Category Archives: Alexander McCall Smith

Sunday Salon: Web not on publishing radar?

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When I post a book review I usually include a link to the author’s website. Perhaps because I’ve read more books than usual this week or perhaps because I’m seriously involved with web design in my work right now I’ve been struck by how few authors have decent websites.

  • The first review I posted this week was of Alex Barclay’s Blood Runs Cold. Barclay’s website commits one of the cardinal sins of web design by having a slow to-load flash gizmo that you can’t skip through and for your trouble you get three lousy links to PDF extracts of Barclay’s books. Ho hum.
  • My next review led me to Alexander McCall Smith’s website which contains some useful information but would not win any design awards in 2009, especially not from anyone with even a slight vision impairment given that its standard font seems to be about 6 or 8pt.
  • At least those authors have some kind of web branding of their own whereas the only site I could find for Leah Giarratano when I posted a review of Voodoo Doll was a short blurb at her publisher’s site.
  • Finally, yesterday’s review of The Red Dahlia led me to Lynda La Plante’s website and prompted this posting. Why on earth in this day and age would a successful author have a website that hasn’t been updated in nearly three years?

In some ways I guess Giarratano has got it right: if you can’t maintain a website properly then don’t have one at all. That’s certainly a better alternative than La Plante’s outdated site or Barclay’s singularly uninformative one. But the phenomenon of bad author websites got me thinking: why are there so many authors without a decent web presence? Do they, or the publishing industry in general, still believe that if they close their eyes and wish it to be so the Internet will disappear in a puff of smoke? Do they not realise that the old selling models are crumbling in the web 2.0 world and that making the most of social networking and new media will increasingly be the difference between putting food on the table and having to work a second job to pay the bills? Does no one see that today’s consumers want a little more than hundreds of advertisements for the books?

Of course I’m generalising. There are authors with web savvy including the six authors who collectively blog at The Kill Zone and talk about everything but where to buy their books. These are people whose work I will seek out because of their interesting web presence. Irish crime writers also seem to ‘get it’ if Declan Burke’s Crime Always Pays blog and Gerard Brennan’s Crime Scene NI are anything to go by. And new generation thriller writers like Scott Sigler and J C Hutchins are so enmeshed in new media that they don’t even bother with traditional publishers. They blog and podcast and participate fully in a range of online communities and are, undoubtedly, models for the new millennium.

What about your favourite authors? Any of them have a web presence to be proud of?

Review: Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith

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Title: Tears of the Giraffe

Author: Alexander McCall Smith

Publisher: Abacus [this ed 2003, originally ed 2000]

ISBN: 978-0-349-11665-5

I’m a bit behind in this series as this is only the second of what will, this year, be a ten-book collection. This installment begins with Mme Ramotswe and Mr J.L.B. Matekoni confirming their engagement. At the same time Mme Ramotswe is called upon to investigate the disappearance of a young American man some ten years previously and Mr Matekoni is assisting the local orphan farm to maintain its ageing machinery.

If you have read any of these books at all you’ll know exactly what to expect. The individual annecdotes and events might change from book to book but the overall feel of all them is, I suspect, similar. There’s a plethora of homespun philosophy and wry ovservations from Mme Ramotswe although, in this book more than the first, Mr Matekoni’s personality and views on how the world is to be tackled are explored more fully. Both are truly delightful characters: the kind of people you would happily travel to the other side of the world to have a cup of tea with.

McCall Smith was born in what was then Rhodesia and has lived in Africa on and off over his life. His love for, and understanding of, the continent is evident in every word of this book. The cadence of the dialogue, the vivid descriptions of the places and the traits exhibited by the key characters all combine to provide an utterly immersive experience. And, as with the first book, it paints a picture of Africa not often seen: a collection of happy, productive, proud people going about their daily lives with the same struggles, concerns and triumphs that people do the world over.

This book contains a more cohesive several-threaded narrative than the first one which was more a collection of vignettes and I prefer the apporach here. However, the story is still gentle and can drag a little as there’s a sense of inevitability rather than suspense. If you’re looking for a heart-thumping thriller then I suggest you go elsewhere but if you can spare some time to relax and view the world from a different perspective I doubt you’ll be disappointed. For your investment you should get a few laughs, some intelligent food for thought, possibly a tear or two and, I can virtually guarantee this, you’ll feel better when you finish than you did when you started.

My rating 4/5

More stuff

A review on The Armenian Odar Reads (be warned there’s minor spoiler towards the end of the review)