Optimistic? Delusional? Daft?

Probably all of the above, but nevertheless, I’m going to press ahead. Every week, I’m going to recommend a book. I know you can hardly wait to find out what I’ve chosen this week, so CLICK HERE

Let me know what you think of my choices. E-mail me at author@paulcuddihy.com or ‘tweet’ me @PaulTheHunted

And I’m open to suggestions of what you’d like to see recommended.

What has dismayed me, however, is the news that she is being given a £400,000 advance by Penguin Books’ commercial imprint, Michel Joseph, for a book on party planning advice. I’m not going to criticise Pippa since it’s not her fault that someone’s offered her such a ludicrous sum, and who would turn that amount of money down?

But what are the publishers thinking?

At various times, there have been different innovations that have been identified as heralding the end of books, whether it be television, computer games, or even more recently ebooks, although the latter still encourage people to read.

What is more likely to herald the end of books – at least the physical version – are publishers who pay ludicrous advances for vacuous books such as Pippa Middleton’s ‘Party Planning My Arse’ (or whatever it’s going to be called).

That is £400,000 which could be, and should be, better spent. For example, pay twenty first-time authors an advance of £20,000 in order to help them write their novel. That would be twenty new books produced, and could lead to the discovery or development of genuine writing talent. Pay forty writers £10,000 each…. You see where I’m going with this.

Not only is paying Pippa Middleton £400,000 a waste of money, but I’m guessing that she won’t actually write the book herself.

Good book shops are rapidly disappearing from our town centres, while the major supermarkets are filling their shelves with a small selection of books for us to choose from, mainly ‘written’ by celebrities, all of which is being fed by publishers throwing money at ‘famous’ names.

It’s a depressing feature of publishing, and I can only urge you all not to buy Pippa Middleton’s book when it comes out next year, no matter how nice her arse might be.

You can email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or follow me on Twitter @PaulTheHunted

I have my own parents to thank for instilling in me a lifelong love of books, and for having always encouraged me to write, and it’s important that parents continue to do so.

When my children were growing up, we always read to them, and encouraged them to read, while trips to the library were a regular weekend activity. In saying that, they have different levels of interest in reading books – Rebecca reads all the time, Louise does so occasionally, and Andrew never reads books, not even mine!  To be fair, he reads newspapers and football magazines, but books, as he tells me, are not for him. 

Teachers also play an important role in encouraging children to read, and I think they do a wonderful job, though I fear too often that’s forgotten. In a week when our teachers are going on strike, it made me think again that we don’t value the men and women who we trust to educate our children as much as we should. They are professionals doing what I believe is one of the most important jobs in our society, and they should be acknowledged as such – both in our attitude towards them and also in the way they are rewarded.

I will declare a slight bias in that both my parents were teachers, so I know how hard teachers work and how important that work is. I also remember teachers who helped to feed my love of books – my English teacher in fifth year at secondary school who gave us Catch 22 to study, or my primary seven teacher who would read to us every Friday afternoon.

I still remember her reading Master of Morgana, a brilliant adventure story by Allan Campbell McLean set on the Isle of Skye. She would read a chapter every week but after a couple of weeks, I couldn’t wait to find out what happened, so I got the book out the library and finished it one weekend. That was commendable enough, but I stupidly went into school on the Monday and told everyone else how the book ended, which got me the belt for my troubles! Thankfully, it didn’t put me off reading.

I was invited to Sacred Heart Primary School in Bridgeton, Glasgow, earlier this year during their Literacy Week. The school asked a number of adults to come in to speak to pupils about their favourite book from childhood as a way of encouraging reading, and I took in Master of Morgana, and spoke about that book. It was a great experience and I left the book for the kids to finish. Hopefully, some of them will enjoy it as much as I did, and still do. 

Of course, there have been a whole host of initiatives aimed at encouraging children to read. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, for example, is working with the Scottish Government and the Scottish Book Trust to give every looked-after children in Scotland a free book every month until their fifth birthday. There are over 3,000 looked-after children in Scotland, and the initiative aims to give every one of these children their own little library while also encouraging their parents and carers to read to them. 

Not content with giving us the wonderful song, Jolene, Dolly Parton is also helping get our kids to read and for that we should be thankful.

Email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or follow me on Twitter @PaulTheHunted

I know that some books, particularly so-called ‘chick lit’ novels, are being aimed at women and I would presume that more women buy these books than men, but I’ve been asking myself whether I, and many other men, are missing out on some very good stories.

I recently recommended Monica McInerney’s novel, The Alphabet Sisters, as one to read. I spoke about her books being a guilty pleasure of mine, mainly because they would be described as ‘women’s’ books, and I chose a lovely pink and yellow cover of the book to include in the feature. The truth is, I’m not guilty at all about reading Monica McInerney, and I would encourage you all to do so.

I thought about this issue of gender labelling again last week when I bought a copy of a new book, Watch Over Me by Daniela Sacerdoti. I’d already read the first three chapters of the book and really enjoyed them, so I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the novel.

Watch the video trailer for Watch Over Me

There has been a lot of blogging interest in the book, and one site specialising in ‘women’s’ novels had an interview with Daniela, which caught my eye. The interview was excellent publicity for the book, but it jarred with me that the book was being labelled in such a way. A good book is a good book, regardless of who writes it or reads it.

Abbie's Outlaw by Victoria Bylin, a Mills and Boon publication

The increasing popularity of ebooks will, I believe, lead to more women reading ‘men’s’ books and probably more so, men reading ‘women’s’ books. I read an article recently about Mills & Boon books. They have traditionally, and predominantly, been bought by women, but increasing ebook sales has apparently seen a rise in the number of male readers who are no longer embarrassed about reading a Mills & Boon book for the simple reason that no-one else now knows what they’re reading on their Kindle or iPad.

Many men might still be embarrassed about been seen in possession of a  Mills & Boon book, or any so-called ‘women’s’ books, but take away the embarrassment, and I’m convinced many of them will start reading these books.

I have to admit that even with the discretion provided by a Kindle, I’m not sure that I’ll ever read a Mills & Boon publication, but I will continue reading other books that might be identified as ‘women’s’ books, if only in the hope that I’ll turn a page and stumble across a dramatic car chase, lots of explosions, some dead bodies and a few hard-drinking heroes who always get the girl, and then leave them before dawn. 

Email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or follow me on Twitter @PaulTheHunted

Elmore Leonard's '10 Rules of Writing'

Elmore Leonard famously published his ’10 Rules of Writing’, and they are wise words indeed. I can’t say that I follow them all, but there are certainly a few that are always in my head when I’m writing. I came across them recently in a newspaper article which, inspired by those rules, decided to ask a number of other writers for their own dos and don’t of writing.

So, in the same vein, I have decided to offer my own top ten tips for writing. Some of them are obvious, some of them are personal, but none of them will guarantee publication.

You can also check out the link at the end of this blog for other writers’ top tips.

1. Write

It seems obvious, and if you do this, then the other nine points don’t really matter, but you need to write. That’s what writers do! Try to get in the habit of writing every day. It’s up to you whether you want to set yourself a daily word count or just write and see how much you get done, but if you try and get into the discipline of writing, you’ll be amazed at how much you actually produce. And some of it might actually be quite good!

2. Read

If you want to be a writer, it’s really important to read. A lot. I always remind myself that anything I’m reading has been deemed good enough to be published. That doesn’t mean that everything published is good; some books are excellent and you aspire to produce something of that quality; other books are not good, and they should inspire you to write because you know you can do better.

3. Enjoy what you’re writing

If you’re not enjoying what you’re writing, then the chances are no-one else will enjoy reading it. If you’re going to spend your own time writing, and if you’re writing a novel, that’s a lot of time, you need to be enjoying what you’re doing. You won’t enjoy everything you write, or necessarily have a great experience every time you write, but if the story doesn’t captivate you or maintain your interest, throw it away and start writing about something else.

4. Write about what you know

… unless you don’t know very much, or what you do know is boring, in which case write about anything you like. I’m guessing that JK Rowling isn’t a wizard, and JRR Tolkien wasn’t a hobbit who resided in Middle Earth, so both of them in their own hugely successful way, prove that you can write about anything, so long as you do it well. My dad wrote a book once – it was a crime novel of sorts set in the 1930s. I blame the influence of television and trashy American police shows. He had been a maths teacher and told brilliant and funny stories about the classroom and the staffroom. If he put them down on paper, he’d have a great book.

5. Read what you’ve written aloud

This is one of the best ways to judge whether what you’ve written sounds right and has a natural flow to it. This is especially true of dialogue. It’s also a great way of spotting mistakes that might otherwise remain undetected. Just be prepared for strange looks from anyone else in your house who’ll worry that you’re talking to yourself.

6. Don’t get Sky+

Sky+ is one of the best inventions ever, and also one of the biggest enemies of the writer. With Sky+ there is now always something you can watch on television. It just means that you have to be even more disciplined in your writing. And keep the Internet turned off as well. Emails and Facebook and Twitter are horribly addictive and very distracting. Incidentally, I love Sky+.

7. Don’t re-write until you’ve finished a first draft

Re-writing was always one of my biggest mistakes when I used to try writing a novel. I’d spend so much time trying to make my first few chapters perfect that I’d lose interest in what I was doing since it felt like it would take forever to finish the manuscript. Now, after putting a plan together for the structure of the book, I just keep writing until I’ve got a first draft. Then I start editing it. I also write freehand before I type anything into the computer, and the advantage of that is that when I am typing, I’m giving my story a first edit as I correct any mistakes I spot in what I’ve scribbled down on paper.

8. Live your life

The American writer, Richard Ford, whose work I absolutely love, offered, as one of his tips, the advice not to have children. I disagree. Absolutely. Children are not a distraction. It might just mean that you have to work harder at finding the time to write around family life, but you can do it. And when all’s said and done, a book’s just a book, but your children are the greatest blessing you will ever have. And if you only ever achieve one thing in life to be proud of, it would be in having children who grown up to be adults who you like. You can keep your Booker Prize!

9. Don’t moan about it

I’m not trying to decry writing, or writers, but it always strikes me that, if you can make your living from writing, then that’s got to be just about the best job in the world. And even if your writing is not your primary source of income, it’s still a great thing to do; if anyone pays you for your words, that’s just a bonus. It never fails to amaze me when I hear journalists at Scottish football grounds moaning about some aspect of their job – they’re getting paid to watch football, for goodness sake! How good is that? The same goes for writers – don’t moan about your working life. It’s great. Get over it. I thought of this last week when my teenage son came in from work. He’d spent the day pulling down ceilings in an old building and was covered in dirt and dust; he looked like one of Dick Van Dyke’s chimney sweep pals from Mary Poppins. I couldn’t imagine telling him not to complain about his work and that he had it easy compared to writers! Writing’s great, and everyone who does it for a living would do it anyway as a hobby. It’s not a real job!

10.  Write

Just in case you’ve forgotten already – WRITE!!!

GUARDIAN ARTICLE

You can email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or ‘tweet’ me @PaulThe Hunted

This is my favourite moment of my time working at Celtic Football Club. Click HERE

Go to http://www.footballmemories.org.uk/ and tell your story.

It is a wonderful book, and incredibly well-written. At times, it is intellectually challenging – a fancy way of saying there were a lot of words, ideas and arguments that I struggled with – but the book remains, at its heart, a very readable medieval murder mystery.

It doesn’t surprise me that The Name of the Rose has sold so many copies – I’ve bought a few over the years myself – and, as a writer, it is an enviable number.

With last week’s blog still in my head, about my son refusing to read my book, preferring instead to wait until the film adaptation comes out, I thought about the whole issue of adapting books into films.

The  Name of the Rose, as an example, was a hit-and-miss adaptation. The film stars Sean Connery in the main role – I’m not convinced that was a good piece of casting – and while it manages to convey some of the sinister intrigue of the book, it is a pale imitation.

I remember being surprised when Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting was made into a film. Having read the book, which is brilliant, I thought it would be an impossible task to put it on the big screen, but I thought the end result was excellent.

There is always a debate as to whether you should read a book before watching the film adaptation. Obviously, if you’re read the book, and enjoyed it, there is always a slight feeling of trepidation when you go to the cinema; has the director destroyed the novel that you loved?

I have never read The Lord of the Rings trilogy – I have to be honest and admit that I never will – but I thought the three films were magnificent; fans of the books, and there are many, I believe, might have a different opinion.

My daughter enjoyed Jodi Picout’s book, My Sister’s Keeper, and was furious with the film version of the book. Apparently, the ending of the book is dramatic and memorable – the film-makers changed it completely!

When you read a book you really enjoy, then you don’t want anyone to change a single sentence of it should they decide to adapt it. That, of course, is impossible, and the best you can hope for is that the director loves the book as much as you do, and tries as best they can to portray a condensed version on the big screen that remains, overall, faithful to the book.

For example, Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest books ever written. With that sort of emotional investment in the book, I approached the film warily, but I thought the film-makers did an excellent job, much to my relief.

And here’s the dilemma as a writer. If I’m lucky enough to get a call from Hollywood offering me suitcases full of cash for the rights to either, or both, of my novels, should I insist on a faithful adaptation to maintain my artistic integrity, or should I just take the money? Those of you who know me will already know the answer to that one…

Here are a few suggestions of good and bad film adaptations. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of others which spring to mind. 

FIVE GOOD ADAPTATIONS

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The film starring Gregory Peck as lawyer Atticus Finch is the perfect compliment to a masterpiece of a novel.

Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella
This book became Field of Dreams, and given that this is my favourite film, I had to include it. I saw the film before reading the book, but it’s also brilliant and magical.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
This is an incredible book – if you haven’t read it yet, shame on you – and actress, Maggie Smith, as Miss Jean Brodie is a piece of perfect casting.

Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally
A beautiful book which tells the true story of Oscar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved hundreds of Jews during the Second World War. It’s also a moving film, renamed Schindler’s List, with Liam Neeson in the leading role.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
This is one of my favourite books from childhood, and I love both film versions – with Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.

AND FIVE RUBBISH ONES

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby
There have been two film adaptations of Nick Hornby’s brilliant book. The British version was decidedly average – Colin Firth as the football fanatic was less than convincing. But it was nothing on the American version. Renamed The Perfect Catch outside North America, and with the lead character now a Boston Red Sox fan, it was, quite simply awful. Not one of Drew Barrymore’s best efforts!

Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
I love this book – it’s the first of a series of novels set in prehistoric times The film adaptation, which looks like a really cheap ‘made for TV’ version, is truly abysmal. Whoever is responsible for it should hang their head in shame.

The World According to Garp by John Irving
Read the book, and watch Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting instead. That’s a much better film!

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
A difficult book to adapt, as the people responsible for this film proved. Just read Heller’s masterpiece – it is brilliant.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
It’s never a good sign when Nicolas Cage is cast in the lead role, and so it proved. The book is a beautiully written love story. The film isn’t.

Email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or follow me on Twitter @PaulTheHunted

A rare picture of my son, Andrew, with a book... but is it the right way up?

WHEN my first novel, Saints and Sinners, was published last year, I gave my kids their own copy of the book. About three weeks later Andrew, who was sixteen at the time, announced, ‘Dad, I’m not going to read your book. Books are not for me… I’ll just wait until the film comes out.’

To be fair to him, he has been true to his word and has not read the book. He won’t read The Hunted either; both books sit at the side of his bed in pristine condition. Thankfully, both my daughters did read the books.

I’ve thought a lot about why boys don’t read as much as girls, which certainly seems to be the received wisdom. I remember visiting schools a few years ago to talk to pupils about writing football match reports, and some of the teachers spoke about the difficulties of getting boys interested in reading or writing.

The pupils seemed interested enough when I was there, although that’s because I was talking about something that they liked – football – and it may be that teachers, and parents, need to think more about what they’re encouraging boys to read.

I remember in fifth year at secondary school – a long time ago now – our English teacher gave the boys in the class Catch 22 to read, while the girls read Sons and Lovers. He obviously realised that Catch 22 would interest and entertain a group of teenage boys, and so it proved; the book remains one of my favourites, and I still have the copy I read back in 1982 – is that classed as theft since, technically, it does belong to the school?

While Andrew doesn’t read books, he reads newspapers and any football magazines I bring home; the quality of the writing in Four Four Two magazine, for example, is very high, and while he will read that, if it was in book form, he wouldn’t be interested.

I have, at various times, given him books that I think might interest him; I keep thinking that, if he enjoys reading one, then that might encourage him to read more. Theresa Breslin’s excellent book, Divided City, was one example. The story is set in Glasgow, and examines sectarianism and racism in the city, using football as a central theme in the book. He did start it, but soon gave up.

I’ve written this blog accepting that girls read more than boys. I don’t know for sure if this is true. Certainly, in my house it is, but I also have a nine-year-old nephew who reads all the time; it may well be that interest in books is not dictated by gender. Some of us just like reading and some of us don’t. 

I realise, too, that as boys get older, reading isn’t considered ‘cool’, and it’s unlikely to be a regular topic of conversation when competing against Xbox or PlayStation, football and girls for interest and attention.  

I have had to accept that my son won’t be reading Saints and Sinners or The Hunted any time soon, so if there any Hollywood directors reading this, can one of you please turn my books into films so that my son will be able to find out what they are about.

author@paulcuddihy.com or on Twitter @PaulTheHunted

The Haunted launch night at Waterstone's

If anyone has notice that this week’s blog is being published later than normal, then the only excuse I can offer is that I was caught up with preparations for the launch of my new novel, The Hunted. As a writer, I guess this is as good a reason as any…

At the launch night, I spoke about my novels and whether it was good to label them as ‘Scottish’ books, particularly when trying to make them appeal, and sell, to a wider audience outwith Scotland.

I think books should be judged, first and foremost, on whether they’re good or not – you can have your own criteria for what constitutes ‘good’ – before any sense of national identity is taken into consideration.

But this question of ‘Scottish’ novels remained in my head, not least because I’m currently reading And The Land Lay Still by James Robertson. It won the Scottish Book of the Year Award 2010, and among the many words of praise on the cover, it’s described as ‘probably the most ambitious Scottish novel since Lanark.’ It’s very much a book about Scotland and having read about a third of it so far, I have to say that it is an excellent book. The fact that it’s set in Scotland should not, however, preclude readers elsewhere in the world from enjoying it too.

Both of my novels – Saints and Sinners and The Hunted – are set between Ireland and Scotland, with most of the narrative taking place within the Irish immigrant community in Glasgow. It’s a community and culture which has been largely ignored in Scottish literature; I remember signing up for a night class on 20th century Scottish literature, and while the books we studied were excellent, what did strike me was the absence of characters and stories with an Irish or Catholic background. I felt that I wasn’t really reading about my history or background; no-one was telling the story of my forebears, with a few notable exceptions. So I wanted to write stories set within this community.

Having said that, it still comes back to the question of how we identify books in terms of national identity and, indeed, should books ever be identified in this way rather than judging them simply in terms of quality.

It’s a question that I don’t have an answer to. As I said at the start of this blog, I think we should judge books on the quality of writing, yet I also believe that Scottish literature should be compulsory in our schools; pupils should be reading and studying novels such as Robin Jenkins’ The Cone Gatherers.

In order to decide whether to judge literature by its national identity, you should first be aware of what literature your country has produced, and I think Scotland is relatively ignorant when it comes to its own literary library. The best way to change that is to start teaching Scottish novels to our children.

Ten of my favourite Scottish novels:

The Cone Gatherers by Robin Jenkins
Me And Ma Gal by Des Dillon
Lanark by Alasdair Gray
Buddha Da by Anne Donovan
Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbons
Our Fathers by Andrew O’Hagan
Poor Things by Alasdair Gray
Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
Master of Morgana by Allan Campbell McLean
The Rat Pit by Patrick MacGill

Ironically, I would say four of these ten books are definitely rooted in the Irish, Catholic culture and community of Scotland. And check out this list by The List of ‘The 100 best Scottish novels’. I wrote a few words on Buddha Da by Anne Donovan and Our Fathers by Andrew O’Hagan.
100 BEST SCOTTISH BOOKS

Email me at author@paulcuddihy.com or follow me on Twitter @PaulTheHunted