PETROL HEAD ON MONKEYBICYCLE

Ace news this week; one of my short stories ‘Petrol Head’ has been accepted by the Seattle literary journal MonkeyBicycle.
I’ve been looking for a home for this one for a few months now so I’m really pleased it’s found one. Very happy and it’s a great journal - you should definitely check out the other work on there.

http://www.monkeybicycle.net/archive/Huxham/petrol.html

Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Take ‘The Notebook’, add ‘Forest Gump’ and a few sprinkles of ‘Big Fish’ and then mesh it together with bits of ‘Highlander’ (but not the cool bits) and you’ve got ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’.
This is not a good combination people.

Reading List 2010

How the Dead Live - Will Self (Exhausting and meandering. I look back on reading this as a dark time in my life)

American Gods - Neil Gaiman (Some bits worked, some I'm  not so sold on)

Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi (Fascinating)

Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk (Funny)

The Road - Cormac McCarthy (Bleak...so bleak...)

The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters (Subtle)

Love in the Time of Cholera (Yawn. I know that's some kind of literary sacrilege)

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy (Bloody brilliant! and bleak....so bleak...)

Virtual Light - William Gibson (Sci-fi does po-mo)

Ladder of Years - Anne Tyler (A recommendation from someone at work)

Labyrinth - Kate Mosse (Not my thing at all)

Haunted - Chuck Palahniuk (I love you!)

The Unconsoled - Kazio Ishiguru (I actually only managed 150 pages - epic fail)

The Gunslinger - Stephen King (Quite enjoyed this)

Complicity - Iain Banks (So promising but silly ending)

The Drawing of the Three (The saga continues)

Heart Shaped Box - Joe Hill (Might be Stephen King's son but this was bloody awful)

Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger (Interesting ideas, clumsy writing, could do better?)

Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInerney (It's Bret before Bret, but a bit more happy)

Imperial Bedrooms - Bret Easton Ellis (A signed first edition helped things along. Nihilism, snuff, drugs and fisting)

The Beach - Alex Garland (Went down like ice cream but ultimately unsatisfying)

Outer Dark - Cormac McCarthy (Incest, lynchings, infanticide and cannibalism. Nice!)

Consider Phlebas - Iain M Banks (Really dense prose, packed full of STUFF, bit meandering but liked the ending)

Filth - Irvine Welsh (FILTHY! Shocking - deliberately too shocking? End was a bit, um, odd)

Imperium - Robert Harris (I REALLY ENJOYED THIS! Probably because it's about the Roman Republic mind)

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel (Thomas Cromwell is turned into a hero, of sorts. He has a pet dog called Bella. Thomas More comes across as a bit dishevelled  Off with his head!)

Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood (Didn't enjoy this as much as I usually do all her work)

On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan (YAWN)

The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (Quite fun and slating)

Room - Emma Donoghue (In 2 minds about this one. It's quite engaging and lively, although it does go on too long. But on the other hand it's part of that genre of misery lit like "I Lived Under the Sink for 30 Years" or "Betrayed Angel" - you know the ones)

The Stand - Stephen King (An oldy but a goodie)

Let the Right One In - John Lindqvist (Pretty well written and a good translation but I got bored)