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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 09:30 am:   

. . . there's a new master of British terror hot on your heels:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eloise-Judy-Finnigan/dp/1847445519
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Paul_finch (Paul_finch)
Username: Paul_finch

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 92.5.54.41
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 10:04 am:   

Who'd have guessed that deep inside Judy Finnigan the spirit of Daphne Du Maurier was waiting to get out?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 10:09 am:   

I hear Richard's writing a novel about hard drinking in Baltimore, with black cats and shit.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 01:01 pm:   

Let's not mock on the basis of some gauche PR – Gordon Honeycombe turned out to be a rather good weird fiction novelist.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 01:19 pm:   

To be fair, the prose doesn't seem any worse than the average book out there.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.25.47
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 01:58 pm:   

Indeed, and doesn't she have du Maurier to some extent in mind? More modern Gothic than horror then, perhaps (nothing wrong with that).
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Paul_finch (Paul_finch)
Username: Paul_finch

Registered: 11-2009
Posted From: 92.5.60.193
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 04:06 pm:   

If she turns out to be brilliant, I'd be delighted (if a tad jealous). More grist for the mill.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 04:58 pm:   

Oh, go on, let's mock. It's fun.
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Jamie Rosen (Jamie)
Username: Jamie

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 99.239.210.97
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 05:21 pm:   

And here I thought it was going to be a horrific retelling of this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Eloise-Kay-Thompson/dp/0689827954/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie= UTF8&qid=1350919268&sr=1-3
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.40.254.73
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 06:45 pm:   

The opening of Judy's book reads like a beginner's book, a tad purple, but flicking through it seems to get better. At a glance.

There's a Richard Bacon podcast available at the moment, on the BBC Podcasts Radio 5 page, featuring an interview with her.

She seems to have written the book herself, which automatically lifts her above most celeb novelists in my eyes.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 07:24 pm:   

Richard Bacon gave a broadcast a few years ago sneering at books and asking why they still existed. He's a p****.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.40.253.46
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 07:30 pm:   

And then had the brass neck to go on that The Books of My Life or whatever it was called and talk about how important books were to him...

Since taking over Simon Mayo's Radio5 slot, he's ditched the weekly book review slot too.

But now and again he interviews someone to whom it's worth listening.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.40.253.177
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 07:32 pm:   

Didn't Alan Titchmarsh produce a ghost story novel last year?

Or was that just a nightmare I had?
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 07:56 pm:   

I'm not "sneering at books", obviously (in fact, I don't know how we got from one book to all books). But whenever a celebrity suddenly emerges with a novel, I guess I've just become conditioned to be a bit sceptical. Perfectly normal reaction, I'd have thought. Maybe not. Whatever.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 08:08 pm:   

Or maybe we're at the stage where the state of publishing is so bad that attacking even bad books (not that I'm saying Finnigan's book is bad) is perceived as being against literature.

I had a similar experience recently while discussing E L James. One defence seemed to be something along the lines of, "How can people have a go at her books when they get so many people reading?"

Which I personally think is a bit ridiculous. That puts everybody beyond criticism. Like an endangered species ripping someone's leg off and being sympathised with because it's one of a few hundred left. :-)

Just riffing . . . probably way off topic, but what the hell.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 94.197.127.190
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 08:15 pm:   

Didn't think you were sneering, mate. You know I share your feelings on the whole celeb novel thing. As I mentioned to you Saturday morning, even Shaun Hutson is moaning about the whole celeb shelf stealers with their ghost-written books...

The usual tell as to whether a celeb's book is working or not, is if the book sells abroad, where the celeb is not a celeb.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 08:18 pm:   

It was Joel's Bacon comment I was responding to.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 94.197.127.24
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 09:52 pm:   

Ah. Egg on my face.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Monday, October 22, 2012 - 10:33 pm:   

Bacon and egg? You're all making me feel hungry now.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.60.251
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 01:22 am:   

My defense of her was motivated by the humility afforded by a sense of perspective. There are the literary gods, then light years of silence, then us. Realistically, the best the best can hope for is to be Salieri.
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Jamie Rosen (Jamie)
Username: Jamie

Registered: 11-2008
Posted From: 99.239.210.97
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 04:23 am:   

I believe Joel mentioned Bacon sneering at books simply because the previous post indicated that this celebrity (of whom I've never heard, but then, I live in Canada) had recently been on a podcast of Bacon's.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 07:52 am:   

Sorry. It all just sounded a little over-serious. My original post was simply a bit of fun. And then folk seemed to get a bit finger-wagging. Like, we can't even have a bit of a go at celebrities now. Let's be honest, without her celebrity status, she'd have found it harder to get that book in print.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 07:56 am:   

I'm going to have to read her bloody book now! :-)

But the last time I tried reading a celeb novel - Julie Walters' effort; it was on a shelf in a holiday cottage - I gave up after four chapters. It was appallingly bad.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 07:58 am:   

(Jamie's right. I misread Mark's post, to which Joel responded. Sorry, Joel. As punishment, I'll read one of Jordon's eight biographies.)
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.14.49
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 08:53 am:   

Gary, I hereby sentence you to read Peter Andre's interview about his near-death experience in hospital with meningitis a few years ago. He didn't mention whether it helped him that he'd already been over Jordan.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.26.131.123
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 09:44 am:   

It's a fair cop.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 94.197.127.141
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 12:53 pm:   

I can't see your new book getting in WH Smiths Richard & Judy's Book Club promotion after this, Gary. Darn it, eh?
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Alexicon (Alexicon)
Username: Alexicon

Registered: 10-2009
Posted From: 212.139.91.206
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 03:57 pm:   

This thread wouldn't be complete without a salutation to ghost-writers. To misquote Winston Churchill:

'Never in the field of literary endeavour has so much been earned by so few'.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.103.101.172
Posted on Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - 09:07 pm:   

Do you think Judy hangs out here, Mark?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.211.34
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - 04:58 pm:   

Judy doesn't - but there is a rumour that richard writes wierd fiction under the pseudonym of Des Lewis
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.211.34
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - 05:00 pm:   

Or even weird fiction
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 94.197.127.43
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - 05:33 pm:   

>>Do you think Judy hangs out here, Mark?

Susan Hill winged her way by one time, didn't she? That went well... She's got a new ghosts tory book out too. Say no more!

Actually, if hazy memory serves, I've a notion that Richard and Judy interviewed Ramsey once. I could be wrong. At the Albert Docks possibly.

I had a closer inspection of Judy's book in Tesco this lunchtime. I've come to the conclusion that I've no idea what's commercially acceptable and what's expected of a book selling in a supermarket any more. Judy's book has 25 lines per page and is set in a large typeface. I'd be surprised if it matched the minimum requirements of length an agent or publisher would expect a new, unknown writer to produce with a view to a bestseller product at the end of it. From what I saw, Judy's book wasn't especially badly written compared to the other books on the shelves. But had she not been off the telly, would it have been published? I dunno.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 94.197.127.218
Posted on Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - 05:37 pm:   

Ghosts tory? Now that invites a bit of fun with titles... Especially with plebgate in the news. 'Whistle and You'll Come and Serve Me.'

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