Aliya Whiteley's Blog, page 88

The Sharpening of Pencils

My brother often comes to visit me and browses my bookshelves for my latest purchases. Sometimes I recommend things to him that I think will knock his socks off, and recently I threw Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay his way. He does comic book heroes and World War Two in a big way, you see.

I thought I'd found the perfect book for him.

So I was a bit surprised when he metaphorically demanded his money back. He hated it. Loathed the entire thing. But there was one moment

Help! Have been sucked into the time-vortex of Abba Singstar!

Personally, I blame Brian McGilloway. There I was at the MNW bash last November, minding my own business, and Brian says to me, 'Playstation 3s are sooooo ace!' (paraphrasing). So I believed him and I persuade Hubby to get one and we shot the heads off aliens together and lo, all was right with the world.

But now I own Abba Singstar.

I can't even claim to like Abba that much. I'm the one woman in Britain, apparently, who doesn't want to watch Mamma Mia on a continuous loop. I've already been force

Not being human anymore

My favourite programme since the mythical first series of Love Soup has come to an end. I watched the pilot for Being Human early last year with a kind of, yeah it's good, but could be so much more, kind of stance. It all felt a bit too self-absorbed cod-World of Darkness. But the programme (first series?), well, wow, really. Within the medium of British television and the constraints placed on programme-makers, I don't think there's anything it could have done better. If you have any affection

Snappy Smurf Day

I'm a year older today! How cool is that? I feel like a grown-up.

Here's a list of new and fabulous books I've been given, many of them recommended to me from various blogs and so forth:

Gates of Fire - Steven Pressfield
Somebody's Husband, Somebody's Son - Gordon Burn
One Good Turn - Kate Atkinson
After Dark - Haruki Murakami
The Guinness Book of Brain Teasers

Yay! And I got a huge helping of Lush soaps, so the whole house smells fabulous. Yes, I'm in a good mood. Violent kissage on you all.

Here's a

Veggie Books: The Letters

It's official. Fiona Robyn is fabulous. She's kicking off her month long tour of blogs right here at the Veggie Box. That's not the only reason she's fabulous but it's a good one.

Her book The Letters is out soon and it contains a whole heap of vegetables. I asked her some questions about it and she replied, being of a good heart.

1. Tell us what you grow in your veggie patch.

I try and grow the things I like to eat. Last year garlic was a great success – we were eating it from June through to Janu

The Tate Modern TH2058 exhbition and me

Aliya is back from Wales and has followed out that I, along with fellow ex-Serendipitist Katy Wimhurst, am one of the winners of the Tate Modern TH2058 competition, inspired by the current installation in the Turbine Hall. There were several judges for the competition, including Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, whose work the exhibition comprises of, and author Jeff Noon.

The six winning stories will be recorded as an audiobook read by Christopher Eccleston and available for download. Big thanks to J

In limbo

My new manuscript—which from now on I’ll refer to as RD—is finished and has just been set loose on unsuspecting publishing types. While I wait for a response, I’ve tentatively started another book in a similar vein, in the hope I can find a publisher for RD and that they’ll want more of the same, only different.

Like RD, this new book will be fairly complex and no doubt quite difficult to write, but short and probably it’ll be described as ‘literary’. (To give you an idea, Aliya read and critique

Cheep, cheep

For those of a tweeting inclination, I'm now on Twitter, although probably won't make much use of it for a while. Follow me.Buy Light Reading on Amazon

Just because David Isaak hasn't mentioned it yet

My favourite book on the art of writing is Italo Calvino's Six Memos for the Next Millennium, which I have probably read more than any other book now barring Stig of the Dump. This weekend I found another reason to love it, given recent musings on the length of fiction. In the essay regarding Quickness, Calvino lambasts the publishing industry for ignoring shorter fictions. He states 'I should like to break a lance on the field for the richness of short literary forms, with they imply in terms o

Blowhole

Right, peeps, am off to Wales for a brief and hopefully inexpensive holiday with my Hubby and Munchie. Y'all take care.

As an aside, Munchie is now into jokes. She tells a mean one about a frog diving in jelly. She made it up herself. I asked her the other day, 'Why did the chicken cross the road?' and she replied, after a moment of deep thought, 'Because he didn't because he stayed home instead and it was all a dream anyway.' I dare you to think of a better answer than that.Buy Light Reading on