My website's having its first birthday this month. To mark the occasion, and because its the festive season anyway, I'd like to offer you a small gift.

About eight years ago I published a book called Just Looking – Gleitzman On Television. We used to watch a lot of telly at our place in those days and I discovered I enjoyed writing about it. Nothing too serious – just a bit of fun when I wanted a break from writing novels. In fact a lot of what I wrote in Just Looking wasn't about TV at all. I'd start off writing about E Street or Disney World's Happy Easter Parade or This Is Your Life and end up making embarrassing confessions about my dreams or my garden shed or my inability to train guinea pigs. More like This Is My Life.

Just Looking hasn't been seen much in bookshops for a few years now. This is mostly because the only copies still in existence are in my attic, where they've provided us with superb insulation for several years. But I've never felt completely happy about this, despite the savings in heating and air conditioning costs. Books shouldn't stay in boxes, they should go out into the world and be read. Or at the very least enjoy a new life as thick and superbly-absorbent drink coasters.

That's why I've decided to send each of you who'd like one a free signed copy of Just Looking. I've got about 3000 of them, so I guess I'm really saying the first 3000 of you who'd like one. For your free signed copy, post a self-addressed C5 envelope with a $2.75 in stamps on it to:

FREE BOOK
PO Box 954,
Crows Nest NSW 1585

and we'll post one back to you as fast as our Christmas elves are able.

That's if you live in Australia. Unfortunately, if you live elsewhere, things are a bit more complicated. The post office tells me that airmail postage for the book to just about anywhere in the world is about $10 Australian. If you send us $10 Australian and a self-addressed C5 envelope, we'll send you a free signed copy of Just Looking, but I should point put that when the book was on sale in bookshops it didn't cost much more than that, so your copy won't be quite as free as some. Sorry.

To those of you who send in for Just Looking, I hope you enjoy it. To all of you, thanks for visiting my site in its first year. Oo-roo, happy holidays and best wishes for 2001.

10 December 2000