Hello, and welcome to my site!

If you ever came to another site called jennycolgan.com and it was never updated and you maybe even left messages that nobody ever responded to, uh, I would definitely say that was some other, much lazier Jenny Colgan and probably nothing to do with me. Yeah.

I would also say, though, that if you do want to get in touch with me directly, facebook is probably best - but here you can read some extracts, find out about new books and other projects and I may even manage to upkeep my blog (*laughs hollowly*).  The problem is that really nothing very exciting happens to me on a daily basis but if it ever does, I’ll definitely blog it. Or maybe try and make it into a newspaper article and actually flog it, but I’ll post it up too.

Jenny's new book is a scorcher!

Operation Sunshine came about when I overheard an aquaintance talking about her holiday. It sounded absolutely amazing and blissful and I thought, gosh, my holidays are never like that. They’re always a bit stressful at the airport, then the rooms are never as nice as you’d like and I get bitten by mozzies and burn something and take the wrong books . . .

22nd Aug

Scary Books

I've been through a real period of starting and not finishing books.
Normally I think life is far too short to finish something you're not
enjoying (although that doesn't entirely explain why I fruitlessly
start Anna Karenina once a year, or the joy I felt upon finally
completing (and loving) Foucault's Pendulum on my fifth attempt).
Anyway, I've recently failed wholeheartedly withThe Glass Books of the
Dream Eaters, an outstanding title, a totally gorgeous cover (sapphire
blue plastic that looks like glass) and something about it that
whispered that it might be a new Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which
I adored to distraction and which has just made me check to see that
yes, there is a new Susannah Clarke and I must get it at once. The
Dream Eaters, sadly, opens with about one hundred pages of something
that threatens to descend into that really really detailed, specific
erotica Anne Rice used to do, plus I'd made a mistake and borrowed the
hardback edition from the library which was too heavy to carry it
about. I couldn't hold it up any longer. It's gone back. Perhaps next
year. Also on ice is a REALLY SCARY book, the title of which I can't
remember, because it's something extraordinarily generic, like Don't
Look Round (will rectify this shortly), but also I wanted to take it
away from my publishers and my editor said, I am warning you it's quite
scary and I said, 'pshaw, yeah, whatever' then I got home and it is
QUITE SCARY and in fact I couldn't read it on my own at night, which
does cut out a lot of my reading time. I always think, in daylight,
that being scared of things is ridiculous. Then at night, I get
*really* scared of things. Some scary books: I am Legend. Richard
Matheson's story is a classic, but for my money the scariest version is
the graphic art one linked here. The pictures and the text fit
perfectly. If you've never read it, you won't know that the Will Smith
film is a travesty the likes of which... well, I can't even think of it
without exploding with rage. They take a PERFECT-ly horrifying tale
and, ironically, utterly mutilate the second half until it is
unrecognisable. Whether you liked or disliked the movie, please please
read the book. And it does actually explain why it is called I AM
BLOODY LEGEND, okay Will Smith and your cute dog??? I read the book
just after moving into a new flat and genuinely could not sleep for
about three nights. Brother in the Land Cool CND schoolteachers used to
set this devastating story of a post-nuclear breakdown in society to
schoolkids, much to the chagrin of their parents, who thought they'd
sorted out their bedwetting problems years before. Domain You can so
tell I grew up in the eighties. It's not the giant rats, scary as they
are, it's the post-holocaust, yet again; the mother, pouring the
long-soured milk on cornflakes for her skinless children in a bombed
out building. Day of the Triffids "When a Wednesday starts off sounding
like a Sunday, you know something is wrong... Red Dragon This made me
actually shriek when someone came in when I was reading it. Terrifying.
The Turn of the Screw Actually, it wasn't so much the book of this that
scared the hell out of me, but the opera. I met Ian Bostridge , who
sang Quint, some time afterwards and he was still scary (as a man,
delightful, I should add). I immediately mentally cast him as a villain
in a pilot I'm working on. On the Beach Yes, another nuclear one.
Stephen King and his monsters entertained but never frightened me; Dean
Koontz too silly even for me with his dog schtick. But throw a big bomb
in it and I am pinned to the wall.

6th October 2008

Wimbledon Books Festival

Jenny will be talking at the Wimbledon Books Festival on Monday, 6th October. Start time 6.30 p.m.

17th July 2008

Edinburgh Book Festival

Jenny's doing a talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival on Sunday, 17th July at 4.00 p.m.