G.R. Mannering's Blog, page 4
October 6, 2015
Boo’s Beard is published today! #BoosBeard
0 sleeps till Boo’s Beard because it’s out now! AHHHH!
October 5, 2015
One day to go…
It’s one day to go until the publication of my second picture book with illustrator, Bethany Straker. Our little book, Boo’s Beard, is out tomorrow and as you can see from the photo above, the real Boo is doing some quick edits to the manuscript!
It’s so odd that I found out Boo’s Beard was going to be published over a year ago today, while on holiday with my family. It feels like that year has gone SO fast. But I’m over the moon that we’ve reached the finish line and Boo’s Beard will finally be making its way out into the big wide world. If you would like to learn a bit more about Boo’s Beard, then check out its goodreads page. I’ve popped a summary below too and if you feel like purchasing, here it is on Amazon, Book Depository and Barnes and Noble. Tomorrow I’ll be putting up a celebration video on my YouTube channel as well as posting on instagram and twitter etc. so I apologise in advance for all the beards in your social media feeds #sorrynotsorry.
A little flavour of Boo’s Beard:
Tom can’t read facial expressions, so he doesn’t understand the other children and they don’t understand him. Playing at the park can be lonely sometimes, but luckily Tom has his dog, Boo, and Boo is easy to understand. She wags her tail when she is happy and whines when she is sad. One day, Boo gets her beard all knotted up in the bushes. A little girl named Lydia sees Boo and stops to talk to Tom. Boo’s beard has been tangled into a big smile, and Lydia explains to Tom that it’s the expression that someone makes when she is happy. She twists Boo’s beard into more expressions, explaining each one as she goes. When Lydia invites Tom and Boo to play on the swings with the kids, Tom and Boo join her. And at the end of the book, Tom understands the meaning of his own smile. This sweet book familiarizes children with social disabilities, such as autism and Asperger’s syndrome. Children learn the meaning of facial expressions and are introduced to the possibility that some children may have difficulty interacting with them.
October 1, 2015
A heck of a lot of reviews
So recently, I’ve been all about the book reviews on my YouTube channel. I’ve just been doing review after review after review! It’s odd because they used to be my least favourite video to create. Reviews demand more fore-thought and planning than most videos and sadly, they are the least watched video form booktubers make. But they’re still important and I’m pleased that I’ve been pushing and challenging myself to create fresher content. So if you’ve been looking for a few new reads to pick up this autumn then have a watch of the below.
August 14, 2015
Top 10 Summer Reads
Weather-wise in London it might well feel like the summer is over, but it’s still August and I haven’t been on holiday yet so I’m pretending it’s all sunny afternoons and BBQs every evening. (I have a great imagination). I said in my last video that this summer has been a weird one for me and it’s been made weirder by the fact that I haven’t made a ‘summer reading list’. I normally do this every year and I’ve felt a bit lost without one.
So, better late than never – these are the reads that I’d like to devour this summer (under an umbrella, out of the pouring rain).
August 9, 2015
August 3, 2015
5 Favourite Books of 2015 So Far
So far, 2014 has been such a good reading year for me. I’ve loved so many books that have come my way and I’ve been gradually deceasing my ‘backlist’ collection one novel at a time. It’s easy to buy book after book, always intending to read it one day, and last year I found myself caught in that trap, but this year I’ve tried to kick the bad habit and instead, read what I already have. And what I already have are some pretty amazing books, after all, there was a reason I brought them in the first place.
Below I’ve popped five of my 2014 favourites so far and I never anticipated how hard it would be just to choose five. I look at that list and think, ‘but what about What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt?’ which was bananas amazing, ‘or how about The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood?’ which was so good it hurt. Hmm. Some hard decisions, and I’m hopeful that the next 5 months will bring some more cracking reads.
1. Us by David Nicholls
This book was just everything – poignant, beautiful, readable, funny (it made me laugh out loud, which is so rare for a book) and innovative. I loved this book for it’s deceiving ‘normality’ – a middle aged man tries to save his marriage by booking a European holiday – but in reality, this book is so much more than that. I’m a huge Nicholls fan so I was, most likely, going to enjoy this book. But I didn’t just enjoy it, I LOVED it. Probably my favourite Nicholls so far and I’ve read and loved them all. I would recommend this one to you a million times over.
2. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Oh. This. Book. This is so beautiful that it makes me go weak at the knees. One of my favourite novels of all time is I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith and this book gives me exactly the same ‘feels’. It’s a coming-of-age novel set in Brooklyn, New York and it is so lyrical and gentle and wonderful. I will most definitely read this book again. And again. I can see why this book has such a cult following and I now consider myself part of it’s fan base.
3. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
This book has stuck with me ever since I read the last page. Such an interesting, thought-provoking subject matter. I was already interested in memory and how it is tackled in fiction, but this book made me reconsidered and redefine how I think about memory and its fictional ‘handling’. It was also just a pleasure to read – an intriguing plot line and a strong narrative voice. A little, but powerful book.
4. NW by Zadie Smith
This was my first experience of Zadie Smith and it certainly will not be my last. I think I have found a new ‘favourite’ author and I am keen to make my way through all of her novels. One by one I will savour them because if they’re anything like NW, then they will blow my mind. This novel following four Londoners who grew up on the same council estate, was both funny and tragic. The narrative ‘voices’ were so strong, I was constantly left wondering how on earth Smith managed it, and London as a location was so powerfully realised that I felt deeply immersed in the surroundings of the book after only a few pages. I want to pick up White Teeth next.
5. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
I loved this book because it was so different from what I’ve read before. It was magic realism without being magic realism and a love story without being a love story. This book has made me think about it often since I finished the last page. The imagery was beautiful – and I don’t say that lightly. It was so sumptuous, I found myself constantly wanting to ‘take note’ of the way Roy handled description. I need to read this book again because I feel like there are so many things that I ‘missed’ the first time around – it’s bursting with beauty.
