Anthem for Jackson Dawes Book Launch

I think it may be time for me to say...can I get my people to talk to your people?...  after last night's glittering affair in Waterstone's Newcastle. I wore my button earrings and they do glitter in certain light. So I'm not exaggerating. Not really. Anyway, thanks to all who came along to the launch of my book, you Literature Lovers, Book Buyers and Lord I have a big family  sorry, Story Seekers came to squeeze into the cafe to support me and Niel Bushnell whose book Sorrowline looks fab, incidentally. The youngest to receive a signed book from me was sixteen months old, so obviously she has a little way to go yet, and a keen eight year old in hot pursuit. Lots sold to grown men who have nieces and daughters and lots to grown women.  So altogether, fab. And now the world. Well Glasgow. Very soon. So if I'm going to say can I get my people to talk to your people?...  who do I say it to please? Anyone out there? Share my glory? OK. Putting my coat on now. Switching off the lights. Glitter gone.

Books and shelves

My house is like a museum, as those who saw the Journal article (thank you David Whetstone) will agree. I have shelves full of books rather than kindles. I mean how can you have a shelf full of kindles? One e-reader of any description is usually enough. So it would be a lonely looking set of shelves. So my books are staying. No I haven't read them all. Don't be silly. Book are for filling empty spaces, piling into towers and turrets, which, as you may remember, is the sum total of my desk, see blog from way, way back, towers turrets and probably still a bit of dust from the ceiling. And no it's not fixed yet. Have you seen the snow we've had! And there's an order to these things. Dry weather first. Gutters next. Ceiling after that. Anyway back to books. I like look of them. Sorry but I do. I like the colours and the smell of them. I like that I can choose any one that I want and browse through it, find a page or a passage from some long ago read story and remind myself. Sorry, but I haven't been able to do that with my kindle. Yes of course I have one. No way am I trawling a dozen novel about in a suitcase when I go travelling, but at home, give me books. And I saw a fab photo yesterday. Books on a shelf in Waterstones. Four copies. Not one. Anthem for Jackson Dawes. Squeezed in between books by Melvin Burgess and Kevin Brooks. I can live with that. Being a dinosaur.

new year new book

Anthem's flying off the shelves, apparently. Which isn't so hard when they don't stock more than one or two at a time. Never mind, keep ordering it folks, keep wandering into the bookshops and the libraries. Don't let them go the way of all Jessops.  My ceiling fell down, did I tell you? Not all, just in the bay window where the computer and printer used to be. Bits of it are still hanging like suncharred skin (while the rest very cleverly and accurately landed inside my printer). Don't want to pick it or pull it, the ceiling tha is. The rest might come down too. Waiting for the damp to dry, waiting for the leaky gutter to be permanently rather than temporarily fixed. Waiting. Waiting. And up against the chimney wall with my desk now. In front of me a map of the world and Sophie's feet, permanently tiny, bound in paint and pressed into a tile. Fab. That girl's going places, once she learns not to chew everything in sight. Enough doting. Back to work. Happy New Year.

And here it is

Just a little blog today. Book's out. To those who take the plunge, enjoy.
http://www.bloomsbury.com/author/celia-bryce