Countdown to Claudius

Just a quick update on my 'gig' at Waterstones in Stirling.
It went really well. There were only about ten people there, plus the staff, but everyone seemed to enjoy my talk and we had a good question and answer session afterwards that was great fun. Lots of good stuff about history and the Romans and about writing. I generally stuck to the script, but found that because I was quite relaxed I was able to divert from it at times and go into a bit more depth about the points I was making. That made it a lot more spontaneous than it had been when I was doing it in the house in front of my long-suffering son Gregor and his pals.

Although it wasn't a huge audience, the way it went was a big boost for my confidence and I'm looking forward to the next few months and my various public appearances.

One last comment about the review I highlighted in my last entry. The thing that saddened me most was that when I looked on the website to see what reaction there'd been to it, about three people said they thought it might be as bad as she said because of the cover. They also said they wouldn't read it because of her review. It concerns me that people are prepared to write off a book - any book - because of someone else's views, which might be biased for any amount of reasons. By all means be critical, but please make up your own mind. If you don't want to buy it, get it out of the library, but read it yourself before you condemn it.