In this section you can:

• read up on reviews - we have over 1,500 now and are still adding to them
• read extracts of nb recommended books
• see what books have been voted book of the year in the past - a great way to choose a new reading group read!

We will be expanding the features shortly, adding more articles and content for your reading pleasure, so be sure to check in again.

newbooks talks to PC Cast author of The Divine Books

Why do you write?

You mean besides the fact that it’s my job and I need to make my mortgage payment and buy groceries? Okay, besides that, I write because my brain is constantly creating worlds and plots and characters. If I don’t tell stories I get super restless and just don’t feel right. I have to write to feel normal!

Where and when do you read?

I’d read anywhere! And I read as often as I can. Mostly I read at night in bed to shut off my brain. A good book (someone else’s) is one of the only ways I can shut off the noise of my own characters.

Which author did you most want to be when you were younger?

Anne McCaffrey! When I was thirteen I read the first three books in her Pern series, DRAGON FLIGHT, DRAGON QUEST, and THE WHITE DRAGON, and I fell in love with fantasy as a genre. I also realized that a woman could write fantasy AND star in it!

Which book would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?

Wow – that’s so hard! Logically it would be good to take some kind of text on tropical diseases and their homeopathic remedies. Romantically, though, I’d probably take Diana Gabaldon’s OUTLANDER series.

Which book do you wish you had written?

THE SILVER METAL LOVER by the fabulous Tanith Lee.

Do you always finish a book or are there any that you haven't been able to finish (and why)?

Except for the fitful (and terribly written) stops and starts I had before I was published I have never started a book that I didn’t finish. I have done LOTS AND LOTS of rewriting, though…

Which famous author would you most associate your own writing with?

None. I don’t think I sound like anyone else. I’d like to be associated with Ray Bradbury, but that’s just an ex-school teacher’s dream.

Are there any books that have really influenced your latest book?

Books, no. History and research, yes. I tromped all over the Isle of Skye and delved deeply into the oral history of the Scottish Highlands as well as legends of Ireland to create the new mythos for my latest book.

Which is better - writing or reading?

Reading until I’ve written past the halfway point in a manuscript, then writing because the words flow and the story unfolds like I’m watching a movie.

Most embarrassing moment?

This has nothing to do with writing, but I was teaching high school and had come home after the exhausting first day of a new school year. My daughter was about ten years old then. The phone rang and a very nice woman began speaking, “I’m calling to check on how Kristin’s first day of school went. I want to be sure she acclimated well, felt comfortable, and I’d like to ask if you think she needs anything special tomorrow.” I remember saying (in a very frazzled tone), “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I had over one hundred kids come through my classroom today. I can’t possibly remember your daughter so soon, though I’d be happy to call you back in a week or so and we’ll discuss her needs then.” There was a big pause, and then she said, “Um, no, I’m your daughter’s teacher.” Jeesh, I felt like a moron.

What do you know now you wish you'd known when you were a teenager?

To trust my instincts.

What is your unashamed luxury?

Good wine and massages. Oh, and I like having fresh flowers in my house.

What does music mean to you?

I love listening to music. It’s a way of remembrance for me. I associate songs with people and events. It’s like music imprints the same way smells do. I’ll always think of my grandma when I smell baked summer squash and brown sugar, and I’ll always think of my high school classroom when I hear Enya’s songs. (I played music while my students read, wrote, and tested. Enya’s songs were favorites.)

Your current guilty secret?

That I’m hiding in the Caribbean becoming very, very tan while my poor Scottie dogs are freezing back in Tulsa!

Religion or politics? Both have delusions of grandeur and make me a little nauseous.
Licquorice or chewing gum? Licquorice
Cats or dogs? Both
Tea or coffee? Coffee – dark and black
Cinema or theatre? Cinema, though I like the theatre, too.
Bridges or tunnels? Neither! Ugh! Scary!
Porsche or BMW? Neither! My 1969 Shelby Mustang GT!
Paper clips or staples? Staples, I’m an ex-teacher.
TV or radio? Itunes
America or Australia? American, of course! But I do love my fans in Oz.
City flat or rural hideaway? Can’t I have both?
Black or blue? Black
Denim or linen? Denim
Starter or dessert? Starter with a glass of good wine.
Pop or rock? Pop
Rock or classical? Rock

newbooks website interview with Rick Gekoski

 

Your new book is a bibliomemoir, where did this description come from?

I made it up, though I note with chagrin two uses of it prior to mine on the net, both used to describe a memoir about books. I use it to mean something more complicated than that, something about the intersection between reading and being, in which what we read influences who we are, and who we are influences what and how we read. But I don’t wish to give a definition. If you want to know what I mean by a bibliomemoir, read Outside of a Dog.

Your bibliomemoir covers 25 books, were there others that nearly made the cut, that were formative in other ways?

Loads. And the process of selection was unconscious, to a degree. I started with 37 books, and was surprised that some of them failed to make the cut. I had a whole chapter written about Banville’s The Sea, which was the winner when I judged the Man Booker in 2005, but I was never happy with it, and binned it. I don’t know why Conrad didn’t get in, he was very important to me. And Joyce. I suspect I could have gone on and on, but the book that emerged felt right, and you have to honour that even when you don’t know why.

Why do you write?

I don’t know, quite. I have a few things I want to explore, and to say, and I want to say them as accurately and arrestingly as I can. I don’t know if I would describe myself, simply, as “a writer,” though I would like to. But every few years a book seems to happen to me, or in me. The process of getting it out, and right, is difficult, harrowing sometimes, but the only thing worse than doing it is not doing it.

Where and when do you read?

All the time, and anywhere. I read in the bath, and in the street. My books get wet. I walk into lamp posts.

Which book would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island?

I have though about this a lot, and I have no idea. Could I take the Encyclopaedia Britannica please?

What book(s) did you read to your children at bedtime?

Roald Dahl, all of them. I liked them as much as the kids. Dr. Seuss, terrific. The Pooh books. Lots of others I don’t remember. And I made up stories for them as well.

Which book do you wish you had written?

My next one.

Which is better - writing or reading?

Reading is a hell of a lot more fun. Writing – or having written – is more satisfying.

You are a rare book dealer by trade. What book or works have you always wanted to find?

I want desperately to find Et Tu Healy, a broadside poem written by Joyce when he was nine, of which no copy has been located. (See my article about this in Granta 105, and Radio 4 programme in August). Both can be found on my website, www.gekoski.co.uk

Beyond financial considerations, why do you think people derive so much pleasure from old and rare books?

Financial considerations are the least of it. For a real collector, books have a crackle and pop that derives from being the real thing, the first appearance of something significant. When books are inscribed by the author, or corrected by him, when you see an original literary letter or manuscript, it is thrilling – if you are that way inclined. I am.

A good deal more about me – more than you may wish to know – can be found at www.gekoski.co.uk