The Hammer of Eden

  

 

So, here's a slight curveball in my reading pattern. 

Do you remember that mystery book I found whilst exploring my bookshelves? Turned out to be a copy of Ken Follet's The Hammer of Eden.

 

So, I thought I might as well read it so that I could give it away. I actually got the audiobook, because that's my thing nowadays - the only time I have time to read is in the shower, whilst cooking or just before falling asleep, so audiobooks are fantastic for that.

I don't know why I was so apprehensive. It's by Ken Follett, and he wrote The Pillars of the Earth, which is one of the greatest historical fictions of all time. Certainly gave Eddie Redmayne's career a boost. But then, I think it's natural when you love an author for one particular work to feel apprehensive about reading their other work. Especially as contemporary crime thrillers aren't a genre I often delve into. The missing dust cover might also have had something to do with it.

The FBI doesn’t believe it. The Governor wants the problem to disappear. But agent Judy Maddox knows the threat is real: An extreme group of eco-terrorists has the means and the know-how to set off a massive earthquake of epic proportions. For California, time is running out.
 
Now Maddox is scrambling to hunt down a petty criminal turned cult leader turned homicidal mastermind. Because she knows that the dying has already begun. And things will only get worse when the earth violently shifts, bolts, and shakes down to its very core.

It was actually pretty good.

I particularly liked the fact that it was read by a woman, as this genre is often considered to be a male-dominated domain and I'd say the majority of audiobooks with either a single male POV or a majority male POV opt for male narrators. This is split between male and female POV, but kicks off with male, so it was great they went with a female narrator and January LaVoy was excellent. 

There was one scene in there which was the literary equivalent of Glen's exit in The Walking Dead. Succeeded in making me a little queasy, which is something I very rarely get as I love horror stories. That weirdly puts Ken Follet in the same category as Shaun Hutson for 'books that make me uncomfortable.' Something I would never have expected.

So, all in all, good fun. If you're into FBI cat-and-mouse chases, you might enjoy it.

Ratched

I am loving this. Netflix has based an entire series around Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and it is delightful. Set in the same mental hospital, where the staff are more deranged than the patients.

Also found this very entertaining segment where the female cast read from a 1940's guide to hiring women. Oh me, oh my.

A History of the World in 21 Women

  

This was a really interesting read. Written by Jenni Murray, former presenter of Woman's Hour, which she left this year. 

The history of the world is the history of great women.

Marie Curie discovered radium and revolutionised medical science. Empress Cixi transformed China. Frida Kahlo turned an unflinching eye on life and death. Anna Politkovskaya dared to speak truth to power, no matter the cost. Their names should be shouted from the rooftops.

And that is exactly what Jenni Murray is here to do. 

She also wrote A History of Britain in 21 Women.

It was a really interesting read and went by so fast it felt like there should have been a lot more. Everyone from Madonna to Benazir Bhutto. 

I especially enjoyed the people I hadn't heard about before, such as composer Clara Schumann and artist Artemisia Gentileschi, who was recently reviewed by Will Gompertz. She laments that hundreds of talented women were pressured into believing that composing was simply not a job for a woman, even though Hildegard of Bingen is one of the earliest composers we know of. It made me think about Enheduanna and Murasaki Shikibu, possibly the earliets author and novelist respectively, even though 'author' derived from the word 'father' and eventually women were shunted out of the way and expected to publish under male names if they wanted to get anywhere. Even today, you're apparently more likely to get a book deal as a man.

Interesting stuff, and I like that Murray chooses a few women who perhaps had some questionable morals and dubious interests, quoting Margaret Atwood that 'women don't have to be gooder.'

An all-round excellent read.

A New Chapter

Well, it's been an interesting month, and about to get moreso.

Tomorrow, I start a university lecturing position teaching writing, communication and critical thinking to first-year medical students. I have to say, I'm rather excited and quite amazed. It's been  some time since I was at university myself, and it's a privilege to have been asked to teach this foundation course. I also helped to design the curriculum, which is how I came to be teaching it.

I've taught similar skills to staff at one of the ministries, and to an online-learning company in the past, as well as having helped to edit the national curriculum textbooks a few years back. But I still have to pinch myself sometimes to remind myself that I am an adult capable of extreme adulting. I don't always feel it inside. That's the novelist in me.

This month I've also lost a major chunk of income. I work for a couple of NGOs in project and funding management, ironically. The current and underwhelming government of my native Britain decided to do away with the Department for International Development, which funds development projects around the world. They decided to assimilate it into the Foreign Office. Instead of honouring existing contracts, they asked for their money back - and there went my salary. I'll still get a bit of contract work now and then, but no longer a secure living.

I find it horrifically upsetting that it wasn't COVID that took my job. It was my own government.

But then, hardly surprising, considering. 

So, I have a lot less money, but also a lot more time. And, in times of stress, it's best to return to the page. So, I've started heavy research and the first chapter of my next novel. I plan on seating myself in front of the screen and typing until I develop RSI. Which, considering how long it's been since I last wrote a novel, and the muscle wastage in my fingers, probably won't take too long.

My main character appears centre stage in the image above, and I'm not the first Woolley to have broached this subject, but first I need to tell the story of an empire. 

It is a lot of research. And this one is going to be people historical rather than fantasy historical. Myths and legends, yes, but unlike Children of Lir, the gods won't come to life. Dynastic, Borgian in its intrigue and deception, but not as bloody as Rosy Hours. I'm guessing. I haven't written very much yet. 

I'm excited to get going. I've been toying with it since 2016, and took a crack at a prologue about a year ago, but just got swept away with work and never sat myself down to take it further. Now it needs writing. I feel very strongly towards this one. 

I'm a little hesitant to say much more at this stage. My head is filled with half-thought-through ideas and contemplations, and I need to plaster in the gaps in my historical knowledge, but I already know it's got legs, or wings, or whatever makes a story move. 

So, here's to at least one constructive thing coming out of 2020, as society collapses about our ears. From the first empire to the last.

Maria Strutz

Just had the most lovely week on Twitter.

It all began a week last Wednesday, when the wonderful Hookland tweeted a piece of artwork which was mistakenly attributed to me...

Original Tweet

This led to a lovely back and forth between myself and the actual artist, Maria Strutz, in which she offered to send me an original piece of her art and I reciprocated with a copy of The Children of Lir.

Original Tweet 

 Original Tweet

I also received a really lovely handwritten note.

To which Hookland rounded up with: 

It was just really lovely all round. Even got a little retweet from the Master of Chaos himself, Phil Hine.

On top of that, I also received a very nice DM through social media from another citizen of Hookland who very much enjoyed Creeper's Cottage, which is the novel I wrote about the county. All in all, Hookland has been a bloomin' joy to be a part of. It's a playground for esoteric artists and I've met some lovely people through it.

 

Dances at a Gathering

If you enjoy ballet, The Royal Ballet are streaming Dances at a Gathering on their website, tickets £3 ($3.20). That's my cousin, Billy, in green. Wishing him all the best for the performance and looking forward to watching it.

The Royal Ballet perform Dances at a Gathering, Jerome Robbins's fluid exercise in pure dance, to music by Chopin, broadcast online via Vimeo as part of the Royal Opera House's #OurHouseToYourHouse series. Watch for 30 days from 7pm BST Friday 25 September.

Dances at a Gathering by Jerome Robbins is a fluid exercise in pure dance for five couples, set to piano music by Fryderyk Chopin. It was created for New York City Ballet in 1969, when it was an immediate success. The following year, it was performed by The Royal Ballet in London to similar acclaim and returns this Season to the repertory after more than ten years.

Robbins initially intended to choreograph just a single pas de deux for a gala, but in rehearsal it grew into this major modern classic. The subtle interplay in performance between dancers and dances is extraordinarily atmospheric and suggestive of relationships and personalities, although Robbins was insistent that any story is simply that of a community of dancers dancing. The first Royal Ballet cast included such leading lights as Monica Mason, Lynn Seymour, Antoinette Sibley, Anthony Dowell, Rudolf Nureyev and David Wall, and this revival presents a wonderful opportunity for audiences today to see the current generation of Royal Ballet dancers take on such a milestone work.

Creating Verbatim Theatre from Oral Histories

Shout out to the lovely Clare Summerskill (who was keeping us all entertained over lockdown with her songs). For all you theatre practitioners out there:

Very excited and a little bit proud to announce the birth of my brand new bouncing book! ‘Creating Verbatim Theatre from Oral Histories’ published by Routledge. (for sale on the Routledge website). I think the paperback version looks a lot jollier than the more serious hardback version!

Also check out her book Gateway to Heaven, documenting the history of LGBT London between the 1940s-90s.