Merlin Publishers Blog

Publishing the coolest books in Malta. The name most associated with publishing in Malta, Merlin leads the way with innovative books, the best Maltese authors and cutting-edge production.

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Ors fl-Ispazju from Merlin Publishers on Vimeo.

Trid tibni r-rokit li jivvjaġġa bih Ors fl-istorja “Ors fl-Ispazju”? L-istruzzjonijiet tista’ tniżżilhom mis-sit merlinpublishers.com u ssegwi kif f’dal-video.

“Ors fl-ispazju” miktub minn Deborah Abela, b’illustrazzjonijiet ta’ Marjorie Crosby-Fairall u addattat għall-Malti minn Clare Azzopardi

L-edizzjoni Maltija pubblikazzjoni Merlin Publishers Ltd, Malta 2020

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Ors fl-Ispazju from Merlin Publishers on Vimeo.

Ors fl-Ispazju: nibnu r-rokit

Jekk trid tibni rokit bħal dak li juża Ors fil-ktieb “Ors fl-Ispazju”, segwi l-istruzzjonijiet li ssib fis-sit merlinpublishers.com u ibnih bħal f'dan il-video.

“Ors fl-Ispazju” miktub minn Deborah Abela, b’illustrazzjonijiet ta’ Marjorie Crosby-Fairall u addattat għall-Malti minn Clare Azzopardi.

Il-verżjoni bil-Malti pubblikazzjoni Merlin Publishers Ltd, Malta 2020

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Lupu Makeover Movie from Merlin Publishers on Vimeo.

Il-kostumi ta' Lupu Lupettu - libbes il-Lupu b'għażla ta' kostumi differenti, minn supereroj sal-ħwejjeġ ta' kuljum sal-piġama!

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Il-logħba tal-Lupu from Merlin Publishers on Vimeo.

Il-karti tal-logħob ta' Lupu Lupettu - ilgħab magħna! Tlaqna!

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Books as the antidote

Paul Grech

The term “fake news” is ubiquitous these days. Everyone has heard it and we’ve started peppering our conversations with it too. Occasionally we’ve even started believing this fake news business too.

Of course, this is nothing new. A look at history books confirms this. For one thing, history is written by the victors and these tend to be a bit economic with the facts which don't exactly paint them in a glorious light.  An examination of the propaganda output preceding and during World War II also reveals a shocking amount of mistruth.

What is perhaps an advantage today is that people have the biggest encyclopaedia humanity has ever seen - the internet - which can help them determine whether something is real or not. However, at times readers still believe preposterous news items – simply for the reason that they would reinforce their own view of the world.

This tendency to believe only what we want to believe is a symptom of the overall lack of desire to really challenge our own views.  

Reading can fight that.

Books allow you to visit new worlds, meet different cultures and better understand divergent ideas. Books help us to see that perhaps, what we think is right, is not right for everyone.

Obviously this also depends on what you read. George Orwell's 1984 is a classic that everyone should be familiar with (especially now) because it examines the dangers of a totalitarian regime.

The same goes for Maragaret Arwood's A Handmaid's Tale which is another brilliant examination of a society ruled by a totalitarian regime. Also, anything written by Kurt Vonnegut is brilliant and poignant: he is undoubtedly one of my best discoveries of the past few months.

For the younger generation, there’s the Hunger Games trilogy and other young-adult dystopian fantasies that have ridden on its success.

Talking of younger audiences, it is impossible not to mention the Harry Potter series that is littered with examples showing up those who very clearly do not want to share their world with anyone who is not as ‘pure’ as they are. Less well known is Wonder by R. J. Palacio, which is a book about a boy with a facial deformity who starts going to school for the first time in his life.

Then are the more biting – adult oriented – books that put the reader into direct contact with other realities. I Am Malala, for instance, which talks about life under the Taliban and the repercussions of standing up to them. Or Between The World And Me where American writer Ta-Nehasi Coates talks about being black in America.  There is then Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour, a beautifully written novel that examines the heavy censorship that people have to live with in Iran.

These are all books that either examine the present for people living outside our cosy bubble, or about a very possible future.

My parting recommendation shall be  Dave Eggers’ The Circle. The storyline is set in a world where people willingly expose every aspect of themselves on social media and is an insight into what happens when there too much unfiltered reality out there.  

The scariest part is that we are not too far away from that.

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres).

His latest piece of work is a piece of narrative non-fiction about the life of Mrs Henrietta Chevalier, a Maltese woman who lived through World War II in Rome and risked her life to save that of escaped Prisoners of War.  Read the article here.

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New Year Challenge

by Paul Grech

I’m not a big fan of setting resolutions at the start of a new year. Apart from the feeling of self-loathing that is the somewhat inevitable outcome of any resolution that is broken, I don’t see why we should wait for the start of a new year to do something that might make us a better version of ourselves.

When it comes to reading, however, it’s different. A few years back I realised that I wasn’t reading as much as I used to. This was partly down to lack of time, but also because I was opting for other sources of entertainment, namely television.

That would not have been much of a problem if most of my viewing wasn’t leaving me rather empty. Don’t get me wrong, there are some brilliant television series being produced at the moment with fascinating plots. Yet, there are also those series that lead nowhere and which I was watching simply out of habit of sitting on the sofa with a remote in hand.

I knew, therefore, that I had to set myself a target.

Which is why I came up with a reading challenge. The first time I did it, I set the bar relatively low: 35 books. This has gradually risen and this year I’m aiming to read 75 books. To keep track I’ve set up an excel worksheet (I AM an accountant after all) where I note down each book I read. I know that there are resources online that do this but I enjoy opening my little sheet to jot down another book read. It also tells me how many books I need to read in order to reach my target; how many I still have to read split down per month; and other lovely bits of information like the months where I was most prolific.

It is great fun. 

Ultimately I want to get to a point where I read at least one hundred books in a year. Yet my challenge is evolving in other ways for it now contains a number of other sub-challenges.

For instance I set myself the target to read at least one book every month that I feel would make me a better person.  This includes books on psychology, economics and history, that are not usually my kind of books.

Also, rather than focus exclusively on sci-fi, fantasy and sports books, I’ve been reading more travel writing and books about music. Last year, for example, I read Andrea Camilleri’s The Shape of Water which is the first in the Inspector Montalbano series. As someone with little love for the detective mystery genre, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I don’t think that it will supplant my existing loves but for sure I will be reading more such books.

Having done this challenge for the past couple of years I can say that I’ve read some great books – indeed some have become among my favourites - which I would have barely glanced at otherwise.

Are you up for it too?

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres).

His latest piece of work is a piece of narrative non-fiction about the life of Mrs Henrietta Chevalier, a Maltese woman who lived through World War II in Rome and risked her life to save that of escaped Prisoners of War.  Read the article here.

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Paul’s Christmas shopping (part 2)

by Paul Grech

You realise that the year is coming to an end because newspapers, magazines, and lifestyle programmes will be happily dishing out lists of “best books of the year" articles. I’m not nearly well read enough to try coming up with such a list but I’m more than happy to share some of the finest books that I’ve read this year.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Gaiman is one of my favourite authors thanks to his ability to weave together fantasy, brilliant writing and wry storytelling. A television series based on American Gods is due to come out next year and judging by the cast, it promises to be quite good which is a perfect excuse to make sure that you read this great book to know what lies in store for you.

Mhux Nies by Jean Paul Borg

First off a disclaimer: Jean Paul has been my friend for a long number of years so I’m bound to be biased in his regard. Yet you can tell that a book is going to be good when the first thing you read – in the acknowledgements page – is this: għal ommi u missieri, tawni xkaffa kotba ħafna akbar mit-televixin tagħhom.

Lives Moves Pretty Fast by Hadley Freeman

The subtitle of this book is The Lessons We Learned from Eighties Movies (and Why We Don't Learn Them from Movies Anymore) and, as someone who grew up watching (and re-watching) VHR tapes of eighties movies, I was always going to fall for this one. Turns out that Freeman is even more of an eighties geek than I am and it comes through in this entertaining, yet extremely enlightening book that looks at what made those films unique and so much fun.

Grasshopper by Aleks Farrugia

They say that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover but they’re definitely wrong in this case because this is a totally gorgeous cover that would be an absolute sin to pass up. Fortunately the writing more than does it justice.

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders by Dylan Thuras, Ella Morton, and Joshua Foer

Atlases have gone the same way as encyclopaedias with both being made pretty much obsolete with the advent of the internet. This, however, is slightly different because it takes a look at more than 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world. All the information that it holds can be found on the internet, naturally, but that isn’t as fun as randomly opening a page of this book to read about the story behind some weird piece of architecture.

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

No one does travel writing like Bryson and this is confirmed each time he travels across his adopted homeland of Britain. There is perhaps more of a critical tone in his voice in this book than in others – perhaps a sign of him getting older and more frustrated with people’s inability to stop harming the environment – but it is still a fantastically enjoyable read.

Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

This is a pretty quick read but also a book that will stay with you long after you finish it. The theme is a pretty wild one as it centres on a World War II veteran, Billy Pilgrim, and his claimed ability to time travel. Hidden below the surface, however, there are a number of much more serious themes like the futility of war, life, love and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

The Shape of Water by Andrea Camilleri

I have to admit that although I was aware of the Italian television series Inspector Montalbano, I had never actually read any of the books before I picked this up. I’m not usually a fan of detective mysteries, still, this might change all that. I don’t know whether it is the Sicilian landscape, the rich characters, the narration or the actual mystery but I loved every page of this book. One of my personal goals for 2017 is completing the full Montalbano book series.

Suq Għax Dalam by Joe Pace

This is another book that portrays the growing maturity of Maltese literature as it starts to deal with difficult subjects – cancer in this case – in increasingly more original ways. An engrossing and entertaining read, despite the subject.

Angels With Dirty Faces by Jonathan Wilson

You didn’t think that I’d do a list like this without mentioning at least one football themed book, did you? I’m actually cheating a bit here because I haven’t actually read this one yet but Jonathan Wilson is an absolute favourite of mine and I’ve yet to read anything of his that isn’t stellar. Pretty sure that his history of Argentinian football will be just as great.

 If you’re looking for a quick read over the Christmas holidays, check out my own e-books Il Re Calcio: ten stories from Italian football (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N1ZAWHM) and Courage: The Heroic Henrietta Chevalier (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M3WK2TP).

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Paul’s Christmas shopping (part 1)

by Paul Grech

Christmas is here and with it the need to buy gifts for our loved ones. If you’re a parent like me, this will involve a fair deal of negotiating with your children over Santa’s list.

I always try to encourage them to write down a number of books on the list, books that will stoke  their love for reading. I’ve been doing some research, so as to ease Santa’s job, and I’d like to share them with you:

Il-Kamra ta’ Jonas by Noel Tanti

Ages: 3 - 7

Maltese literature is gloriously rich when it comes to young childrens’ book and this is another wonderful addition. The time has come for Jonas to go to sleep but he doesn’t want to. It is a story familiar to most parents but this one has a delightful, if touching twist.

Il-Qtates ta’ Max-Xatt by Clare Azzopardi

Ages: 3 – 7

This book features Lisa Falzon’s brilliant illustrations and a wonderfully spun story by Clare Azzopardi. The subject is original: what do the stray cats do when the two elderly people who regularly feed them suddenly don’t show up?

The Princess in Black by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale

Ages: 5 - 10

I am not very comfortable that in most traditional stories princesses always need a man to come in and save them. Yet girls (and some boys) love reading about princesses. This is a happy medium because it talks about a princess that definitely does not rely on others to fix things for her.

Welcome to Dead House by RL Stine

Ages: 9 – 12

Books from the Goosebumps series are a staple in our household and they are all well-loved but this is possibly the best one. Two children move into a house that is haunted and find out that it is much more than that. These books are in many ways ideal for reluctant readers since the cliffhanger at the end of each chapter will keep them turning pages and before they know it they will be in the zone that most readers know as the ‘just on more chapter’!

Irvin Vella Investigatur Virtwali: Il-Każ tas-Serqiet Strambi by John A. Bonello

Ages: 9 – 13

I loved the first Irvin Vella book (Il-Każ Manduca) that introduced us to the rather rotund private eye. Even though it is clearly aimed at children I found that the author pulls off a dialogue which is rather witty and realistic in a very engaging plotengaging. This sequel builds on that as the young detective investigates a series of burglaries that target his favourite snack.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany

Ages: 9+

This is something of an obvious choice given how much hype there has been around it. Yet it is an enjoyable story that continues to build and enrich the Potter universe. While we’re at it, make sure that your children get to read the whole Harry Potter series - if anything because there’s scientific research that shows that they help improve one’s empathy. (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-everyone-should-read-harry-potter/)

Fittixni by Antoinette Borg

Ages: 11+

As a parent of an eleven year old girl (who is growing up way too fast!) I always struggle to find good enough books in Maltese to engage her. Whilst the tween and young adult market is flooded with brilliant books in English and there are plenty of Maltese language books for younger kids, I feel that there is quite a gap in so far as books in our language that talk to adolescents about themes that also engage their growing maturity. Thankfully it is a gap that is being addressed and Antoinette Borg’s excellent debut ties a detective story with grander themes is one such book.

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Ages: 12+

A book in the vein of the Hunger Games in so much as it features a world where teenagers have to kill others. It is not as dystopic – all disease has been wiped out – yet it is still as brutal because it features two teenagers who have been apprenticed to a scythe, a professional reaper whose job is to kill people. And as their friendship grows, so does the shadow of the knowledge that whoever is to win between them has to kill the other.

 The Sun Is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Ages: 13/14+

I’m not one to make prediction but I don’t think that it is foolhardy to forecast that this will be quite a BIG THING very soon. It is a love story but it is told in a very different manner than what is usually done. More significantly it feels very real especially as one of the characters is facing deportation from America.  Read it and then give it to your child because (a) you’ll love it (b) you can gauge whether they are ready to handle the story and (c) you can boast that you read it before it was mega-famous.

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres).

His latest piece of work is a piece of narrative non-fiction about the life of Mrs Henrietta Chevalier, a Maltese woman who lived through World War II in Rome and risked her life to save that of escaped Prisoners of War.  Read the article here.

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Going long(form)

Here in the office, this is one of our favourite posts from blogger Paul Grech. Read it, and savour it.

One of the best books I’ve read this summer was Love and Ruin. It is an anthology of stories from The Atavist, an online-only publication that focuses on longform articles.

Happily, this was something of an impulse buy. For months I’d been listening to, and greatly enjoying, a podcast hosted by one of the site’s founders Evan Ratliff so when the book-form was announced, I promptly pre-ordered a copy. And, as they say: no regrets.

Despite the variety of authors, the writing is consistently excellent and the stories range from the weird, such as the plan to introduce hippopotamuses to America to solve a shortage of meat; to the moving, like the story on the last days of a leper colony in Hawaii.  

A truly delightful read – which is a great relief, for those of us who write for the internet are constantly advised to keep articles as short as possible. People do not have the attention span to keep on reading anything that is more than a handful of paragraphs long, we are told.

I ferociously cling on to the hope that that is not the case.

True there are times when people will instinctively look for short reads. Just like that piece of chocolate that you turn to when you’re feeling stressed. Yes, there’s certainly need for the brief articles with headlines that are an open invitation to click on them. I understand that if your life makes constant demands on your time – and whose doesn’t, these days? – then you need to read something that doesn’t require a lot of thinking.

Yet while such articles are undoubtedly fun, they hold very little which can be considered of value. They add little, if anything, to your life.

I realise that to a certain extent I’m shouting into the wind. More and more sites are moving to a model where they present very little of substance, opting instead to bank on celebrity gossip, listicles or curious pieces of news to attract visitors. And very often they’re very successful when they follow this model.

Which is why publications like Love and Ruin are so important for me. They are the sign that there are other people out there like me, who value the beauty of a story told at leisure, where the writer would have spent the necessary time digging up information, giving the reader things to think about.  

Love and Ruin is tangible proof that people are still interested in good story-telling.

PS. If you, like me, are interested in this kind of writing I strongly suggest that you subscribe to the Longform weekly newsletter (https://longform.org/) as well as checking out the Best of American writing series (https://www.hmhco.com/at-home/featured-shops/popular-series/best-american-series). Also I’d like to invite you to check out my piece of narrative non-fiction about the life of Mrs Henrietta Chevalier, a Maltese woman who lived through World War II in Rome and risked her life to save that of escaped Prisoners of War.  

Read the article here: http://www.snapshotsofmalta.com/2016/11/the-courage-and-faith-of-mrs-henrietta.html

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all-round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres).

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Book lovers’ festival

Guest blogger Paul Grech looks forward to this week’s Book Festival

For book lovers, the Malta Book Festival is heaven. So many books and so many other people who love books to talk to; it is easy to lose yourself rummaging, discussing and buying books. Whatever you’re looking for – or even if you’re not looking for anything in particular – you are guaranteed to go away with an amazing serendipity.

The festival is also the space for local publishers to present their key titles to the Maltese book-buying public, so in a sense it is a veritable showcase of new titles.  

That is what ultimately should be at the heart of such a festival: people getting to know about new books, meeting with authors and engaging in discussions about the stories. 

Yet, not everyone thinks of it that way. Many still have a different mindset and their motivation for visiting is to buy books on the cheap.

Perhaps in the past – when bookshops where not so plentiful and book sales were even more uncommon – it made sense. Now however, the internet has changed the game completely and anyone can buy discounted books from specialised websites; there is no longer the need to go to the Book Festival for that. 

As an outsider, I can tell that the organisers are aware of all this. There has been a conscious and visible effort to promote the Malta Book Festival on a number of media outlets. There has also been a shift in the festival structure, so that it is more on the lines of similar festivals overseas, particularly with the increasing presence of foreign authors.

All of this is worthwhile, indeed admirable. Whether it will help to attract more people to the Book Festival, remains to be seen. Does it generate the enthusiasm that is required for people to commute to the Mediterranean Conference Centre in Valletta? I honestly don’t think so – but hopefully I’ll be proved wrong.

Of course, I will be going. What I’m most looking forward to is to see what new books there will be on the market. I’ve had a sneak peek into Merlin Publishers’ new trove, and I cannot wait to flick open the actual pages. I’m sure other publishers will have interesting titles too.

Moreover, I will time my visit to coincide with the workshop on how comics can help storytellers. As a self-confessed geek, the rise in popularity of comics in Malta is incredibly exciting. It is fantastic to see that the complex story-building of comics is being lauded.  

Let’s hope that the myriad of other events being held during this edition of the Malta Book Festival will attract a host of bookworms, as that is what ultimately will determine the festival’s success.

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres).

His latest piece of work is a piece of narrative non-fiction about the life of Mrs Henrietta Chevalier, a Maltese woman who lived through World War II in Rome and risked her life to save that of escaped Prisoners of War.  Read the article here.

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A different kind of magic

Guest blogger Paul Grech is in Potter-heaven. Let’s catch up with him.

Potterheads are in heaven. After five years of waiting, in November, there will be a cinematic return to the world created by JK Rowling. Her Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the booklet detailing the magical creatures in the Harry Potter world published in aid of Comic Relief charity, will be turned into a trilogy of new movies.

Given how little by way of narrative there was in the original booklet, it will be interesting to see how Warner Bros will manage to spin that one. Still, the trailer is quite intriguing and those who have been yearning for some more Harry Potter will love it. The movie won’t feature Potter himself.

For that, fans have a West End play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child co-written by Rowling herself. However, getting a ticket might require a bit of magic as the show is totally sold out till 2017.

The best bet, therefore, is to get a copy of the script of the play which has been published word-for-word. Despite the unusual format, the script has broken all kinds of book sale records proving that there’s nothing cursed about Rowling’s creation.

On its release, in fact, thousands of people camped outside bookshops or queued up to get their hands on the book at the stroke of midnight. I have to say that am not THAT much of a Potter die-hard and planned on waiting until my to-read pile had shrunk a bit (does it ever?) before I purchase it.

Fate, however, deemed otherwise and a friend’s mistaken order of two copies meant that I was the lucky recipient of the extra copy (thanks Sara!) meaning that I got to read it whilst the hype was still high. And admittedly I enjoyed this book more than I expected. New characters are introduced skilfully and there is a clever plot twist that we don’t really see coming (even though we ought to, as it follows the same patterns of all the previous books).

Yet huge chunks of the story itself are hardy original. For someone like me who watched the first two instalments of the Back to the Future movies back in the 1990s, large parts of the Cursed Child are extremely familiar.

But the popularity of Harry Potter was never down to the stories themselves. Other books with equally interesting plotlines have never enjoyed a similar cult following. Instead, what makes Rowling's books so good is how she goes about the underlying themes of good against evil; of courage and friendship.

Those themes resurface once again in the Cursed Child with the added plus – for me at least – that it includes insights on fatherhood and the difficulties of raising children. It is this challenge which is at the core of this book and the debate is extremely well played out.  There isn't an easy resolution - just as there often isn't in real life - and by the end you get a feeling that things are improving but are not fully resolved.

It was equally satisfying to see Dumbledore's role as Harry's father figure getting criticised – I always felt that the burdened Harry with too much responsibility in the initial storyline. I wouldn't go as far as saying that this is a manual for parents - that would be quite presumptuous - but there certainly are a couple of thought strands that can really set one thinking.

Which is precisely why I love sci-fi and fantasy genres. I meet a lot of people who dismiss these kind of books because they cannot stand their unreal set-up.  But feel they’re missing out! Good fantasy and good sci-fi do not just deal with magic and robots; those are just the pretext for discussing the various foibles of humanity.

That is what made the Harry Potter books so enjoyable and why the Cursed Child, for all its faults, is an equally impactful read.

PS – If you’re still craving magical worlds after the dose of Harry Potter, try out Lev Grossman’s The Magicians or Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. A word of warning, though: neither is meant for a young audience and both need a certain level of maturity.  

Oh, and there’s some brilliant stuff in Maltese too: don’t forget John Bonello’s Il-Logħba tal-Allat trilogy or his lastest Jien, wieħed minnhom, the sequel to Merlin Publishers’ bestselling sci-fi and fantasy novel Fil-Mergħat tal-Impossibbli.

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres). He is also the creator of www.snapshotsofmalta.com

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The One about the Sports Books

Post-Olympics, guest blogger Paul Grech is looking for optimism and hope in sports books.

This is not a good time for sport.  Every week stories about corruption, doping and facilities left to rot, hit the headlines. Constantly, we are bombarded with revelations which not only fell our heroes from their pedestals, but also are forcing lifelong fans to turn their backs on the sport they love. 

Sadly, not even the Olympics have helped lift the cloud what with facilities not being up to standard, pool water turning green and fake scenes of athletes being robbed at gunpoint. The biggest blot, however, has been the banning of Russia’s athletics team after it emerged that they had formed part of a state-sponsored doping programme.

Sports scepticism is ruling. And the side effects can be felt in the book world too.

Some months back, whilst browsing through the book section of the pound shop, I came across two autobiographies that epitomise this. One was of golfer Tiger Woods, the other of cyclist Lance Armstrong. Both these athletes were once among the biggest names in sport yet both have atrociously proven to be unworthy of their status. Their books would have once been at the top of best sellers’ lists but now they’re gathering dust: no one is interested in spending even a couple of euros to read the lies of these frauds.

True, biographies can be self-serving and boring. However, there are some notable exceptions and that’s when they usually talk about how success was achieved rather than blabbing on about their lives.

One notable example is Sir Clive Woodward’s Winning! which gives an in-depth look at the methodology and ideas of the rugby World Cup-winning coach. It is a fascinating read because it provides real insight into what makes a great man, rather than the petty gossip that most biographies seem to specialise in. In fact, my favourite sports book – and indeed one of the best books that I’ve ever read – is The Escape Artist by Matt Seaton.

It is a story about his love of cycling and how this fluctuates throughout his life as other loves come and go. I won’t write any spoilers but be warned that the story is gut-wrenching and I still get emotional every time I read it.

The truth is that we spend so much time obsessing on a hobby because it gives us something more than the technical achievement of riding a bike or shooting a ball through a hoop. Sports is about pure, unfiltered passion and emotions.  

And at the end of the day perhaps, that is why those who simply focus on winning at all cost find it is so hard to write well about it. They just don’t get it.

Which is kind of telling of the local mentality and attitude to sport given that there aren’t any decent Maltese books on the subject. Not any that I’ve come across, anyway. There are a lot of annuals and almanacs but their aim is to document the factual happenings rather than talk about the emotions of local sport. Could it be, perhaps, that as a nation we are too focused on winning that anything else is dismissed? Or is it, more simply, that we just don’t think local stories interesting enough to write and read?

Actually, there’s some hope. In the coming days the book L-Istorja ta’ Isard du Pont by Kenneth Vella is due to be published. It will be interesting to see how the tale of this legendary horse who was a cultural icon during the eighties will be treated.

Equally intriguing is Marco Cremona’s mountaineering memoir due to be published next year. Six years ago Cremona was one of a group of Maltese mountaineers who managed to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Such achievements are typically the result of stripping away all that is fancy and focusing on getting to your target. They require hard work and emotional strength. In other words, they provide the raw ingredients necessary for a great sports book.

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres). He is also the creator of www.snapshotsofmalta.com

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May the Force be with us

Guest blogger Paul Grech is getting his Game of Thrones fix, and then some.

Monday mornings aren’t exactly my favourite time of the week and if there’s a day when the urge to sleep in is at its peak then it probably is Monday. That’s hardly surprising: it is the day that signals the return to the grind of the work week and the soul-crushing daily struggle with morning traffic.

Yet for a few weeks earlier this year I found myself willingly waking up early each Monday. So excited was I at the prospect of what lay in store that there were occasions where I found it difficult to get to sleep on a Sunday evening.

The reason for all this excitement was that the latest season of Game of Thrones was being screened in America.

I am aware that this has little to do with books. Although the series has been so popular that a lot of people took to reading the George RR Martin books on which the series is based. Keep in mind that these are huge doorstoppers (or Hodors - that's a Game of Thrones in-joke) with over a thousand pages each. Getting to the end of chunky books is quite a feat even for book lovers yet many of those who do read Martin’s books are anything but avid readers.

This is just one example of what fandom can drive you to do. For Thrones fans, the desire to know more of what was going to happen in the story led them to read books they previously wouldn’t have considered. And, now that the series has gone beyond what was in the books, many are turning to the book prequels or have taken up similar book series.

For years, television and movies were considered to be the antithesis of book reading. Why would anyone read a book when they can go for the lazier route of watching on a screen?

Yet, every successful wave of book-to-movie adaptation spawns a new generation of book readers. Remember the thousands who queued at midnight to get the latest Harry Potter book or the fevered reading of the Twilight series? Even mildly successful movies – like the Percy Jackson ones – can help boost the original books.

They are a first step in a reading habit. Game of Thrones fans tired of waiting for Martin to publish a new book will inevitably look around for similar books (in case you’re one of them, here’s my tip: Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series). Same for those Harry Potter (Artemis Fowl by Eion Colfer) and Twilight (sorry, no idea here) fans.

Earlier this year, my ten-year-old daughter asked to see the Hunger Games movies. Conscious of the complex moral issues that these tackled, I only relented when she agreed to read the books first. My thinking was that the size of the books would surely dissuade her but, no, she read them all, and then, as promised I let her watch the movies.

Curiously, her reading habits have changed since then. She is no longer interested in books with flimsy storylines; she now needs something a little bit more testing to keep her attention.

This is something that the Star Wars franchise is exploiting pretty well. Following last year’s long-awaited instalment to the movie series, they have been issuing a series of books that either put existing characters in new adventures or else come up with new characters.

In doing so they are not only quenching the thirst for new Star Wars stories but making sure that existing fans become ever more connected to the universe.  

May the Force be with us.

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres). He is also the creator of www.snapshotsofmalta.com

[merlinpublishers]

The one for those nursing a football hangover

Guest blogger Paul Grech muses about football reading in days gone by.

One of my favourite childhood memories is the Saturday morning walk to the stationery. I’d then hand all my pocket money in exchange for football magazines. No sweets for me, the coins in my piggy all went towards Match magazine and Guerin Sportivo (the latter with the excuse that it helped my Italian).

Once a month there was the added bonus of World Soccer magazine which, in those pre-internet days, taught me all I needed to know about football in Brazil, Australia and everywhere else in the world. Remember there was no amazon.com back then: to get a book you often had to buy it off a catalogue and postage rates were obscene.

I can still recall the intense rush of excitement I’d get once back home as I quickly leafed through the pages, devouring all the information. It was those magazines, particularly the articles of the great sports writer Brian Glanville, which fuelled my desire to write. I wanted to be like that.

So I kept on reading … and over the decades, amassed hundreds of football books. I’ve read about individual players, remarkable teams and emotional stories. I’ve visited countries virtually through books about their football culture and got to know what it really means to be a football fan.

Picking just one book as my favourite is no easy task, however my choice always falls back on Ronald Reng’s A Life Too Short.  

This is the life story of Robert Enke, a German goalkeeper whose promising career had been somewhat stained by a failed move to Barcelona before recovering enough to become the first choice for the German national team ahead of the home World Cup in 2008. There was to be no happy ending to this story, however, as Enke finally succumbed to the depression that had dogged him throughout his career and committed suicide.

Even knowing what was to come, I found myself at various points of the book desperately hoping for a different conclusion. This is largely down to Reng’s talent; the incredibly delicate and humane manner with which he tells the story. The various phases in Enke’s life and career are described without any unnecessary drama or hyperbole.

A Life Too Short looks at the other side of the coin. It is not a manicured-curated biography that is typical of most celebrities, carefully picking which stories to tell. Instead it portrays Enke in all his humanity as he struggles with his professional and personal doubts, as he grows from a young player into an established international one.  

Ultimately, it is his life story that stays with me. Perhaps it is because I too have occasionally struggled with depression and can relate to his experiences. Or, quite simply, it is because we realise that footballers, no matter how much they earn, are not different from the rest of us.

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres). He is also the creator of www.snapshotsofmalta.com

[merlinpublishers]

Yep! I plan my life according to the football season

Guest blogger Paul Grech is thinking, reading and talking football these days.

In the beginning there was Fever Pitch.

Actually, that’s not quite true. Football’s huge popularity created a book market that for many years publishers satisfied mainly through autobiographies. Hunter Davies’ The Glory Game – recounting the 1960-61 season that he spent following Tottenham Hotspurs – was a rare exception to this trend. Mostly football books were a bland retelling of the most popular players’ careers.

That is what made Fever Pitch so special, when it came out in 1992. In it Nick Hornby doesn’t speak of players but of his life as a football fan. I remember reading it and realising that my fandom had shaped my own life very much in the same manner as it had Hornby’s. For instance, my own life isn’t always measured in years but in football seasons; my appointments are set around the fixture list to ensure they don’t clash with any game.

The timeless nature of the emotion Fever Pitch evokes is one of the reasons why it is considered a classic: get a football fan to read it today and it still resonates.

This isn’t incidental. Frustrated by the lack of quality football writing, fans set up a thriving fanzine (fan-made magazines) scene. And so a culture of fans writing for other fans about their football experiences grew over the years. This was the kick-off ground for many of those who would go on to become the most popular football writers - including Hornby himself.  

Yet Fever Pitch owes its success to timing as it does to Hornby’s narrative genius. The year 1992 coincided with England’s rediscovered love affair with the game following the national team’s run to the semi-final in Italia ’90.  

As a consequence of the Hillsborough disaster, British stadia were rebuilt and the new, safer environment turned the game into a family event. The formation of the Premier League that same year had resulted in an explosion of live games on television and created passion for everything about the game that hadn’t previously existed.

With the game no longer associated with hooliganism, it was suddenly cool to be a football fan. Hornby’s intelligent writing confirmed this and rode on it.  In doing so it opened the floodgates for those with a story to tell …

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres). He is also the creator of www.snapshotsofmalta.com

[merlinpublishers]

How’s your summer reading list?

Guest blogger Paul Grech is back this summer to share his reads and book-musings with us. Welcome back, Paul!

If you’re an eager book nerd like me, one of the great joys of summer is the time we have to catch up on reading. Which means I have a never-ending stack of books all in the queue waiting be read over the coming sunny months. Here I’ll be sharing some of the sun-fun, mid-brow, reads which are on top of my list.

Leviathan Wakes – James S.A. Corey

I thoroughly enjoyed The Expanse – the mystery science fiction drama television series based on Leviathan Wakes, so I’m desperate to get to dig more into this story. If the TV series is anything to go by, the plot should be fantastic. There’s also plenty of plot twists and favourite characters being killed off (think Game of Thrones in space) which I’m sure will add up to a great read.

Black Box Thinking – Matthew Syed

Admittedly, I enjoy reading the occasional self-help book especially if it is by an author whose work I like. Matthew Syed is a Times of London columnist and he is one of the world's most influential thinkers on the science of high performance. His first book, Bounce, which came out six years ago, had really got me thinking. The blurb of his new one looks very promising: the book discusses the links between the Mercedes Formula One team with Google, and the inventor James Dyson and the basketball player Michael Jordan. They are all Black Box Thinkers, he says, and the common factor is that none of them is afraid to face up to mistakes. It’s all about how success is often down to attitude more than anything else. I’m pretty confident I’ll enjoy this book.

The Pleasure of Reading in an Age of Distraction – Alan Jacobs

Though every day I try my best to put aside some time to read, the lure of the various gadgets around the house is sometimes too tempting to resist. However, the pleasure they promise is often hollow, which is why this book caught my attention. If anyone out there is giving any advice on how to stamp out distractions, then I must know about it. I’ll keep you posted.

Qrempuċu f’Belt il-Ġobon – Trevor Żahra

When this story was first published in 1985, I was a kid. The tale of Qrempuċu, the little mouse who sets off on an adventure-packed journey in search of Cheese Town, has recently been republished and I cannot wait to read it to my own children. Although I’ve forgotten the details I clearly remember how much I loved the plot twists, and it is an echo of that thrill which I’m eagerly anticipating. There’s a bonus: the new edition of the book includes illustrations by brothers Mark and Nicholas Caruana who created the 3D film Qrempuċu for the big screen. I watched the short animated feature in cinemas at Christmas time, alongside the Disney film The Good Dinosaur. 

Mister: The Men Who Gave The World The Game – Rory Smith

You are what you read. I am football. And Mister is my summer football read. I’ve been following Rory Smith – a British football journalist – for quite some time and have found him to be an intelligent, insightful author. In this book he explains how in many countries, the colloquial word for a football manager is not “coach" or "boss" but "mister", as that is how the early teachers were known. He looks at the stories of these pioneers of the game – characters whose life and achievements have been partially forgotten. This is exactly the kind of football book that I love.

Miss Peregrine Home Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs

This young adult book is set on a mysterious island, in an abandoned orphanage. And it’s about a strange collection of very curious photographs. It tells the story of a boy who makes his way to an orphanage where children with special abilities live. I’m intrigued because it mixes fiction and photography and it’s been the talk of town for quite some time especially now that it’s being turned into a movie. 

Paul Grech is a father-of-three freelance writer and an all round book lover (with a particular soft spot for sport, fantasy and sci-fi genres). He is also the creator of www.snapshotsofmalta.com

[merlinpublishers]

What kind of reader are you?

Kristina Chetcuti

As a teenager I had this compulsion to borrow clothes. Which meant that I raided the wardrobe of my mother and sister, and when that was not enough, I turned to my father’s. In fact, I spent my university years going round the campus in this enormous dark green man-parka five sizes bigger than me.

Fellow students were known to squint and remark, “Err, what’s that pile of clothes doing in the middle of the quadrangle? Oh wait! It’s moving!”

Yes, I have to admit, that the grass was always greener when it came to clothes; the minor detail of whether they fitted me or suited me was irrelevant.

Luckily, I snapped out of it as I waved my student days goodbye. But I did not rid of the habit completely: strangely it moved on to books and it looks like it doesn’t want to budge. I can’t help myself – I want to read whatever the other people in the household are reading.

And I don’t mean to say, I wait in the queue till they finish the book. Oh no. I want, nay, I need to read it there and then. Which of course makes things a teeny bit uncomfortable for the Significant Other, especially on Sunday nights when we share reading time. I’d be reading my book, but deep down, I’d be eyeing his. The minute, say, his phone rings, ta-da, I sneak my hand and snatch his book away and gorge myself reading his book hurriedly till he’s off the phone.  

Initially he took to holding the book tight under his arm while on the phone. Then he suggested we get two copies of the book he’d be reading. Gasp! “No!” I said, aghast. Books are to be shared! You can’t have the same one in the same house! Eventually, he gave up and now he’s gotten round to the idea that his books have two bookmarks.

I suppose this makes me a grass-is-always-greener sort of reader. But there’s all sorts of us. The Atlantic has a diagnostics guide, even: http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/08/what-kind-book-reader-are-you-diagnostics-guide/324062/

Do you fall under any of these or are you your very own special type? Let us know!