Susie Dent of Countdown's "Dictionary Corner" is coming to Folkestone as part of Folkestone Literary Festival 2008. At least I hope it's the same Susie Dent. We watch Countdown every day on 40D1, so this will be nice.
She has a regular publication called The Language Report2, plus really [abe=susie dent]squillions of other books[/abe]. Would it be bad form for me to pick up [abe=susie dent]some bargains from ABE[/abe] and take them to get signed, rather than paying the full Waterstones RRP on the day? A signed Susie Dent is not going to instantly quintuple it's money like [abe=nation terry pratchett signed]last week's Terry Pratchett did[/abe] but they're nice to have anyway.
I've still not actually read the [abe]Roy Hattersley[/abe] or [abe]Terry Jones[/abe] books that I picked up last year, however I have nearly finished The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House3 (my impulse buy from our last trip to [abe]Canterbury[/abe], even cheaper now on Amazon4, or there's a signed first edition5 for 45). I'm only a few pages away from also by the [abe=Kate Summerscale]the same author[/abe], but I think there is still more to be revealed... It's been an interesting sort of book, an in depth study of a big important murder case that inspired the likes of [abe]Wilkie Collins[/abe], [abe]Charles Dickens[/abe] and [abe]Sir Arthur Conan Doyle[/abe]. It's a bit dry in places, and occasionally it feels like things were revealed in the wrong order - it is not a novel - but I'm sure things will come good. It won the BBC4 Samuel Johnson prize you know.
Paul Clarke's weblog - I live in Hythe in the deep South. Wed + father to 2, I am a full-stack web developr, + I do js / Node, some ruby, other languages ect ect. I like pubs, running, eating, home automation + other diy jiggery-pokery, history, family tree stuff, Television, squirrels, pirates, lego, and TIME TRAVEL.