Back from a glorious morning at the Guildford Book Festival – glorious, not least, for dragging me out into the dawn in Dorset, and the mist curving over the hils as the sun rose red. After a frustrating week of plotting – a film treatment, of all things – it was good fun to arrive at the Electric Theatre and find myself amongst friends old and new, readers, writers – and Tim O’Kelly, who runs the One Tree Bookshop in Petersfield. Tim’s shop is what all book shops should be, and the Guardian have just said so here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/01/day-in-life-independent-bookshop
The event was a ‘Reader’s Day’, which meant a medley of small and large events with various authors including Elizabeth Speller, Mark Mills, Suzannah Dunn, S.J. Parris (aka Stephania Merritt) and Imogen Robertson, for whom I feel an avuncular affection, having given her a well-deserved good review in the New York Times for her first book, Instruments of Darkness. A great deal of laughter, some very interesting book chat, and – as ever – three cheers for the librarians of Surrey, who turned out as volunteers to make sure we got to the sandwiches.
Coming home I listened to Katie Fforde enthusing about Georgette Heyer; she was, apparently, extremely rude about all her millions of fans. Perhaps she should have gone to the Electric?
Increasingly drawn to 19th century Istanbul life and Turkish cooking we are hosting a buffet of delicious Turkish food to be followed by a talk by Jason on what draws him to the city where East meets West. An accomplished travel writer he has in the past few years turned his considerable skills to writing detective novels set in Istanbul in the early 1800s. His first in the series The Janissary Tree introduced Yashim, the Turkish slipper wearing debonair detective which became a best seller and won the Edgar Award of the Mystery Writers of America in 2007. This was followed by The Snake Stone and The Bellini Card. These have been translated into more than 40 languages. An Evil Eye is the latest in the series. A review of the book in the Independent says, ‘Historical novels may be sometimes lightly regarded, but this one is full of the virtues of that genre, bringing to life an immeasurably different world’ and ‘The bare outlines are enlivened by Goodwin’s skilful use of colour and detail, especially Yashim’s recipes, which set the reader drooling.’