Find out what's new on our websites, where we've been, what's on our minds and the things we're doing.
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It's never too late...
Posted Friday November 20th 2009
by Mary BrownWe’re excited to be able to announce a new project aimed at people over 60 that encourages reading and writing for pleasure. The Bookbite website is launching in February next year and will be accompanied by a supporting booklet featuring short stories, poetry, creative writing hints and tips, features on tracing your ancestry, writing memoirs and letters.
Run in partnership with WRVS and UK online centres we are confident that Bookbite will engage a new audience of web users to get online and try something new. With the underlying themes of reading and writing this informal learning site will provide access to writing tools and templates, and book lists of recommended titles, including those available in large print or audio formats.
We hope to inspire the many thousands of older people across England to take up reading and creative writing. Whether that’s to participate in reading a bedtime story to grandchildren, to write a novel, set up a blog, or create a personal memoir for future generations- to read is part of the pleasure.
Everyone has a story to tell. What’s yours?
For those of you who have a story to tell and can’t wait until next year, the BBC…
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Chris Higgins’ A Perfect Ten scoops YoungMinds Book Award
Posted Monday November 16th 2009
by Elaine BielbyChris Higgins' A Perfect Ten was crowned winner of the YoungMinds Book Award 2009 at the Unicorn Theatre in London on Wednesday 11 November.
The £2000 prize sponsored by Booktrust was presented by Observer columnist and BBC Radio 4 broadcaster, Mariella Frostrup and awarded to the book which most helps young people aged 12+ cope with the stresses and challenges of growing up.
A Perfect Ten tells the tale of Eva, a popular and successful gymnast who a faces a series of crisis when a new girl joins her class. With her life quickly unraveling Eva clings to the one thing she can control, her weight. But no matter how strong her willpower is, the dark secret that Eva has worked so hard to conceal seems determined to reveal itself.
Chris Higgins said: 'I was absolutely thrilled to win the YoungMinds Book Award for A Perfect Ten. I set out to explore the issue of bullying from the perspective of the bully. Following her sister's death, Eva has to deal with survivor's guilt, anorexia and a grieving mother. I hope that A Perfect Ten will provide insight and understanding into both bullies and their victims, and show that these two…
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Faber New Poets
Posted Monday November 16th 2009
by Anna McKerrowFaber New Poets 1-4: Fiona Benson, Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Heather Phillipson, Jack Underwood
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Funded by Arts Council England, the Faber New Poets scheme aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage of their careers. Through a programme of mentorship, bursary and pamphlet publication, the scheme offers four young poets a year the time, guidance and encouragement they require to help in the development of their work in the longer term.
Fiona Benson’s poems are haunting me. That’s OK – I like to be haunted. Hiking through her bucolic depictions of the amorally harsh beauty of nature I was enjoyably shocked by the uncompromising Prayer and Sheep, whose viscous, visceral imagery took me right into the moment along with Benson, feeling her ripe biology:
'and now the hen
that’s been circling all morning
tugs at a string of birth-meat
like she’s pulling a worm in the yard.'Similarly, Landscape with Harm and Yellow Room at Arles both storm ahead with a fantastic urgency and use tremendously graceful language to frame (and seamlessly integrate into) less-than-graceful events.
Benson’s collection also features a number of sonnets that cry out with a deep love of the beauty of…
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Funny Ha Ha
Posted Wednesday November 11th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaYesterday I attended the second Roald Dahl Funny Prize Award ceremony at the Unicorn Theatre, just by the mayor's office. The glass-fronted theatre, dedicated to children's performance and education, was full of bonhomie and, well... was just full. How did a prize, only in its second year, generate such goodwill? It's partly due to the nation's affection for Roald Dahl and his work and this leading on to his foundation's participation in the prize; it's also due to the indefatigable and funny Michael Rosen's tireless quest to promote books to make children's laugh. Mostly, because the books... are... funny.
So the theatre's heaving, there are two schools in attendance (Lonesome Primary and Wivelsfield school) and it's nearly standing room only. I head upstairs to the auditorium to catch my breath, except there's horseplay going on. Buoyed by the calls of the photographers, judge Bill Bailey has jumped on chair Michael Rosen's back for the photos and they're both mugging hilariously for the camera while last year's winners/this year's judges, Mini Grey and Andy Stanton are in fits of giggles nearby. It's full of joy, this theatre.
I talk to Mini Grey and she tells me about plans for the Bookstart…
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In praise of... Dave Eggers
Posted Monday November 9th 2009
by Nikesh ShuklaDave Eggers should be the king of the 'misery memoir.' His books, largely lightly fictionalised memoirs and oral histories, show a real triumph over adversity, the pain and suffering and eventual perserverance of the human spirit but somehow he manages to elevate himself to something beyond the We Need to Talk about Kevin's and A Child Called It's of the bookshelf. It's his quirky storytelling manner, his self-referential prose and his ability to be warm and funny even when talking about the pit of human suffering.
I was gifted his first book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius from an ex-girlfriend who didn't know what to get me. I'd never heard of it or of him but the title of the book was enough of a tongue-in-cheek statement for me to give it a go. She hadn't read it so I wasn't sure if this was a recommendation as something I might like or felt its statement of intent title would appeal to my sense of bluster and ego.
The first thirty pages were hard, really heart-wrenching descriptions of Eggers' mother's final breaths and his attempts to protect his younger brother from her demise. It's painful honest stuff and death…
