Book Haven discussion

Thanks, John, it's really kind of you.

Ade

Library of Erana's interview on The Road to London :

http://libraryoferana.wordpress.com/2...



From the manuscript

'The Future of (Gay) Literature', The Gay UK's review of The Road to London:

http://thegayuk.com/magazine/45743347...

Live from London to New York, on THE TALENT REAL TALK SHOW with VANESSA VANNEY THOMPSON.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/vanneyli...

12.30 AM EST

5.30 AM (London UK)

http://brandonshire.com/proud-to-be-d...

http://www.christophfischerbooks.com/...

YOUR FAVOURITE QUOTE

Just for fun... here are a few quotes from The Road to London; which one's your favourite?


FAVOURITE QUOTE POLL

A quotation from the Chapter 'Flight and Light' of The Road to London set on Salvador Dali's The Endless Enigma.



An Article on Art in The Road to London in Lit Art Magazine

There are things that, being a writer, really bring warmth and sunshine into my life... Recently, some readers have sent me some really encouraging, really warm messages. There are no words, even for a writer, to say how beautiful it is when you find out that people really love the words you have written... Today, on the bus, I saw a tweet that mentioned me... It had been a rather dull day till then... I followed the link on the tweet and... Sunlight!

I am a bit old fashioned in some ways, so, if I know a reader, or in this case a professional reviewer, a magazine etc is writing a review of any of my books, I never contact them till the review is out. I just think this is the done thing not to influence them. The flipside is that I don't know when (sometimes if) the review is out in advance. So, the trepidation when I find a link to a review is like a very quick, but very powerful rush...

Imagine my smile when a professional whose job is to read and review books writes 'The Road to London is above anything else that I have read this year,' and 'a modern day classic!' Well, the joy this review brought to my day and beyond will have me smiling for a long, long time:

Book review of The Road to London>>

Dreams of London

Night dreams, day dreams, the dreams we keep locked in drawers, nightmares and saucy (but not wet) dreams are a major theme in my work as a novelist and poet, and I will explore this theme in Dreams of London , a live performance with passages from The Road to London, Queer Poems and Ybo' and Other Lies.

For those who have already seen me live, maybe at the Sussex Guild of Poetry, University of Sussex annual recital, there is no need to warn you not to expect a stiff reading behind a ledger... If there is something I have learnt from teaching for so many years is that Literature can be fun... A lot of!

The radio interview for The Authors Show with host Linda Thompson on The Road to London will be broadcast worldwide on Monday, 6th October 2014.

Linda, the producer and myself think it's a very good interview; I need to thank Linda for being so easy going, warm, and so well-informed... There are some very interesting moments...some revelations, some soul searching questions...

You can listen to it HERE>> on the day.

The radio interview on The Road to London for the Authors Show is live for the whole day HERE>>



And this is me being camp...

Readers who liked : The Road To London -may like the too.

Paulyanna: International Rent-boy is a honest and frank portrayal of a working-class male prostitute’s life. Many factors contribute in delivering the main character onto the streets.

Some very typical, such as early abandonment, poverty, lack of education and sexual abuse. But Paul does not dwell too much on the past and refuses to allow these events to mar his ambition.

At eighteen a lost train ticket leaves him stranded in the city after a job interview. He uses his questionable wits to make a quick decision that steers him down a rather dodgy path.

Without added glamour or grit, Paul shares the raw accounts of his life as a rent-boy in the 90s, from London to Los Angeles. It may not have been pretty, and there was risk and danger as well as fun and thrills, but Paul had the audacity to succeed in his quest to obtain happiness, security and wealth.

…Using plain spoken truth, I have attempted to knock away some of the preconceptions regarding people labelled as damaged goods.

Discover the mind behind the glassy eyed smile of a male street worker. A stereotypical cliché? Perhaps.

This is my unapologetic story. A social history report.

The latest interview on The Road to London is now live on Pebble in Still Water here>>

An out-take from the interview.

The San Francisco Book Review have just posted their review of The Road to London, you can read it here>>

LIFE DREAMT and LIFE LIVED
is a recent post on my blog that talks about a tradition that is very, very dear to me, the oneiric tradition, id est that literary tradition, so alive in Classical and Mediaval times, that explores the world of dreams, rather than succumbing to the mantra of realism.

A review by Amos Lassen of The Road to London couldn't come at a better time; it gives me the chance to offer all my support to Amos for all he has done for the LGBT community over so many years,reading and reviewing thousands of books, watching and reviewing thousands of films, and I must say, also showing us a positive attitude towards expressive works in an environment that has become more and more bitter, more and more focused on what's gone wrong rather than what good is in ourselves and others. Thanks Amos for the really wonderful review.

Amos Lassen's review of The Road to London

Hello,

With the latest wonderful review of The Road to London, by Amos Lassen>>, who has written more than 3,000 reviews, who says that he cannot 'remember ever reading a book so unique,' which honestly touches me, because when I wrote the novel I did want to write something original, to offer a 'different' reading experience to the reader, but I really never thought her originality would be so well-received and so appreciated by readers, well, a video trailer>> with snippets from reviews has been put together. These are taken only from reviews by professional reviewers and established authors, however, the last 'bit' does come from an Amazon review, because I personally love that review, and because the reader has given me, with the title of his/her review ( Travel off the Beaten Path with this ultra Cool Read>> ), ideas on how to present The Road to London to readers.

In fact, I think that if you write something unlike what has been written before, you find yourself, how can I say, with no precedents when trying to explain what your book is about to others... So, I take ideas mainly from what readers and reviewers pick up, and I do love the idea of reading off the beaten path.

As to Amos's comment that he doesn't know how I could follow this novel up, well, neither can I. I have been asked if I will write a sequel, and my answer has always been 'no'. I don't know... If something original comes to me, I'll write another novel, which I would like to be different from The Road to London, but at the moment I simply have not developed enough to move to the next stage. What I tend to do is try to extend and improve my style, while stepping back and considering where else I could go with my writing that I haven't gone yet and where there are only tentative or no steps that I know of. So, when I wrote Queer Poems, I stepped back and thought about my first collection of poetry, Ybo' and Other Lies, which (sorry publishers) I just thought was very unusual, but too self-centred and totally unreadable... The Road to London is easily readable, so that's not where I need to go with my prose, the only half-idea I am left with is to write what I had started long ago, a novel that can be read both forward and backward, but it's only an embryo at the moment...

VIDEO TRAILER: REVIEWS of THE ROAD TO LONDON>>

The theme of flight is central to The Road to London. As I said elsewhere, I borrowed it from Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison. In the same way as she presents flight as salvation along with the discovery of one's roots, in The Road to London through self-discovery and self-acceptance.

Here's the short video 'I Can Fly' >> where I read a passage from the novel.

The latest interview (more of a stream of consciousness, really) on The Road to London, 'London is a Symbol of Freedom' is now available on Culture Drive >>

I'd like to thank Christina for filming the live reading of 'Between Dreams', one of the poems that appear in The Road to London, which I did at the Poetry Society in Covent Garden, London... I'll put the link beneath.

The sound is a bit low, as it's about a kiss given, as the title says, in one of those moments when you are in bed, just half-awake for a moment, then fall back to sleep...

The poem is actually much older than the novel, dated May 2000, and had already appeared on one of the very first poetry websites, UK Poetry Live >> , years ago. Looking back, I am always a bit amused by how our understanding of the word 'erotic' has changed... In fact, this poem received quite a bit of interest for being classed as 'erotic', and there weren't many 'erotic' poems on the web at the time...

I still stick to my old idea of what I mean by 'erotic', that is, relating to the passion and feelings of a sexual act, not the sexual act itself. Eros, in fact, means love, not sex (as opposed to Amor). Now, a poem about a kiss is possibly regarded as 'prudish'...

Between Dreams

As if in dreams, I rest my nose between
Your cheeks – the moon is sleeping on my face
Still wet with love and passion, silver drops
In rivulets of nectar flow down the slopes
And kiss my lips, disclosed like rose to dew,
And drown my face along a milky way
Of satin waves, and find the humid source
Of joy – a plump carnation brown and dark
Like loquat nested warm and snug in you;
A silent kiss I stole from slumber’s arms.

'Between Dreams' Live at the Poetry Society >>

I was re-reading Amos Lassen's review of The Road to London>> , and noticed something that struck me: like another reader had pointed out to me, the Boy's great love, My Dear, might be a woman. What strikes me is that Amos read My Dear as being a woman, not a man. That would make The Road to London a novel about a boy who experiments with homosexuality but ends up being straight. If the biggest reviewer of LGBT fiction and films in the world sees My Dear as being a woman, then I think in my attempt to keep this character as mysterious as possible I have far exceeded my expectations...

On the other hand, I never wanted the novel to be just for LGBT readers, so I am pleased to see that so many non-LGBT readers have related to her, maybe because of the ambiguity?

On a similar note, I am really pleased to see that non-LGBT readers are appreciating The Road to London too, qs when I wrote her, I wished to present an experience that could be shared by straight people too. So many reviewers have not even mentioned the fact that the Boy turns out to be (maybe?) gay, and this is just the latest of a series of reviews by straight readers who say they loved the novel...

A recent review of The Road to London on Amazon USA:

A review of The Road to London by another top 500 Amazon US reviewer:

'It definitely elevates the genre to a new level.'

The latest professional book review of The Road to London.

Click on the picture to read the whole review

I'm jumping up and down... One of the biggest magazines in the world has dedicated 3 pages (!!!) of its arts and entertainment column to The Road to London... The Examiner!!!!

http://www.examiner.com/article/inter...