To quote the International Women’s Day website, “International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women – while also marking a call to action for accelerating gender balance.” For me, it’s a day where I think of the women in my life and those I admire, many…
Read / February 25th, 2019
Two things stood out about this first title when I first saw it on the bookstore shelf before Christmas. First the title – Hell Ship – in that evocative block font and the author, Michael Veitch, who I’d known best from 80s and 90s sketch comedies. This book is a well-done and thoroughly researched account of the…
Read / January 28th, 2019
Normal People by Sally Rooney was the second book I received for Christmas. It is the 2018 Man Booker Prize longlisted international sensation, so much so that British booksellers are keeping stashes behind their counters. I was curious (like many people!) to find out what the fuss was about, especially considering I haven’t read her other novel Conversations…
Part of me wonders at the use of writing this post midway through the first month of a new year (I have a little voice singing the line ‘The past is in the paaaaaast!’ from ‘Let it go’ as I type). But I’m going to ignore it because I believe in the merit and value…
Read / December 29th, 2018
Before I begin I would like to extend my belated good wishes for the holiday season. I hope it was spent in your favoured ways surrounded by your favourite people. As I have been a writer-in-residence at Montsalvat for a good chunk of this month, you might have noticed that my activity here on the…
Read / November 29th, 2018
I picked up Why Will No-One Publish My Novel? A Handbook For The Rejected Writer by Fay Weldon from the library because I love a writing ‘how to’/guidebook (I wrote one!) and this one is an adorable (almost) pocket-size. That was another reason why it stood out among the shelves. (Penguin has a range of Pocket…
Read / November 26th, 2018
I’ve extended this Christmas recommendations series to include cookbooks this year because there are always so many that come out that it can be hard to keep up to date with them all. Like most people, I am partial to a good cookbook but mostly for the inspiration because, honestly, I don’t like cooking very much. A…
Read / November 22nd, 2018
I didn’t need any more convincing to pick up Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami after hearing that this novel is his homage to his life-long love of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Look at this charming video of Bernard Caleo’s performance at the launch of Killing Commendatore at Readings bookstore. I will declare that my success rate…
Read / November 20th, 2018
Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford is the follow up to her immensely successful and terrific Fight Like a Girl. Ford is an intelligent and courageous thinker who is also regularly subjected to a lot of the worst kind of online abuse I’ve seen. You’ll hear her read out some of those comments in the video below. ‘Boys…
