Now that the book has been launched for just over a month, I thought it time to share some of my favourite reviews. There are several on Amazon, which are all positive and thoughtful, but are clearly already in the public domain, so I won't re-publish them here.
However, many people have commented privately, and some of those comments are particularly gratifying, as much for who wrote them as the encouragement they offer. So, at the risk of being accused of name-dropping, here are some of my top reviews.
"Many people have wondered, debated, disputed, argued and pondered whether the stories relating to knight errantry are true, historical, veridical, credible and worthy of belief as factual accounts of events that really did happen. Some, indeed, are rash and foolhardy enough to claim that Amadis of Gaul is a fiction, the invention of a balladeer, songster, minstrel or troubadour. Yet such arguments are fruitless, without merit, and worthy to be condemned. For as Andrew Scott points out in Shifting Stories, one and the same person can, and indeed normally does, hold many stories about the very same reality, so the tale of Amadis may be both believed and disbelieved without any damage to one's integrity, honesty, sanity, well-being or reputation, and this I hold to be true, in the face of all the malevolent enchanters who seek to do me harm!"
D. Quixote, La Mancha, Spain
'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young lady in search of a fortune may construct stories, and such stories will be full of people who in their turn hold stories about each other in their minds, which, in the fulness of time, are proven to be the products of both pride and prejudice; for such is the way we all live, so as to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn. All this is thoughtfully and carefully explained in Shifting Stories, a book that has the merit of quoting me. '
J. Austen, Chawton, Hants
'To read, or not to read, that is the question! Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous stories, or, by loosening the grip, discovering more helpful stories, and enriching the plot of those more helpful stories, end them.'
Hamlet, Elsinore, Denmark