January 13, 2008

The happy delirium of not writing for a few days has struck me. I'm free to wander about in the world as though I had no purpose other than to exist, and for once, this is exactly how I like it. It doesn't matter if I lose myself for an entire day shopping for somosas, flowers and books. And the world doesn't seem to miss me. Today I picked up Tamburlaine Must Die, the second book by acclaimed Glaswegian writer Louise Welsh who, for my money, is just about the best thing going right now. I was bowled over by her first novel, The Cutting Room, and pretty much equally impressed by her third, The Bullet Trick. It's time to add Tamburlaine to the list. One of a number of reasons why I love her writing is that she successfully combines dazzling literary prose with thriller-style plotting, which is what I'm attempting in Lake on the Mountain.