Our first full day back, and we’ve just been over to Stanley and Margaret’s to collect the carful of pots that Margaret has been watering for us and which, despite the heatwave, are in better condition than when we left them. Stanley, who was 87 on Tuesday, gave us a copy of his new book Mother’s Boy, published today. So that’s the next novel I’ll read. Here, as promised, are the books I’ve just devoured during long days in France (along with, as usual, a vast pile of New Yorkers and TLSs) in roughly the order in which I read them. E.L.Doctorow – The March I’ve not previously been very interested in the American Civil War, but Doctorow’s one of the handful of novelists who…

Short notice, but the Nottingham launch for Five Leaves Publications’ ‘In The Frame’, a collection of short stories by East Midlands Young Adult Fiction authors, is this Thursday (July 6th) in the Cecil Roberts room at Nottingham Library on Angel Row from 4.30 for an hour or so, admission free. There’ll be brief readings from Gwen Grant, Lynne Markham, Linda Kempton and yours truly, plus q and a. This’ll be the last post until August, when I’ll do my holiday reading round up. While I’m away, why not check out Jarvis Cocker’s new myspace site? This has a terrific streaming song about Live8 but, be warned, it is not office (or child) friendly:). You can listen to or download T.D.Riesart’s terrific noir country album Alahee…

I did my first (and, for about twelve years, only) radio interview with Trevor Dann on Radio Nottingham back when I was the nineteen year old editor of the Nottingham University students’ union newspaper. Next month, at Lowdham Book Festival, I’ll be belatedly returning the favour, when I introduce his talk on Nick Drake (see below). In the meantime, here’s the promised review of his fine book about Nick Drake. This appears in the first issue of Nottinghamshire Books Quarterly, out today, and appears here by permission, for those outside its circulation area. DARKER THAN THE DEEPEST SEA The Search For Nick Drake by Trevor Dann Portrait 17.99 Nick Drake means a lot to me. In 1974 I risked 50p on an anonymous white label…

I’ve been reading Douglas Coupland’s forthcoming novel JPod, in the garden during the recent hot spell. My excuse for this is that I’m doing an onstage Q and A with him at Nottingham’s Broadway on Friday June 2nd. Before that, I’m excited about hosting the first Annual Graham Greene Memorial Lecture in Nottingham on Tuesday, May 23rd at 7.30PM. David Lodge will be talking about ‘Graham Greene and the Anxiety Of Influence’, an extended version of a fascinating lecture that I’ve just read. It’s in his forthcoming book The Year Of Henry James. Tickets for this lecture, followed by a q and a, are free, and can be had by phoning 0115 8483231 if you get your skates on. The Creative Writing MA I run…

‘Resurrection Blues’ should have been an ideal play to kick off Easter weekend but we’d over enthusiastically booked our pricey Old Vic tickets before the reviews came out. By the time we got there, the critics had savaged my favourite living film director’s production of Arthur Miller’s final play. Indeed, it was about to close early. It couldn’t be as bad as the reviews said, could it? No, it was worse. The play had nothing going for it (a satire? Barely a comedy). Most of the actors were no longer taking it too seriously (Matthew Modine had a particularly embarrassing role, while Jane Adams had already jumped ship after an alleged altercation with another actor): you had to feel sorry for an embarrassed looking James…