COMPETITION: Win One of Five Copies of SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN by Paul Torday (ENDED)

To celebrate the cinema release of the film adaptation of Paul Torday's Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Orion Books are giving you the chance to win 1 of 5 copies of the book.

Sorry to international readers but it is UK and Ireland entries only.

All you have to do is go to the Orion Books website - click here - answer the easy peasy question - enter your details and complete the entry form.

Competition closes midnight GMT Thursday 31st May 2012.

No purchase necessary.

I have entered this myself - good luck to everyone else who enters!

About the Book:

This is the story of Dr Alfred Jones, a fisheries scientist - for whom diary-notable events include the acquisition of a new electric toothbrush and getting his article on caddis fly larvae published in 'Trout and Salmon' - who finds himself reluctantly involved in a project to bring salmon fishing to the Highlands of the Yemen - a project that will change his life, and the course of British political history forever.
With a wickedly wonderful cast of characters - including a visionary Sheikh, a weasely spin doctor, Fred's devilish wife and a few thousand transplanted salmon - SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN is a novel about hypocrisy and bureaucracy, dreams and deniability, and the transforming power of faith and love.

Book Review - THE CAPTAIN'S DAUGHTER BY LEAH FLEMING

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Published:  Simon & Schuster  (Jan 2012)

Source:  Publishers

My Rating:  8/10

About the Book:

For May Smith, travelling with her husband and baby girl Ellen, stepping foot on the Titanic marks the start of an incredible journey.
But when the 'unsinkable' Titanic hits an iceberg one cold dark night, May's dreams are instantly shattered. Jumping from the sinking ship at the last minute, May loses sight of Joe and Ellen. Distraught, she is pulled into a lifeboat. Minutes later, the real-life Captain Smith swims to the lifeboat and hands May a baby swaddled in blankets.
Beside herself, and in virtual darkness, May believes the baby to be Ellen. This rescue is witnessed by fellow survivor, Celeste Parkes, married to an American industrialist who is on her way back to Ohio after her mother's funeral.
In horror, they both watch the death throes of the mighty ship; May traumatised, knowing her husband has drowned, Celeste wishing her husband had been on board and out of her life.
As the dawn comes up, and the two women are rescued by the Carpathia, a friendship is formed, one which is destined to transcend the Atlantic and social differences between them and last a lifetime. Then May makes a shocking discovery.......

When the Titanic went down it changed so many lives forever and this book tells the fictional story of three families for whom the Titanic cast a long shadow throughout the generations.

We first meet May Smith, her husband Joe and baby daughter as they eagerly await the train that will take them away from the cotton mills of Bolton to Southampton to board the Titanic and begin a new life in the United States.  They are C class passengers.

Celeste Parkes is in 1st class and has been attending her mother's funeral in England.  She's going back home to her young son and a cruel bully of a husband in Ohio.

Their fates and an everlasting friendship is sealed on that terrible night.

As news of the Titanic's sinking reaches the world we next meet young father Angelo, an Italian, waiting in New York for the return of his wife and baby daughter...who he has never seen....but soon realises that they have perished....though he refuses to give up hope.

This sets the premise for all that is to come as the years pass and May, Celeste and Angelo all begin new lives and try to put the sinking behind them but it never really goes away.

A lovely way of moving the story along in the beginning was by the letters between May in England and Celeste in the USA and we see how the experience has changed them as people and given them more confidence to deal with the challenges that came their way.

I was totally engrossed at the start but my interest started waning about half way through, the story just didn't capture my imagination or held my attention and I didn't rush to pick it up and read on.  Then as the book neared its obvious conclusion I found it engrossing again.

Overall, I enjoyed most of it and would probably read another book by Leah Fleming.

Special Thanks to the publishers, Simon & Schuster, for sending me this book.

BOOK NEWS: Police save words of blind author who wrote 26 pages after pen ran out

 A blind woman who did not realise the novel she was writing was blank after her pen ran out has been saved after a police force used forensic techniques to recover the words.

Photo: Alamy

11:30AM BST 11 Apr 2012

Forensics experts agreed to use a special scientific process to recover what Trish Vickers had written by examining the dents she had made in the pages.

Mrs Vickers, 59, was left devastated when she learned that her pen had run out and there was nothing on the first 26 pages of the book.

She lost her sight seven years ago through diabetes and decided to write a novel to pass the time and keep her mind active.

She quickly penned the opening chapters while using a system of elastic bands to keep the lines separated on the pages of paper she was using.

She waited for her son Simon to visit so he could read it back to her. But when he arrived he had to tell her that the pages were blank.

Incredibly, however, the manuscript was recovered after the family took it to their local police HQ and asked for help.
Forensic experts worked in their spare time to read the indentations left on the A4 pages using a system of lights.
It took five months of painstaking work, but the forensic team was able to recover the whole text - and they said how much they had enjoyed it and couldn't wait for the rest.
A Dorset police spokesman said a member of staff had completed the work during her lunch hours.
Mrs Vickers, from Charmouth, near Lyme Regis, Dorset, now intends to complete the novel, called Grannifer's Legacy, which is about a character called Jennifer whose life implodes.
The character loses her job, her boyfriend, and worst of all her great-grandmother who has always been her guide.
She has to start a new life and the story is about how she does that.
When it is finished Mrs Vickers, who has a volunteer call in once a week to type up her work, intends to send it to a publisher.
She said: "We battled with various ideas until we thought of the police. We rang them and asked to speak to their fingerprint section.
"They said if there was anything they could do they'd be happy to help. I was gobsmacked.
"I am so happy, pleased and grateful. It was really, really nice of them and I want to thank them for helping me out.
"Being blind is very restrictive in so far as going anywhere.
"I have always been interested in writing, I have got one of those strange imaginations that runs riot.
"Everybody who has read it so far seems to like it and the police also said they enjoyed the bit they read and can't wait for the rest.
"I have to remember what I have written down as I go along. I can remember whow to write - I just can't see what I have written.
"I started off writing poetry and this the first time I've attempted a novel. The police were brilliant and I can't thank them enough.
"I could remember the gist of what I had written but there was no way I could have written exactly the same way again." 


This story is from thetelegraph.co.uk

Some New Books Published in April 2012

Here are just a small selection of the new books coming out in April.  

If you've read any of them and want me to put a link to it please drop me a line at purplecards (at) gmail.com.

I hope you find your next read here!

The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler
Published:  3 April 2012 - UK & USA
Formats (UK):  Audio …...... Hardcover, Paperback & Kindle - 5 April 2012
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction


Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances--in their house, on the roadway, in the market.

Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, independent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly, he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage.

But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace.

Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family's vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.

A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler's humour, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.

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The Innocent by David Baldacci
Published:  6 April 2012 (UK) …....... 17 April 2012 (USA)
Format (UK):  Paperback ….. Audio - 17 April 2012 ….. Hardcover 26 April 2012
Genre:  Thriller



America has enemies--ruthless people that the police, the FBI, even the military can't stop. That's when the U.S. government calls on Will Robie, a stone cold hitman who never questions orders and always nails his target.
But Will Robie may have just made the first--and last--mistake of his career . . .
THE INNOCENT
It begins with a hit gone wrong. Robie is dispatched to eliminate a target unusually close to home in Washington, D.C. But something about this mission doesn't seem right to Robie, and he does the unthinkable. He refuses to kill. Now, Robie becomes a target himself and must escape from his own people.
Fleeing the scene, Robie crosses paths with a wayward teenage girl, a fourteen-year-old runaway from a foster home. But she isn't an ordinary runaway-her parents were murdered, and her own life is in danger. Against all of his professional habits, Robie rescues her and finds he can't walk away. He needs to help her.
Even worse, the more Robie learns about the girl, the more he's convinced she is at the center of a vast cover-up, one that may explain her parents' deaths and stretch to unimaginable levels of power.
Now, Robie may have to step out of the shadows in order to save this girl's life . . . and perhaps his own...........

David Baldacci's works have been translated into more than 45 languages and sold in more than 80 countries. All of his books have been national and international bestsellers, and over 110 million copies of his books are in print worldwide.

His website can be found here. 

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Blue Asylum by Kathy Hepinstall
Published:  10 April 2012 (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover
Genre:  Historical Fiction

Amid the mayhem of the Civil War, Virginia plantation wife Iris Dunleavy is put on trial and convicted of madness. It is the only reasonable explanation the court can see for her willful behavior, so she is sent away to Sanibel Asylum to be restored to a good, compliant woman.
Iris knows, though, that her husband is the true criminal; she is no lunatic, only guilty of disagreeing with him on notions of justice, cruelty, and property.
On this remote Florida island, cut off by swamps and seas and military blockades, Iris meets a wonderful collection of residents--- some seemingly sane, some wrongly convinced they are crazy, some charmingly odd, some dangerously unstable.
Which of these is Ambrose Weller, the war-haunted Confederate soldier whose memories terrorize him into wild fits that can only be calmed by the color blue, but whose gentleness and dark eyes beckon to Iris?
The institution calls itself modern, but Iris is skeptical of its methods, particularly the dreaded "water treatment."
She must escape, but she has found new hope and love with Ambrose. Can she take him with her? If they make it out, will the war have left anything for them to make a life from, back home?

Blue Asylum is a vibrant, beautifully-imagined, absorbing story of the lines we all cross between sanity and madness. It is also the tale of a spirited woman, a wounded soldier, their impossible love, and the undeniable call of freedom.  

Kathy Hepinstall is the author of three previous novels, The House of Gentle Men (a Los Angeles Times bestseller), The Absence of Nectar (a national bestseller), and The Prince of Lost Places. She is an award-winning creative director and advertising writer, whose clients have included top brands in American business. She grew up in Texas.


Check out what they think of this novel over at Historical Fiction Review.  There's also a fabulous interview with the author Kathy Hepinstall.

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Come Home by Lisa Scottoline
Published:  10 April 2012 - UK & USA
Formats (UK):  Hardcover, Audio ….... Paperback, Kindle - 12 April 2012
Genre:  Mystery/Suspense


Lisa Scottoline delivers taut thrillers with a powerful emotional wallop in her New York Times bestsellers Save Me, Think Twice and Look Again. Now, with her new novel, COME HOME, she ratchets up the suspense with the riveting story of a mother who sacrifices her future for a child from her past.
Jill Farrow is a typical suburban mom, who has finally gott her and her daughter's life back on track after a divorce. She is about to remarry a great guy, her job as a pediatrician fulfills her, though it is stressful, and her daughter Megan is a happily over-scheduled thirteen-year-old, juggling homework and swim team.
Jill's life is turned upside-down when her ex-stepdaughter, Abby, shows up on their doorstep late one night and delivers shocking news — Jill's ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that he was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer. Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries, and discovers that things don't add up. As she digs deeper, her actions threaten to rip apart her new family, destroy their hard-earned happiness, and even endanger her own life. Yet, Jill can't turn her back on a child she loves and once called her own. COME HOME reads with the break-neck pace of a thriller, but also explores the definition of motherhood.
It asks the questions: Do you ever stop being a mother? Can you ever have an ex-child? What are the limits and love of family?

For more information on Lisa Scottoline and her books see her website here.

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The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe
Published:  10 April 2012 (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Audio …....... Paperback - 13 Sept 2012
Genre:  Historical Fiction

Katherine Howe, author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, returns with an entrancing historical novel set in Boston in 1915, where a young woman stands on the cusp of a new century, torn between loss and love, driven to seek answers in the depths of a crystal ball.

Still reeling from the deaths of her mother and sister on the Titanic, Sibyl Allston is living a life of quiet desperation with her taciturn father and scandal-plagued brother in an elegant town house in Boston's Back Bay. Trapped in a world over which she has no control, Sibyl flees for solace to the parlor of a table-turning medium.

But when her brother is suddenly kicked out of Harvard under mysterious circumstances and falls under the sway of a strange young woman, Sibyl turns for help to psychology professor Benton Derby, despite the unspoken tensions of their shared past. As Benton and Sibyl work together to solve a harrowing mystery, their long-simmering spark flares to life, and they realize that there may be something even more magical between them than a medium's scrying glass.

From the opium dens of Boston's Chinatown to the opulent salons of high society, from the back alleys of colonial Shanghai to the decks of the Titanic, The House of Velvet and Glass weaves together meticulous period detail, intoxicating romance, and a final shocking twist that will leave readers breathless.

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Dead Scared by SJ Bolton
Published:  12 April 2012 - UK …...... 5 June 2012 - USA
Format (UK):  Paperback, Kindle …..... Hardcover - 26 April 2012
Genre:  Mystery


When a Cambridge student dramatically attempts to take her own life, DI Mark Joesbury realizes that the university has developed an unhealthy record of young people committing suicide in extraordinary ways. Against huge personal misgivings, Joesbury sends young policewoman DC Lacey Flint to Cambridge, with a brief to work under-cover, posing as a depression-prone, vulnerable student. Psychiatrist Evi Oliver is the only person in Cambridge who knows who Lacey really is - or so they both hope. But as the two women dig deeper into the darker side of university life, they discover a terrifying trend ...And when Lacey starts experiencing the same disturbing nightmares reported by the dead girls, she knows that she is next.

I gave SJ Bolton’s Blood Harvest 9.5/10 when I reviewed it here. 

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By Battersea Bridge by Janet Davey
Published:  12 April 2012  (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover & Kindle
Genre:  Fiction

Charts the complications of family relationships with deft insight, dry wit, and extraordinary tenderness.

Anita Mostyn feels the need to take a holiday from her life. As a child, she was dismissed by her parents in favour of her self-confident brothers, and as an adult, her choices are disapproved of -- the small art gallery she works for, the friends she makes, the men she sees. Mossy -- lumbered with a childhood nickname that stuck -- is never the 'fixed point'; not for her most recent lover, Nick Halsey, or for the mother whose approval she craves. Instead, she lives on the edges of things. On a whim, she takes up an offer to scout for holiday properties in Bulgaria, escaping the impending second wedding of her perfect brother -- and a horrifying episode in her past.

Poignant, and absurd, sharp and wry, Janet Davey's luminous prose charts the complications of family relationships with insight and extraordinary tenderness. As Anita navigates difficult waters, we begin to understand her past, and, little by little, see her emerge anew.

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The Leopard Sword (Fourth book in the Empire series) by Anthony Riches
Published:  26 April 2012 (UK) …..... 1 June 2012 (USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover & Kindle …..... Paperback - 11 Oct 2012
Genre:  Historical

The Empire series begins a new era--Marcus has fled from Britannia, but the emperor's henchmen are still on his trail

Britannia has been subdued--and the murderous Roman agents who nearly captured Marcus Valerius Aquila, alias Corvus, have been defeated by his friends. But in order to protect those very friends from the wrath of the emperor, Marcus must leave the province which has been giving him shelter. He travels to the Tungrian auxiliary legion's headquarters in northern Gaul where a different kind of war and very different dangers await him.


You can win a copy of this new book on Anthony Riches website here.
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Would I Lie To You? by Clare Dowling
Published:  26 April 2012
Formats (UK):  Hardcover & Kindle...........Audio - 1 June 2012......Paperback - 12 Nov 2012
Genre:  Contemporary Fiction

Why tell the truth...if you know it's going to hurt?

Hannah has known Ellen and Barbara since they shared student digs. So when Ollie, the father of her daughter Cleo, unexpectedly walks out, who better to turn to than her best friends? The reunion takes place in Ellen and husband Mark's converted farmhouse in France, where Hannah slowly becomes reacquainted with nature - the white-back pigs, the rooster with the mental health issues - and, more importantly, what she really wants out of her life. Then something shocking happens, which threatens not only her recovery, but the very bonds of her friendship with Ellen and Barbara. Her loyalty is put to the test - if she does the right thing, will it blow Ellen's marriage out of the water? And why does she find herself turning to Ollie, of all people, for advice...?

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Memory of the Abyss by Marcello Fois
Published:  26 April 2012  (UK/USA)
Formats (UK):  Hardcover, Paperback & Kindle
Genre:  Myth/History/Fiction

When Samuele Stocchino is two years old the village sage can already see a heart shaped like a wolf's head beating in his breast: the heart of a murderer.
As a colonial soldier in Northern Africa, recruited from one subject land to subdue another, the sixteen-year-old Stocchino learns to kill before he has learned to love, and it is a skill he hones to perfection on the pitiless battlefields of the Corso Front in the Great War. Returning to Sardinia a hero to a pauper's welcome, he finds his family swindled and his sweetheart stolen away by the richest clan in the region, and from one first crime of passion a bitter feud is born.
Stocchino terrorizes his wealthy neighbours and anyone who dares to till their land until, with Italy now firmly under Mussolini's boot, his elimination becomes Il Duce's priority. As he continues to elude capture, the seeds of myth are sown and the legend of Samuele Stocchino is forged.

Shrouded by mystery and portent, Memory of the Abyss is a stirring fusion of myth, history and fiction, a daring re-imagining of the true story of a notorious Sardinian bandit and a deft excavation of the island's cultural roots by one of Italy's most gifted and celebrated writers.

"It is a long time since I last came across a writer with such a deep poetic sense of nature and the ability to convey it."

Andrea Camilleri

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The Girl on the Beach by Mary Nichols
Published:  30 April 2012 - UK …...... 15 Sept 2012 - USA
Formats (UK):  Hardcover ….. Kindle - 26 Mar 2012
Genre:  Fiction


Julie Monday, abandoned by her mother and raised in a children's home, enjoys a rare moment of happiness when at the age of eight she visits the Essex seaside and meets eleven-year-old Harry Walker. They spend a happy few hours together, but at the end of the afternoon, she must return to the Foundling's Hospital, and Harry goes home to his family.
Ten years later, they meet again. Fated to be together, they marry just before the outbreak of the Second World War. But it's now 1939, Harry has enlisted in the Royal Air Force, and Julie must face the blitz in wartime London alone with their son. Travelling back from work one day, Julie is caught in the chaos of a direct hit. Rescued from the destroyed air-raid shelter, but injured and with severe memory loss, Julie is given a new identity as Eve Seaton.
But it is not easy to become a different person; plagued with disturbing flashes of memory that she doesn't understand, forgetting her former life as Julie Monday proves impossible. She must make a decision: should she make a new life for herself as Eve, or struggle to recover the pieces of a shattered identity?

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Book Review: REVOLUTION (The Year I Fell in Love and went to Join the War) BY DEB OLIN UNFERTH

Genre:  Memoir

Published:  Henry Holt  (Feb 2011)

Source:  Publishers

My Rating:  7/10

About the Book:

REVOLUTION tells the funny and poignant story of the year the author ran away from college with her idealistic boyfriend and followed him to Nicaragua to join the Sandinistas.

Despite their earnest commitment to a myriad of revolutionary causes and to each other, Deb and her boyfriend find themselves unwanted, unhelpful, and unprepared as they bop around Central America, looking for "revolution jobs." 

The year is 1987, a turning point in the Cold War, although the world doesn’t know it yet, especially not Unferth and her fiancé (he proposes on a roadside in El Salvador).   

But years later the trip remains fixed in her mind and she finally goes back to Nicaragua to try to make sense of it all.  Unferth’s heartbreaking and hilarious memoir perfectly captures the youthful search for meaning, and is an absorbing rumination on what happens to a country and its people after the revolution is over.

In 1987 Deb and her boyfriend George decide that their main ambition was to help the revolution, they had wanted to go to Cuba but didn't know how to get there as it was illegal.

George didn't believe in paying bills, it was a principle with him, corporations were evil and rich, he didn't care about money, possessions, sleep or food....Deb found this attractive and thought he was a genius....thus she followed him around South America even though she hated it -

I saw suddenly that this was all a game for me.  The Christianity, the running away, the marrying.  I was going along with it, but I didn't mean it , and I didn't like it......in fact I hated it.  I hated not eating enough, hated my dirty clothes, hated San Salvador, hated George in some way because he'd brought me here and because I knew he meant all of it.

They wanted 'revolution jobs' but few people wanted to hire them.  They travelled to El Salvador where they helped at (and got fired from) an orphanage - in Nicaragua their visas ran out and, as they weren't working for the revolution, they couldn't renew it - then on to Costa Rica and Panama.

They got sick and sicker, got robbed several times, ran out of money, and Deb and George gradually drifted apart.

This is a book of anecdotes, I found the writing simple and easy, though it was all over the place sometimes, with short chapters.

It was light-hearted in parts, sad in others, for me it wasn't a page-turner, it was interesting but not engrossing.

Special Thanks to the publishers for sending it to me.

Book Review: A MEANS OF ESCAPE BY JOANNA PRICE

Genre:  Thriller

Published:  Aston Bay  (Oct 2011)

Source:  BookDagger RealReaders

My Rating:  8.5/10

About the Book:

A grizzly and cold November morning. Detective Sergeant Kate Linton is called on Glastonbury Tor where a young woman has been strangled. Twelve holes are found at the scene, surrounded by wax, evidence of garden flares - the only connection to two other unsolved cases. When another young woman and a TV celebrity go missing, Linton is in a race against time to find the serial killer before he strikes again. But, when her journalist ex-boyfriend is singled out as a chief suspect, Linton feels that events are heading a bit too close to home.

This is a very promising start of a new police series set in Glastonbury featuring DS Kate Linton who  has a challenging task -- to find the killer of three young women and a third missing girl who has been kidnapped, possibly by the killer.

Just to make her job more complicated, a reality TV star also goes missing in Glastonbury at the same time, but is this just coincidence or has the killer now kidnapped two women as well?

Kate, newly single since her split with her boyfriend, is confronted with the embarrassment of a past liaison in the shape of a local journalist who becomes a suspect.  Her strained relationship with her male colleague changes as the case progresses which adds an interesting light touch to the dark storyline.

As the police search continues we are given several tantalising glimpses of just what's going on in the head of the kidnapper by the way he talks to his kidnap victim, which didn't make any sense until the reveal.

Joanna Price kept the suspense building until the very end when all the answers to the questions are neatly tied up -- I didn't guess the ending!

Altogether, an unpredictable storyline that features characters that I'd like to read about again as this series develops.

BOOK NEWS: How Twitter is changing the literary world

As Jonathan Franzen and JK Rowling are parodied on Twitter, Ceri Radford looks at the rise of the sarcastic tweet, and asks how this social network is fuelling literary spats

Author Jonathan Franzen. Photo: Finn Beales 2012

By Ceri Radford

11:20AM GMT 12 Mar 2012

Comment

Publishing used to be a closed world, characterised by impenetrable cliques and the long wait for musty brown self-addressed envelopes to appear in the post. That, however, was in the days before sites like Twitter brought writers, readers, editors, publishers and agents together into a seething mass of instantly updated, publicly accessible sniping, moral support and badinage.

Last week’s #JonathanFranzenHates hashtag - in which bookish Twitter users roundly mocked the author for dismissing the site as “unspeakably irritating” – is just one of a number of instances which show how the use of social media is opening up literary circles. The sort of sparring that may once have occurred only in waspish letters to the editor of the London Review of Books now plays out in real time on the internet.

Meanwhile, for anyone struggling to decipher what is actually going on with the publication (or not) of their book, the #publishingeuphemisms hashtag, which began when the agent Jonny Geller started tweeting a few home truths, is an education. Examples include: “this is too literary for our list” = it’s boring, "sadly we are publishing a similar book to this next spring" = it too has a beginning, middle and end, and "all our focus is on the paperback" = the hardback tanked.

Since any Twitter user can join in by using the same hashtag, ideas like this spread quickly, in this case from rogue agent to writers only too happy to lift the lid on the slippery half-truths and glib hyperbole of their industry: ”literary-commercial cross-over”: “Has a plot but not too many adverbs” contributed the author Nina Bell. “Eminently marketable”: “This author looks fit” added Catherine Fox.

A shared sense of humour holds most literary hashtags together. If brevity is the soul of wit, then Twitter is its trumpet, allowing users to blast out their pithy jokes in no more than 140 characters at a time. Whatever Franzen says, that is often enough.

Following the news of JK Rowling’s first book deal for adult fiction, the hashtag #RowlingforAdults was swift to materialise, with lines like “Harry Potter and the Enlarged Prostate” and “Ginny Potter And The Daily Bottle of Pinot Grigio While The Kids Are At School” (from @Popehat). Puns are almost as popular as Harry Potter. On another thriving hashtag, #literarydietquotes, the author Julia Kinghorn contributed “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps on this paté paste until the end of time”.
None of this is as simple as writers turning to Twitter to publicise themselves and their books. At best, the site offers a surrogate sense of community to authors sat at home with only their computer screen and a houseplant for company. From my own experience, dipping into bookish circles on Twitter is like a trip to the watercooler, a morale-boosting break from the isolation of slogging towards 80,000 words.

To read the rest of this article see telegraph.co.uk