I’m currently giving away signed paperbacks of my books Notebook and Villager to everyone who takes out the cut price full annual subscription to my Substack. This offer is open to everyone, wherever they are in the world, whatever the postage cost (I’ll email you for your postal address when I get notification of your subscription).
This pretty much epitomizes why your writing appeals to me. Your mind, somewhat like mine, darts around like a butterfly, sipping nectar from one flower after another, no matter how odd those flowers are.
Of course a lepress is a female leopard. No other meaning crossed my mind when I read this.
I love that after deciding your first two novels were niche because it was too weird for most people, you made the sensible decision to make the next one even weirder. How else are you going to find your tribe?
Your humorous way of looking at and describing things tickles me and creates delightful pictures in my mind: footpaths in fancy dress as streams, the southwest peninsula in pursuit of a fleeing France, missile-throwing contests by giants. You are inimitable, which is possibly just another way of agreeing that yes, you are weird. So much better than being mundanely human.
Barbara Kingsolver has sneakily become one of my favourites too, especially The Lacuna. Demon Copperhead is clearly a masterpiece. She's a perfect example of a writing career built steadily, book by book, over the years. Flight Behaviour is gorgeous - enjoy!
Oh I did enjoy that! More writers to discover, more books to buy, oh dear, oh dear, how can I possibly have a cull of my ridiculous number of books! I fear I must, no room, no room!
Tom, I love reading about your experiences and perspective around Newton Pop and Buggerly Saucepan.
I was hatched in Eggsmuff 72 years ago and, of course, grew up walking the cliffs and fumbling with the pebbles on the beach at Buggerly.
But I emigrated in 2006 to Kernow. And I learned Kernewek (the Cornish language) and was honoured with a Bardship of the Gorsedh in 2009.
(Apparently to become a Language Bard is the most difficult route to Bardship. But they didn’t tell me that at the time!)
And for the last 18 years I’ve been living in an ‘isolated rural hamlet’ on Bodmin Moor.
No postbox, no pub, no church, no village hall, no shop or post office. So you hardly ever see anyone. Apart from the occasional mad tractor driving young men who tend to leave a scattering of empty Red Bull cans in the hedges.
No street lights. No pavements and there’s grass growing up the middle of the long lane I live on in a lot of places.
But I love it here. The air is pure and in the summer I can watch the stars and wonderful glowing moons.
Water is from a borehole so no wads of cash to SWW. And all my neighbours are sheep.
If I have the window open in the evenings I can hear them talking to each other.
My (older) daughter & I love the cute fella (?) in your profile pic, that it looks like you met on a walk.
She gave me Poison-wood Bible about 35 years ago. Thought it awesome. Didn’t have much time for reading then. Not now either unfortunately, but a little.
Enjoyed hearing of places my ancestors no doubt roamed… though a bit difficult vernacular. ;)
If you work at what you like, you never work a day - so I’ve heard, so good luck with your book sales. ;)
How lovely of you, Tom! Even Australia?! My Godfather! (an expression my maternal Grandmother would occasionally use and it used to startle us littlies as it seemed rather odd...).
Having read and laughed my way through Notebook, I thought about your written warning to watch out for pantomime horses at the door.
I have two pantomime horse tales, both true.
I worked in an office where we dealt with claims for welfare benefits. The work involved filling in a form with the person's name, address, date of birth, and whether they lived alone etc. Once this was done, it became where did you last work, when, and what job did you do?
The month was February, more than 30 years ago. The young woman I was helping had indeed been working over Christmas and into January. The job had come to an end - so I asked for details.
For the first time ever, I was told "The rear end of a pantomime horse".
I managed to say "I see", and keep a straight face. But it was quite a struggle. It never cropped up again in all the years I did that job.....
The second occasion was in Glasgow. I was there for a CND rally, a whole coach load of us from Leeds, eager to protest (and hopefully survive, as the government leaflet misleadingly said).
One of our number had obtained a pantomime horse costume. He inserted himself into the head, then wandered down the gathered column of anti nuclear weapon activists, asking for a rear end volunteer.
He found one. Actually sober, too.
Once they were equipped, they headed purposefully to the very head of the marchers, where two police officers, mounted on police horses, were positioned to lead the way along the agreed route.
The pantomime horse carefully inserted itself between the two police horses, and started to flirt with them. First one police horse got a friendly nuzzle, then the second would be equally entertained. Being very near the head of the march, I saw all that was going on.
It was swiftly apparent that (a) police horses are trained not to bolt if a strange object cuddles up to them, and (b) the police officers had not been trained to keep a straight face when confronted with a pantomime horse, cuddling.
The march set off with three horses at the front, the one in the middle doing a little dance.
I loved this piece. Books blown away by the wind, pursued. A careful driver versus careless (carefree?) dog owners. The intentional weird, bound to appeal to this folklore addict. Could I just mention in passing, as a trained proofreader, that 'vane' should have been 'vain', and there are 2 consecutive 'he' s further on? It's a proofreader's fate that typos etc leap straight off the page, even when just idly browsing......please forgive my mentioning it......
'parp a big shit trumpet' - i'm still on the floor from that one. I have not had time to properly settle in to be 'here' and peruse both your writing and substack in general, in quite a while - because of doing those type of things that are for me very much the way your previous journalistic pursuits were. I am just a few years - hopefully - behind you in my efforts to leap into places more meaningful to me, but your exploits and efforts have definitely made me feel that I really can make it all happen someday.
This pretty much epitomizes why your writing appeals to me. Your mind, somewhat like mine, darts around like a butterfly, sipping nectar from one flower after another, no matter how odd those flowers are.
Of course a lepress is a female leopard. No other meaning crossed my mind when I read this.
I love that after deciding your first two novels were niche because it was too weird for most people, you made the sensible decision to make the next one even weirder. How else are you going to find your tribe?
Your humorous way of looking at and describing things tickles me and creates delightful pictures in my mind: footpaths in fancy dress as streams, the southwest peninsula in pursuit of a fleeing France, missile-throwing contests by giants. You are inimitable, which is possibly just another way of agreeing that yes, you are weird. So much better than being mundanely human.
You had me at Moby Grape albums.
Barbara Kingsolver has sneakily become one of my favourites too, especially The Lacuna. Demon Copperhead is clearly a masterpiece. She's a perfect example of a writing career built steadily, book by book, over the years. Flight Behaviour is gorgeous - enjoy!
Oh I did enjoy that! More writers to discover, more books to buy, oh dear, oh dear, how can I possibly have a cull of my ridiculous number of books! I fear I must, no room, no room!
This is so lovely... again thank you Tom, for the incredibly generous mention
Erotic Vagrancy, what a masterpiece!!!!!
Prodigal Summer is my favorite Kingsolver book. I hope you enjoy it ❤️
Tom, I love reading about your experiences and perspective around Newton Pop and Buggerly Saucepan.
I was hatched in Eggsmuff 72 years ago and, of course, grew up walking the cliffs and fumbling with the pebbles on the beach at Buggerly.
But I emigrated in 2006 to Kernow. And I learned Kernewek (the Cornish language) and was honoured with a Bardship of the Gorsedh in 2009.
(Apparently to become a Language Bard is the most difficult route to Bardship. But they didn’t tell me that at the time!)
And for the last 18 years I’ve been living in an ‘isolated rural hamlet’ on Bodmin Moor.
No postbox, no pub, no church, no village hall, no shop or post office. So you hardly ever see anyone. Apart from the occasional mad tractor driving young men who tend to leave a scattering of empty Red Bull cans in the hedges.
No street lights. No pavements and there’s grass growing up the middle of the long lane I live on in a lot of places.
But I love it here. The air is pure and in the summer I can watch the stars and wonderful glowing moons.
Water is from a borehole so no wads of cash to SWW. And all my neighbours are sheep.
If I have the window open in the evenings I can hear them talking to each other.
My (older) daughter & I love the cute fella (?) in your profile pic, that it looks like you met on a walk.
She gave me Poison-wood Bible about 35 years ago. Thought it awesome. Didn’t have much time for reading then. Not now either unfortunately, but a little.
Enjoyed hearing of places my ancestors no doubt roamed… though a bit difficult vernacular. ;)
If you work at what you like, you never work a day - so I’ve heard, so good luck with your book sales. ;)
[An “American” now ;)]
Loved the bit about misheard lyrics.
Carly Simon's You're So Vain.... 'You walked into the party, like you were walking into a yard.'
Thank you so much for filling in the questionnaire, Tom! I love your answers!! One of my favs! 🌸
How lovely of you, Tom! Even Australia?! My Godfather! (an expression my maternal Grandmother would occasionally use and it used to startle us littlies as it seemed rather odd...).
I just read Laura Thompson’s book, The Six, about the Mitford sisters. How cool to find her here!
Having read and laughed my way through Notebook, I thought about your written warning to watch out for pantomime horses at the door.
I have two pantomime horse tales, both true.
I worked in an office where we dealt with claims for welfare benefits. The work involved filling in a form with the person's name, address, date of birth, and whether they lived alone etc. Once this was done, it became where did you last work, when, and what job did you do?
The month was February, more than 30 years ago. The young woman I was helping had indeed been working over Christmas and into January. The job had come to an end - so I asked for details.
For the first time ever, I was told "The rear end of a pantomime horse".
I managed to say "I see", and keep a straight face. But it was quite a struggle. It never cropped up again in all the years I did that job.....
The second occasion was in Glasgow. I was there for a CND rally, a whole coach load of us from Leeds, eager to protest (and hopefully survive, as the government leaflet misleadingly said).
One of our number had obtained a pantomime horse costume. He inserted himself into the head, then wandered down the gathered column of anti nuclear weapon activists, asking for a rear end volunteer.
He found one. Actually sober, too.
Once they were equipped, they headed purposefully to the very head of the marchers, where two police officers, mounted on police horses, were positioned to lead the way along the agreed route.
The pantomime horse carefully inserted itself between the two police horses, and started to flirt with them. First one police horse got a friendly nuzzle, then the second would be equally entertained. Being very near the head of the march, I saw all that was going on.
It was swiftly apparent that (a) police horses are trained not to bolt if a strange object cuddles up to them, and (b) the police officers had not been trained to keep a straight face when confronted with a pantomime horse, cuddling.
The march set off with three horses at the front, the one in the middle doing a little dance.
The Press had a field day.....
Perfect
I loved this piece. Books blown away by the wind, pursued. A careful driver versus careless (carefree?) dog owners. The intentional weird, bound to appeal to this folklore addict. Could I just mention in passing, as a trained proofreader, that 'vane' should have been 'vain', and there are 2 consecutive 'he' s further on? It's a proofreader's fate that typos etc leap straight off the page, even when just idly browsing......please forgive my mentioning it......
'parp a big shit trumpet' - i'm still on the floor from that one. I have not had time to properly settle in to be 'here' and peruse both your writing and substack in general, in quite a while - because of doing those type of things that are for me very much the way your previous journalistic pursuits were. I am just a few years - hopefully - behind you in my efforts to leap into places more meaningful to me, but your exploits and efforts have definitely made me feel that I really can make it all happen someday.