A couple of interesting snippets today. Wondering around Waterstone's I noticed Stephen King's Under the Dome is out in paperback, and for a limited time with a number of different covers available. Each shows a different individual looking out from a rural scene, presumably at the (invisible) dome.
The covers - some of which are below - beautifully capture the mixture of awe, puzzlement, concern and ultimately fear that the residents of Chester's Mill experience when the Dome mysteriously falls over their town cutting them off from the rest of the world.
So hats off to the marketing folk at publisher Hodder for a great initiative. In earlier days I would have bought the lot on put them on the shelves as collectors' items. In earlier days, however I didn't have to answer for the number of books I brought into the house, and as current inventory is now reaching crisis point in terms of storage space, I suspect I'd have been slapped sharply about the head if I presented four new mammoth paperbacks, none of which I would have had any intention of reading, and rightly so.
Speaking of earlier days, I have recaptured something of my 13-year-old self in recent months and am enjoying Stephen King once again and probably really appreciating his genius for the first time. At present I have Duma Key audio on the iPod, as upsetting a book as I have come across in some time, and I am considering putting The Stand, which I have not read for about 20 years, on my holiday reading list for later this month.
Sometime in the next week or so I intend to write about his work here, but in the meantime, if you haven't read Under the Dome, do so. It's absolutely brilliant.
The dramatisation of Jackson Brodie
Tremendous news from Tvland where an adaptation of Kate Atkinson's wonderful "crime fiction" novel Case Histories is in the works.
It wasn't until I read that Jason Isaacs had been cast as Brodie that I realised that I hadn't ever really visualized Brodie when reading these books, but more perhaps viewed him as a sort of ethereal, narrative presence (particularly in the latter two books, One Good Turn and When Will There be Good News?)
Now I find myself visualising Brodie for the first time and cannot quite make the mental leap to the chiselled and handsome features of Isaacs, but keep getting caught up somewhere in Ken Stott's shambling Rebus. Isaacs is a fine actor, however, and I'm sure he will be first rate as Brodie. I hope the BBC doesn't stop at Case Histories, as the series improves with every book and When Will There be Good News? is utterly mesmeric.
It's good news all round on the Kate Atkinson front as the fourth Jackson Brodie novel, Started Early, Took My Dog is published later this month.
