Well, that was fun. Kind of exhausting, though. Many thanks to all the readers, from Birmingham to Brussels, from Beverley to Marseille, who came to meet me over the last few weeks to hear me read from Expo 58 and talk about it. I enjoyed all the events but I must say that, above all, presenting the novel in one of the spheres of the Atomium was a great, truly memorable moment in my life; and I must also give special thanks to my audience in Birmingham, where I always (despite having abandoned the place more than 25 years ago) seem to get a warm reception, with lots of nice discussions with people afterwards about The Rotters’ Club in particular. And now, finally, I can huddle down in my study as autumn kicks in and start thinking about what to write next …

Before that, though, a few things to mention:

This Thursday (October 31st) I’m doing a webchat on goodreads. You can go over there now and post questions about Expo 58 or indeed any of my books.

Last week finally saw the publication of an English-language edition of The Story of Gulliver, my re-telling of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels for 8-12 year olds. The publishers are the wonderful Pushkin Press and they’ve done a beautiful edition. Sara Oddi’s illustrations are particularly stunning.

Advance warning of another book of mine that will be coming out soon. Three books in as many months! This one is a substantial collection of non-fiction called Marginal Notes, Doubtful Statements. It contains bits and pieces of journalism going all the way back to my days writing about music for The Wire in 1990, and coming right up to date with my most recent pieces on British satire and Flann O’Brien for the London Review of Books this year. There are quite a few political and autobiographical essays as well. Penguin are publishing it as an e-book only at the beginning of December. I’d say it would make a nice Christmas present but I don’t really know how you would go about wrapping it up …