We would like to offer our warmest congratulations to Denmark for their victory in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. And what better way for Emmelie de Forest to unwind after all the commotion than to curl up with the Danish edition of This is Life? Published by our friends at Tiderne Skifter, it’s out under the title Dette er Livet.
Poor Bonnie Tyler though. Here she is in happier times:
Happy reading.
The paperback of This is Life is officially released today. A couple of reviews are already in: “Rhodes’ most accessible novel yet,” says the Sunday Herald, ”it is wholly charming.” And why not spoil yourself and read this review from The Independent? Glorious work.
And here’s a story from Rhodes’ other new book, Marry Me, being read in a pub by comedy’s Josie Long:
Loads more clips of leading celebrities reading stories from Marry Me can be found here.
In other news, we are delighted to announce the end of a battle that has been raging for longer than the Second World War (seriously – it went on for seven years). Rhodes’ former French publishers, Editions Stock, have finally taken enough time out from eating horses and force-feeding geese to put a few copies of their translation of The Little White Car into un sac jiffois and send them to the person who went to all the trouble of writing it.
This wretched struggle even made a cameo appearance in This is Life. The book is not a pretty sight – far from it – but at least Rhodes now has a complete set of editions in his trophy cabinet.
Happy reading.
We’re not 100% sure, but we think this month marks the tenth anniversary of the first publication of Rhodes’ widely misunderstood novel Timoleon Vieta Come Home. It’s close enough, anyway. We were going to mark the occasion by writing an interminable fact file on the subject, but instead of boring ourselves, and you, to tears with that, we’ve decided to reduce our retrospective to a brief breakdown of the book’s thunderous impact on popular culture.
First off, here it is being enjoyed by Frankie out of The Saturdays:
And being bought by Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl in Knocked Up:
And best of all, here’s Cate Le Bon singing a song about it:
Rumour has it that Rhodes still isn’t quite sure how the book’s title is pronounced. (Note to aspiring authors: make sure you can pronounce the title of your book.) Readers are invited to say it however they want.
That’s enough of past glories – Rhodes’ latest novel, This is Life, is coming out next week in a handsome mass market paperback edition. Read all about it here. So the Eiffel Tower at the top of the page is relevant again.
And we’ve done a vague Marry Me reviews digest here.
Happy reading.
Have you ever wondered about the darkest recesses of Dan Rhodes’ personal life and finances? Of course you have. Well you’re in luck, because the Marry Me publicity machine is in full flow, and in true celebrity style Rhodes has been drip-feeding intimate details to a hungry press.
First off, he has written one of those Top 10 things for the Guardian. As well as talking candidly about his own marriage, he has also recommended a bunch of marriage-related books for you to read (once you’ve read Marry Me, of course). Unfortunately they cut out his gag about Chandler from Friends circumcising a monkey. We can’t think why.
In a shock development, the Guardian also ran a very nice and very large review of Marry Me last Saturday.
There’s also been a vast and very friendly profile in The Independent in which you can find out more about how Rhodes spends his days, and how he copes with being one of the wealthiest men on the planet. (Incidentally, the bit about him retiring after being on the Granta list is just one of the many myths that has built up around him. He had in fact announced his retirement long before then, only ever intending to write three books before the age of thirty. Obviously that didn’t happen, but it’s no big deal – dramatically quitting and then changing your mind is standard practice in showbiz. Just ask Steps.)
And it’s not just the liberal press that has gone Dan Rhodes crazy – The Telegraph has run a bunch of the stories too. You can try before you buy here.
That’ll do for now. If we were on Twitter we would probably ask you to retweet those links. But we aren’t on Twitter, and we don’t know what ‘retweet’ means, so you’re in the clear.
We’ll leave you with the alternative comedian Stewart “You said ‘egg’” Lee reading a story from the book:
Happy reading.
Three excellent things have happened:
1. Hungary has won the global race to get Marry Me into the shops. Our friends at Athenaeum have published their edition already, under the title Elvehetlek feleségül? (Will You Marry Me?). And very nice it looks too, all in black:
2. The first review of the British edition has come in – and it’s a beauty. The Observer‘s Kate Kellaway is an early contender for our coveted Reviewer of the Year Award. In fact, this might just be the best review of anything ever. Normally we would pull out a quote or two, but this one is such a masterpiece that it seems wrong to chop it to bits. Read it here.
3. Magnificently, Aiden Moffatt has been filmed reading two of the stories from Rhodes’ new book. Here he is with Stick:
And Two:
Aiden’s new record with Bill Wells is brilliant. You can buy it here.
Happy reading
