Copyright: 2009, Florida Center for Instructional Technology
This is a great little toy that deliberately throws you back to the days of the typewriter. What’s the point? Well, you have to focus your writing up front because you can’t make mistakes. Have you got what it takes? It’s free to download…
Filed under Written finds
Gillian Tindall sat alone and inspired at Daunts, Marylebone last night. There to preview Footprints in Paris: A Few Streets, A Few Lives, she was on a one woman mission to teach us the ways of the wild left bank.
Like her book, the chat was a blend of memorised history, personal anecdote and fictional thread. Generations of her family had spent their gentlemanly lives in the old Parises, as had she.
There is a blend of reality fiction around that mashes such strands into a new type of work. The Sinclair school Continue reading
Filed under 1
From now until 2011, some 20 Becketts are being republished by Faber. Beckett’s books have always attracted great typographic covers. I was lucky enough to pick up an old US edition of Murphy languishing on the shelves of Booth’s in Hay on Wye earlier this year. The cover is a piece of typographic poetry in itself.
Filed under 1
Filed under 1
Time sort of arched backwards yesterday night when Michael P took the stage at Daunts Books, Marylebone High St. The scene was reminiscent of the grand old days; of addresses to the Royal Geographical Society, lecterns and dusty notebooks. With the audience packed in to its tiny space, ornate with wood panels, galleries (‘the gods’) and clinking glasses, the shop was transformed.
On stage solo and facing an audience of barely more than a hundred, Palin stood unabashed, No props, nothing more than his experiences and enthusiasm, all eyes were on him standing there, the modern day explorer. We don’t discover new continents or reach new summits these days as there are none to conquer, but Palin helps keep the tradition just a little mesmerising.
He is a born performer in every way, which is what a life in Footlights, Python and the movies must do for you. He is also incredibly down to earth.
Most of the talk was reconstructing a journey he made back to Calcutta, which is the basis of the Around the World in 80 days 2008 edition.
Filed under 1
Costa Coffee has published its online collection of caffeine inspired writing by writer in residence Davey Spens. Frothy Tales was originally a series of postings from Spens on the Costa website, where it probably lay wimpering for the presses. Now we know about it thanks to careful counter positioning in Costas everywhere.
Alarmingly, Spens claims to have compiled the collection from conversations he overheard/plagiarised while sipping Java in coffee dens across Greater London. Some of them work pretty well once you get past the Quality Street analogies. All credit to Costa for pursuing its literary bent in this way too. There’s hope for ex-advertising copywriters everywhere.
Filed under Written finds
Jan 14th 2009
Beryl Bainbridge, in conversation this evening at the new Guardian offices in King’s Cross, was cranked up to eccentric level 9. She was appearing on the plinth for the paper’s book club (£8 with a glass of house) to discuss Every Man for Himself, a fictional account of the Titanic’s demise.
Two things stand out from her set. The first, she pretended not to know or even recall any of the content of the novel itself, and second she revealed how her characters are based on real people she has met or knows. ‘I don’t have to make anything up, they live themselves out. All I do is draw a line between events, it’s really not that great a feat…”
Filed under Written finds
