I am delighted to unwittingly discover that my top 5 reads of 2016 have all been written by women. I have absolutely nothing against fiction by men; I have also read many books written by men this year and have always been fairly gender-blind when it comes to choosing books. But, feminist that I am and […]
When is a good age to stop reading stories aloud to children? Well, how about never? Alright, so what are the chances really of being tucked up beside our seventeen year old reading a bedtime story. But many believe that once children have gained the skills to read for themselves, we can take a step […]
‘This story, like so many stories, begins with a gift. The gift, like so many gifts, was a book…’ So begins Robert Macfarlane’s masterful and luminous essay, on the gift and power of giving and receiving books. This small, beautifully bound treasure was given to me by one of my oldest, dearest friends a little […]
I’m going to let you into a little secret: I never intended to write Historical Fiction. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy reading it from time to time, but in my pre-novel days when I focused on the short story form, they were almost always set in the present day. When I started putting my […]
‘It’s important to say what hope is not: it is not the belief that everything was, is, or will be fine. The evidence is all around us of tremendous suffering and tremendous destruction. The hope I’m interested in is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act. It’s also […]
So here’s a curious thing I’ve learnt about the covers of novels since becoming a published author: They don’t have to (and often don’t) have anything to do with the book’s contents. Seems peculiar, doesn’t it? Counter-intuitive? Downright odd, because surely the cover of a book needs to give a potential reader a decent idea […]
Illustration by Thomas James Words are like water. They ebb and flow, transforming as the years pass to camouflage themselves in their surroundings. Language shapes and moulds our identities, providing a emotional anchor for our pasts and a compass for our presents. Unsurprisingly, our written and oral landscape has altered significantly over the past decades. Those separated by […]
Do you ever find yourself browsing through the internet, searching for calming spaces, free from clutter, hyperbole & advertising, places that leave you feeling inspired, a little bit wiser or just plain happy? Such sites are surprisingly difficult to find and whilst, of course, these tastes are entirely subjective, I’ve found over the years several sites […]
Lauded and loathed in equal measure, since the 1950’s Enid Blyton’s books have been banned from many schools, libraries and homes for being anachronistic, sexist, xenophobic, elitist and racist, not to mention accusations of relentlessly recycled stories, hollow plots and Blyton herself being a ruthless self-promoter whilst exploiting her own children. Despite this, Blyton has entertained […]
‘You are what you eat,’ it has commonly been said. But, I’d argue, you are also what you read. During our childhoods when we are discovering new worlds for the first time, we read with our entire bodies, minds and senses. We literally become those characters and live those experiences, our whole beings absorbed into […]
