SIGNS OF THINGS TO COME

Professor Gloom never fails to surprise me. In between the hours spent deciphering the mysteries of the universe (and those of bridge and golf) he reads murder mysteries and Georgette Heyer historical romances. These I am accustomed to, but last week's book was Just Another Dead Boy by Kelly McCaughrain. It's a Romeo and Juliet-style Young Adult novel full of 'that heady cocktail of hormones, life force and jaded ennui' so typical of youth. And so untypical of septuagenarians. Apart from the ennui, that is.

Now, Kelly is an exceptional writer, who regards Gloom as her own tame astrophysicist when she needs scientific advice, but I wouldn't have expected him to give her book more than a passing glance. Instead of which, he was hooked. He even came along to a Belfast Book Festival event, chaired by Children's Writing Fellow Shirley Anne McMillan, which featured four YA writers with new books: Kelly, Sue Divin (Runaway Road) Jenny Ireland (French Kisses) - all of them award-winning writers - and Stephen Daly, whose first novel The Last Death Poet I also enjoyed - to my own great surprise.

The book festival took place at the Crescent Art Centre (which never fails to deliver extremely well-run programmes of events) and Belfast's much-loved No Alibis bookshop ran a pop-up bookstore in the foyer. Of course, the island of Ireland has always been famous for literary talent, but Northern Ireland punches above it's weight, and there were an encouraging number of local authors on display. Lucy Caldwell, Jan Carson, Louise Kennedy, Bernie McGill: they're all wonderful short story writers as well as novelists. But it's the YA writers who seem to be stealing the show right now, and there are others like Sheena Wilkinson and Angeline King whose books I've also enjoyed - again, to my surprise.

The book I've most enjoyed recently though, is Donal Ryan's wonderful 'Heart, be at Peace', and I have Maggie O'Farrell's 'Land' waiting. I also recently discovered someone entirely new: Sofka Zinovieff. I'd heard her interviewed on BBC Radio 3's Private Passions, Michael Berkeley's music programme that regularly throws up memorable guests, and I was so engaged by her (and her Greek connections) that I got hold of her novel Putney. It turned out to be an engrossing, and in many ways surprising, read. I'm very much looking forward to reading The House on Paradise Street next.

I'm also looking forward to Gabriel's Moon. Like me, William Boyd is in his seventies, and has African connections. And it just so happens that the title of the  adult novel I'm publishing this year is Gabriel's Angel. And my two new middle-grade children's books are Moon's Travelling Circus and The Voyage of the Molly Moon, so all these Gabriels and Moons I take to be a promising sign. (Probably of the sort of straws that writers clutch at.)

If only...

Being a writer is bad enough; having to plug your own books is  a nightmare. Especially if, like me, you loath the whole marketing /publicity business. But this time I've had a brilliant idea, because the one thing I always enjoy is having all my friends round for a party. They're warned each time, on pain of death, not to bring any gifts, and they never pay the slightest attention. But this year  marks our 11th wedding anniversary. It will also be my 78th birthday and Gloom's 79th, so what I plan to do is throw a great big launch /anniversary/ birthday party at home, and instead of bringing the usual wine, flowers, chocolates, etc, every guest will be obliged to buy a book. Or possibly two.

But to get back to Gloom's surprising enjoyment of a YA novel (and mine). I've always been ambivalent about the whole YA category: in my day you went straight from Enid Blyton to Agatha Christie, Sci Fi or Mills and Boon, depending on your tastes. But now I think the publishers might be on to an even better thing than they realised. Let me explain: I've never in my whole life had a stye in my eye, but in the last month I've had two nasty, oozing little lumps in rapid succession. My optician confirms that it's age related - much like adolescent acne. So it seems pretty obvious that both Gloom and I are now entering second adolescence, and it's therefore only a matter of time before second childhood kicks in. 

It'll be Winnie the Who? and The Grumpalo next.

ISHIGURO, ISTANBUL AND INSECTS FOR TEA

Sunday morning, up early and down the stairs to feed Archimedes, switch on the kettle and the radio - and there's Mark Tully with Something Understood. There aren't many good reasons for getting out of bed at 6 o'clock on a Sunday morning, but Mark Tully is one of them. This week the subject was living with regret: lines of poetry, snatches of song (Edith Piaf, of course - no regrets there) and an extraordinary exchange with a man who went to prison for murder and will live with regret for the rest of his life. 

And then, On Your Farm, which is usually when I switch off and take my tea back upstairs, but this week we were in Zimbabwe, farming insects. Crickets, to be precise. Now, I'll listen to anything coming from Zimbabwe - I spent 18 incredibly happy years in that country, my youngest child was born in Harare, and I still have dearly-loved family and friends there - but this was one of those BBC gems. Off we went with a woman who, with the help of a charity, travelled to Costa Rica to study and then came back to set up a cricket farm in her village. Just the sound of those crickets churring away took me back...  This lot had mountains of empty egg cartons to hide in, they are very low maintenance, and as far as I know, produce no methane. If chirping is anything to judge by, they were perfectly happy. In the end, of course, they find themselves in hot water. Literally. They are despatched (the actual term used was 'harvesting') by dunking them in hot water. Apparently it only takes a few seconds and then they are dead and ready to fry. They are packed full of protein and taste, so we are told, like fried chicken skin. The reporter ate a whole plateful but she said it helped not to look at her plate.

It was also the BBC that recently serialised Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel, Klara and the Sun. I'd listened to a couple of episodes while I waited for the copy I'd ordered to arrive, and it was one of those satisfying occasions when you enjoy reading the book even more than you'd hoped to. A lovely, poignant, thought-provoking and beautifully written novel. 

Then, in my never-ending quest for books to lighten the prevailing gloom, I re-read Cluny Brown, and if you want to cheer yourself up, then Margery Sharp's 1940s parlour maid who doesn't know her place is the answer to your prayers. I defy anyone not to laugh out loud. I also enjoyed Jan Carson's new book of linked short stories, The Last Resort, set in a surreal Ballycastle caravan park. I always like her writing, but this format was especially pleasing: maybe it's just age that has fragmented my brain lately (although I suspect Covid is also to blame: people a lot younger than I am are reporting the same lack of concentration) but it's a bit like having a mental ulcer - right now I need small, regular, nourishing dollops of stories, not indigestible 500 page novels.

Staying local, I have Sue Divin's highly-praised Guard Your Heart to look forward to, as well as The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (my title of the year) by Louise Kennedy. Having read her brilliant short story, Hunger, earlier in the year, I've been dying to get my hands on this one.

And one more link with Zimbabwe to end my week: I have a young relative from Harare who now teaches English in Istanbul, and because I love her (and loved Istanbul when I went there some years ago) I agreed to do a reading and question & answer session with a group of 60 Turkish 10-11 year-olds. You know how you agree to something because it's still 2 weeks away and if you're lucky, the end of the world or an alien invasion might come first, or you might lose your voice? Well, none of those things happened and I duly found myself talking about my writing life, and reading from Moon's Travelling Circus, the book that found an agent but never a publisher, but which has still managed to reach quite a few children. And these particular children were enchanting (as were their teachers). Articulate (in a second language), interested, curious, appreciative. I enjoyed the whole thing so much that I think I may have invited all 60 of them, and their teachers, to visit me in Ireland. I can only hope they don't all come at once.

Istanbul's covered market

A post script. I wrote this before news reached me of the terrible fire on Table Mountain that destroyed the restaurant at Rhodes Memorial and badly damaged Cape Town University. Apart from fears for the safety of all those affected, my family connections with UCT are very strong and so many of my memories are linked to the surrounding areas, that it was hard to watch: the pictures of the burnt-out Jagger Library would break your heart. But South Africans are extraordinarily resilient and at least the mountain will recover, in time. A reminder though, that in the end all our zeal for building up and tearing down, all our sound and fury, are no match for natural forces. Even Rhodes will fall in time, with no human help at all.

After the fire