It’s Easter, and that means bunnies – and that means Watership Down. For this Book Versus Film we’re taking a stroll through real Hampshire countryside searching for fictional rabbits, but who gets to rule the warren? Let’s hop to it… The Book For a modern classic, Watership Down started life without literary any intentions. It…
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The Book You Were Never Really Here is a novella by Jonathan Ames. It was originally approximately fifty pages, though it was extended to about 100 when the movie adaptation came out. I read the new version for the purposes of this comparison. Here’s the short synopsis of the book from Amazon: Joe has witnessed things…
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I watched the old BBC version with Sir Alec Guinness in my childhood. Soon after I had my first experience with Eastern Germany, en route to West Berlin. Luckily Le Carré had prepared me for terror and intimidation! Still, it terrified me and intensified my respect for Le Carré (the pen name of Bernard Cornwell)….
Continue ReadingAll About Cover Art Have you ever decided to read a book simply because you liked the artwork on the cover? There’s a reason why! Cover art designers work tirelessly to create an attention-grabbing, marketable look that draws a reader to it. It may even be created BEFORE the book has been written. That’s how…
Continue Reading1) So, who are you and what have you written? I’m Maxim Jakubowski. I was a book worm from an early age and owe my writing career to a teacher in his Paris school who, when I was 13, encouraged me to write stories rather than dry compositions and the bug has never left me…
Continue Reading1) So, who are you & what have you written? Hi there, I’m Peter Beck, the author of DAMNATION, an international, high-octane thriller. Mark Gimenez (author of The Colour of Law) says DAMNATION is ‘A terrific thriller! Smart and savvy.’ It’s published by PointBlank, an imprint of Oneworld, twice winner of the Man Booker Prize. You can…
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The Book So, READY PLAYER ONE has got everything that ticks all my boxes: a teen hero and his rag-tag bunch of friends; a shadowy evil corporate cabal; dystopian real world; even giant robots! And there ARE some flashes of brilliance that I really liked: the idea of The Stacks (trailers on top of one…
Continue Reading1) So, who are you & what have you written? I’m Sophie Hannah: a crime writer, a poet and (more recently, and to my huge surprise) the co-creator of a murder mystery musical. My latest published book is Did You See Melody?. It’s a contemporary crime novel set in Arizona, though it has a British heroine who has kind of run away from home…
Continue ReadingSomething a little different today … Here’s an interview I did with the awesomely prolific Rachel Amphlett, author of the Kay Hunter Series (amongst others!). Make sure you check her books out. Over to you, Rachel! 1) Like me, you’re a huge fan of thrillers. What attracted you to writing in the crime/thriller genre? Was…
Continue ReadingExcerpt – ‘Death Row’ When they arrived at Turville, there were many cars in the lot. You might have thought you were attending a concert. There was no landscaping, nothing to soften the bricks of this death house which had been painted grey some time ago and had begun to flake. The Harfield logo hung…
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