I'm doing a reading at Gay's the Word bookshop in London on Thursday November 13 for the new book, Dolly Dingle Lesbian Landlady, and a salon-thing at King's College the next week, but both events are just an excuse for a vacation. I don't travel enough, and the list of places I have never been is very long.

Naturally I'm getting in the mood with books, although my current choice, the Patrick Melrose novels, is rather putting me off English people altogether. I'm hoping the Melroses are the 1% and I won't run into any. I liked Never Mind a lot, but the next in the cycle, Bad News, feels like it's embracing its character's snobbishness rather than critiquing it. I'm also in the middle of Ghost Map, which is disgusting in a good way. I love sewage stories. It makes me want to reread Our Mutual Friend or Midnight Is A Place but I should save my time for new books.

Next up is Hangover Square which has been recommended to me by my noir friends multiple times over the years with the magic words, "better than the movie." And I liked the movie. I could also finish reading Mrs. Dalloway and City of Dreadful Delight and I could take another bash at White Teeth. I've got a whole five days before I leave!