Reblogged
Introduction to Scott Pack and Wendy Aldiss presenting Wendy’s book, “My Father’s Things”, which you can get here: https://ift.tt/Z3q5EOV I'm really honoured to be here and to introduce Wendy and Scott to talk about the beautiful book and the man that the book is about. Everyone here knows who Brian Aldiss was. Many of you knew him better than I did. I met him only twice, and briefly, at the end of a long life lived to the full. So I can't tell you a lot about Brian Aldiss as a man, still less about Brian Aldiss as a father. But I can tell you about the personal impact that his writing had on me. For me, growing up in Belfast in the bad old days, Brian Aldiss more than perhaps any other writer offered me a glimpse of another way that life could be. His irreverent takes on sex and religion were an important counter-narrative to what I got from my convent school. His interest in what was then Yugoslavia sparked a fascination of my own which eventually turned into a major part of my career. And his love of language and of stories inspired me to think of what can be done with words. This is a lovely book. Thanks to Brexit, I had to pay an extra €27 in import charges when I ordered it delivered to my home in Belgium. Worth every eurocent, of course. It's a book about a man who lived for 92 years; it's a book about his writing; it's a book about grief at the loss of a parent; and it's all told through the medium of photography. So I'm going to step back and let Wendy and Scott explain how the book came to be, and some more of the thoughts behind it. — view on Instagram https://ift.tt/mgtiN4B
