My book turns up in Western Australia

18th August 2021 | Books | 0 comments

A reader has sent me a photo of my new book on his garden table in rural Western Australia (see photo).

It’s astonishing to me to think of this book, a copy of which I have photographed on my own garden table, flying to the other side of the world to start a conversation with someone new. For a long time, the words lived inside my head and were gradually transferred to my computer, where I was the only person who looked at them and worked on them.

As the words settled into some kind of permanent shape, I did start to imagine other people reading them, but those imaginary readers were somehow ‘in the cloud’, bobbing about weightlessly like Renaissance cherubs; I didn’t visualise them in actual locations. So to see that the book (or, I should say, a copy of the book) has travelled, independently of me, all the way to the hills of Western Australia is startling and extremely pleasing.

 

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Keyboards for smaller hands

Keyboards for smaller hands

Last night I appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, discussing my latest book with broadcaster Kate Molleson (see...

read more
FT Best Summer Books of 2024

FT Best Summer Books of 2024

My book on women pianists has been chosen by the Financial Times as one of their Best Summer Books of 2024. Music critic Richard...

read more