Wednesday 14 May 2008

A Message from School Holidays Limbo

Actually, as you may have noticed, I'm not posting this week. It's the school holidays so I have no time for blogging unless I plonk my darling offspring in front of the box for hours on end. Unfortunately from that point of view, the weather is very nice.

Anyway, I have to interrupt my self-imposed silence to tell you (completely stolen from the Literary Saloon) that Granta has an interview online with Charlotte Roche. Ha ha! (That's a joyful laugh, by the way, not a cynical snicker)

Two interesting points: firstly, the interviewer Philip Oltermann notes that "publishers are currently bidding for UK and US rights for Feuchtgebiete". So all those people wondering whether they'll ever be able to read Wetlands in English can heave a sigh of relief - or apprehension. Or excitement.
And secondly, Ms Roche claims she's had no time to read since she had her daughter. Poppycock, I say!

Otherwise, Charlotte Roche is her usual refreshingly low-brow self. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but either her English seems rather German at points or the interview was held in German and translated. Whatever, it's an interesting read. Having spawned only Howard Jones in the celebrity stakes, perhaps High Wycombe will have a new celebrity daughter to boast about in the UK before too long. How exciting.

5 comments:

Bowleserised said...

Oh God, she's younger than me.

And inevitably that English translation is going to show up at my old address in a jiffy bag in a year's time.

I can add it to the library of similar publications...

kjd said...

This is just too intruiging, B.

Books in jiffy bags found in my post box are one of the few things almost guaranteed to make my day. Especially ones I don't have to pay for.

For those not in Berlin - we have a collection of letter boxes on the ground floor, opened with keys. So there's no sound of post dropping onto the mat to warn you that something's arrived. On days when work is dragging, I'll sometimes procrastinate by checking the post. And then just imagine - an unsolicited book! The joy of it.

Bowleserised said...

I'm on a few mailing lists. All in the line of work, you understand. *wink*

kjd said...

The kind of mailing lists that ensure free deliveries of rude books in jiffy bags, eh?

I once met a man in a pub (can you spot a pattern here?) who claimed he got free alcohol on prescription because he was an alcoholic. He said he was trying to get a similar system sorted out for girly mags. He wasn't very nice.

Bowleserised said...

I'm nice. But I do get sex books in the post a couple of times a year.