Ich bin ein ExBerliner

...as Kennedy is probably saying now.

The Berlin magazine ExBerliner has published a review of my book and an interview in this month's edition. If you haven't had enough of me already, please go click here.

I am also off to Berlin later this month (28 May) to give a reading at Kaffee Burger at 9.00pm. Do come along. I'll be the lanky bloke at the front with a book on his lap.

If you can't bring your tired finger to click on the magazine itself, here are a few tit-bits.

"This is the ultimate introduction: perceptive, comprehensive, and so evocative of the decadence and decay that marked turn-of-the-century Vienna that the streets and cafés seem to etch-a-sketch themselves onto the pages, a kind of literary biopic."

"Lewis Crofts brilliantly explores Schiele's fascination with female forms, starting with that of his sister, and their metamorphosis into symbols of patrician sanctimony. These sections of the novel are mesmerizing and come close to echoing the morbidity of writers such as Joseph Roth."

Out into the Ether

An extract from Chapter 5 of The Pornographer of Vienna has just been published in a special fiction edition of the Viennese magazine Ether.

It is well-worth reading. There's not a single Sudoku in sight.

Six Random Things

I've been tagged (in the internet sense, not in the playground sense) by PD Smith, author of Doomsday Men. It's a game doubtless meant to perpetuate clicks, surfing, blogs and other mouse-operated madness.

It involves saying 6 random things about yourself. For me, these are:
1. I have a fetish for cotton-wool buds
2. I can't say the words 'celebrity' or 'laboratory' without stuttering
3. I dress up as Darth Vader at weekends.
4. My second toe is longer than my big toe.
5. I am colour-blind but still a snooker-addict.
6. Poor punctuation should carry the death sentence.

Otherwise, the rules are as follows:

a. Link to the person who tagged you.
b. Post the rules on your blog.
c. Write six random things about yourself.
d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.
f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up

The six people I’m tagging are:

Gavin Plumley
Claire Wigfall
Uncool
Sylvia Petter
Dolly Mopp
Phil Schoenfelt