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.

The Dan Rhodes 2012 APFU

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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:

Il Bello Della Vita

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Italy’s Newton Compton publish the first translation of This is Life. It’s an excellent hardback.

We find a photograph of what we believe to be Rhodes cradling his rumoured newborn son, Edward Ivor.

Here is our nomination for the actor to play the part of Makoto Kobayashi in an adaptation of This is Life:

That’s one mean-looking cat in a Viking helmet. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, read the book and it’ll all make sense (n.b. this photograph octupled traffic to this site).

Rhodes recommends the Hard Case Crime library.

We announce that the makers of West Heath Yard – Rhodes’ favourite TV show – have finally put it back online, and we embed the first part:

Very few people watch it. The human race prefers cats in hats to wonderfully shambolic sitcoms.

Marry Me

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In news that comes as a hammer blow to all the people who have worked so hard to try to drive him out of print, we reveal that Dan Rhodes will have yet another book out early next year.

And here is a copy of This is Life that has been smuggled into the US and is being enjoyed by a big dog in Cleveland, Ohio. Hello Cleveland.

Dan Rhodes makes it big.

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A large print edition of This is Life appears. Here it is, alongside the normal edition (itself something of a monolith):

And here’s a video of Laura Nyro singing Poverty Train at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967: