Stuck-in-a-Book’s Weekend Miscellany

Hope you’re enjoying a fun weekend, folks – I spent Friday evening at a murder mystery party. I’d written it, in fact, and it’s always fun to see the characters come alive before you – even if I had to give a few sotto voce instructions to make sure people said or did the right things.  Nobody guessed the murderer, but there were a few “Ohhhh!”s during the reveal, which I think is a good combination.  I spent most of the time on the method, and had more trouble with the motive… thanks to friends, colleagues, and family who were called upon to provide plausible reasons for killing. (Disturbing sentence…) Let’s move on quickly to some weekend miscellany fun…

1.) If you like literature and music, chances are you’ll like Literary Music, run by a friend of a friend. To quote their webpage, ‘Literary Music is an inspirational group of young professional Classical musicians performing programmes inspired by the lives and works of some of our best loved authors.’

2.) Speaking about friends of friends, my colleague and friend Debbie showed me a copy of her sister’s book the other day, and I thought I’d help spread the word. It’s called The Case of the Exploding Loo – so I’m thinking children or grandchildren might be the market, rather than usual SIAB readers! The author is Rachel Hamilton, and you can read more about the book on Book Walrus, the children’s book review site the sisters run.

3.) I don’t I ever mentioned going to hear Thomas Teal and Ali Smith talk about Tove Jansson at the Royal Society of Literature a week or two ago. Well, it was wonderful! You probably know how much I love Jansson, and it was a pleasure to be in a room with people who love and know her work – and, in the case of Tom Teal, someone who has also spent a few days staying with Tove and her partner on their island. He had slides to show, and stories to tell, and it was wonderful! I also loved hearing about how Teal discovered Jansson, and how Smith discovered Jansson, and how the wonderful people at Sort Of Books commissioned Teal to keep translating Jansson’s work. I could happily have listened for twice as long (despite the room being swelteringly hot!)  AND I’ve got a review copy of Jansson’s newly-translated first short story collection, The Listener, which I’ll be diving into if my Reader’s Block ever disappears. Otherwise… back to Agatha today.