Neil K. Wootton

I love stuff like this. The fact that we (generally) do this correctly without thinking is quite remarkable.

I am currently working on a short anthology of ghost stories. In the tradition of M.R. James, I intend to have them published and available for Christmas. I will not be sharing updates until nearer the time, other than the titles, which are:

- The Critic
- Fresco
- Fell House
- The Keening
- Scandal Beck

Wise words.

There is a tradition in Iceland of buying and receiving books as gifts on Christmas Eve. They then spend the evening reading them. It is called “Jolabokaflod” and I think it’s rather lovely.

The Beautiful Icelandic Tradition of Giving Books on Christmas Eve Book lovers will want to adopt this tradition, which melds literary and holiday pleasures into a single event.

Happy birthday William Blake, born this day, 1757: artist, poet, engraver, philosopher, religious non-conformist, political radical, social commentator, visionary, luminary and weirdo. Also, happy birthday to my Mum x

Why?

‘It never ends’: the book club that spent 28 years reading Finnegans Wake The group in Venice, California, started the difficult James Joyce book in 1995. They reached its final page in October

Thanks Fiona, Kenni, and all the team at for your hospitality yesterday evening. A great turnout for the inaugural book club and really lovely to meet so many new friends from the village and beyond. As promised, I will drop off a few more signed copies of later today for people to buy, all proceeds going to the Red Squirrels Project.

Title: Kings Head | Ravenstonedale Kirkby Stephen Cumbria Found on Google from kings-head.com

Rudyard Kipling’s poetic eulogy to his son, Jack, who died in action during WWI.

"Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Has any one else had word of him?"
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind—
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

John Kipling (17 August 1897 – 27 September 1915)

The King's Head Book Club meets this Thursday 9th November

Very special guest this week is local Ravenstonedale author Neil K. Wootton

Neil's first novel 'Purge' has a 5* rating on Amazon and he'll be talking us through his writing and the background to this, his debut thriller

Come and join us this Thursday from 7.30

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The King's Head, Riverside, Ravenstonedale, CA17 4NH

015396 23050

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My own favourite character in “Purge” is the landscape itself. Lovely article here on the ongoing re-wilding of the Cambridgeshire Fens around Woodwalton, where the novel is set.

‘A game-changer’: the 9,000 acre project reclaiming the Fens for nature The Great Fen scheme in Cambridgeshire will attract rare wildlife and play a vital role in restoring the UK equivalent of the rainforest – and it has just taken a great step forward

Probably the most transformative book of my early years. I was given this by a friend when I was 17 or 18 years old. As soon as I read the first line, I knew my relationship with books had just changed. I can still recite the first line of the English translation by heart:

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”

Competition time: what do all these books have in common? Liberty to feel smug for 30 minutes for the first one to get it right.

Waterstones in Bradford. I’ve spent many an hour in this shop but, to my shame, never really looked up.

Daphne du Maurier being interviewed by the BBC at her home in Cornwall in 1971. Famously reclusive, this is a very rare archive. I've always considered Rebecca to be one of the finest novels ever written but have always struggled to articulate why. Judging by this interview, the author was similarly bemused by its success.

1971: Hit novel REBECCA was JUST A PHASE | Daphne du Maurier | Writers & Wordsmiths | BBC Archive Rebecca? "That was just a phase."Novelist, biographer and playwright Daphne du Maurier speaks to William De'Ath about the inspiration for her stories and her...

Watched this again for the first time in decades yesterday. I’d almost forgotten what an absolutely brilliant film it is and what an amazing actor the late Sidney Poitier was: intelligent, effortlessly cool and masterfully under-stated.

I cannot recommend this Radio 4 series on Banksy highly enough. Essential listening.

BBC Sounds - The Banksy Story - Available Episodes Listen to the latest episodes of The Banksy Story on BBC Sounds

Having really enjoyed the recent TV adaptation of Benjamin Myers’ The Gallows Pole, I read the novel during a recent holiday in Kefalonia - this is the wrong way round, I know, and is probably a hanging offence in itself.

Notwithstanding, the novel - which won the Walter Scott Award for historical fiction in 2018 - is utterly brilliant. It tells the story of the Cragg Vale Coiners, and their leader, ‘King’ David Hartley, a kind of 18th century Robin Hood character. It is based on real life events.

One word of warning, though, for those who loved the TV series for its laugh-out-loud humour: this doesn’t exist at all in the book. It is unremittingly brutal, bleak but nonetheless beautiful for that.

RIP Cormac McCarthy. Painting vast landscapes with an economy of words is a rare gift.

Cormac McCarthy, celebrated US novelist, dies aged 89 Author of The Road and No Country For Old Men died in his home of natural causes, publisher announces

Some writers are compelled to write by a creative urgency. For others, the battle with indolence is a constant war of attrition. I am firmly in the Bukowski camp.

Really enjoyed the first episode of The Gallows Pole on TV last night. Gritty, northern and atmospheric - what’s not to like? I’ve never read the Ben Myers novel on which it’s based but shall certainly be doing so now.

The Gallows Pole review – Shane Meadows’s period drama is an absolute must-see The director of This is England’s take on a novel about an 18th-century counterfeiting gang is funny, moving, shocking and totally compelling. He has effortlessly reinvented a whole genre

The first draft of anything is s**t.
- Ernest Hemingway.

I’ve often said that, in my opinion, books and films are getting far too long, so this article resonated with me immensely. I particularly love the citation here (in full) of Dorothy Parker’s poem: “two volume novel”

“The sun’s gone dim, and
The moon’s turned black;
For I loved him, and
He didn’t love me back.”

What else needs to be said?

‘Eighty-nine perfect minutes’: 30 of the best short films and novels Is the trend for epic movies and hefty novels getting too much? Our critics redress the balance with a classic compilation of shorter works – plus 10 long ones that are worth your time

The longest word that can be typed using just the top row of letters on a typewriter is….typewriter.

Completely essential, of course…

The Madman's Library: The Greatest Curiosities of Literature The Madman's Library: The Greatest Curiosities of Literature

Unwittingly, I appear to be en vogue. Well, that’s a first.

Spellbound: why ‘witch lit’ is the hottest new genre on our bookshelves Vampires and ghosts have long haunted popular fiction, but now a string of new releases is focusing on marginalised women with hidden powers

Back to research. Back to Cromwell. Back to business.

I am enjoying this immensely at the moment. Meticulously researched and full of arcane detail. Favourite snippet so far - concerning Douglas Bader, the double amputee war hero and most famous inmate - “Bader was living evidence it is possible to be courageous, famous, disabled and thoroughly unpleasant, all at the same time.”

I’ll lend it to you when I get back Steve Richards; you’ll love it.

Probably no more complex character in British history than Oliver Cromwell. I read a lot about him when writing “Purge” and quickly realised the more you think you know him, the less you actually understand. Frustrating from a historian’s perspective, but endlessly fertile material for a novelist.

Irish amateur historian on lonely mission to save ‘bogeyman’ Cromwell from genocide charges As scholars gather in Dublin to debate the Puritan’s life, one man is insisting Ireland must apologise for blackening the Lord Protector’s name

Exhibit one:

I have read a lot of books. Books are usually far too long. The chapters are far too long. (Who hasn’t just wanted to put it down and go to sleep?) If the story cannot be told succinctly, it’s probably not a very good story. Thus spake Zarathustra.