ALICIA'S GIFT...

... is now available to pre-order from Amazon.co.uk. Treat the blurb there with a little caution - Ali is only three (not four) when the story begins, and the plot traces her development from talented child to young woman and professional musician by way of some distinctly thorny relations with those close to her - most notably, her complex and repressed mother, Kate, who perhaps loves her not wisely but too well...

A lot has gone into this book. I was never a child prodigy, but I've experienced that pressure to some degree, the Russian scales, the need to please, the weight of expectation, the conflicts over schooling, the magic of making music at intense and overwhelming summer courses, the longing for a mentor, the loneliness until you finally meet your soulmates... The book represents, simultaneously, none of my own experiences and all of them.

The hardback will be out from Hodder & Stoughton on 8 March and the paperback sometime in the summer. A Dutch edition is also to be published by De Kern in the Netherlands in due course and we're keeping fingers crossed for sales of rights to publishers in Germany, Denmark and the States, among others.....

Google searches #2056

Some more of those wonderful Google searches that have produced hits on my blog, and what answers I can give:

DO YOU HAVE FULL LIPS - home cooking makes a difference.

GEORGE ENESCU DENTIST - A new career for Romania's finest violinist, composer and pianist, mentor to Menuhin, icon to generations? gosh.

JENUFA OCTOBER 20 WHAT HAPPENED - The Kostelnica murders the illegitimate baby in small-town Czechoslovakia. Jenufa has to marry the boy who loves her instead of the boy she loves, even though he'd slashed her cheek with a knife in Act I, and hope is finally restored. It's not a bundle of laughs, but it's still one of the great operas of the 20th century. If they changed the story, I'd like to know.

Literary prizes?

We can dream. Reality is different. This excellent piece tells it like it is. Also shows how daft publishers can be - how could anyone, let alone 30 of them, have turned down something as utterly brilliant as Lionel Shriver's WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN? Serves them right - she's sold 400,000 copies now.

UPDATE: 12 AUGUST 2008 - If you've landed here from Guardian Unlimited Books, click here to go to my most recent post.

Don't miss this

The Guardian's website has an audio report about Piers Lane's day of tributes to Dame Myra Hess and her wartime concert series at the National Gallery, held last month. You can listen online and watch a wonderful slide show, or download a podcast.

It was a fabulous day - memorable and moving, with three fantastic concerts, as well as some astonishing films of Hess herself. It left me wondering why the gallery has never bothered to do it before, since these concerts meant so much to so many people and have achieved a status in the minds of music-loving Londoners that's little short of mythical.

I've written it up in more detail for International Piano and will add the piece to my archive once it's out.

Latest

Here's the thing I wrote for the Independent about McCartney and Sting's latest classical efforts. It's been slightly cut, which means there's less of a sting in its tale (sorry, couldn't resist that!!), but the gist of it still comes across OK.