If, like me, your thoughts have turned to Christmas lists, let these quotes inspire you about what you are giving when you chose a book as a gift: “A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go…
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Yesterday, Jamie Byng announced the largest book give-away ever attempted on  BBC’s The Culture Show. On 5th March 2011, 20,000 passionate readers will each give away 48  books to members of the public, aiming to bring the joys of adult reading to people who might never set foot in a bookshop or library. A prominent panel of…
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As someone who has only recently become involved in a small way in Authors for Peace, I was shocked to learn of the imprisonment of Liu Xiaobo, Nobel Peace Prize laureate for 2010. I hope that you, too, may like to lend your support by adding your name to an appeal that is being organised by…
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I’m delighted that the publication date of the German translation of Half-Truths and White Lies has been brought forward so that it is available for sale before Christmas. The reception so far from booksellers has been excellent: “Thank you for this beautiful book, I couldn’t put it down!” “Jane Davis tells this sensitive and multifaceted story brilliantly!…
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Two outings this week have helped to stave off the bleak November gloom. (Have you noticed the introduction of new types of weather in the forecasts? Grey cloud.) They could not have been in greater contrast. On Tuesday Matt and I went to see Armstrong and Miller at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon. Actually, to be…
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It’s no secret that songwriters make the best storytellers. If a novelist has the first paragraph to hook the reader, the songwriter has only the first few words. Think: I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth Bless my cotton socks, I’m in the news From the top of the bus, she thought she…
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I can understand why my reluctance to press ‘play’ saw A Song of Lunch slip down the list of recordings towards oblivion, where it was keeping company with the graveyard of films I thought I really should watch – the ones the Radio Times has given five star reviews to and those worthy foreign offerings shown at 2.00am. An…
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With a spare weekend and a few pounds in your pocket (actually, quite a few pounds), there is never a shortage of things to do in the South East of England.  We visit Arundel Castle. Rising above the River Arun, it overshadows the town and everything it surrounds, beckoning with a magnetic quality. (Doesn’t the ticket lady know…
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Today is a day to be celebrated. Not only has the Man Booker Prize been awarded to an unashamedly comic novel (albeit one with serious undertones), but the first of the Chilean miners has been brought to the surface after 69 days underground. I don’t think that Howard Jacobson will be too upset to be upstaged by…
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Matt and I sometimes take separate holidays. He rarely has the urge to visit somewhere once he has read about it in National Geographic. I, on the other hand, am a sucker for every holiday brochure that falls onto the doormat and want to go everywhere, preferably now, only to get to the end of the Inca Trail…
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