Biljana's Book Lounge

Meditation

2012-01-20T19:08:00.001+01:00

It's not easy, it's never easy, whatever the task at hand. But the obstacles and the setbacks shouldn't be taken as signs to let go and give up and be discouraged forever. That is no way to pursue, to dream a dream.
There's always a way to get to something you want, you like with all your essence. If you put your heart in it, the universe will conspire with all the forces so that it comes true for you.
So never go off course, dream the dream and keep believing.
There will be times of temptation, challenges and unexpected circumstances. Don't give up. Persist. Resist. Make the change. Make the transition. Stronger, bolder, free to do whatever it takes to write the poetry that is your life. Don't let anyone else shape your poem.
Your verses are your own. And you choose what you can or cannot leave behind. Be the beauty, live it, feel it, breathe it. It's the first truth that nature can ascertain for you. Then it's your turn.
For me, writing is living. And yes, it's unfolding quite well.

Distribution

2012-01-19T21:24:00.000+01:00

News about the distribution of ebooks from the virtual book lounge.
This year you will be able to find my works available on lulu.com (as usual) and on amazon.com (kindle).
(The titles offered will be exclusive to each site, no cheating!)
Here's my spotlight on lulu.com lulu spotlight
And here's my author profile on amazon.com biljana petrova on amazon

More on the offer to read one poetry collection for free in the previous post. (offer ends Jan 22)
The decision comes after a long perusal of both sites and their forums and terms and conditions, as well as taking into consideration the additional obstacles of me being a resident of Macedonia (no paypal, very few ways of getting international financial transfers smoothly)
While I am happy to promote my work for free at the moment, I really need to consider the royalties and to value my work in the long term, as I am sure any author out there reading this agrees.
So thanks for your support and for all your comments.
Much appreciated.
Let's make this a creative year.
Happy reading!

More than words can say...

2012-01-18T23:20:00.001+01:00

A little something for all of you poetry lovers here.

Offer ends January 22.

I've been busy at the Book Lounge and it shows..and it's always giveaway time..something to enjoy.
Spread the word, yeah. x

Laughter and Forgetting

2012-01-15T17:25:00.002+01:00

And it's time to smile, to let go...to laugh out loud, and liberate all energy piled up inside, breath out the negative and breathe in the positive, and laugh...

A book by Milan Kundera comes to mind The Book of Laughter and Forgetting , which may not be completely related to the point of this blog post, but it touches on the main thing I'd like to highlight.

Laughter is a good medicine. Forget the bad times, learn a lesson, keep the essential facts, but forget the poison of the bad events, deal with the emotions, process and move on, let go...

And laugh...life is beautiful, you're free, you're the master of your time, your actions, the consequences, the choices.

Be honest, and while some people won't like that, remember that it's not the number of friends you have, but how true they are.

And in the end it's always loneliness, from birth to death.

Laugh...don't forget to laugh...

The Law and the Book of the Jungle

2012-01-14T13:09:00.001+01:00

I was going to blog something along the lines of "abolishment of slavery", but it's a lovely sunny day and I think I've already had my say on everything regarding the abominal bully matter.
So, as a friend once pointed out, let's apply the law of the jungle to the matter. If you can't eat it, beat it etc..walk over it. Well, that's the abbreviated version.
Don't let anyone torture your soul online. Cyber bullies are energy suckers. Nobody can make you do anything you don't want to do. Full stop.
Writing is a lonely, reclusive process. (I am reclusive by nature, and not as a marketing trick, as some shallow people like to point out.) I don't wear fake glasses to seem an intellectual, nor do I shout "depression" to be IN.
But each to their own.
Coffee, inspiration, blogging on the go..and there's happiness.
Nothing more, nothing else.
Most certainly no one else.
My life, my attitude, my rules.

Nonsense!

2012-01-13T20:26:00.002+01:00

Every story has two sides. And I've been keeping MY side of the story quiet, because frankly, I don't think it deserves to be told.
But seeing how the other individual concerned (who shall not be named because I don't want to increase his SEO results gratis) slanders me all over his blogs, the time has come to point out a few flaws in his concept.
Those who read this from facebook/twitter/google plus know exactly who I am talking about. And hopefully after reading this blog post they will all go about their business and stop spamming me.
The matter as far as I am concerned is over. Closed, done and dusted. I am the author of a written work that revoked permission to a publisher after his outrageous behaviour.
Note: I am the AUTHOR. My books are like babies for me. Ever seen a lioness fight for her cubs? Of course I'll be fierce and proud and merciless should anyone dare touch them or try harm them.
So, yes, I exited a ...to all intents and purposes a "verbal agreement". Here's the reason why:
read this and tell me how it's not a threat:

"well...if you really feel that way, this can be an adversarial relationship rather than the beginning of a great friendship. But I hope you realize that you will have managed to turn what could have been a friend into to someone who would be more or less dedicated to insuring you could not write and publish your work in most of the world. So if you're really made up your mind to dump me, so be it. But do not think that your actions do not have consequences."

Message from "publisher" received Jan 12, just before midnight.

A threat. Empty and pathetic but threat nonetheless. Would you let someone who tries to bully you into staying in business with them publish your books????

I thought not.

So I revoke his right to publish the book. My right as an author. What does he do? First tries to backtrack, then tries to deny he wrote the threat, then he says he'll publish without my permission anyway....hello?

Author? Copyright?

Delusional much?

As a matter of fact I contacted all three sites where he wanted to upload my manuscript and they all have the same strict policy: no material gets published without the permission of the author. And that's...yes, you've guessed, ME.

And, yes, I refuse to grant permission to someone who's arrogant, who hides behind his physical/psychological impairments, who bullies me and threatens to wreck my career as a writer.

Dude, you're not going far in publishing, that much I can tell you.

And then:

"eat sh*t and die."

This is the kind of language that I don't allow anybody to use. Maybe in America they're used to being the Lords of the World and they can threaten the moment someone disobeys...but not here, not with me, you don't.

Also, he demands 2000 dollars for "termination of contract" (yes the non existent one). He claims to have "invested" that amount these days to get my work published.

Playing Empire Avenue much, dude?

What he has done, to my knowledge: set up a wordpress blog with a domain and sent a few emails and talked to a designer. 20 dollars should cover it...but here's the thing, nobody ever asked him to do this, it was his idea, his costs. I made it clear I don't have money. So the 2000 dollars claim is at best pathetic, let alone pure nonsense.

And he goes around his friends telling them how I behaved badly (oh really!) - very rich from someone who suggested fecal enrichment of my diet.

Not to mention the threats.

And that he lost his investment (dude, seriously, a little less Empire Avenue).

And that he has learnt a lesson, a hard one...that a hat doesn't make a cowboy.

No kidding mate!

Neither does an avatar of books from the clipboard a publisher make.

So, to cut a long story short: you have above all the points from my side of the story to pair with his side of the story, then you decide, and stop spamming my inbox with hate mail.

He will never be my publisher if he's the last one on Earth.

My work will continue and he will not prevent my writing or publishing. (Unless he comes to kill me, but I doubt that- it's easy to play The Boss from behind a keyboard, and for someone who hides his face and distorted voice....it's really big threats, big words, but no substantial matter behind them.) Sorry.

Then, the same dude who told me to...well, you know..and die..writes a brief announcement saying he "wishes me luck".

Oh, save it for your future writers, mate. If you ever sign someone up, they're going to need it.

I am not naming names, but if you're thick skinned and if you don't mind being handled by a manic, depressive, delusional and dangerously psychologically disturbed individual, then, fine..go publish with him.

Of course, I am not perfect either. But the whole point of me grasping the offer, was the fact that my country doesn't have paypal, so I needed someone to mediate with my royalties cheques. Nothing else.

And with that behaviour in mind, I wasn't going to see any cheques. So what's the point then?

I have my books published on Lulu.com. Exclusively there. And he can't do anything to stop me from self publishing more.

He wanted quick cash and claim to fame over my work. No can do, dude.

Better luck with some poor gullible author next time.

But stay well away from me, because next time it won't be on blogger that you'll be reading my roars.

America has ways of dealing with bullies too. Only if I could be bothered...but the law is on my side.

So tough luck.

END OF STORY.

Here's to new beginnings

2012-01-07T14:36:00.001+01:00

Here's a new year at the lounge. A perfect setting to think about new, fresh ideas and concepts, consolidate and pace projects properly as well as start thinking of new things to write, create, explore.
That's what the book lounge is about, and writing and living is what I am about. My river, calm waters flowing to the sea.
Nothing, nothing else matters.
Blogging is a good way of putting thoughts in the proper order and seeing from that order what needs to be done and what takes precedence.
So while I closed most of the accounts online and stopped posting on various networks, because it just got too much, I decided to keep on blogging in the new year, my thoughts on writing in this blog and poems in the poetry blog.
It's who I am and what I do best. I don't want to bother anyone, I just want to write. I don't owe anything to anybody, I prefer not to ask favors of anyone. I like to make my life as a writer work. And no one can do it for me.
I appreciate the help and the support last year, both with the ebooks and the book published in Skopje. I am still receiving feedback and taking into consideration the thoughts of the readers. One thing is clear, I will keep on writing.

Wishing everyone a very Happy new year!

What is Inspiration?

2011-12-26T10:36:00.002+01:00

The fantastic community of poets and dreamers My Word Wizard has come up with this amazing initiative, a poetry collection called What is Inspiration?, a selection of 20 contributions to their site.

Happy and honoured to be a contributor. Also, pleased to announce that the book will be available for free download on Amazon Kindle only today, Monday, December 26th.

Happy reading!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006P5KWMU

Inspiration

2011-12-23T10:15:00.001+01:00

A surprise announcement in the mail a couple of days ago, and it turns out that one of my poems will be honoured by being included in an e-book poetry collection with 20 others, for Christmas.
Details and links to follow soon...
It's festive at the book lounge and I am very very excited...so I wanted to share this tiny piece of news for you, for immense joy!

A review on "Bureau of lost souls"

2011-12-18T16:48:00.000+01:00

“On the purity of the soul and the individual integrity”

(Bureau of Lost Souls- Biljana Petrova)

Whenever a literary text (of any genre) is considered for evaluation and interpretation it soon transpires it’s not an easy or a simple task at all. Actually, when something is being “criticized” at the same time the critic criticizes himself. Therefore I needed more time and several readings of the first prose work by the young author Biljana Petrova in order to compose my modest review on the literary work- Bureau of Lost Souls.

The text is presented through a dense philosophical poetical discourse- the word with this author has a strictly restricted space, and yet her thought is given infinite freedom to express relevant categories of human existence: transience, non-sense, absurdity and paradox. Thus we have a book (closest to novella in its genre) on a careful contemplation on the brief human life, with many enigmas and question marks about the essence of the human being.

Biljana Petrova is a young author. She’s authentic and has her own voice. Her work can be read and re- read and it leaves you impressed with the philosophic depth and her knowledge in contemplation. This latest manuscript of hers, in prose is only a confirmation that one of her primary dilemmas is the question: is it possible, in a world tending to progress and welfare of the human being and the society in general, to withhold the basic spiritual values, or the purity of the soul and the individual integrity. Or, because of the evil, greed, violence, wars, human vices etc, man will throw himself into the self destructive fire, alienation, fanatical fantasies.

The alienation of the individual (Oblomov) from the environment is his own. He makes a problem out of his life and not as they say : “ the reality must follow everything until we realize that only the real is beautiful and the beautiful is real”.

The motive for this novella comes to Biljana from the simple data: details of life. Life is mutable and inconsistent, and so is the past, which was once life and meant happiness and joy, and now is subject to memories or oblivion.

Thinking about certain phenomena and categories of the human existence and create a novella upon these philosophical esthetical postulates is very unusual for such a young writer. And we discover this process in her writing on the human life, the joy and sorrow, death, traveling through Europe and Ex-Yugoslavia. In this novella we discover a font of rare and rich moments from the lives of Oblomov and Miss Espresso (and this means that every single one of us can be portrayed in these two characters).

Biljana’s writing is interesting, modern and wise. She gives details allusive, allegoric, symbolic and metaphoric meaning, and thus the work gains multiple meanings and ambiguity , as a creative secret for the reader to solve.

I would say that his novel is fantastic as well as philosophical, even though it does not belong to the genre of classical philosophy. It has a very unusual content and a sinister sound to it. Why? Because nowadays we live in a world where conflicts of all kinds: international, ethnic, political etc, then wars, displacement, crime and corruption and so on dominate- and the author sees it as a destruction of the soul.

She feels a negativity in the character of Oblomov compared to the people who have placed their souls on the edge, in the abyss of the universe. Through him people spend their lives uncomfortably, negatively, inconveniently. Biljana, in one way or another, tries to discover the soul, the hidden in man, what cannot be seen and yet is the most essential part of the human existence. I think that it’s the soul which provokes these contemplations with the author,, her own confirmations on the fate of man- of his soul. Therefore it is to be expected that Biljana uses the soul as a starting point, as an obsessive aspect, and in a symbolic way asks “What would man be without his soul”.

Oblomov and his symbiotic relation to Miss Espresso imposes the contemplation of the times where man and his existence and principles of being in times of absence of happiness are visibly damaged, in a spiritual dimension. The soul is always present in this manuscript, latently rather than manifestly. That’s why the author enters a psychoanalysis of both characters in the novel. Miss Espresso does not exist. She’s a shadow, unstable, and her name is a corruption of “missing persons”. She is a symbol of all people deprived of freedom. Through this character the author emphasizes the destiny fo the missing children in the war in

Bosnia

. They are lost , unnamed souls.

The fear, the pangs of consciousness, the grief, the nostalgia, all these are abstract notions and they are embodied in Miss Espresso. Oblomov overcomes the atrocities of the war while talking to her. It’s the same with dreams. The brain processes the events so that it can function properly at wake up. After retiring he takes part in a humanitarian mission in Bosnia. His psychological crisis is carefully and skillfully described in morbid ways. He feigns to be deaf in order to attract people’s attention.

He cures trauma with pranks, so that he may feel alive.

We note elements of surrealism at the beginning of the novella. Yet, this surrealism is used by Biljana to describe life. She portrays life in such a way that her reasoning receives it and gives it in a particular context. It seems that Biljana knows the anatomy very well, the anatomy of the soul.

And if man and his soul cannot survive in a particular environment, he’s finished. Biljana demystifies the soul. Her bitterness is nothing but insisting to describe man who loses his identity when he loses his soul.

Man affronts bad and good things in life. And at a point of saturation, he feels the need to be sincere, spontaneous, pure, clean. Those are psychological moments, crucial for the survival of the soul. In the same way we cannot comprehend the Universe in its entirety, we cannot comprehend the soul. Should that happen, it would be absurd.

The novella is full of temporary places: cafes, train stations, terminals, airports, hotels, hospitals. These are places of passing over, of transience, where lots of people stay only momentarily and pass happy or sad hours, parting, arriving, healing, dying… And these edifices are universal, their function is uniform the world over, and that’s why the lost souls find an anchor here, to serve for their existence or non existence.

Man is tested before all the norms of existence. In the distance between time and space, between life and man, it seems that there’re both the points of beginning and ending. This is where the deep rummaging of one’s own soul begins, the hearing of the categories of the general and the universal notions.

The book consists of fragments of life of the characters, yet it is a whole, rich and impressive, a diary of a person, in good times and in bad, where the common mortal man is created.

That’s the philosophical contemplation of Biljana P, for the man who relies on a kind of realization that one must follow a certain road and find satisfaction in life through his soul, until death comes inevitably.

The book is not very big in volume, yet “Bureau of lost souls” offers the opportunity, when one is alone and finds time for themselves,, to take it and read it in silence, patiently and slowly. It’s partly autobiographical which shows knowledge and experience of the permanent values of the wandering on the roads of life.

Reviewer, S. Arsova, writer

At the end of the year...

2011-12-03T18:03:00.001+01:00

Another year draws to a close at the Book Lounge. I suppose Wednesday's book launch/promo was the highlight of my literary activities. (See video clip for a taste of the lovely evening) Bureau of Lost Souls came to light and is now doing well in the book stores and among the readers in Skopje.

I had other literary activities this year, trying to make some inroad in the e-book sector, facing lots of obstacles, and not forgetting the beautiful albeit short lived gesture of the Islands poetry collection. But some promises are hard to keep...

I've come a long way since then, and I've learnt a couple of lesson, I feel wiser now..and content.

Here's to wisdom, self reliance and happiness!

Bureau of Lost Souls

2011-11-28T13:45:00.001+01:00

Book launch Wednesday. Details on my facebook page. See you! Happy reading :)

Coming soon

2011-11-05T17:09:00.003+01:00

Bureau of Lost Souls
(in Macedonian...coming soon)

More lost souls, part of the editing process

2011-10-17T12:26:00.001+02:00

Miss Espresso and M.K. Oblomov waiting for their chance to appear in a book under the Macedonian sun

Decisions, choices, corrections...

2011-10-11T16:16:00.002+02:00

Which of these images would you associate immediately with lost souls?

New stories

2011-10-02T10:36:00.001+02:00

New at the book lounge, you can check it out here.

Wishing everyone a chilled out Sunday!

Falling leaves, falling prices

2011-09-08T13:59:00.000+02:00

After a bit of a research on ebook pricing, and with the change of season, I decided to slash the prices on 3 poetry ebooks. The changes will become visible on my lulu spotlight page soon. Stay tuned. And thank you for buying my work, you're supporting an artist in the making.. :)

The Beginning of Black & White

2011-09-02T13:18:00.003+02:00

BLACK

The Grand Central Station in Turin is a huge, imposing building with passengers from all over the world swarming in the hall. The buzz of foreign languages mixed into the sweet sounding Italian and then spoken all at once is somewhat hushed in the corner, near the exit, at the supermarket’s shop window.

Miss Espresso is sitting on a black, iron-clad bench, clutching her purse and a bus ticket in her hand. She’s staring at it, bemused by the elegant design, studying it carefully as if it were a tarot card, about to spell her future.

Her long black elegant coat is at odds with the colorful plastic bags and shirts around her. So is her sad, resigned expression. An Asian lady is dragging her wailing son behind her as she heads for the supermarket. Miss Espresso picks up the words “latte”, “mangiare”, spoken with a cute inflection, and then bounces them back. Not her worries. A beggar approaches the bench. As if…

Miss Espresso stands up, passing him by in careful indifference as she leaves the station with determined steps echoing in the big black hall.

C.so Vittorio Emanuele, a long straight street, one of many in this city. You couldn’t get lost in Turin if you tried. Everything squared, streets meeting at right angles. Everything seems so ordered and there’s calm and beauty in that carefully positioned order.

Miss Espresso reaches for her cell phone in order to check out the map and just as she presses the unlock switch the first tones of Edward Blake’s Pink Panther theme ring under the cast iron balconies.

Caller ID: Miran K. Oblomov. She takes the call with a sigh, waiting for the opening punch line. Talking to professor Oblomov is like playing chess.

-“Looking for the Holy Grail, are we? Or is it that sacred piece of cloth you wanted to see?”

There’s the pawn straight up front.

-“I told you to switch off the GPS locator on my phone. You’re not my father and at times you’re turning into a creepy stalker.”

-“You’re very beautiful when you’re angry. But your smile is like sunshine to my tired eyes.”

-“Not in the mood to soothe your eyes now, sorry”.

Bishop successfully taken out of the way.

“If you turn left right there, you’ll come straight to the monument which is supposed to be the gateway to Hell.”

Checkmate.

~You can find the whole novella in pdf format (ebook) by clicking this link: Black and White

The Marvels of Inspiration

2011-08-17T11:17:00.000+02:00

Ohrid, and the beautiful lake. Inspiration and wonder for all the senses...
So many new ideas in my head, a few projects to turn into reality, hopefully soon. Black and White, the novella, translated in Macedonia, now, it's time to roll the publishing process, after reviews and all the necessary procedures.
Other texts still "maturing", but that's for later, right now, in the heat, trying to rest, to shake off all remnants of unwanted and uncalled-for negativity and hoping to gain more strength for the challenges of the autumn..
Stay tuned..

More Than Words

2011-07-30T17:31:00.000+02:00

Migrated from Kindle to LULU..

ebook available here

Blending, Coffee and Poetry, new ebook

2011-07-18T11:31:00.000+02:00

available HERE.

THEY CAME FROM THE SEA (work in progress)

2011-07-09T12:15:00.000+02:00

“Who were these people? The unknown. They came there at night, and departed in the morning.”

Victor Hugo

PETER GATES

The New Scotland Yard sign in front of the stainless steel clad office block of the Metropolitan Police HQ in London was revolving to the tune of pan flutes.

The white horse trotted to a halt in front of the entrance, revealing the rider to be none other than the senior Met Boss. And then he turned into Peter’s mother, as he would, in dreams, asking him in a stern voice whether he’d been feeding himself properly.

A colourful parrot flew past, screeching hellos and something about mateys and crackers and shiver me timbers…

…Peter woke up with a start. It was 3 a.m. and his phone was ringing. He knew they needed him at the station; a policeman was always on duty, even in his sleep. For the umpteenth time he cursed the day he was given this post, from the London Metropolitan Police to the Channel Islands, temporary, they’d said, assisting in correcting the discrepancies resulting in the national census.

And he had a feeling this call had to do with the newcomers.

“Peter Gates.”

“Sir, you’d better come in. They…”

Peter couldn’t believe his ears as the constable’s words poured in.

“They did…WHAT? “

The constable was about to repeat the whole story when Peter told him he’d be down in ten minutes.

……

THE NEWCOMERS

They came from the sea. That was the simplest way of putting it. The local police and coast guard officials, and sometimes the fishermen, found them, semiconscious, half-drowned, soaking wet, washed up to the beaches and the rocks, in groups of 2 to 3, sometimes up to 20, or 30. No sign of shipwrecks, no news of sinking boats in the area, or anywhere; yet these people kept coming, washed up on the shore.

Once the initial shock died down, they tried to explain who they were, and where they came from, shuddering beneath a first aid blanket. But most of them didn't speak any English at all, while some of them who did, claimed to be from places which didn't exist anymore.

No documents on them, only soaking wet clothes, and sometimes, the odd object which could mean anything and everything.

So that was that, then: they were stuck on the island, castaways, stuck until further notice. They were taken to the old summer resort, abandoned in the 80s, mostly bungalows, trailers, and tents. It was near Gorey Bay. Jersey States managed to register them as refugees with the International Red Cross and UNHCR, and London was glad to help with provisions as long as they stayed on the island and didn't attempt to immigrate to England. They seemed quite happy in the resort. No one tried to escape, no one ever filed complaints, no plots, no conspiracies.

Accepting with grace all aid, they slowly settled on the island. Much to the dismay of the islanders and the local celebrities and millionaires who had had an eye on that property and the International refugee camp clashed with their dollar sign flashing plans.

They decided to keep the name of the camp "Paradis Soleil".

....

As Peter Gates was picking up his car keys, the irony wasn't lost on him. He learnt to live with the biblical allusions of his name. The present circumstances only made him smile with bitterness.

Closer to Home than Most

...

A couple of the newcomers were clearly closer to home than most: there was the Frenchman for instance, well, a man speaking fluent French and looking wistfully at Victor Hugo's books and an expert on onion soup and duck pate'. Normandy was about 20 miles off the Jersey coast, yet he shook his head when offered a passage or an interview with the French authorities.

His last known address was La Mer, the sea, that was all he remembered.

The other one, a temperamental Italian, flaying his hands about, always complaining about the local bars and correcting them that it's espresso not expresso, and often invoking the Madonna or his Mamma with palms pressed together moving up and down or shrugging his shoulders at every question. He too was offered a contact with the authorities in Italy, and he too said he had nowhere to go...Il mare, he pointed to the sea and then shrugged again.

A beautiful look of bliss came across his face whenever he saw a Jersey calf with bambi eyes, and he'd sometimes gaze at the sunset in a poetic way. He was often nervous when there was football on tv, but calmed down immediately after the match changing the subject to the pizza toppings on offer in the local pizzeria, and the sacrilege of it.

Peter Gates sent their photos to Italy and France respectively, and there was no reply. Nobody was looking for them, nobody knew who they were.

It was the same and worse, with the others.

....

Peter Gates noticed something strange, he had the photos of all the men from the day they were found on the shore, and he saw them almost every day. Some had been there for years, yet, their features remained the same, no trace of aging, no sign of anguish or displacement. They seemed children on a schooltrip, lost in their eternal innocence

....

It was the same, and worse, with the others. There were two people claiming to be from Chernobyl and a geiger counter was brought in to prove it, and sure enough, they were, well, radioactive. They liked making a show of the electrical buzz going off; the medical team on the island was taking the matter seriously and was monitoring their health closely in a separate bungalow. But they had no home to go back to.

Another special case: the members of the orchestra. Most of them were swept to the shore with pieces of their instruments, and spoke what appeared to be slavic languages. Former Yugoslavia, apparently, yet another lost cause as far as going back home was concerned. They were often bickering, fighting, sometimes fists flew and colourful gestures followed. They watched football and hummed music and quarelled over politics, drank a lot and made lots of pranks between them, but they were generally fine and resigned to the situation. The new independent countries on the Balkans apparently had other problems than missing orchestra members. So these musicians stayed in the resort too.

And then it was getting more colourful by the day: the Chinese acrobats, the Jamaican reggae band, the Peruvian hat makers, the Russian farmers, the Portuguese brewery workers, the Indian guru, the Greek cook and the Egyptian fortune teller...

Peter Gates had all their files on his desk. He didn't know where to start, and more to the point, he didn't know where or how to fit these people in the census forms. The volunteers sent to do the job were useless, there was a form filled by the Devil residing in the Devil's Hole, last name Milton, if the information scribbled down was to be trusted. Born 1666 too.

With a heavy sigh Peter looked at the other pile on his desk: the complaints by the islanders. He looked at the top file: last night the newcomers put Jersey cows into boats and towed them all the way to Guernsey then rowed them back to Jersey, so that they could practice the new idiom "till the cows come home". The farmers were not amused. It was getting late and he didn't even want to go over the other files. It can all wait until the morning. These people weren't going anywhere, and neither was he. So he might as well try and come up with a good plan.

-to be continued-

Author, Author! (goodreads profile)

2011-06-22T09:18:00.000+02:00

Biljana Petrova on goodreads

The link above leads to my goodreads profile as an author, with bibliography and everything ! Immensely proud and at the same time grateful...

Summertime at the book lounge

2011-06-18T13:22:00.002+02:00

What will you be reading this summer?

Outdoors reading lounge

2011-06-16T14:04:00.000+02:00

the whole story