Our author Darryl Samaraweera has been shortlisted for the Spread The Word World Book Day award, winner to be announced in early March. The award is made to the author who receives the most public votes at http://www.spread-the-word...org.uk/pages/books-2009/b..ook-detail.asp?BookID=47



There are ten authors shortlisted. If you have time, do please vote for Darryl! Thank you, the Beautiful Books team

Two of our authors are longlisted for the World Book Day Spread The Word award. Marina Fiorato's The Glassblower of Murano, and Darryl Samaraweera's Vicky Had One Eye Open, are both listed at www.spread-the-word.org.uk. All you have to do is register your email address, then you can add your votes. The 10 books with the most public votes will go through to the shortlist on 1 January, so do please support marina and darryl!

We launched Alex Burrett's lovely and surreal collection of tales, My Goat Ate Its Own Legs, the other day in London. Track down the book - it's in B format chewed! And do have a look at the YouTube film on this page.

17 - the new book by Bill Drummond - comes out in the UK today.
In this honest memoir, Drummond discusses the past, present and possible future of music, as well as explaining his latest performance:
The17.
Drummond will be on tour in Waterstones across the UK in September - check out www.waterstones.co.uk
The book is a collector's item, a hardback but only £12.99 GDP.

SPECIAL PROMOTION FOR 'WILL'!!! -Christopher Rush's fictional Shakespeare autobiography...

we are offering a chapter from the new audio version of Christopher Rush's 'Will', read by Shakespeare thesp David Rintoul, for just £0.99, with either an option to buy the whole audio (19 hours!!!) for £7.99, or a full refund if you don't like it.

Visit http://beautifulsounds.co.uk/product+M568385dfc93.html
for full details and a full review.

Enjoy!

The Sunday Herald - 1 June 2008

The Arts: Books




The Wrecking Ball

By Christiana Spens




Reviewed by Theresa Munoz



Sometimes you come across a book in which the characters lead more extravagant lives than you do. Such is the case with Christiana Spens's debut novel, The Wrecking Ball. Originally from Fife and now a student at Cambridge, Spens gives us a tour of London's pleasure-seeking party scene. Reminiscent of Bret Easton Ellis's Less Than Zero, this book has trust-fund babies downing vodka at breakfast, barely eating expensive lunches, and getting stoned at rock shows. But in Less Than Zero, Ellis' characters were just as perceptive as they were rich. Spens's characters are less so. 



According to The Wrecking Ball, Generation Z are an awfully spoiled bunch. Alice, our protagonist, is on her second gap year since graduating from private school in New York. The first gap year, as she tells us in the first gap year, was spent shooting lions in Kenya, as well as drugs in Peru. An aspiring model with an English-rose complexion, she has a range of addictions including vodka cranberry cocktails and her musician boyfriend, Harry. Harry's parents foot the bill for his indulgent lifestyle - as Alice's do for hers - even though he turned down his place at Cambridge. Known as the "powder couple", Alice and Harry appear together in Tatler, notorious for their partying. 



The familiar locales of London and Manhattan provide vibrant backdrops for these young socialites. Descriptions of London's impressive skyscrapers and lively bars light up the pages. Spens writes about London in all its moods, from the smoggy morning to the dusky evenings. But too much time in London results in "London Face", the term for someone who looks worn and pale. So Manhattan, with its expensive restaurants, fashion shows and art galleries, is meant to be a respite. 



Alice flies regularly from either place, leaving one for the other whenever she gets bored. She floats from bar to bar, meets different people and recalls happier times when she was interested in fashion and drama and wasn't dating Harry. As for Harry, the chapters in his name are less evocative, showing him smoking on street corners, grumbling about his failures as a musician and arguing with his mother.



Plot-wise, there isn't much. Alice's main conflict is whether or not to keep chasing Harry, whom her father despises, or to be with Hugo, an entrepreneur in his 30s who feels confident around younger women. On the periphery, there's a chance that Harry's father Charlie, a cocaine / art dealer, did not actually die of a heart attack and is still alive. But this added suspense does not interrupt Alice and Harry's cycle of getting drunk, feeling miserable, fighting and getting drunk again. 



There's no doubt that Spens is an ambitious writer, having written a novel before even finishing university. Her work carries a certain confidence and charm. She is able to convey the excitement of attending a rock concert or the wobbly sensation of being high or drunk. She creates an exhilarating, expensive world that some people find fascinating... Arrogant comments also pour out of the characters' mouths. Alice comes out with phrases such as, "This cocaine confidence, I wear it so well." It's sometimes hard to relate to Spens's characters, because they don't express themselves genuinely or sympathetically.



What comes across however, is the novel's message that even rich kids have to grow up sometime. A near-tragedy sobers up the last few chapters, and Alice and Harry are forced to rethink their lifestyles. Spens ties up the final chapters with some lyrical words about the end of summer not being an unhappy event, but the start of something new. 



As a first novel, The Wrecking Ball is a mighty good effort. And Christiana Spens has established herself as a raconteur of the party scene. It will be interesting to see what sort of world she tackles next.

"LET'S DO LAUNCH:

An Invitation Keith Barker-Main Couldn't Resist

Today: High Society - The Grace Kelly Film?

Hermés Kelly bags are out in force at Sketch as London's bright young things celebrate the launch of The Wrecking Ball. The debut novel of 20-year-old Cambridge undergraduate Christiana Spens is billed as 'the low-down on the comedown of a generation'.


Sounds Messy...

Its publishers reckon the book has echoes of F Scott Fitzgerald but a few chapters in, I'm sensing Irvine Welsh... had he been born with a silver spoon up his nose. It's Trainspotting for trust funders. Barely a page goes by without the class of 2006 getting strung out on Class As, doubtless risking an STD courtesy of some dissolute X, Y or Z out to slip them a Rohypnol.



That's Sloaney rich kids for you...

Its self-absorbed Vile Bodies are mostly absorbed in absorbing whatever they can get their manicured mitts on. Shifting gear in designer gear, they single-handedly keep Columbia solvent, making Pete Doherty look like Mary Whitehouse by comparison. Coming over all paternal, I worry that Christiana is a little too au fait with the darker side of life.


Like you're some kind of saint?

At 20, my idea of living on the edge was dropping an aspirin in my Coke. Given her prose, I'm expecting a precocious, spoiled daddy's girl with a season ticket to The Priory. But the fresh-faced Ms Spens seems a level-headed lass. I put her knowledge of hedonists' ways down to observation from a safe distance.



A squeaky clean party?

In the loos, I eavesdrop on a chat between two emaciated Eton messes. "How's Bella?" asks one. "Big time into Charlie, sadly," grimaces the other. Just as I think I've detected a sinister subtext, the toilet door flies open. "We were just talking about you, dude," says the other, greeting Etonian No. 3, Charles.

"Speaking of Love" has been shortlisted for the Book to Talk About 2008 Award - being in the top 10 of the public vote on the 100 titles initially selected...
The paperback is out right NOW so go buy it.... The award announced 6th March (World Book Day).

Angela's Website!

GO AND BUY IT - IT'S AWESOME!

Also her blog ..... is worth a look too.....

Meat 'tour' dates are now as follows:

16th Feb - Cambridge Union
22nd Feb - UEA Union, Norwich
25th Feb - Glasgow Uni, Queen Margaret's Union
3rd March - Oxford Union

Look out for the 'meat truck' in cities around the country...Manchester, Liverpool, Coventry, Southampton, Glasgow, Norwich, Camb, Oxford and London. It's a never-been-seen-before lorry which will carry Jose from bookshop to bookshop, and blare out the story of Meat as it goes!

PS Magic QR code - which mobile phones can scan from the adverts and back of the book - takes you straight to a special website (live next Monday). Or text MEAT to 60066 and you get to it too...

Alasdair Duncan has been invited by HOUSMAN'S radical bookshop in Kings Cross, to launch METRO there on Wed 13th Feb, at 7pm. It's a free event, and all of you are welcome. There will be a discussion of young people's sexual experimentation and how they shouldn't be criticised for selfishness in sex - Alasdair argues that the youths in question are just trying to discover their identity and find out what they want... But perhaps you take a more moralistic stance? - If so come and argue with him... There will be drinks and book signing and lots of people..

The event coincides with HOUSMAN'S re-launcing its gay lit section.. yay!