Dream sequences suck
Here’s a pet peeve of mine: Dream sequences in books, films, or television. I can’t stand it when I am forced to suffer through a character’s dream, particularly when it…
Tournament of Books
The fifth annual Tournament of Books began a couple of weeks ago, pitting the sixteen best novels of the year against one another in order to determine a champion. The…
Lies
A recent survey of British readers found that "George Orwell’s 1984 tops the list of books that people pretend to have read in a survey carried out for World Book…
Acknowledgements page
In the American Spectator, Jonathan Black wrote a piece about the Acknowledgements page (or pages) in novels, declaring that “The Acknowledgments page cannot make a bad book better, but it…
Trade paper
The decision has been made to publish Something Missing as a trade paperback original rather than a hardback. Doubleday’s marketing department believes that the book will do better in trade…
Loving the Germans
More news from my German editor: The major publishing magazine, Boersenblatt, published their first announcement (not quite a review, but a kind of "best of upcoming novels preview"), and Something…
Do you like writing?
The Guardian published a story asking various authors if they thought writing was a joy or a chore in response to Colm Toibin’s recent warning that he does not like…
Lunacy or brilliance?
A new idea for a book has lodged itself in my head, and it’s now competing for space with the idea that I am already pursuing. Is it crazy to…
News from the German front
My German editor was kind enough to contact me after seeing this website in order to cast some light on the reasons why the name of SOMETHING MISSING was changed…
First sentences
I have a friend named Charles who is a biophysicist, a professor, a songwriter, a musician (guitar, bagpipes, and God knows what else), a poet, and a writer of short…
