Books and Earthquakes.



The  week arrived as quick as it disappeared like it’s worries and celebrations.  Interweaved within I’ve been reading two books and ended one,    Pereira
Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi.  Tabucchi constructs so fine a web of intrigue as to be invisible and when all is revealed I’m  left feeling   ofcourse.    It is the most gratifying surprising feeling for a reader.

Trust is teased from the reader by the silken skill of Tabucchi.  Mohsin Hamid  wrote   the  introduction and marvels at  his  watchmaker like attention to
the narrative as Pereira maintains throughout.  On closing the book I felt   fine wisps of its web on my hand then upon my face and then my whole body.   

There should be a funeral for the end of books where they’re placed on china plates and pushed out by night upon the glassy phosphorescent bay of Loutros  while musicians play from the harbour  hills.  A  parallel read presumes more. It is  Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ by Philip Pullman.  I’m half way through this
beauty.  You dear blog reader will be hearing a whole lot more about  Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ.

Aside from books which tend the end of the day I wake at 5.30am each morning which at times is irritating  but I can’t help it. On writing this week I finished the radio adaptation of my play Why I Don’t Hate White People which will be performed next week in front of a live studio audience.  I write in the morning.   Most  daytimes I’ve spent at Southbank Centre.   The Artistic Planning Meeting was facinating. It’s where  the artistic teams at Southbank Centre  share their wares.  Jude Kelly the artistic director leads the procession. 

A leading publisher came for a chat about my autobiography this week . It is the
third enquiry this  past two years.    But I am with the greatest publisher in my
world  – Canongate books – who publish  the most successful autobiography of the decade:   Obama’s.   Still there is nothing to be done but write. All this talk is making me choke. 

A residency request crossed my agents table this week.   It was adequately paid and to be in the listed house of one of the most famous poets in Britain.     I
can’t do it because of present commitments.   Only a month or so ago I was asked to be resident in an altogether different  house in London which was  designed by an African gentleman and is now owned by The National Trust but I couldn’t do that either because of  present commitments.

There’s been many meetings at Southbank this week but  I guess one of the most enjoyable was with Kate Daudy, an artist who works with poetry.  She is most known for her poetry on dresses.    But she has a love and deep knowledge of Chinese Poetry.   At time of writing Kate is curling  poems onto the new office walls of Canongate Books.   And when Canongate publishes Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ  they’ll  need secure offices.  Very secure.  Very, very secure because great books are like earthquakes:  Take for example, say,  the bible? Take for example, say,  the Koran?


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