There are few worries in life that be put right by pointing your car in the direction of the A591 heading towards Ambleside with Wanderlust by the Delays playing loudly on the car stereo. An hour and a half after booking into our B & B, we are on top of Wansfell pike with a perfect view…
» Continue Reading

I have been watching the series about British Novelists with great interest. I thought that the closest I would ever get to Virginia Woolf was to see her photograph and read the words that she wrote, not imagining that the BBC had footage of an interview with her buried deep in their archives. As the series has…
» Continue Reading

An article in yesterday’s Metro about a man who has accumulated a collection of 15,000 Penguin paperbacks – among them the first 2000 titles published – got me thinking about all of the things I have thrown out or given to Oxfam only to regret it. There is a school of thought that says de-cluttering is…
» Continue Reading

E M Forster didn’t write another novel after the publication of the hugely successful Passage to India. When interviewed by the BBC, he explained that he didn’t consider himself to be a great novelist because he had only ever managed to tap into three types of people: “The person I think I am, the people who…
» Continue Reading

This week, a short business trip took me to the small market town of Holbeach, where I stayed at the Mansion House Hotel. The front of the hotel was adorned with a blue plaque stating that the Nobel prize winner, Sir Norman Angell (1872 – 1967) had been born there (bedroom 2, I am reliably informed). I…
» Continue Reading

As I watch the images of flooding in Pakistan, now covering a third of the country, I wonder why I’m not hearing a soundtrack of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Here Comes The Flood’. I don’t think there could be a more suitable charity record.  Don’t be afraid to cry at what you see… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ww9JS8dJ9fY&feature=related http://www.oxfam.org.uk/

Debbie Holt recently recommended a work of teenage fiction called How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff as an example of how ‘good’ characters can be good for the story. Whilst I suspect I have outgrown teenage fiction, it was worth reading just for the line, ‘I don’t get nearly enough credit in life for the things I…
» Continue Reading

Having read Wolf Hall so late after its publication, I’m not sure that I can add much in terms of praise that has not already been said by the likes of James Naughtie and Andrew Marr.  What I particularly loved is that, unlike other historical novels, the subject matter seemed current and relevant. Where I live in…
» Continue Reading

As an antidote from watching Ingar Bergman’s ‘Through A Glass Darkly’ on DVD, we turned to the first episode of The Deep, hyped as a five-part thriller with supernatural overtones. We were not disappointed. As soon as we saw the flashback sequence featuring the very beautiful Orla Brady, we said, ‘Well that’s her done for. Never mind. The new…
» Continue Reading

To honour their 60th anniversary, Transworld are holding a competition to giveaway a selection of their publications. I wish you luck! http://www.booksattransworld.co.uk/transworldsixty/thankyou.html