The blog has been quiet lately, because I’ve been on holiday to the Cheltenham Literature Festival. I’ll be posting in due course about what I got up to; but, while, I was there, I started thinking that I’d like to make this blog less of a hotchpotch. The way my mind works means that it will always be something of a hotchpotch; but I’d like to give this place a bit more… focus.
How could I do that, though, without giving up on the broad range which I like, and which (I believe) is one of my strengths as a reviewer? I thought about this, and realised that I have always reviewed a lot of début fiction, and that I’m very interested in new voices. So I’m going to try focusing more tightly on work by new and/or young writers, and see how it goes.
It’ll take a bit of time to get going, as I have reading to catch up on, and of course there are only so many spare hours in the day. And, despite the change in focus, if I come across anything that absolutely demands to be blogged about, I’ll blog about it. But I’m going to try this idea on for size, and we’ll see how well it fits.
20th October 2009 at 11:15 am
Hi, David.
Sounds like a plan. Look forward to hearing the report on Cheltenham.
24th October 2009 at 5:33 pm
Er… what about newish but not-quite-young writers?? (Coughs and collapses)
25th October 2009 at 4:12 pm
But of course, Steve. I’m not setting any hard-and-fast rules here, and I’m not going to exclude anything (or anyone) I think is good. Broken Symmetries is near the top of my TBR pile; just got a few books that I need to catch up on first.
25th October 2009 at 10:04 pm
Fear not, I was only joking. Anyway, I’ve just discovered (I think) that you haven’t even received a copy yet. This will be rectified.
And enjoyed your summary of Festival, although of course half the names unknown to this not-over-cultured exile.
25th October 2009 at 11:19 pm
I guessde you were, but I think it’s worth my mentioning it anyway.
I have received a copy of the book, thanks; and very nice it looks, too. It came in the post this week.
Actually, a good number of the writers I saw at the festival were unknown to me as well up till then! And I’d only read about three of them in total (one of those was Michael Palin, and the other two are in the third part, which I will get around to writing up any day now…).