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Book Promo for N & H and Roadrage

23/6/2015

A long-lost but recently rediscovered second cousin of mine living in Cardiff, who is an accomplished graphic designer/illustrator, kindly emailed me a few weeks back to say that he thought I had some work to do on my website. “It’s all about branding!” he advised. I took his advice, scratched my head for a bit and set to work. I haven’t been in communication with aforementioned cousin since putting these website changes into place and hope he finds them an improvement. I certainly think the site looks a good deal better for a make-over and brush-up. I’ll let those who visit it be the judge of that!

Having reworked my website I thought I ought to do a book promotion to get the whole thing nicely launched. That is why for the next week, starting on Wednesday 24 June at 8 am British time and at 8 am PST for US readers, both Niedermayer & Hart and Roadrage will be available on Kindle Countdown deals.

At Amazon UK Niedermayer & Hart and Roadrage will remain at 99p from 8 am 24 June until 8 am 30 June when they revert back to their listed price of £1.99.

On Amazon.com Niedermayer & Hart and Roadrage will both start at $0.99 on 24 June at 8 am, and increase to $1.99 on 27 June before finally reverting back to their list prices on 30 June of $2.99.

This is almost certainly the last time these books will be available on a countdown deal as I intend to withdraw them for sale exclusively on Kindle and broaden their sales outlets, which will make them ineligible for this particular promotion. They will, of course, still be available on Kindle but only at the list price!

These people found the books quite by chance:

“I found Niedermayer & Hart through Twitter recommendations and am really glad to have done so. In many ways a classic horror story, the tale incorporates the twists and turns of a contemporary crime thriller and the combination makes for a breathtaking read.” - review left for Niedermayer & Hart on Amazon

“Brilliant, gripping and a real page turner. Couldn't put this book down, so many twists and turns you just have to keep on reading. Downloaded this last year when it was on Countdown Deals, so glad I did. Can thoroughly recommend you will not be disappointed. Will definitely read more from this author.” - review for Roadrage posted on Amazon

Happy reading!

N & H at Amazon.UK

N & H at Amazon.com

Roadrage at Amazon.UK

Roadrage at Amazon.com

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Context

13/6/2015

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Donal Davoren, Shadow of a Gunman by Sean O'Casey, RADA, 1976

I’ve seen a number of theatrical productions recently in which the play’s time period has been studiously ignored. Frankly, I don’t get the reasoning behind this. Is it to make the play more accessible to a modern audience? If so, then I think it’s a pretty flimsy argument. Of course, for many decades we’ve had Shakespearean productions that have taken the play and placed it into an updated time-frame (not necessarily modern day). I recall as a teenager seeing a hugely entertaining ‘hippie’ version of As You Like It at the RSC in Stratford directed by Buzz Goodbody which I found quite staggering. I’ve seen countless Shakespearean productions since that weren’t in either Elizabethan or Jacobean dress and haven’t been bothered by it at all. It makes very little difference whether Hamlet is performed in its original setting or any other that may take the director’s fancy. The language and references contained in the text are forever reminding us of when the play was written; and whether the Montagues and Capulets battle in the dark alleyways of Verona or amongst the dingy tenements of Brooklyn it makes very little difference, just so long as we get a sense of the play’s context.

However, when I see a production of a more recent play, specific period seems far more significant. For instance, I recently saw the highly-acclaimed production of View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller. It was a well-acted production, presented to us in a style and setting reminiscent of Greek tragedy; the clothes were modern however, and for me, ignoring the play’s setting seemed to be going against what Miller was saying. The play is set in a tenement house in Brooklyn in the 1950s where Eddie Carbone, his wife Beatrice and her daughter Catherine live. Eddie is a longshoreman and a great deal has been written about the corrupt unions and use of cheap illegal immigrant labour. For me (and for everyone currently living), this is a modern period, everyone must know someone alive at that time which immediately connects them to that time-frame. I must say I begin to wonder where I am when Sicilian peasants come on stage in modern dress, talk in perfect American accents (although they have just arrived illegally) and speak of the terrible poverty they have escaped from back home. This is not a context that helps me understand the play or makes it more accessible; as far as I’m concerned it’s just pointless and confusing. Likewise when Eddie Carbone tells his adopted daughter that her dress is too short, I guess Miller had in mind something just above the knee, but in this production the line had a whole different connotation because Catherine appeared on stage wearing something resembling a ra-ra skirt.

Similarly, I also recently saw a modern dress production of A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. This play is set in the late 1940s in New Orleans’ French Quarter, and without its sense of time and place the characters lose their significance. Stanley Kowalski becomes nothing more than a mindless thug unless we understand his thin skin about being the son of dirt-poor Polish immigrants to America. When Stella, a sympathetic character, tells Stanley that Blanche’s late husband was ‘a deviant’ - meaning he was simply ‘gay’ - it seems totally implausible coming from the mouth of a young woman in modern clothing. Likewise, the personality of Blanche DuBois seems totally anachronistic within a modern setting - and it begins to feel like the DuBois family home in Laurel, Mississippi must be a planet in a galaxy, far-far-away.

I could go on! Why was Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, a play written in the Edwardian era, recently staged at the National Theatre in modern dress? I’m sorry, but I find it hard to believe the characters’ shock and horror at a young woman’s pregnancy when their maid (maid?) is walking around in a pair of jeans!

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed all these productions, but I honestly believe I would have enjoyed them even more had they done the ‘boring’ thing and simply been true to the play’s period. The two most affecting pieces of live theatre I’ve seen in recent years were Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen and The Crucible by Arthur Miller - both these productions were presented within their correct time-frame and I came away from the auditorium after seeing them emotionally wrung-out. I’ve heard a couple of directors recently comment that younger audiences wouldn’t find older plays relevant unless they had been reinvented in a contemporary setting. I honestly believe that they are in danger of underestimating the intelligence of young theatre-goers.

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Brainy Stuff!

7/6/2015

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I’ve recently read The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, which is about the cutting-edge science of ‘neuroplasticity’ and the ability of the brain to rewire itself. I’m not a natural target for books on science subjects - there isn’t a shelf of books anywhere in my house labelled ‘brain books’! So far, I’ve always been (and probably always will be!) an eclectic reader; for instance, I’ve now finished with brains and moved on ( yee hah!) to The Giant Book of the Western. I suppose I’ll read anything that satisfies my current mood and fulfills its own remit ie I wouldn’t expect a Jo Nesbo crime thriller to be a meditation on the human being’s place in the universe - I’d re-read Hermann Hesse if I fancied a bit of that.

I actually came across this book after my ninety-one year old mother-in-law read it in a couple of sittings and described it as ‘fascinating’. It was given her to read by my wife Judith who found it in a charity shop and seems to possess an unerring eye for choosing the right book for the right person. I often go to her when nothing on my TBR pile appeals and I’m not sure which book to pick up next. It’s a bit like consulting a ‘book oracle’; believe me the woman has uncanny powers when it comes to books and I never doubt her infallibility to cast her eye into her crystal ball, tea leaves, entrails or whatever - “What is it you seek, O gentle reader?”- and then select the right book (please don’t tell her I mentioned she has strange arcane powers - I’ve always worried about being turned into a frog).

Anyway, The Brain That Changes Itself is a psychology/science book that is easily approached by any layman like myself. It is written in bite-sized segments and I certainly found it an enjoyable and fascinating read. The basic premise of the book is that the brain is ‘plastic’ rather than (as scientists believed for many generations) irrevocably hard-wired. Doidge presents us with a number of jaw-dropping case histories to back up his theories and the book has quite a large ‘wow’ factor. I read with great fascination how an academic after suffering a most devastating stroke which destoyed a large part of his brain, leaving him with very little speech and partly paralysed, was able to make a complete recovery by ‘rewiring’ his brain, literally by-passing the damaged part. Or how the girl born with only a right hemisphere to her brain had been able to seemingly do the impossible and operate fairly normally.

These are inspiring stories, yet I can’t help feeling there’s something missing here. I’m not accusing Norman Doidge MD of being a snake-oil salesman, however, this book often reminded me of one of those best-selling self-help books that has you cheering but ultimately leaves you feeling a little unconvinced and dissatisfied. Just like the writers of self-help books are apt to do, the author here relies mostly on individual case-histories and he gives very few scientifically backed up facts or statistics. The section on psychoanalysis again makes the kinds of leaps and jumps that might be acceptable in a pacy thriller but I kept asking myself ‘Hang on just a minute there! Just because Mr X lost his mum at the age of three and has always had problems showing his wife affection, this all seems a little bit too much like a tit-bit style magazine when a psychiatrist comes along and puts two and two together, after which the patient has a few significant dreams and in the final scene Mr X goes off happily restored, a devoted family man again.’

In the early part of the book a number of neuroplasticity experiments are dispassionately quoted, and I have to say, when monkeys had nerves in their hands or arms severed and probes inserted into their brains, or kittens were deliberately blinded by sewing up an eyelid, I did feel a little queasy. I found the section on addiction, particularly the part on sex addiction, sado-masochism etc really quite shocking too. However, I’m not entirely sure whether the startling conclusions the author comes to in support of neuroplasticity are always quite as clear-cut as the author would have me believe. I think what I’m saying (as someone who is a completely non-scientific person) that I’m really not certain this book is good science. The Brain That Changes Itself is an enjoyable read and I’m sure there is much more to learn about neuroplasticity, but I’m not sure I can fully endorse all the claims put forward in this book.

I’m currently really enjoying my book of Western short stories (personally recommended by the ‘book oracle’). And as for brains, Steve Martin’s The Man with Two Brains literally made me fall off the sofa laughing when I first watched it on TV!

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Book Promo for N & H and Roadrage

Context

Brainy Stuff!

M J Johnson

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