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Pedln - I went back to the Looking-Glass bookshop for another talk last week, looked for that Nicola white book and couldn't find it anywhere - either they sold all the copies that night or (more likely) I was just looking in the wrong place. I'm there again this week so I'll investigate - it does sound interesting, doesn't it?
I'm still loving the Lenovo, and Madeleine has handed it over now that she has my old laptop up and running and my husband has transferred all my documents and photos to the new one.
Tomereader - I don't know much about
Louise Doughty, but I did once read a book of hers purporting to tell you how to write a novel in a year. It was culled from a column she had been given in one of the national newspapers, and basically she had set a task each week and numerous aspiring writers had set in their efforts for her to scrutinise. I felt some of them were very good, but she was pretty universal in her criticism. At the time she had hardly published anything else, so that irritated me a little, as she seemed to be setting herself up as some sort of expert (I hasten to add that I was NOT one of the people who bravely submitted their work...) I've noticed more and more lately that every newspaper, publishing house, etc is running 'how to write...' courses, often hugely expensive, and taught by people you've never heard of and who seem to have written very little themselves. Louise Doughty often features. These courses make a lot of promises which, in this competitive world, are unlikely to be fulfilled. So I am totally irrationally 'off' L Doughty, and your post has just confirmed my opinion!
Last week's event at the bookshop was about a Mongolian lady,
Uuganaa Ramsay, who grew up in traditional Mongolian society, living in a yurt and having a nomadic way of life - her parents were professionals but still lived in this way and kept cattle. She came to Scotland on a teacher training course and stayed - married a local and has 2 children. Her third child, Billy, was born with Downs Syndrome, and she was horrified when she realised that this was still (unofficially) referred to as Mongolism in the UK, with 'mong' and 'mongol' being used by teenagers and others as insults (just as they persist in calling people 'gay' also as an insult.) Her son died after only 3 months, but she wanted to keep his memory alive, and also to try to address misconceptions about Downs in our society, so she wrote a book called Mongol. At the event, she read from it and talked about her childhood in Mongolia and her adult life here in Scotland. She recently won a major non-fiction award for her book and has been on Good Morning Scotland. It was very interesting and the shop was packed - I had been a bit worried that the audience would be sparse, but how wrong I was - people from the NHS, friends from the local Mongolian community, Downs Association people, children dressed up in Mongolian national costume - and, to my utter joy, none other than Ian Rankin, who does of course live nearby and has a son who has some sort of learning difficulties - might be autism, I can't remember. There was a huge cake iced to look like the book, and Mogolian vodka!
Here is the book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mongol-Uuganaa-Ramsay-ebook/dp/B00D0UXWWA/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395663845&sr=1-1&keywords=MongolThis week's event is to do with the Istanbul Review, a publication about which I know nothing, but I'm looking forward to finding out.
Rosemary
