The Year of Open Doors

The Year of Open Doors is a collection of short stories, edited by Rodge Glass and published by Cargo Publishing. If the name of the book sounds familiar that might be down to regular mentions of launch events in the weekly gig guide, usually followed by a promise of me doing a full post on it later.

I have a strange definition of later.

I've finally finished reading the book, but rather than carry on promising that post and failing to get it done, this will be a bit of a bare bones run down of The Year of Open Doors.

If it seems a bit odd that I'm posting about a book on what is generally a music blog, then firstly shut up, I can post what I like and a bit of culture won't hurt you. Secondly, there's a fair bit of crossover involved between the book and the music World.
Editor Rodge Glass is also the frontman in Burnt Island - who we really like around here - and other contributors include Doug Johnstone, a member of Fence Collective band Northern Alliance, Kevin MacNeil, who has recorded music with Willie Campbell of Astrid and The Reindeer Section as well as delivering the opening monologue on the open track of the debut album by There Will Be Fireworks. Then there's Aidan Moffat, who is, well, Aidan Moffat.

There's a couple of other familiar names to Aye Tunes readers on the list of contributors too, in the shape of Kirsten Innes and Anneliese Mackintosh, the minds behind Words Per Minute.

Anyway, back to the book itself. The Year of Open Doors collects new short stories from some of the best writer in Scotland, though not necessarily Scottish. Some of those writers are familiar, some are brand new, but refreshingly everyone gets the same treatment, there's no star billing or any of that nonsense going on. The mixture of races, nationality and gender of the contributors is nice to see too. More importantly than all of that, The Year of Open Doors is a cracking read too. Cargo are a fairly new publisher who have aimed high with this collection, to me at least they've hit the target too. Reward their enthusiasm and ambition by picking up the book!

There's one more musical crossover too, as Cargo Publishing have teamed up with Chemikal Underground to release an audiobook version, you can buy that here.

The audiobook is available now and there's a launch night for it on Monday, also the closing night of Unbound at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Performing on the night are Burnt Island, Adrian Crowley and a currently Top Secret musical mystery guess (it isn't Cher, or Rod Stewart, but beyond that I have no idea) as well as readings from a few of the authors of The Year of Open Doors. That all takes place Highland Park Spiegletent on August 30th, from 7 - 11pm, pick up tickets here.

Links: Cargo Publishing - Rodge Glass - Chemikal Underground

The Year of Open Doors is available from bookshops, funnily enough. It is also available online direct from Cargo, or from Amazon in hardback, or for the Kindle.