I've been Kindled - and it feels just great!

I'm excited to find out that my novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love is now available on Kindle and that the publishers are selling it at a special festive price for a limited period. If you want to order it you will have to go to your own country's Amazon site or the Amazon site that ships to you. It was exciting to see just how far my book has travelled since it was published as a paperback here in the UK at the end of October this year. Now anyone with the splendid Kindle machine can download it instantly for a very small cost.

I love my Kindle and use it constantly. I'm currently reading Marcel Proust's massive 7 volume novel  À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search Of Lost Time) and find it wonderfully easy to transport around wherever I go. I love buying books too of course as they are beautiful objects in their own right but also solid momentos of reads that you want to keep on a special shelf at home.

Also, as far as my novel is concerned, it's been fun signing copies  - not that you need to have my signature  - but it's much more difficult to autograph your Kindle.

Here are links to some of the major Amazon sites where you can buy the Kindle edition. If you do decide to read it, it would be great to hear from you here on my website.

Brazil:

http://www.amazon.com.br/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/192-7302333-0848351?__mk_pt_BR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley's%20Summer%20Of%20lOVE

Canada:

http://www.amazon.ca/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-ebook/dp/B00HI0KKXC/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388147550&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=Stephen+Dearsley%27s+Summer+of+love

France:

http://www.amazon.fr/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/277-2140862-0206023?__mk_fr_FR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley's%20Summer%20of%20lOVE

Germany:

http://www.amazon.de/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?__mk_de_DE=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley's%20Summer%20Of%20love

India:

http://www.amazon.in/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-ebook/dp/B00HI0KKXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388145326&sr=8-1&keywords=Stephen+Dearsley%27s+Summer+Of+love


Italy:

http://www.amazon.it/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/276-9907493-9144042?__mk_it_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley's%20Summer%20Of%20love


Japan:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/377-9761966-0682217?__mk_ja_JP=%E3%82%AB%E3%82%BF%E3%82%AB%E3%83%8A&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen+Dearsley%27s+Summer+Of+Love

Mexico:

http://www.amazon.com.mx/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/189-9030876-5922100?__mk_es_MX=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley's%20Summer%20Of%20love

Spain:

http://www.amazon.es/s/ref=nb_sb_noss/278-9292365-9412902?__mk_es_ES=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Stephen%20Dearsley's%20Summer%20Of%20love


UK:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-ebook/dp/B00HI0KKXC/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_2_KK11


USA:

http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-ebook/dp/B00HI0KKXC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388145252&sr=8-1&keywords=Stephen+Dearsley%27s+summer+Of+love
http://www.amazon.com/Stephen-Dearsleys-Summer-Love-Colin-ebook/dp/B00HI0KKXC/ref

A thrilling climb up the volcano Mount Etna remembered in my latest published poem

I  haven't been posting on here much over the last week as you my loyal readers will have noticed. I've been trying to finish my new novel before Christmas and, this morning, I came to the end of the third draft on schedule. I've been so busy in fact that I almost forgot that have a new poem, Mount Etna, published today by the online poetry journal Every Day Poets you can read it by following this link:

http://www.everydaypoets.com/mount-etna-by-colin-bell/

The poem was written after an inspiring two weeks  Sicily when, amongst a lot of other adventures, I went to the top of  Europe's biggest and most active volcano, Mount Etna.

It was alarming enough for vertigo-prone me to go in the cable car up to the half-way stage but that was just the beginning.

The final part of the journey was on foot climbing up through the clouds over one of the most unwelcoming landscapes I have ever seen.

It was also one of the most dramatic.

... a thrilling mix of sulfurous steam and gaping holes in the menacing dried lava.

I really felt as if I was treading the top of the world.

 If it wasn't so high, it could've been  the underworld - Dante's Inferno perhaps and an inspiring subject for a poem.

I could certainly feel that the ground was alive beneath my feet as I climbed to the summit and it was humbling and rather exciting to learn that just six months later, in February 2012,  Mount Etna had erupted again. If you haven't been up a volcano before, or even if you have,  please read my poem and see if I conveyed some of the wonder of this dramatic place.

My novel is launched in London at the Phoenix with friends, colleagues and the spirits of Noel Coward and Laurence Olivier.

I was up in London on Tuesday evening for a bit of performing at the Phoenix Theatre in Charing Cross Road - well, anyone who knows me thinks I'm a bit of a show-off so I'm sure you're not surprised to read this.

This theatre opened in 1930 with the premier of Noel Coward's play Private Lives starring Noel himself along with Gertrude Lawrence and the young Laurence Olivier but today it's showing Once - The Musical, billed as 'the musical of the decade'.

Adequate as my song and dance routines are, I wasn't actually appearing in Once. No, I was downstairs.

I was underneath the theatre in the splendidly atmospheric Phoenix Artist Club that many years ago had once been used as the theatre's original dressing rooms and rehearsal studios  - so the space retains some of the spirit of dear Larry, Noel and Gertie. They linger on here especially after a few or even a few more drinks.

I was here for the launch party for my novel Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love held by my publishers Ward Wood Publishing who had booked a private space next to the club's excellent bar.

When I arrived, early, with a pile of new copies of the book, the place was deserted but it soon filled up with a great mix including friends from the various stages of my life,  family and Ward Wood colleagues, Adele Ward herself a writer and, the writers Vg Lee, Joe Stein, Sue Guiney, Peter Philips and Patricia Averbach - all friends now and, inspiringly, all surprisingly like-minded citizens of the literary world.  I consider myself doubly lucky to be published by a company that has so many great people on its books. Four of us are planning to appear together for readings - like a rather unconventional rock band on the road. Watch this space for details.

The event soon turned into a party and, against all expectations, I actually enjoyed myself.

My thanks to poet Peter Daniels for taking these photographs of me doing my party-mingling which, that night, was refreshingly free from small-talk.

I also got the chance to meet a number of people who have known for some time but who now, like James Grant,  became virtual friends turned to flesh.

Peter Daniels also took some photographs of me on stage where I read a short section of my novel to a generously receptive audience.

Afterwards I was kept busy signing copies of the book - here with the award-winning American poet  Patricia Averbach....

..and here with my son Adam who also wanted an inscribed copy. At this little corner table I could not only sign books but do a bit of palm-reading too even if no one actually believed my predictions.

Adele Ward filmed part of the reading for which I'm most grateful as I don't sound nearly as bad as I thought I did. The next-door bar joviality much noisier on the video than it was in reality - the atmosphere was informal and intimate considering we were right in the centre of London. Thanks to everyone who came along that night - it was terrific to see you all.



After such a truly enjoyable and memorable evening, I couldn't just go off afterwards to my hotel bed. Luckily London's Chinatown is genuinely a 24 hour experience and the Red Dragon Restaurant in Gerrard Street served a leisurely and very good meal a long time after midnight -  bed was considerably later.

After all the socialising, enjoyable though it was, it was also great, the next morning, taking an almost empty train home from London to Lewes. Trains make great decompression chambers. It's now back to work on the new novel.

My Every Day Poets poem for Yehudi Menuhin is published

Over the weekend, I was going to write about my old friend Yehudi Menuhin but there was a problem with my website  providers and this site was down for over 24 hours. My apologies to everyone who tried to access my site during that time. So I'm going to write that blog today because my Fibonacci poem/elegy for the great violinist was published on Saturday by Every Day Poets and I can now give you the link to read it (and, if you want, vote for it on the page's star system):

http://www.everydaypoets.com/yehudi-menuhin-by-colin-bell/

In my television days, as a producer-director,  I worked with Yehudi Menuhin on a number of programmes including his very last film project, my documentary Menuhin's Children where we filmed him teaching twelve seven year old children the first stages of violin playing once a month for a year. Sadly Yehudi died during the making of this film and when we completed it, it became a tribute to his genius. We had become friends too during these monthly times together and, on the last day that we worked together (in February 1999), he asked if he could accompany me on my walk around the location when I customarily looked for shots that would mark the passing of the seasons. This gentle stroll in Guildford, Surrey (my birthplace) was not just about the beginnings of the new Spring but it was also the last time I was to see him, he died unexpectedly only weeks later in Germany. There was a spirit of calm, relaxation but also melancholy in the air that day which stayed in my memory and became the starting point for the Fibonacci poem that has just been published.

Yehudi Menuhin was a great violinist and a great advocate for peace and toleration through the world and I felt privileged to have known him.  I hope that the poem goes some way towards expressing my gratitude for the time we spent together.

In the spirit of completion, here's a short trailer for my film Menuhin's Children - it was first shown by the BBC and then all over the world:

You write the novel and then you get the review...Viva Lewes!

I've always, well nearly always, liked getting letters and parcels through my letterbox. I do the usual thing and ignore the ones that look like bills or circulars and, sometimes, feel sad when I get postcards addressed to former owners of this house who moved away decades ago. Apart from that, I'm an optimist and every delivery is a potential moment of pleasure. Yesterday was no exception when Lewes' rather classy free magazine arrived. It's delivered through every letterbox in town - bringing loads of pleasure all over Lewes. This month, it was more than usually interesting to me... it has the first review of my new novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love. Forgive me if I show you all what their book reviewer, John McGowan, wrote:

Thanks John McGowan and thanks to Viva Lewes for publishing it as well the plug for the poetry evening, First Wednesday Writers, that I run here in Lewes. If you read about it in Viva Lewes and followed the link to this site, here is the poster for the event with all the details. It's always good to meet new writers and new people who come along just to listen.

It's going to be busy next week as I have the London launch for the novel on Tuesday at the Phoenix Artist Club followed by two poetry events on Wednesday and Thursday followed by a celebration dinner on Friday. I'm having a great time but then it will be back to normal. Being a writer is about sitting up here alone with my computer but it's great to have the odd social explosion to liven things up so I'm far from complaining.

Bare feet, Luis Alvarenga and my novel cover

This 'self-portrait' photograph was taken by the young Portuguese photographer Luis Alvarenga,  who likes to record his travels around the World with images of his feet, the part of the body designed to allow us to travel. Here he is on a rock in the Algarve, Portugal. Feet also 'plant' us on the earth and, if we focus on them, let us feel the spirit of 'place'. Hippie jargon, you might think,  but I believe in it, mostly practising my martial arts barefoot at home in my garden or wherever I am on my travels.

 In the 1960s, bare feet became a symbol of liberation and freedom from society's restraints. It was for all of this that Luis' photograph became the cover shot for my just published novel, Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love.

I love the image and especially, the colours of Luis' photograph which makes a handsome cover for my novel, stylishly designed by my publishers, Ward Wood Publishing.  I can feel the heat of that rock but also a certain vulnerability in the feet exposed on such a rough surface. The image is perfect, in my opinion, for Stephen Dearsley's gradual and difficult liberation. Another of Luis'  'self-portraits' shows him standing on an inviting stretch of sandy Portuguese beach at Montegordo. Lovely shot though it is, for me, it is the rock photograph that better expresses the feeling of my novel because, the beach has always been one of the few places feet have always been allowed to go bare.

Here is Luis again, this time in Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset, England, where he first discovered that British beaches can be considerably colder than Portuguese ones.

Here he is in Antigua against a very green lake.







Having spent some time discussing the cover photograph with Ward Wood Publishing, I got to know the picture and, I guess, Luis' feet very well so it was good to finally discover who Luis Santos is and what he looks like above foot level.

He is currently living in Reading, in the UK where he makes his living as a professional photographer most recently specialising in travel and live music photography.

This is one of his favourite music shots taken when he feel in love with this guitar seen at the 2013 Oxjam Reading Festival. I love the colour co-ordination here.

This is Patrick Wolf, the young London singer-songwriter, a musician much admired by Luis. The photograph taken with a vintage 80-200 lens that he had just bought for the occasion marked his debut as a fully accredited music gig job. He tells me that he was nervous when he first had to go on stage at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall "but in the end everything turned out great, even the pictures!"

Here are two of his favourite travel photographs, above, the Monument To The Discoveries, Lisbon, the city where he was at university, and, below, this beautifully textured image of a beach in Maldives.

It was good to see his other work and to say hello to Luis because there is, I've just discovered,  a special relationship between a writer and the creator of his book's cover. It was also good to share some of Luis' enthusiasm for his chosen artform - he is obviously a young man with the World, quite literally, at his feet.

If you want to see more of Luis Alvarenga's (sometimes also known as Luis Santos) work or to contact him, here is a link to his websites:
http://www.thelivephotographer.com/
http://1-luis-santos.artistwebsites.com/

1967, Sgt Pepper, The Beatles, a few of their friends and me.

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band cover design by Peter Blake (1967)

One of the many great moments I remember from the summer of 1967,  the so-called Summer Of Love, was the release of that pioneering, musically brilliant and era-defining album, The Beatles' monumental Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I bought it on the day of its release, 1st June 1967, and, without exaggeration, I have to say that I was flabbergasted. There had never been any album like it in my limited experience and it became THE album I played all year and for many years afterwards. It was the first time a non-classical music album made it onto my list of great musical artworks. Yes, I know, I was an opinionated teenager who had all the answers in those days and I hadn't yet discovered jazz.

Moody adolescent teenage Wolf, 1967

My turntable alternated between Sgt Pepper and another album released that year, Pierre Boulez's revelationary recording of Debussy's orchestral masterpiece La Mer. The Debussy performance showed me that Debussy was indeed the exciting genius that I saw in the great Ken Russell film, Debussy.

Oliver Reed as Claude Debussy in Debussy, directed by Ken Russell (BBC Television, 1965)

He was, as that, at his best,  most exciting of directors, Ken Russell showed us, a lot more than an atmospheric picture-painter. Both albums are still honoured in my collection but now they are on CD and joined by many other "couldn't-live-without" albums. For me still, The Beatles with Sgt Pepper crossed the line into high art and brought the rock album with them. These were exciting times for a moody teenager - The Beatles, Pierre Boulez and Ken Russell was probably liquor much too strong for the lad.

Twenty years after The Beatles' album debuted  - with that famous line 'It was twenty years ago today Sgt Pepper taught the band to play" - I sat back and watched television because the documentary that I had worked on for nearly two years claimed the ITV screen in peak-time for two hours in what was claimed to have been the most expensive television documentary ever made. The Granada Television film was called, appropriately enough, 'It was twenty years ago today" and it was. The programme was then transmitted around the world on the correct anniversary release date for each country. It was one of the highlights of my television career and  an extraordinary opportunity for me to relive that 1967 experience in adult life. It was my chance over the preceding months to meet and film many of the heroes of my youth, most of whom are still iconic figures from modern popular culture, from the surviving members of The Beatles, The Byrds and the Mamas and Papas to some of the leaders of the literary avant garde, Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs as well as legendary political activists Dr Timothy Leary, Abbie Hoffman and Dutch provo anarchist Robert Jasper Grootveld. People often ask me about the people I met at that time and I keep promising myself to write about it at more length. Not here though today but I will, I promise, when I find the time. Enough said, maybe, that the film tried to place The Beatles' album into the cultural and political spirit of the time. I'm very happy and proud that it is still used in colleges as an educational tool.

Peter Fonda interviewed for It was 20 Years Ago Today, in Los Angeles, 1986

Looking through some old photographs from the time, I found these shots of me interviewing Hollywood actor Peter Fonda, a leading figure in the Los Angeles demonstrations in 1967 and San Francisco actor Peter Coyote, once a member of the anarchic San Francisco Mime Troop. I have fond memories of my time with both these gentlemen and with many of the others, especially Beatle, George Harrison, Byrd, Roger McGuinn, Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg and  anarchist activist, Robert Jasper Grootveld who all took time out to both educate and entertain me.

Peter Coyote interviewed for It Was 20 Years Ago Today in Marin County, San Francisco, 1986

So the year 1967 keeps coming back into my life as a major event and influence. It is therefore no surprise that I should've chosen that year as the setting for my first novel, the recently published Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love (see below). I think I shall try to share some other memories of that time over the next few blogs. It was a truly unique epoque.

Here though is a clip showing the opening of that documentary, It Was Twenty Years Ago Today. For me it is the holiday movie of a lifetime.