Here's a lovely interview I did recently about the fabulous Ilkley literature Festival

http://www.pickledegg.info/2011/10/interview-literature-festival-interviewer-james-nash

The jolly photograph is by Alan Carmichael

There’s a low-key debate going on in the press about the death of the book [journalists just love working up a sensational story from nothing; remember how facebook was once seen to be the end of all social life, signalling the rise of the lonely nerd who would only ever know cyber-friendship]. The sad demise of the book is also a conversation I’m having with individuals in classrooms and libraries, and across my dinner table.

Is the book OVER?

Is that it for the printed page?

Are bookshops so yesterday?

Am I, by owning a Kindle, responsible for the potential closure of Waterstone’s?

I remember being one of those ‘I love real print, the smell of new books, the heft of them, the sight of them all gathered together like friends next to the bed’. And I still feel all those things when I hold a book and enjoy its physicality, before I start my new reading journey.

But here my philandering nature comes to the fore. I also love my Kindle, with an immoderate passion. It delivers one of my daily newspapers to me in the middle of the night. It is full of poetry, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, loads of crime, and, joy of joys, all the rubbishy books I love but might feel embarrassed about being seen reading on the train.

This week I’ve read a paper back crime novel by Robert B. Parker, a Jill Mansell novel on my Kindle, and delicious hardback copies of Alan Hollighurst’s latest ‘The Stranger’s Child, and John Sutherlands magisterial and fabulously unsnobby Live of the Novelists [both for events I’m hosting at the Ilkley Literature Festival over the next few weeks] and loads of poetry in the loo. I’m also looking forward to reading the latest Julie Myerson, and Joe Simpson’s foray into fiction, both in hardback. But I NOW have that reassuring feeling, known to all addicted readers, that I will never run out of things to read, and that when I go on holiday I can have a dozen new things to read, in a wonderfully compact, light casing of charcoal plastic….

My feeling is that the book isn’t dead, it’s just undergoing a bit of shape-shifting. And for those who think that Kindles don’t allow you to browse and make impulse buys, you just need to look at my bank statement which is a forest of small amounts payable to Amazon. The publisher and writers win, Amazon of course wins, but then so do I.

The Future of the Book - a debate
Mon, 10 October, 19:30 – 20:30
Quaker Meeting House 10 St James Street, Sheffield, S1 2EW (map)
Description
Contact
Off The Shelf Festival Office
Tel: 0114 273 4716
offtheshelf@sheffield.gov.uk

With advances in smart new technology such as the eBook and Kindle does the good old printed book have a future? Noel Williams from Sheffield Hallam University and Lesley Gunter from Sheffield Libraries will be arguing the case for new technology, whilst Richard Welsh from Sheffield’s children’s book shop ‘Rhyme and Reason’ and novelist Rachel Genn show their support for the book. Hosted by West Yorkshire based poet James Nash join what promises to be a lively and engaging debate and have your say on this topical issue.

You wait six months for a blog, and then two come at once!! In fact it’s not two. but one long bendy one.

There are two things for me that are like breathing: reading and writing. These give me more pleasure than practically anything else… and the truth is that I am very privileged that my professional life and personal life intersect so strongly here. Here are two events that I am lucky to be part of, which demonstrate this.

Crime Scene Saturday

24 September 2011
John Willie Sams Centre, Dudley, North Tyneside

On September 24th I am privileged to be hosting a day in North Tyneside called Crime Scene Saturday, where a bunch of highly talented Macmillan crime writers [amongst them the charming Ann Cleeves whose Vera Stanhope character is now known to many after the recent TV series set in the North East]. This gives crime readers a chance to meet favourite authors and get to know new ones, and a chance for the writers to emerge blinking into the bright light, away from their computers, and meet their readers. A whole day talking crime, and for me just an hour away from West Yorkshire on the train to Newcastle, to spend a day of utter bliss.

If you have any questions about the day please contact either:
Joanna Parker joanna.parker@northtyneside.gov.uk
(0191) 643 5835
or
Ruth Walton
ruth.walton@northtyneside.gov.uk
(0191) 643 2075

Shared Dreams

30th September 2011 at 7.30pm
Heart, Bennett Road, Headingley Leeds 6, West Yorkshire

I’m a long term resident of Headingley. And when you regularly perform and host literary events up and down the country, it is delightful to be sharing some of your writing on home ground, as a fund-raiser for Heart, which is the very wonderful Arts and Business and Community centre in the centre of Headingley.

As support I have friend, and singer Jessica Egbuna, accompanying herself on guitar, and making some of her special musical magic.

The lovely café will be open for simply delicious food and drinks before and during the performances. And you don’t need to book for food or for the event.

I’m hoping for an evening of shared dreams and laughter.

It was with a great deal of pleasure that I accepted an invitation to be guest poet on the Leeds-based community radio station elfm for their Word Salad programme this Sunday evening. The theme, totally appropriately on the eve of Valentine’s Day, was love in all its guises. I found myself moved and cheered in equal measure by bracing poems from local school children, tales of long marriage from senior Leeds residents, and great poetry, stories and drama from writers up and down the country.

The radio station small, friendly and packed with lovely people, offered me strong tea and chocolate biscuits. The programme, ably and warmly presented by Peter Spafford, embraced its many visitors and contributors.

Can I thank everyone, from the witty technical staff to the talented young students on work experience, for making the two hours pass so pleasantly for me.

Listen Live on their website, www.elfm.co.uk, or Listen Again to Sunday evening’s programme.

Here follows my Valentine’ s Day poem for 2011.

silver birch for Valentine’s Day

There’s a beech tree nearby I feel is mine
Though sovereign in its pomp and power;
Some trees have magnificence, they are fine
Palaces of dream, whose seasons inspire.
We are not such trees which fill all with awe,
We have different grace, a slighter mode,
A sparse copse of silver birch, blown and raw,
Half-anonymous by an urban road.
But through successive years we are as one,
Our moonstruck trunks are neighbours, leaves entwine,
We share the winter winds, the summer sun,
And our roots grow deep as our hearts combine.
Thank you then, for what you have given free
In your faithful sojourn here, next to me.

© James Nash 2011

Facebook friends have been sharing a list with me of a 100 books that someone somewhere thought we should read. As an addicted reader of approximately 57 years I had read about 87 of them. But the list felt a bit strange, a bit lumpy, a bit white, and can I say it, a bit heterosexual. Series of books were mentioned as one entry on the list, and then a book from the same series as another.

But it set me thinking.

So here is my first attempt at My 100 fave books, to be thought about and completed over the next few weeks. It has had the result of making me look again more closely at the books on my double-stacked bookcases, and also to think how I would categorise my favourite books of all time.

I’m going to go a bit chronological, because the books I’ve read have formed part of my autobiography; they have been absorbed into my blood-stream and consciousness, they have given words to my experiences, and they have developed my language and ideas as I have changed and grown.

So here, as a starter, are the books that have stayed with me from different periods of my early life.

Books from Childhood

• Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce
• The Weirdstone of Brisangem by Alan Garner
• The Castle of Adventure by Enid Blyton
• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
• Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
• The Future Took Us by David Severn
  

Books from and about Adolescence

• The Catcher in The Rye by J D Salinger
• I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
• There Must Be a Pony by Jim Kirkwood
• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
• The Chrysalids by John Wyndham
  

Books I read before I went to university

• Persuasion by Jane Austen
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
• The Prelude by William Wordsworth
• The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin
  

Books I read after meeting my great friend Patricia Pitman in 1969

• The Good Companions by J B Priestley
• Bright Day by J B Priestley
• South Riding by Winifred Holtby
• The Diary of a Nobody by Grossmith
• The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
• Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
• Strangers and Brothers by C P Snow
  

Books from my English degree

• Bleak House by Charles Dickens and about another dozen or so to be named.
  

So 25 down and another 75 to go, and I’ve only got up to 1970.

To be continued…..