list.co.uk/books COMIC
COMICS ANTHOLOGY VARIOUS Team Girl Comic #4 (teamgirlcomic.bigcartel.com) ●●●●●
Team Girl Comic is a Glasgow collective of artists and illustrators breathing fresh feminist air into the underground comic scene. A lo-fi zine featuring a pic’n’mix of cartoons and drawings by women of all backgrounds and ages, TGC was set up as a counter attack on the often sexist portrayal of women in comics. Their fourth issue is a collection of
real-life and whimsical stories, featuring recurring characters and themes from previous issues
alongside entirely new work. Founder Gill Hatcher’s character Jesty Pesty embodies their ethos with snippets of life as a female: she worries about getting served at the bar in King Tut’s for the first time and, in another strip, receives an awkward abridged sex education from her dad; but thankfully it steers clear from overly girlish clichés.
As well as ponderings on life and love, there’s Evy Craig’s stunning study of female sins and one girl’s experience of Hurricane Irene. The widely differing styles bundled together is, on occasion, disorienting, but there’s an undeniable charm to this ragtag publication that’s easily carving a unique place for itself as a means for forthright girl comic geeks to make their name in a predominantly male world. (Kirstyn Smith)
ALSO PUBLISHED CRIME BOOKS
Events are listed by date, then city. Submit listings at least 16 days before publication to books@list.co.uk. Listings are compiled by Laura Ennor. ✽✽ Indicates Hitlist entry
Thursday 1 Glasgow FREE Scottish Writers’ Centre presents Margaret Elphinstone, In Process CCA, 350 Sauchiehall Street, 352 4900. 7pm. Elphinstone, author of eight novels including 2009’s The Gathering Night, discusses the craft of writing.
Edinburgh FREE Reading: Allan Massie Waterstone’s West End, 128 Princes Street, 226 2666. 6pm. Author Allan Massie reads from his new novel The Sins of the Father.
✽✽ FREE enLIGHTen Edinburgh, cityofliterature.com/enlighten Every evening 6pm–midnight until Sun 18 Mar. A series of huge light projections adorn buildings in the centre of Edinburgh – a UNESCO-designated World City of Literature, no less – with quotations from some of the city’s great Enlightenment thinkers. To add to the experience, at literary locations around the city, responses to some of this wisdom have been created by the current crop of writers and poets, and are available to download and listen to for an all-round, multi-sensory word feast. See preview, page 48. FREE What’s the Secret? Blackwells, 53–59 South Bridge, 622 8222. 6.30pm. Tessa Ransford, Morelle Smith and Ann Clarke present poems on travel, people and ideas in the lead-up to International Women’s Day. Booking essential. FREE Translating Storytelling Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43–45 High Street, 556 9579. 7.30pm. Free (ticketed). A performance event exploring whether storytelling can cross boundaries of language and culture, with tales from Poland, Russia, Georgia and Scotland.
Friday 2
Glasgow FREE The Magic Carpet Cabaret Tchai-Ovna House of Tea, 42 Otago Lane, 357 4524. 8pm. A night of poetry, songs and stories, with open mic spots. Saturday 3
Renfrew FREE Alex Gray: A Pound of Flesh Waterstone’s, 47 Braehead Shopping Centre, King’s Inch Road, 885 9333. Noon. Alex Gray reads from and signs copies of her latest crime novel.
Sunday 4
Glasgow Words Per Minute The Arches, 253 Argyle Street, 565 1000. 4pm. £5. Monthly spoken word, music, film and performance session run by Glasgow- based writer-performers Kirsty Logan, Helen Sedgwick and Kirstin Innes. Edinburgh FREE When Words Collide The Bongo Club, Moray House, 37 Holyrood Road, 558 7604. 7.30pm. A night of space-themed spoken word from Illicit Ink, with the added draw of free Milky Ways and flying saucers.
Monday 5
Glasgow ✽✽ FREE Alan Warner University of Strathclyde, 26 Richmond Street, 552 4400. 5pm. The author of Morvern Callar (made into a successful film by Lynne Ramsay in 1995) discusses his work, ahead of the publication of The Deadman’s Pedal in May.
As if to show that fiction readers love a good bit of murder and mystery, there’s acres of it about to be scattered around the nation’s book shelves. Doug Johnstone (of this parish and pictured) parks his Hit and Run (Faber) at our door, delivering a tale about a tanked-up journo who accidentally runs a man over, leaving him for dead. The next day he discovers that he’ll be writing up the story for his local paper and, curses, the deceased just so happened to be a big-time crime-lord.
Alex Gray returns with her latest DCI Lorimer case, A Pound of Flesh (Sphere), in which two serial killers appear to be simultaneously stalking the streets of Glasgow. No crime fiction round-up would be complete without something of a Scandic nature, and so here comes Mari Jungstedt with The Dark Angel (Doubleday) in which a party planner is found slain at one of his own events.
If you prefer your crime-reading to be of the ‘true’ nature, then there are a couple of fascinating/tragic tomes upcoming. Billed as the definitive account of the brutal rise and dramatic fall of the most powerful mobster since Al Capone, Gotti (Ebury) was a US bestseller by Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci, two experts on the organised crime game. Perhaps the most sombre publication of the spring will be John Kercher’s Meredith (Hodder) as he speaks out for the first time about the agony of losing his daughter who was murdered in Perugia in 2007. (Brian Donaldson)
EVENTS Books
Edinburgh FREE Alex Gray: A Pound of Flesh Waterstone’s West End, 128 Princes Street, 226 2666. 6pm. See Sat 3. FREE Blackwell Book Quiz Blackwells, 53–59 South Bridge, 622 8201. 6pm. Test your literary credentials in teams of up to five members. Please arrive for 5.45pm. FREE Edinburgh Creative Writers Pulp Fiction, 43 Bread Street, 229 4444. 7pm. Social meet-up for creative writers. Most bring something to read and contributions have ranged from poetry, short stories, children’s stories and flash fiction to excerpts from scripts and novels.
Tuesday 6
Glasgow Love Club The Arches, 253 Argyle Street, 565 1000. 7.30pm. £4. Infamous New York performance artist Markus Makavellian (OK, he’s just too outrageous to be real, it’s actually performance poet Drew Taylor) presents a series of relaxed evenings of spoken word, music, knitting, tea and cake, celebrating a different ‘occasion’ each time. This month, it just happens to be International Unemployment Day.
Wednesday 7
Glasgow Word Play Tron Theatre, 63 Trongate, 552 4267. 8.30pm. £2. Open mic night with acoustic music, poetry and prose. Edinburgh Café Voices Scottish Storytelling Centre, 43–45 High Street, 556 9579. 7pm. £5. A relaxed session of oral storytelling, poetry by memory, music and song. As part of the Goddess series of events marking International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, Strange Theatre’s Rachel Amey presents performance poetry on the theme of female power, and invites others to share their own work.
St Andrews The Ingham Johnstone Project Byre Theatre, Abbey Street, 01334 475000. 7.30pm. £9. Richard Ingham and Brian Johnstone have been mixing up their jazz/poetry concoction since 2007 under various guises including Trio Verso. Tonight they present an evening of noise and verse with performances from the pair, a set from Trio Verso and solos from Colin Steele on trumpet and John Kenny on trombone.
Thursday 8 Glasgow She Settles in the Shields Book Launch Glasgow Women’s Library, Mitchell Library, 15 Berkeley Street, 248 9969. 12.30–3pm. £3 (free). An event organised by the Glasgow Women’s Library to mark the publication of a new collection of stories gathered from women who came to Scotland as immigrants. Booking essential. Part of International Women’s Day.
Edinburgh FREE Philippa Gregory Paterson’s Land, 37 Holyrood Road, 651 6060. 6pm. Best-selling author Gregory in conversation with the Scotsman theatre critic Joyce McMillan. Part of International Women’s Day. FREE Ian Garden: The Third Reich’s Celluloid War Blackwells, 53–59 South Bridge, 622 8222. 6.30pm. Garden introduces his new book on the use of propaganda films in Nazi Germany, with a screening of scenes from Ohm Kruger, apparently ‘the most anti-British film ever produced’.
1–29 Mar 2012 THE LIST 47