Entente Cordiale

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.

Dan Rhodes Exposed

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.

Hungary 1, The Rest of the World 0

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

Rhodes Reads

Summary of deleted post:

Rhodes announces an exhausting one-date world tour to mark the publication of his new book, Marry Me. It was at Book Slam at the Clapham Grand on Thursday 7th February, alongside Aiden Moffat, the Dirty Great Love Story people and Tim Key. It went very well.

We recommend the pilot episode of Bakersfield PD. Here it is. Nobody watches it.

The Dan Rhodes 2012 APFU

Summary of deleted post:

Our annual perfunctory festive update (APFU) reveals that our favourite reviews of 2012 are from The Scotsman and The Daily Mail.

We embed our favourite Christmas song: