The Well-Tempered Clavier

Idle Tom the publisher calls with great news about a couple of events in London. But only somebody as resolutely single as Tom could have plumped for the dates that he decided on.
“They’re not much these talks,” he says. “But we might shift a couple of copies.”
“You know me,” I said. “If you’ve got anything […]

Some small teething problems with “Book Lovers” or “Fiction Flirting” - sorry about having to use both names but Idle Tom the publisher is still in a dither over which title to plump for.
The result is that “Book Lovers”/ “Fiction Flirting” has now been running a week with both titles. We’ll just have to wait […]

Years and years back, when I was working in Los Angeles, I knew a certain foreign correspondent for The Economist, John Micklethwait. We were sort of pals. Knew each other quite well. I intermittently lived with his younger brother William for nearly a decade. Then, seeing as he was a really hot one, John became The Economist’s […]

It’s highly fortuitous that the launch of “Book Lovers” - also known as “Fiction Flirting” - should be timed so perfectly for Valentine’s Day and February 29. Just in case you need a re-cap, Idle Tom the publisher has teamed up with a dating agency “Gorgeous Networks” after we dreamt up a brand, spanking new chat-up […]

It hadn’t occurred to me that The Well-Tempered Clavier was a rite of passage book. I’d thought that it was a romance - a dead-solid romance. But after being contacted by Eve magazine I now appreciate that it also falls rather neatly into “coming-of-age” books. Of course it does! What an idiot not to have seen that ages […]

A couple of Edinburgh book-clubs will be raking over The Well-Tempered Clavier this week. I’ve been invited along to one - tonight, Tuesday - to go through my schtick. Some booze may be swilled. Questions may be asked. Books may be signed. But the one on Thursday, I am NFI. In fact, I’d go so far as […]

One of the pitfalls of being a journalist is that you send heaps of e-mails and notes to other journalists - and before you know it your trivial jokey little message has ended up in print and is being shared with over 2 million readers.
 
For instance … I have a friend, Tunku Varadarajan, who used […]

One of the most common pieces of advice that I’ve heard over the last three months has been this: "Have you ever thought about getting on Richard and Judy?"
I would say that I hear this particular line roughly about four times a week.
If ever I’m at a drinks party, there will always be someone there […]