Yes, OBVIOUSLY my new year’s resolution to update more often! And I was going to post a little Christmas piece I wrote for a book but may do that next year, when the pb will be out. I am literally poised to start tomorrow morning on my new book, and quite excited about typing ‘Chapter 1′ again, it seems like it’s been a while.

In the meantime three corkers: Dan Rhodes is a friend of mine but I think- it was a long time ago- but we became friends because I went to a reading he did with another friend of mine, Matt Thorne, and he was totally brilliant so I suppose we became friends because I liked his work. Anyway, his new book, out in April, is called Little Hands Clapping and is totally brilliant, spooky, fun and he has such a clear voice. I’m also loving Set This House in Order, by Matt Ruff, which everyone else has probably read already- I thought would be gimmicky- it’s about two people with MPD- but is actually great and so gripping you forget how difficult it must have been to write. It’s not an easy read- mind you, since I had children, anything that even hints at cruelty to children I find unbearable- but it is excellent.

And the best thing I’ve come across recently, which was so amazing I’ve pressed it on everyone- it was published in 2004 and was supposedly a bestseller, but I’d never heard of it till an aquaintance recommended it to me. It’s called The Long Walk, and is a memoir about a young Polish office who escapes from the Siberian gulag. It is heartbreaking, breathlessly exciting, compelling, readable and, most of all, utterly true. Anyway, I gave it to my mother who was looking for something to read over Christmas and she stared at it with a look of utter shock on her face and said, ‘I know! And he goes through the Gobi desert and they have to survive on snakes and…’ and she told me the entire thing. And do you know what; the book wasn’t published in 2004 at all, that’s the reprint date. In fact it was written in 1945, just after it happened, and my mother had read it in 1956- she remembered exactly, because she knew she was twelve years old- and, more than fifty years later, recalled everything about it. Isn’t that amazing?? Except it was even more shocking for her, because back then they didn’t know what a terrible monster Stalin actually was.

Anyway, my husband came in the other night and said ‘where’s that book you’ve been going on about? I’m ready to read it now (he’s just finished Kitchen Confidential) but he was too late:  my mum nicked it and took it home. I think she’s allowed.

Happy New Year! xxx Ooh, and you can follow me on Twitter now, I’ve got the hang of it and really like it. I’m just @jennycolgan. ALthough if you don’t watch UK tv you’ll probably find it a bit confusing…

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