michaeldelarrabeiti.com

We are - I totally, totally, promise - almost there with the new website. There’s the new banner, if you don’t believe me.

I reached a point a little while back when I was wondering whether it was totally sensible for me to be putting all this work into a site which is going to be viewed by only a handful of people, but by that point I had spent so long on the project that giving up was not really an option. And at least I’ve now got some of those transferable skills the government seems so keen on. You know, like how they train up soldiers to kill people so they can transfer those skills back to normal society and drive a minicab. If they’re lucky.

But it’s done now, and I’m pretty pleased with. I reckon it’ll be going live in a couple of weeks. My webhost is bracing itself for the huge server load.

In the meantime, check out the next part of Princess Diana’s Revenge, as well as two episodes of the Foxes’ Oven audio book.

Downloads:

• Princess Diana’s Revenge Blogcast Episode 7
• Foxes’ Oven audio book, part 3
• Foxes’ Oven audio book, part 4

I was going through some old bits and pieces this week and I came across an unabridged audio book of Foxes’ Oven which was produced by Isis Soundings in 2004, read by Sheila Mitchell. It’s not available anymore, and Isis haven’t replied to my emails, so I’ve decided to put it onto mp3 and give it away here. It’s in sixteen parts; click here to download part 1, and click here to download part 2 (your web browser might try and play the mp3 file; if it does this and you want to save the mp3 instead, just right click on the link and select “Save Link As” or something similar).

While we’re on the mp3 thing, I did a very short interview this week about print-on-demand publishing and self publication, and how Tallis House came to be. Click here for one part of the interview, and here for another part.

You can also download the latest episode of Princess Diana’s Revenge clicking here.

We’ve got a few reviews of Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite and Foxes’ Oven coming up; I’ll post links here when they’re available. But to be honest you should just take my word for it and go and buy at least one copy of both books, because they’re brilliant and all other books are rubbish.

Links

• Click here to download part 1 of the audio book of Foxes’ Oven; click here to download part 2.
• The Latest (sixth) episode of the Princess Diana’s Revenge blogcast can be downloaded here. The other episodes can be downloaded by clicking these links: episode 1, episode 2, episode 3, episode 4, episode 5.
• If you want to listen to a very short interview I did about print-on-demand, micropublishing, and how Tallis House came into existence, you can hear the first part here and the second part here.

A bit about michaeldelarrabeiti.com

This is the official website of Michael de Larrabeiti (1934-2008), critically (if not commercially) acclaimed writer and travel journalist. Michael wrote fourteen books (of which the best known is The Borrible Trilogy), as well as over fifty travel essays for The Sunday Times. For more information about his life and work check out the Wikipedia article, or the obituaries that appeared in The Times, The Telgraph, The Independent and The Guardian.

In 2006 Michael set up his own publishing company, Tallis House, so that he didn’t have to battle with agents and publishers in order to get his books published. Tallis House is now run by Michael’s literary estate, in order to keep his best work in print.

During his lifetime, Michael used Tallis House to publish a novel called Princess Diana’s Revenge (a spoof of conspiracy theories, religious fundamentalism, and the small-town mentality) and his memoir, Spots of Time. After his death, Michael’s literary estate used Tallis House to bring Michael’s 2003 novel Foxes’ Oven and 1992 novel Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite back into print. All four books are available now from any bookseller that you want to order them from.

We’re in the process of putting together a decent website which can be a home to all the resources we’ve got relating to Michael’s work. In the meantime, we’re using this blog as a stopgap; Michael’s old website, which has a lot of interesting content, can be seen here

This post is going to be pretty boring, as there’s not very much happening here apart from promoting Foxes’ Oven and Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite. And we’re having a bit of success as we’re outselling The Borrible Trilogy (itself reprinted earlier this year), and that book’s backed up by Macmillan and all their marketing nous and cash. Interestingly enough, Mike’s memoir Spots of Time is selling pretty well too, which is nice.

If you do want to review Foxes’ Oven or Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite (or both!), drop us a line at info (at) tallishouse.co.uk to get a review copy along with an EXCLUSIVE promotional bookmark; you can download the Foxes’ Oven press release here and the JOSH press release here.

I’ve done the fifth Princess Diana’s Revenge blogcast now, too, not that anyone’s downloading it. It seems that the only thing people are interested in is the Borribles posters, and I haven’t got any more of them left to scan. I might scan all the Borrible covers at a high resolution and make posters out of them. If you want anything else done, just let me know. I’ve got nothing better to do. Apart from make back all the money I’ve ploughed in to publishing Foxes’ Oven and Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite, so that I can afford to eat again.

Links and downloads:

Press release for Foxes’ Oven

Press release for Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite

Episode 5 of the Princess Diana’s Revenge Blogcast

Coming soon:

A proper post/introduction for Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite.

After being out of print for fifteen years, Michael’s masterpiece Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite is back in print. It’s been a long old journey - we’ve been working to get the book out for over two years, on and off - and it’s great that the book is finally out there again.

I’ll be writing a longer post about Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite soon, but rest assured that it is a truly remarkable piece of work and well worth the £13.50 it costs. It returns to the themes of conformity and dissent than run through The Borrible Trilogy, but shifts from magic realism to a more “real world” setting.

In any event, it’s bloody good and you should buy it. The ISBN’s 095546224X. I’ve written before about how Amazon are not good for the book business (whether you’re a reader, writer, publisher or bookseller - in fact, if you’re anyone apart from Amazon), so I’m not going to link directly to them. Go ahead and use them if you want to, but please give some thought to using your local independent bookseller: if you don’t know who that is, check out www.localbookshops.co.uk to find out. Alternatively, if you want to order the book via mail order, please consider using Word Power’s online mail order service. Word Power are a great independent bookshop based in Edinburgh, Scotland; click here to buy Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite from them.

Finally, if you’re interested in reviewing Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite (or Foxes’ Oven, also recently re-released), please drop us a line at info@michaeldelarrabeiti.com to order review copies, making sure to mention who you’re reviewing for and when the review is likely to appear.

And if you want to download episode 4 of the Princess Diana’s Revenge blogcast, click here.

So, it’s been nearly two months since I updated this. I went to New York for a couple of weeks, and since I’ve been back I lost the blogging habit. I also had loads of proper work to do. But now I’m back, with the fruits of my labour for all of you.

Foxes’ Oven available in paperback

First of all, Foxes’ Oven is now available in paperback at the bargain price of £6.99. I’d not read the book before, but I’ve been reading through the proof copy in the last couple of weeks and it really is a very good bit of work. Set in the Second World War, it tells the story of Becky Taylor, a young girl who is evacuated from London to the village of Offham near Arundel in Sussex. Foxes’ Oven, the house that Becky is staying in, is simultaneously a refuge from London and the impending German invasion (seen as inevitable by many in 1940), and a sinister, threatening place. John Carey thought the book was “compelling and atmospheric”, and that it was better than his own shortlist for the Booker Prize. Beryl Bainbridge said it was “so well done” and “of a high literary standard”; H R F Keating called it “a vivd, intriguing and evocative story”. And The Guardian compared it to Ian McEwan’s Atonement, one of the most celebrated novels of recent years.

However, as anyone who’s read this blog before will already know, publishers, agents and the literary crowd are - with a few notable exceptions - a bunch of short-sighted, profit-obsessed idiots who are too scared to publish books based on their literary worth, and prefer to churn out dire “misery memoirs” and biographies written by plastic celebrities (check out the current Sunday Times bestsellers). Foxes’ Oven was turned down by Michael’s literary agent, but was eventually picked up by Robert Hale. Hale is not a large publishing house, so they don’t have the contacts to get books reviewed and they don’t have the money to market books or offer them at absurd discounts; so Foxes’ Oven sunk without a trace.

But now it’s back, at a price that is accessible to pretty much anyone. Click here to download the first chapter; then, if you like it, go and order it from your local bookseller. The ISBN’s 0955462258. I’m not going to link to Amazon as the book’s no cheaper there, and Amazon is bad for readers, writers, and the general balance of power in the industry.

The Borrible Trilogy reprinted by Tor UK/Macmillan

Two bits of good news in one post? I’m spoiling you now. On July 2nd the one volume edition of The Borrible Trilogy was reprinted by Tor, part of Macmillan. This is the first time that one of books has been reprinted, ever; it’s especially pleasing because he put so much work into getting the three Borrible books reissued in one volume, which is the format in which he always thought they should be published. The ISBN’s 0330490850, and Amazon are doing a discount this time (£6.99 rather than £8.99), but I’m still not going to link to them. Go on, take one for the team, go down to your local bookshop, and buy it there. You have to spend £2 more, but you do get to interact with a real, live human being. And booksellers are usually really nice people.

In other Borrible news, I’m trying to find all of the cast and crew from the musical version of the first Borrible book that was put on at the Young Vic in the early eighties. I’ve tracked down about six of them, but drop us a line if you were in the show. I’ve got a rather fun plan, which will be revealed when a few more things are worked out…

Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite almost there

I don’t know why I keep writing about this book that noone’s read and noone is going to buy when I republish it. Oh yes I do. It’s because it’s a fucking masterpiece. It really is. And I’m around £2,000 out of pocket over it, not including the huge amounts of my own time I’ve put in to the project. The moral victory’s mine just for publishing the damn thing, but I’d really quite like it if we sold a few copies, just so that I break even. I’ve just realised that to achieve that we’re going to need to sell 700 copies. Oh Jesus.

The book’s got a new cover, as the old one just wasn’t working on the book (it looked great on the screen though - sorry Drew). I hope you like it. I hope you like it enough to splash out £13.50 on buying a copy of the damn thing. I’ll post again in a couple of weeks when it should be available.

Guardian Obituary

On 30 July The Guardian finally got round to doing an obituary on Michael. That means he got an obit from each of the big four (I’m not sure The Sun do obituaries. But if they did, who would they do them for and what style would they be written in? What a great game).

Princess Diana’s Revenge Blogcast

And here’s episode 3 of the blogcast. I’m still happy to give away a copy of the book to someone who posts a comment on this blog, once I’ve received ten comments. Come on chaps, get on with it.

Downloads and links

• First chapter of Foxes’ Oven
• Episode 3 of the Princess Diana’s Revenge blogcast
• Guardian obituary

I’ve just been reading an article on Indymedia UK about Sunday’s demonstrations against George Bush’s visit to London. Included in the article was a photo of a copper taken by FIT Watch. I was rather taken back by the extent to which he looked like Inspector Sussworth, head of the Special Borrible Group and nemesis of the Borribles. According to Variety, Cuba Pictures are working on a film version of The Borribles. So, if you’re reading this CW 3055, get in touch: there might be a role for you.

As promised, the second episode of what I’ve rather grandly titled the “blogcast” of Princess Diana’s Revenge can be downloaded by clicking here. So, go on, download it.

And more news on the Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite front: we should just about make the new publication date of July 1st, as long as I can get the synopsis written. I keep messing up the cover, which is why the publication date keeps getting put back, but we’re almost there now. I’m expecting big queues outside bookshops around the country come midnight on June 30th. Come on chaps, if you’ll do it for some bullshit story about a tosspiece public school wizard, you should do it for a masterpiece like this.

Speaking of masterpieces, don’t take my word for it. While writing the synopsis I’ve been going through some letters Michael received when Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite was published the first time. One of them was from the acclaimed poet Patric Dickinson, and it goes a little something like this:

… your book in wonderful and wholly original. Thank you. What a joy! I won’t use all the reviewers’ superlatives but I could - & I hope they will. I found it entirely fascinating, a work of true imagination. The way the quotations enhance and carry Cooper is quite brilliant. I am proud you found a scrap of mine apposite [a poem of Dickinson's is included in JOSH]. It is good to be a mite of a masterpeice, which I think this is.

If the Journal had its just deserts [sic] it should be in the hands of every intelligent man & woman. I hope it will reach some - or that one or two reviewers will realise …

So, there you go. JOSH should be in the hands of every intelligent man and woman. So if it ain’t in your hands (at all times, I assume) then you ain’t intelligent. By definition.

Downloads:

• Episode 2 of the Princess Diana’s Revenge Blogcast

As promised in a previous post, here’s an mp3 of the obituary which the BBC Radio 4 program Last Word did on Michael. It’s a very good piece, and features interviews with Michael’s neighbour, friend and editor Richard Balkwill and his daughter Rose, together with archive footage of Michael speaking about The Borrible Trilogy in the 1980s. That’s the final obituary; I’ll set up a category so that you can get to the rest of them easily (the categories are on the right).

The picture on the right is the front cover of the new edition of Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite. This doesn’t mean that the book is out - I made a few mistakes when sending the files to the printer, which has delayed things a little - but I thought you’d like to see it anyway. The chap on the front is Cooper, the hero - or half of the hero - of Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite. The model is Brian Larkin, a peace activist who was on the steering committee of Faslane 365, a year-long rolling nonviolent blockade of the Faslane naval base 30 miles north of Glasgow, where Britain’s nuclear weapons set sail aboard Trident submarines. You can see Brian in action here - he’s on the far right, lying on the pavement: a fact which, incidentally, meant he wasn’t found guilty when he went to court. He has an amazing face which matches perfectly the character of Cooper in the book - I hope you’ll agree; asuming, that is, that you’ve read JOSH, which you almost certainly haven’t. Read it. Go on. The poet Patric Dickinson said that “every intelligent person in Britain” should read it, so you are officially stupid if you haven’t read it. Ha!

The book should be out later this month.

Download:

• BBC Radio 4 Last Word obituary on Michael
  

Coming Soon:

• An article on Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite

• Episode 2 of the free-to-download (blogcast?) Princess Diana’s Revenge

While unpacking all my stuff (as I mentioned in an earlier post I recently moved house) I came across the copy of Princess Diana’s Revenge which Michael had marked up into episodes, with a view to putting them on his website. No-one’s buying the bloody thing, the logic went, so why not give it away in bits. The first episode is attached to this post as a PDF, and is designed to be printed out on a standard printer so that you can read it on the way home from work. Don’t say I never do anything for you.

I’ve got a copy of Princess Diana’s Revenge to give away, as well, to one lucky reader of this blog. It’s going to work like this: if you want to stand a chance of getting your hands on the book then post a comment (scroll down and click on the link that says how many comments have already been made). Once ten people have made (sensible!) comments I’ll pick one out of a figurative hat and they’ll get the book. Simple. Although since it appears that fewer people read this blog than read Princess Diana’s Revenge we could be in for a long wait.

In other news, Michael’s masterpiece, Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite, is now with the printer. The first proof copy should get to me in the next few days and if that passes muster the book will be available in mid-June. JOSH has been out of print for fifteen years, which is a travesty as it is, in my opinion, Michael’s best work, and incredibly interesting both to the general reader and for academics. I’ll be posting an article about JOSH on here in the next couple of weeks, and I’ll give you a heads-up when it is available.

Finally, I got into a conversation last night with Linda Newbury, a writer who won the 2006 Costa Children’s Book Award with her novel Set in Stone, which came second in the overall prize. Linda is a big fan of Michael’s novel Foxes’ Oven, and after hearing that I was republishing Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite suggested that I release the book in paperback, something which she has been pushing for for years. I’d had a fair slog of wine by this point and agreed to do it. I was actually pretty specific with the dates, claiming in my drunken foolishness that a paperback copy of Foxes’ Oven would be on her desk in a couple of weeks. I’m aiming to get the typesetting and cover design done today and submitted to the printer this evening, so will keep you posted. Publishers take note: if some penniless, drunken idiot can get a book to market within a couple of weeks of deciding to, why do you guys make such heavy weather of the enterprise?

Downloads:

• Episode 1 of Michael’s final novel, Princess Diana’s Revenge.

Coming Soon:

• A post on Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite, Michael’s masterpiece which is due to be republished in mid-June.
• The second episode of Princess Diana’s Revenge, free to download.
• More on Michael’s novel Foxes’ Oven, which will soon be appearing in paperback.

As promised, here are two huge, downloadable posters that were used to promote The Borribles Go For Broke and The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis. They’ve been blu-tacked on to Mike’s study wall for over twenty years so they are a bit worn, but I think that adds to the character.

Along with the two Borrible posters I’ve scanned the front page of révoltes, a revolutionary newspaper published in France and dated 22 Mai 1968. It was picked up by Mike while he was in Paris during Mai 68 and would make a nice poster if you want to print it out.

All the posters are huge, high-quality scans so I’ve hosted them on rapidshare.de. If you find that the links don’t work, let me know by adding a comment at the bottom of this post and I’ll get the fixed: rapidshare occasionally removes files, especially if they aren’t downloaded for a while.

The Times has done an obituary in the past week, and it’s pretty good; click here to read it. The Sunday Times had already posted ten of Mike’s travel essays on their website; these can be read here.

Work continues apace on Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite, but I very much doubt I’m going to make the June 1st publication date. It won’t be too long after that, though.

Downloadable posters:

• The Borribles Go For Broke Promotional Poster
• The Borribles: Across the Dark Metropolis Promotional Poster
• Front cover of révoltes dated 22 Mai 1968: “Tout Est Possible!”

Coming soon:

• A post on Journal of a Sad Hermaphrodite, Mike’s little known masterpiece, which was originally published in 1992 and is set to be republished any time now.