Thanks to the lockdown, I
have few distractions and so everything is going to plan regarding the
publication of my three e-books.
1). 1969. A Year in a Life.
This is what I call a memoir-based
novella, and it has actually been available for a year, but it could not be
distributed because the cover page did not meet certain technical
specifications. But now I have had all three cover pages done by graphic designer and illustrator Paco
Quirosa and I trust that will solve the problem. I am, anyway, publishing a
slightly revised version of this book. Most of these minor
revisions are concerned with trying to better integrate the ongoing political
stories into the narration. They are the aftermath of the Prague Spring, the
struggle of the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland, and the American war
in Vietnam.
[Towards the end of 1969 news came out of the My Lai massacre committed the year before by US troops in Vietnam.]
2). Blinded by Love or Science
This is a collection of poems that I have
written over a number of years. The Science in the title refers mainly to the
science of astronomy. This is where science comes closest to poetry. It is the
science of contemplation and awe. Love refers to the Love of All Things, from the
intimate love between two people, via love of the or an environment, to love that
ignites political indignation. And Blinded refers to the way that both love and
science can affect our peception of the world, and how blindness can help to see
through to essential truths that may be obscured by the sight of the physical world.
3). Andrewes with an Extra ‘E’
It was 1964, I was working in the City of
London, I had come back from lunch, the second lunch session,from 1 till 2.
That session could be extended a bit, because you didn’t have to relieve
anybody (who would be waiting anxiously for his or her lunch break). Those
sessions could end in boozy sessions in the local and often did. There wasn’t
much to do in the afternoon in the couple of hours or so you had left to fill out
titl knocking off time.
And so it was one afternoon on returning to the
office, I lazily decided to look up in the London telephone book how many
Andreweses there were with the extra ‘e’, like me. There were five. And there
among them: Andrewes, F.N. (vet) - and an address in East Finchley. This casual discovery set me off on an
investigation into my ancestry that I hope to have drawn a line under with
the publication of this this lightweight probe into my my family tree.
All three works will be available to
purchase from 2 June 2020. You will be hearing from me shortly about how.
