ThankBookFor: Christmas 2016

In many ways, there is a book you can thank for Christmas, and that book is the bible. (As an aside, I'd already written everything that is to follow before that quirk of observation occurred to me (that's as religious as TBF gets, btw.)) So, this is just a quick blog post to assure you all that, despite being fairly quiet recently, we're okay and we haven't gone in to hiding, or anything like that.

The second series is finished, 20 glorious episodes for your listening pleasure, with much fun being had by all as we recorded them. We went to some very cool places (Broadcasting House, a haunted pub and Harrogate Crime Festival to name but a few) and we met some very special people. This endeavour really is putting us in touch with fellow aficionados and leading to some cracking conversations about a wide variety of things.

Big thank you to everyone involved, be they agents for reading my emails, venues for taking my calls, TBF colleagues for continuing to speak to me when I've wowed them with the latest bright idea, guests for agreeing to be interviewed at all, or you, the not so general public, for listening and reacting to the podcasts in such a positive way.

There's some big things lined up over the course of the next few months, and we wanted to let you know about one or two of them before they get started.

The ThankBookFor Hour on 101.8FM, Wolverhampton Community Radio - starting in the new year, TBF will have it's own radio show!

If you live in the city of Wolverhampton, and have access to a radio, you can hear us on 101.8FM. If you live ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD, you can tune in online at www.wcrfm.com. We haven't taken over the airwaves just yet, we won't be doing Drive Time and 'taking you home', it's a midnight slot, for an hour a week, though the Listen Again feature is where we'll be hoping to pick up some new regular listeners. The format won't be the same as it is in the podcasts; there'll be different features, and it'll mainly be me (Tom) hosting it.

Content wise, obviously it'll be about books, and authors, and stories in general. But there'll also be some music stuff in there too. I've been told that I can choose my own music, with the only caveat being there can be no swearing. Admittedly, that does probably cut in half my music library, but it still leaves me with a huge selection of songs to choose from. I'm very excited about it!

More on that a bit nearer the first broadcast date, but we wanted you to know it was in the pipeline.

In other news, for those of you who are reading this but have somehow missed nearly every other tweet and retweet we've made on Twitter, Gemma's (G.X. Todd) book, Defender,

is released on January 12th. You know, the book we've been talking about in quite a lot of our podcasts, the book that we've been bigging up for a while now? Well, it's almost finally here. If you haven't pre-ordered it yet, you can do that HERE. And you should. Because it'll be huge, and it's better to be one of those people who say 'Yeah, I read it as soon as it came out. I knew it would be huge', than one of those people who say 'Yeah, I'd heard of it, but I didn't actually read it until recently. I can see why it did so well'.

Gemma is also having a launch for her book in Birmingham on the day. If you're local, or in the area, and want to know what goes on at one of these things, get in touch with Birmingham Waterstones and 'Tweet for a Seat'! It's completely free (though let's be honest, you should probably buy the book) and you'll have the chance to meet Gemma and talk to her about Defender too.

The ThankBookFor Special, Journey of a Book, is going well. We've got a few parts of it recorded, and a few more booked in to record. It'll be used to signify our triumphant return in the new year, probably around the middle of February, though exactly when is still being decided.

Well, that's all there's time for. Have a great Christmas and holiday period, make the most of being able to spend some time with your loved ones and lets greet 2017 with the opposite of the frustration a lot of 2016 has made most of us feel. Thanks for reading.