooked area in Rome is Monti, which lies behind the Via [...]

  Posted on 10/10/07 | no comments | read on

• Inside the presidential palace

  This is the front door to one of the most famous residential palaces in Rome. The Palazzo del Quirinale sits on top of the high hill overlooking the forum and Piazza Venezia. It is the official residence of the President of Italy. Most tourists are confined to the wonderful view of the city from the [...]

  Posted on 01/10/07 | no comments | read on