Chester Literature Festival : Then and Now

Today two books came from Serpent's Tail: Padgett Powell's first novel called Edisto which looks like it is going to be highly entertaining, and a book written about the first world war called Fear.  Both these books were first published several decades ago and are republished now for a new audience.

The first world war was the topic of Paul Dowswell's talk for the Literature Festival this year.  Paul produces a book each year, and I am ashamed to admit that he has outpaced my reading of his work.  His new book, Eleven Eleven, was inspired by his learning that the six hour gap between the cease fire and the armistice being signed at the end of the war allowed another few thousand men to die.  Paul looks at this from three young viewpoints: a German, and an English soldier, and an American pilot.  A great idea - which I am looking forward to reading.

Paul's talk was in one of the lunch-time slots.  In the evening I went to a talk by Patrick Gale about his new book A Perfectly Good Man.  It included a couple of chapters from two different viewpoints a 'good' character and a villain, and they both sounded so enticing I wanted to get started immediately.