alanconnor.com/log

This was fun. Episode one Wed 30 July.

Decision time: 11 May, Royal Albert Hall.

Update 11 May: here I am with the BBC’s Caroline a short while before the award went elsewhere.

A Paddy O’Connell interview is intense. Listen from 24:15. Book is here.

Really enjoyed hearing @alanconnor.bsky.social talk about 188 WORDS FOR RAIN on Radio 4. People often trot out the dubious truism about the Inuit having umpteen words for snow to me, but it seems we Brits have cornered the market for rain!

— Ann Morgan (@annmorgan.bsky.social) 16 February 2025 at 09:36

Talking rain with Ian McMillan and pals. 188 Words for Rain published next week.

Ah, the joy of ⁦@R4TheVerb⁩ with ⁦@alanconnor⁩ ⁦@pascalepoet⁩ ⁦@DerynRJ⁩ ⁦@Isysuttie⁩ ! pic.twitter.com/qiNtmuV6w0

— Ian McMillan (@IMcMillan) October 24, 2024

• The Verb, BBC Radio 4, 1710, 3 Nov 2024

Great fun working with Robbie again and Jonny and Georgie on this:

• Interview in the Times
• Special Guardian puzzle

Series eight, still question editor:

‘

‘This delightful book … this lovely book’ – The Times

ORDER: Local bookshop | Amazon | Waterstones | more

Travel around these islands enjoying our many kinds of rain and the words we use for them.

‘A gorgeous, funny tour of the British Isles as seen from the clouds.’ – Konnie Huq

‘Alan knows everything, knows everyone, and writes beautifully too.’ – Richard Osman

‘I’ve always been in awe of Alan Connor: the man with the contents of the Oxford English
Dictionary stored just above his left eyebrow … and he’s quite funny too.’ – Rory Cellan-Jones

Goodreads | Librarything
BBC Books, 14 Nov 2024
ISBN: 9781785948541, 320 pages, £16.99

Good times with James Peak for this documentary.

And an Everyman puzzle to match.

Radio 4, 7 April 2024, 1915

Choose your way through the story, plus some new games, out 23 November:

I’m right at the end of today’s episode:

Series seven:

On bookshelves 22 September.

Series six:

More detail than you could reasonably expect on Inside No 9’s Riddle of the Sphinx and Two Girls, One on Each Knee …

… in this podcast episode.

• My other books

Series four starts on 12 October. Happily (for me), the question-editor bit of production preceded … the Unpleasantness.

See also: my book for Penguin, The Joy of Quiz. And, to a lesser extent, the official spin-off book.

You should watch this episode first …

… then listen to the podcast to discover my indirect association.

The book in question is The Joy of Quiz.

See also: The Riddle of the Sphinx

For every Shipping Forecast area, you find the places on the map indicated by various clues. Join the places to form the shapes of letters. Join the letters to form a sea shanty.

Out 5 November from your local bookshop / Penguin / Waterstones / Amazon etc.

It also gives a flavour of what it’s like to be in each of Dogger, Fisher, German Bight…

• BBC Books / Ebury Publishing
• ISBN: 9781785945106
• 240 pages; 216 x 135 mm
• Goodreads · LibraryThing
• Previously: Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword; The Joy of Quiz

Crikey.

Series three of House of Games; 100 episodes.

See also: my book for Penguin, The Joy of Quiz

I am proud of this book, which comes out on 17 October.

It has some games from the TV show, and some new ones and, with a couple of exceptions, all new questions. There are some imaginary behind-the-scenes conversations and general nonsense.

• Previously: Two Girls, One on Each Knee: The Puzzling, Playful World of the Crossword; The Joy of Quiz
• £14.99 RRP hardback
• 17 October 2019 hardback
• BBC Books
• ISBN: 1785944622 and 978-1785944628

Blurb:

Do you know how many post boxes there are in the UK? Could you guess how many times the word ‘goat’ appeara in the King James Version of the bible? Fancy playing a game of charades where all of the books, films and plays are entirely made up? Now, look around the room. Is anyone there the kind of person who’ll say ‘I just don’t understand this’, when faced with something that’s not just perfectly easy to understand, but is … well, fun? Ask them to leave. Have they gone? Good. Now welcome inside the House of Games.