David Dyer's Blog
June 20, 2016
Television!
20 June 2016
Just a quick note:
Those who want to hear me talking about The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian with Virginia Trioli on ABC's News Breakfast can click here: https://twitter.com/BreakfastNews/sta...
And those who want to hear my book discussed on ABC TV's The Book Club can tune in to ABC television tomorrow, Tuesday 21 June, at 10pm. Otherwise, download it afterwards from the show's website:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/
Finally, those interested in hearing about my Titanic travels to Washington, New York, London and Belfast can check out my author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DavidDyerAuthor
Cheers! David
Just a quick note:
Those who want to hear me talking about The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian with Virginia Trioli on ABC's News Breakfast can click here: https://twitter.com/BreakfastNews/sta...
And those who want to hear my book discussed on ABC TV's The Book Club can tune in to ABC television tomorrow, Tuesday 21 June, at 10pm. Otherwise, download it afterwards from the show's website:
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/
Finally, those interested in hearing about my Titanic travels to Washington, New York, London and Belfast can check out my author Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DavidDyerAuthor
Cheers! David
May 6, 2016
I love Agatha Christie
I love Agatha Christie's crime novels, and over the years I have searched markets, bookshops and boot sales to try to make sure I have a complete set. I think I now do, including her plays, short stories and novelizations of her plays (although not including works she wrote as Mary Westmacott). My favourite editions are the small Fontana paperbacks, all of which have the most extraordinary cover artwork. Since about 2000 I have kept a private journal of reviews and comments about books I have read, and by far the most frequent author in that journal is Agatha. So I've decided to transfer some of those reviews and comments to Goodreads. They tend not to be reviews of her more famous works, since I read those way before I started keeping my journal. And, of course, none of my reviews include spoilers. No self-respecting Agatha fan would ever give away her endings...
My next step is to join on of the many Goodreads Agatha Christie reading groups...
My next step is to join on of the many Goodreads Agatha Christie reading groups...
April 23, 2016
Titanic and Shakespeare Anniversaries
23 April 2016: It’s Shakespeare’s birthday, and the 400th anniversary of his death. So, an appropriate day for another entry in my blog…
Happy Birthday (and Deathday) Shakespeare. Thank you for all the pain, joy, suffering, ecstasy, love, hate and every other emotion in the dictionary. If we are to believe Harold Bloom, then you did nothing less than ‘invent the human as we continue to know it.’ I for one sure am grateful. You wrote so much wonderful stuff that it’s impossible to pick favourites, but I do love it when you have Macbeth tells us that ‘life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’! It might seem a bit bleak, but I find it liberating. Whenever I’m getting too stressed or busy, I take a deep breath and say to myself, ‘Don’t worry. Life is a tale told by an idiot.’ We strut and fret, but then the great void comes and we are gone forever. Thank you for that perspective, Shakespeare. Although, having said that, you, of course, live on. Death certainly doesn’t brag that you wander in his shade, because so long as we can breathe, or eyes can see, so long live your words, and they give life to thee!
Speaking of words, my own words have been out and about these past weeks. The Midnight Watch was published in the United States, Canada and The United Kingdom this month, which of course was very exciting. I had a wonderful review in the London Times, and elsewhere, and am looking forward to a review coming out soon in The New York Times Book Review.
Meanwhile, in Australia I have been travelling from town to town, city to city, giving talks in libraries and bookshops, on radio and TV about the Californian, the Titanic, the suffragettes and John Steadman’s drinking habits. There was lots of interest in the lead-up to the anniversary of the Titanic disaster on 14/15 April. My reviews, interviews and comments can be found on my webpage: http://www.daviddyer.com.au/reviews/
You can also see reviews, events and activities surrounding The Midnight Watch on my Facebook author page:
https://www.facebook.com/DavidDyerAut...
I’m now looking forward to the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May, and perhaps some time after that visiting the United States and the United Kingdom. Watch this space!
Happy Birthday (and Deathday) Shakespeare. Thank you for all the pain, joy, suffering, ecstasy, love, hate and every other emotion in the dictionary. If we are to believe Harold Bloom, then you did nothing less than ‘invent the human as we continue to know it.’ I for one sure am grateful. You wrote so much wonderful stuff that it’s impossible to pick favourites, but I do love it when you have Macbeth tells us that ‘life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’! It might seem a bit bleak, but I find it liberating. Whenever I’m getting too stressed or busy, I take a deep breath and say to myself, ‘Don’t worry. Life is a tale told by an idiot.’ We strut and fret, but then the great void comes and we are gone forever. Thank you for that perspective, Shakespeare. Although, having said that, you, of course, live on. Death certainly doesn’t brag that you wander in his shade, because so long as we can breathe, or eyes can see, so long live your words, and they give life to thee!
Speaking of words, my own words have been out and about these past weeks. The Midnight Watch was published in the United States, Canada and The United Kingdom this month, which of course was very exciting. I had a wonderful review in the London Times, and elsewhere, and am looking forward to a review coming out soon in The New York Times Book Review.
Meanwhile, in Australia I have been travelling from town to town, city to city, giving talks in libraries and bookshops, on radio and TV about the Californian, the Titanic, the suffragettes and John Steadman’s drinking habits. There was lots of interest in the lead-up to the anniversary of the Titanic disaster on 14/15 April. My reviews, interviews and comments can be found on my webpage: http://www.daviddyer.com.au/reviews/
You can also see reviews, events and activities surrounding The Midnight Watch on my Facebook author page:
https://www.facebook.com/DavidDyerAut...
I’m now looking forward to the Sydney Writers’ Festival in May, and perhaps some time after that visiting the United States and the United Kingdom. Watch this space!
April 5, 2016
The Midnight Watch and Californian sale today!
Tuesday 5 April
Today is important for two reasons. On this day in 1912, Good Friday, Captain Lord's ship ss Californian departed Woolwich Docks in London on her journey to Boston. She would arrive exactly two weeks later, having encountered something very interesting along the way.
And on this day, The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian goes on sale in the USA and Canada. Very exciting!
The book has already had some great reviews. See:
http://www.daviddyer.com.au/reviews/
Today is important for two reasons. On this day in 1912, Good Friday, Captain Lord's ship ss Californian departed Woolwich Docks in London on her journey to Boston. She would arrive exactly two weeks later, having encountered something very interesting along the way.
And on this day, The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian goes on sale in the USA and Canada. Very exciting!
The book has already had some great reviews. See:
http://www.daviddyer.com.au/reviews/
March 5, 2016
Launch of The Midnight Watch
Saturday 5 March 2015.
What a couple of weeks it’s been! The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian was launched in Australia at the beginning of March, which has been very exciting.
Just prior to its release, I attended the Perth Writers Festival. I had never been to Perth before, so I was looking forward to experiencing the city. Well, it was hot! It was the height of summer, and the dry, desert air drifted in from the east. And the light! It poured onto statues and buildings and pavements in torrents, making them glow and ripple. No wonder Tim Winton, a native of these parts, writes so evocatively about it. But do West Australians, I wondered, ever tire of all this brightness?
In contrast, my first panel discussion at the festival was all about the dark and cold: Winter is Coming! Patrick Gale spoke of the vast, freezing landscapes of the Canadian prairies in the early 20th Century, to which he sends his character Harry Cane in his wonderful novel A Place Called Winter. (‘As for the cold, he had never experienced anything like it: a dry, iron clamp upon the land, like death itself, full of unexpected beauty…’). Katherine Rundell told us about the frozen woods of revolutionary Russia, which she describes so evocatively in The Wolf Wilder (‘Stories can start revolutions!’). And I spoke about the freezing and deathly calm night in mid-Atlantic on which Herbert Stone watched the Titanic sink. (‘The ice seemed to suck everything from the world – the waves, the wind, light warmth – everything.’)
In my second panel discussion, Sara Foster, Garry Disher and I considered the question of how we created suspense and foreboding in our novels. Sara spoke of her hero’s dark and isolating secret in All That is Lost Between Us and Garry made us wonder whether his hero Wyatt would get away with his daring heist in The Heat. I discussed the role of dramatic irony in The Midnight Watch: how frustrating it is that we the reader know what Herbert Stone is looking at – the Titanic sinking – but he doesn’t! When he sees distress rockets, and tells his captain, they both then … do nothing. ‘But why didn’t they go?’ people in the audience asked me. ‘Interesting question!’ I said.
Back in Sydney, The Midnight Watch hit the bookshops on 1 March. I was very excited to see the book, upon which I had worked for so long, finally on the shelves. There were positive early reviews, including generous articles in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and The Australian.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/b...
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/...
I was very grateful for the enthusiastic support of booksellers throughout Australia, and was pleased to learn that iBooks selected The Midnight Watch as one of their Best Books of the Month.
I am speaking more to the media in the coming weeks, and I look forward to the book’s release in North America and the United Kingdom in April. Watch this space …
What a couple of weeks it’s been! The Midnight Watch: A Novel of the Titanic and the Californian was launched in Australia at the beginning of March, which has been very exciting.
Just prior to its release, I attended the Perth Writers Festival. I had never been to Perth before, so I was looking forward to experiencing the city. Well, it was hot! It was the height of summer, and the dry, desert air drifted in from the east. And the light! It poured onto statues and buildings and pavements in torrents, making them glow and ripple. No wonder Tim Winton, a native of these parts, writes so evocatively about it. But do West Australians, I wondered, ever tire of all this brightness?
In contrast, my first panel discussion at the festival was all about the dark and cold: Winter is Coming! Patrick Gale spoke of the vast, freezing landscapes of the Canadian prairies in the early 20th Century, to which he sends his character Harry Cane in his wonderful novel A Place Called Winter. (‘As for the cold, he had never experienced anything like it: a dry, iron clamp upon the land, like death itself, full of unexpected beauty…’). Katherine Rundell told us about the frozen woods of revolutionary Russia, which she describes so evocatively in The Wolf Wilder (‘Stories can start revolutions!’). And I spoke about the freezing and deathly calm night in mid-Atlantic on which Herbert Stone watched the Titanic sink. (‘The ice seemed to suck everything from the world – the waves, the wind, light warmth – everything.’)
In my second panel discussion, Sara Foster, Garry Disher and I considered the question of how we created suspense and foreboding in our novels. Sara spoke of her hero’s dark and isolating secret in All That is Lost Between Us and Garry made us wonder whether his hero Wyatt would get away with his daring heist in The Heat. I discussed the role of dramatic irony in The Midnight Watch: how frustrating it is that we the reader know what Herbert Stone is looking at – the Titanic sinking – but he doesn’t! When he sees distress rockets, and tells his captain, they both then … do nothing. ‘But why didn’t they go?’ people in the audience asked me. ‘Interesting question!’ I said.
Back in Sydney, The Midnight Watch hit the bookshops on 1 March. I was very excited to see the book, upon which I had worked for so long, finally on the shelves. There were positive early reviews, including generous articles in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and The Australian.
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/b...
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/...
I was very grateful for the enthusiastic support of booksellers throughout Australia, and was pleased to learn that iBooks selected The Midnight Watch as one of their Best Books of the Month.
I am speaking more to the media in the coming weeks, and I look forward to the book’s release in North America and the United Kingdom in April. Watch this space …
