Five Minutes Peace

GUEST BLOG: Cally Taylor's Five Books to Curl Up With

I am delighted to welcome Cally Taylor - whose debut novel, Heaven Can Wait, Helen reviewed just yesterday - to Five Minutes Peace. Take it away, Cally!

When Keris asked me to write a guest post about my five favourite books to curl up I had to have a long, hard think. I know what my five favourite books of all time are (although I do switch a couple around occasionally) but ‘books to curl up with' is a completely different issue! To me a book you curl up with is akin to chocolate, a log fire or a deep bubble bath – something that allows you to escape from the real world for a while.  Here they are...

1. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

In a nutshell: It’s about a man who, when his girlfriend leaves him, rakes through his past relationships to try and understand where it all went wrong.

Why I love it: I think High Fidelity was the first book - written by a man about relationships - I’d read that wasn’t from a pervert’s point of view (Lolita by Nabakov) or obsessed with sex (anything by Henry Miller). There’s something so everyday-man about Rob, the main character in High Fidelity. He could be a friend of mine, or even someone I’ve dated and for that reason he’s very real. I loved his obsession with music, his constant list-making, his flawed, funny personality and couldn’t help but root for him all the way through.

BOOK NEWS & COVERS: The Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus

You know, I had no idea Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin had written a follow-up to The Nanny Diaries. I spotted it on Chick Lit Examiner and went "Ooh!" then "Ooh!" again at the lovely cover. And then, of course, I checked Amazon UK for the British cover. Hmmmm.

Now, I do like it and if I'd seen it first I probably would have thought it was lovely, but the US cover is just so much more modern, don't you think? I mean, it's still got the skyline and the umbrella, but it looks like a book for grown-ups whereas the UK one could easily be YA or even younger. (Oh and US have gone with "Nanny Returns" whereas the UK version has "The Nanny Returns". Why?)

Anyway, covers aside, you can read an excerpt here from Monday.

BOOK NEWS: What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell

I loved Malcolm Gladwell's first two books - The Tipping Point and Blink, but I haven't read his third, Outliers, yet (I was put off by the fact that he apparently couldn't find a single female example of genius), but I'm still keen to read What the Dog Saw.

It's a collection of his columns from The New Yorker and includes "What is the difference between choking and panicking? Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard-but only one variety of ketchup? What do football players teach us about how to hire teachers? What does hair dye tell us about the history of the 20th century?" (I heard him talking about the hair dye issue on the radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge and it was fascinating.)

But to more pressing matters: which cover? On the left is the US cover. I like it because it's simple and matches the previous covers. On the right is the UK cover. I like it because it's a bit different and the picture made me smile*. What do you think?

* I accidentally typed that as "slime". Heh.

BOOK NEWS: Lovely David Mitchell signs double book deal

I'm not usually that bothered about celebrities signing book deals. I'm not in the camp that believes they're taking food from the mouths of "proper" writers, but I also won't be queuing to buy the latest Peter Kay, HOWEVER...

This morning I read that one of my TV husbands, David Mitchell, has signed a deal to write not one, but two books for HarperCollins: a memoir *and* a novel. I CAN'T WAIT to read them. You?

[via The Bookseller]

Dear Me: A Letter to my Sixteen Year Old Self

If you were to write a letter to your 16-year-old self, what would it say?

Oh, I love this idea.

Various people in the public eye including comedians and actors, pop stars and knights, film directors and a doctor all write a letter to their much younger self. Some are compassionate, some heartbreaking and some funny.

But it begs the question what would I say to myself? Don't study business, go for literature? Stay away from the pizza, it isn't your friend? Or go out at night while you still can?

Hmm. Probably better to read the book.

BOOK NEWS: Fern Britton signs two-novel deal

TV presenter and national treasure (no?) Fern Britton has signed a two book deal with HarperCollins. Her autobiography sold more than 200,000 copies, but this deal is to write fiction.

The as yet untitled first book will be published in time for Mother's Day 2011. It follows Christie Lynch, a journalist and single mother who lands a high-profile television job but soon realises not all of her friends, nor her new agent, are to be trusted. Her mother disapproves of her fame and her daughter disappears but salvation seems to come in the form of Richard, a handsome single dad at her child's school.

[via The Bookseller]

Jennifer Weiner's writing a new book

Tentatively titled Home By the Sea, the wonderful Jennifer Weiner has announced details of her next book on her blog. 

"What's it about? Three very different women -- a fifty-four-year-old political wife, a thirty-six-year-old married working mother and an eighteen-year-old teenager with a secret, who are all coping with relationships in crisis, and who find each other, in a home. By the sea. Where they learn lessons, tell jokes, discover their own strengths, and possibly commit a crime. Not telling yet! Anyhow, there is humor and heartbreak and romance and sex scenes both tender and inadvertently hilarious, plus a passage in which one of the women says that she hates the shape of her husband's head, and observes that once you hate the shape of someone's head, the relationship's in trouble."

Sounds good to me. Due for publication next summer. Perhaps.

BOOK NEWS & COVERS: A Field Guide to Burying Your Parents by Liza Palmer

I reallly enjoyed Liza Palmer's first two books and this new one sounds great too (love the title), but, once again, I have a cover issue.

On the left is the US cover. It's a bit Jodi Picoult, but it's pretty and eyecatching, no? On the right is the UK cover. A cartoon? Yawn.

Carry on over the cut to find out what the book's actually about.

BOOK NEWS: Blessings

A few years ago I founded a chick lit writing group on writing site, WriteWords. Alumni of the group include Claire Allan, Clodagh Murphy, Luisa Plaja, Emily Gale and, um, me, along with Sascha Zuger, who has an essay in this book, Blessings, published by Good Housekeeping in the US.

Subtitled Reflections on Gratitude, Love and What Makes Us Happy, other contributors include superstar writers Maeve Binchy, Jodi Picoult and Alice Hoffman. Sascha's essay is entitled Sacrifice Play, and is about "how her father traded one of his most precious assets just to make her smile again". Can't wait to read it.

BOOK NEWS: The Secret Shopper Unwrapped

I'm very excited about the release of this book, especially as it's being released in October, the month of my birthday (are you listening husband?). The Secret Shopper Unwrapped by Kate Harrison is the sequel to The Secret Shopper's Revenge (which, by the by, I adored) and we return to the lives of Emily, Sandie and Grazia a few years later in the run up to Christmas.

The three mystery shoppers are about to embark on adventures that will test their friendship to the limit – and [there is] a brand new shopper with a very secret agenda. To find out more go to Kate's website.