Smell the coffee and stick your nose in a book
OK, if you drink coffee you read books. Costa coffee think so otherwise they wouldn’t be bothered to run a poll of Britain’s’ favourite authors” with Enid Blyton coming top of the pile. What market can they be aiming at? I thought you’d get arrested for reading Noddy while sipping a latte.
Still, Irish authors figure, just about:
11. C.S. Lewis (OK, more Magdalen College Oxford than Dundela Avenue Belfast, despite the tourist hype but what about Norn Irn as Narnia?
18. Maeve Binchy
Are we downhearted?
But stay! Costa AWARDS( a different thing altogether) are better known by their old name, the Whitbreads ( aaahh now he tells us)… The Irish interest in the awards has always been pretty strong. eg
2003 First novel Vernon Little, DBC Pierre ( don’t all rush)
1998 Best children’s book Skellig, David Almond ( at least there’s the name:check this out for a review)
Heaney, best poetry
1996 The Spirit Level
1987 The Haw Lantern
1994 Book of the Year Felicia’s Journey, William Trevor
I could have sworn Seamus Deane’s magical yet Lecky Road-rooted first novel Reading in the Dark had actually won the Whitbread but it was only ( only!) shortlisted and also for the Booker. But winning lots of others!
“The new Costa Book Awards survey has found children’s author Enid Blyton to be top of the list in a poll of the nation’s most cherished and best-loved writers.”
Shome mishtake shurely? Current best seller lists would put the delightful Ms. Katie Price aka Jordan in that position. Indeed in a belated attempt to kick-start my own literary career I have recently applied for surgical mammary enhancement on the NHS.
Ah but have you lined up being impregnated by a footballer, sleeping with the Pop Idol/X Factor runner up, and marriage to another failed pop singer Rory. It’s not easy to be Jordan, and you could end up making a tit of yourself.
Hang on a minute, Garibaldy, I am prepared to suffer for my art but shagging Peter André is a bit beyond the call of duty.
It certainly is. Maybe Ronan Keating could be persuaded. He seems like a nice boy.
Enid Blyton was a bigoted old hag. Her “Famous Five” books are full of stereotypical references to dodgy and very smelly gypsies and foreigners. And she appears to have had a weird obsession with transexuality.