Sneak Peek. . . .

It's been a very busy time. I've been knitting like crazy on far too many projects with xmas coming up, and prepping for sales conference for our summer 2012 books which means dipping into as many manuscripts as I can, and then desperately trying to find the time to finish them all.    I can't really talk about them in detail at this point except to tease; suffice it to say there are some really great books coming out next year.  I'm loving The Chemistry of Tears, the new novel by Peter Carey. Novels by several of my favourite writers - John Irving, Toni Morrison, Helen Dunmore, John Lanchester, Philippe Claudel, Tessa Hadley - are beckoning.  There are lots of novels about the endless blunderings of love (there's a real trend in exploring the complications of the menage a trois - and not just from the French either!) that will make for tantalizing summer reading. There are some really exciting debuts,, and some award winning international literature that's finally been translated along with tantalizing classics that have been out of print for too long. My favourite title of the summer comes from the former category:  Life is Short and Desire Endless by Patrick Lapeyre, translated by Adriana Hunter.  It won the Prix Femina in 2010. I've halfway through and it's very entertaining. There's also an incredible line-up of mystery novels to look forward to. 

In the meantime, all the "best of 2011 lists" are coming out. I look at them with professional interest, but I much prefer it when they ask writers themselves to recommend their favourite reads. As they did in The Guardian here. Some great xmas ideas. As I do every year, I'll be going over my reading/movie journal and picking my top ten soon, but since I'll get a lot of reading (and film viewing) done over the holidays it's still a bit premature.