Wednesday 24 June 2020


After Steinar Lillehaug’s review of two of my books in his blog Ved kjökkenbordet (At the Kitchen table), there have come a couple more readers’ responses that I would like to bring you.

THe first is from John Ray who says he found 1969 very accessible and enjoyable’. He mentions the style and the 'almost uncomfortable intimacy' that might come from us knowing each other well and thinks the distance between me the writer and the events is part of the charm of the narrative. The missed 'cultural watershed moments' are hilarious he says, referring to how I for example edged round the crowds listening to the Beatles Rooftop Concert (30 January) not realising what was going on until I saw it on the telly, or how I was distracted by a long and highbrow discussion of Mozarts’ greatest symphonies at only a few hunded meters’ distance from the Stones legendary free Hyde Park festival (5 July), for which I had actually been heading. I did on the other hand live the Moon Landing to the full on the night of 20/21 July!

This response was followed up by Alastair Gibbons who took up John’s comment that he liked the work of fiction but did not feel tempted to read my other ebooks, my collection of poems and my family tree.  Alastair springs to the defence of the family history Andrewes with an Extra E pointing out it is entirely different from 1969  and 'worth a read'.

No-one want to put in a good word for the poems, then?

I might also mention Björn Enes who sent me a charming, enthusiastic and very personal response to 1969 which it warmed my heart to read.

Thank you those of you who bought any of my writings and even more thank yous if you have also read them!! The next step, which would be useful for me, would be to write what they call an 'honest review', or better still what I call a 'Reader’s response'. 'Review' sounds a bit in-depth and professional. A reader’s response is just asking you to give an impression of how the book worked on you, or didn’t. It doesn’t have to be lengthy or analytical.

Andrewes with an Extra ‘E’. Or: Who do you think I should think I am.  - A genealogic search - for my identity, for my roots? - tracing my lineage back over six generations to the Mr and Mrs Andrew(e)s of Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait fame.


1969. A Year in a Life.  - An unreliable memoir of my life in Swinging London at the end of the 60s. (As they say, if you remember it clearly, you can’t actually have been there. But I had a diary.)

Other addresses that may be of interest:

Granada la Bella webpage: https://granadalabella.eu/
Granada la Bella blog: https://blog.granadalabella.eu/


Sunday 7 June 2020


Well, a couple of people have read my books. Fastest out of the blocks was my Norwegian friend Steinar Lillehaug, who has already reviewed Blinded by Love or Science and 1969 A Year in a Life inhis blog Ved Kjokkenbordet (At the Kitchen table) in which he discusses old and new books in an informal way. Steinar and I spent a year together at Agder Folkehogskule in Kristiansand, in the south of Norway, in the early 1970s. He writes his review in Norwegian, and as not everybody reads that language, I have selected a few points which I find worth mentioning.

“The books are good. Read them!” is his main message, or at least it’s the main message I want to pass on to you here!

Talking about the collection of poems Blinded he says he likes the poems about astronomy and astrophysics in particular: the ones I say are about the poetryof creation, where poetry and science come closest to each other. He compares some of my poems to the Liverpool Poets (Henry, McGough et al) which is flattering. He mentions the great diversity of styles and themes in the collection and that is something I am proud of.  Some of the longer poems could have been tightened up, he suggests, and I agree. I chose the poems without consulting anyone, and there was no-one to peg me back. I think a friendly critical eye such as Steinar’s would have helped here, to blow away a bit of the chaff. Steinar, himself, seems to have a predilection for the more structured poems; he mentions the one sonnet I included, while he considers To Count the Harmony, a high point of the collection. It’s about the Alhambra in Granada, where I live, and talks about trying to capture in words and rational thought the wonderful architectural harmony you have before you. It was a difficult poem to write, so I am glad Steinar thinks highly of it.

Turning to the memoir 1969 he talks about the narrator’s humble posture, - or is it the author’s? Yes, it’s another story about the perennial search for love and meaning in life with its up and downs, its dilemmas, its doubts and anxieties against the background of Swinging London and imperialist wars and conflict. It raises the question of how to become a good human being and if I had focused on this theme, Steinar suggests, the story would have gained more weight and backbone. This is such a perspicacious remark and I have to say that this question how to become a good human being only gets mentioned in passing in my earliest drafts. It was only later on that I began to appreciate the relevance it has for my narration.

A number of Steinar’s readers will know me and might be curious about what I have written, so he ends his review reminding them that these ebooks can be bought for what a morning coffee and daily newspaper would cost them at their nearest Narvesen kiosk:

But I hope non-Norwegians will also be attracted by this résumé of Steinar’s blog post and encouraged to buy a copy.







Monday 1 June 2020


Here we go: On sale on Tuesday 2 June! Tomorrow!

 

1: 1969 A Year in a Life
see it here on Smashwords
see an extract here on my website









2 Blinded by Love or Science









3 Andrewes with an Extra E
see it here on my website
  




 

 

 

 

An extract from my author interview onSmashwords

What's the story behind your latest book?
The impulse for wanting to write the story I am working on now and which I expect to have ready by the end of the summer is a collection of love letters that I have kept for 40-odd years. They give one side of the story, hers, and the other, mine, I have to reconstruct, or reinvent, or even try to remember! It was a long-distance relationship, which started in the long hot summer of 1976 and ended when we met again the following summer. "The Exhausting Struggle for Sleep." That's the working title. 
Maybe you would like to add a question of your own, which I would be pleased to try and answer

Always pleased to hear from you. Add a comment!