Do you judge a book by its cover?

With thousands of books being released into the bookshops every week it is hard for the reader to make a decision about what to read. Of course we read the reviews in newspapers and magazines and accept recommendations from friends and Amazon, but when you have run out of inspiration it is the only thing you can do when faced with the wonderful selection on offer in your local bookshop. My favourite shop in the whole world is Waterstones. I get the same giddy rush of excitement that most girls seem to get from shoe shops and jewellers, and I will spend ages wandering around the shelves stocking up on my 3 for 2 deals and usually end up with at least 6 books.

When looking at an unfamiliar author and a new title it seems to me that I probably give each book roughly 10 seconds of my time. I know without any shadow of doubt that I judge books by their cover. The marketing and art departments of the publishers play a huge role in making a book attractive and also in targeting the right readers for the genre. I am probably one of their target customers, in that I don’t spend too much time deciding what to buy, but I am drawn towards their books by their design and colour schemes.

Bookshops like Waterstones tend to divide up the titles into genre and I imagine most people can spot, from far across the room, the section with the books they like just from the colours of the spines. Spy novels, crime, fantasy and science fiction tend to have dark covers and strong images on the cover of guns, knives, barbed wire, vampires and aliens as appropriate. I tend to avoid this kind of fiction and head straight to the candy coloured chick-lit titles and the primary or subtle arty colours of the literary fiction. Chick-lit titles are easily recognised by their predilection for pretty colours, and to the untrained eye they probably all look the same. However, there are subtle clues to the type of book it is as indicated by the illustrations. The more hearts and flowers, the sappier the plot, but if there is a picture of shoes the plot gets a little racier.

As a whole I am less inclined to pick up the most obvious chick-litty kind of book. I am not fond of the overly sugary types of novel s on offer, but I am still drawn to at least look at some of the more feminine artwork on some books. If I have lots of time on my hands I will spend much more time choosing books and will read the blurbs and perhaps the first chapter before making a purchase. But quite often I don’t have that much time to spare so I hit the shop in a frenzy of purchasing adrenaline and pick up the first few titles that have instant appeal.

I also have a tendency to buy books by authors that I have liked in the past and will look out for my favourites. But quite often I hit the shops, or the library, completely clueless about what to read next and I feel like a drug addict seeking my next indiscriminate fix. For example, I had run out of reading material earlier this week and made a beeline for my local library in Maynooth. I did not have long to browse before getting back to my car before I would be in danger of getting clamped so I rushed in to the library like a one-woman SAS hit squad and picked out five titles almost at random. Maynooth library has a brilliant section devoted to new titles so I usually head straight for that rack. I chose two titles by authors I had already read, but another three just by the prettiness of the book cover. How shallow is that? But I am sure that I won’t be disappointed by my choices.

But wouldn’t it be nice to have some kind of book review system for libraries? I would love to be able to look up a review of books, organised by genre, and not just writing about the brand new titles. I would recommend buying a copy of 1000 books to read before you die. I forget the name of the editor but it is easy to find on Amazon. I must remember to take it with me next time I go to the library or bookshop.

Taking it on the chin

I do hope that is not my career going up in flames!

Throughout the UK and Ireland, young people have been getting the exam results that will determine whether or not they have got a place at the university of their choice. Tough times for some, but for the most, it is a time of celebration as they set off on the next exciting stage of their life.

In the Irish Times (17/08/10) there was a well-timed article about how to deal with the disappointment of failure, including some examples of well known and successful people who perhaps didn’t get off to the best start with their careers. Two of these examples were the Irish writers, Maeve Binchy and John Connolly, who received 35 and 70 rejection letters respectively, before going on to become the writing superstars that they are now.

That is an incredible amount of rejection to deal with and I am filled with renewed respect for both these writers. I have only had two rejection letters so far, with regard to my novel “Dancing with the Ferryman,” and that was enough to make me stop and think about whether or not I was good enough. The upshot of my re-think was I signed up to study for a Masters in Professional Writing. I hoped that this period of study would allow me to gain more skills and to add some more credibility to my CV. It has also given me the chance to step back from my writing and to view it in a more critical way.

At some stage, perhaps, when I have finished my degree, and edited my manuscript again to remove all the amateurish flaws, I will start the process of trying to get it published again. I fully expect to get numerous rejection letters; because that’s the way it seems to work. I wonder, though, how I would deal with rejection, if it amounted to 70 letters from publishers, all saying no.

This week I got the news that I hadn’t got a job that I interviewed for last week. I had made the mistake of setting my hopes upon success, and the interview had gone very well so I had allowed optimism to surface in my imagination. But the job went to someone who had previously been a CEO someplace, so that was pretty stiff competition. It is a little depressing to think that the level of competition for fairly ordinary jobs is so hard, but I guess unemployment being the way it is in Ireland, it should be expected. Nevertheless I was a little bit down for a few hours.

I have applied for countless jobs since I arrived, and despite many years of valuable experience and numerous skills, I have only had the one interview. I am sure that I will probably have to learn to deal with rejection over the next few months before landing a good job. And maybe that experience will stand me in good stead for when I pursue my dreams of publication again.

A sense of self-belief and optimism is essential for any writer, whether they have been published or not. We all experience moments of doubt to some degree or other. Sometimes that doubt can be crippling, and many budding, and no doubt talented, writers have given up. I wonder whether I would continue to have the strength of conviction in my own ability if I received as many rejection letters as John Connolly. I would love to know what drove him on to get past this. I hope whatever it was, that I possess at least some of that characteristic in my own soul, because all I know is, there simply isn’t any other career I would rather have.

In the meantime, there is always a plus side to every disappointment. My failure to get a job means that I have more time to write and study. If only I could get to grips with my bizarre sense of guilt at not working I would be in heaven.

Familiarity breeds contentment

An Ireland rugby shirt and a pint of Guinness - sure signs of being in Dublin.

When you have lived in a place for a while you grow used to your surroundings, and novelty soon merges seamlessly into the ordinary. I have been in Ireland six months, and I am now driving around with more confidence, and less reliance on my trusty map book. I have grown used to the trees and the vivid shades of green that contrasted with what I was used to seeing in Shetland. I am used to seeing race horses grazing in the fields, but still miss the sight of Shetland ponies and moorit sheep wandering around the hills. I have a gorgeous view of the Wicklow Mountains from my bedroom window, which is starting to make up for the unrestricted view of the sea that I used to enjoy.

Ireland is not so very different in appearance to Britain. The similar landscape is dotted with familiar looking architecture and experiences the same, often dreary weather. The same high street shops fill the shopping centres over here and McDonalds and Tesco seem to have set up camp on every street corner. But there are enough subtle changes to be a constant reminder that I am in a different country. I am still getting used to working with kilometres instead of miles. I re-set the speedometer in my little Citroen to make sure I never inadvertently go over the limit, but from time to time I still experience a split second of fear when I look down and see that I am travelling at 120 on the motorway (which is the speed limit in kph). I still recalculate distances into miles in order to get a better feel for how much further my destination is.

The other evening I was driving to Clondalkin, a suburb of Dublin, and I experienced that warm sense of familiarity that you get when you are driving somewhere you know. I realised that I was not paying quite so much intense attention to the road signs, because I already knew what they said, and I had stopped seeing the countryside as something different and to be observed much like you do when you are on holiday. The fact that I was going to see a friend I have known for over 20 years also created that feeling that I was not abroad any longer.

And then just as I was getting comfortable I had to stop at the traffic lights, and I sat for a while watching a group of young men running around the playing fields beside the road. They were playing a game of hurling, which is a totally mad game, kind of like hockey on steroids. This short glimpse of the game, before the lights went green reminded me once again that I was in a foreign land.

It also reminded me of some time I spent at Shetland College studying a module on Visual Sociology, as part of my Cultural Studies degree. This module looked at the semiotics of photographs and basically involved looking at lots of interesting pictures to see what they said about people’s lives. I found this module very interesting, although quite challenging, as I am not a visual person. I prefer words to pictures anytime. However, I enjoyed looking at the stunning pictures taken by Dorothea Lange that depicted life during the American Depression.

Semiotics is just a fancy word for signs, and during the lectures we would look at photographs and learn how to read and analyse the signs. A seemingly ordinary family photo could reveal an extraordinary amount of sociological information when you paid sufficient attention to the detail. But for the most part we don’t pay much attention to those details because they are familiar to us. When we look at a picture of friends or family, we don’t normally try to analyse class, race, age, occupation or status of the people in the picture, or from the setting in which it was taken. We look at how old Auntie Mary is now, or how much little Michael has grown or how much weight your sister has lost or gained.

I realised when I continued my drive through Dublin that I am still noticing all the semiotics of my new landscape. Although I might know my way around quite well now, I still notice the novelty of green post boxes and the dual language signage, the different style of car number plates and the Garda cars sitting watch over the motorways, instead of the police.

I wonder how long it will take before I cease to notice these details as something different.

From the girl who can't even kill a spider

Am I the only person to think that there are far too many memorials for those that died in conflict? I wish there were more places devoted to considering peace.

I have spent most of the week thinking, reading and talking about violence and terrorism. It started with Stephen King. I finished reading his new novel – Under the Dome, and whilst it was an action packed page-turner, as promised by the blurb on the cover, I was a trifle bored with it by the end. Mr King, as I’m sure most of his fans already know, has rather an intense interest in the blood, guts and bodily fluids of violence and death. He is also not afraid to kill innocent victims in his books, including children and dogs, that most authors tend to arrange to be conveniently rescued in some heroic action scene. By the end of his book I felt kind of exhausted by the huge body count, it ran to over 1000 at least; which rather blighted the so called “happy ending.”

I could not in a million years, ever imagine writing anything like this, even if there is a healthy commercial market for it. But each to his own, as they say. I did enjoy reading his autobiography though – On Writing and would recommend that to any aspiring novelist.

During the last few weeks of the school holidays I have spent some time with my two stepsons, and my own son, visiting places in Dublin, mostly related to sport and shopping, but with the occasional trip to somewhere historic. All three boys are now a little wiser about some of Ireland’s history and to some degree, how it impacts on daily life today. They have also heard the recent stories on the news about attempts to blow up cars in Northern Ireland and a thwarted attempt to blow up a house with a hand grenade, a little closer to home, and they are understandably nervous about these events. It is very hard to explain why people feel so much sustained hatred for each other that they wish to kill each other.

We have also seen some rather scary and threatening graffiti, the purpose of which is to scare off the Queen, who is visiting Ireland soon. I am fully aware of the brutal and disgusting things that the British did to the Irish in the past, but even armed with this knowledge, I still cannot find a satisfactory explanation for why a group of angry young men would want to harm, what is in effect, an old granny. I am not a big fan of the Royal Family, but that is a step too far.

The conversation then turned to Al Qaida, and the complex reasons behind the conflict that has led to other acts of terrorism. The boys are flying home on Saturday and voiced their concerns about something happening to the plane. I think I have persuaded them that Al Qaida terrorists have probably not heard of Doncaster Airport and that they will definitely arrive home safely. But it is a little sad to have such conversations with children. For all that they love action films and video games where animated soldiers are blown to smithereens (they are banned in this household but I know full well they have played them), it is impossible to explain the full and awful horror of sustained pure hatred.

I am sure that at some time or other, even if it was just during our childhood, we have all wanted to reach out and slap someone, push the school bully over in the playground, punch the witch who ran off with our husband, or curse at someone who nearly caused a motorway pile up. But that kind of anger is short-lived. I can also imagine beating the crap out of anyone who threatened my family or friends, but even then, it would be in the heat of the moment. I cannot imagine waging a vendetta against them, their family, their entire race or country, for the rest of my life, and for generations after me. This kind of hatred and bitterness is hard to imagine in anyone, and yet it exists, and worse still, it is often carefully nurtured and given the dishonest approval of religion.

I am not a religious person in any sense, in fact I am an atheist, but I have read both the Bible and the Koran, and I seem to recall that murder was clearly and expressly forbidden in both texts. Apparently God will be the judge of who was right or wrong, and will deal out the punishments accordingly. As far as I can tell hell is not going to be anywhere near big enough to hold everyone, and no doubt that explains why the Second Coming predicted in Revelations is taking a while longer than expected. No doubt Lucifer is struggling with getting planning permission for the extension to his place.

There are many people who think that violent in films, TV, books and video games can fuel a tendency towards violence. This may be so for some vulnerable people, but it appears to be human nature to imagine this kind of horror, in order to be able to write the books, screenplays and design the games in the first place.

Terrorists, war-mongers, mass murderers and petty criminals alike, all possess an imagination that allows them to dream up their hideous plans to kill and maim their victims. Human beings created the vast array of weaponry that exists on the planet, and will even use items not originally designed for such stunts, like planes or cars. Politically correct parents who refuse to let their children play with toy guns, or watch anything more violent than Tom and Jerry, are often astounded when their child fashions a toy gun out of Lego bricks, a squash racquet or even a fish finger, or lobs an "armed" Satsuma into the war zone. Children are inventive too!

It is the saddest thing to think that the wonderful imaginations that we are blessed with that allows us to create wonderful architecture, life saving medical procedures, works of art or great literature, and travel to other planets, is also the same imagination that allows us to dream up ever more wicked ways of hurting each other.

Anyway, I hope that Al Qaida has indeed never heard of any destination in Yorkshire, and that the IRA, (real and imagined) and the Ulster Defence bods finally learn to get along and let Ireland live up to its deserved reputation as a friendly nation. But I’m not holding my breath.

In the meantime I am hoping Monica Ali's In the Kitchen will be slightly less gory.

Food for thought

There's always room for cake!

Food is right up there with oxygen and water as part of life’s essential requirements, and human beings are understandably somewhat obsessed with it. I spend the best part of my day thinking about food: what to buy, what to cook, who in the household doesn’t like avocados or cheese, and has everyone had their “five a day”, preparing food, cooking it, and cleaning up afterwards. It's a wonder I ever have time to write.

My household has grown temporarily larger over the last few weeks, with the welcome addition of my step-sons. This also means the dynamics of dinner time are vastly different as there are two extra sets of likes and dislikes to contend with. I am always amazed at the variation in tastes that a family will produce. The three boys are all attending soccer and cricket camps over the holidays and I am already exhausted at the things I need to remember about who likes what sandwich filling, what colour bread is acceptable, who needs the crusts cut off, who hates butter, who loves Marmite and who needs persuading to eat fruit. But what I find most difficult is trying to describe the taste of something to someone else. Two out of the three boys are reluctant to try anything new, and particularly if it is green, and I have had some interesting conversations in the supermarket whilst trying to buy food that everyone will eat.

Do courgettes taste like cucumbers?

Why not, they look just the same? What do courgettes taste like then?

What do marrows taste like?

What do plantains taste like?

Are avocados sweet, because they look disgusting?

Etc etc etc...

I have failed, for the most part, in coming up with satisfactory answers to some of these questions, because I can’t seem to find the words to explain to a twelve year old that an avocado is more than just a squishy sludgy-green vegetable that’s nice in a salad. The screwed up faces on my audience were enough to convince me that I am terrible at describing food.

I am always amused and intrigued by descriptions given to wines. I think wine tasters are brilliant at finding the words to describe something that we cannot concur with until we have tried it for ourselves. Although when I was younger and less experienced I was always disappointed that a red wine that boasted of warm blackcurrants did not taste of Ribena. Joanne Harris is also brilliant at describing the taste and smell of chocolate in her novel Chocolat. I should, perhaps, revisit this book if I want to get a handle on describing food.

The other strange thing about food is the way a certain taste can bring back memories. The other day I took the boys to MacDonalds for lunch and had, for the first time in many years, a Filet of Fish meal. For those of you who have not experienced this delight, it is an odd combination of fish, tartare sauce and cheese, in a very soft bap. With the very first bite of this delicacy I was transported away from the Liffey Valley shopping centre back in time to 1989, to a MacDonalds in the West End of London. It was 2.00am and I had just left a nightclub with some friends and we had had such a good time we had wanted to eek out the fun a little longer and so we bundled in to the restaurant and sat for ages, giggling and gossiping and wishing we didn’t have work the next morning. Oh happy days they were – in the British Library!

Olives marinated in garlic, lemon juice and coriander remind me of Casablanca. I eat them whenever I want to remember the feel of hot sun on my face. Reestit mutton soup, or salt beef bannocks will always conjure up Shetland.

But as well as conjuring up the past, we also use food as a language in its own right. A box of Belgian chocolates bought at the airport on a business trip, says “I thought of you while I was away – at least once!” The delicious aroma of a home made curry, cooked from scratch, says “I appreciate all the hard work you do,” and a lopsided chocolate birthday cake, decorated with jellytots, marshmallows and magic candles means “you are the best child in the whole world!”

I may not be so good at describing how something tastes, but I have definitely mastered the language of food in other ways.