True writer stuff from A.L. Kennedy: “If you’re in any way like me, it all means that for months your friends have not seen you, or if you’ve been there, you haven’t really been there. If there is anyone you love, you are aware that they have known you only in bursts between something intense which has little to do with them…”

Labyrinths | Online Only | Granta Magazine

Just ran across this for the first time, though it’s been floating around for a month. Was unsure about Oldman as Smiley, but looking at this my worries sort of float away. A beautiful looking film of one of the best novels of the 20th century. Absolutely can’t wait.

(Source: http://c.brightcove.com/)

"You Know..." on sale for 99 cents

At the end of March, I put a long story of mine, ”You Know What’s Going On,” up for sale as an ebook on Amazon. I’ve been pleased to see steady sales of the story, which is one I’m particularly proud of, but though the numbers have been steady, they’ve been pretty low. One or two a day, really.

So I’m going to try a sale, and see what, if anything, happens. The story was originally selling for $2.99, which to me seems fair for the length and quality of the story, as well as the months of work I put into it, but in the cut-rate world of Kindle fiction it’s probably a little high.

A 99-cent sale, then.

As linked to earlier, a video of me talking up The Nearest Exit, or Last Exit, to my German audience. Embed code thanks to YouTube. Fatigued expression thanks to my daughter…

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean…

Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds - NYTimes

Back on April 22, 2011. Music Video by Molnár Szilvia Beautiful job editing, making it look as if I actually had fans showing up for signatures. In fact, only one appeared, a lovely young lady who chatted a moment about what she liked in the books. The people you see actually getting things signed are friends of mine!

Olen on Hungarian TV--Könyvajánló extra

A couple weeks ago, Simon & Schuster asked if I’d like to read/review Jeffery Deaver’s new Bond novel for Amazon, and I said, “Well, gosh, of course.” You can read my happy take on the book here. I would’ve mentioned it earlier, but Fleming Publications keeps a tight lid on anything Bond-related, sort of like MI6 or, say, Apple. Had I mentioned anything before now

My take on Carte Blanche

My German publisher, Heyne, asked me to shoot a quick video of myself discussing The Nearest Exit (or, in German, Last Exit) for Amazon. A nice idea, so a few months ago I sat in a corner of my bedroom in Budapest and rattled on, while in the background my daughter watches something on television. Enjoy…

Explaining "Last Exit"

Excellent piece by one of my grad school profs on the French scandal and the nature of a certain kind of male aggression.

DSK and France, 10 Days after Check-Out

Done, and done

I’ve just emailed the final version of the next book, “An American Spy,” to my editor and agent. As I mentioned before, this one has taken over a year and a half to write, and the feeling of letting it go is bittersweet. On the one hand, I’m thrilled to get this monster off my back, but on the other there’s that authorial itch that tells you it’s still full of errors that—with just a couple more days—can be made right. But that’s why they make copyeditors, first-pass pages, and page proofs. So I’ll get to those later.

For those of you who know the trilogy, beginning with “The Tourist” and continuing through “The Nearest Exit,” I’ll verify here that it’s still a trilogy—“An American Spy” marks the conclusion to the story. As is my tendency, however, the ending is very much open-ended, and sometime in the future I may return to the story of Milo and Tina Weaver, their daughter Stephanie, and their various co-characters. Not yet, though. I’ve spent nearly five years with them, and it’s time to make some new friends.