The most powerful drug...

This evening Carol and I have been to an exciting literary soirée - the purpose being to hear one of our favourite authors, China Miéville, give a reading from his new book 'Railsea' and take questions from his adoring public. It was an excellent event!

Miéville is a very cool dude and purveyor of what he terms Weird Fiction. I'd recommend his novel 'The City and The City' as a good starting point if you haven't read anything by him. Any book which has been compared to the works of George Orwell, Franz Kafka, Raymond Chandler and Philip K Dick and has been endorsed by Margaret Atwood is surely worth checking out...

The light quality was dreadful but I've tried to make the best of it in this picture of him just before he signed my copy of his previous novel, 'Embassytown', with a quote from Kipling:

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug"

Quite!

Following the reading/signing I met up with my friend Zbyszek who sent me a text out of the blue this afternoon to say he was in Liverpool for the day to register to do a PhD (in Philosophy and Performance) which is great news and means I'll get to see him much more regularly. We went for a celebratory drink before he caught the train back down to London.

A really good night but I'm so tired that I can barely type, so I must go to bed... I'll catch up with you all tomorrow!