I like reading non-fiction, and writing features and commentary articles.
I've also written a book called How Teenagers Think - a quirky non-fiction book for parents about bringing up teenagers - that has been published. Yip, I'm a bit weird.
Books I love:
The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsorrat
The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara & Allan Pease
Top five authors:
Simon Kernick
Favourite genres:
As with music, I tend to flick between different book genres. However, crime fiction has always been the genre I return to when I want a thrilling read, and I also love non-fiction – particularly popular psychology/sociology books.
I'm currently reading
The Luxe – Anna Godbersen. I’ve just finished reading Spud by John van de Ruit.
What's on my bookshelf:
I have a few different bookshelves scattered round the house. One is for my non-fiction books, which is my biggest collection, and the one I’m most proud of. I have sections for business books (The Beermat Entrepreneur – Mike Southon & Chris West), popular psychology & sociology books (How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie), sailing, crime (Grass – Phil Sparrowhawk), and humour (Yes Man – Danny Wallace).
I also have a fiction bookshelf, ranging from crime (Simon Kernick) to teen fiction (Spud – John van de Ruit) and classics (Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger).
My current location:
I split my time between an undisclosed location in the depths of Surrey (home), Brixton (youth marketing work), and Gosport (sailing).
09.06.2008
A Bulgarian Actor
So, as part of my role as teen editor of Spinebreakers, I manage the account that contributions from readers come into. The other day I received a good selection of poems, a few great short stories, and this photo... It's of Bulgarian actor Malin Marinov. Mr Marinov submitted his photo on the Film Casting page for Kevin Brooks' novel Being. What our friend Malin didn't seem to understand is that Spinebreakers is a website for 13-18 year olds who enjoy reading books, and the Film Casting pages invite teenagers to come up with their own casting ideas (e.g. Billie Piper playing Nancy in Oliver Twist) if that book were ever to be made into a film. We're not a website for 40-year-old handlebar-moustache Bulgarians looking to star in some dodgy country and western film... but it keeps us laughing. So come on, show Malin what Spinebreakers is really for, submit your own awesome film castings for all your favourite books.
27.02.2008Exciting fo'shizzle...
It's all happening over here at Spinebreakers this week! We had our February editorial meeting on Monday, at Penguin's rather impressive HQ at 80 Strand in London. Most of us teen editors managed to make it, along with Gavin & Kate from Livity. We were joined by sooo many Penguin people, loads of their PR dudes who pitched a selection of books to us for our March titles. There were some really exciting things on offer - from the paperback edition of our favourite, Nick Hornby's Slam, to A$$hole, the story of a nice guy who turned himself into an a$$hole after realising only jerks seem to make it big in the world. There's also Bollocks To Alton Towers 2, where the authors visit loads of shitty little attractions round the country and write about their experiences. There's so much scope here to come up with some wicked features for Spinebreakers - one idea we discussed at the meeting was going on our own trip to a rubbish attraction, possibly to do with gnomes, possibly joined by one of the authors themselves... you know what I'm going to say next... watch this space! And want to get involved? Contribute ANYthing you want, and apply to join the crew!
25.10.2007Spinebreakers' Social Network Blitz
So, Spinebreakers.co.uk has now been live for a couple of weeks. It's doing fantastically well, receiving a lot of attention from teens and, shock horror, even adults (they just don't want to grow up). We've been mentioned in absolutely tonnes of blogs and have received lots of positive comments on our MySpace, looked after by editors Niamh & Naomi. Onwards and upwards is the only way to go, so time to increase our presence on other social networking websites too. With a lot of our content being video, I reckoned that YouTube would be a good place to start. I created us an account - www.youtube.com/spinebreakers - and put up four of our most popular videos. There are Lego cats, ethylmethylphenyglycidate milkshakes and stage snogs to intice people to leave comments and check out the rest of the content over here. Less than 24 hours after creating the Spinebreakers channel, one of the videos - my review of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation - had been featured on the front page of www.YouTubeReviews.com. Fantastic! Viral marketing is sure to help us out here. Second up, I thougt it'd be good to have a presence on Bebo too. Bebo, probably catering for the younger social networker, appears to be an invaluable network to get Spinebreakers known on. It has its own Authors section, where everyone from famous published authors to young aspiring writers can post sections of their books and be reviewed by other Bebo members. It's a haven for exactly the type of audience we're after. So check out our Bebo profile, leave a comment, add us as a friend, and tell your mates to do the same. So leave us a comment on YouTube, write on our whiteboard on Bebo, add us as a friend on MySpace, and watch out for our Facebook profile coming soon...