We're proud to welcome Lucy Foley to the Byte the Book family. Lucy is a graduate of UCL and Durham universities. She’s been in publishing (editorial, fiction) just long enough to remember the days of carting home vast manuscripts rather than popping them on her e-reader, and reads widely, but has a particular penchant for big, dark, complex, sweeping tales: from Out of Africa to Atonement and beyond.

Please click on the titles below to read her reviews:

Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple

Buy this Book.

Review by Tracey Sinclair.

British-born Lee Child is now one of the world’s most successful thriller writers, his Jack Reacher books having been translated into 40 languages, with a big budget film on the way (starring Tom Cruise, who many fans think is woefully miscast as the 6 foot 5 ex-military cop). A Wanted Man sees eternal wanderer Reacher getting caught up in a major conspiracy when he hitches a ride with the wrong people – though of course, this being Jack Reacher, the bad guys have taken on more than they bargained for…

While it’s easy to dismiss Jack Reacher as simply a male fantasy writ large – women want him, men want to be him, blah blah blah – Child’s skill as a writer is that he takes a character who could be simply a cliché and makes him compelling and interesting. Yes, Reacher is hard as nails, but he’s not invincible, and he’s not flawless (one of his main characteristics is a totally honest appraisal of his own strengths and weaknesses – so, for instance, he’s a lousy driver, he can’t run fast, and when he has to steal a car to keep his cover, he’s worse than useless). He’s also no James Bond, bedding a beauty in every town: though there’s always some flirtation going on, he doesn’t always get the girl.  Plus, Child’s women always feel like fully rounded characters: these aren’t simpering victims or kick ass bombshells, they are capable, bright women, most often cops or military, whom Reacher treats with professional respect.

Child’s style is deceptively simple: short sentences and lots of action, all grounded in enough research to give the books a sense of veracity – but you only have to read a bad thriller to see how difficult it is to make writing look this easy. A Wanted Man follows this established formula, with a plot you think you can figure out but which ends up far more twisted than you’d imagine, characters to root for and a satisfying, action-filled denouement. Given that there’s no major arc to these books, you don’t need to be familiar with the series to enjoy it and it works perfectly well as a standalone story (though if you want to read them in order, the first is Killing Floor). Fans will need no encouragement to buy this, but if you haven’t yet met Jack Reacher, you’re in for a hell of ride.

Buy this book directly from Persephone Books.

Review written by Julia Newhouse.

On a quiet street in London that looks like it was transported straight from the 1920s, lies the stunning Persephone book store. With a charming store front, beautiful handmade gifts and the impressive range of Persephone book titles on offer, this is the kind of book store where non-readers might just fall in love with the written word. I was thrilled to go in there and lay my hands on Persephone's latest title, 'Patience' by John Coates. I had never heard of it, and wasn't quite sure what to expect. What I found was wit and humour wrapped up in a story about love, expectations, and religion.

Patience Gathorne-Galley has been married for seven years and has three children to show for it. Her life is pleasant enough: she has her allowance from her husband, confidence in the power of her church, and the habitual pat on the bottom from her husband as he comes in each night. What she doesn't have is passion and excitement. These have given way to obligation, as she follows Catholic doctrine and submits to duty, finding a sort of contentment in doing what she has been told is right. This carefully balanced life is, however, thrown into turmoil when Patience finds out that her husband is stepping out on her, and that really she doesn't mind that he is. Sex has always been a question of lying still and thinking of other things for Patience, so she is somewhat impressed by the idea that someone is having sex with her husband Edward when they don't have to. But when she meets Philip, a friend of her brother-in-law's, Patience's life changes. She finally discovers why everyone seems so enraptured with the act of making love, and is angered by the idea that Edward has been sleeping with her for seven years, without any thought as to her enjoyment.

Written with charm, wit and insight into life, 'Patience,' is a gorgeous book. If you are looking for a good read, and a bit of a chuckle, this is a book that must make its way onto your to read list. And, if you are looking for beautiful classy books, particularly as a gift, don't overlook Persephone with their charming grey covers and specially chosen endpapers. They publish quality titles, that are finished well, and include such classics as 'Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day', 'Miss Buncle's Book', and 'Around About a Pound a Week'. I cannot wait to see which title Persephone gives a new lease of life to next.

I'm looking forward to being on a panel on Thursday 22nd November at the Free Word Centre. The title of the talk is 'Going Indie - The Writer in The Digital Age.' Here is what the organisers,  The Literary Consultancy,  have to say about it:

Smaller independent publishers are enjoying a renaissance in the internet age. For writers they can offer the kind of personal attention and access to digital services that may be hard to find in the mainstream. At what point, therefore, might a writer approach small presses rather than a large publisher?  What, if any, is the role of the agent in this changing world? Can it be financially viable for a writer to be published by an indie press? And – most importantly of all – who can we trust (small press or large conglomerate) to ensure that the best quality writing finds the audience it deserves?

Join Rebecca Swift, Director of TLC to consider these questions with a highly qualified panel:

• Shelley Weiner whose new novel The Audacious Mendacity of Lily Green is published by the go-ahead indie, Caffeine Nights
• Darren Laws, head of Caffeine Nights
• Rachel Ogden, Director of Inpress, an organisation that seeks to ensure that small presses do not get lost in the marketplace
• Justine Solomons, whose member organisation, Byte the Book, helps inform writers about how digital publishing really works.

6.30pm – 8pm

Tickets: £10 (Glass of wine included)

Click here to book or call Free Word at: 020 7324 2570.Venue: Free Word

Buy this book via here to help support Byte the Book.

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I thought Pnin a delightful tale of someone who is a wit in his own language, yet a clown in another’s.

Our eponymous hero is an exiled assistant professor of Russian in a middling American university, where the head of French literature dislikes literature, and has no French (appointed, no doubt, like British cabinet ministers): "If his Russian was music, his English was murder." He is much mimicked by his fellow pedagogues. He does cut quite a comical figure, and his numerous scrapes are humourously described: boarding the wrong train, giving the wrong lecture, and worrying if Professor Wynn is Professor Wynn, or his "Twynn". Pnin, with his "bright foreigners’ fondness for puns," can be compared to Nabokov himself, dishing up puns with obvious relish, with subtle gradations that would take a smarter reader than I to get them all.

Amongst the deft daftery are some of Pnin's scholarly insights into time in Anna Karenina, and how the words for glass in French (verre), and squirrel fur in Russian (vair), have been substituted in the Cinderella story. But the thing I dig most about Nabokov is his beautiful descriptive prose. ("You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style," Humbert Humbert says in the opening of Lolita.) Some examples of his prose in Pnin are:  "trembling trickle in its avid truckling to gravity"; and, "It's a pity nobody saw as the auroral breeze wrinkled a large luminous puddle." There are many such passages.

Pnin moves from noisy lodgings every year, until his seeking of silence is realised with a perfect place: "a leetle breek house". Yet there is no happy ending for Pnin. "I hate...happy ends" says the unnamed narrator at the beginning of the book. And so it proves to be, leaving Pnin to say of himself, "He has gone, quite gone."

I loved this book for its prose and its characters, but I think a lot of it went over my head, not least the Russian references. I feel similar to how Borges felt about Joyce; he cites Lope de Vega's respectful words on Gongora (an old Spanish poet), to describe his respect for the writer of Ulysses: “I will always esteem and adore the divine genius of this gentleman, taking from him what I understand with humility, and admire with veneration what I am unable to understand."

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Review written by Joseph Mattey of Byte the Book, Book Club in Kentish Town

Review by Tracey Sinclair.

Having been long- established as a fine comic writer and satirist, Brookmyre reinvented himself as a straightforward crime novelist with his last outing, Where the Bodies Are Buried. Here he returns to that book’s central characters, young private investigator Jasmine Sharp and world weary copper Catherine McLeod. Sharp has now inherited her uncle’s business, and finds a simple missing persons case spiralling into a dark tale of long-buried violence that reaches into the upper echelons of Scottish society, while McLeod struggles to solve a high profile shooting that may or may not be related to Sharp’s case.

While Brookmyre remains a fine prose stylist and draws his characters very well (both Sharp and McLeod are realistic and likeable creations), the first half of the book suffers from his fondness for overly ‘tricksy’ narratives; the same blurring of timelines that made the first Sharp outing occasionally frustrating has a similar effect here, and the plot is further hampered by what feels like a lot of unnecessary background.

The second half of the book picks up the pace as the story starts to properly kick in: the welcome return of the enigmatic Glen Fallen, the reformed gangster with ties to Jasmine’s late mother, adds a nice sense of menace to the proceedings, and the mystery finally starts to grip, as one suspect after another turns out to be innocent and the very nature of the suspected crime comes under question, culminating in a satisfyingly clever twist.

November is National Novel Writing Month, according to NaNoWriMo, an organisation started out in the US in 1999, which encourages people to write 50,000 words in November. That's about 1667 words a day for thirty days.  Given that an average novel is around 80,000 words, that's a good chunk of the way towards a first draft. Also, novellas are becoming more popular these days, especially in light of the digital revolution, and 50,000 words, about 175 printed pages, is pretty much a complete novella.

The advice on the site is not to worry if you don't have a plan for your work beforehand, nor should you worry if you don't really know what you're going to write about; just get going and let the creative juices flow. They tell you not to edit, there's plenty of time to do that in December and beyond. You should just write and not worry about grammar, punctuation or awkward sentences. Finally, they think you should tell people about it because, in week two, when the going is likely to get tough, you're going to need all the support you can get.

I'm ready to give it a go. I like the idea of writing every day, making a ritual of it, and having a clear-cut short-term goal. However, I'm realistic, and I'm busy. So I'm going to try for 667 words a day (20,000 words in a month). The goal is to write, but we can all set the goals that are right for us.

Have you always wanted to give writing to go? Is there a specific book in you that want to write? Or would you simply like to see what happens if you spend a month writing every day? If so, why not sign up on their site, or even do it privately?

And if you are giving it a go, we’d love to be part of your support team. Please get in touch at info@bytethebook.com. We'd be keen to hear how you get on.

This month's sponsors ControlA are keen to help authors with their blogs and social media and are running a one day workshop on Saturday 10th November 2012. Only five places are available and the workshop is designed specifically with authors' needs in mind.

In this specialised workshop, you will discover how to:

• Launch and maintain your blog/website;
• Attract more visiters to your blog/website from Google;
• Build an email list and send email updates;
• Find your prospective readers and promote yourself to them;
• Set up your social media profiles and update them automatically;
• Pinpoint which of your marketing activies are most successful.

The workshop runs from 10am - 5pm, in Highgate Studios, 53-79 Highgate Road, Kentish Town NW5 1TL

Cost of the workshop is £249 but Byte the bookers get £50 off.

Book your place here and use the promotional code : bytethebookclub to pay just £199 for this brilliant and very useful workshop.

Review by Tracey Sinclair

Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of 30 Rock or chortled your way through Mean Girls, (where have you been?!), you most likely recognise Tina Fey from her spot-on impersonation of Sarah Palin during the last US elections. But even if that’s your only experience of her as a performer, Bossypants is still worth a read; it’s a laugh out loud funny look at everything from female body image to working in a male dominated environment to the trials of motherhood and middle class guilt.

In fact, if you’re after showbiz anecdotes, this is the only way Fey will disappoint, as (a piece about meeting Palin aside), the ‘Hollywood’ portion of the book is much more about the trials and tribulations of creating a TV show than water cooler gossip about the stars. What I liked most about the book, though, is that while she might be a mass of typical female insecurities about the rest of her life (a story about failing to confront her nanny about a minor childcare issue since she feels guilty enough about the fact that she has to employ a nanny in the first place will strike a chord with anyone who has ever been scared to complain to their cleaner), there’s no false modesty about her considerable talent here. Fey is not pretending that she rose to such prominence through sheer good luck, and there is a genuine anger in the book at the way that women are both undermined in, and encouraged to compete with one another, in the workplace. (She starts the book by saying she is often asked how she copes with ‘managing all those people’ – rightly pointing out that nobody thinks to ask a male manager that question).

This is a fast read (each chapter is short, although be warned that the Kindle version, frustratingly, shifts all the footnotes to the end, leaving you with a bunch of punchlines long after you’ve forgotten the joke). My only note of caution is that if you read it in public, be prepared to have people wondering what’s making you laugh so much.

Review by Rachel Mann

Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is an evocatively written novel from a virtuosic writer with a huge imagination. It’s also a low-brow, action-hero, read-it-on-an-airplane page-turner.

Shadow, the protagonist, is a man of mysterious origins who is released from a stint in jail to find that his whole world has blown apart. He makes a deal he can’t refuse with the inexorably convincing con-man Wednesday, who turns out to be the Norse god Odin. The premise of the book is that gods of all nationalities and stripes are alive, though not necessarily well, across the USA. The gods were brought to the new world by generations of immigrants who believed in them. Now down-on-their-luck, as people have come to worship the “new gods”—i.e. the lords of high tech: televisions, blackberries, and the internet—these old-world deities have become drifters, prostitutes, and thugs. Shadow finds himself at the apex of a burgeoning crisis, as a war between the old gods and the new threatens.

Gaiman colorfully draws the characters, and writes terrific dialogue. This is an action novel with magic in it, but it is also a folktale for adults. Today, outside of university classics departments, the ancient myths have become entertainment for school children, who devour stories of gods with magical powers. But many of the ancient gods had characteristics and compulsions unfit for young kids.  Though Gaiman is perhaps most known for his fantasy books for children, such as The Graveyard Book and Coraline, I found the adult-only aspects of this novel the most entertaining part. There is something supremely amusing about the gods engaging in bad behavior: imbibing, seducing, and destroying, with divine finesse.

Btw, the novel is being developed into a television series by HBO, which is sure to be exciting (ala “Game of Thrones”). Read it first!