Coronation Street weekly update, September 24 2012

I've been writing Coronation Street weekly updates since 1995 and this week's Coronation Street update has just gone live here

This week in Corrie, Wendy Crozier returned.

Royalty review

My brother's involved in the local Am Dram theatre and this week I went along to see him in a play that's currently on there.

As the Entertainments Editor of our local newspaper couldn't get there to review it, my review took centre stage in tonight's Sunderland Echo. 

You can read it online here if you'd like.

Books I read on my holidays 2012

Got through a load of books on my holidays in Portugal.  And when I say books, I mean books, with pages and covers - not those Kindle things.

Stan Barstow - A Kind of Loving
While I'd been aware of, and had seen the cult film, I had no idea this was a novel and first in a trilogy too. Shame on me. It's been reissued as it's been over 50 years since the novel was first released and while some of the language seems dated, of course, the story of working-class boy meets girl in the 1950s remains as strong as ever.  Highly recommended. 10/10.

Jonathan Harvey - All She Wants
The debut novel of one of my favourite Coronation Street writers.  It was good, funny, and had me laughing out loud, which is always good in a comedy book.  A good one. 8/10.
 

Pauline Black - Black by Design (autobiography)
Singer with The Selecter and one of the strong females in bands I grew up watching on telly and admiring.  Not only is the book Pauline's autiobiography so there's plenty of muso-gossip in it, it's also about her search to find out who she was after being adopted by a white family. This book is fantastic. Read it.  10/10.

Joanne Harris - blueeyedboy
I'd never read any Joanne Harris books before and on the strength of this one, I won't be reading any more. Over long, padded, it could have done with a lot of editing. The blurb on the front of the book said it was "terrifying" (it wasn't) and had a "major twist in the tale" (it didn't). Disappointing - and the only novel I left in our hotel room when we checked out. 6.5/10

Penny Hancock - Tideline
Now this, this, was brilliant. A debut novel from a writer whose work I'll look forward to reading again. A sinister tale about an older woman and a younger man, told very well indeed. 10/10.

Jonas Jonasson - The One Hundred Year Old Man who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared
An odd book this one and to be fair, it wasn't one of the books I picked myself to read on holiday but I'd read all of mine, listed above, and had to start reading my husband's books.  The book started off very well, it was a bit of a romp and it was easy to picture the film of the novel being played out in front of your eyes as you read it. It made me giggle a lot. But then the flashbacks to the character's old life started and that's when I started to lose interest in the book. So I skipped over the flashback chapters but then lost interest about three-quarters of the way through the book. So I'd give it 10/10 for the way it started, 7/10 for the book with the flashback chapters included.

Shaun Ryder - Twisting my Melon (autobiography)
All the sex and drugs and rock and roll you could possibly want - and more - from the lead singer of the Happy Mondays. A brilliant read, written for Shaun by a ghost writer who captured Shaun's voice and tone brilliantly. Fab. 10/10

Richard Milward - Kimberley's Capital Punishment
From the Bard of Boro (that's Middlesbrough), his third novel and one I wholeheartedly recommend.  Naughty, awful, wonderful Kimberley.  9/10.